Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli) Part 9

This last phrase may somewhat startle us; but it should only a.s.sure us that Margaret had found, in confronting two circles so widely dissimilar, the happy words which could bring high and low into harmony with the true divine.

Margaret's second visit to the prison was on the Christmas soon following. She was invited to address the women in their chapel, and has herself preserved some record of her discourse, which was extemporaneous. Seated at the desk, no longer with the critical air which repelled the timid, but deeply penetrated by the pathos of the occasion, she began with the words, "To me the pleasant office has been given of wis.h.i.+ng you a happy Christmas." And the sad a.s.sembly smiled, murmuring its thanks. What a Christ-like power was that which brought this sun-gleam of a smile into that dark tragedy of offence and punishment!

Some pa.s.sages of this address must be given here, to show the att.i.tude in which this truly n.o.ble woman confronted the most degraded of her s.e.x.

After alluding to the common opinion that "women once lost are far worse than abandoned men, and cannot be restored," she said:--

"It is not so. I know my s.e.x better. It is because women have so much feeling, and such a rooted respect for purity, that they seem so shameless and insolent when they feel that they have erred, and that others think ill of them. When they meet man's look of scorn, the desperate pa.s.sion that rises is a perverted pride, which might have been their guardian angel. Rather let me say, which may be; for the rapid improvement wrought here gives us warm hopes."

Margaret exhorts the prisoners not to be impatient for their release.

She dwells upon their weakness, the temptations of the outer world, and the helpful character of the influences which are now brought to bear upon them.

"Oh, be sure that you are fitted to triumph over evil before you again expose yourselves to it! Instead of wasting your time and strength in vain wishes, use this opportunity to prepare yourselves for a better course of life when you are set free."

The following sentences are also noteworthy:

"Let me warn you earnestly against acting insincerely. I know you must prize the good opinion of your friendly protectors, but do not buy it at the cost of truth. Try to be, not to seem.... Never despond,--never say, 'It is too late!' Fear not, even if you relapse again and again. If you fall, do not lie grovelling, but rise upon your feet once more, and struggle bravely on. And if aroused conscience makes you suffer keenly, have patience to bear it. G.o.d will not let you suffer more than you need to fit you for his grace.... Cultivate this spirit of prayer. I do not mean agitation and excitement, but a deep desire for truth, purity, and goodness."

Margaret visited also the prisons on Blackwell's Island, and, walking through the women's hospital, shed the balm of her presence upon the most hardened of its wretched inmates. She had always wished to have a better understanding of the feelings and needs of "those women who are trampled in the mud to gratify the brute appet.i.tes of men," in order to lend them a helping hand.

The following extracts from letters, hitherto in great part unpublished, will give the reader some idea of Margaret's tender love and care for the dear ones from whom she was now separated. The letters are mostly addressed to her younger brother, Richard, and are dated in various epochs of the year 1845. One of these recalls her last impressions in leaving Boston:--

"The last face I saw in Boston was Anna Loring's, looking after me from Dr. Peabody's steps. Mrs. Peabody stood behind her, some way up, nodding adieux to the 'darling,' as she addressed me, somewhat to my emotion.

They seemed like a frosty November afternoon and a soft summer twilight, when night's glorious star begins to s.h.i.+ne.

"When you go to Mrs. Loring's, will you ask W. Story if he has any of Robert Browning's poems to lend me for a short time? They shall be returned safe. I only want them a few days, to make some extracts for the paper. They cannot be obtained here."

The following extracts refer to the first appearance of her book, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." Her brother Eugene had found a notice of it in some remote spot. She writes:--

"It was pleasant you should see that little notice in that wild place.

The book is out, and the theme of all the newspapers and many of the journals. Abuse, public and private, is lavished upon its views, but respect is expressed for me personally. But the most speaking fact, and the one which satisfied me, is, that the whole edition was sold off in a week to the booksellers, and eighty-five dollars handed to me as my share. Not that my object was in any wise money, but I consider this the signet of success. If one can be heard, that is enough."

