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MARGARET FULLER 
 AND GOETHE 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF A REMARKABLE PERSONAL- 
 ITY. HER RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY, AND HER 
 RELATION TO EMERSON, J. F. CLARKE 
 AND TRANSCENDENTALISM 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK AUGUSTUS BRAUN 
 
 (A, M., Hari'ard: Ph. D., Univ. of III.) 
 Instructor in German in The State University of Iowa 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1910 
 
?S^2. 
 
 ^ 
 
 .3'' 
 
 COPYIIGHT, 1910 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 C CI.AL-7 87l)l 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Just a century ago, In 1810, was bom one of 
 America's most remarkable women, if not the 
 most remarkable one, Margaret Fuller. This 
 book therefore comes as a centenary tribute to 
 her memory. 
 
 Several writers and critics, among them 
 Edward Everett Hale and T. W. Higginson, 
 have tried to account for the very strange fact 
 that Margaret Fuller is not better known gen- 
 erally to the students and readers of American 
 literature. That she deserves a much more hon- 
 orable place in the history of the development of 
 our thought and literature than the rather humble 
 one which has thus far been assigned to her, has 
 been felt by all who have studied her interesting 
 career and become acquainted with her extraor- 
 dinary intellect and activities. In fact, it is diffi- 
 cult to understand the whole creative period of our 
 literature without taking into account her signifi- 
 cant role in the whole movement, andthepowerful 
 influence she exerted upon our greatest American 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 thinkers and most noted literary men of that im- 
 portant period. It is the hope of the short in- 
 troductory chapter of the present work to bring 
 to light, in a somewhat concise treatment, her true 
 relation to some of these great men and to the 
 period in which she lived and acted. 
 
 The chief aim of the present work, neverthe- 
 less, is to trace the inner development of the pow- 
 erful personality of this interesting woman, and to 
 search out the sources of her growth and the 
 foundation for her religious convictions and her 
 conceptions of life. What influence she exerted 
 among her countrymen in disseminating the con- 
 victions to which she held and how she interpreted 
 and defended their author, Goethe, also deserves 
 attention. Some space is therefore given to this 
 phase of the subject. 
 
 The author wishes to express his gratitude and 
 indebtedness to Professor Julius Goebel, the head 
 of the Department of German in the University 
 of Illinois. It was upon his recommendation and 
 with the help of his valuable suggestions that 
 this work was undertaken and written. To Pro- 
 fessor Stuart P. Sherman, of the Department of 
 English in the University of Illinois, who read the 
 present work in its original draft, and offered 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 many valuable criticisms, the writer desires to 
 express his most hearty thanks. The writer also 
 desires to thank Professor John A. Walz, Chair- 
 man of the Department of Germanic Language 
 and Literature at Harvard University, for. his 
 kindly interest in the author during the years he 
 spent at Harvard, and for the suggestions offered 
 In the prosecution of this work. The writer 
 furthermore owes his thanks to Dr. Frederick W. 
 C. Lieder, Instructor in German in Harvard Uni- 
 versity, for his friendly assistance in securing 
 some of the books necessary for this study. Grat- 
 itude is also expressed for the assistance given 
 the writer by Miss Edith D. Fuller, the niece of 
 Margaret Fuller; and also for the courtesies of 
 the authorities of the Boston Public Library, 
 Messrs. Whitney and Wheeler, especially, who 
 permitted the writer to read the entire collection 
 of the Margaret Fiiller manuscripts deposited In 
 the Boston PubUc Library, and to make copious 
 extracts from them. The writer is also Indebted 
 to the various publishers vvho own the copyrights 
 to works from which he has quoted. The refer- 
 ences to these works are always given In the foot- 
 notes. 
 
 F. A. B. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY EDUCATION 19 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 STUDY OF GERMAN. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MARGARET FULLER'S 
 
 INNER LIFE 4^ 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 7' 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DEFENSE OF GOETHE 14^ 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 INTERPRETATION, CRITICISM AND TRANSLATION OF GOETHE 174 
 
 CONCLUSION 242 
 
 MARGARET FULLER^S RELIGIOUS CREED. APPENDIX 247 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 259 
 
 INDEX 263 
 
NOTE 
 
 The titles of the following works referred to 
 in the footnotes are abbreviated thus : 
 
 Memoirs: Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, by 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channfng, and 
 James Freeman Clarke. 
 
 Margaret Fuller MSS.: Manuscript letters and papers 
 of Margaret Fuller In the Boston Public Library. 
 
 Expressions In parentheses are from the author quoted ; 
 those in brackets are made by the writer. 
 
MARGARET FULLER AND 
 GOETHE 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 n| One of the most Interesting and Influential char- 
 acters in the history of Amerfcan literature Is Mar- 
 garet Fuller. She was a leader in the great move- 
 ment which during the fourth and fifth decades of 
 the last century freed American Literature from 
 a mere slavish Imitation of European — chiefly 
 English — models, and established it on a firm basis 
 In our own country. The company of young 
 writers who Inaugurated this movement insisted 
 that our poets and writers should take American 
 themes and give them an original treatment, local 
 coloring, and an American setting. Moreover, 
 like Goethe and Schiller, Margaret Fuller as 
 leader of this same group of thinkers, Insisted with 
 them that poetry should have I'ts foundations deep 
 In personal experience, In life Itself — that It should 
 flow from the human heart, and not be a mere 
 product of the Intellect.^ Finally, she did, in all 
 
 ^ Art, Literature and the Drama, p. 306. 
 
 I 
 
2 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 probability, more than any other writer or critic to 
 bring the Americans to a fair appreciation and es- 
 timation of the rich literature of Germany, espe- 
 cially that of Goethe, who, as Emerson has well 
 said, is "the pivotal mind in modern literature, for 
 all before him are ancients, and all who have read 
 him are moderns."^ 
 
 The history of her influence coincides with the 
 history of her personal development, which it will 
 be the purpose of the following chapters to 
 develop. First to be considered is her early Puri- 
 tan education, with its one-sidedness, and its moral 
 . and religious rigorism, developing the intellect 
 alone, and neglecting altogether the education of 
 the heart, the truly human side of character. It 
 will be shown how she rebelled against the Puri- 
 tan church dogma, which seemed to have nothing 
 in common with her inner life, and how she 
 longed for a harmonious development of her 
 whole being and nature, intellectual and emotional, 
 through a full experience in life. We shall see how 
 she found in Goethe, "the great apostle of individ- 
 ual culture,"^ as she calls him, the means for such 
 a development as she wished; how her nature, her 
 soul expanded and she grew to be the strong per- 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 242. 
 
 ' JVoman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 124. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 3 
 
 sonality she was. It will be shown how she ac- 
 cepted and lived out, to a very large extent, 
 Goethe's religious and philosophical doctrines of 
 life; how she interpreted Goethe and his works 
 and defended him against the severe criticism and 
 prejudices of many of her countrymen; and finally, 
 how she wielded a powerful influence in favor of 
 a general study of German among the cultured of 
 New England, and through them among the edu- 
 cated over the whole country. 
 
 MARGARET FULLER'S PLACE IN AMERICAN LITERA- 
 TURE 
 
 Margaret Fuller's influence and strong person- 
 ality were probably felt for the first time in connec- 
 tion with a club which had for one of its chief aims 
 the liberation and deepening of American litera- 
 ture. This literary club had its beginning prob- 
 ably as early as 1833, and comprised finally in its 
 membership the entire knot of original young 
 thinkers then in New England. It contained on its 
 list such names as Emerson, F. H. Hedge, George 
 Ripley, Alcott, Theodore Parker, W. H. Chan- 
 ning, J. F. Clarke, Elizabeth P. Peabody, and 
 
4 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 later Thoreau/ The club was called by various 
 names, none of which, on account of the diversity 
 of the views of Its members, seemed exactly to fit. 
 It was called *'The Transcendental Club," "The 
 Symposium Club," and occasionally "The Hedge 
 Club," because the dates of Its monthly meetings 
 were arranged to suit Dr. Hedge's visits to Boston 
 from his home In Bangor, Maine. ^^, 
 
 That Margaret Fuller was an active member 
 of the club from the very beginning, and a recog- 
 nized leader and guiding spirit. Is the testimony of 
 all her biographers. She, too, was the leader In 
 the famous Boston "Conversations," and later be- 
 came editor of the Dial, the organ and mouthpiece 
 of the whole "storm and stress" movement In 
 American thought and literature. Mr. HIgglnson 
 writes In his biography of her : "Apart from every 
 word she ever wrote, Margaret Fuller will always 
 be an Important figure In American history, for 
 this plain reason: that she was the organizer and 
 executive force of the first thoroughly Amer- 
 ican literary enterprise [The Dial~\/^ So Im- 
 portant Is this magazine that we must go to 
 it to determine the real weight of this whole 
 
 ^ For a more comprehensive description of this club see Higgin- 
 8on, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, pp. 130 flf. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 5 
 
 literary and philosophical movement. It is the 
 only authentic record. *'To know what Emerson 
 individually was," continues Mr. Higginson, "we 
 can go to his books; it is the same with Parker, 
 Thoreau, Alcott. But what it was that united 
 these diverse elements, what was their central 
 spirit, what their collective strength or weakness, 
 their maximum and minimum, their high and low 
 water mark, this must be sought in the 'Dial'. 
 That was the alembic within which they were all 
 distilled, and the priestess who superintended this 
 intellectual chemic process. . . . Margaret Ful- 
 er." ^ Professor Trent in his American Litera- 
 ture says of the Dial: ''Most important of all it 
 gave a new impetus and in some ways a new direc- 
 tion to literary energy, especially in New Eng- 
 land." =^ * 
 
 Concerning the quality of Margaret Fuller's 
 writing and her power as a critic, Mr. Higginson 
 says: "First she excelled in 'lyric glimpses', or 
 
 ^Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 130. 
 
 ^ Trent, American Literature, p. 318. 
 
 * In what a noble and true spirit of patriotism she accomplished 
 this great service for the literature of our country, and with 
 what a sacrifice to herself, may be seen when we consider that 
 she was promised for editing the Dial, only two hundred dollars 
 a year, which were probably never paid her; since the other 
 expenses of the magazine were about equal to the income from 
 subscriptions. Still she writes in a letter: "It is for dear New 
 England that I want this review." — Memoirs, II. 26. 
 
6 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 the power of putting a high thought Into a sen- 
 tence. . . . She seems to me to have been, In 
 the second place, the best literary critic whom 
 America has yet seen".^ A. Bronson Alcott writes 
 of her In 1839: "She has a deeper insight into 
 character than any of her contemporaries, and will 
 enrich our literature." ^ 
 
 Horace Greeley's estimation of Margaret Ful- 
 ler was that she was "one whom impartial judg- 
 ment must pronounce the most capable and note- 
 worthy American woman the world has yet 
 known; " and of her works: "I believe the writ- 
 ings of no other woman were ever so uniformly 
 worthy of study and preservation." ^ 
 
 If Margaret Fuller were considered only from 
 the standpoint of the great influence she exerted 
 upon the lives of our greatest American authors 
 and thinkers, that alone ought to insure her a 
 high place in the history of American thought and 
 letters. 
 
 James Freeman Clarke, the great Unitarian 
 preacher and writer, says of her: "The difficulty 
 which we all feel in describing our past intercourse 
 and friendship with Margaret Fuller, is, that the 
 
 ^ Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, pp. 288, 290. 
 
 Mbid., p. 148. 
 
 * Introduction to Papers on Literature and Art, pp. i f. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 7 
 
 intercourse was so intimate, and the friendship so 
 personal, that It Is like making a confession to the 
 public of our most Interior selves. For this noble 
 person, by her keen Insight and her generous in- 
 terest, entered Into the depth of every soul with 
 which she stood In any real relation. To print one 
 of her letters. Is like giving an extract from our 
 own private journal." ^ The same author bears 
 witness to Margaret Fuller's great power In bring- 
 ing out that which was best and highest In every 
 person who came under her strong influence: "I 
 am disposed to think, much as she excelled In gen- 
 eral conversation, that her greatest mental efforts 
 were made in Intercourse with Individuals. All 
 her friends will unite in the testimony, that what- 
 ever they may have known of wit and eloquence in 
 others, they have never seen one who, like her, 
 by the conversation of an hour or two, could not 
 merely entertain and Inform, but make an epoch In 
 one*s life. We all dated back to this or that con- 
 versation with Margaret, In which we took a com- 
 plete survey of great subjects, came to some clear 
 view of a difficult question, saw our way open be- 
 fore us to a higher plane of life, and were led to 
 some definite resolution or purpose which has had 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 61. 
 
8 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 a bearing on all our subsequent career/' ^ In a 
 letter to T. W. Higglnson, thirty years later, Mr. 
 Clarke again writes (May 15, 1883) : "Margaret 
 had so many aspects to her soul that she might 
 furnish material for a hundred biographers, and 
 all could not be said even then." " 
 
 W. H. Channing, another one of her noted 
 biographers, bears testimony to this same ability of 
 Margaret Fuller to enter Into the most Intimate 
 and beautiful relationship with the Intellectual and 
 spiritual lives of those with whom she was asso- 
 ciated. "I have no hope," he says, "of convey- 
 ing to readers my sense of the beauty of our re- 
 lation, as It lies In the past with brightness falling 
 on It from Margaret's risen spirit. It would be 
 like printing a chapter of auto-biography, to de- 
 scribe what Is so grateful In memory. Its Influence 
 upon one's self." ^ 
 
 The fact that a man like Emerson became one 
 of her most enthusiastic admirers and biographers 
 Is, in Itself, an unassailable proof of her high posi- 
 tion and Importance. No one speaks of her pow- 
 erful Influence In more unmistakable language than 
 he as he describes her relation to him. No one 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 107. 
 
 'Margaret Fuller MSS. Boston Public Library. 
 
 'Memoirs, II. 9. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 9 
 
 bears more positive proof of her high place among 
 the thinkers and literary leaders of his time. In 
 his masterly analysis of her mind and character, 
 which Horace Greeley said, was "entitled to the 
 praise of being the frankest, fairest, most ef- 
 fective biography of our day," ^ Emerson sounds 
 the deepest recesses of the heart of this notable 
 woman and seeks to discover the sources of the 
 influence she wielded and the power that flowed 
 from her soul.* Of her personal influence on the 
 great minds about her, Emerson says : "She wore 
 this circle of friends, when I first knew her, as a 
 necklace of diamonds about her neck. They were 
 so much to each other, that Margaret seemed to 
 represent them all, and, to know her, was to ac- 
 quire a place with them. The confidences given her 
 were their best, and she held them to them. She 
 was an active, inspiring companion and corres- 
 pondent, and all the art, the thought, and the 
 nobleness in New England, seemed, at that mo- 
 ment, related to her, and she to it."^ 
 
 Concerning the many conversations that Mar- 
 
 ^ Introduction to Papers on Literature and Art, p. i. 
 
 *It is rather strange that this biography, so much praised by 
 Greeley, and as it seems to me, one of the best products of 
 Emerson's mind in his great power of analyzing human char- 
 acter, has to my knowledge, never been republished among hi3 
 collected works. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 213. 
 
lo AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 garet Fuller held with Emerson, as after dinner 
 they read, or walked, or rode, during the weeks 
 she spent every year at Emerson's home, he 
 writes: "They Interested me In every manner; 
 talent, memory, wit, stern Introspection, poetic 
 play, religion, the finest personal feeling, the as- 
 pects of the future, each followed each In full 
 activity, and left me, I remember, enriched and 
 sometimes astonished by the gifts of my guest. 
 Her topics were numerous, but the cardinal points 
 of poetry, love, and religion, were never far off. 
 . . . She was familiar with all the field of ele- 
 gant criticism in literature."^ "The day was never 
 long enough," Emerson writes again, "to exhaust 
 her opulent memory; and I, who knew her Inti- 
 mately for ten years, from July, 1836, to August, 
 1846, when she sailed for Europe, never saw her 
 without surprise at her new powers."" 
 
 Finally, a passage from Emerson's journal 
 shows the weight of the Influence she exercised 
 upon this our greatest American thinker and phi- 
 losopher: "I have no friend," says he, "whom I 
 more wish to be Immortal than she. An Influence 
 I cannot spare, but would always have at hand 
 for recourse."^ 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 217 i. "Ibid., I. 214 f. ^ Margaret Fuller MSS. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ii 
 
 j In 1846 on her tour through England and 
 'Scotland Margaret Fuller visited Carlyle and 
 his wife In their home. In spite of Carlyle's 
 impression that Margaret Fuller was sometimes 
 narrow, which was probably due In part to the 
 fact that she opposed him In some of his views, he 
 saw the rare qualities of her heart and mind/ He 
 wrote ot her to Emerson: "Margaret Is an excel- 
 lent soul: In real regard with both of us here 
 [Carlyle and his wife]. Since she went, I have 
 been reading some of her Papers In a new Book we 
 have got: greatly superior to all I knew before; In 
 fact the undeniable utterances (now first undeni- 
 able to me) of a true heroic mind; altogether 
 unique, so far as I know among the Writing 
 Women of this generation; rare enough too, God 
 knows, among the writing Men. She Is very nar- 
 row, sometimes; but she Is truly high: honor to 
 Margaret, and more and more good-speed to 
 her."^ 
 
 This testimony from so many diverse sources 
 establishes once for all, Margaret Fuller's power- 
 ful Influence upon some of our greatest thinkers 
 and our most famous literary men ; It fixes the high 
 
 * See At Home and Abroad, pp. 183 fF, 
 
 ^ The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, 1834-1872, Boston, 1888, Vol. II., p. 155. 
 
12 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 position she held In this, the most important 
 movement — the creative period — In American 
 literature. 
 
 How much credit Is due to the band of young 
 reformers, among whom Margaret Fuller was a 
 guiding spirit, may be seen when we consider the 
 conditions in which they found our literature and 
 what they did to elevate it. Our literature during 
 the third and fourth decades of the last century 
 was still in the first stages of its making. It Is true 
 that Charles Brockden Brown, Irving, and Cooper 
 had written a few novels and sketches of real 
 merit; yet, on the whole, our literature was char- 
 acterized, as Margaret Fuller has well said, by a 
 "half boastful, half timid, boyish crudity." ^ It 
 lacked real virile power and the positive national 
 stamp. What made conditions still worse was that 
 the few writers who possessed some talent sought 
 their inspiration abroad and wrote in the spirit of 
 imitation. Margaret Fuller writing In the Dial of 
 this false tendency said: *'Some thinkers may ob- 
 ject to this essay, that we are about to write of that 
 which has, as yet, no existence. For It does not 
 follow because many books are written by per- 
 sons born in America that there exists an Amer- 
 
 * Memoirs, II. 7. Art, Literature, and the Drama, p. 298. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 13 
 
 ican Literature. Books which imitate or repre- 
 sent the thoughts and life of Europe do not consti- 
 tute an American literature."^ 
 
 Even Longfellow was among those who were 
 of the candid opinion that our literature was to be 
 of a conglomerate or composite nature, merely 
 uniting within itself all the foreign elements rep- 
 resented in this country; nothing more. As 
 late as 1847 he writes in his journal: "Much 
 is said now-a-days of a national literature. Does 
 it mean anything? Such a literature is the expres- 
 sion of national character. We have, or shall 
 have, a composite one, embracing French, Spanish, 
 Irish, English, Scotch, and German peculiarities. 
 Whoever has within himself most of these is our 
 truly national writer."^ Again, somewhat earlier, 
 (1844) he writes in a letter: "Vast forests, lakes, 
 and prairies cannot make great poets. They are 
 but the scenery of the play, and have much less 
 to do with the poetic character than has been 
 imagined."^ It did not occur to Longfellow until 
 much later — until he, himself, had turned his 
 poetic talent definitely to native American themes 
 
 ^ Art, Literature and the Drama, p. 298. 
 
 'Life of Henry JVadsivorth Longfelloio. Boston and New 
 York, 1893. Vol. II. 73 f. 
 'Ibid, II. 19 f. 
 
14 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 — that among new scenes, and fresh native im- 
 pulses, and with a new national feeling, greater 
 personal freedom, and broader and more liberal 
 political views, we Americans could develop 
 something original, as we have done, a literature 
 distinctly characteristic of our country, differing 
 in some respects from any and all other litera- 
 tures, and corresponding to the American type of 
 character. It is of Longfellow, as he was at this 
 period, and of the poets who believed as he did, 
 and wrote accordingly — '^Colonists," as Margaret 
 Fuller calls them — that she writes : 
 
 "What shall we say of the poets? The list is 
 scanty; amazingly so, for there is nothing in the 
 causes that could affect lyrical and narrative poetry 
 ... Of the myriad leaves garnished with 
 smooth stereotyped rhymes that issue yearly from 
 our press, you will not find, one time in a million, a 
 little piece written from any such impulse [of the 
 heart], or with the least sincerity or sweetness of 
 tone. They are written for the press, in the spirit 
 of imitation or vanity, the paltriest offspring of the 
 human brain, for the heart disclaims, as the ear 
 is shut against them." ^ 
 
 * Margaret Fuller in article on American Literature in the 
 Dial. Literature and Art, Part II. 130. Art, Literature, and 
 the Drama, p. 306. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 15 
 
 Margaret Fuller here puts her finger upon the 
 two cardinal faults of our literature of the time, 
 especially the poetry. She lays bare the seat of the 
 disease that kept It from growing and flowering. 
 Our literature lacked, first of all, originality and 
 secondly, depth. It was not an expression of the 
 Innermost feelings of the heart, as it should be, 
 feelings that arise out of personal experiences in 
 life. 
 
 A distinctive and most creditable feature of the 
 criticism of Margaret Fuller and her companions 
 is its positive, and constructive character. While 
 these reformers could not and would not bear 
 anything pedantic, and attacked with all their 
 might what they thought shallow, narrow, or false 
 in life and literature, they enthusiastically offered 
 In its stead something better and more substantial. 
 With what enthusiasm and high hope they carried 
 on this reform may be seen from the following 
 passage by Emerson In the Dial: "He who doubts 
 whether this age or this country can yield any 
 contribution to the literature of the world only 
 betrays his own blindness of the necessity of the 
 human soul." ^ To enable an American literature 
 to grow up in our country, writes Margaret Ful- 
 
 ^ Higglnson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 137. 
 
i6 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 ler: "an original Idea must animate this nation 
 and fresh currents of life must call Into life fresh 
 thoughts along Its shores." Imitation will not suf- 
 fice. We, "a mixed race . . . with ample field 
 and verge enough to range in and leave every Im- 
 pulse free, and abundant opportunity to develop 
 a genius, wide and full as our rivers, flowery, lux- 
 uriant and impassioned as our vast prairies," are 
 ourselves able to develop a creditable and glorious 
 literature of our own, for "Men's hearts beat, 
 hope, and suffer always, and they must crave such 
 means to vent them." ^ Such were the thoughts 
 and literary Ideals of this new movement In which 
 Margaret Fuller played such an important part. 
 Ideals as grand as those which Goethe and his as- 
 sociates set up for German literature during the 
 "Storm and Stress" period in Germany. Such a 
 literature. Inspired by native impulses and envi- 
 ronments, and grown upon our own American soil, 
 a literature which expresses feelings that spring 
 from personal experiences In life, and that has Its 
 foundations deep In the heart, is not only national, 
 but universal. 
 
 What the effect of these new doctrines was, and 
 how well the originators carried out their high 
 
 * Article on American Literature in the Dial. Art, Literature, 
 and the Drama, pp. 298 f. 306. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 17 
 
 Ideals, and In turn handed them down to their 
 literary successors, Is well known. "After fifty 
 years of national life," says Mr. HIgglnson, "the 
 skylark and nightingale were at last dethroned 
 from our literature, and In the very first volume of 
 the 'Dial' the blue-bird and wood-thrush took their 
 place. Since then, they have held their own; . . . 
 Americans still go to England to hear the skylark, 
 but Englishmen also come to America to hear the 
 bobolink."^ 
 
 A few words ought to be said concerning the 
 writers who criticised Margaret Fuller unjustly. 
 Some of these criticisms are due to a misunder- 
 standing of her true nature and the purpose she 
 had In view, and are honest. This misunderstand- 
 ing was partly because of her straight-forward 
 and often too plain-spoken manner of address, and 
 because of the unfavorable Impression she so 
 often made In public upon those not well ac- 
 quainted with her. There are, however, several 
 criticisms of her written out of malice and spite, 
 assailing her at every point, not sparing even her 
 character. Editors and authors In her time often 
 sought to revenge themselves, by personal abuse, 
 for some literary slight, or perhaps, for an unfav- 
 
 ^ Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 137. 
 
i8 AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 orable criticism of some of their works. The 
 tomahawk theory was still In practice and men did 
 not hesitate to "get even." This probably ac- 
 counts for Edgar Allan Poe's scathing, unjust re- 
 marks concerning her, and his frequently dishonest 
 criticisms of others who happened to provoke his 
 ire.^ Lowell Is guilty of the same thing, though 
 mildly so. In his Fahle for Critics, In which he 
 satirizes Margaret Fuller's individual characteris- 
 tics In "Miranda." ^ Hawthorne, too, failed here 
 and there, to do her justice, though he seems to 
 have been on good terms with her generally.^ For 
 us It Is enough to judge her by what she wrote 
 and did, and by the verdict passed upon her by 
 such men as Emerson, Greeley, J. F. Clarke, and 
 W. H. Channing, men who knew her best, and 
 who, we are sure, gave their honest, candid opin- 
 ion of her. 
 
 ^*See for examples of Poe's bitter criticism and literary satire, 
 his works (Chicago, 1896), Vol. VI. 245; IX. 259. 
 
 ' The Writings of James Russell Loivell. (Riverside Edition) 
 III. 67 ff. 
 
 *See Hawthorne's American Note Books. Entry for August 
 22, 1842. 
 
MARGARET FULLER AND 
 GOETHE 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 EARLY EDUCATION 
 
 "What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded 
 clearness of the Intuitive powers, which a perfectly 
 truthful adherence to every admonition of the 
 higher instincts would bring to a finely organized 
 human being. . . . Should these faculties have 
 free play, I believe they will open new, deeper and 
 purer sources of joyous inspiration than have yet 
 refreshed the earth. Let us be wise and not im- 
 pede the soul."^ A natural development of the 
 highest intuitive powers of the soul, by means of 
 a full experience of life, this was Margaret 
 Fuller's broad doctrine of education;- yet she, 
 herself, never had the advantage of such a bring- 
 ing up. 
 
 ^ Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. ii6. 
 'See Memoirs, I. 132 ff. 
 
 19 
 
20 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Margaret Fuller* received her early education 
 In her home. Her father, a lawyer and politician, 
 "a man of business, even In literature,"^ as she 
 characterizes him In a sketch of her youth In an 
 autobiographical romance, was her teacher. 
 
 * Sarah Margaret Fuller, the eldest child of Timothy Fuller, 
 was born at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, May 23, 1810. Her 
 girlhood days, except two years during whi^ch she attended the 
 girls' school of the Misses Prescott at Groton, Massachusetts, 
 were spent in and about Cambridge. At Cambridge and Boston 
 she met and made friends with many noted men and women who 
 remained her enthusiastic admirers through life. In 1833 the 
 Fuller family removed to Groton. Here, besides her studies, 
 Miss Fuller had many family cares and household duties to 
 look after. Her father dying in 1835, increased these burdens 
 until her health became seriously impaired. She had to give up. 
 her long cherished hope of going abroad, to help support and 
 care for the family and contribute towards educating her brothers 
 and sisters. During 1836-37 she taught in A. Bronson Alcott's 
 school in Boston, and 1837-38 in the Green Street School at 
 Providence, Rhode Island. In 1839 the Fuller family moved to 
 Jamaica Plain, where they resided during the next three years. 
 After that they returned to Cambridge and remained there until 
 the home was broken up in 1844. Margaret Fuller published in 
 1839 a translation of Eckermann's Conversations nvitk Goethe, 
 which was followed in 1842 by a translation of The Letters of 
 Gilnderode and Bettine von Arnim. During the summer of 
 1843 Miss Fuller took a trip on, and in the vicinity of the Great 
 Lakes. Summer on the Lakes, published during the same year, 
 is an account of her experiences and impressions on this trip. 
 Woman in the Nineteenth Century came out in 1844, and Papers 
 on Literature and Art, a collection of her magazine and news- 
 paper articles previously published, in 1846. In 1852, her col- 
 lected works, edited by her brother, appeared, in which the 
 volume. At Home and Abroad, including a poetic translation of 
 Goethe's Tasso, and much besides which had never before ap- 
 peared was published. Later in 1895, and 1903, two additional 
 works, Margaret and Her Friends, a synopsis of ten "Conversa- 
 tions" held in Boston, 1839-40, and the Love Letters of Margaret 
 Fuller appeare d. Her most important work, however, was as 
 
 ^Ibid., L14. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 21 
 
 He was of Puritan stock, doubtless conscien- 
 tious and well-meaning in his way, a man 
 of vigor and well-informed, since he gradu- 
 ated with honors from Harvard University. But 
 he was also a man of undue self-assertion, often 
 very impractical, and in some respects narrow. 
 He was "a character, in its social aspect, of quite 
 the common sort," said his daughter. His great 
 aim of existence was to be an honored citizen, and 
 to have a home, "to work for distinction in the 
 community, and for the means of supporting a 
 family."^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller's description of her mother, 
 also of Puritan stock, is, that she was ''one of 
 those fair and flowerlike natures, which some- 
 editor of the Dial, 1840-42, and as literary and art critic for 
 the Nezv York Tribune, 1844-46. In 1846 she sailed for Europe, 
 and after spending some time on a visit in England and France, 
 where she made the acquaintance of some of the most noted 
 literary men and women then living, she took up her residence 
 in Italy. There she met and married, in 1847, ^he Marquis 
 Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, a friend of Mazzini. She became much 
 interested in the Italian Revolution of 1848-49, and was present 
 with her husband in Rome during the siege. While her hus- 
 band fought on the walls she took charge of one of the hospitals 
 for the wounded within the city. She also wrote during these 
 years a History of the Italian revolution. On May 17, 1850, 
 the Ossolis sailed on the merchant vessel, Elizabeth, for America, 
 but the vessel was wrecked, July 19, off Fire Island, and 
 Margaret, her husband, and child perished. The manuscripts 
 of her last work, that on the Italian revolution, as also possibly, 
 the notes she had taken on the Life of Goethe were lost in th« 
 wreck. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 12. 
 
22 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 times spring up even beside the most dusty high- 
 ways of life — a creature not to be shaped into 
 a merely useful instrument, but bound by one law 
 with the blue sky, the dew, and the frolic birds. 
 Of all persons whom I have known, she had in 
 her most of the angelic — of that spontaneous love 
 for every living thing, for man, and beast, and 
 tree, which restores the golden age."^ Mr. Ful- 
 ler's love for her, says Margaret, 'Vas the green 
 spot on which he stood apart from the common- 
 places of a mere bread-winning, bread-bestowing 
 existence."^ "She was 'timidly friendly'," says 
 Mr. HIgglnson, and "must have been one of the 
 sweetest and most self-effacing wives ever ruled 
 by a strong-willed spouse."" 
 
 Margaret inherited characteristics from both 
 her parents. Her lofty idealism, her love of the 
 true and beautiful in character, as in nature — the 
 tendency toward these, she Inherited from her 
 mother. Her accurate habits of mind, her great 
 intellectuality and strong personality, but also, 
 her lack of social tact, and a certain abruptness 
 of manner, which so often repelled those not well 
 acquainted with her, and caused them to heap 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 12 f. 
 'Memoirs, I. 12. 
 ^Higginson, Margaret Fuller. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 23 
 
 much unjust criticism upon her, but which really 
 hid a kind and noble heart — all these traits she 
 Inherited, to a large extent, from her father. * 
 -4- Unfortunately, In some respects, for Margaret, 
 her father took her entire education Into his own 
 hands, and from early childhood brought her up 
 In the strafght-jacket Puritan manner. Education, 
 as he understood the term, meant merely a de- 
 velopment of the mental faculties, "an Intellectual 
 forcing process," says Mr. Hlgglnson. This sys- 
 tem was the one generally adopted and practised 
 at the time throughout New England and In most 
 parts of the civilized world. It was thus that Mar- 
 garet's bodily health, and those greater qualities 
 of heart and character with which nature had so 
 richly endowed her from the maternal side, were 
 neglected, or left to develop themselves, as best 
 they could, during these early years. Her deeper 
 nature continually rebelled and cried out against 
 this one-sided, mere Intellectual training, the de- 
 velopment of the mind, to the neglect of her heart 
 and bodily health. 
 
 Margaret began the study of Latin at six years 
 of age. Though her father thought to do well 
 by her, and took great pleasure In Instructing his 
 oldest child himself, she says : "He was a severe 
 
24 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 teacher, both from habits of mind and his ambi- 
 tion for me. . . . He had no belief in minds that 
 listen, wait, and receive. He had no conception 
 of the subtle and indirect motions of imagination 
 and feeling." ' This very important side of her 
 nature had therefore no chance for development; 
 "since," she says, "I must put on the fetters"; for 
 "his influence on me was great, and opposed to 
 the natural unfolding of my character."* 
 
 Tasks were given the child, "as many and 
 various as the hours would allow." Since her 
 father did not return from his office until the day 
 was over, she had to recite to him in the evening. 
 She was thus frequently kept up very late, because 
 they were often interrupted. Her mind and her 
 feelings were "kept on the stretch" late into the 
 night, when she, or any child of her tender years, 
 should have been in bed asleep and at rest for 
 several hours. 
 
 "The consequence," continues Margaret Fuller, 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 15 ff. 
 
