Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/55

40 We find her also engaged in tuition. She has four pupils, probably the younger children of the family, and gives lessons in three languages five days in the week, besides teaching geography and history. She has much needle-work to do, and the ill-health of her mother and grandmother brings additional cares. The course of study which she has marked out for herself can only be pursued, she says, on three evenings in the week, and at chance hours in the day. It includes a careful perusal of Alfieri's writings and examination into the evidences of the Christian religion. To this she is impelled by " distressing sceptical notions" of her own, and by the doubts awakened in her mind by the arguments of infidels and deists, some of whom arc numbered among her friends.

The following letter, addressed by Margaret to a much-admired friend, will give us some idea of the playful mood which relieved her days of serious application,

“

“Are you not ashamed, most friendshipless clergy-woman I not to have enlivened my long seclusion by one line? Does the author of the 'lecturer delivered with much applause before the Brooklyn Lyceum' despise and wish to cast off the author of "essays contumeliously rejected by that respected publication, the “Christian Examiner"?' That a little success should have power to steel the female heart to base ingratitude! O Ally! Ally! wilt thou forget that it was I (in happier hours thou hast full oft averred it) who first fanned the spark of thy ambition into flame Think'st thou that thou owest rought to those long sweeps over the inexpressive realities of literature,