MARGARET'S LOVE OF CHILDREN.--VISIT TO CONCORD AFTER THE DEATH OF WALDO
EMERSON.--CONVERSATIONS IN BOSTON.--SUMMER ON THE LAKES.
Among Margaret's life-long characteristics was a genuine love of little
children, which sprang from a deep sense of the beauty and sacredness of
childhood. When she visited the homes of her friends, the little ones of
their households were taken into the circle of her loving attention.
Three of these became so especially dear to her that she called them her
children. These were Waldo Emerson, Pickie Greeley, and Herman Clarke.
For each of them the span of earthly life was short, no one of them
living to pass out of childhood.
Waldo was the eldest son of Mr. Emerson, the child deeply mourned and
commemorated by him in the well-known threnody:--
"The hyacinthine boy for whom
Morn well might break and April bloom.
The gracious boy who did adorn
The world whereinto he was born,
And by his countenance repay
The favor of the loving Day,
Has disappeared from the Day's eye."
This death occurred in 1841. Margaret visited Concord soon afterward,
and has left in her journals a brief record of this visit, in which she
made the grief of her friends her own. We gather from its first phrase
that Mr. Emerson, whom she now speaks of as "Waldo," had wished her to
commit to writing some of her reminiscences of the dear one lately
departed:--
"Waldo brought me at once the inkhorn and pen. I told him if he kept me
so strictly to my promise I might lose my ardor; however, I began at
once to write for him, but not with much success. Lidian came in to see
me before dinner. She wept for the lost child, and I was tempted to do
the same, which relieved much from the oppression I have felt since I
came. Waldo showed me all he and others had written about the child;
there is very little from Waldo's own observation, though he was with
him so much. He has not much eye for the little signs in children that
have such great leadings. The little there is, is good.
"'Mamma, may I have this little bell which I have been making, to stand
by the side of my bed?'
"'Yes, it may stand there.'
"'But, mamma, I am afraid it will alarm you. It may sound in the middle
of the night, and it will be heard over the whole town. It will sound
like some great glass thing which will fall down and break all to
pieces; it will be louder than a thousand hawks; it will be heard across
the water and in all the countries, it will be heard all over the
world.'
"I like this, because it was exactly so he talked, spinning away without
end and with large, beautiful, earnest eyes. But most of the stories are
of short sayings.
"This is good in M. Russell's journal of him. She had been telling him a
story that excited him, and then he told her this: 'How his horse went
out into a long, long wood, and how he looked through a squirrel's eyes
and saw a great giant, and the giant was himself.'
* * * * *
"Went to see the Hawthornes; it was very pleasant, the poplars whisper
so suddenly their pleasant tale, and everywhere the view is so peaceful.
The house within I like, all their things are so expressive of
themselves and mix in so gracefully with the old furniture. H. walked
home with me; we stopped some time to look at the moon. She was
struggling with clouds. He said he should be much more willing to die
than two months ago, for he had had some real possession in life; but
still he never wished to leave this earth, it was beautiful enough. He
expressed, as he always does, many fine perceptions. I like to hear the
lightest thing he says.
"Waldo and I have good meetings, though we stop at all our old places.
But my expectations are moderate now; it is his beautiful presence that
I prize far more than our intercourse. He has been reading me his new
poems, and the other day at the end he asked me how I liked the 'little
subjective twinkle all through.'
* * * * *
"_Saturday._ Dear Richard has been here a day or two, and his common
sense and homely affection are grateful after these fine people with
whom I live at sword's points, though for the present turned downwards.
It is well to 'thee' and 'thou' it after talking with angels and
geniuses. Richard and I spent the afternoon at Walden and got a great
bunch of flowers. A fine thunder-shower gloomed gradually up and turned
the lake inky black, but no rain came till sunset.
"_Sunday._ A heavy rain. I must stay at home. I feel sad. Mrs. Ripley
was here, but I only saw her a while in the afternoon and spent the day
in my room. Sunday I do not give to my duty writing, no indeed. I
finished yesterday, after a rest, the article on ballads. Though a
patchwork thing, it has craved time to do it."