 ♦Arthur B. Fuller, the brother of Margaret, wrote that their 
 father's sternness and exacting manner, as she has described it, 
 and his overlooking, to a certain extent, the physical health of 
 his daughter by tasking to the utmost her extraordinary powers, 
 leaves a wrong impression of his real nature. It was, he says, 
 through error and his great zeal for his daughter, and not 
 through lack of love or kindness, that he caused her to suffer. 
 Preface to Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Boston, 1874, 
 p. 4f. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 25 
 
 "was a premature development of the brain, that 
 made me a 'youthful prodigy' by day, and by 
 night a victim of spectral Illusions, nightmare, and 
 somnambulism, which at the time prevented the 
 harmonious development of my bodily powers and 
 checked my growth, while, later they induced con- 
 tinual headache, weakness and nervous affections, 
 of all kinds. As these again re-acted on the brain, 
 giving undue force to every thought and ^ery 
 feeling, there was finally produced a state of being 
 both too active and too Intense, which wasted my 
 constitution."^ ''Poor child!" she writes years 
 afterward, "Far remote In time, In thought, from 
 that period, I look back on these glooms and ter- 
 rors, wherein I was enveloped, and perceive that 
 I had no natural childhood." ^ In 1844, In refer- 
 ring to the Improved methods In education, phys- 
 ical, as also mental and spiritual, she writes In her 
 diary : "If we had only been as well brought up In 
 these respects ! It was not mother's fault that she 
 was ignorant of every physical law, young, un- 
 taught country girl as she was; but I can't help 
 mourning, sometimes, that my bodily health 
 should have been so destroyed by the Ignorance of 
 both my parents." ^ 
 
 'Memoirs, I. 15. ■ ^bid., I. 16. 
 
 ' Diary, 1844, quoted by Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 22. 
 
26 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 It was with her books that Margaret Fuller at 
 this period passed her days, especially Latin 
 works, of which she must have read a great 
 many. Besides Latin, she mentions in these early 
 years, English grammar and Greek. The latter, 
 however, she did not learn as thoroughly as Latin 
 — "only enough to feel that the sounds told the 
 same story as the mythology," ^ which charmed 
 her very much. "Within the house," she contin- 
 ues, "everything was socially utilitarian; my books 
 told of a proud world." One joy which she 
 found, however, was the little garden near the 
 house, of which she cannot say enough and 
 where she came into heart-to-heart touch with 
 nature at first hand. She felt, too, a great 
 pleasure in viewing the sunset. Of friends, 
 she speaks with rapture of her attachment 
 for a cultured young English lady, who was 
 paying a visit to America, and who seemed to 
 Margaret to have developed within her exactly 
 that which Margaret then unconsciously sought, 
 namely, her inner life and soul. Outside of these 
 two pleasures, which are suited to the tempera- 
 ment of an older person rather than to that of a 
 child, her childhood seems to have been particu- 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. a2. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 27 
 
 larly barren of the many little friendships with 
 others of her own age, and the various pleasures 
 and pastimes in which children usually take so 
 much delight. Writing of this period later, she 
 says: "The common prose world [was] so pres- 
 ent to me."^ 
 
 It was this merely living in books and phrases 
 that made her admire so much those Greeks and 
 Romans of whom she studied. "I lived in those 
 Greek forms the true faith of a refined and intense 
 childhood," she writes. "So great was the force 
 of reality with which these forms impressed me, 
 that I prayed earnestly for a sign — that it would 
 lighten in some particular region of the heavens, 
 or that I might find a bunch of grapes in the path, 
 when I went forth in the morning. But no sign 
 was given, and I was left a waif stranded upon 
 the shores of modern life." - Her feeling for the 
 Romans was nothing short of ecstacy. They ap- 
 peared to her to live real, positive lives, they pos- 
 sessed personality, were real men of flesh and 
 blood; natural, vigorous, practical men of deeds. 
 They had at least one side of their character 
 developed that had been neglected in her educa- 
 tion; and feeling this want in herself, made her 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 18. "Ibid., I. 21 f. 
 
28 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 admire them and long for the qualities which dis- 
 tinguished them. "I thought with rapture," she 
 writes, "of the all-accomplished man, him of 
 many talents, wide resources, clear sight, and om- 
 nipotent will. A Caesar seemed great enough." 
 "Horace was a great deal to me then, and is so 
 still. . . . He is a natural man of the world; he 
 is what he ought to be." "It never shocks us that 
 the Roman is self-conscious. One wants no uni- 
 versal truths from him, no philosophy, no crea- 
 tion, but only his life, his Roman life felt in every 
 pulse, realized in every gesture." It was not long, 
 however, until these characters seemed insufficient 
 to her. As soon as she learned to know from the 
 works of Shakespeare, Moliere, and Cervantes 
 characters that were better rounded out she felt 
 that too much emphasis was laid on the external 
 side of the Greek and Roman characters, and not 
 enough on the internal. "I did not then know," 
 she says, "that such men impoverish the treasury 
 to build the palace." ^ 
 
 When Margaret was thirteen years old she was 
 already so mature in mind and appearance that 
 she sought her companions among girls much 
 older than herself ; yet socially she was, in general, 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 20 ff. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 29 
 
 without success. Her father, realizing that he 
 had made a mistake in her bringing-up, saw 
 that she lived too much in her books, and was 
 therefore unable to appear well in society. She 
 had spent some time at the celebrated school of 
 Dr. Park In Boston, but now her father decided 
 to send her to the girls' school of the Misses Pres- 
 cott at Groton. Here, according to her own ac- 
 count, she suffered much because of her social 
 eccentricities and inability to mix well with the 
 other girls of the school. She Improved much 
 in these respects, however, while here, and re- 
 turned home after two years, much benefited by 
 her experiences. Nevertheless she writes, some- 
 what later, concerning the faults of the educa- 
 tional system, as it then was, and of her teachers: 
 "I was now In the hands of teachers, who had not, 
 since they came on the earth, put to themselves 
 one Intelligent question as to their business here. 
 . . . They, no doubt. Injured those who ac- 
 cepted the husks they proffered for bread, and be- 
 lieved that exercise of memory was study, and to 
 know what others knew, was the object of 
 study." ^ 
 
 Upon her return from Groton she continued 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 132. 
 
30 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 her studies at home after the same manner as be- 
 fore, developing the intellect and neglecting the 
 other natural faculties that go to make up life and 
 character. How Industriously she worked and 
 what subjects she covered, may be learned from 
 a letter dated July, 1825, and addressed to one 
 of her former teachers at Groton, 
 
 "I rise a little before five, walk an hour, and 
 then practice on the piano, till seven, when we 
 breakfast. Next I read French — SIsmondl's Liter- 
 ature of the South of Europe — till eight, then 
 two or three lectures In Brown's Philosophy. 
 About half past nine I go to Mr. Perkins' school 
 and study Greek till twelve, when, the school being 
 dismissed, I recite, go home, and practice again 
 till dinner, at two. . . . Then, when I can, I read 
 two hours in Italian, but am often Interrupted. 
 At six, I walk, or take a drive. Before going to 
 bed I play or sing, for half an hour or so, to make 
 all sleepy, and, about eleven, retire to write a 
 little while In my journal, exercises on what I have 
 read, or a series of characteristics which I am 
 filling up according to advice. Thus, you see, I 
 am learning Greek, and making acquaintance with 
 metaphysics, and French and Italian literature." ^ 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 52 f. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 31 
 
 The next year we find her reading Madame de 
 Stael, for whom she felt much enthusiasm, Eplc- 
 tetus, Milton, Racine, and the Castlllan ballads. 
 During the next two years she makes the acquaint- 
 ance of Locke, and reads Madame de Stael's 
 comments on his system. Among many other 
 books on various subjects, she reads Russell's Tour 
 in Germany, which she calls "a most interesting 
 book." 
 
 From the accounts above we may fairly judge 
 that she covered in her studies, up to the time she 
 was twenty-two years old (1832), more or less 
 thoroughly, the whole field of English, Latin, 
 French, Spanish, and Italian literatures, besides 
 dipping somewhat Into Greek and philosophy. 
 
 Emerson however, makes a note that when she 
 came to Concord, about 1835, she was little 
 read in Shakespeare. This is important, for the 
 one author who could best have developed the 
 side of her nature so much neglected, that Is, her 
 feelings and inner life, was rather slighted. Of 
 the good effects of her study of all these authors 
 and this mass of literature, she writes: "They 
 taught me to distrust all Invention which is not 
 based on a wide experience." But, she adds: 
 'Terhaps, too, they taught me to overvalue an out- 
 
32 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 ward experience at the expense of inward growth; 
 but all this I did not appreciate until later.'" 
 
 Very interesting it is to study Margaret Fuller's 
 early religious training in her home, and the atti- 
 tude she took toward the New England church of 
 the day. Mrs. Howe describes the orthodox 
 churchman as a ^'stern Presbyterian, with his dog- 
 mas and his task-work, the city circle arid the 
 college, with their niggard conceptions and unfeel- 
 ing stare."- The church as it was then failed 
 utterly to satisfy the wants and longings of her 
 inner life. 
 
 Of Sunday in her home and at church, she 
 writes: "This day was punctiliously set apart in 
 our house. . . . The day was pleasing to me, as 
 relieving me from the routine of tasks and reci- 
 tations; . . . still the church going, where I 
 heard nothing that had any connection with my 
 inward life, and these rules, gave me associations 
 with the day of empty formalities, and arbitrary 
 restrictions; but though the forbidden book or 
 walk always seemed more charming then, I was 
 seldom tempted to disobey."^ 
 
 How strictly Margaret, then but a little girl, 
 
 * Memoirs, I. 30 f. ^ Howe, Margaret Fuller^ p. 123. 
 
 * Memoirs^ I. 26. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 33 
 
 was held to these "arbitrary rules" may be gath- 
 ered from a description of her experience upon 
 the occasion of her first acquaintance with Shake- 
 speare. She had taken down a volume of his 
 works, one winter Sunday afternoon, and become 
 deeply interested in Romeo and Juliet. Her 
 father, taking notice, asked what book she was 
 reading. "Shakespeare," she answered. "Shake- 
 speare! — that won't do; that's no book for 
 Sunday; go put it away and take another." She 
 put it away, but her deep interest m the characters 
 whose acquaintance she had just made tempted 
 her to take the book again. When asked a second 
 time what she was reading, she answered, "Shake- 
 speare." "How?" answered her father, angrily, 
 "Give me the book and go directly to bed." She 
 went, but could not sleep, because her "fancies 
 swarmed like bees," as she devised and formed 
 in her own mind a conclusion to the story she had 
 begun. Soon her father came in to argue the 
 case with her, but to no avail. She could feel no 
 sympathy with these empty rules and formalities. 
 The world of these plays was different; there she 
 found a "free flow of life," which "brought home 
 the life I seemed born to live." ^ 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 26 f. 
 
34 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Again, at the age of fifteen, she mentions in a 
 letter (July, 1825), her disinclination to go to 
 church. "Having excused myself from accom- 
 panying my honored father to church, which I 
 always do in the afternoon, when possible, I de- 
 vote to you the hours. . . etc."^ 
 
 Perhaps the strongest statement of her revul- 
 sion against the Puritan theology and religious 
 customs is in the following passage : 
 
 "It was Thanksgiving Day (November, 1831), 
 and I was obliged to go to church, or exceedingly 
 displease my father. I almost always suffered 
 much in church from a feeling of disunion with 
 the hearers and dissent from the preacher; but 
 to-day, more than ever before, the services jarred 
 upon me from their grateful and joyful tone." ^ 
 
 Much as Margaret Fuller felt at variance 
 with the church, she sought earnestly, never- 
 theless, to find comfort for her inner life in the 
 regular orthodox religion. This is shown in the 
 continuation of the description of her experiences 
 on this same Thanksgiving Day. Wearied out with 
 mental conflicts and in a sad frame of mind, she 
 sought relief and solitude by a walk into the fields. 
 The day was cold and the sky gloomy. Suddenly 
 
 ^Memoirs,!. 52. ^Ibid., 139. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 35 
 
 the sunshine burst through the clouds and flooded 
 her surroundings "with that transparent sweet- 
 ness, like the last smile of a dying lover." ^ A 
 happier spirit came over her soul and made her 
 feel herself nearer to the Divine Being, and she 
 seemed, for the moment, reconciled. But If we 
 read more closely this same description, we see 
 clearly that her feeling Is rather a momentary 
 resignation of self, than one of lasting comfort 
 and Inspiration. It Is a giving up of her dearest 
 hopes, an ejEfacing of all Individuality and finding 
 a temporary happiness In this mystic negation of 
 soul. "I saw," she writes, "there was no self; 
 . . . that It was only because I thought self real 
 that I suffered; that I had only to live In the Idea 
 of the All and all was mine. ... In that true 
 ray most of the relations of earth seemed mere 
 films, phenomena." ~ 
 
 It Is very readily seen that had this ne- 
 gation of self been permanent, and had she 
 remained In this frame of mind and state of 
 feeling, beautiful as It all seemed to her then, 
 her development would have stopped right 
 there, and she never would have become the 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 140, 141. ^Ibid., 140, 141. 
 
36 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 strong, positive force, the energetic character that 
 we know her. 
 
 This does not mean that Margaret Fuller had 
 no deep religious instincts. That she did have, 
 is evident from her religious Credo^ of 1842, and 
 from the numerous ardent prayers quoted from 
 her letters and journal by her biographers. She, 
 too, was as capable as anybody of enjoying a good 
 humanitarian sermon, one that was full of thought 
 and encouragement and that bore a real relation 
 to her inner life. She has left on record many 
 beautiful tributes to the preaching of such men 
 as Emerson, Dr. W. E. Channing, W. H. Chan- 
 ning, and J. F. Clarke. Yet It Is nevertheless true 
 that her religious belief, as shown by her Credo 
 and her private letters, was quite different from 
 that of any of these men and from any of the 
 contemporary New England churches. Especially 
 is it true that she was in open dissent with the 
 religious dogma of the church of her parents — 
 the Puritan. 
 
 Aside from the fact that she was not orthodox. 
 It is hard to say just what her religious belief was 
 prior to 1832. Somewhat later, after she had 
 studied German a year or so, she writes In answer 
 
 *See Appendix, p. 247 ff. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 37 
 
 to a letter from J. F. Clarke, in which he seems 
 to have enquired after her religious life and be- 
 lief: "Very early I knew that the only object in 
 life was to grow." She further states that though 
 she "was often false to this knowledge, in idola- 
 tries of particular objects," ^ she had never lost 
 sight of this aim. In a letter dated May 4, 1830, 
 Margaret Fuller describes just how she would 
 like to see a person of genius developed. We 
 may take for granted that she herself at that time 
 eagerly desired to be brought to a full realization 
 of life and of her powers in the same way. 
 
 "I have greatly wished to see among us," she 
 writes, "such a person of genius as the nineteenth 
 century can afford — i. e., one who has tasted in 
 the morning of existence the extremes of good 
 and ill, both imaginative and real. I had imag- 
 ined a person endowed by nature with that acute 
 sense of Beauty, (i. e., Harmony or Truth), 
 and that vast capacity of desire which give soul 
 to love and ambition. ... I would have had 
 him go on steadily, feeding his mind with con- 
 genial love, hopefully confident that if he only 
 nourished his existence into perfect life, Fate 
 would, at fitting season, furnish an atmosphere and 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 132 f. 
 
38 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 orbit meet for his breathing and exercise. I wished 
 he might adore, not fever for, the bright phan- 
 toms of his mind's creation, and believe them but 
 the shadows of external things to be met with 
 hereafter. After this steady intellectual growth 
 had brought his powers to manhood, so far as 
 the ideal can do it, I wished this being might be 
 launched into the world of realities, his heart 
 glowing with the ardor of an immortal toward 
 perfection, his eyes searching everywhere to behold 
 it; I wished he might collect into one burning 
 point those withering, palsying convictions, which, 
 in the ordinary routine of things, so gradually 
 pervade the soul; that he might suffer, in brief 
 space, agonies of disappointment commensurate 
 with his unpreparedness and confidence. And I 
 thought, thus thrown back on the representing 
 pictorial resources I supposed him originally to 
 possess, with such material, and the need he must 
 feel of using it, such a man would suddenly dilate 
 into a form of Pride, Power, and Glory, a center, 
 round which asking, aimless hearts might rally — a 
 man fitted to act as Interpreter to the one tale 
 of many-languaged eyes!"^ 
 
 It is interesting to note how she longs for just 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 69 f. 
 
EARLY EDUCATION 39 
 
 such a development of character as she finds later 
 in the great characters of Goethe — In Faust and 
 Wilhelm Meister. Beyond the mere longing, how- 
 ever, she seems at this period not to have made 
 any progress towards a realization of this Ideal. 
 
 In concluding this chapter we find Margaret 
 Fuller at the age of twenty-two (1832) a young 
 woman of high sensibilities, with a lively, active 
 mind. Her mind, however, has been developed 
 out of all proportion to her other powers, in fact, 
 to the neglect of these: In her own words, her 
 "true life . . . was secluded and veiled over by 
 a thick curtain of available intellect."^ The ortho- 
 dox church, too, has failed to satisfy her spiritual 
 needs, In fact, has repelled her by its empty for- 
 malities, narrow dogmas, controversial sermons, 
 and arbitrary restrictions. We see also that she 
 has a yearning for a deeper inner experience and 
 growth, but that her inner nature had not yet been 
 called out. 
 
 *'How little," writes Julia Ward Howe, "were 
 the beauties of her mind, the graces of her char- 
 acter, guessed at or sought for by those who saw 
 in her unlikeness to the popular or fashionable 
 
 ^Memoirs, p. i8. 
 
40 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 type of the time matter only for derisive 
 comment!" ^ 
 
 It will be the object of the following chapter to 
 show how she supplemented her early, very im- 
 perfect education by the teaching of her great 
 second school-master, Goethe. We shall see with 
 what enthusiasm she studied the "Great Sage," 
 as she calls him, how she assimilated what she 
 found, until it became an integral part of her 
 nature, and thus rounded out her character and 
 personality, until it reached its highest develop- 
 ment and truest proportions. 
 
 ^ Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 47. 
 
Chapter II 
 STUDY OF GERMAN 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF MARGARET FULLER'S 
 INNER LIFE 
 
 Margaret Fuller began the study of German In 
 1832. Her Interest in this study was aroused, 
 probably for the first time, through the works of 
 Madame de Stael, whom she mentions in a letter 
 as early as May, 1826. In this letter she calls 
 her "Brilliant, . . useful too, but it is on the 
 grand scaie, on liberalizing, regenerating princi- 
 ples." ^ The next year she calls attention to her 
 again. From this distinguished woman's works 
 Margaret Fuller must have become acquainted 
 with the Weimar circle — Goethe, Schiller, Herder, 
 etc. In fact, Weimar Is mentioned by her in a 
 letter January, 1828.^ She read, too, RusseWs 
 Tour in Germany, in which she found some in- 
 teresting material about German universities. But 
 the greatest Incitement and the Immediate cause 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 55. ^Ibid., p. 56. 
 
 41 
 
42 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 for her study of German were, according to J. F. 
 Clarke, the romantic articles of Thomas Carlyle 
 on Goethe, Schiller, and RIchter, which appeared 
 In the old Foreign Review^ The Edinburgh Re- 
 view, and later In the Foreign Quarterly. Both 
 she and Mr. Clarke were attracted to this litera- 
 ture at the same time. 
 
 'T believe," Mr. Clarke writes, "that In about 
 three months from the time that Margaret com- 
 menced German, she was reading with ease the 
 masterpieces of Its literature. Within the year she 
 had read Goethe's Faust, Tasso, Iphlgenle, Her- 
 mann and Dorothea, Elective Affinities, and Mem- 
 oirs; TIeck's William Lovel, Prince Zerbino, and 
 other works; Korner, Novalls, and something of 
 RIchter; all of Schiller's principal dramas, and his 
 lyric poetry." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller never took any formal instruc- 
 tion in German, but was for the most part, except 
 as to pronunciation, her own teacher. This is 
 shown by the following two passages, the first 
 from her diary of January, 1833, in which she 
 writes: "I have now a pursuit of immediate Im- 
 portance : to the German language and literature I 
 will give my undivided attention. I have made 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 114. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 43 
 
 rapid progress for one quite unassisted/^ ^ The 
 second is from a letter to Emerson, December, 
 1842: "Italian, as well as German, I Teamed by 
 myself, unassisted, except as to the pronuncia- 
 tion." ' 
 
 Her ability to comprehend the underlying prin- 
 ciples and meaning of each author she studied, and 
 to see the fine distinctions between them must have 
 been little short of marvelous. This trait is dwelt 
 on by Mr. Clarke. "The first and most striking 
 element in the genius of Margaret was the clear, 
 sharp understanding, which keenly distinguished 
 between things different, and kept every thought, 
 opinion, person, character, in its own place, not to 
 be confounded with any other. . . . Every writer 
 whom she studied, as every person whom she 
 knew, she placed in his own class, knew his rela- 
 tion to other writers, to the world, to life, to 
 nature, to herself." ^ 
 
 It was fortunate for Margaret Fuller that she 
 grew up and lived during a number of years almost 
 within the shadow of Harvard College. Her 
 family was socially prominent and moved in 
 
 Harvard circles. Margaret enjoyed, therefore, 
 
 • 
 
 ^ Margaret Fuller's Diary, 1833, quoted by Higginson, Mar- 
 garet Fuller Ossoli, p. 41. 
 
 'Memoirs, I. 241. ' Ibid., I. 113. 
 
44 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 all the privileges that came from being brought up 
 in an Intellectual atmosphere. During the period 
 of Margaret Fuller's life with which this chapter 
 deals, German scholarship and the study of Ger- 
 man were arousing a great deal of interest at 
 Harvard. Charles Follen was there, and George 
 Ticknor and Edward Everett had just returned 
 from Germany, where they had studied in the Ger- 
 man universities. All were enthusiastic for Ger- 
 man and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of 
 German scholarship. Margaret Fuller came into 
 close social contact with these distinguished men 
 and German scholars, and with others who had 
 been their pupils. 
 
 The three men of her Immediate acquaintance 
 who undoubtedly influenced Margaret Fuller most 
 in the study of German were Charles Follen, 
 Frederick Henry Hedge, and James Freeman 
 Clarke. The first of these. Dr. Charles Follen, 
 had already won a reputation as a scholar abroad, 
 but had been compelled to flee to America as a 
 political exile from Germany. He was a most 
 broad-minded, public-spirited, and talented man, 
 a man of high republican principles, and one of 
 our first great and most enthusiastic anti-slavery 
 advocates, a man who has as yet unfortunately not 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 45 
 
 received the general recognition due him. He 
 taught, at this time, German, ecclesiastical history, 
 and ethics in Harvard College. His personality as 
 well as his celebrity as a scholar, must undoubtedly 
 have contributed considerably to the rise of in- 
 terest in German literature in Cambridge and Bos- 
 ton at just this time; for Mr. Higginson writes: 
 "Every one who knew him was his friend." ^ Mar- 
 garet Fuller must have met him often, for they 
 moved in the same circles. 
 
 Of great personal assistance to Margaret Fuller 
 was Rev. Frederick Henry Hedge, an ardent 
 friend of the Fuller family, and a contributor to 
 Margaret Fuller's biography. He had studied 
 several years In Germany, and had the reputation 
 of being "a fountain of knowledge In the way of 
 German." ^ From him she borrowed chiefly her 
 German books, and discussed with him by letter, 
 and doubtless also orally, what she had read. He 
 also. Miss Edith D. Fuller writes,^ probably 
 helped her somewhat with her pronunciation. 
 *'HIs conversation," says J. F. Clarke, "was full of 
 interest and excitement for her. He opened to her 
 
 ^ MS. letter of Mr. Higginson to Miss Edith D. Fuller, niece 
 to Margaret Fuller, February, 1909. 
 
 " Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 44. 
 
 ' MS. letter of Miss Edith D. Fuller, Feb. 1909. 
 
46 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 a whole world of thoughts and speculations which 
 gave movement to her mind in a congenial direc- 
 tion." ^ 
 
 But the one who deserves most to be mentioned 
 In this connection Is James Freeman Clarke, the 
 great Unitarian preacher, author, and anti-slavery 
 advocate, who had studied under Dr. Follen. He 
 had already received a degree from Harvard Col- 
 lege, and was now a student in the theological 
 seminary. Nevertheless he still kept up, as he 
 did nearly all his life, a lively interest in German 
 writers, especially Goethe, of whose influence on 
 him Dr. Edward Everett Hale says: "But espe- 
 cially was he reading Goethe. And afterwards, 
 in referring to those happy days, he would always 
 speak with enthusiasm of the larger life which 
 opened upon so many of them, under Goethe's 
 lead." ^ It was probably Mr. Clarke chiefly who 
 taught Margaret Fuller the German pronuncia- 
 tion, since W. H. Channing writes: that he "was 
 her constant companion In exploring the rich gar- 
 dens of German literature."^ Mr. Clarke, him- 
 self, in speaking of this period, says: "Almost 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 90. 
 
 'Autobiography, Diary, and Correspondence of James Freeman 
 Clarke, p. 90 f. 
 ^Memoirs, II. 8. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 47 
 
 every evening I saw her and heard an account of 
 her studies." ^ ''She needed a friend to whom to 
 speak of her studies, to whom to express the ideas 
 which were dawning and taking shape in her mind. 
 She accepted me for this friend." ^ 
 
 Nothing could have awakened and quickened 
 her mind, in fact, enlivened her whole being more 
 than these her German studies. It was a period 
 "with great intensity of the inner life," writes F. 
 H. Hedge in the Memoirs, for "she read with the 
 heart." She had "a passionate love for the beau- 
 tiful, which comprehended all the kingdoms of 
 nature and art." ^ She "framed an acquaintance 
 with Goethe, who was destined in no small degree 
 to influence her future life." * "With what eager- 
 ness did she seek for knowldge !" Mr. Clarke 
 writes : "What fire, what exuberance, what reach, 
 grasp, overflow of thought, shone in her conversa- 
 tion! . . . To me it [the association with her at 
 this time] was a gift of the gods, an influence like 
 no other." ^ "Her mind opened under this In- 
 fluence, as the apple-blossom at the end of a warm 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 114. 
 = Ibid., I. 62. 
 'Ibid., I. 93. 
 
 *Note by F. H. Hedge among Margaret Fuller's MSS. in 
 Boston Public Library. 
 ^Memoirs, I. 62. 
 
48 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 week In May. The thought and the beauty of this 
 rich literature equally filled her mind and fascinat- 
 ed her Imagination."^ "I recall other mornings 
 [somewhat later on]", writes Mr. Clarke again, 
 "when not having seen her for a week or two, I 
 would walk with her for hours, beneath the lindens 
 or In the garden, while we related to each other 
 what we had read In our German studies. And I 
 always left her astonished at the progress of her 
 mind, at the amount of new thoughts she had 
 garnered, and filled with a new sense of the worth 
 of knowledge, and the value of life." ^ Life began 
 to take on a different meaning for her under the 
 vivifying Influence of these new thoughts. They 
 became, as we see, a part of her Innermost soul and 
 being. She felt a living interest In all she read. 
 Her Inner life, so long neglected, began to grow, 
 and her personality to expand; since for her, says 
 Mr. Clarke, "Authors and their personages were 
 not Ideal beings merely, but full of human blood 
 and life." ' 
 
 The amount of reading Margaret Fuller did in 
 German, both In Cambridge, and In Groton, was 
 simply marvelous. "I am having one of my 'in- 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 114. 
 Mbid., 108. 
 •Ibid., 114. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 49 
 
 tense' times/' she writes from Groton, "devouring 
 book after book. I never stop a minute, except to 
 talk with mother."^ But the works of the differ- 
 ent authors did not affect her equally. Lesslng's 
 dramas she reads and thus criticizes: "Well con- 
 ceived and sustained characters, interesting situa- 
 tions. ... I think him easily followed; strong 
 but not deep." ^ With Novalis she was charmed; 
 for, in common with her associates, she had a 
 Romantic note in her temperament. "The good 
 Novalis," she says, "a wondrous youth," then 
 quoting Geothe's phrase, whose "life was so full 
 and so still. "^ His "one-sidedness, imperfection, 
 and glow" are "refreshingly human," and "a re- 
 lief, after feeling the immense superiority of 
 Goethe." She wants to keep a Novalis journal for 
 one of her friends, and to devote two articles in a 
 series on German literature in a proposed literary 
 magazine, to him and her favorite Korner, toward 
 whom her attention was directed by Dr. Pollen. 
 Korner "charms" her, and "has become a fixed 
 star in the heaven of my thought," she writes; 
 "Great is my love for both of them [Novalis and 
 Korner]."* TIeck seems to her so Important that 
 
 ^ Memoirs, J. 16^. ^Ibid., 121. ^Ibid., 118 ff. 
 
 * Ibid., I20, 169. 
 
50 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 she wishes to devote to him at least eight num- 
 bers In the same proposed periodical, should It ap- 
 pear. Of Jean Paul RIchter's "pages" she wishes 
 to ''make a book, or, as he would say, bind me a 
 bouquet from his pages and wear it on my heart 
 of hearts," to refresh her "wearied Inward sense 
 with Its exquisite fragrance." "I must have Im- 
 proved," she concludes, "to love him as I do." ^ 
 She translates into verse and quotes from him 
 beautiful passages. Heine, too, and Uhland, from 
 whom she also translates, are well known to her. 
 She studies Ruble's and Tennemann's histories of 
 Philosophy, and reads Fichte and Jacobl. Fichte 
 she cannot understand. Jacobl she understands in 
 detail, but not In system. His mind, she thinks, 
 with marvelous Intuition, is moulded by some other 
 mind, perhaps Spinoza, with whom she feels she 
 ought to get acquainted to know Jacobl well. 
 Later she studies Spinoza and discusses him with 
 Theodore Parker. Herschel, too, she studies at the 
 advice of Professor Farrar, and "really believes" 
 she Is "a little wiser" as a result. A little later 
 on she makes the acquaintance of Eichhorn and 
 Jahn, and In 1836 translates for Dr. Channing, 
 Herder and De Wette. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 130. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 51 
 
 Great was Margaret Fuller's admiration for 
 the German masters of music; and her highly ap- 
 preciative article on these Masters In the Dial^ 
 contributed much to stimulate the rising Interest In 
 music In New England at the time, an Interest 
 which has steadily grown In America until the 
 present day. So heart-felt, In fact, was her ad- 
 miration of the great composers that, upon re- 
 turning from the Boston Academy of Music one 
 evening, she addressed a letter to Beethoven in the 
 spirit world. She calls him *'My only friend," 
 and writes: "Thou, oh blessed Master! dost an- 
 swer all my questions, and make It my privilege to 
 be." ' 
 
 But for none of these authors was her admira- 
 tion so strong as for Schiller. She early read all 
 his principal dramas and his lyric poetry, and later 
 much of his prose works. So fascinated did she 
 become with him and the characters he created that 
 at one time she wrote ; ''I don't like Goethe so well 
 as Schiller now. I mean I am not so happy In 
 reading him. That perfect wisdom and merciless 
 nature seems cold, after those seducing pictures of 
 forms more beautiful than truth." ^ This prefer- 
 
 ^ See Art, Literature, and the Dramay p. 222. 
 ^Memoirs, I. 232 ff. 
 'Ibid., 117. 
 
52 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 ence of Schiller to Goethe was, however, transi- 
 tory, yet she mentions him many times throughout 
 her works and In her letters, and quotes from him 
 often. 
 
 The power, however, that truly marks this 
 greatest epoch In the development of her inner 
 life, the Influence more powerful than all the 
 others combined, the guiding star which shed light 
 on her whole subsequent career and led her into a 
 new world of thought and feeling, was Goethe. 
 In his masterly analysis of Margaret Fuller's 
 character and larger Inner life, Emerson writes : 
 
 ''Dante, Petrarca, Tasso, were her friends 
 among the old poets, — for to Arlosto she assigned 
 a far lower place, — Alfierl and ManzonI, among 
 the new. But what was of still more import to her 
 education, she had read German books, and, for 
 the three years before I knew her, almost exclu- 
 sively, — Lessing, Schiller, Richter, Tieck, Novalls, 
 and, above all, Goethe. It was very obvious, 
 at the first intercourse with her, though her rich 
 and busy mind never reproduced undigested read- 
 ing, that the last writer, — food or poison, — the 
 most powerful of all mental reagents, — the pivotal 
 mind in modern literature, .... — that this 
 mind had been her teacher, and, of course, the 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 53 
 
 place was filled, nor was there room for any other. 
 She had that symptom which appears in all 
 students of Goethe — an ill-dissembled contempt of 
 all criticism on him which they hear from others, 
 as if it were totally irrelevant. . . ." 
 
 *'The effect on Margaret was complete," Emer- 
 son continues. "She was perfectly timed to it. She 
 found her moods met, her topics treated, the lib- 
 erty of thought she loved, the same climate of 
 mind. Of course, this book [i.e., Goethe's works] 
 superseded all others, for the time, and tinged 
 deeply all her thoughts. The religion, the science, 
 the Catholicism, the worship of art, the mysticism 
 and daemonology, and withal the clear recog- 
 nition of moral distinctions as final and eternal, all 
 charmed her; and Faust, and Tasso, and Mignon, 
 and Makaria, and Iphigenie, became irresistible 
 names. It was one of those agreeable historical 
 coincidences, perhaps invariable, though not yet 
 registered, the simultaneous appearance of a 
 teacher and of pupils, between whom exists a 
 strict affinity." ^ 
 
 It is clearly evident from this passage by Emer- 
 son and from other passages by Margaret Fuller 
 herself, which are to follow, that Mr. Higginson 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 242 ff. 
 
54 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 in his biography of Margaret Fuller greatly un- 
 derestimates the influence of Goethe on her when 
 he tries to make it appear, from a single broken 
 passage quoted from one of her letters, that she 
 merely looked upon Goethe as a great thinker, 
 and not as a guide, or a friend." 
 
 There are, however, other passages here and 
 there, throughout her works, like the one quoted 
 by Mr. Higginson, that give evidence of a reminis- 
 cence or a residue, still in her nature, of the Puri- 
 tan doctrines, bequeathed to her from many gen- 
 erations. This part of her nature continually 
 struggled for utterance against the broader and 
 more comprehensive views of life taught by 
 Goethe. Then, too, an enormous outside pressure 
 was brought to bear on her in the same direction, 
 since so far as spiritual teaching and the rigor of 
 their asceticism is concerned, the Transcendental- 
 ists had much in common with their Puritan an- 
 cestors. These combined inner and outer forces in 
 Margaret Fuller's case, therefore, were not wholly 
 without effect. It is this that made her lean at 
 times toward an unemotional spirituality and rig- 
 
 ^ Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, 283 ff. 
 
