Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/175

Rh reader so much in the way of suggestion and criticism as to impart especial interest to the following letter; and this, moreover, shows how fearlessly Miss Fuller and her associate, the Rev. George Ripley, criticised their most revered contributor: —

&emsp; “I suppose it is too warm for my dear friend to write, at least to so dull a correspondent, or perhaps it is that I have asked so many things. I am sorry you did not send the verses, for I wanted to take one or two for filling the gaps, and now have been obliged to take some not so good. Have you not some distichs to bestow? I have two or three little things of yours which I wished very much to use, but thought I must not without your leave.

“When I wrote the first line of this letter I thought I should fill it up with some notes I wished to make on the Hall of Sculpture. But I was obliged to stop by a violent attack of headache, and now I am not fit to write anything good, and will only scribble a few lines to send with your proof which Mr. R. [Ripley] left with me. He is much distressed at what he thinks a falling off in the end of your paragraph about the majestic artist, and I think when you look again you will think you have not said what you meant to say. The ‘eloquence’ and ‘wealth,’ thus grouped, have rather l'air bourgeois. — ‘Saddens and gladdens’ is good. Mr. R. hates prettinesses, as the mistress of a boarding-house hates flower vases.

Dreadful melody’ does not suit me. The dreadful has become vulgarized since its natal day.

“So much for impertinence! I am very glad I am