To the same
Oak Glen, May 10, 1883.
... —I have been here alone all these days, with many gentle ghosts of past companionship, and with a task at which I work steadily every day. This is a life of Margaret Fuller, rewritten mostly from the memoirs already published, but also recast in my own thought. The publisher is in a hurry for it, and I have to work without intermission, i.e., as long as I can, every day; but with all the diligence in my power, I cannot get along very rapidly. When I have finished my stint, I refresh myself with a little Greek, and also with an Italian novel which I have brought with me. The place looks lovely, and I sat, this afternoon, on the western piazza, near that angle where you and I used to sit, last summer, and enjoyed a bath of sunshine....
To Laura
Oak Glen, August 21, 1883.
My Much Neglected Darling,—
I give you to-day my first hour, or half-hour, as the case may be, feeling that my long silence has been abominable, and must be broken, even if you should feel it to be your duty to throw an inkstand at my head, in return for my letter. It is partly Backbone's fault. Backbone has been so scrouged and put upon by the summer's work that he sometimes cuts up amazing. Said work is pretty well out of hand at this moment, the last chapters of "Margaret Fuller" being ready for the press.... I have so much felt the shocking uncharity of things in the way of diaries and letters which have been published within the last few years. Not the least bad exhibition in this kind has been made by Carlyle and his wife. I have just finished reading the three volumes of her letters and memorials, which were indeed interesting to me by the mention in them of persons whom I myself have known. Still, the spirit of the book is painful. It is sad to see how she adopted, at times, her husband's harsh creed. I should think Froude, the editor, must be wanting in common taste and decency, to have allowed the letters to appear in all this crudeness. I am so glad that I never went near them, after that one tea-drink, a very bad one, forty years ago. Is this enough about the Carlyles? And is it strictly charitable? I dunno; I'm getting very old to know anything....
The "Life of Margaret Fuller" (in Roberts Brothers' series of "Famous Women") was a small book, yet it stood for much careful work, and was so recognized and received. The recognition sometimes took a singular form, e.g., a letter from a gentleman styling himself "Prof. Nat. & Geol.," who desires two copies of the "Margaret Fuller," and asks her to "accept for them a choice selection of 'Lithological,' Cabinet of Geological Mineral specimens, representing the Glacial, and Emptus period, also the Crystalline formation of the Earth's Strata, in Coolings, Rubbings, and Scratchings of the Drift Age."
The exchange was not effected.
To "Uncle Sam"
December 15, 1883.
Darling Bro' Sam,—
I must write you at once, or my silence will expand into a broad ocean which I shall be afraid to cross.... I have had a very laborious year, now screwed to my desk, and working at timed tasks, now travelling widely, and scattering my spoken words.... Well, so much for desk-work, now for the witch broomstick on which I fly. The Congress was held in Chicago, in mid-October. From this place, I went to Minneapolis.... Harry and his wife are here, paying handsomely their share of our running expenses. The little house looks friendly and comfortable, and I hope, after a few more flights, to enjoy it very much. These will now be very short.... Boston is all alive with Irving's acting, Matthew Arnold's lectures, Cable's readings, and the coming opera. Père Hyacinthe also has been here, and a very eminent Hindoo, named Mozumdar. I have lost many of these doings by my journeys, but heard Arnold's lecture on Emerson last evening. I have also heard one of Cable's readings. Arnold does not in the least understand Emerson, I think. He has a positive, square-jawed English mind, with no super-sensible aperçûs. His elocution is pitiable, and when, after his lecture, Wendell Phillips stepped forward and said a few graceful words of farewell to him, it was like the Rose complimenting the Cabbage....
The year 1883 closed with a climax of triumphant fatigue in the Merchants' and Mechanics' Fair, in which she was president of the Woman's Department. This was to lead to a far more serious undertaking in the autumn of 1884, that of the Woman's Department of the New Orleans Exposition. The Journal may bridge the interval between the two.
"February 3, 1884. Wendell Phillips is dead.