 * For a description of the difference in temperament between 
 Emerson and Margaret Fuller, by Emerson himself, see Mem- 
 oirs, I. 201 fif. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 55 
 
 orism* like that of Emerson, which ordinarily she 
 condemned In him. This characteristic of her 
 nature, too, probably led her to utter the passage 
 upon which Dr. H. C. Goddard lays so much, in 
 fact entirely too much emphasis. ^ It Is also be- 
 cause of this Inner contention that she sometimes 
 fails to do Goethe and his principles justice, and 
 here and there makes contradictory statements 
 concerning her relation to him. That this struggle 
 lasted at least until a few years before the end 
 of her life, Is evident from her letters, her pre- 
 face to the translation of Goethe's Conversations 
 with Eckermann; and from the last one of her 
 two articles on Goethe In the Dial. ^ 
 
 Nowhere Is the evidence of this Inner strife 
 clearer than in this last-named article, nor the 
 victory of the Goethean spirit more supreme. We 
 can only judge that In all other cases, like this, 
 something similar took place, I. e., there was a 
 momentary struggle. But if we study her doctrine 
 of character-building, her relation to her friends, 
 her acts — in short her whole life and development 
 — we see that, consciously or unconsciously (prob- 
 ably for the most part unconsciously) she was, 
 
 ^Studies in New England Transcendentalism, by H. C. God- 
 dard, p. 137. 
 ' Dial, Vol. II, No. i, 1841. Life Without and Life Within,^,2% ff. 
 
56 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 as Emerson correctly says, a most faithful pupil 
 and follower of Goethe. 
 
 After true Puritan fashion she speaks at the 
 beginning of the article in the Dial, just men- 
 tioned, of Goethe's intellect "too much developed 
 in proportion to the moral nature," "Naturally 
 of a deep mind and a shallow heart," wanting in 
 "the sweetness of piety," and "cold, setting him- 
 self apart from his true peers, the real sovereigns 
 of Weimar — Herder, Wieland and the others." ^ 
 But almost immediately after her first statement 
 she thrusts In a doubt to soften and tone it down, 
 saying: "It is difficult to speak [thus of such men 
 as Goethe] without seeming narrow, blind, and 
 Impertinent. . . . For ... If you feel a want of 
 a faculty in them, it is hard to say they have It not, 
 lest, next moment, they puzzle you by giving you 
 some indication of It." - And in a passage from a 
 letter, written In 1836, she says the same thing of 
 Goethe more directly: "Yet often, when sus- 
 pecting that I have found a huge gap, the next 
 turning it appears that it was but an airhole, and 
 there is a brick all ready to stop It." ^ 
 
 Only a few passages further in the article in the 
 
 ^^Life Without and Life Within, p. 23 ff. 
 " Ibid, p. 24. 
 ^Memoirs, I. 167. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 57 
 
 Dial, when speaking of Goethe's Tasso, she no 
 longer feels what she has written at the beginning 
 and praises highly the tenderness, the "depth and 
 fullness" which Goethe has given to Tasso's char- 
 acter, and his "entire abandonment to the highest 
 nature." "But, you say," she continues, "there Is 
 no likeness between Goethe and Tasso. Never 
 believe It; such pictures are not painted from ob- 
 servation merely. That deep coloring which fills 
 them with light and life is given by dipping the 
 brush in one's own life-blood." ^ This surely Is 
 not In harmony with her accusation that Goethe 
 was "cold" and of a "shallow heart," or too in- 
 tellectual. Three pages further Margaret Fuller 
 praises the "wise mind of the duchess," Amalla, 
 for giving the first Impulse to Goethe's ''noble 
 course'' at Weimar, contradicting exactly what 
 she said of his course here at the beginning of the 
 article. - 
 
 A little further on her feeling for Goethe be- 
 comes still stronger. "One Is ashamed," she 
 writes, "when finding any fault with one like 
 Goethe, who Is so great. It seems the only criti- 
 cism should be to do all he omitted to do, and that 
 none who cannot is entitled to say a word." ^ 
 
 ^Life Without and Life Within, p. 28. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 31. 'Ibid., p. 45. 
 
58 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Just a few pages further, after defending most 
 vigorously the Elective Affinities, against all the 
 absurd and bitter criticism heaped upon it, and 
 losing herself, heart and soul in the sweetness and 
 purity of the character of Ottilia, she says, even 
 before taking up such a character as Goethe's 
 Iphigenie : ^'At this moment, remembering what 
 I then [at the beginning of the article] felt, I am 
 inclined to class all my negations just written on 
 this paper as stuff, and look upon myself, for 
 thinking them, with as much contempt as Mr. Car- 
 lyle, or Mrs. Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, 
 to say nothing of the German Goetheans." ^ 
 
 At the end of the article after analyzing "Iphi- 
 genie," she calls Goethe "the brightest star in 
 a new constellation" and closes by appealing to 
 her readers, in Goethe's behalf: "Let us enter 
 into his higher tendency, thank him for such angels 
 as Iphigenie, whose simple truth mocks at all his 
 wise 'Beschrankungen', and hope the hour when, 
 girt about with many such, he will confess, contrary 
 to his opinion, given in his latest days, that it is 
 well worth while to live seventy years, if only to 
 find that they are nothing in the sight of God." " 
 
 After reading this it would seem perfectly 
 
 * Life Without and Life Within, p. 51. 
 = Ibid., p. 60. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 59 
 
 absurd to claim that Margaret Fuller at this 
 period (1841) was no longer favorably inclined 
 toward Goethe, or an enthusiastic admirer of him; 
 or that his powerful influence was mo longer 
 exerted upon her. One who had read nothing else 
 of hers, might be tempted to believe she simply 
 made the statements against the great poet, in the 
 beginning of her article, statements expressing a 
 feeling against Goethe so common in New Eng- 
 land at the time, in order to tear them to pieces 
 later on and prove the contrary. Especially strong 
 is this temptation after reading her masterly de- 
 fense of Goethe in her article just preceding this 
 one, against Wolfgang Menzel, whose criticism 
 attacking Goethe had been translated by Professor 
 Felton of Harvard College. 
 
 It is, however, true that Margaret Fuller did 
 not slavishly follow and imitate Goethe. "Her 
 rich and busy mind," in the words of Emerson, 
 was never paralyzed in the presence of her great 
 master, nor did she ever "reproduce undigested 
 reading." She was too original for that, and her 
 personality too strong. She did not cease think- 
 ing on her own part nor did she give up in any 
 way her intellectual independence. The most be- 
 neficent influence that any great poet or thinker can 
 
6o MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 exercise upon us, Is not to cause us to follow vassal- 
 like In his train, but to stimulate, to Inspire In us 
 great and noble thoughts, to call out all the latent 
 energies and powers of the soul, and to develop 
 them to a greater degree of perfection and Inde- 
 pendence. This Is chiefly what Goethe did for 
 Margaret Fuller. 
 
 Goethe had above all other poets the special 
 faculty and power to free and call out most forci- 
 bly the ego, the real "L" In fact nobody has ever 
 been so powerful to develop the personality In his 
 followers, or as he calls them, his ^'Gemelnde," as 
 he. This Is clearly pointed out In an extract from 
 the lectures of Rudolph Hlldebrand on Goethe's 
 lyric poetry. ^ Theodor Crelzenach lays em- 
 phasis upon this same power of the great German 
 poet.^ Both of these distinguished critics of 
 Goethe, especially the first mentioned, show how 
 Goethe rediscovered that which Is the real human 
 part In man, the mainspring of character and per- 
 sonality, so long lost sight of and burled under- 
 neath the heap of debris of mere Intellectual 
 knowledge, which had accumulated for ages. He 
 
 ^Lectures of R. Hildebrand, published by Julius Goebel, 
 Goethe Jahrbuch, Vol. XXII. 205 ff. 
 
 ^ Goethe als Befreier, by Theodor Creizenach. Goethe Jahr- 
 bwh, Vol. XXII. 131 ff. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 6i 
 
 laid stress once more upon the Inner life of man, 
 the real motive forces In the soul, that go to make 
 up character. This force, Goethe showed, does not 
 consist in — nor Is it the result of — mere knowledge, 
 but it Is the very essence of our personality: "das 
 Unerkannteste und Unerkennbarste, und doch 
 Gewisseste In uns," * which he, as a poet intends 
 to bring out and liberate. It Is an appeal to the 
 heart, to the whole Inner soul of man. Here is the 
 whole secret : — Mind and heart, will and emotions 
 must both be called out, reconciled, and go hand In 
 hand. Character and a harmonious personality 
 are the result of a proper education of all these 
 conjointly. Goethe thus may justly call himself a 
 liberator, and say, he has freed us "from the 
 snares of pedants." ^ 
 
 Edward Everett Hale, too, saw this mission of 
 Goethe as a liberator of the soul from the tyranny 
 of Intellectual knowledge, for he writes concern- 
 ing J. F. Clarke, and his fellow-students In the 
 Divinity School at just this time: "These young 
 men could not read their Coleridge or their 
 Goethe without emancipating themselves at once 
 from the wooden philosophy of John Locke, over 
 
 *"The least known and least knowable, and yet that within 
 us of which we are the most certain." 
 ^ Goethe's Werke. Hempel edition, III. 267. 
 
62 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 which they had been made to hammer as under- 
 graduates." ^ It is especially in his lyric poetry 
 that Goethe succeeds so well in liberating our Ego 
 — in awakening our innermost feelings and devel- 
 oping the emotional side of character to balance 
 the intellectual. Goethe fulfills this, his mission 
 as a poet, as he calls it in his poem Fermachtniss, 
 by leading the way in which we, as emotional be- 
 ings, are to follow. 
 
 "Denn edlen Seelen vorzufuhlen 
 1st wiinschenswertester Beruf."*^ 
 
 Few persons felt his liberating influence more 
 deeply than did Margaret Fuller. How ripe and 
 ready she really was for the full force and effect 
 of such an appeal, is seen from her letter quoted 
 in the last pages of the preceding chapter of this 
 present treatise. How remarkably Goethe's in- 
 fluence acted upon Margaret Fuller, how com- 
 pletely carried away she now was with him, and 
 how, docile as a child, she filled her mind and heart 
 
 ^ Autobiography t Diary, and Correspondence of James Free- 
 man Clarke, p. 89 f. 
 
 * "For to lead noble souls in their feeling 
 
 [literally, to feel for them beforehand, so that they might 
 follow] 
 
 Is the most desirable of callings." 
 
 * Goethe's Werke, Hempel edition, III. 192. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 63 
 
 with some part of the ''Great Sage's'' teaching 
 every day, the following passages show most con- 
 clusively. She was practically re-educated, mind 
 and soul. Her feelings and inner life were 
 awakened and called out; and finally she emerged 
 from these years of the study of "Our Master 
 Goethe," as she confidently calls him,' an altered 
 being and a strong, fully developed personality. 
 She writes in 1832 : 
 
 "It seems to me as if the mind of Goethe had 
 embraced the universe. I have felt this lately, in 
 reading his lyric poems. I am enchanted while 
 I read. He comprehends every feeling I have 
 ever had so perfectly, expresses it so beautifully; 
 but when I shut the book, it seems as if I had lost 
 my personal identity; all my feelings linked with 
 such an immense variety that belong to beings I 
 had thought so different. What can I bring? 
 There is no answer in my mind, except 'It is so,' or 
 'It will be so,' or 'No doubt such and such feel so.' 
 Yet, while my judgement becomes daily more 
 tolerant toward others, the same attracting and 
 repelling work is going on in my feelings. But I 
 persevere in reading the great sage, some part of 
 every day, hoping the time will come, when I shall 
 
 ^Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 135. 
 
64 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 not feel so overwhelmed, and leave off this habit 
 of wishing to grasp the whole, and be contented to 
 learn a little every day, as becomes a pupil." ^ 
 
 In another passage, written the following year, 
 the same longing for a further Inner development, 
 as "Nature intended," is clearly expressed. She 
 would like to go to Goethe In her perplexity and 
 accept him both as a wise friend and a guide. 
 
 '*How often I have thought, if I could see 
 Goethe, and tell him my state of mind, he would 
 support and guide me ! He would be able to un- 
 derstand; he would show me how to rule circum- 
 stances, instead of being ruled by them; and, 
 above all, he would not have been so sure that all 
 would be for the best, without our making an ef- 
 fort to act out the oracles; he would have wished 
 to see me what Nature intended." ^ 
 
 "I constantly think of Goethe," she writes 
 again, "while I see life overgrowing thought as 
 soon as it has expressed it. He is the light of the 
 age, vivid. I learn all the other men from him, 
 him from them." ^ 
 
 In the following passage, written in 1833, In an 
 hour of sadness while she is watching beside the 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 119. 
 ' Ibid., I. 122. 
 'Margaret Fuller MSS. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 65 
 
 sick-bed, Goethe is again the guide and solace for 
 
 her soul. "When not with , in whose room I 
 
 sit, sewing, and waiting upon him, or reading 
 aloud a great part of the day, I solace my soul 
 with Goethe, and follow his guidance into realms 
 of the 'Wahren, Guten, and Schonen'." ^* 
 
 In another letter Margaret Fuller speaks of the 
 inspiration she received from Goethe, the fresh 
 impulse for action and for exerting her person- 
 ality, in short "to live as he did." 
 
 "Three or four afternoons I have passed very 
 happily at my beloved haunt in the wood, reading 
 Goethe's 'second Residence in Rome'. Your pen- 
 cil marks show that you have been before me. 
 I shut the book each time with an earnest desire 
 to live as he did — always to have some engrossing 
 object of pursuit. I sympathize deeply with a 
 mind in that state. While mine is being used up 
 by ounces, I wish pailfuls might be poured into it. 
 I am dejected and uneasy when I see no results 
 from my daily existence, but I am suffocated and 
 lost when I have not the bright feeling of progres- 
 sion." 2 
 
 Writing of the remaining works of Goethe 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 146. 
 
 *The True, Good, and Beautiful. 
 
 * Memoirs, I. 121 f. 
 
66 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 which she had not yet read, but was now reading,* 
 she says : "I have with me those works of Goethe 
 which I have not yet read, and am now engaged 
 upon 'Kunst und Altertum,' und 'Campagne 
 In Frankrelch.' I still prefer reading Goethe 
 to anyone else, and as I proceed find more 
 and more to learn. "^ Three years later, though 
 she had lost a little of her first ardor for Goethe, 
 and had not yet entirely succeeded In sounding the 
 depth of his philosophy of life, she is still willing 
 to follow his lead. "I do not know our Goethe 
 yet," she writes, "I have changed my opinion 
 about his religious views many times;" but she is 
 still ready "to try his philosophy, and, if needs 
 must play the Eclectic." - On her birthday, 1836, 
 when reading Goethe's Lehensregeln, she con- 
 cludes, "I will endeavor to profit by the instruction 
 of the great philosopher, who teaches, I think, 
 what Christ did, to use without overvaluing the 
 world." ^ 
 
 Her enthusiasm went even further, so far in 
 fact, that she earnestly desired her friends to 
 
 * She read probably in all fifty-five volumes of Goethe, the 
 number Emerson had in his library, and of which she made 
 use at this time, 
 
 ^ Margaret Fuller MSS. in Boston Public Library ; also 
 Memoirs, I. 147. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 167. 
 
 'Ibid.. 161. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 67 
 
 share it with her. "It is my earnest wish," she 
 writes, "to interpret the German authors of whom 
 I am most fond to such Americans as are ready 
 to receive. ... I hope a periodical may arise, by 
 and by, which may think me worthy to furnish a 
 series of articles on German literature, giving 
 room enough and perfect freedom to say what I 
 please." ^ 
 
 Her opinions of Goethe's doctrines are so well 
 grounded five years after she had begun to study 
 him that she writes in 1837, when seeking ma- 
 terial for her "Life of Goethe : " "Of course, my 
 impression of Goethe's works cannot be influenced 
 by information I get about his life." ^ He is, and 
 remains for her what she herself has named him: 
 "High priest of truth, and best lover of man."^ 
 In the Preface to her translation of Eckermann's 
 Conversations with Goethe she recognizes even 
 a closer union and affectionately calls him ^^My 
 parent.^' * 
 
 The following passage, written probably some 
 years later, shows how clearly she saw the great 
 development that had taken place in her character 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. i68. 
 ^ Ibid., 129. 
 
 ^Reminiscences of Edna Doiv Cheney, p. 208. 
 * Translator's Preface to Eckermann's Conversations ivitk 
 Goethe, p. xix. 
 
68 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 and personality, as a result of her studies and in- 
 ner experiences. "I mourned," she writes, "that 
 I never should have a thorough experience of 
 life, never know the full riches of my being; I 
 was proud that I was to test myself in the sternest 
 way, that I was always to return to myself, to be 
 my own priest, pupil, parent, child, husband, and 
 wife. All this I did not understand as I do now; 
 but this destiny of the thinker, and (shall I dare 
 say it?) of the poetic priestess, .... lay yet 
 enfolded in my mind." ^ 
 
 That this growth of her inner life under the 
 influence of Goethe did not cease after a few 
 years, but continued uninterruptedly is clear. As 
 late as her editorship of the Dial (1840-42) she 
 writes: "He [Goethe] obliges us to live and 
 grow, that we may walk by his side; vainly we 
 strive to leave him behind in some niche of the hall 
 of our ancestors; a few steps onward and we 
 find him again, of yet serener eye and more tower- 
 ing mien than on his other pedestal." ^ 
 
 From the evidence in the foregoing passages it 
 is perfectly clear, as Emerson writes, that "No- 
 where did Goethe find a braver, more intelligent, 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 99. 
 
 -Life Without and Life Within, p. 14. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF HER INNER LIFE 69 
 
 or more sympathetic reader," ' and that "the effect 
 on Margaret was complete." This influence, too, 
 was permanent, for Emerson writes that by the 
 time he learned to know her well In 1836, the 
 main problems of human life had been scanned, 
 interrogated, and settled by her.- One of her 
 greatest desires had been a development accord- 
 ing to nature, a rounding out of her whole being. 
 Here In her study of Goethe, as we saw, she found 
 "her moods met," the suggestions she needed, and 
 the opportunities she sought. A new light fell 
 upon her soul. The result was as If new blood 
 had rushed through her veins. Her personality 
 developed, her character rounded out, and her 
 mind broadened. The "infinite curiosity to know 
 individuals" was satisfied, and as J. F. Clarke 
 writes, she studied character, and acquired "the 
 power of exerting profoundest influence on in- 
 dividual souls." ^ She was filled with a new im- 
 pulse for action and a longing desire to exert her 
 personality; to carry into execution her new ideals 
 and plans of life. "It will be long," she writes 
 when studying Goethe and meditating a work on 
 his life, "before I can give a distinct, and at the 
 same time concise account of my present state. I 
 
 ^Memoirs, 1. 243. 'Ibid., I. 291. ^Ibid., 65 f. 
 
70 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 believe it is a great era. I am thinking now — 
 really thinking, I believe; certainly it seems as if 
 I had never done so before. If it does not kill me, 
 something will come of it, never was my mind so 
 active; and the subjects are God, the universe, im- 
 mortality." ^ 
 
 The stamp and effect of her Goethe study were 
 there to stay. Though she may later have lost a 
 little of her first enthusiasm for the great author, 
 she nevertheless, unconscious of his great influence, 
 continued to develop harmoniously all her higher 
 powers, in exactly the same manner and in the 
 same direction in which her great second school- 
 master had taught her and put her under way. 
 Her whole Hfe in America, and later in Italy, was 
 in conformity to the great principles which she 
 had learned from Goethe. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 128. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 
 
 Nowhere was the Influence of the study of 
 /Goethe upon Margaret Fuller greater than upon 
 her religious life and doctrines. One of her great 
 objects In life, according to her own statement, 
 was to grow. "This aim was distinctly appre- 
 hended and steadily pursued by her from first to 
 last," writes James Freeman Clarke. "The good 
 and the evil which flow from this great Idea of 
 self-development she fully realized. This aim 
 of life, originally self-chosen, was made much 
 more clear to her mind by the study of Goethe,^ 
 the great master of this school, In whose un- 
 equalled eloquence this doctrine acquires an almost 
 irresistible beauty and charm." "It was a high, 
 noble one, this aim of self-culture," continues 
 Mr. Clarke, "wholly religious, almost Christian. 
 It gave dignity to her whole career, and made it 
 
 ^ How nearly this aim in her life coincides with the Goethean 
 doctrine of the harmonious development of the personality may 
 be further seen when we remember that exactly the same thing, 
 which is said of her here, was also said of Goethe himself. 
 
 71 
 
72 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 heroic. ... If she ever was ambitious of knowl- 
 edge and talent, as a means of excelling others, 
 and gaming fame, position, admiration, — this 
 vanity had passed before I knew her, and was 
 replaced by the profound desire for a full devel- 
 opment of her whole nature, by means of a full 
 experience of llfe.'^ ^ Not merely for her own 
 good was this development to be; It was also to 
 enable her better to carry out her Ideals and un- 
 dertakings in life, which were Indeed noble and 
 public-spirited enough. "She was religious," 
 writes Mrs. Howe, one of Margaret Fuller's in- 
 timate friends and admirers, "in her recognition 
 I of the divine element in human experience, and 
 'Christian in her elevation above the sordid inter- 
 ests of life, In her devotion to the highest 
 standards of duty and of destiny." - 
 
 Margaret Fuller is usually associated — es- 
 pecially by later writers — with the Transcendental 
 Movement in New England and, what Is stranger, 
 is classed as one of the leaders.^ It seems per- 
 fectly evident, however, both from her own 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 132 f. 
 
 ^ Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 30. 
 
 ^ Dr. H. C. Goddard in his work, Studies in Ne<w Englandl 
 Transcendentalism (p. 8), names the leaders in this movement, 
 among whom he places her, "because," as he writes, "common 
 consent seems to have selected them [as leaders]." 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 73 
 
 statements, and the differences between the nature 
 of the movement and her philosophical and reli- 
 gious belief, that she was not a Transcendentallst 
 at all, much less a leader In the movement. This 
 fact seems to have been clear to her from the very 
 start. As early as 1835, In the Infancy of the 
 movement, she writes concerning the publication 
 of the new magazine then on foot, and which 
 later appeared as the Dial: — 
 
 "I shall feel myself honored if I am deemed 
 worthy of lending a hand, albeit I fear I am 
 merely ^Germanico/ and not 'transcendentaP." ' 
 
 The error of placing her among the Tran- 
 scendentallsts seems to have been due chiefly to 
 the mere fact that she happened to be associated, 
 more or less closely, with the leaders of this move- 
 ment, as well as to the broad, elastic, and often 
 very vague manner In which the term "transcen- 
 dental" was used. Mr. T. W. HIgginson, writing, 
 of course, from a purely literary standpoint, goes 
 very little further in his definition of the term 
 than, that "the Transcendental movement 
 amounted essentially to this : that about the year 
 1836 a number of young people In America made 
 the discovery that, In whatever quarter of the 
 
 ^ Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 141. 
 
74 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 globe they happened to be, It was possible for 
 them to take a look at the stars for themselves," 
 that a few "fresh thinkers," "apostles of the 
 ideal," appeared In good earnest and speculated 
 In philosophy and theology, that they encouraged 
 originality and looked immediately around them 
 for their stimulus, scenery, etc.. In the literary 
 works they produced, and that they had a power- 
 ful Influence for good on American literature, 
 generally/ Of course, with a definition of Tran- 
 scendentalism so comprehensive as that, Margaret 
 Fuller may easily be classed as a Transcendentalist ; 
 but other contemporary writers whom nobody con- 
 nects with the Transcendental movement, among 
 them, Edgar Allan Poe, and Washington Irving, 
 also found their stimulus and scenery immediately 
 about them, and seem to have been tolerably free 
 from Imitation, and quite original In their 
 thoughts. The fact Is that the term "Transcen- 
 dental Movement" Is more restricted in Its mean- 
 ing than the definition quoted above. It was a 
 particular and tolerably well-defined philosophical 
 and religious doctrine. 
 
 The term "transcendental," as applied to phi- 
 
 ^ Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, 133 ff. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 75 
 
 losophy, originated, of course, with Kant. Emer- 
 son says in the third volume of the Dial; 
 
 "What is popularly called transcendentalism 
 among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 
 1842. . , . The Idealism of the present day ac- 
 quired the name of Transcendental, from the use 
 of that term by Immanuel Kant, of Konigsberg, 
 who replied to the skeptical philosophy of Locke, 
 which insisted that there was nothing in the intel- 
 lect which was not previously in the experience 
 of the senses, by showing that there was a very 
 important class of ideas or imperative forms, 
 which did not come by experience, but through 
 which experience was acquired; that these were 
 intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated 
 them Transcendental forms. The extraordinary 
 profoundness and precision of that man's thinking 
 have given vogue to his nomenclature, in Europe 
 and America, to that extent that whatever belongs 
 to the class of intuitive thought is popularly called 
 at the present day Transcendental." ^ 
 
 Kant's use of the term, as Dr. H. C. Goddard 
 has also pointed out, was more technical and re- 
 stricted than that usually applied to it by the 
 Transcendentalists themselves. In the introduc- 
 
 ^ Dial, III. 297 ff. Emerson's Works, Vol. I. 311 ff. 
 
76 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 tion to the Critique of Pure Reason Kant clearly 
 states that In Transcendental philosophy no con- 
 cepts are to be admitted which contain anything 
 empirical, and that the a priori knowledge must 
 be perfectly pure. "Therefore, although the high- 
 est principles of morality and their fundamental 
 concepts are a priori knowledge, they do not be- 
 long to transcendental philosophy, because the 
 concepts of pleasure and pain, desire, inclination, 
 free-will, etc., which are all of empirical origin 
 must here be presupposed. Transcendental phi- 
 losophy is the wisdom of pure speculative reason. 
 Everything practical, so far as it contains motives, 
 has reference to sentiments, and these belong to 
 empirical sources of knowledge."^ 
 
 With the New Englander who embraced this 
 originally purely philosophical doctrine, it did not 
 long remain so. With him the vital question was, 
 what relation did this philosophy bear to religion; 
 what was its significance to the moral world, to 
 life itself? An article in the Dial by John A. 
 Saxton entitled "Prophecy — Transcendentalism — 
 Progress," fitly illustrates how the special signifi- 
 cance that this doctrine bears to the idea of God, 
 virtue, and the immortal soul was singled out. 
 
 ^ Kant, Introd. to Critique of Pure Reason. Transl. by F. Max 
 Miiller. Vol. 11. 12 f. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 77 
 
 "This name [Transcendentalism] as well as 
 that of Critical Philosophy, was given by Kant, a 
 German philosopher, who first decisively refuted 
 the theory of sensation, and gave a scientific dem- 
 onstration of the reality and authority of the 
 spontaneous reason. . . . Kant, instead of at- 
 tempting to prove, which he considered vain, the 
 existence of God, virtue, and immortal soul, by 
 inference drawn, as the conclusion of all philoso- 
 phy, from the world of sense, found these things 
 written, as the beginning of all philosophy, in 
 obscured, but ineffaceable characters, within our 
 inmost being, and themselves first affording any 
 certainty and clear meaning to that very world 
 of sense, by which we endeavor to demonstrate 
 them. God is, nay alone is; for we cannot say 
 with like emphasis that anything else is. This 
 is the absolute, the primitively true, which the phi- 
 losopher seeks." ^ 
 
 Soon other elements were added, some philo- 
 sophical, some purely literary; then all these ele- 
 ments combined were grafted on to the stock of 
 the Unitarian church. Perhaps as good and as 
 concise a definition of New England Transcen- 
 dentalism in its full development and complexity 
 
 ^Dial, II. 90 f. 
 
78 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 as can be found Is given by a Transcendentalist 
 himself, W. H. Channing: 
 
 "Transcendentalism was an assertion of the 
 inalienable integrity of man, of the immanence of 
 Divinity in instinct. In part, It was a reaction 
 against Puritan Orthodoxy; in part, an effect of 
 renewed study of the ancients, of Oriental Pan- 
 theists, of Plato and the Alexandrians, of Plu- 
 tarch's Morals, Seneca and Epictetus; in part, the 
 natural product of the culture of the place and 
 time. On the somewhat stunted stock of Unitari- 
 anlsm, — whose characteristic dogma was trust 
 in Individual reason as correlative to Supreme 
 Wisdom, — had been grafted German Idealism, as 
 taught by the masters of most various schools, 
 by Kant and Jacobi, Fichte and Novalis, Schelling 
 and Hegel, Schlelermacher and De Wette, by 
 Madame de Stael, Cousin, Coleridge, Carlyle; 
 and the result was a vague yet exalting conception 
 of the godlike nature of the human spirit. . . . 
 The rise of this enthusiasm was as mysterious as 
 that of any form of revival; and only they who 
 were of the faith could comprehend how bright 
 was this morning-time of a new hope ! . . . Tran- 
 scendentalism, as viewed by Its disciples, was a 
 pilgrimage from the Idolatrous world of creeds 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 79 
 
 and rituals to the temple of the Living God in 
 the soul. It was a putting to silence of tradition 
 and formulas that the Sacred Oracle might be 
 heard through intuitions of the single-eyed and 
 pure-hearted. Amidst materialists, zealots, and 
 skeptics, the Transcendentalist believed in per- 
 petual Inspiration, the miraculous power of will, 
 and a birth-right to universal good." ^ It was 
 therefore, as Mrs. Howe said, "A new church, 
 with the joy and pain of a new evangel In its 
 midst." - 
 
 Transcendentalism, however, was like Puritan- 
 ism and Unltarianism before It, in that It was 
 purely intellectual, religious and moral, with, of 
 course, the great difference that It was Infinitely 
 more liberal and free from pure church dogmatism 
 than the first, and on a much loftier plane than 
 either, — since it contained the element of idealism 
 taken over chiefly from the German. Neverthe- 
 less, there was in Transcendentalism an element of 
 moral rigorism and hidden asceticism, the legacy 
 of Puritanism, which looked with disdain, or at 
 least with distrust, upon the sensual nature of 
 man. It was this same element In Kant's phi- 
 losophy which so strongly appealed to the Puritan 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 12 f. " Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 90. 
 
8o MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Transcendentalists. Despite their declamations 
 about art and poetry, It never occurred to them 
 that true art and true poetry pre-suppose an Ideal 
 of man which presents the harmonious unity of 
 both the sensual and the spiritual side of human 
 nature. We must consider It one of the greatest 
 achievements of Schiller, that, feeling the defect In 
 Kant's attitude and doctrine, he presented In 
 his great aesthetic essays a conception of beauty, 
 and, with it, a new ideal of man far superior to 
 that of Kant, an Ideal the embodiment of which 
 he recognized In the genius and personality of 
 Goethe. 
 
 The difference between the Transcendental 
 standpoint and the aesthetic view, between mere 
 philosophic speculation and a harmoniously devel- 
 oped, healthy humanity, such as Margaret Fuller 
 believed In, cannot be expressed better than by 
 the following extract from one of Schiller's letters 
 to Goethe (July 9, 1796) : 
 
 "Innerhalb der aesthetlschen Geistesstlmmung 
 regt sich kein Bediirfnlss nach jenen Trostgriin- 
 den, die aus der Spekulatlon geschopft werden 
 miissen; sle hat Selbststiindigkelt, Unendlichkeit 
 In sich; nur wenn sich das Sinnliche und das 
 Moralische im Menschen feindlich entgegenstre- 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 8i 
 
 ben, muss bei der relnen Vernunft Hiilfe gesucht 
 werden. Die gesunde und schone Natur braucht, 
 wie Sie selbst sagen,keine Moral, keinNaturrecht, 
 keine politische Metaphyslk: Sie batten ebensogut 
 auch hinzusetzen konnen, sie braucht keine Gott- 
 helt . . . um sich zu stiitzen und zu halten."*^ 
 
 There can be no doubt that, owing to traditions 
 inherited from the Puritans the views expressed 
 In this passage remained a closed chapter to the 
 Transcendentallsts. They never had, nor could 
 they have, a true appreciation of aesthetic beauty 
 in the Goethe-Schiller sense. "Religion opens 
 her arms to him on whom beauty Is lost," says 
 Schiller. Hence the fact that the Transcendental 
 movement, important as It was In the Intellectual 
 life of America, left no production of great poetic 
 merit. Hence, also, a certain lack of apprecia- 
 tion for the poetic genius of Goethe In men like 
 Emerson, who with this mistaken conception of 
 spirituality, scented In Goethe the pagan. Clearly 
 
 *Within the aesthetic temperament there is no need for those 
 consolations which must be founded upon speculative reasoning. 
 It is independent, eternal in itself. Only when the sensual and 
 the moral natures in man are at enmity with each other must 
 help be sought in pure reason. Nature in her health and purity, 
 needs, as you say, no moral, no nature laws, no politic meta- 
 physics. You might just as well have added, it needs no divinity 
 ... to lean on or hold to. 
 
 * Goethe-Schiller Correspondence, Schiller to Goethe, July 9, 
 1796. 
 
82 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 as he saw what Goethe was to the world of litera- 
 ture and thought, his admiration for him was, in 
 his own words, a "qualified" one.^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller, on the other hand, had 
 imbibed too deeply from the rejuvenating fountain 
 of Goethe's poetry and thought, to be enticed into 
 the caves of Transcendental mysticism, or upon 
 the frosty heights of an imagined spirituality. It 
 was on this fundamental Goethean principle that 
 she differed from all the Transcendentalists. 
 