* * * * *
We come now to the period of the famous conversations in which, more
fully than in aught else, Margaret may be said to have delivered her
message to the women of her time. The novelty of such a departure in the
Boston of forty years ago may be imagined, and also the division of
opinion concerning it in those social circles which consider themselves
as charged with the guardianship of the taste of the community.
Margaret's attitude in view of this undertaking appears to have been a
modest and sensible one. She found herself, in the first place, under
the necessity of earning money for her own support and in aid of her
family. Her greatest gift, as she well knew, was in conversation. Her
rare eloquence did not much avail her at her desk, and though all that
she wrote had the value of thought and of study, it was in living speech
alone that her genius made itself entirely felt and appreciated. What
more natural than that she should have proposed to make this rare gift
available for herself and others? The reasons which she herself gives
for undertaking the experiment are so solid and sufficient as to make us
blush retrospectively for the merriment in which the thoughtless world
sometimes indulged concerning her. Her wish was "to pass in review the
departments of thought and knowledge, and endeavor to place them in due
relation to one another in our minds; to systematize thought, and give a
precision and clearness in which our sex are so deficient, chiefly, I
think, because they have so few inducements to test and classify what
they receive." In fine, she hoped to be able to throw some light upon
the momentous questions, "What were we born to do, and how shall we do
it?"
In looking forward to this effort, she saw one possible obstacle in
"that sort of vanity which wears the garb of modesty," and which, she
thinks, may make some women fear "to lay aside the shelter of vague
generalities, the art of coterie criticism," and the "delicate disdains
of _good society_," even to obtain a nearer view of truth itself. "Yet,"
she says, "as without such generous courage nothing of value can be
learned or done, I hope to see many capable of it."
The twofold impression which Margaret made is to be remarked in this
matter of the conversations, as elsewhere. Without the fold of her
admirers stood carping, unkind critics; within were enthusiastic and
grateful friends.
The first meeting of Margaret's Conversation Class was held at Miss
Peabody's rooms, in West Street, Boston, on the 6th of November, 1839.
Twenty-five ladies were present, who showed themselves to be of the
elect by their own election of a noble aim. These were all ladies of
superior position, gathered by a common interest from very various
belongings of creed and persuasion. At this, their first coming
together, Margaret prefaced her programme by some remarks on the
deficiencies in the education given to women, defects which she thought
that later study, aided by the stimulus of mutual endeavor and
interchange of thought, might do much to remedy. Her opening remarks are
as instructive to-day as they were when she uttered them:--
"Women are now taught, at school, all that men are. They run over,
superficially, even _more_ studies, without being really taught
anything. But with this difference: men are called on, from a very early
period, to reproduce all that they learn. Their college exercises, their
political duties, their professional studies, the first actions of life
in any direction, call on them to put to use what they have learned. But
women learn without any attempt to reproduce. Their only reproduction is
for purposes of display. It is to supply this defect that these
conversations have been planned."
Margaret had chosen the Greek Mythology for the subject of her first
conversations. Her reasons for this selection are worth remembering:--
"It is quite separated from all exciting local subjects. It is serious
without being solemn, and without excluding any mode of intellectual
action; it is playful as well as deep. It is sufficiently wide, for it
is a complete expression of the cultivation of a nation. It is also
generally known, and associated with all our ideas of the arts."
In considering this statement it is not difficult for us at this day to
read, as people say, between the lines. The religious world of
Margaret's youth was agitated by oppositions which rent asunder the
heart of Christendom. Margaret wished to lead her pupils beyond all
discord, into the high and happy unity. Her own nature was both fervent
and religious, but she could not accept intolerance either in belief or
in disbelief. To study with her friends the ethics of an ancient faith,
too remote to become the occasion of personal excitement, seemed to her
a step in the direction of freer thought and a more unbiassed criticism.
The Greek mythology, instinct with the genius of a wonderful people,
afforded her the desired theme. With its help she would introduce her
pupils to a sphere of serenest contemplation, in which Religion and
Beauty had become wedded through immortal types.
