CHAPTER XVII.
MARGARET FULLER'S LITERARY REMAINS.
The preceding narrative has necessarily involved some consideration of the writings which gave its subject her place among the authors of her time. This consideration has been carefully interwoven with the story of the life which it was intended to illustrate, not to interrupt. With all this care, however, much has been left unsaid which should be said concerning the value of Margaret's contributions to the critical literature of her time. Of this, our present limits will allow us to make brief mention only.
Margaret so lived in the life of her own day and generation, so keenly felt its good and ill, that many remember her as a woman whose spoken word and presence had in them a powder which is but faintly imaged in her writings. Nor is this impression wholly a mistaken one. Certain it is that those who recall the enchantment of her conversation always maintain that the same charm is not to be found in the productions of her pen. Yet if we attentively read what she has left us, without this disparagement, we shall find that it entitles her to a position of honour among the prose writers of her time.
The defects of her style are easily seen. They are in some degree the result of her assiduous study of foreign languages, in which the pure and severe idioms of the English tongue were sometimes lost sight of. Among them may be mentioned a want of measure in expression, and also something akin to the fault which is called on the stage "anti-climax," by which some saying of weight and significance loses its point by being followed by another of equal emphasis. With all this, the high quality of her mind has left its stamp upon all that she gave to the reading public. Much of this first appeared in the form of contributions to the Tribune, the Dial, and other journals and magazines. Some of these papers are brief and even fragmentary; but the shortest of them show careful study and conscientious judgment. All of them are valuable for the admirable view which they present of the time in which Margaret wrote, of its difficulties and limitations, and of the hopes and convictions which^ cherished then in the hearts of the few, were destined to make themselves a law to the conscience of the whole community.
The most important of the more elaborate essays is undoubtedly that entitled Woman in the Nineteenth Century, of which some account has already been given in the preceding pages. Of the four volumes published in 1875, one bears this title. A second, entitled Art, Literature, and the Drama, contains many of the papers to which reference has been made in our brief account of Margaret and her contemporaries. From a third volume, entitled Abroad and at Home, we have quoted some of her most interesting statements concerning the Liberal movement in Europe, of which she was so ardent a friend and promoter. A last volume was collected and published in 1859, by her brother, the Rev. Arthur B. Fuller, who served as an army chaplain in the War of the Southern Rebellion, and met his death on one of its battle-fields. This volume is called Life Without and Life Within, and is spoken of in Mr. Fuller's preface as containing, for the most part, matter never before given to the world in book form, and also poems and prose fragments never before published.
In this volume, two papers seem to us to ask for especial mention. One of these is a review of Carlyle's Cromwell, written when the book was fresh before the public. It deserves to lie read for its felicity of diction, as well as for the justice of the thought expressed. If we take into consider ion the immense popularity of Mr. Carlyle in America at the time when this work of his appeared, we shall prize the courage and firmness with which Margaret applies to it her keen power of criticism. The moral insufficiency of the doctrine of the divine right of force is clearly shown by her; and her own view of Cromwell's character maintains itself in spite of the vituperations with which Carlyle visits those who will not judge his hero as he does. She even returns these threats with the following humorous passage at arms:—
"Nobody ever doubted his [Cromwell's] great abilities and force of will; neither doubt we that he was made an instrument, just as he proposeth. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's glasses, we shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other proof to offer than is shown yet. . . . If he has become interested in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by studying his habits, is that any reason why we should admit him to our pantheon? No! our imbecility shall keep fast the door against anything short of proofs that in the hyena a god is incarnated. . . . We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, Mr. Carlyle, but we ate not sure you would always know the Sauls from the Davids. We fear, if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to pour it on the head of him who is taller by a head than all his brethren."
Of Cromwell himself, the following is Margaret's estimate:—
"We see a man of strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to the station of command. We sec him wearing the religious garb which was the custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as others. But we never see Heaven answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive: they all ring hollow. . . . Again, we see Cromwell ruling with a strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an excess which no Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the king be punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless and Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not in power abide by the principles that led him to it; and we cannot help, so rose-water imbecile are we, admiring those who do. To us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly than a king.
