Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/120

102 vegetables where it nestles. Of the plants which, though they grow in the dark, only make long shoots, and refuse to seek their flower.

“There was a time when one such fact would have made my day brilliant with thought. But now I seek the divine rather in Love than law.”

If even these simpler thoughts show a tendency to link themselves with something a little far-fetched and fantastic, we must remember that this was a period when German romance was just invading us; when Carlyle was translating the fantasy-pieces of Tieck, Hoffmann, and Musæus; and when some young Harvard students spent a summer vacation in rendering into English the mysteries of “Henry of Ofterdingen,” by Novalis. Margaret Fuller took her share in this; typified the mysteries of the soul as “Leila,” in the “Dial,” and wrote verses about herself, under that name, in her diary: — These were her days of thought and exaltation. Other days were given to society, usually in Bos-