A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Fuller, Sarah Margaret
FULLER, SARAH MARGARET,
Was the daughter of Timothy Fuller, a member of the Boston bar, but a resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Margaret was born. From 1817 until 1825, Mr. Fuller was sent to Congress, representative of the district of Middlesex. At the close of these political duties, he retired from his profession and settled in the country as an agriculturist; soon afterwards he died.
Margaret was the oldest child of the family, and at an early age evinced remarkable aptitude for study; it became her father's pride and pleasure to cultivate her intellect to the utmost degree. We are told that his tasks were often oppressive, and that her juvenile brain was taxed to the disadvantage of her physical healthy development. Most particularly did the father instruct his daughter in the learning he considered of the first importance—the classic tongues. An acquaintance with these subsequently led her to study the modern languages, and Miss Fuller was, from her youth, distinguished for her extraordinary philological accomplishments.
Miss Fuller was, however, besides her classical studies, most thoroughly exercised in every solid and elegant department of literature, and probably no American woman was ever before so fully educated, as that term is usually applied. After her father's decease, she devoted her talents and acquirements to the assistance of her mother and sisters, by opening classes for the instruction of ladies, both single and married, first in Boston, then in Providence, Rhode Island; and afterwards in Boston again. During this period her womanly characteristics—self-sacrificing generosity, industry, untiring kindness in the domestic circle—were beautifully displayed. Her memory is more sanctified by the love her exemplary qualities called forth in the privacy of home, than by all the literary laurels her admirers wish to offer her.
In 1839, she made a translation of Goëthe's "Conversations;"—this is her first work. She was, in the following year, concerned with Ralph Waldo Emerson in editing the "Dial," a periodical of some note in its day; to which both these writers contributed essays, highly applauded by their transcendental readers. To those who require perspicuity as a condition of excellence in literature, such "wanderings round about a meaning," however fine may be the diction, are never appreciated; yet it is but fair to say, that the meaning of Miss Fuller was always honest and generous. She was so far from being in adoration before herself, that she seemed ever aiming to enlarge the moral good of her "brother man and sister woman."
In 1843, she published a volume—"Summer on the Lakes," being an account of a tour to Illinois. This book contains, with much irrelevant matter, some sensible remarks; but there is little in It, as far as regards style or story, beyond what might be found in the letters of any well-educated gentlewoman of moderate abilities, who thought it worth while to journalize on a summer's ramble. About this period Miss Fuller resided for a time in New York, where she edited the literary department of the "Tribune," contributing papers on various subjects, but chiefly critical notices of the works of distinguished authors, for which task both education and genius seemed peculiarly to fit her.
In 1845, her most important work, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," was published in New York. It is evident that a strong wish to benefit her own sex, moved her heart and guided her pen. One male critic, whose title of Reverend should have inspired more charity, has flippantly remarked, that Miss Fuller wrote because she was vexed at not being a man.—Not so. Though discontented with her woman's lot, she does not seek to put aside any duty, or lower the standard of virtue in order to escape the pressure of real or imagined evils in her position. Nor was it for herself that she sought freedom; she wanted a wider field of usefulness for her sex; and unfortunately for her own happiness, which would have been secured by advancing that of others, she mistook the right path of progress. With her views we are far from coinciding; she abandoned the only safe guide in her search for truth. Whatever be the genius or intellectual vigour possessed by a woman, these avail her nothing without that moral strength which is nowhere to be obtained, save from the aid God has given us in His revealed Word. Experience and observation prove that the greater the intellectual force, the greater and more fatal the errors into which women fall who wander from the Rock of Salvation, Christ the Saviour, who, "made of a woman," is peculiarly the stay and support of the sex.
But though Miss Fuller's theories led to mazes and wanderings, her mind was honest in its search for truth, and with much that is visionary and impracticable, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" contains many useful hints and noble sentiments.
In 1844, a selection from her contributions to various periodicals was issued, under the title of "Papers on Literature and Art;" a work much admired by those who profess to understand the new thoughts, or new modes of expressing old apothegms, which the transcendental philosophy has introduced. It was her last published work. In the summer of 1845, Miss Fuller accompanied some dear friends to Europe; after visiting this country, Scotland, France, and passing through Italy to Rome, they spent the ensuing winter in the "Eternal City," where she continued, while her friends returned to America. In the following year Miss Fuller was married, in Rome, to Giovanni, Marquis d'Ossoli, an Italian. She remained in Rome till the summer of 1849, when, after the surrender of that city to the French, the Marquis d'Ossoli and his wife, having taken an active part in the Republican government, considered it necessary, to emigrate. They went to Florence, and remained there till June, 1850, when they determined to go to the United States, and accordingly embarked at Leghorn, in the brig Elizabeth, bound for New York. The deplorable and melancholy catastrophe is well known; the ship, as she neared the American coast, encountered a fearful storm, and on the morning of the 8th. of August was wrecked on Fire Island, south of Long Island; and the D'Ossoli family—husband, wife, infant son, and nurse—all perished! Margaret Fuller, or the Marchioness d'Ossoli, possessed among a host of professed admirers, many grateful, loving friends, to whom her sad, untimely death was a bitter grief. These mourn also, that she left her mission unfinished, because they believe a work she had prepared "On the Revolution in Italy," (the MS. was lost with her,) would have given her enduring fame. One indication of true mental improvement she exhibited—her enthusiasm for Goethe had abated; and a friend of hers, a distinguished scholar, asserts that, "with the Reformers of the Transcendental School she had no communion, nor scarcely a point in common." Whatever she might have done, we are constrained to add, that of the books she has left, we do not believe that they are destined to hold a high place in female literature. There is no true moral life in them. The simple "Prose Hymns for Children," of Mrs. Barbauld, or the "Poems" of Jane Taylor, will have a place in the hearts and homes of the Anglo-Saxon race, as long as our language endures; but the genius of Margaret Fuller will live only while the tender remembrance of personal friendship shall hold it dear. Her fame, like that of a great actor, or singer, was dependent on her living presence,—gained more by her conversational powers than by her writings. Those who enjoyed her society declare, that her mind shone most brightly in collision with other minds, and that no adequate idea of her talents can be formed by those who never heard her talk. This was also true of Coleridge; and Dr. Johnson is certainly a greater man in Boswell's Reports than in the "Rambler." Margaret Fuller had no reporter.