Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/63

40 that man of immense genius, that prince of all the romance writers who use our English speech, for his mastery of language was unique, and also his exquisite grace of comedy, which appears in his English Notes.

"The hunger of an age is alike a presentiment and a pledge of its own supply." The demand for woman's emancipation of thought, her breadth of freedom of action, met with its first great interpreter in Margaret Fuller: she fed that first hunger.

From the glimmer of twilight's solitude through which Hawthorne's shrewd and curious eye dissected the movements of the human heart, Margaret Fuller might have seemed to be like Zenobia, but I did not think it a portrait.

The terribly tragic end of that life, which was so noble, generous, and helpful, has placed Margaret Fuller above criticism, and one only wishes that to his sombre studies Hawthorne might have added that shipwrecked, faithful woman holding her child to her breast. His exquisitely delicate genius, refined away almost to gossamer, would then have encased them both in a web of alabaster like that which was found in the rooms of the Borgias.