Margaret was not able to do this without awakening some orthodox
suspicion. This she knew how to allay; for when one of the class
demurred at the supposition that a Christian nation could have anything
to envy in the religion of a heathen one, Margaret said that she had no
desire to go back, and believed we have the elements of a deeper
civilization; yet the Christian was in its infancy, the Greek in its
maturity, nor could she look on the expression of a great nation's
intellect as insignificant. These fables of the gods were the result of
the universal sentiments of religion, aspiration, intellectual action,
of a people whose political and æsthetic life had become immortal.
Margaret's good hopes were justified by the success of her undertaking.
The value of what she had to impart was felt by her class from the
first. It was not received in a passive and compliant manner, but with
the earnest questioning which she had wished to awaken, and which she
was so well able both to promote and to satisfy.
In the first of her conversations ten of the twenty-five persons present
took part, and this number continued to increase in later meetings. Some
of these ladies had been bred in the ways of liberal thought, some held
fast to the formal limits of the old theology. The extremes of bigotry
and scepticism were probably not unrepresented among them. From these
differences and dissidences Margaret was able to combine the elements of
a wider agreement. A common ground of interest was found in the range of
topics presented by her, and in her manner of presenting them. The
enlargement of a new sympathy was made to modify the intense and narrow
interests in which women, as a class, are apt to abide.
Margaret's journal and letters to friends give some accounts of the
first meetings. She finds her circle, from the start, devoutly
thoughtful, and feels herself, not "a paid Corinne," but a teacher and a
guide. The bright minds respond to her appeal, as half-kindled coals
glow beneath a strong and sudden breath. The present, always arid if
exclusively dwelt in, is enriched by the treasures of the past and
animated by the great hopes of the future.
Reports from some of Margaret's hearers show us how she appeared to
them:--
"All was said with the most captivating address and grace, and with
beautiful modesty. The position in which she placed herself with respect
to the rest was entirely lady-like and companionable."
Another writer finds in the _séance_ "the charm of a Platonic dialogue,"
without pretension or pedantry. Margaret, in her chair of leadership,
appeared positively beautiful in her intelligent enthusiasm. Even her
dress was glorified by this influence, and is spoken of as sumptuous,
although it is known to have been characterized by no display or
attempted effect.
In Margaret's plan the personages of the Greek Olympus were considered
as types of various aspects of human character. Prometheus became the
embodiment of pure reason. Jupiter stood for active, Juno for passive
will, the one representing insistence, the other resistance. Minerva
pictured the practical power of the intellect. Apollo became the symbol
of genius, Bacchus that of geniality. Venus was instinctive womanhood,
and also a type of the Beautiful, to the consideration of which four
conversations were devoted. In a fifth, Margaret related the story of
Cupid and Psyche in a manner which indelibly impressed itself upon the
minds of her hearers. Other conversations presented Neptune as
circumstance, Pluto as the abyss of the undeveloped, Pan as the glow and
play of nature, etc. Thus in picturesque guise the great questions of
life and of character were passed in review. A fresh and fearless
analysis of human conditions showed, as a discovery, the grandeur and
beauty of man's spiritual inheritance. All were cheered and uplifted by
this new outlook, sharing for the time and perhaps thenceforth what Mr.
Emerson calls "the steady elevation of Margaret's aim."
These occasions, so highly prized and enjoyed, sometimes brought to
Margaret their penalty in the shape of severe nervous headache. During
one of these attacks a friend expressed anxiety lest she should continue
to suffer in this way. Margaret replied: "I feel just now such a
separation from pain and illness, such a consciousness of true life
while suffering most, that pain has no effect but to steal some of my
time."
In accordance with the urgent desire of the class the conversations were
renewed at the beginning of the following winter, Margaret having in the
mean time profited by a season of especial retirement which was not
without influence upon her plan of thought and of life. From this
interval of religious contemplation she returned to her labors with the
feeling of a new power. In opening the first meeting of this second
series, on November 22, 1840, Margaret spoke of great changes which had
taken place in her way of thinking. These were of so deep and sacred a
character that she could only give them a partial expression, which,
however, sufficed to touch her hearers deeply. "They all, with
glistening eyes, seemed melted into one love." Hearts were kindled by
her utterance to one enthusiasm of sympathy which set out of sight the
possibility of future estrangement.