The other paper of which we desire to speak in this connection, is one treating of the French novelists prominent at the time, and in particular of Balzac, Eugene Sue, and De Vigny. Of these three names, the first alone retains the prestige which it had when Margaret wrote her essay. De Vigny, remarkable jmostly for purity of sentiment, finish of style, and a power of setting and limiting his pictures, is a boudoir author, and one read only in boudoirs of studious refinement. Sue, to whose motives Margaret gives the most humanitarian interpretation, has failed to commend his method to posterity. His autopsy of a diseased state of society is thought to spread too widely the infection of the evils which ho deplores. His intention is also too humane for the present day. The world of the last decade and of the present is too deeply wedded to the hard worship of money to be touched by the pathos of women who perish, or of men who starve. The grievances of the poor against the rich find to-day no one to give car to them, and few even to utter them; since those who escape starvation are too busy with beggary and plunder to waste time in such useless musings. Of the three here cited, Balzac alone remains a king among novelists; and Margaret's study of him imports as much to us today as it did to the world of her time.
She begins by commenting upon the lamentation general at that time, and not uncommon in this, over the depravity of taste and of life already becoming familiar to the youth of America throught the medium of the French novel. Concerning this, she says:
"It is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions no less than her riches on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward. No defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude their ingress. Our only hope lies ill rousing in our own community a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to better substance, or to cast off its contaminations."
In view of the translation and republication of these works, Margaret remarks that it would be desirable for our people to know something of the position which the writers occupy in their own country. She says, moreover, what we would tain hope may he true to-day, that "our imitation of Europe does not yet go so far that the American milliner can be depended on to eojiy anything from the Parisian grisette, except her cap."
Margaret speaks at some length of Balzac's novel, Le Père Goriot, which she had just read. The author," she says, "reminds one of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud into his hands, and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gaiety; but Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard."
The conception of this novel appears to her "so sublime," that she compares its perusal to a walk through the catacombs, which the reader would not willingly have missed; "though the light of day seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay."
She infers from much of its tenor that Balzac was "familiar with that which makes the agony of poverty—its vulgarity. Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to livethese are what make poverty terrible and odious; and in these Balzac would seem to have been steeped to the very lips" The skill with which he illustrates both the connection and the contrast between the depth of poverty and the height of luxury co-existing in Parisian life, is much dwelt upon by Margaret, as well as the praiseworthy fact that he depicts with equal faithfulness the vices developed by these opposite conditions. His insight and mastery appear to her "admirable throughout," the characters "excellently drawn," especially that of the Perc Goriot, the father of two heartless women, for whom he has sacrificed everything, and who in turn sacrifice him without mercy to their own pleasures and ambitions. Admirable, too, she finds him in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a keen sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual." With this acute appreciation of the great novelists merits, Margaret unites an equally comprehensive perception of his fatal defects of character. His seceptieism regarding virtue she calls fearful, his spirit Mephistophelian.
"He delights to analyse, to classify. But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no faith for what is noble. To him there is no virtue and no vice; men and women are more or less finely organised; noble and tender conduct is more agreeable than the reverse—that is all." His novels show "goodness, aspiration, the loveliest instincts, stifled, strangled by fate in the form of our own brute nature."
Margaret did not, perhaps, foresee how popular strangling of this kind was destined to become in the romance of the period following her own.
