Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare01fullrich).pdf/297

Rh meat which my soul loveth, even as much as my Italians. What I demand of men, — that they could act out all their thoughts, — these have. They are lives; — and of such I do not care if they had as many faults as there are days in the year, — there is the energy to redeem them. Do you not admire Lord Herbert’s two poems on life, and the conjectures concerning celestial life? I keep reading them.’

‘When I look at my papers, I feel as if I had never had a thought that was worthy the attention of any but myself; and only when, on talking with people, I find I tell them what they did not know, that my confidence at all returns.’

‘My verses, — I am ashamed when I think there is scarce a line of poetry in them, — all rhetorical and impassioned, as Goethe said of De Stael. However, such as they are, they have been overflowing drops from the somewhat bitter cup of my existence.’

‘How can I ever write with this impatience of detail? I shall never be an artist; I have no patient love of execution; I am delighted with my sketch, but if I try to finish it, I am chilled. Never was there a great sculptor who did not love to chip the marble.’

‘I have talent and knowledge enough to furnish a dwelling for friendship, but not enough to deck with golden gifts a Delphi for the world.’

‘Then a woman of tact and brilliancy, like me, has an undue advantage in conversation with men. They are