Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/89

74 manuscripts are lost or destroyed. The spoken word, fleeting though it be, may kindle a flame that ages shall not quench, but only brighten.

While, therefore, it may well grieve is to-day that we cannot know exactly what Margaret said nor how she said it, we may believe that the inspiration which she felt and communicated to others remains, not the less, a permanent value in the community.

Having already somewhat the position of a "come-outer," Margaret was naturally supposed to be in entire sympathy with the Transcendentalists. This supposition was strengthened by her assuming the editorship of the Dial, and Christopher Cranch, in caricaturing it, represented her as a Minerva driving a team of the new illuminati. Margaret's journals and letters, however, show that while she welcomed the new outlook towards a possible perfection, she did not accept without reserve the enthusiasms of those about her. "The good time coming," which seemed try them so near, appeared her very distant, and difficult of attainment. Her views at the outset arc aptly expressed in the following extract from one of her letters:—

"Utopia it is impossible to build up." At least, my hopes for our race on this one planet are more limited than those of most of my friends. I accept the limitations of human nature, and believe a wise acknowledgment of them one of the best conditions of progress.

Yet every noble scheme, every poetic manifestation, prophesies to man his eventual destiny. And were not man ever more sanguine than facts at the moment justify, he would remain torpid, or be sunk in sensuality. It is on this ground that I sympathize with what is called the “Transcendental party, and that I feel their aim to be the true one."