 It Is true that both systems aim at a high degree 
 of perfection in human character, but the means 
 by which they hope to arrive at the end they seek, 
 as well as the character of their final aim, are 
 entirely different. Transcendentalism seeks to 
 bring man to the desired state by elevating his 
 thoughts Into a higher realm, intellectually and 
 religiously, In short Into the atmosphere of God 
 himself, through the divine nature of his own 
 spirit. The Transcendentallst, writes W. H. 
 Channing, "believed in perpetual inspiration. . . . 
 He sought to hold communion face to face with the 
 unnameable Spirit of his spirit."^ The other, 
 somewhat less pretentious, sought the highest per- 
 
 * Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, Vol. I. 29 f. Emerson's 
 Works, Vol. IV. notes, p. 371. See Chapter VI. 200 f. 
 'Memoirs, II. 13. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 83 
 
 fectlon of character In the development of the 
 truly human, through experience in life, by a full 
 and wise exercise of the natural given powers, and 
 by trusting, at first hand, in the human instincts 
 as a divine guide for life. "There is an only 
 guide," says Margaret Fuller, "the voice in the 
 Heart. . . . Thou canst not stray from nature, 
 nor be so perverted, but she will make thee true 
 again;" ^ or as Goethe, her teacher, expresses the 
 same doctrine : 
 
 "1st nicht Kern der Natur 
 Menschen im Herzen?"* 
 
 Transcendentalism is by nature deeply Chris- 
 tian in the traditional sense. According to its 
 teaching, and that of the churches related to it, 
 the chief aim of man on earth should be to live 
 a religious life. In the Goethean sense, which 
 Margaret Fuller represented, purity and harmony 
 of character is the chief aim. "At present, my 
 soul is intent on this life," she writes, "and I think 
 of religion as Its rule, and, in my opinion, this 
 is the natural and proper course from youth to 
 agel"^ Or as Goethe expresses himself : "From- 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 211. 
 
 * "Is not the germ of nature 
 
 In the heart of man?" 
 ^Memoirs, I. 136. 
 
84 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 migkeit ist kein Zweck, sondern ein Mittel, um 
 durch die reinste Gemiitsruhe zur hochsten Kultur 
 zu gelangen." *^ The aim is to build character 
 and to fit ourselves to live properly on this sphere, 
 to develop our being, both the mortal and the im- 
 mortal part, to its highest possible expression and 
 perfection, and to be a boon to our fellow beings; 
 and then, all this done, without any anxiety on 
 our part, we may trust Providence to take care of 
 our future. 
 
 "Halte dich Im Stillen rein, 
 Und lass es um dich wettern; 
 Je mehr du fiihlst ein Mensch zu sein 
 Desto ahnlicher bist du den Gottern/'** 
 
 To develop the human part of ourselves into the 
 image of God, or until we, ourselves, are like the 
 gods, this is the ultimate aim. That Goethe recog- 
 nized his doctrine to be deeply religious is clear 
 from the lines in his Zahmen Xenien, just quoted. 
 The human instincts, too, are looked upon as di- 
 
 * ''Piety Is not an end but a means, by which to attain, 
 through the purest tranquillity of mind, the highest culture." 
 ^ Spriiche in Prosa, No. 41. 
 ** "Keep thyself pure in quiet, 
 
 And let it storm about thee; 
 
 The more a human (being) thou feele^st thyself to be, 
 
 The more thou art like the gods." 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 85 
 
 vine, as they also are in the Transcendental 
 doctrine, with this difference, however: that in 
 the Goethean doctrine they are that which the 
 individual must ultimately turn to for the highest 
 laws of his inner being. In the other this is not 
 altogether the case. In the highest degree of 
 perfection, according to Goethe, the individual 
 recognizes the Divine in human nature itself. 
 Since God, as Goethe believed with his whole soul, 
 dwells in Nature, he must also dwell in the heart 
 of man; for is not man a part of nature, yea, the 
 highest expression of Nature? "Im Innern ist 
 ein Universum auch," *^ he says; and Margaret 
 Fuller prays: "O for the safe and natural way 
 of Intuition!" ''O for a more calm, more pervad- 
 ing faith in the divinity of my own nature !" ^ It 
 seems that James Freeman Clarke, who was him- 
 self deeply influenced by Goethe, had the distinc- 
 tion between these two systems clearly in mind 
 when he wrote of Margaret Fuller's aim of self- 
 culture : "Wholly religious, and almost Christian, I 
 said, was this aim. ... It was almost Christian In 
 its superiority to all low, worldly, vulgar thoughts 
 
 *"In the inner (soul) there is also a universe." 
 ^ Goethe's Gedichte, Hempel ed. II. 368. ' 
 
 2 Memoirs, I. 171, 176. 
 
86 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 and cares; In Its recognition of a high standard of 
 duty, and a great destiny for man.'* ^ 
 
 A letter, written probably soon after Margaret 
 Fuller's acquaintance with Goethe, sheds still 
 more light on her belief and philosophy of life, 
 showing how she rejected all systems of positive 
 religion and stuck to her idea of self-development 
 through experience in life, "Loving or feeble na- 
 tures need a positive religion, a visible refuge, a 
 protection, as much in the passionate season of 
 youth as In those stages nearer to the grave. But 
 mine Is not such. . . . Tangible promises ! Well- 
 defined hopes ! are things of which I do not now, 
 feel the need." ^ "I cannot endure," she says in 
 another passage, "to be one of those shallow be- 
 ings who can never get beyond the primer of 
 experience, — who are ever saying, — 
 
 'Ich habe geglaubt, nun glaub' ich erst recht, 
 Und geht es auch wunderlich, geht es auch schlecht, 
 Ich bleibe im glaubfgen Orden.' "** 
 
 "When disappointed, I do not ask or wish conso- 
 
 ^MemoirSy I. 133. 
 
 Mbid., I. 135. 
 
 'Ibid., p. 82.^ 
 
 * "I have believed, nonv I believe all the more, 
 
 And even if things go strangely, even if they go w^rong, 
 I will remain in the ranks of the believing." 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 87 
 
 lation, — I wish to know and feel my pain, to 
 Investigate Its nature and Its source; I will not 
 have my thoughts diverted, or my feelings 
 soothed."' 
 
 How near this Is to what Goethe says In Faust 
 (1. 1768 ff.) may be seen from the following 
 passage: 
 
 "Mein Busen, der vom Wissensdrang geheilt 1st, 
 Soli keinen Schmerzen kiinftig sich verschliessen, 
 Und was der ganzen Menschheit zugeteilt ist, 
 Will ich In meinem innern Selbst genlessen, 
 Mit meinem Geist das Hochst' und Tiefste greifen, 
 Ihr Wohl und Weh auf meinen Busen haufen, 
 Und so mein eigen Selbst zu ihrem Selbst erweitern, 
 Und wie sie selbst, am End' auch ich zerscheltern."* 
 
 Again, the following passage shows how thor- 
 oughly Goethean her doctrine really was: — "I do 
 not see how It Is possible to go further beyond 
 the results of a limited human experience than 
 those do who pretend to settle the origin and 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 135. 
 
 * "My bosom, of its thirst for knowledge sated^ 
 
 Shall not, henceforth, from any pang be wrested, 
 
 And all of life for all mankind created 
 
 Shall be within mine inmost being tested: 
 
 The highest, lowest forms my soul shall borrow, 
 
 Shall heap upon Itself their bliss and sorrow. 
 
 And thus, my own sole self to all their selves expanded, 
 
 I too, at last, shall with them all be stranded!" 
 
 — Bayard Taylor's Translation. 
 
88 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 nature of sin, the final destiny of souls, and the 
 whole plan of the Causal Spirit with regard to 
 them. I think those who take [this] view have 
 not examined themselves, and do not know the 
 ground on which they stand." 
 
 "I acknowledge no limit, set up by man's 
 opinion, as to the capacity of man. 'Care is 
 taken,' I see it, 'that the trees grow not up into 
 heaven' ; but, to me it seems the more vigorously 
 they aspire, the better. Only let it be a vigorous, 
 not a partial or sickly aspiration. Let not the 
 tree forget its rootJ^ "I would beat with the 
 living heart of the world and understand all the 
 moods," she continues in exact accordance with 
 the spirit of Faust and Wilhelm Meister, "even 
 the fancies and fantasies, of nature. I dare to 
 trust to the Interpreting spirit to bring me out all 
 right at last, — establish truth through error. 
 Whether this be the best way is of no consequence, 
 if It be the one Individual character points 
 out. • . . 
 
 I the truth can only know, 
 Tested by life's most fiery glow. 
 
 . . . Let me stand in my age with all Its waters 
 flowing around me. If they sometimes subdue, 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 89 
 
 they must finally upbear me, for I seek the uni- 
 versal, — and that must be the best. 
 
 "The Spirit, no doubt, leads In every movement 
 of my time : If I seek the How, I shall find It, as 
 well as If I busied myself more with the fVhy. 
 Whatever Is, Is right. If only men are steadily 
 bent to make It so, by comprehending and fulfilling 
 Its design." ^ 
 
 A passage from Margaret Fuller's Credo of 
 1842 shows still further how much her religious 
 belief really differed from that of her friends, — the 
 Transcendentallsts, as well as those of the older 
 faiths, — and how clear this difference was to her. 
 
 It Is true that she believed the Gospel account 
 of Christ, and that all happened just as It Is re- 
 corded; yet to her the chief significance of such 
 a life as Christ's lay In the fact that It presented 
 to her an Illustration of the Ideal truth. This 
 much was enough for her, and seemed to satisfy 
 her completely." In her Credo she calls Christ 
 ''Redeemer," "Atoner," "Lamb of God," and 
 "peculiarly a Messenger and Son of God;" yet 
 she thoroughly believes with Goethe* that all 
 
 ^ At Home and Abroad, p. 72 ff. 
 
 "See Margaret Fuller's Credo; Appendix, p. 253. 
 
 * "It is right that forms of religion should not be bestowed 
 directly by God himself, but as the ivork of eminent men" — 
 Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, Feb. 28, 1830. 
 
90 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 great geniuses are Inspired, and are, In this way, 
 also sons of God, In that they, too, present us 
 with higher ideals of life and beauty, whether 
 moral, mental, or physical. She believes that man 
 In his highest perfection will not conform to the 
 ideal or type presented by any one of the great. 
 Inspired geniuses, but that he will embody what 
 is highest and best in all of them, in short, that 
 he "will live out all the symbolical forms of 
 human life with the calm beauty and physical ful- 
 ness of a Greek god, with the deep consciousness 
 of a Moses, with the holy love and purity of 
 Jesus.'' ^ ''You see," she writes in commenting 
 on this part of her creed, "how wide the gulf 
 that separates me from the Christian Church." 
 
 Closely related to this idea of the genius Is 
 Margaret Fuller's conception of man's mission 
 as a creator. In the Credo, and In her "Conver- 
 sations," she devoted much thought to the ques- 
 tion: What is life? and what relation do God 
 and man bear to the creation and development 
 of life forms? In giving a definition of life at 
 one of the "Conversations," one of her reporters 
 writes: "She began with God as spirit. Life, so 
 full as to create and love eternally, yet capable 
 
 ^See Appendix, p. 253 f,, 256. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 91 
 
 of pause. Love and creativeness are dynamic 
 forces, out of which we individually, as creatures, 
 go forth bearing his image, that is, having within 
 our being the same dynamic forces, by which we 
 also add constantly to the total sum of existence, 
 and shaking off Ignorance, and its effects, and by 
 becoming more ourselves, I. e., more divine; [or 
 as Goethe puts it: "Desto ahnlicher bist du den 
 Gottern,"] destroying sin In Its principle, we at- 
 tain to absolute freedom, we return to God, con- 
 scious like himself, and, as his friends, giving as 
 well as receiving felicity forevermore. In short 
 we become gods and able to give the life which 
 we now feel ourselves able only to receive."^ 
 
 There is no question that Margaret Fuller, in 
 placing such vital emphasis upon life and activity, 
 was here deeply Influenced by Goethe, In whose 
 thinking and conduct this conception of life was 
 one of the fundamental principles. 
 
 ''The highest attribute that we have received 
 from God and nature," says Goethe, " Is life, the 
 rotating movement of the monad about Itself, 
 which knows neither rust nor rest. The Impulse to 
 preserve and nourish life is born Indestructibly Into 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 346 f. 
 
92 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 every one; the characteristic feature of the same 
 remains, however, a secret to us and others.'* 
 "The second gift from the beings operating from 
 above," Goethe continues, "is the experienced in 
 life, the becoming conscious, the taking part of the 
 living, active monad in the environments of the 
 outer world, by which it first becomes conscious of 
 itself as an inner infinite and externally finite 
 being." ' 
 
 The close relation between these thoughts and 
 those expressed by Margaret Fuller in the extract 
 quoted from her "Conversations" is self-evident. 
 The attainment of this absolute inner freedom, of 
 which she speaks here, Goethe claimed as one 
 of his great achievements. "Whoever, has 
 learned to understand them [Goethe's writings] 
 and my being, at all," he said to Chancellor von 
 Miiller toward the end of his life, "will have to 
 confess that he has gained a certain inner free- 
 dom." The same claim as a liberator he repeats 
 in the verses: 
 
 "Ihr konnt mir immer ungescheut, 
 Wie Bliichern, Denkmal setzen; 
 
 ^ Spriiche in Prosa, (1028), (1029). 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 93 
 
 Von Franzen hat er euch befreit, 
 Ich von Philisternetzen."* 
 
 In saying "We become gods, and able to give 
 the life which we now feel ourselves able only to 
 receive, — " i. e., we become creators — , Margaret 
 Fuller expresses the same idea that Goethe does 
 in his poem, Wiederfinden, in the lines: 
 
 "Allah braucht nicht mehr zu schaffen, 
 Wir erschaffen seine Welt."** 
 
 Also in the poem E'lns und A lies occur these lines : 
 
 "Dann mit dem Weltgeist selbst zu ringen 
 Wird unserer Krafte Hochberuf."*** 
 
 Margaret Fuller's deep interest in Eckermann's 
 Conversations with Goethe, which she translated 
 and in which she found a considerable part of the 
 ideas expressed in her Credo, was most probably 
 due to the fact that it contained so many of 
 
 * "You may always, without fear, erect to me 
 As to Bliicher, monuments ; 
 He has freed you from the French, 
 I, from the snares of pedants." 
 *■* "Allah needs to work no longer, 
 
 We create his world." 
 *** "For to vie with the world-spirit itself, 
 
 Becomes the high calling of our powers." 
 
94 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Goethe^s religious views. In this work Goethe 
 uses many expressions concerning man^s mission 
 as a creator, similar to those of Margaret Fuller. 
 Goethe's Das Gottliche and Prometheus, both of 
 which Margaret Fuller translated, also express 
 the same ideas and appealed to her strongly.^ 
 That she was aroused by the latter poem to show 
 the same Titanic, Promethean feelings that Goethe 
 manifested in his youth, is shown by the following 
 passage from one of her letters, quoted by 
 Emerson. Sending her translation of Goethe's 
 Prometheus to a friend she writes: — "Which of 
 us has not felt the questionings expressed in this 
 bold fragment? Does it not seem, were we gods 
 or could steal their fire, we could make men not 
 only happier, but free, glorious?"^ No Ameri- 
 can critic comes as near as she here does to a 
 full understanding of the secret of Goethe's 
 "Storm and Stress period," and the true mission 
 of his work. The sober Emerson, saw, of course 
 in such expressions of hers only the presence of 
 "a rather mountainous ME." ^ 
 
 From a thorough study of Margaret Fuller's 
 Credo, as a whole, we see even a closer relation 
 
 * See Chapter on Interpretation of Goethe, pp. 167, 237. 
 ^Memoirs, I. 235. 
 'Ibid., p. 236. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 95 
 
 between her conception of God, man, and the 
 universe, and that of Goethe than is evident from 
 a few single passages picked out here and there 
 at random. In such a study it is clear that, though 
 Margaret Fuller has all existence result from 
 "Spirit," yet Goethe's doctrine of Spirit-Nature 
 was in her mind; since this spirit (Weltseele) 
 whose "depths are unknown to itself," becomes 
 conscious only by living and "Seeks to know it- 
 self" in the working principle of Nature, "thus 
 evolving plants, animals, men, suns, etc." This 
 close relation is evident when we compare what 
 she says here with what Goethe says in his poems, 
 Proomion, Eins und Alles, and in Spriiche in 
 Prosa (912) : 
 
 Im Namen dessen, der sich selbst erschuf! 
 Von Ewigkeit im schaffenden Beruf; 
 
 In jenes Namen, der so oft genannt, 
 
 Dem Wesen nach blieb immer unbekannt."^* 
 
 * Goethe's Proomion. 
 
 * "In the name of him ivho made himself! 
 
 Who from eternity was employed in creating; 
 
 In his name, who so often named, 
 
 Has ever remained unknown as to the nature of his being." 
 
96 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Concerning this spirit that ^'manifests^' and 
 "knows itself" in its creations, compare: — 
 
 "Was war ein Gott, der nur von Aussen stiesse, 
 Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse! 
 Ihm ziemt's die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, 
 Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen/'*^ 
 
 And of the continuity of this creation and evolu- 
 tion of "congenial forms/' of which she speaks, 
 Goethe says : 
 
 "Und umzuschaflfen das Geschaffne, 
 Damit sich's nicht zum Starren waffne, 
 Wirkt lebendiges Thun. 
 Und was nicht war, nun will es werden 
 Zu relnen Sonnen, farbigen Erden.**- 
 
 "Das Werdende, das ewig wirkt und lebt."***^ 
 Very near is Margaret Fuller's conception of 
 
 * "What were a God who moved [the world] only from 
 
 without, 
 Who let the All circle about his finger! 
 It becomes him to move the World inivardly, 
 To preserve Nature in himself, himself in Nature." 
 
 * Goethe's Gedichte, Hempel Ed. II. 368. 
 ** "And to re-create the created, 
 
 That it may not become barren and resist [this contin- 
 uous process of creation] 
 Calls for living action. 
 
 And what ne'er was is on the point of becoming 
 Pure suns, variegated earths." — " Goethe's Eins und Alles. 
 *** "The becoming [that which is in the process of creation^, 
 which ever works and lives." — ^ Faust, 1. 346. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 97 
 
 the phenomena of the All and the activity of the 
 creative Spirit (Weltseele), which she describes in 
 the Credo, to that contained in Goethe's Spriiche 
 in Prosa (912) : 
 
 *'The fundamental characteristic of the living 
 unity is: to separate, to unite, to lose itself in the 
 universal, to abide in the particular, to transform 
 itself, to specify itself, and as the living, to demon- 
 strate itself under a thousand conditions, and 
 again to emerge and to disappear, to solidify and 
 to melt, to coagulate and to flow, to expand and 
 to contract. Now because all these actions go on 
 in the same moment of time, every and each phe- 
 nomenon may appear at the same time. Coming 
 into existence and passing away, creating and de- 
 stroying, birth and death, joy and sorrow, every- 
 thing goes on in confusion, pell-mell, in the same 
 sense and in the same measure; for that reason, 
 then, the most extraordinary that takes place, al- 
 ways appears as an image and likeness of the most 
 universal." 
 
 Concerning the manner in which we begin to in- 
 terpret the Universe and find "deeper depths 
 opened with each soul," by breaking through an 
 obstruction "by faith" and thus making new dis- 
 
98 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 coveries, Goethe again says in Spriiche in Prosa 
 
 (903): 
 
 "Everything that we invent, discover, in the 
 higher sense call by name, Is the significant putting 
 Into execution, the giving practical proof of an 
 original feeling for truth, which long since de- 
 veloped In silence unexpectedly, and as quick as 
 lightning leads us to a fruitful perception. It is 
 a revelation developed from within, by means of 
 the external, which permits man to have a presen- 
 timent of his godllkeness. It is a synthesis of 
 World and Spirit, which gives us the happiest as- 
 surance of the harmony of our being." 
 
 Further on in the Credo Is also Goethean 
 thought, though clothed In the language of the 
 church. She probably did not herself realize how 
 much she was under the Influence of Goethe. Even 
 where she seemingly opposes him, is his great In- 
 fluence evident. Her whole religious creed, 
 though containing orthodox church ideas, Is fun- 
 damentally Goethean. 
 
 Evil (obstruction), Margaret Fuller believed, 
 is as necessary In the grand scheme of creation and 
 in the development of character, as good (accom- 
 plishment). This doctrine — that evil Is only the 
 negative side of good — appears in her Credo, her 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 99 
 
 letters, and in many of her principal writings, and 
 corresponds exactly with the idea expressed by the 
 Lord in the Prologue in Heaven of Goethe's 
 Faust: 
 
 "Des Menschen Tatigkeit kann allzuleicht erschlaffen, 
 Er liebt sich bald die unbedingte Rub; 
 Drum geb' ich gem ihm den Gessellen [Mepbis- 
 
 topbeles] zu, 
 Der relzt und wirkt und muss als Teufel schaffen."*^ 
 
 Again in the words of Mephistopheles : 
 
 "Ich bin ein Teil von jener Kraft, 
 Die stets das Bose will und stets das Gute schafEt."**^ 
 
 "Thus after an unchanging law of nature evd 
 even has brought forth good,'" says Herder. 
 "All destructive forces must not only in time be 
 subdued by the forces of preservation, but must 
 also serve to help in the building up of the 
 
 * "Man's active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level; 
 Unqualified repose he learns to crave; 
 Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave, ^^ 
 Who works, excites, and must create as Devil." ^ 
 
 —Bayard Taylor's Translation. 
 
 "■ Goethe's Faust, 11. 336 ff. 
 
 ** "I am a part of that power ^^ 
 
 Which always wills the bad, and ever works the good. 
 
 ^Goethe's Faust, 11. 1335-36. 
 
 ^Herder's Ideen, III. 327. 
 
loo MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 whole/' ^ "Despite the fact that the destructive 
 forces In man are his passions, the latter are nec- 
 essary to prevent him from 'getting fond of un-, 
 conditional repose' . . . Evil, according to this 
 conception, acts as a leaven, a fermentative power, 
 which finally produces good." ^ 
 
 In a dialogue which Margaret Fuller wrote, the 
 two characters represented, speaking on a religious 
 topic, agree ''that whatever Is, Is good." ^ In 
 another instance she praises the doctrine, "Resist 
 not evil," and "every man his own priest, and the 
 heart the only true church." * Again one of the 
 reporters of the "Conversations" writes: "I have 
 thought, sometimes, that her acceptance of evil 
 was too great, — that the theory of the good to be 
 educed proved too much. But In a conversation 
 I had with her yesterday, I understood her better 
 than I had done. 'It might never be sin to us, at 
 the moment', she said, 'It must be an excess, on 
 which conscience puts the restraint'." ^ And lastly 
 Caroline H. Dall writes: "She [Margaret Ful- 
 ler] believed evil to be a good in the grand scheme 
 of things. She would not recognize it as a blunder. 
 
 ^Herder's Ideen, p. 314. 
 
 ' Goethe's Fausty Ed. Goebel ; Notes, p. 264. 
 
 ' Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 185. 
 
 * At Home and Abroad, p. 55 f. 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 350. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY loi 
 
 She must consider its scope a noble one. In one 
 word, she would not accept the world — for she 
 felt within herself the power to reject it — did she 
 not believe evil working in it for good! Man had 
 gained more than he lost by his fall." ^ 
 
 This doctrine, in which she so thoroughly be- 
 lieved is the fundamental doctrine of Faust and \y 
 JVilhehn Meister. There Is little doubt that she 
 got these ideas chiefly from these works. Cer- 
 tain it Is that this is neither Transcendental nor 
 Puritan doctrine. 
 
 Closely associated with Margaret Fuller's doc- 
 trine of good and evil, is her belief In a complete ^ 
 abandonment to our higher nature. She had, how- 
 ever, absolutely no patience with those who, under 
 this pretext, gave themselves over to their pas- 
 sions, or who allowed sentimentality to master 
 completely their whole being. It is thus that she 
 criticises sharply, in the one case, George Sand, 
 and in the other, Bettine Brentano, "I love aban- 
 don only when natures are capable of the extreme 
 reverse," she says.- Emerson writes that in life, 
 "Margaret suffered no vice to insult her presence, 
 but called the offender to instant account, when the 
 
 ^Margaret and Her Friends, p. 113 f. 
 ^Memoirs, I. 248. 
 
102 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 law of right or beauty was violated." ^ "Mar- 
 garet crowned all her talents and virtues with a 
 love of truth, and the power to speak it," says 
 Emerson again.^ Horace Greeley emphasizes the 
 same characteristic, as do all her biographers. 
 And with all of this she was a most natural woman. 
 "I love best to be a woman," she, herself, said. 
 And Emerson records, that, "In character, Mar- 
 garet was, of all she had beheld, the largest 
 woman, and not a woman who wished to be a 
 man. 
 
 It Is clear that what Margaret Fuller most de- 
 sired was to find out the truth of human nature; 
 and having arrived at a complete understanding of 
 it, ever to remain true to its highest principles and 
 laws of development. "Like Goethe," she writes, 
 "I have never given way to my feelings, but have 
 lived active, thoughtful, seeking to be wise." * 
 
 Margaret Fuller, like Goethe, believed that a 
 powerful, if not the most powerful agency In call- 
 ing out this inner life of feeling, is poetry. She 
 considered It "the only path of the true soul," and 
 believed that, though "we might not always be 
 poetic in life," yet "we might and should be poetic 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 306. 'Ibid., p. 303. 
 
 *Ibid., I. 300. *Ibid., p. 197. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 103 
 
 in our thought and intention." ^ What she has 
 in mind here is the aesthetic education advocated 
 by Goethe, and especially by Schiller, in which 
 poetry is one of the most powerful agencies. 
 What a quickening influence Goethe's poetry had 
 upon Margaret Fuller's inner life we have already 
 seen.- 
 
 Margaret Fuller's deep interest in the plastic 
 arts was, according to Emerson, first inspired by 
 Goethe.^ When we read her letters and what she 
 says on the subject in the reports of her "Boston 
 Conversations," and in her articles in the Dial,^ 
 we readily see the relation that art must have 
 borne to her inner life, and what she must have 
 contributed, by her personal influence and her 
 writings, to the rise of enthusiasm for the fine arts 
 in and about Boston, during her time, — an en- 
 thusiasm that has grown and developed until the 
 present day. "The fine arts," she said, "were 
 one compensation for the necessary prose of life, 
 — for not being able to live out our poesy amid 
 the conflicting and disturbing forces of this moral 
 world in which we are." Of the plastic arts 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. p. 341. 
 
 ^Cf. p. 3. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 266 ff. 
 
 *Art, Literature, and the Drama, 284 flF, 
 
104 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Margaret Fuller preferred sculpture. "That 
 was grand," she said, *'when a man first thought 
 to engrave his Idea of man upon a stone, the 
 most unyielding and material of materials, — 
 the backbone of the phenomenal earth, — and 
 when he did not succeed, that he persevered; 
 and so at last, by repeated efforts, the Apollo 
 came to be." Paintings she thought worked more 
 by Illusion. But the chief of arts was life Itself, 
 of which all other arts were merely beautiful 
 symbols.^ Margaret Fuller did not, however, 
 become Impractical, because she tried to live out a 
 poetic, artistic thought. "She did not permit the 
 search for the beautiful to transcend the limits of 
 our social and personal duties," Mrs. Howe said. 
 "The pursuit of aesthetic pleasure might lead us 
 to fall In attaining the higher beauty." ^ Not 
 "Art for Art's sake," merely, but for drawing 
 from this source Inspiration for building up a beau- 
 tiful and harmonious character, and a sense of the 
 beautiful In life: this was her doctrine, like that of 
 Goethe and Schiller before her. She tried always 
 to arrive at the truth lying back of beauty. The 
 two Ideas, Beauty and Truth, for her, were In- 
 separable. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 340 ff. 'Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 112. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 105 
 
 Nor does our development, according to her 
 belief, cease in this present life. *'I believe in 
 Eternal Progression," she writes. "I believe in a 
 God, a Beauty and Perfection to which I am to 
 strive all my life for assimilation. From these 
 two articles of belief, I draw the rules by which 
 I strive to regulate my life." ^ This same doc- 
 trine, that we pass from one stage to another, 
 through a series of lives approaching ever nearer, 
 in our development, the perfect state, is expressed 
 also In her Credo.^ This present life represents 
 merely one of a series of lives we live, one of the 
 several stages through which we pass on our 
 road to perfection. Thus she criticizes Goethe, 
 for remaining In court circles at Weimar: — 
 ''Perhaps Goethe Is even now [a decade after 
 his death] sensible that he should not have stopped 
 at Weimar as his home, but made It one station 
 on the way to Paradise ; not stopped at humanity, 
 but regarded It as symbolic of the divine, and 
 given to others to feel more distinctly the center of 
 the universe, as well as the harmony In Its parts. "^ 
 
 The thought that Goethe had not yet reached 
 his highest wisdom and perfection is also indicated 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 136. 
 
 " Cf. Appendix, p. 250 f. 
 
 ' Life Without and Life Within, p. 45. 
 
io6 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 at the end of her second article In the Dial: — "Let 
 us enter Into his higher tendency, thank him for 
 such angels as Iphlgenle, whose simple truth mocks 
 at all his wise 'Beschrankungen\ and hope the hour 
 when, girt about with many such, he will confess, 
 contrary to his opinion, given In his latest days, 
 that It is well worth while to live seventy years, if 
 only to find that they are nothing in the sight of 
 God." ' 
 
 Here, too, we find the same thought In Goethe : 
 *'It Is acknowledged that man consists of two 
 parts, body and soul. ... I doubt not of our im- 
 mortality, for nature cannot dlspensewlthourcon- 
 tlnued activity." ^ "Christianity has a might of Its 
 own, lifting up, from time to time, dejected, suf- 
 fering humanity, and in this rises above all philos- 
 ophy, and needs no support therefrom. Neither 
 does the philosopher need the support of religion 
 to prove certain doctrines; for Instance, that exist- 
 ence is prolonged Into eternity. Man must be- 
 lieve In immortality; this belief corresponds with 
 the wants of his nature. . . . To me, the eternal ex- 
 istence of my soul Is proved, from my need of ac- 
 tivity; If I work Incessantly till my death, nature Is 
 
 * Life Without and Life Within, p. 60. 
 ^ Conversations ivith Goethe, p. 320. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 107 
 
 pledged to give me another form of being when 
 the present can no longer sustain my spirit." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller inherited still another charac- 
 teristic of her belief from her Master, Goethe, 
 namely, her belief in daemonology. As Emerson 
 has pointed out, she was naturally of a temper- 
 ament to whom "coincidences, good and bad, 
 omens, etc.," had a deep significance. This pecul- 
 iar characteristic dated back to her youth and was 
 originally due, probably, to an overtaxed nervous 
 system, and to poor health later on. It is easily 
 seen how naturally a belief in daemonology, such 
 as Goethe's, would appeal to her. 
 
 "This propensity," writes Emerson, "Margaret 
 held with certain tenets of fate, which always 
 swayed her, and which Goethe, who had found 
 room and fine names for all this in his system, 
 had encouraged; and I may add, which her own 
 experiences, early and late, seemed strangely to 
 justify. . . . This remote seeking for the decrees 
 of fate, this feeling of a destiny, casting its 
 shadows from the very morning of thought, is the 
 most beautiful species of idealism in our day. 'Tis 
 finely manifested in Wallenstein." ^ Tasso, Rous- 
 
 ^ Conversations iviih Goethe, Margaret Fuller's translation, 
 p. 270. 
 
 Memoirs, I. 222. 
 
io8 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 seau, Goethe, and Napoleon were, she believed, 
 under this strange influence to a very high degree. 
 She of course, as Emerson has said, believed that 
 she, too, was swayed by this same mysterious 
 power. 
 
 "When Goethe," she writes, "received a letter 
 from Zelter with a handsome superscription, he 
 said, 'Lay that aside ; it is Zelter's true hand-writ- 
 ing. Every man has a daemon, who is busy to con- 
 fuse and limit his life. No way is the action of this 
 power more clearly shown, than In the hand-writ- 
 ing. On this occasion, the evil Influences have 
 been evaded; the mood, the hand, the pen and 
 paper have conspired to let our friend write truly 
 himself. ... I think often of this little passage. 
 With me, for weeks and months, the daemon 
 works his will. Nothing succeeds with me. I fall 
 111, or am otherwise Interrupted. At these times, 
 whether of frost, or sultry weather, I would gladly 
 neither plant nor reap, — wait for the better times, 
 which sometimes come, when I forget that sick- 
 ness is ever possible. ... As to the Daemonia- 
 cal, I know not that I can say to you anything more 
 precise than you find from Goethe. There are no 
 precise terms for such thoughts. The word in- 
 stinctive indicates their existence. I intimated it in 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 109 
 
 the little piece on the Drachenfels/ . . . When 
 conscious, self-asserting, it becomes (as power 
 working for its own sake, unwilling to acknowl- 
 edge love for its superior, must) the devil. That 
 is the legend of Lucifer, the star that would not 
 own Its center. Yet, while it is unconscious, It is 
 not devilish, only daemoniac. In nature, we trace 
 it in all volcanic workings. In a boding position of 
 lights. In whispers of the wind, ... in deceitful 
 Invitations of the water, . . and in the shapes of 
 all those beings who go about seeking what they 
 may devour. We speak of a mystery, a dread; we 
 shudder, but we approach still nearer, and a part 
 of our nature listens, sometimes answers to this 
 influence, which if not indestructible, is at least 
 indissolubly linked with the existence of matter. 
 
 "In genius, and in character, It works, as you 
 say instinctively; it refuses to be analyzed by the 
 understanding, and is most of all Inaccessible to 
 the person who possesses it. We can only say, I 
 have it, he has it. . . . It is most obvious In the 
 eye. As we look on such eyes, we think on the 
 tiger, the serpent, beings who lurk, glide, fascinate, 
 mysteriously control. For it Is occult by Its nature, 
 and If It could meet you on the highway, and be 
 
 *This is a poem she wrote and sent to a friend. 
 
I lo MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 familiarly known as an acquaintance, could not 
 exist. The angels of light do not love, yet they 
 do not insist on exterminating it. 
 
 "It has given rise to the fables of wizard, en- 
 chantress, and the like; these beings are scarcely 
 good, yet not necessarily bad. Power tempts them. 
 They draw their skills from the dead, because 
 their being is coeval with that of matter, and mat- 
 ter is the mother of death." ^ 
 
 In discussing further this same subject, Mar- 
 garet Fuller says of the Duke of Weimar: 
 "Goethe describes him as Ddmonisch, that is, 
 gifted with an instinctive, spontaneous force, 
 which at once, without calculation or foresight, 
 chooses the right means to an end. As these be- 
 ings do not calculate, so is their influence incal- 
 culable. Their repose has as much influence over 
 other beings as their action, even as the thunder 
 cloud, lying black and distant in the summer sky, 
 is not less imposing than when it bursts and gives 
 forth its quick hghtnings. . . . Sometimes, though 
 rarely, we see such a man in an obscure position; 
 circumstances have not led him to a large sphere; 
 he may not have expressed in words a single 
 ^Memoirs, I. 224 ff. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY in 
 
 thought worth recording; but by his eye and voice 
 he rules all around him. 
 
