IV.
COUNTRY LIFE AT GROTON.
(1833-1836.)
In removing with her family to Groton, a village nearly forty miles from Boston, and then rather difficult of access, — for this was long before the building of the Fitchburg Railroad, — Margaret Fuller felt a natural depression. If even the Boston of those days afforded but a limited supply of books and intellectual companionship, what would Groton offer? She gave up Cambridge with its youthful society on one side, Boston with its books on the other; and this for a young woman of twenty-three, overflowing with energy and ambition, was quite a trial. She saw in advance what it would be, and she found what she expected. But her letters are enough to show that her mind was still actively employed; and that a life more wholly rural gave a new and strong development to her love of out-door nature.
She wrote to Dr. Hedge from Groton, July 4, 1833: —
“I highly enjoy being surrounded with new and beautiful natural objects. My eyes and my soul were
