Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/185

Rh when you wrote in your journal that I cared for talent as well as genius, I accepted the words written in dispraise as praise. I wish my tastes and sympathies still more expansive than they are, instead of more severe. Here we differ.”

It was in reference to this same point that she wrote in her journal thus: —

“My friend spoke it in blame that I could prize talent as well as genius; but why not? Do not Nature and God the same? The criticism of man should not disparage and displace, but appreciate and classify what it finds existent. Let me recognize talent as well as genius, understanding as well as reason, — but each in its place. Let me revere the statue of Moses, but prize at its due rate yon rich and playful grotesque. Also, cannot one see the merit of a stripling, fluttering muse like that of Moore, without being blind to the stately muse of Dante?”

It is to be remembered that although Miss Fuller’s salary, as editor of the “Dial,” was nominally $200, she practically had nothing; and early in its second year she writes to her brother Richard (November 5, 1841): “I have begun with a smaller class this year than usual, and the ‘Dial’ is likely to fall through entirely.” In the same letter, and at a time of such discouragement as this, she proposes to her brother that they should unite in advancing $300 to an older brother in Louisiana; she pledging herself, however, to become responsible for the whole amount, if necessary,