Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/303

Rh lius addicta jurare in verba magistri. This showed not merely a strong nature — for strength alone does not secure independence — but a rich and wise one.

In regard to unintelligibleness, she also shared the charge with others; and I do not know that she especially deserved it. She may be confused, rambling, sometimes high-flown, but she offers no paradoxes so startling as some of Emerson’s, and is incomparably smoother and clearer than Alcott. Nor is her obscurity ever wanton or whimsical, but is rather of that kind which, as Coleridge has said, is a compliment to the reader. Note also that she is merciful to her public, and if she has a thought with which she struggles so that she can hardly get it into every day words, it is to be found in her letters, not in her publications. Such a statement as this, for instance, she would hardly have put into print; because it is not worked out so clearly that he who runs may read. Yet it is full of suggestion. She is speaking of what she calls “The Third Thought.”

&emsp; … “Your mind has acted with beneficent force on mine, and roused it now from a repose which it has long enough enjoyed. Let me try a little to note some results of my reflections.

“The third thought which is to link together each conflicting two is of course the secret of the universe. It is sought alike by the fondest dream of love, the purest pain of thought; the philosopher exacts, the poet