Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/299



the other day into a manuscript journal of a visit to London in 1878, I came upon a description of a London dinner-party with this remark in regard to Miss Helen Taylor, the adopted daughter of Stuart Mill: “She is the only woman I have happened to meet in England who seems to associate with intellectual men on terms of equality.” This same remark might have been made by a traveler in America, forty years ago, of Margaret Fuller. And it must be remembered that, whereas the men who were her companions had almost all been trained in the regular channels of school, college, and profession, had been stimulated by the hope of rank, aided by rewards, or incited by professional ambition, she accomplished whatever she attained by sheer zeal for knowledge. She was encouraged, no doubt, by her father, and helped by residence in a college town; but she was destitute of most of the advantages which her friends enjoyed. They fulfilled their career, whatever it was, in the capacity of men, and with men’s facilities; she attained hers, so far as it was attained, under the disadvantages