Margaret at the Groton school.
At first her unlikeness to her companions was uncomfortable both to her and to them. Her exuberant fancy demanded outlets which the restraints of boarding-school life would not allow. The unwonted excitement produced by contact with other young people vented itself in fantastic acts and freaks amusing but tormenting. The art of living with one’s kind had not formed a part of Margaret’s home education. Her nervous system had already, no doubt, been seriously disturbed by overwork.
Some plays were devised for the amusement of the pupils, and in these Margaret found herself entirely at home. In each of these the principal part was naturally assigned her, and the superiority in which she delighted was thus recognized. These very triumphs, however, in the end led to her first severe mortification, and in this wise:—
The use of rouge had been permitted to the girls on the occasion of the plays; but Margaret was not disposed, when these were over, to relinquish the privilege, and continued daily to tinge her cheeks with artificial red. This freak suggested to her fellow-pupils an intended pleasantry, which awakened her powers of resentment to the utmost. Margaret came to the dinner-table, one day, to find on the cheeks of pupils and preceptress the crimson spot with which she had persisted in adorning her own. Suppressed laughter, in which even the servants joined, made her aware of the intended caricature. Deeply wounded, and viewing the somewhat personal joke in the light of an inflicted disgrace, Margaret’s pride did not forsake her. She summoned to her aid the fortitude which some of her Romans [Margaret’s love of Roman history is here alluded to] had shown in trying moments, and ate her dinner quietly without comment. When the meal was over she hastened to her own room, locked the door, and fell on the floor in convulsions. Here teachers and schoolfellows sorrowfully found her, and did their utmost to soothe her wounded feelings, and to efface by affectionate caresses the painful impression made by their inconsiderate fun.
Margaret recovered from this excitement, and took her place among her companions, but with an altered countenance and embittered heart. She had given up her gay freaks and amusing inventions, and devoted herself assiduously to her studies. But the offence which she had received rankled in her breast. As not one of her fellow-pupils had stood by her in her hour of need, she regarded them as all alike perfidious and ungrateful.... This morbid condition of mind led to a result still more unhappy. Masking her real resentment beneath a calm exterior, Margaret received the confidences of her schoolfellows and used their unguarded speech to promote discord among them.... This state of things probably became unbearable. Its cause was inquired into and soon found. A tribunal was held, and before the whole school assembled, Margaret was accused of calumny and falsehood, and, alas! convicted of the same. “At first she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence, but when she found that she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw herself down, dashing her head with all her force against the iron hearth, ... and was taken up senseless.”[7]
All present were, of course, greatly alarmed at this crisis, which was followed, on the part of Margaret, by days of hopeless and apathetic melancholy.... In the pain which she now felt, her former resentment against her schoolmates disappeared. She saw only her own offence, and saw it without hope of being able to pass beyond it.... A single friend was able to reach the seat of Margaret’s distemper, and to turn the currents of her life once more into a healthful channel. This lady, a teacher in the school, ... with the tact of true affection, drew the young girl from the contemplation of her own failure.
Julia Ward Howe: ‘Margaret Fuller.’ (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883.
An “intolerable girl” at nineteen.
She told me what danger she had been in from the training her father had given her, and the encouragement to pedantry and rudeness which she derived from the circumstances of her youth. She told me that she was at nineteen the most intolerable girl that ever took a seat in a drawing-room. Her admirable candor, the philosophical way in which she took herself in hand, her genuine heart, her practical insight, and, no doubt, the natural influence of her attachment to myself, endeared her to me, while her powers, and her confidence in the use of them, led me to expect great things from her.