Mr. Emerson accounts for this egotism partly on the ground of hereditary organization, and partly on “an ebullient sense of power, which she felt to be in her, and which as yet had found no channels.” In further illustration of this he adds, that in conversation she seldom, “except as a special grace, admitted others upon an equal ground with herself.” She was exceedingly tender, when she pleased to be, and most cherishing in her influence; but to elicit this tenderness, it was necessary to submit first to her personally. When a person was overwhelmed by her and answered not a word, except ‘Margaret, be merciful to me a sinner,’ then her love and tenderness would come like a seraph’s, and often an acknowledgment that she had been too harsh, and even a craving for pardon, with a humility—which, perhaps, she had caught from the other. But her instinct was not humility—that was an after thought.
This peculiarity, so honestly stated by Mr. Emerson, probably made Margaret Fuller all her enemies; and it is a fault which every person is bound to resent, though it appeared in an angel or archangel. It cannot be justified though it may be accounted for; and by those who knew her best, it was explained on principle! which relieved it of positive offensiveness. Some of her intellectual dependents, persons who gloried in wearing her mental livery, and were delighted with the servitude she enforced, might say very naively, in explanation, that Margaret was the greatest woman that ever was, and that Margaret was very sincere, and that being sincere it was very proper that she should not conceal her knowledge even of her own greatness.
In our opinion this egotism was the result of the vigor of her nature, which, in conversation, broke all conventional bounds, and came out in its whole wealth of thought and acquisition, eager for controversy or ravenous for sympathy, and communicating to her mind a bright and strong sense of individual power which at the time almost palliated its excesses. The excitement of her mind produced that effect which we often see in persons who are enraged—a condition in which expressions, regretted afterward for their extravagance, seem at the time too weak to convey the hot feeling of wrong which burns beneath them. In her journals, where she sharply scrutinises what she is and what she has produced, and where there is no excitement to stimulate her powers, she is sufficiently humble, acutely feels her imperfections, and the “mountainous me” dwindles into a mole-hill. She seems to have had the aspirations and the ambitions of great genius, had sufficient breadth of mind to take in the wide varieties of human power in history and literature, and had a corresponding scorn for the little and the common in mental effort; but she lacked a creative imagination, and was incapable of producing anything which at all realized the intimations of her nature. In conversation she rose instantly into sympathetic companionship with creative minds, and in the heat of the moment mistook it for a companionship and community in power. In this mood she might despise many who were her superiors in the shaping power of genius, though her inferiors in its loftiest aspirations.
These volumes are full of instances of her sincerity, her geniality, her love of the beautiful in nature and art, her fine critical powers, her enthusiasm for great measures of reform in America and Europe, and the noble scale on which she conducted her mental and moral culture. Though many may take exception to the generosity of the praise which her biographers lavish on her various graces and gifts of mind, every one must acknowledge the extreme richness of the materials which are frankly exhibited, to enable the reader to judge for himself. We doubt if there is any other American biography in which the whole interior truth relating to the character of the subject is so completely set forth, or which presents to the curious in mental organization so interesting a study in psychology.
Ravenscliffe. By the author of “The Old Men’s Tales,” etc. etc. New York: Harper & Brother.
In this novel the authoress puts forth her whole resources of passion and power in delineating hatred and revenge. The story sweeps on like a deep stream harrying to the sea, and the firm grasp of the writer on the reader’s arrested attention is not loosed for a moment. The influence of the same passion on the two characters of Randal Langford and Marcus Fitzroy, is exhibited with masterly skill. The motto of the book should have been taken from Shelley’s tremendous quatrain:
“Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind;
The foul cubs like their parents are;
Their den is in the human mind,