Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/44

26 Fuller well, writes me a characteristic reminiscence of the first glimpse of her; at a time when she came as an unexpected guest to my informant’s house, on the occasion of a little party of younger children. She entered, a tall girl of fifteen, plain, but with “a peculiar swaying grace in her motion.” She happened to carry in her hand a large handkerchief, such as it was the fashion of those days to use; and with this handkerchief for a bâton she at once assumed direction of the children; waving her sign of office by one corner as she guided them in new games, to the great amusement of the mother and elder sisters, who found themselves relieved of all trouble in the entertainment. “I was greatly drawn to her,” says my informant, then a girl of eleven or twelve. Children are keen critics of one another, and this testimony from a juvenile hostess proves the essential bonhomie and cordiality of the stranger guest. And whenever, from this time on, she assumed the part of leadership in a mixed company, it is to be observed that the attitude was always accepted as natural and agreeable by those present; it was only the absent who criticised.

There seems to be no foundation for the view suggested recently, that Mr. Fuller was moved, in his efforts to give his daughter a high education, by a baffled social ambition. In the first place, there was very little room for any such thing; the Cambridge society was very simple, as it still remains; and Mr. Fuller’s standing, being that of