Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/234

219 CHAPTER XVII.

MARGARET FULLER'S LITERARY REMAINS.

preceding narrative has necessarily involved some consideration of the writings which gave its subject her place among the authors of her time. This consideration has been carefully interwoven with the story of the life which it was intended to illustrate, not to interrupt. With all this care, however, much has been left unsaid which should be said concerning the value of Margaret's contributions to the critical literature of her time. Of this, our present limits will allow us to make brief mention only.

Margaret so lived in the life of her own day and generation, so keenly felt its good and ill, that many remember her as a woman whose spoken word and presence had in them a powder which is but faintly imaged in her writings. Nor is this impression wholly a mistaken one. Certain it is that those who recall the enchantment of her conversation always maintain that the same charm is not to be found in the productions of her pen. Yet if we attentively read what she has left us, without this disparagement, we shall find that it entitles her to a position of honour among the prose writers of her time.