In the conversations of this winter (1840-41) the fine arts held a
prominent place.
Margaret stated, at the beginning, that the poetry of life would be
found in the advance "from objects to law, from the circumference of
being, where we found ourselves at our birth, to the centre." This
poetry was "the only path of the true soul," life's prose being the
deviation from this ideal way. The fine arts she considered a
compensation for this prose, which appeared to her inevitable. The
beauties which life could not embody might be expressed in stone, upon
canvas, or in music and verse. She did not permit the search for the
beautiful to transcend the limits of our social and personal duties. The
pursuit of æsthetic pleasure might lead us to fail in attaining the
higher beauty. A poetic life was not the life of a _dilettante_.
Of sculpture and music she had much to say, placing them above all other
arts. Painting appeared to her inferior to sculpture, because it
represented a greater variety of objects, and thus involved more prose.
Several conversations were, nevertheless, devoted to Painting, and the
conclusion was reached that color was consecrate to passion and
sculpture to thought; while yet in some sculptures, like the Niobe, for
example, feeling was recognized, but on a grand, universal scale.
The question, "What is life?" occupied one meeting, and brought out many
differences of view, which Margaret at last took up into a higher
ground, beginning with God as the eternally loving and creating life,
and recognizing in human nature a kindred power of love and of creation,
through the exercise of which we also add constantly to the total sum of
existence, and, leaving behind us ignorance and sin, become godlike in
the ability to give, as well as to receive, happiness.
With the work of this winter was combined a series of evening meetings,
five in number, to which gentlemen were admitted. Mr. Emerson was
present at the second of these, and reports it as having been somewhat
encumbered "by the headiness or incapacity of the men," who, as he
observes, had not been trained in Margaret's method.
Another chronicler, for whose truth Mr. Emerson vouches, speaks of the
plan of these five evenings as a very noble one. They were spoken of as
Evenings of Mythology, and Margaret, in devising them, had relied upon
the more thorough classical education of the gentlemen to supplement her
own knowledge, acquired in a less systematic way. In this hope she was
disappointed. The new-comers did not bring with them an erudition equal
to hers, nor yet any helpful suggestion of ideas. The friend whom we now
quote is so much impressed by Margaret's power as to say: "I cannot
conceive of any species of vanity living in her presence. She distances
all who talk with her." Even Mr. Emerson served only to display her
powers, his uncompromising idealism seeming narrow and hard when
contrasted with her glowing realism. "She proceeds in her search after
the unity of things, the divine harmony, not by exclusion, as Mr.
Emerson does, but by comprehension, and so no poorest, saddest spirit
but she will lead to hope and faith."
Margaret's classes continued through six winters. The number of those
present varied from twenty-five to thirty. In 1841-42 the general
subject was Ethics, under which head the Family, the School, the Church,
Society, and Literature were all discussed, and with a special reference
to "the influences on woman." In the winter next after this, we have
notes of the following topics: Is the Ideal first or last, Divination or
Experience? Persons who never awake to Life in this World; Mistakes;
Faith; Creeds; Woman; Demonology; Influence; Roman Catholicism; The
Ideal.
In the season of 1843-44, a number of themes were considered under the
general head of Education. Among these were Culture, Ignorance, Vanity,
Prudence, and Patience.
These happy labors came to an end in April of the year 1844, when
Margaret parted from her class with many tokens of their love and
gratitude. After speaking of affectionate words, beautiful gifts, and
rare flowers, she says:--
"How noble has been my experience of such relations now for six years,
and with so many and so various minds! Life is worth living, is it not?"
Margaret had answered Mr. Mallock's question before it was asked.
* * * * *
Margaret's summer on the Lakes was the summer of 1843. Her first records
of it date from Niagara, and give her impressions of the wonderful
scene, in which the rapids impressed her more than the cataract itself,
whether seen from the American or from the Canadian side.
"Slowly and thoughtfully I walked down to the bridge leading to Goat
Island, and when I stood upon this frail support, and saw a quarter of a
mile of tumbling, rushing rapids, and heard their everlasting roar, my
emotions overpowered me. A choking sensation rose to my throat, a thrill
rushed through my veins, my blood ran rippling to my fingers' ends. This
was the climax of the effect which the falls produced upon me."
