Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/89

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Margaret Fuller’s verses are not commonly quite worth preserving, though no one could think so ill of them as did she herself. But these which I have just quoted have in them some of those “lyric glimpses” that Emerson praised in her; the “incalculable wave” and “mile-long strand” are terse and poetic; and the suggestion that Emerson may have lost, as well as gained, by a life-long residence among scenes so soothing, — this is something of value, and perhaps no one else ventured to speak so frankly to the great leader of thought as did this feminine disciple. Nor can I remember to have seen elsewhere so much as a hint that the world might have been the better had some great combination of events wrenched him for a time from that ideal chimney-corner in Concord. Here one may easily differ from her; nevertheless, her suggestion is worth preserving.

At any rate, this was the tone and temper of her intercourse with the closest and most eminent