regular communication with the thickly-settled parts of that city — two miles away — was by an hourly stage on the Third Avenue.[1] In this suburban retirement Margaret Fuller must have been almost as much cut off from the evening life of the metropolis as if she had remained at Jamaica Plain; and this fact doubtless abbreviated her stay there; but meanwhile she reveled in its picturesqueness, — the wide hall, the piazza, the garden, the trees, the rocks, the gliding sails. She thus describes her position to her brother Eugene, in New Orleans: —
“For me, I have never been so well situated. As to a home, the place where we live is old and dilapidated, but in a situation of great natural loveliness. When there I am perfectly secluded, yet every one I wish to see comes to see me and I can get to the centre of the city in half an hour. The house is kept in a Castle Rackrent style, but there is all affection for me and desire to make me at home, and I do feel so, which could scarcely have been expected from such an arrangement. My room is delightful; how I wish you could sit at its window with me and see the sails glide by! As to the public part, that is entirely satisfactory. I do just as I please, and as much or little as I please, and the editors express themselves perfectly satisfied; and others say that my pieces tell to a degree I could not expect. I think, too, I shall do better and better. I am truly interested in this great field which opens before me, and it is pleasant to be sure of a chance at half a hundred thousand readers.
- ↑ Greeley’s Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 177.