At Buffalo she embarked for a voyage on Lake Erie. Making a brief stop
at Cleveland, the steamer passed on to the St. Clair River. The sight of
an encampment of Indians on its bank gave Margaret her first feeling of
what was then "the West."
"The people in the boat were almost all New Englanders, seeking their
fortunes. They had brought with them their cautious manners, their love
of polemics. It grieved me to hear Trinity and Unity discussed in the
poor, narrow, doctrinal way on these free waters. But that will soon
cease. There is not time for this clash of opinions in the West, where
the clash of material interests is so noisy. They will need the spirit
of religion more than ever to guide them, but will find less time than
before for its doctrine."
The following passage will show us the spirit which Margaret carried
into these new scenes:--
"I came to the West prepared for the distaste I must experience at its
mushroom growth. I know that where 'Go ahead!' is the motto, the village
cannot grow into the gentle proportions that successive lives and the
gradations of experience involuntarily give.... The march of peaceful,
is scarcely less wanton than that of war-like invention. The old
landmarks are broken down, and the land, for a season, bears none,
except of the rudeness of conquest and the needs of the day. I have come
prepared to see all this, to dislike it, but not with stupid narrowness
to distrust or defame. On the contrary, I trust by reverent faith to woo
the mighty meaning of the scene, perhaps to foresee the law by which a
new order, a new poetry, is to be evoked from this chaos."
Charles Dickens's "American Notes" may have been in Margaret's mind when
she penned these lines, and this faith in her may have been quickened by
the perusal of the pages in which he showed mostly how _not_ to see a
new country.
Reaching Chicago, she had her first glimpse of the prairie, which at
first only suggested to her "the very desolation of dulness."
"After sweeping over the vast monotony of the Lakes, to come to this
monotony of land, with all around a limitless horizon--to walk and walk,
but never climb! How the eye greeted the approach of a sail or the smoke
of a steamboat; it seemed that anything so animated must come from a
better land, where mountains give religion to the scene. But after I had
ridden out and seen the flowers, and observed the sun set with that
calmness seen only in the prairies, and the cattle winding slowly to
their homes in the 'island groves,' most peaceful of sights, I began to
love, because I began to know, the scene, and shrank no longer from the
encircling vastness."
Here followed an excursion of three weeks in a strong wagon drawn by a
stalwart pair of horses, and supplied with all that could be needed, as
the journey was through Rock River valley, beyond the regions of trade
and barter. Margaret speaks of "a guide equally admirable as marshal and
companion." This was none other than a younger brother of James Freeman
Clarke, William Hull Clarke by name, a man who then and thereafter made
Chicago his home, and who lived and died an honored and respected
citizen. This journey with Margaret, in which his own sister was of the
party, always remained one of the poetic recollections of his early
life. He had suffered much from untoward circumstances, and was
beginning to lose the elasticity of youth under the burden of his
discouragements. Margaret's sympathy divined the depth and delicacy of
William Clarke's character, and her unconquerable spirit lifted him from
the abyss of despondency into a cheerfulness and courage which nevermore
forsook him.
Returning to Chicago, Margaret once more embarked for lake travel, and
her next chapter describes Wisconsin, at that time "a Territory, not
yet a State; still nearer the acorn than we were."
Milwaukee was then a small town, promising, as she says, "to be, some
time, a fine one." The yellow brick, of which she found it mostly built,
pleased her, as it has pleased the world since. No railroads with
mysterious initials served, in those days, the needs of that vast
region. The steamer, arriving once in twenty-four hours, brought mails
and travellers, and a little stir of novelty and excitement. Going a
day's journey into the adjacent country, Margaret and her companions
found such accommodation as is here mentioned:--
"The little log-cabin where we slept, with its flower-garden in front,
disturbed the scene no more than a lock upon a fair cheek. The
hospitality of that house I may well call princely; it was the boundless
hospitality of the heart, which, if it has no Aladdin's lamp to create a
palace for the guest, does him still greater service by the freedom of
its bounty to the very last drop of its powers."
