a time, and the least thing costs me so much thought and feeling; others have no idea of it.”[1]
Afterwards she wrote: —
“Might not we women do something in regard to this Texas annexation project? I have never felt that I had any call to take part in public affairs before; but this is a great moral question, and we have an obvious right to express our convictions. I should like to convene meetings everywhere and take our stand.”[2]
I wish to dwell especially on this aspect of Margaret Fuller’s position, because it has been so very unjustly dealt with in that singularly harsh and unfair book, the “Autobiography of Harriet Martineau.” At the time when Miss Martineau’s “Society in America” was published, Margaret Fuller wrote her a letter on the subject—a letter of great dignity and courage. There is in it no conceit, no arrogance, but only courteous, deferential protest. It is not written de haut en bas, but de bas en haut. In it she points out that one may criticise even one’s superiors: —
“There are many topics treated of in this book of which I am not a judge; but I do pretend, even where I cannot criticise in detail, to have an opinion as to the general tone of thought. … When Webster speaks on the currency, I do not understand the subject, but I do understand his mode of treating it, and can see what a blaze of light streams from his torch. When Harriet Martineau writes about America, I often cannot test that rashness and inaccuracy of which I hear so much,