 ''He stands upon his feet with a firmness and 
 calm security which makes other men seem to halt 
 and totter In their gait. In his deep eye is seen an 
 Infinite comprehension, an Infinite reserve of 
 power. No accent of his sonorous voice is lost on 
 any ear within hearing; and, when he speaks, 
 men hate or fear perhaps the disturbing power 
 they feel, but never dream of disobeying." 
 
 Quoting Goethe's own words, she gives Goethe 
 himself as an illustration of one who possessed 
 these daemoniacal powers : " 'The boy believed 
 in nature, in the animate and Inanimate, the intel- 
 ligent and unconscious, to discover somewhat 
 which manifested Itself only through contradic- 
 tion, and therefore could not be comprehended by 
 any conception, much less defined by a word. It 
 was not divine, for It seemed without reason; not 
 human, because without understanding; not devil- 
 ish, because It worked to good; not angelic, be- 
 cause It often betrayed a petulant love of mischief. 
 It was like chance, in that it proved no sequence; 
 it suggested the thought of Providence, because 
 It Indicated connection. To this all our limitations 
 seem penetrable ; It seemed to play at will with all 
 
1 12 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 the elements of our being; it compressed time and 
 dilated space. Only in the impossible did it seem 
 to delight, and to cast the possible aside with 
 disdain. 
 
 " 'This existence which seemed to mingle with 
 others, sometimes to separate, sometimes to unite, 
 I called the Damonisch, after the exam^ple of the 
 ancients, and others who have observed somewhat 
 similar.' " ' 
 
 '' 'The Damonisch is that which cannot be ex- 
 plained by reason or understanding; it lies not in 
 my nature, but I am subject to it. 
 
 " 'Napoleon was a being of this class, and in so 
 high a degree that scarce any one is to be com- 
 pared with him. Also our late grand duke [Karl 
 August of Weimar, Goethe's benefactor] was such 
 a nature, full of unlimited power of action and un- 
 rest, so that his own dominion was too little for 
 him, and the greatest would have been too little. 
 Demoniac beings of this sort the Greeks reckoned 
 among their demigods'." % ^ 
 
 Even in her last years Margaret Fuller still held 
 to this Goethean belief in daemonology. She 
 
 * Quoted by Margaret Fuller from Dichtung und fVahrheit. 
 2 Quoted by Margaret Fuller from Conversations with Ecker. 
 mann. 
 ' Life Without and Life Within, p. 32 f. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 113 
 
 writes from Italy: "My days at Milan were not 
 unmarked. I have known some happy hours, but 
 they all lead to sorrow, and not only the cups of 
 wine, but of milk, seem drugged with poison, for 
 me. It does not seem to be my fault, this destiny. 
 I do not court these things, — they come. I am a 
 poor magnet, with power to be wounded by the 
 bodies I attract." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller was, from 1840 to 1842, chief 
 editor of the Dial, which was considered a Tran- 
 scendental organ. It has, therefore, been sup- 
 posed by many that she must also, of necessity, 
 have been a Transcendentalist. In one of her let- 
 ters is clearly stated the fact, however, that she 
 never considered the Dial at the beginning of Its 
 career, nor In fact at any time during her editor- 
 ship, a magazine belonging to any one sect, party, 
 or confession, but an organ to allow free expres- 
 sion of thought In literature, religion, and philoso- 
 phy, from any and all, whatsoever their confes- 
 sion or creed. So "eclectic and miscellaneous," in 
 fact, was the magazine, according to Emerson, 
 "that each of its readers and writers valued only 3, 
 small portion of It." ^ On March 22, 1840, Mar- 
 garet Fuller writes: 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 226. 'Ibid, p. 323. 
 
1 14 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 *'What others can do, — whether all that has 
 been said is the mere restlessness of discontent, 
 or there are thoughts really struggling for utter- 
 ance, — will be tested now. A perfectly free 
 organ is to be offered for the expression of indi- 
 vidual thought and character. There are no 
 party measures to be carried, no particular stand- 
 ard to be set up. A fair, calm tone, a recognition 
 of universal principles, will, I hope, pervade the 
 essays in every form. I trust there will be a spirit 
 neither of dogmatism nor of compromise, and that 
 this journal will aim, not at leading public opinion, 
 but at stimulating each man to judge for himself, 
 and to think more deeply and more nobly, by 
 letting him see how some minds are kept alive 
 by wise self-trust. . . . We shall manifest free 
 action, as far as it goes, and a high aim. It 
 were much if a periodical could be kept open, 
 not to accomplish any outward object, but merely 
 to afford an avenue for what of liberal and calm 
 thought might be originated among us, by the 
 wants of individual minds." ^ 
 
 In another letter dated April 19, 1840, Mar- 
 garet Fuller says, with reference to what the 
 people expect of the Dial and what they will 
 
 * Memoirs, II. 25. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 115 
 
 not find: "Things go on pretty well, but doubt- 
 less people will be disappointed, for they seem to 
 be looking for the gospel of Transcendentalism." ^ 
 The same incorrect conclusion with reference 
 to Margaret Fuller, namely, that she shared in 
 the doctrines of the New England Transcenden- 
 talists, has often been drawn from the mere fact 
 that she belonged to a club designated as the 
 "Transcendental Club," — and also, as we have 
 seen, the "Symposium," and "Hedge Club." But, 
 that the club held to no one particular religious 
 belief, or philosophy, and was, altogether, about 
 as cosmopolitan as any club could well be, is evi- 
 dent from a description of it by W. H. Chan- 
 ning: "By mere attraction of affinity," he writes, 
 "grew together the brotherhood of the 'Like- 
 minded,' as they were pleasantly nick-named by 
 outsiders, and by themselves, on the ground that 
 no two were of the same opinion. The only pass- 
 word of membership to this association, which 
 had no compact, records, or officers, was a hopeful 
 and liberal spirit; and its chance conventions were 
 determined merely by the desire of the caller for 
 a 'talk,' or by the arrival of some guest from a 
 distance with a budget of presumptive novelties. 
 
 ^Memoirs, II. 25 f. 
 
1 16 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Its ^symposium' was a picnic, whereto each 
 brought his gains as he felt prompted, a bunch 
 of wild grapes from the woods, or bread-corn 
 from his threshing-floor. The tone of the as- 
 semblies was cordial welcome for every one's 
 peculiarity; and scholars, farmers, mechanics, 
 merchants, married women, and maidens, met 
 there on a level of courteous respect." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller attended these meetings, as 
 did many others who went thither either to learn 
 the new thoughts contributed by the other mem- 
 bers, or who had something new to Impart, 
 whether It was ''transcendental" or not. 
 
 Of course, Margaret Fuller was a very welcome 
 and appreciated member here, for she doubtless 
 brought many new Ideas. Because of her ability 
 to contribute so richly In thought, because of her 
 wonderful powers of conversation, and the fact 
 that she was a born leader, W. H. Channing 
 might well and consistently call her "a peer of 
 the realm" In this cosmopolitan gathering, and 
 say she was a "member by grace of nature," "^ 
 where any new thought was welcome, and "the 
 only guest not tolerated, was Intolerance." ^ 
 
 Her talks or "Conversations" must have been 
 
 ' Memoirs, II. 14 f. ' Ibid., II. 18. ' Ibid., p. 15. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 117 
 
 very effective, according to her blographer-s, and 
 still more the "side-talks," which the general con- 
 versations led to. W. H. Channing says of them : 
 "Very observable was It, also, how. In side talks 
 with her, they became confidential, seemed to 
 glow and brighten Into their best mood, and 
 poured out In full measure what they but scantily 
 hinted In the circle at large." ^ 
 
 The thoughts she offered, far from being merely 
 speculative, as was characteristic of Transcen- 
 dentalism, seem to have been eminently practical, 
 and always to have had, when the conversations 
 turned on the subject of character-building, the 
 great Goethean aim of an inner development 
 of the soul, of a drawing out of what was best 
 in the Individual, at the foundation. We can 
 probably best judge the lofty, practical character 
 of Margaret Fuller's talks at these meetings, by 
 those of her famous Boston "Conversations," a 
 little later, which were of the same nature, and 
 of which we have the reports. The great aim In 
 these latter "Conversations" was to answer the 
 Questions "What Is Life?" and "What were we 
 born to do? and how shall we do it?" ^ In a 
 letter Intended for circulation she writes, just 
 
 ^Memoirs, p. 19. ^Ibid., L, 325, 345. 
 
1 18 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 before the beginning of one of her classes for 
 women in 1839: "Women are now taught, at 
 school, all that men are; they run over, super- 
 ficially, even more studies, without being really 
 taught anything. When they come to the busi- 
 ness of life, they find themselves Inferior, and all 
 their studies have not given them that practical 
 good sense, and mother wisdom, and wit." ^ "My 
 ambition goes further. It is 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. To ascertain what pursuits are best 
 suited to us, In our time and state of society, and 
 how we may make best use of our means for 
 building up the life of thought upon the life of 
 action.'^ ^ 
 
 This all certainly sounds practical, and when 
 the active life she lived in deed and thought is 
 considered, we certainly cannot accuse her of 
 transcendental self-absorption, "a withdrawal," as 
 W. H. Channing says of the Transcendentalists, 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. p. 329. ^Ibid., I. 325. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 119 
 
 "to private study and contemplation, that they 
 might be 'alone with the Alone!' " ^ Margaret 
 Fuller had always before her a definite, fixed 
 purpose, and took steps to put it into execution 
 as soon as she saw her way clear. She had little 
 of that "dwelling among the clouds" and imprac- 
 tlcality, mentioned by Channing, as characteristic 
 of the Transcendentallsts. She differed from 
 them In character and temperament. "Her ro- 
 mantic freshness of heart," says Channing, "her 
 craving for the truth; . . . her discipline In Ger- 
 man schools had given definite form and tendency 
 to her Idealism. . . . On the other hand, strong 
 common-sense saved her from becoming vision- 
 ary." ' 
 
 Looked at from the practical aim which 
 Margaret Fuller always kept In view, some of 
 her seemingly far-fetched statements In her "Con- 
 versations" appear in an entirely different light; 
 and the little book, Margaret and Her Friends, — 
 which Is probably a report of the poorest series 
 of her "Conversations" — may not be quite so 
 meaningless. Even through these last mentioned, 
 very meager reports we can see gleaming the 
 great purpose she had in view. When we con- 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 13. 'Ibid., II. 18. 
 
 v<;^ 
 
 
 A 
 
I20 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 sider the high positions which some of the young 
 women belonging to Margaret Fuller's circle at- 
 tained, as leaders In the thought and philanthropy 
 of New England for over half a century, we know 
 what these ''Conversations," where what was 
 noble and best in them was called out, meant to 
 them. A single passage from one of these same 
 young women, Mrs. Ednah Dow Cheney, is suffi- 
 cient testimony to show what Margaret Fuller did 
 for all of them here. "I found myself in a new 
 world of thought;" says Mrs. Cheney, "a flood 
 of light irradiated all that I had seen in nature, 
 observed in life, or read in books. Whatever 
 she spoke of revealed a hidden meaning, and 
 everything seemed to be put Into true relation. 
 Perhaps I could best express it by saying that I 
 was no longer the limitation of myself, but I felt 
 that the whole wealth of the universe was open 
 to me. It was this consciousness of the illimitable 
 ego, the divinity in the soul, which was so real to 
 Margaret herself. . . . She did not make us her 
 disciples, her blind followers. She opened the 
 book of life and helped us to read it for our- 
 selves." ^ Without question Margaret Fuller tried 
 here, and succeeded, in putting Into effect her 
 
 ^ Reminiscences of Ednah Dow Cheney, p. 205. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 121 
 
 educational and religious ideals, and to develop 
 the Inner life of each and every one in her 
 "classes" after the manner in which she had her- 
 self been so powerfully developed by Goethe. 
 
 The Transcendentallsts on the other hand, 
 according to Channing, ''felt that systematic re- 
 sults were not yet to be looked for, and that In 
 sallies of conjecture, glimpses and flights of 
 ecstacy, the 'Newness' lifted her veil to her 
 votaries." ^ Mrs. Howe calls Transcendentalism 
 "beautiful and inconvenient," and says, "Method 
 it could not boast. Free discussion, abstinence 
 from participation In ordinary social life and re- 
 ligious worship, a restless seeking for sympathy, 
 and a constant formulation of sentiments which, 
 exalted in themselves^ seemed to lose something 
 of their character by the frequency with which 
 they were presented, — these were some of the 
 traits which Transcendentalism showed." - 
 
 That Margaret Fuller did not consider herself 
 a Transcendentalist, but saw clearly the differences 
 between herself and them, is further shown by her 
 own description and discussion of Transcenden- 
 talism, its causes and failings. She writes, in 
 1840, concerning the superficial foundation upon 
 
 * Memoirs, II. 14. ^ Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 90 f. 
 
122 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 which it was forced to build, — the materialism, 
 "the slight literary culture," and "this hasty way 
 of thinking:" 
 
 "Since the Revolution, there has been little, 
 in the circumstances of this country, to call out 
 the higher sentiments. The effect of continued 
 prosperity is the same on nations as on individuals, 
 — it leaves the nobler faculties undeveloped. The 
 need of bringing out the physical resources of a 
 vast extent of country, the commercial and politi- 
 cal fever Incident to our Institutions, tend to fix 
 the eyes of men on what is local and temporary, 
 on the external advantages of their conditions. 
 The superficial diffusion of knowledge, unless at- 
 tended by a correspondent deepening of its sources, 
 is likely to vulgarize rather than to raise the 
 thought of a nation, depriving them of another 
 sort of education through sentiments of reverence, 
 and leading the multitude to believe themselves 
 capable of judging what they but dimly discern. 
 They see a wide surface, and forget the difference 
 between seeing and knowing. In this hasty way of 
 thinking and living they traverse so much ground 
 that they forget that not the sleeping railroad 
 passenger, but the botanist, the geologist, the poet, 
 really see the country, and that to the former, 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 123 
 
 'a miss is as good as a mile.' In a word, the ten- 
 dency of circumstances has been to make our 
 people superficial, irreverent, and more anxious 
 to get a living than to live mentally and morally. 
 This tendency is no way balanced by the slight 
 literary culture common here, which is mostly Eng- 
 lish, and consists in a careless reading of publica- 
 tions of the day, having the same utilitarian 
 tendency with our own proceedings. The infre- 
 quency of acquaintance with any of the great 
 fathers of English lore marks this state of things." 
 Concerning the Transcendentallsts themselves 
 and their characteristics, she says: "New England 
 is now old enough, — some there have leisure 
 enough, — to look at all this; and the consequence is 
 a violent reaction. In a small minority [the Tran- 
 scendentallsts], against a mode of culture that 
 rears such fruits. They see that political freedom 
 does not necessarily produce liberality of mind, 
 nor freedom in church institutions — vital religion; 
 and, seeing that these changes cannot be wrought 
 from without Inwards, they are trying to quicken 
 the soul, that they may work from within outwards. 
 Disgusted with the vulgarity of a commercial 
 aristocracy, they become radicals; disgusted with 
 the materialistic working of 'rational' religion, 
 
124 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 they become mystics. They quarrel with all that 
 is, because it is not spiritual enough. They would, 
 perhaps, be patient if they thought this the mere 
 sensuality of childhood In our nation, which it 
 might outgrow; but they think that they see the 
 evil widening, deepening, — not only debasing the 
 life, but corrupting the thought of our people, and 
 they feel that if they know not well what should 
 be done, yet that the duty of every good man is 
 to utter a protest against what is done amiss. 
 
 'Ts this protest undiscrlmlnating? are these 
 opinions crude? do these proceedings threaten to 
 sap the bulwarks on which men at present depend? 
 I confess It all." ' She did not believe in their 
 extreme subjectivity and lack of historical sense, 
 or in carrying the Idea of "transcending sense and 
 time" too far; for, as W. H. Channing writes: 
 
 "By their very posture of mind, as seekers of 
 the new, the Transcendentallsts were critics and 
 *come-outers' from the old. Neither the church, the 
 state, the college, society, nor even reform asso- 
 ciations had a hold upon their hearts. The past 
 might be well enough for those who without make- 
 beheve, could put faith in common dogmas and 
 usages; but for them ... the herald-trump of 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 26 ff. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 125 
 
 freedom was heard upon the mountains." ^ Mar- 
 garet Fuller hopes, however, they will yet "learn 
 how to make use of the past, as well as to aspire 
 for the future, and be true in the present mo- 
 ment." ^ "Civilization," she said, "must be homo- 
 geneous, — must be a natural growth." ^ She 
 agreed with the Transcendentalists that a reform 
 was urgent; but to cut absolutely loose from the 
 past, to reject all that the ages gone by had left 
 us as a heritage, good and bad alike, seemed to 
 her too revolutionary, too radical. There was 
 much worthy of preservation. Dreaming in their 
 mysticism,* the Transcendentalists, she believed, 
 often lost themselves in idle visions of a perfect 
 state of society. "Utopia," she writes, "It is Im- 
 possible 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," she 
 says with Goethe, "the limitations of human na- 
 ture, and believe a wise acknowledgement of them 
 one of the best conditions of progress." * 
 
 ^Memoirs, II. 14. "Ibid., p. 29. 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 186. 
 
 * Margaret Fuller, like Goethe, believed "There ought really 
 to be no Christian mystics at all, since religion itself presents 
 mysteries enough. Christian mystics, too, always go immediately 
 into the abstruse, into the abysses of the subject." (Goethe's 
 Spriiche in Prosa, 297.) 
 
 * Memoirs, II. 29. 
 
126 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Even concerning the subjects which she had 
 been unable to investigate, because of her position 
 as a woman, and the many private duties which 
 occupied her time, she says; ^'I suppose, if I ever 
 become capable of judging, I shall differ from 
 most of them [the Transcendentalists] on im- 
 ^^^' portant points." ^ One of the points in which 
 she, the pupil of Goethe, differed essentially from 
 the Transcendentalists was as to what should be 
 done with the "Material" part of man, that is, 
 his physical nature. They, in common with the 
 other religious sects, and as has been pointed out, 
 with Kant's philosophy, had regarded this side 
 of man as the seat of original sin, or radical evil, 
 and were consequently decrying continually its 
 irrepressible assertions, as "sluggishness" and 
 "worldliness" of spirit.^ Margaret Fuller felt 
 sharply that it was here where the difference be- 
 tween the concealed Puritanism of the Transcen- 
 dentalists and the progressive and higher ethical 
 principles of Goethe-Schiller becomes apparent. 
 It is, in a way, the difference between the idealist 
 and the realist which Schiller describes so mas- 
 terfully in his essay Ueber Naive und Sentimen- 
 tale Dichtung, "That is the real life," Margaret 
 
 * Memoirs, II. 39 f. ' Ibid., p. 30. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 127 
 
 Fuller writes, "which is subordinated to, not 
 merged in, the ideal; he is only wise who can 
 bring the lowest act of his life into sympathy with 
 its highest thought. And this I take to be the 
 only aim of our pilgrimage here. I agree with 
 those who think that no true philosophy will try 
 to ignore or annihilate the material part of man, 
 but will rather seek to put it in its place, as servant 
 and minister to the soul." ^ 
 
 While the differences between Margaret Ful- 
 ler's belief and that of the Transcendentalists were 
 evident to her, and while she discerned clearly 
 their chief failings, she was not blind to the 
 good traits which they had. She could not help 
 but consider their aim a true one, and their 
 schemes noble in intention. She sympathized with 
 them in this respect: that they — impractical as 
 their schemes may have been — meant to ennoble 
 human nature, and that they had, in truth, "poetic 
 manifestations," and "a standard transcending 
 sense and time" ^ among a people whose mind 
 and energies she thought, were, at the time, bent 
 entirely too much upon the present and the ac- 
 cumulation of material resources. She sees the 
 "promise of a better wisdom" among the Tran- 
 
 ' Memoirs, II. 30 f. 'Ibid., II. 29. 
 
128 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 scendentallsts than among the great materialistic, 
 comfort-loving majority of their fellow-country- 
 men. She has confidence, "despite their partial 
 views, imperfectly developed characters, and fre- 
 quent want of practical sagacity," that, "if they 
 have opportunity to state and discuss their 
 opinions, they will gradually sift them, and ascer- 
 tain their grounds and aims with clearness." "I 
 hope for them," she concludes, "as for the *leaven 
 that is hidden in the bushel of meal till all be 
 leavened.' The leaven Is not good by itself, 
 neither is the meal; let them combine and we 
 shall yet have bread." ^ 
 
 Here, throughout this discussion, it is again 
 perfectly clear that Margaret Fuller did not count 
 herself among the Transcendentalists, and that 
 her sympathy for them was merely a hope that 
 they would in time see more clearly and "do the 
 work this country needs." She Is always careful 
 to speak of them In the third person. She always 
 makes a sharp distinction between "they" and 
 "I," and never says "we" In referring to them. 
 
 The desire of the Transcendentallst to with- 
 draw from the hum and bustle of city life, that he 
 might be more "alone with the Alone" and live 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 28 f. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 129 
 
 more a life of meditation, probably had much to 
 do with the establishment of the community at 
 Brook Farm, a scheme with which Margaret 
 Fuller was never In sympathy, though she visited 
 her friends there. She had at most, only a partial 
 faith In the doctrines of Fourier, which the Brook 
 Farmers had adopted, and which were similar 
 to those of Rousseau, much as Rousseau had 
 charmed her when she first read him. In Woman 
 in the Nineteenth Century Margaret Fuller dis- 
 cusses at some length Fourier's doctrines and social 
 reform schemes, states her objections to them, 
 and compares them with Goethe's solution of the 
 same vexed problem, namely the betterment of 
 society. Though she calls Fourier an "Apostle of 
 the new order. . . that Is to rise from love," 
 she thinks he Is only partially right. He lays too 
 much stress on the external side of man's nature 
 and not enough on the Internal. 
 
 "The mind of Fourier," she writes, "though ^^ 'f^ 
 
 grand and clear, was In some respects superficial. /V^ 
 He was a stranger to the highest experiences. His 
 eye was fixed on the outward more than on the 
 Inward needs of Man. . . . On the opposite side 
 of the advancing army leads the great Apostle 
 of Individual culture, Goethe. Swedenborg makes 
 
 'f*^ 
 
v/ 
 
 130 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 organization and union the necessary results of 
 solitary thought. Fourier, whose nature was, 
 above all, constructive, looked to them too ex- 
 clusively. Better Institutions he thought, will 
 make better men. Goethe expressed. In every way, 
 the other side. If one man could present better 
 forms, the rest could not use them till ripe for 
 them. Fourier says. As the Institution, so the 
 men ! All follies are excusable and natural under 
 bad Institutions. Goethe thinks. As the man, so 
 the Institutions! There Is no excuse for Ignor- 
 ance and folly. A man can grow In any place. If 
 he will." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller does not, Indeed, agree en- 
 tirely with either one of these reformers In the 
 sweeping generality of their statements. She be- 
 llves that "bad Institutions are prison-walls;" but, 
 on the other hand, that It Is folly to ''expect to 
 change mankind at once, or even 'In three genera- 
 tions'," as Fourier and the Brook Farmers pro- 
 posed to do, "by arrangement of groups and 
 series, or flourish of trumpets for attractive 
 Industry. If these attempts are made by unready 
 men," she concludes, "they will fall." ^ Margaret 
 
 ^ Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 123 ff. 
 ^Ibid., p. 124. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 131 
 
 Fuller favors rather a union of the two systems. 
 With Goethe she believes that character should 
 be built up and strengthened from within; but also, 
 that the institutions of society, without, should 
 be Improved and made to aid man in his upward 
 tendency. 
 
 After discussing the great characters In 
 Goethe's masterpieces in this same work of hers, 
 Woman in the Nineteenth Century^ Margaret 
 Fuller expresses her satisfaction with his doctrine, 
 and shows wherein he is superior to Fourier, and 
 why she prefers Goethe. 
 
 ''Goethe's book \_JVilhelm Meister],'' she 
 writes, "bodes an era of freedom like its own of 
 'extraordinary, generous-seeking,' and new revela- 
 tions. New Individualities shall be developed in 
 the actual world, which shall advance upon It as 
 gently as the figures come out upon his canvas. 
 
 "I have indicated on this point the coincidence 
 between his hopes and those of Fourier, though 
 his [Goethe's] are directed by an infinitely higher 
 and deeper knowledge of human nature." "It 
 is to Wilhelm Melster's Apprenticeship and Wan- 
 dering Years that I would especially refer, as these 
 volumes contain the sum of the Sage's observations 
 during a long life, as to what Man should do, 
 
132 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 under present circumstances, to obtain mastery 
 over outward, through an Initiation into Inward 
 life, and severe discipline of faculty." In this same 
 connection she says: "In all these expressions 
 of Woman, the aim of Goethe Is satisfactory to 
 me. He aims at a pure self-subslstance, and a free 
 development of any powers with which they may 
 be gifted by nature as much for them as for men. 
 They are uni*ts, addressed as souls." ^ Nothing 
 could be clearer here than that Margaret Fuller 
 accepted Goethe's solution of character-building 
 In preference to Fourier's whose doctrines the 
 Brook Farm Transcendentallsts attempted to put 
 Into practice and live out In their community at 
 West Roxbury, Massachusetts. 
 
 Margaret Fuller was unlike the Transcendental- 
 lsts, also, In that she was not at all given to 
 speculation on vague philosophical qustions, as 
 such. She wanted something practical, something 
 that bore a real relation to her Inner life and 
 development. "I have always felt," she writes, 
 ^ ./*^that man must know how to stand firm on the 
 ground, before he can fly." ' She evidently shared 
 with Goethe the same contempt for metaphysics 
 which found its clear expression in the advice of 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 126 f. 
 'Memoirs, I. 20. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 133 
 
 Mephlstopheles to the student in Faust, for she 
 writes in a letter, September, 1832 : "Not see the 
 use of metaphysics? A moderate portion, taken at 
 stated intervals, I hold to be of much use as disci- 
 pline of the faculties. I only object to them as 
 having an absorbing and anti-productive tendency. 
 . . . The brain," she concludes, "does not easily 
 get too dry for that [Metaphysics]." ^ In medi- 
 tating a Life of Goethe she speaks again of "that 
 indisposition, or even dread" - of the study of 
 Metaphysics. With Novalis she agrees that "Phi- 
 losophy is peculiarly home-sickness, an overmas- 
 tering desire to be at home," and asks: "But what 
 is there all-comprehending , eternally-conscious 
 about that?" "I do want a system," she says, 
 "which shall suffice to my character, and in whose 
 application I shall have faith. I do not wish to 
 reflect always, if reflecting must be always about 
 one's identity, whether ^ich' am the true 'ich,' etc. 
 I wish to arrive at that point where I can trust 
 myself, and leave off saying, 'It seems to me,' and 
 boldly feel. It is so to me. My character has 
 got its natural regulator, my heart beats, my lips 
 speak truth, I can walk alone, or offer my arm 
 to a friend, or if I lean on another, it is not the 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 124. "Ibid., p. 127. 
 
134 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 debility of sickness, but only wayside weariness. 
 This is the philosophy / want; this much would 
 satisfy me/' ^ 
 
 From these statements and from what she said 
 of the Individual philosophers whom she studied, 
 it Is very clear that, unlike the Transcendentalists, 
 she had httle liking for speculative philosophy; so 
 httle in fact, that like Goethe, she did not find this 
 study a congenial field at all. 
 "' Dr. Goddard, though he admits and shows that 
 Margaret Fuller was greatly Influenced by Goethe, 
 seems to have tried to make a great deal out of 
 the single passage from one of Margaret Fuller's 
 letters, concerning the Influence of Emerson on 
 her; thereby evidently trying to make her out a 
 Transcendentalist, as Emerson was. In the pas- 
 sage quoted Margaret Fuller writes: *'You ques- 
 tion me as to the nature of the benefits conferred 
 upon me by Mr. E.'s preaching. I answer, that 
 his Influence has been more beneficial to me than 
 that of any American, and that from him I first 
 learned what Is meant by an Inward life." - 
 
 But the very fact that she confines her state- 
 ment to American, and does not make it perfectly 
 general, is unmistakable evidence that she had in 
 
 "^ Memoirs, I. 123. ^Ibld., I. 194 f. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY i35 
 
 mind some one else not American, who exercised 
 a greater and more beneficial influence on her. 
 No doubt Emerson had a considerable influence 
 on her-greater than that of any other Ameri- 
 can. He doubdess appealed to her profounder 
 thoughts, and may also have awakened remmis- 
 cences of her subconscious inborn Puritan ideas. 
 But as proof that Goethe's influence was greater, 
 and that he was the chief source for her inner life 
 and development, we have both, her own words, 
 and those of Emerson himself, words which are 
 conclusive and leave no doubt whatever.' 
 
 It was well known that Margaret Fuller and 
 Emerson were different in character and could not 
 agree in their doctrines, religious as well as philo- 
 sophical. Emerson was preeminendy a thmker. 
 He placed his greatest emphasis upon the intellect, 
 often to the exclusion of the other faculties of the 
 inner hfe. His was chiefly a life of thought, and 
 not of feeling, and doubdess, therefore, he often 
 seemed to his contemporaries as austere as some 
 of his Puritan ancestors. All this was true despite 
 his intellectuality and dissent from all traditional, 
 formal church creeds. He seldom came into a 
 genuine heart-to-heart touch with his fellow beings 
 
 'Cf. Chapter II above, pp. 52 f-. *3 *• 
 
136 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 or experienced any real glow of the emotional 
 side of his nature. This fact explains the severe 
 criticism which he now and then hurled against 
 Goethe. Goethe was too human for him, and laid 
 too much stress upon the emotional and material 
 side of man's nature to please him. Living thus 
 largely the life of an ascetic, a life based primarily 
 upon the Intellect, and still holding somewhat 
 closely In practice to the traditional Puritan church 
 doctrines, Emerson naturally distrusted, and often 
 disdained, anything that had to do with the emo- 
 tions of the heart and the natural inclinations of 
 human nature. Its presence repelled him so that 
 he did not look for any reason why the author may 
 have put It there. He could, therefore, not un- 
 derstand that Goethe, In taking note of this part of 
 human nature, meant to give the emotions and 
 passions a healthy development, meant to refine 
 them and bring them, as Margaret Fuller has so 
 beautifully expressed It, *'Into sympathy with his 
 highest thought," Instead of trying to "crucify" 
 them, as the traditional church had long at- 
 tempted to do. Emerson did not see this until 
 later In life. He saw only that Goethe treated of 
 something which he considered Immodest and 
 immoral, and therefore writes to Carlyle : "The 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 137 
 
 Puritan In me accepts no apology for bad morals 
 in such as he." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller calls Emerson's philosophy 
 the "white light," to distinguish It from the rosy 
 light and glow of feeling expressed in the morning 
 and evening skies. Margaret Fuller lived an In- 
 tense life, full of glow and feeling, as well as" 
 thought, — *'VIel denken, mehr empfinden," * as 
 Goethe puts It.** She believed that to think was 
 only a part of life. To feel and to act were to her 
 just as Important. She had little sympathy with 
 confining her joys to "mental ecstacies" such as 
 Emerson's chiefly were. "Is it not nobler and 
 truer," she wrote to W. H. Channing In 1842, "to 
 live than to think ?^ . . . Really to feel the glow 
 of action, without Its weariness, what heaven it 
 must be!"^ "She and Mr. Emerson met," says 
 Caroline H. Dall, "like Pyramus and Thisbe, a 
 blank wall between. With Mr. Alcott she had no 
 
 * Cf. pp. 150 ff. ; also Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, p. 29. 
 
 * "Think much, feel more." 
 
 ** "The thinking person errs especially," says Gcethe, "when 
 he inquires after cause and effect; the two together comprise the 
 inseparable phenomenon. He who can comprehend that is upon 
 the right road to action, to deeds. The genetic process already 
 leads us upon better ways, even though we fall short in our at- 
 tempt. Spriiche in Prosa, p. 641. 
 
 2 "Gedenke zu leben," — Think to live, Goethe says in one of 
 his maxims. 
 
 ^ Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, pp. 308-309. 
 
138 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 patience." ^ Later on In the same work Mrs. Dall 
 mentions this same fact again: "E. P. P. [Eliza- 
 beth Palmer Peabody, one of Margaret Fuller's 
 most Intimate friends] got Into a little maze trying 
 to Introduce Margaret and R. W. E. to each other, 
 — a consummation which, however devoutly to be 
 wished, will never happen!" ^ "While bound to 
 each other by mutual esteem and admiration," 
 says Mrs. Howe, "Margaret and Mr. Emerson 
 were opposltes In natural tendency If not In char- 
 acter. While Mr. Emerson never appeared to be 
 modified by any change of circumstance, never 
 melted nor took fire, but was always and every- 
 where himself, the soul of Margaret was subject 
 to a glowing passion which raised the temperature 
 of the social atmosphere around her. ... A 
 priestess of life-glories, she magnified her oflice 
 . . . . Mr. Emerson had also a priesthood, but 
 of a different order. The calm, severe judgment, 
 the unpardoning taste, the deliberations which not 
 only preceded but also followed his utterances, 
 carried him to a remoteness from the common life 
 of common people, and allowed no intermingling 
 of this life with his own." ^ 
 
 ^Margaret and Her Friends, p. 13. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 118 f. 
 
 * Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 84 f. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 139 
 
 Nothing characterizes better the difference be- 
 tween the Puritan spiritualist and the pupil of 
 Goethe's broad humanity than the following pas- 
 sage by the reporter of the "Conversations:" 
 
 "Mr. E. only served to display her powers. 
 With his sturdy reiteration of his uncompromising 
 idealism, his absolute denial of the fact of human 
 nature, he gave her opportunity and excitement 
 to unfold and Illustrate her realism and acceptance 
 of conditions. . . . She proceeds In her search 
 after the unity of things, the divine harmony,* 
 not by exclusion, as Mr. E. does, but by compre- 
 hension, — and so, no poorest, saddest spirit, but 
 she will lead to hope and faith." ^ 
 
 This last passage Is Important, for Margaret 
 Fuller's realism Is exactly the kind In which Goethe 
 believed, a realism which, when carefully studied 
 and understood, gives an Insight Into life, and 
 serves as a foundation for character building. 
 Margaret Fuller's cry was "Truth at all hazards 1" 
 
 * Compare Goethe's Tasso : 
 
 "Die letzten Enden aller Dinge will 
 
 Sein Geist zusammenf assen" ; and Faust (I. 11. 382-4) 
 
 "Dass ich erkenne, was die Welt 
 
 Im Innersten zusammenhalt." 
 