In August, 1845, she writes thus to Richard:

"I really loathe my pen at present; it is entirely unnatural to me to keep at it so in the summer. Looking at these dull blacks and whites so much, when nature is in her bright colors, is a source of great physical weariness and irritation. I cannot, therefore, write you good letters, but am always glad to get them.

"As to what you say of my writing books, that cannot be at present. I have not health and energy to do so many things, and find too much that I value in my present position to give it up rashly or suddenly. But doubt not, as I do not, that Heaven has good things enough for me to do, and that I shall find them best by not exhausting or overstraining myself."

To Richard she writes, some months later:--

"I have to-day the unexpected pleasure of receiving from England a neat copy of 'Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' republished there in Clark's 'Cabinet Library.' I had never heard a word about it from England, and am very glad to find it will be read by women there. As to advantage to me, the republication will bring me no money, but will be of use to me here, as our dear country folks look anxiously for verdicts from the other side of the water.

"I shall get out a second edition before long, I hope; and wish you would translate for me, and send those other parts of the story of 'Panthea' you thought I might like."

The extract subjoined will show Margaret's anxious thought concerning her mother's comfort and welfare. It is addressed to the same brother, whom she thus admonishes:--

"She speaks of you most affectionately, but happened to mention that you took now no interest in a garden. I have known you would do what you thought of to be a good son, and not neglect your positive duties; but I have feared you would not show enough of sympathy with her tastes and pursuits. Care of the garden _is_ a way in which you could give her genuine comfort and pleasure, while regular exercise in it would be of great use to yourself. Do not neglect this nor any the most trifling attention she may wish; because it is not by attending to our friends in our way, but in _theirs_, that we can really avail them. I think of you much with love and pride and hope for your public and private life."

Margaret's preface to "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" bears the date of November, 1844. The greater part of the work, as has already been said, had appeared in the "Dial," under a different t.i.tle, for which she in this place expresses a preference, as better suited to the theme she proposes to treat of. "Man versus Men, Woman versus Women," means to her the leading idea and ideal of humanity, as wronged and hindered from development by the thoughtless and ignorant action of the race itself.

The t.i.tle finally given was adopted in accordance with the wishes of friends, who thought the other wanting in clearness. "By man, I mean both man and woman: these are the two halves of one thought. I lay no especial stress on the welfare of either. I believe that the development of the one cannot be effected without that of the other."

In the name of a common humanity, then, Margaret solicits from her readers "a sincere and patient attention," praying women particularly to study for themselves the freedom which the law should secure to them. It is this that she seeks, not to be replaced by "the largest extension of partial privileges."

"And may truth, unpolluted by prejudice, vanity, or selfishness, be granted daily more and more, as the due inheritance and only valuable conquest for us all!"

The leading thought formulated by Margaret in the t.i.tle of her preference is scarcely carried out in her work; at least, not with any systematic parallelism. Her study of the position and possibilities of woman is not the less one of unique value and interest. The work shows throughout the grasp and mastery of her mind. Her faith in principles, her reliance upon them in the interpretation of events, make her strong and bold. We do not find in this book one careless expression which would slur over the smallest detail of womanly duty, or absolve from the attainment of any or all of the feminine graces. Of these, Margaret deeply knows the value. But, in her view, these duties will never be n.o.ble, these graces sincere, until women stand as firmly as men do upon the ground of individual freedom and legal justice.

"If principles could be established, particulars would adjust themselves aright. Ascertain the true destiny of woman; give her legitimate hopes, and a standard within herself.... What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded."

She would have "every arbitrary barrier thrown down, every path laid open to woman as freely as to man." And she insists that this "inward and outward freedom shall be acknowledged as a _right_, not yielded as a concession."

The limits of our present undertaking do not allow us to give here an extended notice of this work, which has long belonged to general literature, and is, perhaps, the most widely known of Margaret's writings. We must, however, dwell sufficiently upon its merits to commend it to the men and women of to-day, as equally interesting to both, and as entirely appropriate to the standpoint of the present time.

