Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/149

134 Margaret already possessed the spirit of all that is most valuable in European culture. She knew the writers of the Old World by study, its brave souls by sympathy, its works of art, more imperfectly, through copies and engravings. The Europe which she carried in her mind was not that which the superficial observer sees with careless eyes, nor could it altogether correspond with that which she, in her careful and thoughtful travel, would discern. But the possession of the European mind was a key destined to unlock for her the true significance of European society.

The voyage was propitious. Arriving in England, Margaret visited the Mechanics' Institute in Liverpool, and found the Dial quoted in an address recently given by its director. Sentences from the writings of Charles Sumner and Elihu Burritt adorned the pages of Bradshaw's Railway Guide, and she was soon called upon to note the wide discrepancy between the views of enlightened Englishmen and the selfish policy of their government, corresponding to the more vulgar passions and ambitions of the people at large.

Passing into the Lake Country, she visited Wordsworth at Ambleside, and found “no Apollo, flaming with youthful glory, but, instead, a reverend old wan, clothed in black, and walking with cautious step along the level garden path.” The, aged poet, then numbering seventy-six years, but of a florid, fair old age,” showed the visitors his household portraits, his hollyhocks, his fuchsias. His secluded mode of life, Margaret learned, had so separated him from the living issues of the time, that the peeds of the popular heart touched him but remotely. She found him, however, less intolerant than she had feared concerning the repeal of the Corn Laws, a measure