Margaret at thirteen.
My acquaintance with Margaret commenced in the year 1823, at Cambridge.... Margaret was then about thirteen,—a child in years, but so precocious in her mental and physical development, that she passed for eighteen or twenty. Agreeably to this estimate she had her place in society as a lady full-grown.
Personal appearance.
A characteristic trait.
When I recall her personal appearance, as it was then and for ten or twelve years subsequent to this, I have the idea of a blooming girl of a florid complexion and vigorous health, with a tendency to robustness, of which she was painfully conscious, and which, with little regard to hygienic principles, she endeavored to suppress or conceal, thereby preparing for herself much future suffering. With no pretensions to beauty then, or at any time, her face was one that attracted, that awakened a lively interest, that made one desirous of a nearer acquaintance. It was a face that fascinated, without satisfying. Never seen in repose, never allowing a steady perusal of its features, it baffled every attempt to judge the character by physiognomical induction. I said she had no pretentions to beauty. Yet she was not plain. She escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blonde and abundant hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, dancing, busy eyes, though usually half closed from near-sightedness, shot piercing glances at those with whom she conversed, and, most of all, by the very peculiar and graceful carriage of her head and neck, which all who knew her will remember as the most characteristic trait in her personal appearance.
Conversation.
In conversation she had already, at that early age, begun to distinguish herself, and made much the same impression in society that she did in after years, with the exception that as she advanced in life, she learned to control that tendency to sarcasm,—that disposition to “quiz,”—which was then somewhat excessive. It frightened shy young people from her presence, and made her, for a while, notoriously unpopular with the ladies of her circle.
Rev. F. H. Hedge: Communication in ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’