In the Western immigration Milwaukee was already a station of
importance. "Here, on the pier, I see disembarking the Germans, the
Norwegians, the Swedes, the Swiss. Who knows how much of old legendary
lore, of modern wonder, they have already planted amid the Wisconsin
forests? Soon their tales of the origin of things, and the Providence
that rules them, will be so mingled with those of the Indian that the
very oak-tree will not know them apart, will not know whether itself be
a Runic, a Druid, or a Winnebago oak."
Margaret reached the island of Mackinaw late in August, and found it
occupied by a large representation from the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes,
who came there to receive their yearly pension from the Government at
Washington. Arriving at night, the steamer fired some rockets, and
Margaret heard with a sinking heart the wild cries of the excited
Indians, and the pants and snorts of the departing steamer. She walked
"with a stranger to a strange hotel," her late companions having gone on
with the boat. She found such rest as she could in the room which served
at once as sitting and as dining room. The early morning revealed to her
the beauties of the spot, and with these the features of her new
neighbors.
"With the first rosy streak I was out among my Indian neighbors, whose
lodges honeycombed the beautiful beach. They were already on the alert,
the children creeping out from beneath the blanket door of the lodge,
the women pounding corn in their rude mortars, the young men playing on
their pipes. I had been much amused, when the strain proper to the
Winnebago courting flute was played to me on another instrument, at any
one's fancying it a melody. But now, when I heard the notes in their
true tone and time, I thought it not unworthy comparison with the
sweetest bird-song; and this, like the bird-song, is only practised to
allure a mate. The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more
thinks of playing the flute than one of the _settled-down_ members of
our society would of choosing the purple light of love as dyestuff for a
surtout."
Of the island itself Margaret writes:--
"It was a scene of ideal loveliness, and these wild forms adorned it, as
looking so at home in it."
The Indian encampment was constantly enlarged by new arrivals, which
Margaret watched from the window of her boarding-house.
"I was never tired of seeing the canoes come in, and the new arrivals
set up their temporary dwellings. The women ran to set up the tent-poles
and spread the mats on the ground. The men brought the chests, kettles,
and so on. The mats were then laid on the outside, the cedar boughs
strewed on the ground, the blanket hung up for a door, and all was
completed in less than twenty minutes. Then they began to prepare the
night meal, and to learn of their neighbors the news of the day."
In these days, in which a spasm of conscience touches the American heart
with a sense of the wrongs done to the Indian, Margaret's impressions
concerning our aborigines acquire a fresh interest and value. She found
them in occupation of many places from which they have since been driven
by what is called the march of civilization. We may rather call it a
barbarism better armed and informed than their own. She also found among
their white neighbors the instinctive dislike and repulsion which are
familiar to us. Here, in Mackinaw, Margaret could not consort with them
without drawing upon herself the censure of her white acquaintances.
"Indeed, I wonder why they did not give me up, as they certainly looked
upon me with great distaste for it. 'Get you gone, you Indian dog!' was
the felt, if not the breathed, expression towards the hapless owners of
the soil; all their claims, all their sorrows, quite forgot in
abhorrence of their dirt, their tawny skins, and the vices the whites
have taught them."
Missionary zeal seems to have been at a standstill just at this time,
and the hopelessness of converting those heathen to Christianity was
held to excuse further effort to that end. Margaret says:--
"Whether the Indian could, by any efforts of love and intelligence, have
been civilized and made a valuable ingredient in the new State, I will
not say; but this we are sure of, the French Catholics did not harm
them, nor disturb their minds merely to corrupt them. The French they
loved. But the stern Presbyterian, with his dogmas and his task-work,
the city circle and the college, with their niggard conceptions and
unfeeling stare, have never tried the experiment."
Margaret naturally felt an especial interest in observing the character
and condition of the Indian women. She says, truly enough, "The
observations of women upon the position of woman are always more
valuable than those of men."
Unhappily, this is a theme in regard to which many women make no
observation of their own, and only repeat what they have heard from men.
But of Margaret's impressions a few sentences will give us some idea:--
"With the women I held much communication by signs. They are almost
invariably coarse and ugly, with the exception of their eyes, with a
peculiarly awkward gait, and forms bent by burdens. This gait, so
different from the steady and noble step of the men, marks the inferior
position they occupy."