Nothing that has been written or said, in later days, has made its teaching superfluous. It demands all that is asked to-day for women, and that on the broadest and most substantial ground. The usual arguments against the emanc.i.p.ation of women from a position of political and social inferiority are all carefully considered and carefully answered.

Much study is shown of the prominent women of history, and of the condition of the s.e.x at different periods. Much understanding also of the ideal womanhood, which has always had its place in the van of human progress, and of the actual womanhood, which has mostly been bred and trained in an opposite direction.

We have, then, in the book, a thorough statement, both of the shortcomings of women themselves, and of the wrongs which they in turn suffer from society. The cause of the weak against the strong is advanced with sound and rational argument. We will not say that a thoughtful reader of to-day will indorse every word of this remarkable treatise. Its fervor here and there runs into vague enthusiasm, and much is a.s.serted about souls and their future which thinkers of the present day do not so confidently a.s.sume to know.

The extent of Margaret's reading is shown in her command of historical and mythical ill.u.s.tration. Her beloved Greeks furnish her with some portraits of ideal men in relation with ideal women. As becomes a champion, she knows the friends and the enemies of the cause which she makes her own. Here, for example, is a fine discrimination:--

"The spiritual tendency is toward the elevation of woman, but the intellectual, by itself, is not so. Plato sometimes seems penetrated by that high idea of love which considers man and woman as the twofold expression of one thought. But then again Plato, the man of intellect, treats woman in the republic as property, and in the "Timaeus" says that man, if he misuse the privileges of one life, shall be degraded into the form of a woman."

Margaret mentions among the women whom she considered helpers and favorers of the new womanhood, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Jameson, and our own Miss Sedgwick. Among the writers of the other s.e.x, whose theories point to the same end, she speaks of Swedenborg, Fourier, and Goethe. The first-named comes to this through his mystical appreciation of spiritual life; the second, by his systematic distribution of gifts and opportunities according to the principles of ideal justice. The world-wise Goethe everywhere recognizes the presence and significance of the feminine principle; and, after treating with tenderness and reverence its frailest as well as its finest impersonations, lays the seal of all attraction in the lap of the "eternal womanly."

Nearer at hand, and in the intimacy of personal intercourse, Margaret found a n.o.ble friend to her cause.

"The late Dr. Channing, whose enlarged and religious nature shared every onward impulse of his time, though his thoughts followed his wishes with a deliberative caution which belonged to his habits and temperament, was greatly interested in these expectations for women. He regarded them as souls, each of which had a destiny of its own, incalculable to other minds, and whose leading it must follow, guided by the light of a private conscience."

She tells us that the Doctor's delicate and fastidious taste was not shocked by Angelina Grimke's appearance in public, and that he fully indorsed Mrs. Jameson's defence of her s.e.x "in a way from which women usually shrink, because, if they express themselves on such subjects with sufficient force and clearness to do any good, they are exposed to a.s.saults whose vulgarity makes them painful."

Margaret ends her treatise with a synopsis of her humanitarian creed, of which we can here give only enough to show its general scope and tenor.

Here is the substance of it, mostly in her own words:--

Man is a being of twofold relations,--to nature beneath and intelligences above him. The earth is his school, G.o.d his object, life and thought his means of attaining it.

The growth of man is twofold,--masculine and feminine. These terms, for Margaret, represent other qualities, to wit, Energy and Harmony, Power and Beauty, Intellect and Love.

These faculties belong to both s.e.xes, yet the two are distinguished by the preponderance of the opposing characteristics.

Were these opposites in perfect harmony, they would respond to and complete each other.

Why does this harmony not prevail?

Because, as man came before woman, power before beauty, he kept his ascendency, and enslaved her.

Woman in turn rose by her moral power, which a growing civilization recognized.

Man became more just and kind, but failed to see that woman was half himself, and that, by the laws of their common being, he could never reach his true proportions while she remained shorn of hers. And so it has gone on to our day.