Margaret Fuller
Thursday, 20.
Horace Greeley has just issued from the “Tribune” office a uniform edition of Margaret Fuller’s works, together with her Memoirs first published twenty years ago. And now, while woman is the theme of public discussion, her character and writings may be studied to advantage. The sex has had no abler advocate. Her book entitled “Woman in the Nineteenth Century” anticipated most of the questions now in the air, and the leaders in the movement for woman’s welfare might take its counsels as the text for their action. Her methods, too, suggest the better modes of influence. That she wrote books is the least of her merits. She was greatest when she dropped her pen. She spoke best what others essayed to say, and what women speak best. Hers was a glancing logic that leaped straight to the sure conclusion; a sibylline intelligence that divined oracularly; knew by anticipation; in the presence always, the open vision. Alas, that so much should have been lost to us, and this at the moment when it seemed we most needed and could profit by it! Was it some omen of that catastrophe which gave her voice at times the tones of a sadness almost preternatural? What figure were she now here in times and triumphs like ours! She seemed to have divined the significance of woman, dared where her sex had hesitated hitherto, was gifted to untie social knots which the genius of a Plato even failed to disentangle. “Either sex alone,” he said, “was but half itself.” Yet he did not complement the two in honorable marriage in his social polity. “If a house be rooted in wrong,” says Euripides, “it will blossom in vice.” As the oak is cradled in the acorn’s cup, so the state in the family. Domestic licentiousness saps every institution, the morals of the community at large,—a statement trite enough, but till it is no longer needful to be made is the commonwealth established on immovable foundations.
“Revere no God whom men adore by night.”
Let the sexes be held to like purity of morals, and equal justice meted to them for any infraction of the laws of social order. Women are the natural leaders of society in whatever concerns private morals, lead where it were safe for men to follow. About the like number as of men, doubtless, possess gifts to serve the community at large; while most women, as most men, will remain private citizens, fulfilling private duties. Her vote as such will tell for personal purity, for honor, temperance, justice, mercy, peace,—the domestic virtues upon which communities are founded, and in which they must be firmly rooted to prosper and endure. The unfallen souls are feminine.
Crashaw’s Ideal Woman should win the love and admiration of her sex as well as ours.
“Whoe’er she be
That not impossible she
That shall command my heart and me;
“Where’er she lie
Lock’d up from mortal eye
In shady leaves of destiny;
“Till that ripe birth
Of studied fate stand forth,
And teach her fair steps to our earth;
“Till that divine
Idea take a shrine
Of crystal flesh, through which to shine,
“Meet you her my wishes,
Bespeak her to my blisses,
And be ye called my absent kisses.
“I wish her beauty
That owes not all its duty
To gaudy tire, or glistening shoe-ty.
“Something more than
Taffata or tissue can,
Or rampant feather, or rich fan.
“More than the spoil
Of shop, or silkworm’s toil,
Or a bought blush, or a set smile.
“A face that’s best
By its own beauty drest,
And can alone command the rest.
“A face made up
Out of no other shop
Than what nature’s white hand sets ope.
“A cheek where youth
And blood, with pen of truth,
Write what the reader sweetly rueth.
“A cheek where grows
More than a morning rose,
Which to no box his being owes.
“Lips, where all day
A lover’s kiss may play,
Yet carry nothing thence away.
“Looks, that oppress
Their richest tires, but dress
And clothe their simplest nakedness.
“Eyes, that displaces
The neighbor diamond and out-faces
That sunshine by their own sweet graces.
“Tresses, that wear
Jewels, but to declare
How much themselves more precious are.
“Whose native ray
Can tame the wanton day
Of gems that in their bright shades play.
“Each ruby there,
Or pearl that dare appear,
Be its own blush, be its own tear.
“A well-tamed heart,
For whose more noble smart
Love may be long choosing a dart.
“Eyes, that bestow
Full quivers on Love’s bow,
Yet pay less arrows than they owe.
“Smiles, that can warm
The blood, yet teach a charm
That chastity shall take no harm.
“Blushes, that been
The burnish of no sin,
Nor flames of aught too hot within.
“Days, that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow.
“Days, that in spite
Of darkness, by the light
Of a clear mind are day all night.
“Life, that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes say, ‘Welcome, friend.’
“Sydneian showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old Winter’s head with flowers.
“Soft silken hours,
Open suns, shady bowers,
‘Bove all, nothing within that lowers.
“Whate’er delight
Can make day’s forehead bright,
Or give down to the wings of night.
“In her whole frame,
Have nature all the name,
Art and ornament the shame.
“Her flattery,
Picture and poesy,
Her counsel her own virtue be.
“I wish her store
Of worth may leave her poor
Of wishes; and I wish—no more.”