Contrasting Eugène Sue with Balzac, she finds in the first an equal power of observation, disturbed by a more variable temperament, and enhanced by the heart and faith that Balzac lacks." She sees him standing, pen in hand, armed with this slight but keen weapon, as "the champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity against superstition, selfishness, and prejudice." His works, she thinks, with all their strong points and brilliant decorations, may ere long be forgotten. Still, the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honour as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak." She sums up thus the merits of the two: "Balzac is the heartless surgeon, « probing the wounds and describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his students. Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads jingling in the silence of night before the battle." She finds both of them much right and a good deal wrong," since their most virtuous personages arc allowed to practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence—a taint, she thinks, of the old régime under which "La belle France has worn rouge so long, that the purest mountain air will not restore the natural hues to her complexion"
Two ideal sketches, "The Rich Man" and "The Poor Man," are also preserved in this volume, and are noticeable as treating of differences and difficulties which have rather become aggravated than diminished since Margaret's time. The "Rich Man" is a merchant, who "sees in commerce a representation of most important interests, a grand school that may teach the heart and soul of the civilised world to a willing, thinking mind. He plays his part in the game, but not for himself alone. He sees the interests of all mankind engaged with his, and remembers them while he furthers his own." In regard of his social status she says:
"Our nation is not silly in striving for an aristocracy. Humanity longs for its upper classes. The silliness consists in making them out of clothes, equipage, and servile imitation of foreign manners, instead of the genuine elegance and distinction that can only be produced by genuine culture. . . . . Our merchant shall be a real nobleman, whose noble manners spring from a noble mind; his fashions from a sincere, intelligent love of the beautiful."
Margaret's Poor Man" is an industrious artisan, not too poor to be sure of daily bread, cleanliness, and reasonable comfort. His advantages will be in the harder training and deeper experience which his circumstances will involve. Suffering privation in his own person, he will, she thinks, feel for the sufferings others. Having no adventitious aids to bring him into prominence, there will be small chance for him to escape a well-tempered modesty." He must learn enough to convince himself that mental growth and refinement are not secured by one set of employments, or lost through another. "Mahomet was not a wealthy merchant: profound philosophers have ripened on the benches, not of the lawyers, but of the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be a schoolmaster, nor Shakespeare to do the errands of a London play-house. Yes, 'the mind is its own place'; and if it will keep that place, all doors will be opened from it." This ideal poor man must be "religious, wise, dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claiming all; willing to wait, never willing to give up; servile to none, the servant of all,— esteeming it the glory of a man to serve." Such a type of character, she tells us, is rare, but not unattainable.
The poems in this volume may be termed fugitive pieces, rhymes twined and dropped in the pathway of a life too busy for much versification. They somewhat recall Mr. Emerson's manner; but have not the point and felicity which have made him scarcely less eminent in verse than in prose. They will, however, well repay a perusal. In order that this volume may not be wholly lacking in their grace, we subjoin two short poems, which we have chosen from among a number of pecrhaps equal interest. One of these apostrophizes an artist whose rendering of her Greeks made him dear to her:
FLAXMAN.
We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,
When spake in Greek simplicity of thought,
And in the forms of Gods and heroes wrought
Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone,—
A higher charm than modern culture won
With all the wealth of metaphysic lore,
Gifted to analyse, dissect, explore.
A many-coloured light flows from one sun;
Art, neath its beams, a motley thread has spun;
The prism modifies the perfect day;
But thou hast known such mediums to shun,
And cast once more on llife a pure, white ray.
Absorbed in the creations of thy mind,
Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.
The other poem interprets for us the significance of one of the few jewels which queenly Margaret
deigned to wear,—a signet ring, bearing the image of Mercury:—
MY SEAL-RING
Mercury cast and
The signs of intellectual pride.
Freely offers thee the soul:
Art thou noble to receive?
Caust thou give or take the whole,
Nobly promise, and believe?
Then thou wholly human art,
A spotless, radiant ruby heart, And the golden chain of love
Has bound thee to the realm above.
If there be one small, mean doubt.
One serpent thought that tied not out,
Take instead the serpent-rod,—
Thou art neither man nor God.
Guard thee from the powers of evil,—
Who cannot trust, vows to the devil.
Walk thy slow and spoil-bound way,
Keep on thy mask, or shun the day,—
Let go my hand upon the way.
LONDON:
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