Margaret quotes from Mrs. Schoolcraft and from Mrs. Grant passages which
assert that this inferiority does not run through the whole life of an
Indian woman, and that the drudgery and weary service imposed upon them
by the men are compensated by the esteem and honor in which they are
held. Still, she says:--
"Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed
them in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women
without feeling that they do occupy a lower place than women among the
nations of European civilization.... Their decorum and delicacy are
striking, and show that, where these are native to the mind, no habits
of life make any difference. Their whole gesture is timid, yet
self-possessed. They used to crowd round me to inspect little things I
had to show them, but never press near; on the contrary, would reprove
and keep off the children. Anything they took from my hand was held with
care, then shut or folded, and returned with an air of lady-like
precision."
And of the aspect of the Indian question in her day Margaret writes:--
"I have no hope of liberalizing the missionary, of humanizing the sharks
of trade, of infusing the conscientious drop into the flinty bosom of
policy, of saving the Indian from immediate degradation and speedy
death.... Yet, let every man look to himself how far this blood shall be
required at his hands. Let the missionary, instead of preaching to the
Indian, preach to the trader who ruins him, of the dreadful account
which will be demanded of the followers of Cain. Let every legislator
take the subject to heart, and, if he cannot undo the effects of past
sin, try for that clear view and right sense that may save us from
sinning still more deeply."
Margaret's days in Mackinaw were nine in number. She went thence by
steamer to the Sault Ste. Marie. On the way thither, the steamer being
detained by a fog, its captain took her in a small boat to visit the
island of St. Joseph, and on it, the remains of an old English fort. Her
comments upon this visit, in itself of little interest, are worth
quoting:--
"The captain, though he had been on this trip hundreds of times, had
never seen this spot, and never would but for this fog and his desire to
entertain me. He presented a striking instance how men, for the sake of
getting a living, forget to live. This is a common fault among the
active men, the truly living, who could tell what life is. It should not
be so. Literature should not be left to the mere literati, eloquence to
the mere orator. Every Cæsar should be able to write his own Commentary.
We want a more equal, more thorough, more harmonious development, and
there is nothing to hinder the men of this country from it, except
their own supineness or sordid views."
At the Sault, Margaret found many natural beauties, and enjoyed, among
other things, the descent of the rapids in a canoe. Returning to
Mackinaw, she was joined by her friends, and has further chronicled only
her safe return to Buffalo.
The book which preserves the record of this journey saw the light at the
end of the next year's summer. Margaret ends it with a little _Envoi_ to
the reader. But for us, the best _envoi_ will be her own description of
the last days of its composition:--
"Every day I rose and attended to the many little calls which are always
on me, and which have been more of late. Then, about eleven, I would sit
down to write at my window, close to which is the apple-tree, lately
full of blossoms, and now of yellow-birds.
"Opposite me was Del Sarto's Madonna; behind me, Silenus, holding in his
arms the infant Pan. I felt very content with my pen, my daily bouquet,
and my yellow-birds. About five I would go out and walk till dark; then
would arrive my proofs, like crabbed old guardians, coming to tea every
night. So passed each day. The 23d of May, my birthday, about one
o'clock, I wrote the last line of my little book. Then I went to Mount
Auburn, and walked gently among the graves."
And here ends what we have to say about Margaret's New England life.
From its close shelter and intense relations she was now to pass into
scenes more varied and labors of a more general scope. She had become
cruelly worn by her fatigues in teaching and in writing, and in the year
1844 was induced, by liberal offers, to accept a permanent position on
the staff of the "New York Tribune," then in the hands of Messrs.
Greeley and McElrath. This step involved the breaking of home ties, and
the dispersion of the household which Margaret had done so much to
sustain and to keep together. Margaret's brothers had now left college,
and had betaken themselves to the pursuits chosen as their life work.
Her younger sister was married, and it was decided that her mother
should divide her time among these members of her family, leaving
Margaret free to begin a new season of work under circumstances which
promised her greater freedom from care and from the necessity of
unremitting exertion.