were nurtured under that influence have had the good fortune to grow old slowly; their world is still, poetic; the material achievements, the utilitarian philosophy of later years may come or go, leaving their ideal, their confidence, their immortal hope unchanged. And now that much which Transcendentalism sought is fulfilled, and that which was ecstasy has — as Emerson predicted — become daily bread, its reminiscences mingle with all youth’s enchantments, and belong to a period when we too “toiled, feasted, despaired, were happy.”
And as for Margaret Ossoli, her life seems to me, on the whole, a triumphant rather than a sad one, in spite of the prolonged struggle with illness, with poverty, with the shortcomings of others and with her own. In later years she had the fulfillment of her dreams; she had what Elizabeth Barrett, writing at the time of her marriage to Robert Browning, named as the three great desiderata of existence, “life and love and Italy.” She shared in great deeds, she was the counselor of great men, she had a husband who was a lover, and she had a child. They loved each other in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. Was not that enough?