 "The final limits of all things 
 
 His soul seeks to <:omprehend," 
 
 "That I might understand what holds the world 
 
 Together within its innermost (parts)." 
 ^Memoirs, I. 349 f. 
 
140 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 But, as it was with Goethe, It was *'the Ideal truth, 
 which Margaret followed so zealously," ^ a truth 
 when expressed, that gave her hearers faith in 
 humanity and in themselves, and called out the 
 best that was In them. 
 
 Emerson himself gave a faithful description of 
 the difference between his character and belief and 
 that of Margaret Fuller. "Our moods were very 
 different," he says, "and I remember, that, at the 
 very time when I, slow and cold, had come fully 
 to admire her genius, and was congratulating my- 
 self on the solid good understanding that subsisted 
 between us, I was surprised with hearing It taxed 
 by her with superficiality and halfness. She stig- 
 matized our friendship as commercial. It seemed, 
 her magnanimity was not met, but I prized her 
 only for the thoughts and pictures she brought me ; 
 — so many thoughts, so many facts, yesterday, — so 
 many to-day; — when there was an end of things 
 to tell, the game was up ; that, I did not know, as 
 a friend should know, to prize a silence as much 
 as a discourse, — and hence a forlorn feeling was 
 Inevitable; a poor counting of thoughts, and a tak- 
 ing the census of virtues, was the unjust reception 
 so much love found. On one occasion, her grief 
 
 * Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 136. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 141 
 
 broke into words like these : 'The religious nature 
 remained unknown to you, because it could not 
 proclaim itself, but claimed to be divined. The 
 deepest soul that approached you was, in your 
 eyes, nothing but a magic lantern, always bringing 
 out pretty shows of life'." ^ 
 
 Lacking, of course, this truly human warmth 
 and glow of the soul, the depth of her Gemiith 
 which she had found through Goethe and de- 
 manded from all her friends towards herself, 
 Emerson could not understand her tone, and 
 asked her to explain. ''Let us hold hard to the 
 common sense,^' he said to her by letter, "and let 
 us speak in the positive degree." "Does water 
 meet water?" she asks, half satirically, half in fun, 
 in her answer, "no need of wine, sugar, spice, or 
 even a soupqon of lemon to remind of a tropical 
 climate? I fear me not. Yet, dear positives, be 
 lleve me superlatively yours, MARGARET." ^ 
 
 Again she writes to Emerson of what is going 
 on in her inner life, — of the change and deepen- 
 ing of her nature which was taking place about 
 this time (1840). But at the end of the letter 
 she asks: "Why do I write thus to one who must 
 ever regard the deepest tones of my nature as 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 288. *Ibid., I. 289. 
 
142 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 those of childish fancy or worldly discontent?" ^ 
 At another time she writes two descriptions of the 
 Drachenfels, one prose and one poetic, both full 
 of feeling, and says: "I had twenty minds to send 
 it [the poetic one] you as a literary curiosity; 
 then I thought, this might destroy relations, and 
 I might not be able to be calm and chip marble 
 with you any more, if I talked to you in magnet- 
 ism and music." - 
 
 Emerson, slow, cool, and collected as ever, 
 reasons over all these matters and finally reaches 
 the following conclusions as to her character: 
 *'Her nature was so large and receptive, so sym- 
 pathetic, ... so womanly in her understanding. 
 . . . He-r heart was underneath her intellectual- 
 ness, her mind was reverent, her spirit devout." ^ 
 Nevertheless "She was vexed at a want of sym- 
 pathy on my part," * and, "in short, Margaret 
 often loses herself in sentimentalism. . . . Her 
 integrity was perfect, and she was led and fol- 
 lowed by love, and was really bent on truth, but 
 too indulgent to the meteors of her fancy." '^ 
 
 The truth is that Emerson, the abstract, "cool" 
 thinker, never really penetrated into the deepest 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 291. ^Ibid., p. 230. ^Ibid., p. 316. 
 
 *Ibid., p. 308. "Ibid., I. 280. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 143 
 
 sources of at least one great aspect of her charac- 
 ter and wonderful personality. By his very 
 make-up he could not understand this side of her 
 nature, namely, the part that feeling played in 
 her life, nearly so well as those who owed their 
 own Inner development to her. 
 
 From these passages It is perfectly clear that 
 Emerson was never her "spiritual father," and 
 that he never exercised on her inner life anything 
 like an overpowering Influence, but that she had 
 a personality distinctly different from his, and 
 that the doctrine In which she believed, and which 
 she acted out In life, was altogether unlike his. 
 The fundamental thought in her doctrine was, 
 as in that of Goethe, the harmonious development 
 of the whole being, the heart as well as the mind. 
 In the spiritualistic doctrines of Emerson and his 
 fellow Transcendentallsts, as in Puritanism and 
 Unitarlanism, the emotional and truly human 
 side of character was badly neglected, and re- 
 mained, for that reason, largely undeveloped. 
 
 One is struck, in taking a broad and compre- 
 hensive view of Margaret Fuller's philosophical 
 and religious doctrines, by the truth of what James 
 Freeman Clarke said of her: ''She knew her 
 thoughts as we know each other's faces; and 
 
144 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 opinions, with most of us so vague, shadowy, and 
 shifting, were in her mind substantial and distinct 
 realities. . . . No sophist could pass on her a 
 counterfeit piece of Intellectual money. . . . This 
 gave a comprehensive quality to her mind most 
 Imposing and convincing, as It enabled her to show 
 the one Truth, or the one Law, manifesting Itself 
 In such various phenomena. Add to this her pro- 
 found faith In truth, which made her a Realist 
 of that order that thoughts to her were things." ^ 
 It Is this realism, developed In Margaret Fuller 
 under Goethe's Influence, which Mrs. Howe seems 
 to have In mind when she writes of her: "Her 
 sense was solid, and her meaning clear and 
 worthy." ^ "Whilst she embellished the mo- 
 ment," says Emerson, "her conversation had the 
 merit of being solid and true." ^ Certainly this 
 seems to be true: that the terms and definitions 
 applied to Transcendental, such as "lost In the 
 clouds," "transcending common-sense," "out of 
 touch with real practical life," "dreamy" do not 
 well fit her. 
 
 From all these passages combined. It is per- 
 fectly evident that Margaret Fuller was not a 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 113. 
 
 ^ Howe, Margaret Fuller, p. 85. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 312. 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 145 
 
 Transcendentallst In the accepted sense of the 
 word, that she saw the difference between their 
 convictions and hers clearly, and rejected their 
 doctrines. Even the Idea of an objective religion, 
 a church that had Its existence anywhere else than 
 In the human heart, was to her, the outspoken 
 Individualist, Inconceivable; though from her 
 Credo It Is evident that she felt no hostility toward 
 religious systems or creeds.^ Like Goethe and 
 Schiller, she believed that out of our own Inner 
 being, out of the Inner heart and self, are deter- 
 mined the highest laws for Individual growth and 
 action, and not from any principle or law that may 
 be Imposed upon us by anything that has Its exist- 
 ence outside of our being, whether religion or 
 philosophy. *'Only give the soul freedom and 
 room enough to grow," she says, "and It will 
 grow from Its own center." ' It was her convic- 
 tion that we must ultimately turn to the highest 
 Instincts of our Inner souls for the divine source 
 of our spiritual life,* and that the possibility of 
 
 ^ See Appendix, p. 256. 
 
 ^Reminiscences of Ednah Doiv Cheney, p. 207. 
 
 *In his poem, Schone Individualitdt, Schiller says: 
 "Einig sollst du zwar sein, doch eines nicht rait dem Ganzen. 
 Durch die Vernunft bist du eins, einig mit ihm durch das Herz. 
 Stirarae des Ganzen ist deine Vernunft, dein Herz bist du selber: 
 Wohl dir, wenn die Vernunft immer im Herzen dir wohnt." 
 "A unit indeed you should be, but not one with the All. 
 
146 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 a perfectly developed and rounded out life lay 
 within our own human nature, which she con- 
 sidered divine. 
 
 To claim still that Margaret Fuller was a Tran- 
 scendentalist, after reading from her own writings 
 and her chief biographers, all the evidence of her 
 close relation to Goethe, her "Master,'' her 
 "parent," as she calls him, would be almost to 
 claim that Goethe, too, was a New England 
 Transcendentalist. 
 
 In concluding this chapter and passing an esti- 
 mate on Margaret Fuller's philosophy of life and 
 her religious convictions, nothing better, nor more 
 authentic can be said than that which is recorded 
 by those whom she helped to a larger and fuller 
 life. "Her nature," said Mrs. Ednah Dow 
 Cheney, more than forty years after Margaret 
 Fuller's death, "was Intuitive and enthusiastic, but 
 balanced by her clear perception of the value of 
 limitations, and guided by her absolute fidelity 
 to truth. . . . Her method of thought was to 
 seize the heart of the subject and develop from 
 within. Nature readily yielded to her its spiritual 
 
 By your reason you are a unit, [and] in unity with the All 
 
 through the heart. 
 Voice of the All is your reason, your heart you are yourself. 
 Happy are you, if reason always dwells in your heart." 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 147 
 
 meaning. . . . Her religion was as broad and 
 all-embracing as her thought. I do not know 
 the record of any spiritual life more absolutely 
 free from theological narrowness, and yet more 
 truly religious. The depth of her life, her joy 
 and faith in living, was the secret of her marvelous 
 power over others." ^ James Freeman Clarke, 
 deeply religious, and the sincerest of Christians, 
 said of her doctrine. "It was religious, because 
 it recognized something divine, infinite, imper- 
 ishable in the human soul,— something divine in 
 outward nature and providence, by which the soul 
 Is led along its appointed way." ' And Emerson 
 records the words of one of the reporters of her 
 "Conversations" In Boston: "What is so noble 
 Is, that her realism is transparent with idea,— 
 her human nature Is the germ of a divine life." ' 
 
 * Reminiscences of Ednah Doiv Cheney, p. 209. 
 ^Memoirs, I. i33- 
 'Ibid., p. 349 f. 
 
Chapter IV 
 DEFENCE OF GOETHE 
 
 Margaret Fuller may justly lay claim to the 
 title of being the strongest and most effective de- 
 fender Goethe had in America. Of course, to ap- 
 preciate her work fully we must judge what 
 she says of Goethe in the light of her own time 
 and surroundings; only then can we comprehend 
 how much she did for his proper understanding 
 and appreciation in America. Goethe's writings, 
 as works of art, were little appreciated in this 
 country at the time, except by a very narrow circle 
 of the select few. Because of an almost general 
 misunderstanding of Goethe's principles, and 
 sometimes a lack of knowledge on the part of the 
 critics of what Goethe really taught and pro- 
 claimed, much severe and unjust criticism was 
 heaped upon his works. Not only did Margaret 
 Fuller have to counteract the influence of such 
 criticisms, but also to combat a narrow and very 
 bitter religious prejudice against him. Even more, 
 she had to defend him against influences that came 
 
 148 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 149 
 
 over from Germany Itself, through such men as 
 Wolfgang Menzel. What made it all the harder 
 for Margaret Fuller, and therefore entitles her to 
 all the more credit, was that a residue of the same 
 Calvinistic ideals and prejudices which swayed 
 nearly all New England at the time was born and 
 bred in her, and continually struggled to express 
 itself. 
 
 What great odds Margaret Fuller was forced 
 to encounter in upholding Goethe and his princi- 
 ples, and how severe the prejudices and attacks 
 against him must have been, may be seen when It 
 is remembered that even such men of power and 
 Influence as Emerson and Longfellow attacked the 
 great German poet with whole broadsides of ad- 
 verse criticism, during the early part of their 
 careers. 
 
 Emerson writes to Carlyle, November, 1834: 
 "Far, far better seems to me the unpopularity of 
 this Philosophical Poem (shall I call it?) [Sartor 
 Resartus] than the adulation that followed your 
 eminent friend, Goethe. With him I am becom- 
 ing better acquainted, but mine must be a qualified 
 admiration. It Is a singular piece of good nature 
 In you to apotheosize him. I cannot but regard it 
 as his misfortune, with conspicuous bad influence 
 
150 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 on his genius, — that velvet life he led. What 
 incongruity for genius, whose fit ornaments and 
 reliefs are poverty and hatred, to repose fifty 
 years on chairs of state! And what a pity that 
 his Duke did not cut off his head to save him from 
 the mean end (forgive) of retiring from the muni- 
 cipal incense 'to arrange tastefully his gifts and 
 medals.' Then the Puritan In me accepts no 
 apology for bad morals in such 3.S he. , . . A 
 certain wonderful friend of mine said that 'a false 
 priest is the falsest of false things.' But what 
 makes a priest? A cassock? . . . 
 
 "Then to write luxuriously is not the same as to 
 live so, but a new and worse offense. It implies 
 an Intellectual defect also, the not perceiving that 
 the present corrupt condition of human nature 
 (which condition this harlot muse helps to per- 
 petuate) is a temporary or artificial state." 
 
 Carlyle answers, February 3, 1835. "Your 
 objections to Goethe are very natural, and even 
 bring you nearer me: nevertheless, I am by no 
 means sure that it were not your wisdom, at this 
 moment, to set about learning the German Lan- 
 guage, with a view towards studying him mainly. 
 . . . His is the only healthy mind . . . that I 
 have discovered in Europe for long generations; 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 151 
 
 it was he that first convincingly proclaimed to me 
 (convincingly, for I saw it done) : Behold, even 
 in this scandalous Sceptico-Epicurean generation, 
 when all is gone but hunger and cant, it is still 
 possible that Man be a Man." "I suspect," Car- 
 lyle concludes, "you yet know only Goethe, the 
 Heathen (Ethnic) ; but you will know Goethe, 
 the Christian, by and by, and like that one far 
 better." ' 
 
 At this earnest solicitation of Carlyle Emerson 
 studied Goethe and gained a much better opinion 
 of him; yet he writes in his journal of 1836, that 
 he has been reading "our wise, but sensual, loved 
 and hated Goethe." ^ 
 
 In his article on Modern Literature in the 
 Dial, Emerson asks : "What shall we think of that 
 absence of the moral sentiment [in Goethe], that 
 singular equivalence to him of good and evil in 
 action, which discredit his compositions to the 
 pure?" Of Wilhelm Meister he says: "We are 
 never lifted above ourselves, we are not trans- 
 ported out of the dominion of the senses, or 
 cheered with an infinite tenderness, or armed with 
 a grand trust." Emerson did not like Goethe's 
 
 ^ Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, Vol. I. 29 ff., 39 f. 
 'Emerson's JVorks, Boston and New York, 1903. Vol. IV. pp. 
 368 ff. Notes by Edward W^, Emerson. 
 
152 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 hero, Wllhelm Melster; because he "has so many 
 weaknesses and Impurities and keeps such bad 
 company." ^ "Goethe then must be set down as 
 . . . the poet of limitations, ... of this world, 
 and not of religion and hope, ... in short, of 
 prose, not of poetry." ^ 
 
 In his volume on Representative Men, published 
 1850, Emerson praises Goethe for his profound 
 knowledge of human nature and for collecting 
 and embracing within himself and his works the 
 spirit of the age in all its tendencies and com- 
 plexity. "He was the soul of his century," Emer- 
 son writes. "He said the best things about nature 
 that ever were said." Yet in the end he finds the 
 same faults with the poet as before, claiming 
 that: "He is incapable of a self-surrender to the 
 moral sentiment. . . . Goethe can never be dear 
 to men. His is not even the devotion to pure 
 truth; but to truth for the sake of culture." ^ 
 Much as Emerson learned to admire the great 
 genius of the German poet, still, writes Edward 
 W. Emerson, the editor of Emerson's works, 
 
 ^Emerson's Works, Boston and New York, 1903. Vol IV. pp. 
 265 f. Notes by Edward W. Emerson. 
 
 ^Ibid., Vol. XII. pp. 328 ff. 
 
 * Emerson's Works, Vol IV. pp. 260 f., 270. Notes by Edward 
 W. Emerson. 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 153 
 
 "Always in his praise of Goethe there was a 
 reserve, a protest spoken or unspoken." * 
 
 Longfellow, too, in his "Hyperion," gives us 
 his view of Goethe, which Is really the gist of his 
 lectures on him In Harvard College during the 
 summer of 1838. 
 
 Though, like Emerson, he admired Goethe for 
 a great many admirable qualities, he says: "His 
 philosophy Is the old Ethnic philosophy. . . . 
 What I most object to In the old gentleman Is his 
 sensuality." He mentions then, as Immoral, the 
 Roman Elegies, and "that monstrous book, the 
 Elective Affinities,'^ and further says, "The artist 
 shows his character In the choice of his subject. 
 Goethe never sculptured an Apollo nor painted a 
 Madonna. He gives us only sinful Magdalens 
 and rampant Fauns." ~ 
 
 Even greater was the enmity of the public 
 against Goethe, so great In fact that even Emerson 
 
 takes the part of Goethe against them. " 
 
 pleased the people of Boston," writes Emerson 
 (1844), "by railing at Goethe In his Phi Beta 
 Kappa oration because Goethe was not a New 
 England Calvlnlst." ^ 
 
 ^ Emerson's .Works, Vol IV. p. 371. 
 ^Hy^perion, pp. 142 f., New York. 
 ^ Emerson's Works, Vol. IV. p. 371. Notes, 
 
154 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 These are a few expressions of the sentiment in 
 the midst of which Margaret Fuller lived, and 
 the conditions under which she labored in her 
 efforts to encourage a more general study of 
 Goethe and his doctrines in New England. 
 
 Margaret Fuller has left us two records of the 
 arguments which she used In her masterful defense 
 of Goethe against those who were assailing him. 
 In the preface to her translation of Eckermann's 
 Conversation with Goethe she answers all the 
 charges brought against the poet by her country- 
 men and the English critics; and in her first article 
 in the Dial she defends him against Wolfgang 
 Menzel, whose criticism of Goethe Professor 
 Felton of Harvard College had translated.* 
 
 In the preface to her translation of Ecker- 
 mann's Conversations with Goethe, she says: *'It 
 may not be amiss to give some intimation (more 
 my present limits do not permit) of the grounds 
 on which Goethe Is, to myself, an object of 
 peculiar interest and constant study. 
 
 *'I hear him much assailed by those among us 
 
 * Since Margaret Fuller's Works are very often inaccessible 
 to the reader, the quotations from them in the present and the 
 following chapter are frequently given at some length. More- 
 over, it was thought best, in order to gain a full appreciation of 
 her criticisms, to collect and present the main thoughts, with but 
 few comments, just as they stand in her various works. 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 155 
 
 who know hlnij some few in his own language, 
 but most from translations of 'Wilhelm Meister' 
 and Taust.' These, his two great works, in which 
 he proposed to himself the enigma of life, and 
 solved it after his own fashion, were, naturally 
 enough, selected, in preference to others, for trans- 
 lating. This was, for all but the translators, un- 
 fortunate, because these two, above all others, 
 require a knowledge of the circumstances and 
 character from which they rose, to ascertain their 
 scope and tendency." ^ 
 
 "The great movement in German literature" 
 Margaret Fuller says, ''Is too recent to be duly 
 estimated, even by those most interested to ex- 
 amine it;" because she thought, there was still 
 "the feeling of fresh creative life at work there." 
 Any conclusive criticism upon this Important liter- 
 ary period and upon its greatest literary genius, 
 Goethe, was therefore somewhat premature then, 
 Goethe having passed away only a few years 
 before. With these critics "who declare, from an 
 occasional peep through a spy-glass," what they 
 see and think of the great poet, she has no 
 patience. She wishes him judged from the great 
 historical standpoint, — the only one which we 
 
 ^ Preface to Eckermann's Conversations ivith Goethe, x f. 
 
156 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 consider valid today. "Would these hasty critics," 
 she writes, "but recollect how long it was before 
 similar movements in Italy, Spain, France, and 
 England, found their proper place in the thoughts 
 of other nations, they would not think fifty years' 
 investigation too much for fifty years' growth, 
 and would no longer provoke the Ire of those 
 who are lighting their tapers at the German torch. 
 . . . The objections usually made, . . . are such 
 as would answer themselves on a more thorough 
 acquaintance with the subject. . . . The objec- 
 tions, so far as I know them, may be resolved 
 into these classes: 
 
 He is not a Christian; 
 He is not an Idealist; 
 He is not a Democrat; 
 He is not Schiller.'" 
 
 H we add to this list "He Is not an orthodox 
 churchman," we have all the arguments brought 
 against him In America. Of Goethe's Christianity 
 she says: "He sought always for unity. ... A 
 creative activity was his law. He was far from 
 Insensible to spiritual beauty in the human char- 
 acter. He has embodied it in Its finest forms; 
 
 * Preface to Eckermann's Conversatioris nvith Goethe, xii flF. 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 157 
 
 but he merely put It In, what seemed feo him, its 
 place, as the key-stone of the social arch, and 
 paints neither that nor any other state with 
 partiality. Such was his creed as a writer. *I 
 palnt,^ he seems to say, 'what I have seen; 
 choose from it, or take It all, as you will or can.' 
 . . . His God was rather the creative and uphold- 
 ing than the paternal spirit; his religion, that all 
 his powers must be unfolded; his faith, 'that 
 nature could not dispense with Immortality.' In 
 the most trying occasions of his life, he referred 
 to *the great Idea of Duty which alone can hold 
 us upright.' . . . Those who cannot draw their 
 moral for themselves [from his works] had best 
 leave his books alone; they require the power as 
 life does. This advantage only does he give, or 
 Intend to give you, of looking at life brought Into 
 a compass convenient to your eye, by a great ob- 
 server and artist, and at times when you can look 
 uninterrupted by action, undisturbed by passion. 
 
 "He was not an Idealist: that Is to say, he 
 thought not so much of what might be as what is. 
 He did not seek to alter or exalt Nature, but 
 merely to select from her rich stores." This 
 answers one of Emerson's chief reproaches against 
 Goethe; namely, that he was too much a poet of 
 
158 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 the Actual and stuck too close to Mother Earth. 
 Goethe paints life as he found it, but selected 
 from its rich stores whatever served best his pur- 
 pose, which was never a low one. This also 
 answers Margaret Fuller's own criticism further 
 on in the preface (p. xxi) that Goethe "had the 
 artist's eye, and the artist's hand, but not the 
 artist's love of structure." Goethe was more than 
 an artist. He was a combination of poet and 
 philosopher such as the world had notseenbefore; 
 his real object, as she, as also Emerson, later, 
 justly says, was truth, not art alone. "I am well 
 satisfied that 'he went the way that God and 
 Nature called him,' " Margaret Fuller correctly 
 concludes. 
 
 "He was an Aristocrat." This she admits, but 
 adds: "Yet a minority is needed to keep these 
 liberals in check, and make them pause upon their 
 measures long enough to know what they are 
 doing; for, as yet, the caldron of liberty has 
 shown a constant disposition to overboil. The 
 artist and literary man is naturally thrown into 
 this body, by his need of repose, and a firm ground 
 to work in his proper way. Certainly Goethe by 
 nature belonged on that side; and no one, who 
 can understand the structure of his mind, instead 
 
DEFExNCE OF GOETHE 159 
 
 of judging him by his outward relations, will 
 impute to him unworthy motives. . . . To be 
 sincere, consistent, and Intelligent In what one 
 believes, Is what Is important; a higher power 
 takes care of the rest. 
 
 "In reply to those who object to him that he Is 
 not Schiller, It may be remarked that Shakespeare 
 was not Milton, nor Arlosto Tasso. It was, 
 Indeed, unnecessary that there should be two 
 Schillers, one being sufficient to represent a certain 
 class of thoughts and opinions. It would be well 
 If the admirers of Schiller would learn from him 
 to admire and profit by his friend and coadjutor, 
 as he himself did. 
 
 "Schiller was wise enough to judge each nature 
 by Its own law, great enough to understand great- 
 ness of an order different from his own. He was 
 too well aware of the value of the more beautiful 
 existences to quarrel with the rose for not being a 
 lily, the eagle for not being a swan. 
 
 "I am not fanatical as to the benefits to be 
 derived from the study of German literature," 
 she says, "I am not a blind admirer of Goethe." 
 "I suppose. Indeed, that there lie the life and 
 learning of the century [in the German litera- 
 ture], and that he who does not go to those 
 
i6o MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 sources can have no just notion of the workings 
 of the spirit In the European world these last fifty 
 years or more." Margaret Fuller states frankly 
 the faults she found with Goethe and German 
 literature in general, for she did find some, — ^yet 
 justly says, "No one who has a higher aim in 
 reading German books than mere amusement; no 
 one who knows what It is to become acquainted 
 with a literature as literature. In its history of 
 mutual influences, diverse yet harmonious tenden- 
 cies, can leave aside either Schiller or Goethe; but 
 far, far least the latter. It would be leaving 
 Augustus Cassar out of the history of Rome be- 
 cause he was not Brutus. 
 
 "Having now confessed to what Goethe is not,'* 
 she further writes, "I would indicate, as briefly as 
 possible, what, to me, he is. 
 
 "Most valuable as a means of balancing the 
 judgment and suggesting thought from his antag- 
 onism to the spirit of the age. . . . 
 
 "As one of the finest lyric poets of modern 
 times. Bards are also prophets; and woe to those 
 who refuse to hear the singer, to tender him the 
 golden cup of homage. Their punishment is in 
 their fault. 
 
 "As the best writer of the German language, 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE i6i 
 
 who has availed himself of all Its advantages of 
 richness and flexibility, and added to them a 
 degree of lightness, grace, clearness, and precision, 
 beyond any other writer of his time. . . . 
 
 "As a critic, on art and literature, not to be sur- 
 passed In independence, fairness, powers of 
 sympathy, and largeness of view. 
 
 ''Could I omit to study this eighty years' journal 
 of my parent's life, traced from so commanding 
 a position, by so sure a hand, and one Informed 
 by so keen and cultivated an eye? Where else 
 shall we find so large a mirror, or one with so 
 finely decorated a frame?" 
 
 "As a mind which has known how to reconcile 
 individuality of character with universality of 
 thought; a mind which, whatever be Its faults, 
 ruled and relied on itself alone [Selbst Leben]; 
 a nature which knew its law, and revolved on its 
 proper axis, unrepenting, never bustling, always 
 active, never stagnant, always calm." ^ 
 
 That some of the objections which Margaret 
 Fuller expresses In this same article against 
 Goethe, along with her praise of him, were not 
 deeply felt and had "method" In them, Is indi- 
 cated by the following sentence with which she 
 
 * Preface to Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, xii ff. 
 
i62 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 concludes her objections: **I flatter myself I 
 have now found fault enough to prove me a 
 worthy critic, after the usual fashion." The 
 fact that she calls him her parent outweighs all 
 the faults she could find. Surely there can be no 
 more influential person in our lives and esteem 
 than a parent. 
 
 In her masterly defense of Goethe in the Dial^ 
 entitled MenzeFs View of Goethe y she says: 
 "Menzel's view of Goethe Is that of a Philistine, 
 in the least opprobrious sense of the term. It is 
 one which has long been applied In Germany to 
 petty cavillers and Incompetent critics. I do not 
 wish to convey a sense so disrespectful In speak- 
 ing of Menzel. He has a vigorous and brilliant 
 mind, and a wide, though Imperfect, culture. He 
 is a man of talent, but talent cannot comprehend 
 genius. He judges of Goethe as a Philistine, 
 Inasmuch as he does not enter into Canaan, and 
 read the prophet by the light of his own law, 
 but looks at him from without, and tries him by 
 a rule beneath which he never lived. That there 
 was something Menzel saw; what that something 
 was not he saw, but what It was he could not see; 
 none could see; It was something to be felt and 
 known at the time of its apparition, but the clear 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 163 
 
 sight of it was reserved to a day far enough re- 
 moved from its sphere to get a commanding point 
 of view. Has that day come? A little while ago 
 It seemed so; certain features of Goethe's person- 
 ality, certain results of his tendency, had become 
 so manifest. But as the plants he planted mature, 
 they shed a new seed for a yet more noble 
 growth. A wider experience, a deeper insight, 
 make rejected words come true, and bring a more 
 refined perception of meaning already discerned. 
 Like all his elder brothers of the elect band, the 
 forlorn hope of humanity, he obliges us to live 
 and grow, that we may walk by his side; vainly 
 we strive to leave him behind in some niche of 
 the hall of our ancestors; a few steps onward and 
 we find him again, of yet serener eye and more 
 towering mien than on his other pedestal. Former 
 measurements of his size have, like the girdle 
 bound' by the nymphs round the infant Apollo, 
 only served to make him outgrow the unworthy 
 compass. The still rising sun, with Its broader 
 light, shows us it is not yet noon. In him is soon 
 perceived a prophet of our own age, as well as a 
 representative of his own; and we doubt whether 
 the revolutions of the century be not required to 
 interpret the quiet depths of his Saga, 
 
i64 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 *'Sure it Is that none has yet found Goethe's 
 place, as sure that none can claim to be his peer, 
 who has not some time, ay, and for a long time, 
 been his pupil ! ^ 
 
 *'Yet much truth has been spoken of him in 
 detail, some by Menzel, but in so superficial a 
 spirit, and with so narrow a view of its bearings, 
 as to have all the effect of falsehood. Such 
 denials of the crown can only fix it more firmly 
 on the head of the 'Old Heathen.' To such the 
 best answer may be given in the words of Bettina 
 Brentano : 'The others criticise thy works ; I only 
 know that they lead us on and on till we live in 
 them.' And thus will all criticism end in making 
 men and women read these works, and 'on and 
 on,' till they forget whether the author be a 
 patriot or a moralist, in the deep humanity of 
 the thought, the breathing nature of the scene. 
 While words they have accepted with immediate 
 approval fade from memory, these oft-denied 
 words of keen, cold truth return with ever new 
 force and significance. 
 
 "Men should be true, wise, beautiful, pure, and 
 aspiring. This man was true and wise, capable 
 of all things. . . . Can we, in a world where so 
 
 ^Life IVithout and Life Within, pp. 13 flF. 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 165 
 
 few men have in any degree redeemed their in- 
 heritance, neglect a nature so rich and so mani- 
 festly progressive? 
 
 ^'Historically considered, Goethe needs no 
 apology. His so-called faults fitted him all the 
 better for the part he had to play. In cool pos- 
 session of his wide-ranging genius, he taught the 
 imagination of Germany, that the highest flight 
 should be associated with the steady sweep and 
 undazzled eye of the eagle. Was he too much 
 the connoisseur, did he attach too great an im- 
 portance to the cultivation of taste, where just 
 then German literature so much needed to be 
 refined, polished, and harmonized? Was he too 
 sceptical, too much an experimentalist, — how else 
 could he have formed himself to be the keenest, 
 and, at the same time, most nearly universal of 
 observers, teaching theologians, philosophers, 
 and patriots that nature comprehends them all, 
 commands them all, and that no one development 
 of life must exclude the rest? ... If you want 
 a moral enthusiast, is not there Schiller? If 
 piety, of purest, mystic sweetness, who but 
 Novalis? Exuberant sentiment, that treasures 
 each withered leaf in a tender breast, look to your 
 Richter. Would you have men to find plausible 
 
i66 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 meaning for the deepest enigma, or to hang up 
 each map of literature, well painted and dotted 
 on Its proper roller, — there are the Schlegels. 
 Men of ideas were numerous as migratory crows 
 In autumn, and JacobI wrote the heart Into philos- 
 ophy, as well as he could. Who could fill 
 Goethe's place to Germany, and to the world, of 
 which she Is now the teacher? His much-reviled 
 aristocratic turn was at that time a reconciling 
 element. It Is plain why he was what he was, 
 for his country and his age." 
 
 In answer to Menzel's accusation that Goethe 
 was not patriotic, she writes. " 'His mother was 
 surprised, that when his brother and chief play- 
 mate, Jacob, died he shed no tear. . . . After- 
 wards, when his mother asked whether he had 
 not loved his brother, he ran Into his room and 
 brought from under his bed a bundle of papers, 
 all written over, and said he had done all this for 
 Jacob.' 
 
 "Even so in later years, had he been asked If 
 he had not loved his country and his fellow-men, 
 he would not have answered by tears and vows, 
 but pointed to his works. . . . 
 
 *'Most men. In judging another man ask. Did 
 he live up to our standard? But to me it seems 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 167 
 
 desirable to ask rather, Did he live up to his 
 own? ... If we can find out how much was 
 given him, we are told, In a pure evangellum, to 
 judge thereby how much shall be required. 
 
 "Now, Goethe has given us both his own stand- 
 ard and the way to apply It. 'To appreciate any 
 man, learn first what object he proposed to him- 
 self; next, what degree of earnestness he showed 
 with regard to attaining that object.' 
 
 ''And this Is part of his hymn for man made in 
 the divine image, 'The Godlike.' 
 
 "Hail to the Unknown, the 
 Higher Being 
 Felt within us! 
 
 There can none but man 
 Perform the impossible. 
 He understandeth, 
 Chooseth, and judgeth; 
 He can impart to the 
 Moment duration. 
 
 Let noble man 
 
 Be helpful and good; 
 
 Ever creating 
 
 The Right and the Useful; 
 
 Type of those loftier 
 
 Beings of whom the heart whispers." 
 
i68 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 "This standard is high enough. It is what 
 every man should express in action, the poet in 
 music." Margaret Fuller believes, however, that 
 Goethe, though the greatest and most sublime 
 poet of the modern world, could have attained a 
 yet higher level in his works. She believes that 
 his expressions of the ideal are "glimpses of the 
 highest spirituality", "blue sky seen through 
 chinks in a roof which should never have been 
 builded." "He has used life to excess," she says. 
 "He Is too rich for his nobleness, too judicious 
 for his inspiration, too humanly wise for his 
 divine mission. He might have been a priest; 
 he is only a sage [who. In the modern conception 
 of the term, is more than merely a priest; since 
 he should not be wise only, but also point the 
 way, as Goethe did, to a larger life]." 
 
