Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/153

138 thinly clad, saw that she must pass the night on the mountain. The spot at which the light forsook her was of so precipitous a character as to leave her, in the dark, no liberty of movement. Yet she did keep in motion of some sort during the whole of that weary night; and this, she supposes, saved her life. The stars kept her company for two hours, when the mist fell and bid them. The moon rose late and was but dimly discernible. At length morning came, and Margaret, starting homeward once more, came upon a company of shepherds, who carried her, exhausted, to the inn, where her distressed friends were waiting for news of her. Such was the extent of the mountain, that a party of twenty men, with dogs, sent in search of the missing one, were not heard by her, and did not hear her voice, which she raised from time to time, hoping to call someone to her rescue. The strength of Margaret'; much-abused constitution was made evident by her speedy recovery from the effects of this severe exposure. A fit vigil, this, for one who was about to witness the scenes of 1848. She speaks of the experience as “sublime indeed, a never-to-be-forgotten presentation of stern, serene realities. ... I had had my grand solitude, my Ossianic visions, and the pleasure of sustaining myself.” After visiting Glasgow and Stirling, Margaret and her friends returned to England by Abbotsford and Melrose

In Birmingham Margaret heard two discourses from George Dawson, then considered a young man of much promise. In Liverpool she had already heard James Martineau, and in London she listened to William Fox. She compares these men with William Henry Channing and Theodore Parker:—

“None of them compare in the symmetrical arrange-