Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/236

218 “But, one characteristic of her writings I feel bound to commend, — their absolute truthfulness. She never asked how this would sound, nor whether that would do, nor what would be the effect of saying anything; but simply, ‘Is it the truth? Is it such as the public should know?’ And if her judgment answered, ‘Yes,’ she uttered it; no matter what turmoil it might excite, nor what odium it might draw down on her own head. Perfect conscientiousness was an unfailing characteristic of her literary efforts. Even the severest of her critiques, — that on Longfellow’s Poems, — for which an impulse in personal pique has been alleged, I happen with certainty to know had no such origin. When I first handed her the book to review, she excused herself, assigning the wide divergence of her views of poetry from those of the author and his school, as her reason. She thus induced me to attempt the task of reviewing it myself. But day by day sped by, and I could find no hour that was not absolutely required for the performance of some duty that would not be put off, nor turned over to another. At length I carried the book back to her in utter despair of ever finding an hour in which even to look through it; and, at my renewed and earnest request, she reluctantly undertook its discussion. The statement of these facts is but an act of justice to her memory.”

Meanwhile, she was always saving up money for her long-desired trip to Europe; though this fund was again and again depleted by the needs of her family and friends. Several hundred dollars went at once, for instance, to publish for a Danish