 In answer to Menzel's and the multitude's 
 accusation that Goethe was a debauchee and an 
 Epicurean, which was also one of the chief accu- 
 sations brought against him by many of her New 
 England contemporaries, she asks: "Did Goethe 
 value the present too much? It was not for the 
 Epicurean aim of pleasure, but for use. He, in 
 this, was but an instance of reaction In an age of 
 painful doubt and restless striving as to the 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 169 
 
 future. Was his private life stained by profli- 
 gacy? That far largest portion of his life, which 
 is ours, and which is expressed in his works, is 
 an unbroken series of efforts to develop the higher 
 elements of our being." ^ 
 
 In Woman in the Nineteenth Century Marga- 
 ret Fuller speaks of heroes, poets, and artists 
 ' 'with whom the habitual life tended to expand the 
 soul, deepen and vary the experience, refine the 
 perceptions, and immortalize the hopes and dreams 
 of youth." That she had Goethe in mind here, 
 as her chief example, there can be little doubt. 
 "They were persons," she says, ''who never lost 
 their originality of character, nor spontaneity of 
 action. Their impulses proceeded from a fulness 
 and certainty of character that made it impossi- 
 ble they should doubt or repent, whatever the 
 results of their actions might be. 
 
 "They could not repent, in matters little or 
 great, because they felt that their actions were a 
 sincere exposition of the wants of their souls. 
 Their impulsiveness was not the restless fever of 
 one who must change his place somehow or some- 
 whither, but the waves of a tide, which might be 
 swelled to vehemence by the action of the winds 
 
 ^Life Without and Life Within, pp. 13 ff. 
 
170 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 or the influence of an attractive orb, but was none 
 the less subject to fixed laws. 
 
 "A character which does not lose its freedom 
 of motion and impulse by contact with the world, 
 grows with Its years more richly creative, more 
 freshly individual. It Is a character governed by 
 a principle of Its own, and not by rules taken from 
 other men's experience ; and therefore It Is that 
 
 'Age cannot wither them, nor custom stale 
 Their infinite variety.' 
 
 "Like violins, they gain by age, and the spirit 
 of him who discourseth through them most excel- 
 lent music, 
 
 *LIke wine well kept and long, 
 Heady, nor harsh, nor strong, 
 With each succeeding year is quaffed 
 A richer, purer, mellower draught.' " ^ 
 
 Menzel claimed that at a time when the whole 
 German nation was wrought up by conflicting 
 Ideas and political strife Goethe was serene and 
 calm, apparently Indifferent to the calamity about 
 him, continuing, seemingly undisturbed, his work 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 257. 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 171 
 
 as It lay mapped out before him every day. "His 
 serenity alone, in such a time of scepticism and 
 sorrowful seeking," Margaret Fuller says, in an- 
 swer to this accusation, ''gives him a claim to all 
 our study. See how he rides at anchor, lordly, 
 rich in freight, every white sail ready to be 
 unfurled at a moment's warning! And it must 
 be a very slight survey which can confound this 
 calm self-trust with selfish indifference of temper- 
 ament. . . . He never halts, never repines, never 
 is puzzled, like other men; that tranquillity, full 
 of life, that ceaseless but graceful motion, 'without 
 haste, without rest,' for which we all are striving, 
 he has attained. And is not his love of the noblest 
 kind? Reverence the highest, have patience with 
 the lowest. Let this day's performance of the 
 meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too 
 distant, pick up that pebble that lies at thy foot, 
 and from it learn the all. Go out like Saul, the 
 son of Kish, look earnestly after the meanest of 
 thy father's goods, and a kingdom shall be brought 
 thee. The least act of pure self-renunciation hal- 
 lows, for the moment, all within its sphere. The 
 philosopher may mislead, the devil tempt, yet 
 innocence, though wounded and bleeding as It 
 goes, must reach at last the holy city. The power 
 
172 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 of sustaining himself and guiding others rewards 
 man sufficiently for the longest apprenticeship. Is 
 not this lore the noblest? . . . He was true, for 
 he knew that nothing can be false to him who is 
 true, and that to genius nature has pledged her 
 protection." ^ 
 
 *'The greatness of Goethe," she says, "his na- 
 tion has felt for more than half a century; the 
 world Is beginning to feel it, but time may not 
 yet have ripened his critic; especially as the grand 
 historical standing point is the only one from 
 which a comprehensive view could be taken of 
 him." ^ 
 
 In thus concluding the preface to the Trans- 
 lation of Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, 
 she gives expression to the most important truth 
 she found, in fact, the only criterion by which we 
 may judge the real worth of any great man to his 
 age, or to the world: the historical point of view. 
 In arriving at this point of view, Margaret Fuller 
 not only surpassed Carlyle, but also preceded by 
 decades the contemporary critics of Goethe in 
 Germany, who could not escape from the baleful 
 influence of Hegel's Philosophy. And we may 
 
 ^Life Without and Life Within, pp. 20 ff. ^ 
 
 ^ Preface to Eckermann's Conversations iviih Goethe, xxii f. 
 
DEFENCE OF GOETHE 173 
 
 not claim too much by saying that she was led to 
 take this historical attitude by her thorough study 
 of Goethe himself. There can be no doubt that 
 had she been permitted to finish her proposed 
 Life of Goethe, she would have written It In the 
 true historical spirit, which her best criticisms of 
 him breathe. Certainly, we can say with Fred- 
 erick H. Hedge, one of her Intimate friends and 
 teachers, that what she did write of the great 
 German poet, taken all In all. Is "one of the best 
 things she has written", and "is one of the best 
 criticisms extant of Goethe." ^ 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. p. 96. 
 
Chapter V 
 
 INTERPRETATION, CRITICISM AND 
 TRANSLATION OF GOETHE 
 
 Margaret Fuller was more than merely a diligent 
 student of Goethe upon whose inner life his full 
 power was brought to bear with wondrous effect. 
 She was also an unusually clear-sighted critic and 
 appreciative interpreter of his works — both from 
 a philosophical and an artistic standpoint. The 
 study of German in America during the fourth 
 and fifth decades of the last century was still in 
 its infancy. It is true there were a few men 
 living in and about Cambridge and Boston at 
 that time who understood Goethe, and were very 
 fair interpreters of his works. But none of them 
 comprehended or interpreted him nearly so well 
 as Margaret Fuller did ; nor were any so active and 
 aggressive as she in disseminating German ideas 
 and principles. Just such an influential and ap- 
 preciative critic of German, as she, was much 
 needed in America at the time. The slow progress 
 
 174 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 175 
 
 In the study of German writers here was partly 
 due, at least, to the very fact that readers did not 
 understand the true mission to humanity of these 
 great thinkers, nor could they appreciate the 
 beauty of their works. 
 
 Most of the misinterpretations and lack of 
 appreciation of German works — and those of 
 Goethe especially — were due, however, to a strong 
 religious prejudice. Goethe came with a new 
 evangel, and this evangel did not coincide with 
 the Puritan religious ideal. Goethe came with 
 his doctrine of "God-Nature," or to phrase it a 
 little differently, ''Sinnlich-Sittlich," in which he, 
 as was stated in a preceding chapter, took cog- 
 nizance of one aspect- — the sensuous side — In the 
 development of character, whichhadbeenneglected 
 by Puritanism and the religious sects that had 
 their origin in Puritanism, namely, the Unitarians 
 and the Transcendentallsts. Because of his in- 
 herited Puritan Ideas the New Englander believed 
 that this side of human nature was of the "Evil 
 One." Naturally, therefore, Goethe was con- 
 demned as a Pagan, and his works as Immoral; 
 since much was found In them that pertained to the 
 sensual nature. Margaret Fuller, as we have 
 seen, had, to a high degree, freed herself from 
 
176 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 these same Puritan ideas, and had received a full 
 development of her whole nature and inner life 
 through Goethe. She knew exactly how a New 
 Englander felt, and could therefore, make 
 Goethe's doctrine appeal to him better than a 
 native-born German could do. Hence, nobody 
 was better adapted to become Goethe's inter- 
 preter among her countrymen than she. 
 
 The work of Goethe that held the uppermost 
 place in Margaret Fuller's estimation was, of 
 course, Faust, that "work without a parallel,'* as 
 she called it, "one of those few originals which 
 have their laws within themselves, and should 
 always be discussed singly." ^ Of this great 
 drama she says in her second article on Goethe in 
 the Dial: " 'Faust' contains the great idea of his 
 [Goethe's] life, as indeed there is but one great 
 poetic idea possible to man — the progress of a 
 soul through the various forms of existence.^ 
 
 "All his other works, whatever their miraculous 
 beauty of execution, are mere chapters to this 
 poem, illustrative of particular points. . . .^ 
 
 ^ Life Without and Life Within, p. 133. 
 
 'See also Margaret Fuller's Translation of Eckermann's 
 Conversations ivith Goethe, Introd. p. x. 
 '^ Life Without and Life Witnin, p. 35, 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 177 
 
 "The fiercest passions are not so dangerous foes 
 to the soul as the cold scepticism of the under- 
 standing. The Jewish demon assailed the man 
 of Uz with physical ills, the Lucifer of the middle 
 ages tempted his passions; but the Mephistopheles 
 of the eighteenth century bade the finite strive 
 to compass the infinite, and the Intellect attempt 
 to solve all the problems of the soul. 
 
 "This path Faust had taken: It Is that of 
 modern necromancy. Not willing to grow Into 
 God by a steady worship of a life, men would 
 enforce his presence by a spell; not willing to 
 learn his existence by the slow processes of their 
 own, they strive to bind it in a word, that they may 
 wear It about the neck as a talisman. 
 
 "Faust, bent on reaching the center of the uni- 
 verse through the Intellect alone, naturally, after 
 a length of trial, which has prevented the har- 
 monious unfolding of his nature, falls Into de- 
 spair. He has striven for one object, and that 
 object eludes him. Returning upon himself, he 
 finds large tracts of his nature lying waste and 
 cheerless. He Is too noble for apathy, too wise 
 for vulgar content with the animal enjoyments of 
 life. Yet the thirst he has been so many years 
 Increasing Is not to be borne. Give me, he cries, 
 
178 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 but a drop of water to cool my burning tongue. 
 Yet in casting himself with a wild recklessness 
 upon the impulses of his nature yet untried, there 
 is disbelief that any thing short of the All can 
 satisfy the immortal spirit. His first attempt was 
 noble, though mistaken, and under the saving in- 
 fluence of it, he makes the compact, whose 
 condition cheats the fiend at last." 
 
 Margaret Fuller then quotes the eight lines 
 from Faust, i. 1694 ff., containing the compact 
 which she thus translates rather freely: 
 
 "Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery 
 Make me one moment with myself at peace, 
 Cheat me into tranquillity? Come then 
 And welcome, life's last day. 
 Make me but to the moment say, 
 O fly not yet, thou art so fair, 
 Then let me perish, etc." 
 
 "But this condition," she continues, **is never 
 fulfilled. Faust cannot be content with sensuality, 
 with the charlatanry of ambition, nor with 
 riches." ^ "Faust became a wiser if not a nobler 
 being." ^ "His heart never becomes callous, nor 
 
 * Life Without and Life Within, p. 36 ff. 
 'Ibid., p. 34. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 179 
 
 his moral and Intellectual perceptions obtuse. He 
 is saved at last. 
 
 "With the progress of an Individual soul 19 
 shadowed forth that of the soul of the age; be- 
 ginning in intellectual scepticism; sinking Into 
 license ; cheating itself with dreams of perfect bliss, 
 to be at once attained by means no surer than a 
 spurious paper currency; longing itself back from 
 conflict between the spirit and the flesh, induced 
 by Christianity, to the Greek era with its har- 
 monious development of body and mind; striving 
 to re-embody the loved phantom of classical 
 beauty in the heroism of the middle age; flying 
 from the Byron despair of those who die because 
 they cannot soar without wings, to schemes how- 
 ever narrow, of practical utility, — redeemed at 
 last through mercy alone.'' ^ 
 
 "The Seeker represents the Spirit of the Age. 
 He [Faust] never sinned save by yielding, and 
 yet he was emphatically saved by grace. It Is 
 diflicult to see what Goethe meant until he got 
 to the Tower of the Middle Ages. That made 
 all clear." ^ 
 
 The character mentioned by Margaret Fuller 
 
 ^ Life Without and Life Within, pp. 37 f. 
 ^Margaret and Her Friends, pp. 131 f. 
 
i8o MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 again and again is Gretchen. Two short passages 
 will suffice here to show how Margaret Fuller 
 thought of this charming, unfortunate girl and 
 how she Interpreted her character. "Gretchen, In 
 the golden cloud, Is raised above all past delusions, 
 worthy to redeem and upbear the wise man who 
 stumbled into the pit of error while searching for 
 truth." ^ "Gretchen, by her Innocence of heart, 
 and the resolute aversion to the powers of dark- 
 ness, which her mind In its most shattered state, 
 does not forget, redeems not only her own soul, 
 but that of her erring lover." ' * 
 
 Most interesting is Margaret Fuller's criticism 
 of Mephistopheles. Hardly anything which has 
 been said or written since characterizes better the 
 demon within our inner nature and the various 
 forms in which he has appeared to man, and the 
 deep meaning underlying these several forms, than 
 these two paragraphs : 
 
 "The demon of the man of Uz; the facetious 
 familiar of Luther, cracking nuts on the bed- 
 posts, put to flight by hurling an ink-horn; the 
 haughty Satan of Milton, whose force of will Is 
 a match for all but Omnipotence; the sorrowful 
 
 ^ Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 228. 
 
 'Preface to Conversations ivith Goethe, p. xiii. 
 
 * For further discussions of Gretchen, see below p. 209. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS i8i 
 
 satire of Byron's temper; the cold polished Irony 
 of Goethe's Mephlstopheles; all mark with admir- 
 able precision the state of the age and the mental 
 position of the writer. Man tells his aspirations 
 In his God; but In his demon he shows his depth 
 of experience, and casts light Into the cavern 
 through which he worked his course up to the 
 cheerful day." 
 
 ". . . If we compare the Mephlstopheles and 
 Lucifer with the buskined devil of the mob, the 
 goblin with the cloven foot and tail, we realize 
 the vast development of Inward life. What a step 
 from slavish fears of Injury or outward retribution 
 to representations, like these, of Inward dangers, 
 the pitfalls and fearful dens within our nature, 
 and he who thoughtfully sees the danger begins 
 already to subdue." ^ 
 
 ''The second part of Faust Is full of meaning, 
 resplendent with beauty; but It Is rather an ap- 
 pendix to the first part than a fulfillment of its 
 promise. The world, remembering the powerful 
 stamp of individual feeling, universal indeed in 
 Its application, but Individual In its life, which 
 had conquered all its scruples In the first part, 
 was vexed to find. Instead of the man Faust, the 
 
 'Dial, Vol. Ill, p. 258. 
 
i82 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 spirit of the age, — discontented with the shadowy 
 manifestation of truths it longed to embrace, and, 
 above all, disappointed that the author no longer 
 met us face to face, or riveted the ear by its deep 
 tones of grief and resolve." ^ 
 
 In answer to this criticism so common among 
 many of the readers of the second part of Faust, 
 she says : "When the world shall have got rid of 
 the still overpowering influence of the first part, 
 it will be seen that the fundamental idea is never 
 lost sight of in the second. The change is that 
 Goethe, though the same thinker, is no longer the 
 same person." ^ 
 
 "Goethe borrowed from the book of Job the 
 grand thought of permitted temptation . . . [He] 
 has shown the benefits of deepening individual 
 consciousness . . . [and] left his unfinished leaves 
 as they fell from his life. By leading a soul 
 through various processes to final redemption, 
 we are made to expect an indication of the 
 steps through which man passes to spiritual 
 purification." ^ 
 
 Wilhelm Meister, the work so little appreciated 
 and so much abused in New England during Mar- 
 
 ^Life Without and Life Within, p. 38. 
 
 'Ibid., p. 38. 
 
 ' Dial, Vol. Ill, pp. 248 f. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 183 
 
 garet Fuller*s life, had a charm for her only 
 second to that of Faust. Here, In this great work, 
 she found Goethe's philosophy of the development 
 of human character in its clearest outlines and 
 most complete form. She looked at this work, 
 therefore, as one of the greatest educational works 
 that the world had ever produced. 
 
 "The continuation of Faust in the practical 
 sense of the education of man," she says, "is to 
 be found in Wilhelm Melster." ^ "Faust and 
 Wilhelm Meister [are] so easily taken captive 
 by the present. I admit the wisdom of this course, 
 where, as in Wilhelm Meister, the aim Is to 
 suggest the various ways in which the whole nature 
 may be educated through the experiences of this 
 world." "Renunciation, the power of sacrificing 
 the temporary for the permanent," she writes 
 again, "is the leading idea in one of his great 
 works, Wilhelm Meister." ^ This Is the great 
 doctrine which Wilhelm Meister had taught her 
 and which she tried to Impress upon others. 
 
 Continuing in the Dial the comparison between 
 Faust and Wilhelm Meister, she says: "Here 
 [in Wilhelm Meister'] we see the change by 
 strongest contrast. The main spring of action is 
 
 * Life Without and Life Within, p. 38. 
 
 ' Preface to Conversations <with Goethe, p. xiix. 
 
i84 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 no longer the Impassioned and noble seeker [as 
 In Faust], but a disciple of circumstance, whose 
 most marked characteristic Is a taste for virtue 
 and knowledge. Wllhelm certainly prefers these 
 conditions of existence to their opposltes, but there 
 Is nothing so decided In his character as to prevent 
 his turning a clear eye on every part of the 
 variegated world-scene which the writer wished 
 to place before us. 
 
 "To see all till he knows all sufficiently to put 
 objects Into their relations, then to concentrate 
 his powers and use his knowledge under recog- 
 nized conditions, — such Is the progress of man 
 from Apprentice to Master. 
 
 ". . . 'TIs pity that the volumes of the Wan- 
 derjahre have not been translated entire, as well 
 as those of the Lehrjahre, for many, who have 
 read the latter only, fancy that Wllhelm becomes 
 a master In that work. Far from It; he has but just 
 become conscious of the higher powers that have 
 ceaselessly been weaving his fate. Far from being 
 as yet a Master, he but now begins to be a Knower. 
 In the Wanderjahre we find him gradually learn- 
 ing the duties of citizenship, and hardening into 
 manhood, by applying what he has learned for 
 himself to the education of his child. He con- 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 185 
 
 verses on equal terms with the wise and benefi- 
 cent; he Is no longer duped and played with 
 for his good, but met directly mind to mind. 
 
 ^'Wllhelm Is a miaster when he can command 
 his actions, yet keep his mind always open to new 
 means of knowledge; when he has looked at vari- 
 ous ways of living, various forms of religion and 
 of character, till he has learned to be tolerant of 
 all, discerning of good in all; when the astrono- 
 mer imparts to his equal ear his highest thoughts, 
 and the poor cottager seeks his aid as a patron 
 and counsellor. 
 
 "To be capable of all duties, limited by none, 
 with an open eye, a skilful and ready hand, an 
 assured step, a mind deep, calm, foreseeing with- 
 out anxiety, hopeful without the aid of illusion, — 
 such is the ripe state of manhood. This attained, 
 the great soul should still seek and labor, but 
 strive and battle never more. 
 
 ''The reason for Goethe's choosing so negative 
 a character as Wllhelm, and leading him through 
 scenes of vulgarity and low vice, would be obvious 
 enough to a person of any depth of thought, 
 even If he himself had not announced It. He thus 
 obtained room to paint life as It really is, and 
 bring forward those slides in the magic lantern 
 
i86 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 which are always known to exist, though they 
 may not be spoken of to ears polite. 
 
 "Wilhelm cannot abide In tradition, nor do as 
 his fathers did before him, merely for the sake of 
 money or a standing In society. The stage, here 
 an emblem of the Ideal life as It gleams before 
 unpractised eyes, offerls, he fancies, opportunity 
 for a life of thought as distinguished from one 
 of routine. Here, no longer the simple citizen, 
 but Man, all Men, he will rightly take upon him- 
 self the different aspects of life, till poet-wise, he 
 shall have learned them all. 
 
 "No doubt the attraction of the stage to young 
 persons of a vulgar character Is merely the bril- 
 liancy of Its trappings; but to Wllhelm, as to 
 Goethe, It was this poetic freedom and dally sug- 
 gestion which seemed likely to offer such an 
 agreeable studio In the green room. 
 
 "But the Ideal must be rooted In the real, else 
 the poet's life degenerates Into buffoonery or vice. 
 Wllhelm finds the characters formed by this 
 would-be Ideal existence more despicable than 
 those which grew up on the track, dusty and 
 bustling and dull as It had seemed, of common 
 life. He Is prepared by disappointment for a 
 higher ambition. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 187 
 
 "In the house of the count he finds genuine 
 elegance, genuine sentiment, but not sustained by 
 wisdom, or a devotion to important objects. This 
 love, this life. Is also Inadequate. 
 
 "Now, with Teresa he sees the blessings of 
 domestic peace. He sees a mind sufficient for 
 Itself, finding employment and education In the 
 perfect economy of a little world. The lesson 
 Is pertinent to the state of mind In which his 
 former experiences have left him, as Indeed our 
 deepest lore Is won from reaction. But a sud- 
 den change of scene Introduces him to the society 
 of the sage and learned uncle, the sage and benefi- 
 cent Natalia. Here he finds the same virtues as 
 with Teresa, and enlightened by a larger 
 wisdom. . . . 
 
 "The Count of Thorane, a man of powerful 
 character, who made a deep Impression on his 
 childhood, was, he says, 'reverenced by me as an 
 uncle.' And the Ideal wise man of this common 
 life epic stands before us as 'The Uncle.' 
 
 "After seeing the working of just views in the 
 establishment of the uncle, learning piety from 
 the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, and religious 
 beneficence from the beautiful life of Natalia, 
 Wilhelm is deemed worthy of admission to the 
 
1 88 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 society of the Illumlnati, that is, those who have 
 pierced the secret of life, and know what it is 
 to be and to do. 
 
 ''Here he finds the scroll of his life 'drawn with 
 large, sharp strokes,' that is, these truly wise read 
 his character for him, and 'mind and destiny are 
 but two names for one idea.' 
 
 "He now knows enough to enter on the Wan- 
 der] ahre. 
 
 "Goethe always represents the highest prin- 
 ciple in the feminine form. Woman is the 
 Minerva, man the Mars. As in the Faust, the 
 purity of Gretchen, resisting the demon always, 
 even after all her faults, is announced to have 
 saved her soul to heaven; and in the second part 
 she appears, not only redeemed herself, but by 
 her innocence and forgiving tenderness hallowed 
 to redeem the being who had injured her. 
 
 "So in the Meister, these women hover around 
 the narrative, each embodying the spirit of the 
 scene. The frail Philina, graceful, though con- 
 temptible, represents the degradation incident to 
 an attempt at leading an exclusively poetic life. 
 Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse bestowed on 
 the passionate heart of man, with her soft, mysteri- 
 ous inspiration, her pining for perpetual youth, 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 189 
 
 represents the high desire that leads to this mis- 
 take, as Aurelia, the desire for excitement; Teresa, 
 practical wisdom, gentle tranquillity, which 
 seem most desirable after the Aurelia glare. Of 
 the beautiful soul and Natalia we have already 
 spoken. The former embodies what was sug- 
 gested to Goethe by the most spiritual person he 
 knew In youth — Mademoiselle von Klettenberg, 
 over whom, as he said, in her Invalid loneliness 
 the Holy Ghost brooded like a dove. 
 
 "Entering on the Wanderjahre, Wllhelm be- 
 comes acquainted with another woman, who seems 
 the complement of all the former, and represents 
 the Idea which Is to guide and mould him In the 
 realization of all the past experience. 
 
 "This person, long before we see her, is an- 
 nounced in various ways as a ruling power. She 
 is the last hope in cases of difficulty, and, though 
 an Invalid, and living In absolute retirement^ Is 
 consulted by her connections and acquaintances 
 as an unerring judge In all their affairs. 
 
 "All things tend toward her as a center; she 
 knows all, governs all, but never goes forth from 
 herself. 
 
 "Wllhelm at last visits her. He finds her infirm 
 in body, but equal to all she has to do. Charity 
 
190 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 and counsel to men who need her are her business, 
 astronomy her pleasure. 
 
 ''After a while, Wllhelm ascertains from the 
 Astronomer, her companion, what he had before 
 suspected, that she really belongs to the solar 
 system, and only appears on earth to give men a 
 feeling of the planetary harmony. From her 
 youth up, says the Astronomer, till she knew me, 
 though all recognized In her an unfolding of the 
 highest moral and intellectual qualities, she was 
 supposed to be sick at her times of clear vision. 
 When her thoughts were not In the heavens, she 
 returned and acted in obedience to them on earth; 
 she was then said to be well. 
 
 "When the Astronomer had observed her long 
 enough, he confirmed her inward consciousness of 
 a separate existence and peculiar union with the 
 heavenly bodies. 
 
 "Her picture is painted with many delicate 
 traits, and a gradual preparation leads the reader 
 to acknowledge the truth; but, even In the slight 
 indication here given, who does not recognize thee, 
 divine Philosophy, sure as the planetary orbits, 
 and Inexhaustible as the fountain of light, crown- 
 ing the faithful seeker at last with the privilege 
 to possess his own soul. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 191 
 
 **In all that is said of Macaria, we recognize 
 that no thought Is too religious for the mind of 
 Goethe. It was indeed so." ^ "His two highest 
 female characters, Natalia and Macaria, are 
 representations of beneficence and heavenly 
 wisdom.'' ^ 
 
 *'WIlhelm, at the school of the Three Rev- 
 erences, thinks out what can be done for man In 
 his temporal relations. He learns to practice 
 moderation, and even painful renunciation. The 
 book ends, simply Indicating what the course of 
 his life will be, by making him perform an act 
 of kindness, with good judgment and at the right 
 moment. 
 
 "Surely the simple soberness of Goethe should 
 please at least those who style themselves, pre- 
 eminently, people of common sense." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller is correct In saying that in 
 Werther we have an expression of a part of 
 Goethe's own feelings, an epoch In his develop- 
 ment. Werther expresses truthfully certain 
 phases through which the great poet himself 
 passed in his growth as an individual and a genius. 
 
 ^Liie Without and Life Within, pp. 38 ff. 
 
 'Translation of Conversations nvith Goethe, Preface, p. xlv. 
 
 ' Life Without and Life Within, p. 43. 
 
192 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 "He was driven," Margaret Fuller writes in 
 describing the personal experiences and disappoint- 
 ments through which Goethe passed previous to 
 writing this work, "from the severity of study into 
 the world, and then again drawn back, many 
 times in the course of his crowded youth. Both 
 the world and the study he used with unceasing 
 ardor. . . . He was very social, and continually 
 perturbed by his social sympathies. He was de- 
 ficient both in outward self-possession and mental 
 self-trust [quoting Goethe's own words] 'either 
 too volatile or too infatuated^'' Herder's and 
 Merck's influences, she said, were also brought to 
 bear on him, and not always In a manner to cheer 
 the young poet or give him confidence in his own 
 productions. "His youth," she continues, "was 
 as sympathetic and Impetuous as any on record." 
 
 "The effect of all this outward pressure on 
 the poet is recorded in Werther — a production 
 that he afterwards undervalued, and to which he 
 even felt positive aversion. It was natural that 
 this should be. In the calm air of the cultivated 
 plain he attained, the remembrance of the miasma 
 of sentimentality was odious to him. Yet senti- 
 mentality is but sentiment diseased, which to be 
 cured must be patiently observed by the wise 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 193 
 
 physician; so are the morbid desire and despair 
 of Werther, the sickness of a soul aspiring to 
 a purer, freer state, but mistaking the way." ' 
 "Werther . . . must die because life was not 
 wide enough and rich enough in love for him." ^ 
 "The best or the worst occasion in man's life 
 is precisely that misused in Werther, when he 
 longs for more love, more freedom, and a larger 
 development of genius than the limitations of this 
 terrene sphere permit. Sad is it indeed If, persist- 
 ing to grasp too much at once, he lose all, as 
 Werther did. He must accept limitation, must 
 consent to do his work in time, must let his affec- 
 tions be baffled by the barriers of convention. Tan- 
 talus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, 
 like Hercules, rises in fires to heaven, according 
 as he knows how to Interpret his lot. But he 
 must only use, not adopt It. The boundaries of 
 the man must never be confounded with the des- 
 tiny of the soul. If he does not decline his destiny, 
 as Werther did, it is his honor to have felt its 
 unfitness for his eternal scope. He was born for 
 wings; he is held to walk in leading-strings; 
 nothing lower than faith must make him resigned, 
 and only in hope should he find content — a hope 
 
 * Life Without and Life Within, pp. 29 f. 
 'Ibid., p. 34. 
 
194 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 not of some slight improvement In his own condi- 
 tion or that of other men, but a hope justified by 
 the divine justice, which is bound In due time to 
 satisfy every want of his nature. 
 
 "Schiller's great command is, *Keep true to the 
 dream of thy youth'. The great problem is how 
 to make the dream real, through the exercise of 
 the waking will. 
 
 "This was not exactly the problem Goethe tried 
 to solve. To do somewhat, became too impor- 
 tant. ... It is not the knowledge of what might 
 be, but what is, that forms us." 
 
 "Werther ... Is characterized by a fervid 
 eloquence of Italian glow, which betrays a part 
 of his character almost lost sight of in the quiet 
 transparency of his later productions, and may 
 give us some Idea of the mental conflicts through 
 which he passed to manhood. 
 
 "The acting out the mystery into life, the calm- 
 ness of survey, and the passlonateness of feeling, 
 above all the ironical baffling at the end, and want 
 of point to a tale got up with such an eye to effect 
 as he goes along, mark well the man that was to 
 be. Even so did he demand in Werther; even 
 so resolutely open the door In the first part of 
 Faust; even so seem to play with himself and 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 195 
 
 his contemporaries In the second part of Faust and 
 Wllhelm Meister. 
 
 "Yet was he deeply earnest In his play, not 
 for men, but for himself. To himself as a part 
 of nature It was Important to grow, to lift his 
 head to the light. In nature he had all confidence ; 
 for man, as a part of nature, Infinite hope; but In 
 him as an Individual will, seemingly, not much 
 trust at the earliest age." ^ 
 
 So deeply Interested was Margaret Fuller in 
 Goethe's Tasso that she translated It Into English 
 verse. "In Tasso," she writes, "Goethe has de- 
 scribed the position of the poetical mind in its 
 prose relations." It is,, she believes, another 
 confession or expression of what Goethe, as a 
 poet, felt, himself.^ 
 
 "Goethe had not from nature that character of 
 self-reliance and self-control in which he so long 
 appeared to the world. It was wholly acquired, 
 and so highly valued because he was conscious 
 of the opposite tendency. He was by nature as 
 impetuous, though not as tender, as Tasso, and 
 the disadvantage at which this constantly placed 
 him was keenly felt by a mind made to appreciate 
 
 ^ Life Without and Life Within, pp. 29 ff. 
 - Ibid., p. 28. 
 
196 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 the subtlest harmonies In all relations. Therefore 
 was It that when he at last cast anchor, he was so 
 reluctant again to trust himself to wave and 
 breeze." ^ 
 
 Of the harrowing feelings that must rend a 
 sympathetic and tender poetic heart, like that of 
 Tasso, Margaret Fuller says: "Let me add as 
 the best criticism, for the hearing of those that 
 will hear, one of those matchless scenes in which 
 Goethe represents the sudden blazes of eloquence, 
 the fitful shadings of mood, and the exquisite 
 sensitiveness to all Influences that made the weak- 
 ness and the power of Tasso. It also presents 
 the relation that probably existed between the 
 princess and the poet, with more truth than their 
 confessors could discern it, for the poet is the only 
 priest In the secrets of the heart." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller, to give us an adequate Idea 
 of the beauty and feeling of the play, or rather to 
 let the play speak for itself In these matters, quotes, 
 In her article on Goethe In the Dial, two scenes 
 (Act II, Scenes i and 2) from her own trans- 
 lation of Tasso. In these two scenes Tasso gives 
 vent to the deepest poetic feelings that arise from 
 the conflicts between his Idealistic, poetic inner 
 
 ' Life Without and Life Within, pp. 28 f. ' Dial, January, 1842. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 197 
 
 nature, and the unfeeling, realistic world outside ; 
 and finally, based upon the encouraging words of 
 the Princess, he ends in the second scene with the 
 most glowing hopes and ecstacy of soul, a com- 
 plete abandonment to his poetic feelings. 
 
 The sufferings of Tasso always appealed deeply 
 to Margaret Fuller, and she writes: "Beethoven! 
 Tasso ! It is well to think of you ! What suffer- 
 ings from baseness, from coldness! How rare 
 and momentary were the flashes of joy, of confi- 
 dence and tenderness, in these noblest lives ! Yet 
 could not their genius be repressed. The Eternal 
 Justice lives. O Father, teach the spirit the 
 meaning of sorrow, and light up the generous 
 fires of love and hope and faith." ^ 
 
 It is ''a novelty," Margaret Fuller believes, 
 "to see the mind of a poet analysed and portrayed 
 by another, who, however, shared the inspiration 
 only of his subject, saved from his weakness by 
 that superb balance of character in which Goethe 
 surpasses even Milton." This "very celebrated 
 production of the first German writer" with Its 
 "beautiful finish of style" she calls a "many-toned 
 lyre on which the poet originally melodized his 
 inspired conceptions." "The central situation of 
 
 ^Memoirs, II. 105. 
 
