Horace Greeley: Communication in ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Her description of the Greeley house.
This place is, to me, entirely charming; it is so completely in the country, and all around is so bold and free. It is two miles or more from the thickly-settled parts of New York, but omnibuses and cars give me constant access to the city, and, while I can readily see what and whom I will, I can command time and retirement. Stopping on the Harlem road, you enter a lane nearly a quarter of a mile long, and going by a small brook and pond that locks in the place, and ascending a slightly rising ground, get sight of the house, which, old-fashioned and of mellow tint, fronts on a flower-garden filled with shrubs, large vines and trim box-borders. On both sides of the house are beautiful trees.... Passing through a wide hall, you come out upon a piazza, stretching the whole length of the house, where one can walk in all weathers; and thence by a step or two, on a lawn, with picturesque masses of rocks, shrubs and trees, overlooking the East River.
Margaret Fuller: Letter in ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Contributions to the “Tribune.”
Her earlier contributions to the Tribune were not her best, and I did not at first prize her aid so highly as I afterwards learned to do. She wrote always freshly, vigorously, but not always clearly; for her full and intimate acquaintance with continental literature, especially German, seemed to have marred her felicity and readiness of expression in her mother tongue. While I never met another woman who conversed more freely or lucidly, the attempt to commit her thoughts to paper seemed to induce a singular embarrassment and hesitation. She could write only when in the vein; and this needed often to be waited for through several days, while the occasion sometimes required an immediate utterance. The new book must be reviewed before other journals had thoroughly dissected and discussed it, else the ablest critique would command no general attention, and perhaps be, by the greater number, unread. That the writer should wait the flow of inspiration, or at least the recurrence of elasticity of spirits and relative health of body, will not seem unreasonable to the general reader; but to the inveterate hack-horse of the daily press, accustomed to write at any time, or on any subject, and with a rapidity limited only by the physical ability to form the requisite pen-strokes, the notion of waiting for a brighter day or a happier frame of mind, appears fantastic and absurd. He would as soon think of waiting for a change in the moon. Hence, while I realized that her contributions evinced rare intellectual wealth and force, I did not value them as I should have done had they been written more fluently and promptly. They often seemed to make their appearance “a day after the fair.”
Horace Greeley: Communication in ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’