Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/148

Rh despair; they had anticipated this meeting with so much anxiety and much joy; they wished to make her so happy! And that little boy,—everything was ready for him, his little bed, his chair, his table! Rebecca S., who saw Margaret Fuller's mother, writes to me that she looks like one who will never smile again; she seems crushed. Among those who perished in the wreck was also the brother of Charles Sumner, that young man who went to Petersburg and presented an acorn to the Emperor Nicholas.

I do not find in such works of Margaret Fuller's as I have read, any remarkable genius, nothing of which betrays that extraordinary power which distinguished her in conversation. Her talent as an author seems to me no way striking; nevertheless a large-minded, noble spirit shows itself in her writings and this caused her often to deplore, and filled her with indignation against that which she knew was not noble in her countrymen and her native land. She is rather the critic than the enthusiast. I have inscribed on my memory, from her volume called, “A Summer on the Lakes,” these words—

“He who courageously determines to accomplish a noble undertaking, whatever opposition he may experience, cannot fail in the end of winning thereby something valuable.”

That rich life with all its sufferings, yearnings, presentiments and hopes, is now at an end, has passed from the earth.

From Margaret Fuller's letters I could believe that the highest object of her life was gained in her happiness as a mother; all her soul seemed to have centered in that. She had been described to me as not sufficiently feminine; she seems to me almost too much so; too