Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/66

Rh of the separate works comprised in it. Here was given a synopsis of literary work which, properly performed, would fill a life-time. It was no doubt valuable to her pupils through the vivifying influence of her enthusiastic imagination, which may have enabled some of them, in after years, to fill out the sketch of culture so boldly and broadly drawn before their eyes. Yet, considered as instruction, it must, from its very extent, have been somewhat superficial.

Our dismay would regard the remorseless degree in which Margaret, at this time, must have encroached upon the reserves of her bodily strength. Some physicists of to-day ascribe to women a peculiar power of concentrating upon one short effort an amount of vital force which should carry them through long years, and which, once expended, cannot be restored. Margaret's case would certainly justify this view; for, while a mind so vigorous necessarily presupposes a body of uncommon vigour, she was after this time always a sufferer, and never enjoyed that perfect equipoise of function and of power which we call health.

In the spring of the year 1837 Margaret was invited to fill' an important post is the Greene Street School, at Providence, Rhode Island. It was proposed that she should teach the elder girls four hours daily, arranging studies and courses at her own discretion, and receiving a salary of one thousand dollars per annum.

Margaret hesitated to accept this offer, feeling inclined rather to renew her classes of the year just past, and having in mind also a life of Goethe which she greatly desired to write, and for which she was already collecting material. In the end, however, the prospect of immediate "independence carried the day,