198 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Tasso," she says, in conclusion, is "the manner 
 in which his companions draw him out, and are 
 in turn drawn out by him, the mingled generosity 
 and worldliness of the Realist Antonio, the mix- 
 ture of taste, feeling, and unconscious selfishness 
 in Alphonso, the more delicate, but not less de- 
 cided painting of the two Leonoras, the gradual 
 but irresistible force by which the catastrophe 
 is drawn down upon us, concur to make this drama 
 a model of Art, that art which Goethe worshipped 
 ever after he had exhaled his mental boyhood 
 in Werther." ' 
 
 Of Egmont and Goetz von Berlichingen Mar- 
 garet Fuller also speaks, calling the former "the 
 generous free liver," ^ and finding in the latter 
 a striking and beautiful picture of ideal home 
 relations between husband and wife, "that com- 
 munity of inward life, that perfect esteem," which 
 enables Goetz von Berlichingen to say " *Whom 
 God loves, to him gives He such a wife'." ^ 
 
 The Elective Affinities and Iphigenie were to 
 Margaret Fuller the "two surpassingly beautiful 
 works" of Goethe. For these she expresses the 
 
 ^ Art, Literature and the Drama, pp. 355 f. 
 ~ Life Without and Life Within, p. 60. 
 ^ Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 80. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 199 
 
 greatest praise and most glowing admiration. In 
 them *'Is shown most distinctly," she says, "the 
 clear perception which was In Goethe's better na- 
 ture, of the beauty of that steadfastness, of that 
 singleness and simple melody of soul, which he 
 too much sacrificed to become 'the many-sided 
 One\" 
 
 What a storm of bitter criticism and protest 
 was hurled against the first of these works by 
 those who held to Puritan traditions, and conse- 
 quently rejected everything that In any way per- 
 tained to the sensuous nature, Is seen from Mar- 
 garet Fuller's own criticism of these works. She 
 was practically alone in her large circle In seeing 
 the true meaning and higher beauty of this charm- 
 ing work. How great must have been her Influ- 
 ence In correcting the mistaken Idea current 
 concerning this work, and In saving It from the 
 bad reputation that had been given It. In her 
 enthusiasm she justly called It "Moral" and 
 "Religious even to piety In Its spirit." 
 
 "Not Werther," she says, "not the Nouvelle 
 Helolse, have been assailed with such a storm of 
 Indignation as the first-named of these works, on 
 the score of gross Immorality. 
 
 "The reason probably Is the subject; any discus- 
 
200 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 slon of the validity of the marriage vow making 
 society tremble to its foundation; and, secondly, 
 the cold manner in which it is done. All that is 
 in the book would be bearable to most minds if 
 the writer had had less the air of a spectator, and 
 had larded his work here and there with ejacu- 
 lations of horror and surprise. 
 
 "These declarations of sentiment on the part 
 of the author seem to be required by the majority 
 of readers, in order to an interpretation of his 
 purpose, as sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly were, 
 in an old fashioned sermon, to rouse the audience 
 to a perception of the method made use of by the 
 preacher. 
 
 "But it has always seemed to me that those 
 who need not such helps to their discriminating 
 faculties, but read a work so thoroughly as to ap- 
 prehend its whole scope and tendency, rather than 
 hear what the author says it means, will regard 
 the Elective Affinities as a work especially what 
 is called moral in its outward effect, and religious 
 even to piety in its spirit. The mental aberrations 
 of the consorts from their plighted faith, though 
 in one case never indulged, and though in the 
 other no veil of sophistry is cast over the weakness 
 of passion, but all that is felt expressed with the 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 201 
 
 openness of one who desires to legitimate what 
 he feels, are punished by terrible griefs and^ a 
 fatal catastrophe. Ottilia, that being of exquisite 
 purity, with intellect and character so harmonized 
 in feminine beauty, as they never before were 
 found in any portrait of woman painted by the 
 hand of man, perishes, on finding she has been 
 breathed on by unhallowed passion, and led to 
 err even by her ignorant wishes against what is 
 held sacred." ' "The virgin Ottilia . . . immo- 
 lates herself to avoid the possibility of spotting 
 her thoughts with passion." " 
 
 "It pains me," she says in a letter, "to part with 
 Ottilia. I wish we could learn books, as we do 
 pieces of music, and repeat them, in the author's 
 order, when taking a solitary walk. But, now, 
 if I set out with an Ottilia, this wicked fairy 
 association conjures up such crowds of less lovely 
 companions, that I often cease to feel the influence 
 of the elect one." ^ 
 
 "I am thinking," she writes again, to a minis- 
 terial friend, "how I omitted to talk a volume to 
 you about the 'Elective Affinities.' Now I shall 
 never say half of it, for which I, on my own ac- 
 
 ' Life Without and Life Within, pp. 48 f- . 
 -Conversations ivith Goethe, Introd., p. xiv. 
 ^Memoirs, I. 117- 
 
202 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 count, am sorry. ... I am now going to dream 
 of your sermon, and of Ottilia's china-asters.'' ^ 
 
 "The only personage whom we do not pity 
 is Edward, for he is the only one who stifles the 
 voice of conscience. 
 
 "There is indeed a sadness, as of an irresistible 
 fatality, brooding over the whole. It seems as 
 if only a ray of angelic truth could have enabled 
 these men to walk wisely in this twilight, at first 
 so soft and alluring, then deepening into blind 
 horror. 
 
 "But if no such ray came to prevent their 
 earthly errors, it seems to point heavenward in the 
 saintly sweetness, of Ottilia. Her nature, too 
 fair for vice, too finely wrought even for error, 
 comes lonely, intense, and pale, like the evening 
 star on the cold, wintry night. It tells of other 
 worlds, where the meaning of such strange pas- 
 sages as this must be read to those faithful and 
 pure like her, victims perishing in the green gar- 
 lands of a spotless youth to atone for the unworthi- 
 ness of others. 
 
 "An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minut- 
 est trait of this character, and deepens with every 
 new study of it. Not even in Shakespeare have 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. n8. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 203 
 
 I so felt the organizing power of genius. Through 
 dead words I find the least gestures of this person, 
 stamping themselves on my memory, betraying 
 to the heart the secret of her life, which she her- 
 self, like all these divine beings, knew not. I feel 
 myself familiarized with all beings of her order. 
 I see not only what she was, but what she might 
 have been, and live with her in yet untrodden 
 realms. 
 
 ''Here is the glorious privilege of a form known 
 only in the world of genius. There is on it no 
 stain of usage or calculation to dull our sense 
 of its immeasurable life. What in our daily walk, 
 mid common faces and common places, fleets 
 across us at moments from glances of the eye, or 
 tones of the voice, is felt from the whole being 
 of one of these children of genius. 
 
 "This precious gem is set in a ring complete In 
 its enamel. I cannot hope to express my sense 
 of the beauty of this book as a work of art. 1 
 would not attempt it if I had elsewhere met any 
 testimony to the same. The perfect picture, 
 always before the mind, of the chateau, the moss 
 hut, the park, the garden, the lake, with its boat 
 and the landing beneath the platan trees; the 
 gradual manner in which both localities and per- 
 
204 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 sons grow upon us, more living than life, inasmuch 
 as we are, unconsciously, kept at our best tem- 
 perature by the atmosphere of genius, and thereby 
 more delicate In our perceptions than amid our 
 customary fogs ; the gentle unfolding of the central 
 thought, as a flower In the morning sun; then 
 the conclusion, rising like a cloud, first soft and 
 white, but darkening as it comes, till with a sudden 
 wind It bursts above our heads; the ease with 
 which we everywhere find points of view all 
 different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for 
 though we feel every hour new worlds, still before 
 our eye lie the same objects, new, yet the same 
 unchangeable, yet always changing their aspects 
 as we proceed, till at last we find v/e ourselves 
 have transferred the circle, and know all we over- 
 looked at first, — these things are worthy of our 
 highest admiration. 
 
 "For myself, I never felt so completely that 
 very thing which genius should always make us 
 feel — that I was in its circle, and could not get 
 out till its spell was done, and its last spirit per- 
 mitted to depart. I was not carried away. 
 Instructed, delighted more than by other works, 
 but I was there, living there, whether as the platan 
 tree, or the architect, or any other observing part 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 205 
 
 of the scene. The personages live too intensely 
 to let us live in them; they draw around them- 
 selves circles within the circle; we can only see 
 them close, not be themselves. 
 
 "Others, it would seem, on closing the book, 
 exclaim, 'What an immoral book!' I well re- 
 member my own thought, 'It is a work of art!' 
 At last I understood that world within a world, 
 that ripest fruit of human nature, v/hich is called 
 art. With each perusal of the book my surprise 
 and delight at this wonderful fulfillment of 
 design grew." ^ 
 
 Iphigenie, Margaret Fuller calls, "a work 
 beyond the possibility of negation; a work where 
 a religious meaning not only pierces but enfolds 
 the whole; a work as admirable in art, still higher 
 in significance, more single in expression - [than 
 the Elective Affinities].'' 
 
 Since this drama was not well known in 
 America, Margaret Fuller gives an outline of it 
 and translates some of the most beautiful passages 
 into English, yet how far short any outline or 
 criticism falls in giving the reader an idea of the 
 beauties of this admirable play, Margaret Fuller 
 
 ^ Life Without and Life Within, pp. 49 flf. 
 ^Ibid., p. 51. 
 
2o6 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 herself felt. "These are the words and thoughts, 
 she says, "but how give an Idea of the sweet sim- 
 plicity of expression In the original, where every 
 word has the grace and softness of a flower 
 petal?" ^ 
 
 Iphlgenle tells the story of her race "in a 
 way that makes us feel as If that most famous 
 tragedy had never before found a voice, so simple, 
 so fresh In Its naivete Is the recital." The first 
 two acts contain "scenes of the most delicate 
 workmanship. . . . between the light-hearted 
 Pylades, full of worldly resource and ready ten- 
 derness, and the suffering Orestes, of far nobler, 
 indeed heroic nature, but less fit for the day and 
 more for the ages . . . The characters of both 
 are brought out with great skill, and the nature 
 of the bond between 'the butterfly and the dark 
 flower,' distinctly shown In few words . . . 
 
 "The scenes go on more and more full of 
 breathing beauty. The lovely joy of Iphlgenle, 
 the meditative softness with which the religiously 
 educated mind perpetually draws the Inference 
 from the most agitating events, Impress us more 
 and more. At last the hour of trial comes . . . 
 
 "But, O, the step before all this can be 
 
 ^ Life Without and Life Within, p. 53. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 207 
 
 obtained; — to deceive Thoas, a savage and a 
 tyrant indeed, but long her protector, — in his 
 barbarous fashion, her benefactor! How can 
 she buy life, happiness, or even the safety of those 
 dear ones at such a price? . . . 
 
 'Then follows the sublime song of the Parcae, 
 well known through translations. But Iphlgenle 
 is not a victim of fate, for she listens steadfastly 
 to the god in her breast. Her lips are Incapable 
 of subterfuge. She obeys her own heart, tells 
 all to the king, calls up his better nature, wins, 
 hallows, and purifies all around her, till the heaven- 
 prepared way is cleared by the obedient child 
 of heaven, and the great trespass of Tantalus 
 cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of 
 her innocent soul." ' "Iphlgenle, by her stead- 
 fast truth, hallows all about her, and disarms 
 the powers of hell." ^ 
 
 But most powerfully and charmingly Inter- 
 preted are Goethe's feminine characters In 
 Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury, which contains her masterly argument and 
 plea for a higher, freer womanhood. These 
 charming portraits are left, for the most part, In 
 
 "^ Life Without and Life Within, pp. 53 ff. 
 ^Preface to Conversations luith Goethe, p. xiv. 
 
2o8 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 just the order and setting In which they stand In 
 the work mentioned above; for thus they appear 
 In the best light, and exactly as Margaret Fuller 
 presented them to her readers. 
 
 "Goethe, proceeding on his own track," she 
 writes, "elevating the human being. In the most 
 Imperfect states of society, by continual efforts 
 at self-culture, takes as good care of women as 
 of men. His mother, the bold, gay Frau Aja, 
 with such playful freedom of nature; the wise 
 and gentle maiden, known In his youth, over whose 
 sickly solitude 'the Holy Ghost brooded as a 
 dove;' his sister, the intellectual woman par 
 excellence,'^ all lent him traits of character for 
 his Ideals of womanhood. The same, she thought, 
 was true of Goethe's patroness. "In this country 
 [America]," she writes, "Is venerated, wherever 
 seen, the character which Goethe spoke of as an 
 Ideal, which he saw actualized In his friend and 
 patroness, the Grand Duchess Amalla : 'The ex- 
 cellent woman Is she, who. If the husband dies, 
 can be father to the children.* And this If read 
 aright, tells a great deal." ^ "LIII," Margaret 
 Fuller says, "combined the character of the 
 woman of the world with the lyrical sweetness 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. no. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 209 
 
 of the shepherdess, on whose chaste and noble 
 breast flowers and gems were equally at home. 
 All these had supplied abundant suggestions 
 to his [Goethe's] mind, as to the wants and pos- 
 sible excellencies of Woman. And from his 
 poetic soul grew up forms new and more admir- 
 able than life has yet produced, for whom his 
 clear eye marked out paths in the future. 
 
 *'In Faust Margaret represents the redeeming 
 power, which, at present upholds woman, while 
 waiting for a better day. The lovely little girl, 
 pure in instinct, ignorant in mind, is misled and 
 profaned by man abusing her confidence. To the 
 Mater Dolorosa she appeals for aid. It is given 
 to the soul, if not against outward sorrow; and 
 the maiden, enlightened by her sufferings, refusing 
 to receive temporal salvation by the aid of an 
 evil power, obtains the eternal In Its stead. 
 
 *Tn the second part, the Intellectual man, after 
 all his manifold strivings, owes to the Interposition 
 of her whom he had betrayed, his salvation. She 
 intercedes, this time, herself a glorified spirit, with 
 the Mater Glorlosa. Leonora, too. Is Woman, 
 as we see her now, pure, thoughtful, refined by 
 much acquaintance with grief." ^ 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 125 f. 
 
2IO MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 "Iphigenie he speaks of in his journals as his 
 'daughter/ and she is the daughter whom a man 
 will wish, even if he has chosen his wife from 
 very mean motives. She is the virgin, steadfast 
 soul, to whom falsehood is more dreadful than 
 any other death/* Elsewhere Iphigenie is praised 
 as "a tender virgin, ennobled and strengthened 
 by sentiment more than intellect; what they call 
 a woman par excellence." ^ 
 
 "As Wilhelm [Meister] advances into the 
 upward path, he becomes acquainted with better 
 forms of Woman, by knowing how to seek, and 
 how to prize them when found. For the weak 
 and immature man will often admire a superior 
 woman, but he will not be able to abide by a 
 feeling which is too severe a tax on his habitual 
 existence. But, with Wilhelm, the gradation is 
 natural, and expresses ascent in the scale of being. 
 At first, he finds charm in Mariana and Philina, 
 very common forms of feminine character, not 
 without redeeming traits, no less than charms, 
 but without wisdom or purity. Soon he is attended 
 by Mignon, the finest expression ever yet given 
 to what I have called the lyrical element in 
 Woman. She is a child, but too full grown for 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 422. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 211 
 
 this man; he loves, but cannot follow her; yet 
 is the association not without an enduring Influ- 
 ence. Poesy has been domesticated In his life; 
 and, though he strives to bind down her heaven- 
 ward impulse, as art or apothegm, these are only 
 the tents, beneath which he may sojourn for a 
 while, but which may be easily struck, and carried 
 on limitless wanderings." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller looked upon MIgnon as a type 
 of "the electrical, inspired, lyrical nature," the 
 ^'prophetic form" of woman "expressive of the 
 longing for a state of perfect freedom, pure love;" 
 a representative of that type of beings, half 
 angelic, whose affections are so pure that they are 
 capable of a friendship where selfishness and sex 
 play no part whatever; beings characterized by 
 the song which MIgnon sings shortly before her 
 death, and which Margaret quotes in this con- 
 nection. 
 
 "Jene himmlischen Gestalten 
 Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Weib, 
 Und kelne Kleider, keine Falten 
 Umgeben den verklarten Leib."* 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 127. 
 
 * Yonder heavenly forms 
 
 They ask not whether one be man or woman, 
 And no garments, no folds 
 Enclose the transfigured body. 
 
212 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 "She could not remain here, but was translated 
 to another air," Margaret Fuller continues. 
 "And it may be that the air of this earth will 
 never be so tempered that such can bear it long. 
 But, while they stay they must bear testimony to 
 the truth they are constituted to demand. That 
 an era approaches which shall approximate nearer 
 to such a temper than any has yet done, there 
 are many tokens." ^ 
 
 "Advancing into the region of thought, he 
 [Wilhelm Meister] encounters a wise philan- 
 thropy in Natalia (instructed, let us observe, by 
 an uncle) ; practical judgment and the outward 
 economy of life in Theresa; pure devotion in the 
 Fair Saint. 
 
 "Further, and last, he comes to the house of 
 Macaria, the soul of a star; that is, a pure and 
 perfected intelligence embodied in feminine form, 
 and the center of a world whose members revolve 
 harmoniously around her. She instructs him in 
 the archives of a rich human history, and intro- 
 duces him to the contemplation of the heavens. 
 
 "From the hours passed by the side of Mariana 
 to these with Macaria, is a wide distance for 
 human feet to traverse. Nor has Wilhelm 
 
 ^ IVoman in the Nineteenth Century^ p. 64. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 213 
 
 traveled so far, seen and suffered so much, In 
 vain. He now begins to study how he may aid 
 the next generation; he sees objects in harmonious 
 arrangement, and from his observations deduces 
 precepts by which to guide his course as a teacher 
 and a master, 'help-full, comfort-full' . . . 
 
 ''In the Macaria, bound with the heavenly 
 bodies in fixed revolutions, the center of all rela- 
 tions, herself unrelated, he expresses the Minerva 
 side of feminine nature. It was not by chance 
 that Goethe gave her this name. Macaria, the 
 daughter of Hercules, who offered herself as a 
 victim for the good of her country, was canonized 
 by the Greeks, and worshipped as the Goddess 
 of true Felicity. Goethe has embodied this 
 Felicity as the serenity that arises from Wisdom, 
 a wisdom such as the Jewish wise man venerated, 
 alike instructed in the designs of heaven, and the 
 methods necessary to carry them Into effect upon 
 earth . . . 
 
 "All these women, though we see them In 
 relations, we can think of as unrelated. They 
 all are very individual, yet seem nowhere re- 
 strained. They satisfy for the present, yet arouse 
 an Infinite expectation. 
 
 "The economist Theresa, the benevolent Na- 
 
214 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 talla, the Fair Saint, have chosen a path, but their 
 thoughts are not narrowed to It. The functions 
 of life to them are not ends, but suggestions. 
 
 "Thus, to them, all things are Important, 
 because none Is necessary. Their different char- 
 acters have fair play, and each Is beautiful In its 
 minute Indications, for nothing Is enforced or 
 conventional; but everything, however slight, 
 grows from the essential life of the being. 
 
 "MIgnon and Theresa wear male attire when 
 they like, and It Is graceful for them to do so, 
 while Macaria Is confined to her arm-chair behind 
 the green curtain, and the Fair Saint could not 
 bear a speck of dust on her robe. 
 
 "All things are In their places In this little 
 world, because all Is natural and free, just as 
 'there is room for everything out of doors.' Yet 
 all Is rounded In by natural harmony, which will 
 always arise where Truth and Love are sought 
 in the light of Freedom." ^ 
 
 The very fact that Margaret Fuller takes over 
 from Goethe, In one of her most Important and 
 Influential books, this succession of female char- 
 acters as representatives of the highest ideals of 
 womanhood. Ideals which she wished her Amerl- 
 
 * Woman in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 127 if. 
 
CRITICISM OF GOETHE'S WORKS 215 
 
 can sisters to make real In our country, — ail this 
 Is proof that she looked upon Goethe, not merely 
 as a great poet-artist, who entertains and delights 
 us, but as an ethical leader, whose doctrines of 
 life and whose ideal types of character, — types 
 created by the poet himself — are to be lived out 
 in every day life. She was probably the first 
 American-born person who saw the great world- 
 poet in this light and thus understood his great 
 mission to humanity. 
 
 Of Goethe's shorter works Margaret Fuller 
 translates the poem Entsagiing, and expresses 
 through it her own renunciation. But especially 
 did she admire Goethe's fragment Prometheus. 
 She mentions this poem in several of her works, 
 and translated it in 1838 for a friend. Pro- 
 metheus, she thought, inspired us, more than 
 anything else, with the courage of a truly liberated 
 soul, and with an independence and a passionate 
 desire to be a benefit to all humanity,^ even at the 
 cost of suffering and sacrifice, — inspired us, in fact, 
 with traits just such as this ancient hero, so well 
 described by Goethe, had before us. It also 
 expressed, she says, an idea of how man might 
 become a creator, like God. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. p. 310. 
 
2i6 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Margaret Fuller's feeling with reference to 
 Goethe's poetry has already been mentioned. It 
 seemed to her that Goethe's mind had embraced 
 the universe. "I am enchanted," she says, "while 
 I read. He comprehends every feeling I have 
 ever had so perfectly, expresses it so beautifully." ^ 
 
 Much of the enthusiasm she felt for Goethe, 
 and German in general, she undoubtedly imparted 
 to the members of her circle of distinguished 
 friends. They must have accepted to a large 
 extent her interpretations ; for there seems to have 
 been a great change in sentiment among them 
 toward Goethe, in fact, toward all German 
 writers. 
 
 TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 
 
 One of the results of Margaret Fuller's study 
 of German was the translation of German works 
 into English. These are, with the exception of 
 a few short poems, either from Goethe's works 
 directly, or from works that bear directly or 
 indirectly on some phase of his life, and were, 
 no doubt, inspired by her admiration for the great 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 119. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 217 
 
 German poet. Her first translation in point of 
 time is Goethe's Tasso. This work she must have 
 translated and given its present metrical form as 
 early as 1834, only two years after she began 
 her study of German; for in a letter to Rev. F. 
 H. Hedge, Nov. 30, 1834, she expresses her 
 intention to print it. She failed, however, to find 
 a publisher, and it did not appear in print until 
 after her death [in 1859], when her brother, 
 Arthur B. Fuller, Included it in a volume of her 
 works, entided /ir^, Literature and the Dramas 
 with a number of other papers by Margaret 
 Fuller, previously published [1846] under the 
 title Papers on Literature and Art, 
 
 Significant it is that this drama appealed to 
 Margaret Fuller so strongly. It is proof of the 
 extraordinary charm that Tasso, this "gem," this 
 "perfect work of art," as she calls it, must have 
 had for her. 
 
 The quality of the translation as such could no 
 doubt be improved here and there. The original 
 text is not always followed closely In the trans- 
 lation, and the lines are often lengthened or 
 broken. The meter also would bear improvement. 
 Yet, on the other hand, these faults are in some 
 respects more than balanced by positive merits. 
 
2i8 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 One of the most difficult tasks in translating, 
 poetry especially, is to find Idioms In the language 
 Into which a work is translated, that correspond 
 exactly to those of the original and that convey 
 the same meaning and force. Margaret Fuller 
 has been remarkably successful In this respect. 
 Like Coleridge, in his translations, she "deemed 
 the rendering of the spirit, on the whole, more 
 desirable than that of the letter." ^ Her transla- 
 tion Is expressed in good idiomatic English and 
 has all the qualities of an original composition. 
 *'The exact transmission of thought", she writes, 
 *'seems to me the one Important thing In a trans- 
 lation; if grace and purity of style come of them- 
 selves, it is so much gained. In translating, I 
 throw myself, as entirely as' possible, Into the 
 mood of the writer, and make use of such expres- 
 sions as would come naturally, If reading the work 
 aloud in English. The style thus formed Is at 
 least a transcript of the feelings excited by the 
 original." ^ For the reader, therefore, it has a 
 native flavor and a beauty and charm far superior 
 to many translations from foreign authors In 
 which the translator stuck closer to the text of 
 
 l^lrt, Literature and the Drama, p. 355. 
 ' Correspondence of Frdulein Giinderode and Bettine von 
 Arnim, Preface, p. vi. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 219 
 
 the original, and was compelled, for that reason, 
 to sacrifice beauty of expression and purity of 
 idiom. 
 
 Margaret Fuller's preface to her translation of 
 Tasso Is Interesting. In it she reveals the fine per- 
 ception and feeling for language which she had, 
 and expresses for Goethe, and the qualities of the 
 drama which she here translated, the most enthusi- 
 astic praise. 
 
 "There are difficulties attending the translation 
 of German works Into English which might baffle 
 one much more skilful In the use of the latter than 
 myself. A great variety of compound words 
 enables the German writer to give a degree of 
 precision and delicacy of shading to his expres- 
 sions nearly Impracticable with the terse, the 
 dignified, but by no means flexible English idiom. 
 The rapid growth of German literature, the con- 
 currence of so many master spirits, all at once 
 fashioning the language Into a medium for the 
 communication of their thoughts, has brought it 
 to a perfection which must gradually be Impaired, 
 as inferior minds mould and adapt It to their less 
 noble uses.*' The German, she says, has a "con- 
 densed power of expression" which the English 
 has lost. "It is more difficult,'* too, she finds, "to 
 
220 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 polish a translation than an original work, since 
 we are denied the liberty of retrenching or adding 
 where the ear and the taste cannot be satisfied." 
 But In spite of all the faults which her translation 
 may have, she believes "that no setting can utterly 
 mar the lustre of such a gem [as the original], 
 or make this perfect work of art unwelcome to 
 the meditative few, or even to the tasteful 
 many. . . . The harmony with which the plot is 
 developed, the nicely-adjusted contrasts between 
 the characters, the beauty of composition, worthy 
 the genius of ancient statuary, must still be per- 
 ceptible." * ^ 
 
 In 1839 Margaret Fuller translated the first 
 two volumes of Eckermann's Conversations with 
 Goethe. This translation was published during 
 the same year by George Ripley as the fourth 
 volume of a series entitled Specimens of Foreign 
 Literature, and formed, according to Emerson's 
 account, the basis of the translation of Eckermann 
 since published in London by Mr. Oxenford.^ 
 
 As Margaret Fuller, herself, states in the 
 
 * It is my intention in the near future to write a criticism of 
 Margaret Fuller's translation of Goethe's Tasso, analyzing and 
 comparing it carefully with the original. 
 
 ^ Art, Literature and the Drama, pp. 355 f. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. p. 243. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 221 
 
 preface to this work, she compressed or curtailed 
 the two German volumes known to her Into one 
 In English, omitting the accounts of Goethe's 
 experiments and theories of colors, for the Far- 
 henlehre would arouse little Interest here. Be- 
 sides, she writes: *'I was glad to dispense with 
 them [the experiments and theories of color men- 
 tioned above] because I have no clear understand- 
 ing of the subject, and could not have been secure 
 of doing them justice." ^ 
 
 She left out also Eckermann's meager account 
 of a journey to Italy, and here and there condensed 
 Eckermann's remarks; but only In a few rare 
 Instances Goethe's. Of the whole work she 
 writes ; 
 
 "I have done It with such care, that I feel 
 confident the substance of the work, and Its es- 
 sential features, will be found here . . . These 
 two rules have been observed, — not to omit even 
 such details as snuffing the candles and walking to 
 the stove (given by the good Eckermann with 
 that truly German minuteness . . .) when they 
 seem needed to finish out the picture, either of 
 German manners, or Goethe's relations to his 
 
 ^ Conversations njjith Goethe, Preface, p. xxv. 
 
222 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 friends or household." ^ The preface also con- 
 tains an unusually good criticism of Goethe (if we 
 except one or two statements) which has already 
 been quoted at length in the preceding pages. Be- 
 sides this, there is also a very just characterization 
 of Eckermann and his relations to Goethe. 
 
 The book more than gratified the highest hopes 
 that the translator had dared to express for it in 
 her preface, in which, as Mr. Higginson has said, 
 she "underrates instead of overstating the value 
 of her own work." "She made a delightful book 
 of it," Mr. Higginson continues, "and one which 
 . . . helped to make the poet a familiar person- 
 ality to English-speaking readers. For one, I 
 can say that it brought him nearer to me than 
 any other book, before or since, has ever done." 
 She probably got no compensation for it, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Higginson, "beyond the good practice 
 for herself and the gratitude of others." - She 
 undoubtedly had still another aim in publishing 
 this work, perhaps the chief aim, namely, to make 
 her Goethe better known among her countrymen, 
 as the preface clearly indicates throughout. It 
 doubtless was a great satisfaction for her to see 
 
 * Preface to Translation of Eckermann's Conversations with 
 Goethe, p. xxv. 
 ^Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, pp. 189 f. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 223 
 
 him growing in favor as a result of this effort on 
 her part. 
 
 In the language and expression of this transla- 
 tion Margaret Fuller follows much more closely 
 the text of the original than she did in Tasso, 
 as might naturally be expected in the translation 
 of a prose work, where one is not troubled so 
 much with the form. Though part of the trans- 
 lation was dictated while she was ill and did not 
 satisfy her as well as that which she wrote with 
 her own hand, nevertheless, none of it is slavishly 
 done. It is executed in much the same spirit as 
 the former work, and has all the force and beauty 
 of original composition. "I have a confidence", 
 she says, "that the translation is, in the truest 
 sense, faithful, and trust that those who find the 
 form living and symmetrical, will not be inclined 
 severely to censure some change in the cut or make 
 of the garment in which it is arrayed." ^ 
 
 It is very much to be regretted that Margaret 
 Fuller never finished her Life of Goethe, for 
 which she had gathered so much material from 
 original sources, and according to Emerson, left 
 heaps of manuscript. Doubtless with her insight 
 
 ^ Conversations luith Goethe, Preface, p. xxvi. 
 
224 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Into the great poet's life and character and her 
 unusual ability to comprehend him In what he said, 
 she would have produced a work that would have 
 done credit to her country. All that we know of 
 her proposed work Is from references in her 
 letters. 
 
 The first reference Is In an undated letter In 
 which she says while meditating on the life of 
 Goethe: "I thought I must get some Idea of the 
 history of philosophical opinion In Germany, that 
 I might be able to judge of the Influences it exer- 
 cised upon his mind. I think I can comprehend 
 him every other way, and probably Interpret him 
 satisfactorily to others, — if I can get the proper 
 materials." ^ Again she writes to Emerson In 
 1836, after she had apparently studied much and 
 hard on the subject of her proposed work, and 
 succeeded In arousing her mind to a great activity. 
 "Am I, can I make myself fit to write an ac- 
 count of half a century of the existence of one 
 of the master spirits of this world?" "I am 
 shocked to perceive you think I am writing the 
 life of Goethe. No, indeed! I shall need a 
 great deal of preparation before I shall have It 
 clear in my head. I have taken a great many 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 127. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 225 
 
 notes; but I shall not begin to write it, till it all 
 lies mapped out before me. I have no material 
 for ten years of his life." ' 
 
 Emerson, thinking perhaps Carlyle might be 
 able to help Margaret Fuller to secure the needed 
 books on Goethe's life, writes to him in September 
 of the same year: "A friend of mine who studies 
 his (Goethe's) life with care would gladly know 
 what records there are of his first ten years after 
 his settlement at Weimar . . .'' Carlyle answers: 
 ''As to Goethe and your friend; I know not 
 anything out of Goethe's own works (which have 
 many notices in them) that treats specially of 
 those ten years." Carlyle, however, names a list 
 of references that might lead to the proper 
 
 sources.^ 
 
 The next year (1837) Margaret Fuller agam 
 writes: "As you imagine, the Life of Goethe is 
 not yet written; but I have studied and thought 
 about it much. It grows in my mind with every- 
 thing that does grow there. My friends in 
 Europe have sent me the needed books on the 
 subject, and I am now beginning to work in good 
 earnest ... I may find myself incompetent; 
 but I go on In hope, secure, at all events, that it 
 
 ' Memoirs, I. 128 f. 
 
 ^ Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, V., 1. icx), 109. 
 
226 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 will be the means of the highest culture."^ A 
 little later in the same year she writes: "Mr. 
 Ripley,— who is about publishing a series of works 
 on Foreign Literature, — has invited me to prepare 
 the 'Life of Goethe/ on very advantageous 
 terms." ^ ^nd In the first volume of the series 
 spoken of Is announced "A Life of Goethe in 
 preparation for this work, from original docu- 
 ments." ^ 
 
 Margaret Fuller's family, however, needed aid, 
 and she ''reluctantly gave up" this "congenial, Ht- 
 erary project," and accepted an offer to teach in 
 the schools of Providence.* "She spent much time 
 on it," Emerson writes, "and has left heaps of 
 manuscripts which are notes, transcripts and 
 studies in that direction. But she wanted leisure 
 and health to finish It." ^ The only published 
 writings of Margaret Fuller, by which we may 
 judge what the qualities of her Life of Goethe 
 would have been, is her article on Goethe In the 
 Dial, which, as Emerson says, "is, on many 
 accounts, her best paper." 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 175. 
 *Ibid., p. 177. 
 
 ' Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 189. 
 Memoirs, I. 177. 
 ° Ibid., pp. 243 f. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 227 
 
 Bettine von Arnim's connection with Goethe 
 was, without doubt, what first attracted Margaret 
 Fuller's attention and Interest to her. In common 
 with many of her Boston circle, Margaret Fuller 
 was much charmed with the letters that passed 
 between the wise and elderly poet and the charm- 
 ing, falry-like girl, bubbling over with fun and 
 youthful exuberance. In a tribute to a collection 
 of these letters In book form under the title 
 Goethe's Correspondence with a Child, she writes 
 "The correspondence Is as popular here as In 
 Germany." ^ Through the Interest awakened by 
 this book Margaret Fuller's attention was at- 
 tracted to the correspondence between Bettine and 
 her Intimate friend, Giinderode, a canoness In 
 one of the Catholic orders, who, nevertheless, 
 mixed freely with the outside world. This cor- 
 respondence Margaret Fuller translated in part 
 and published in 1842, under the title Correspon- 
 dence of Frdulein Giinderode and Bettine von 
 Arnim, The remainder was translated by Mrs. 
 Minna Wesselhoeft in i860, after the death of 
 Bettine von Arnim, and published in one volume 
 with Margaret Fuller's part. 
 
 In describing the difference of character between 
 
 ^DiaU Vol. II, No. I. 
 
228 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 the two, Margaret Fuller writes: "I have been 
 accustomed to distinguish the two as Nature and 
 Ideal. Bettine, hovering from object to object, 
 drawing new tides of vital energy from all, living 
 freshly alike in man and tree, loving the breath 
 of the damp earth as well as that of the flower 
 which springs from It, bounding over the fences 
 of society as easily as over the fences of the field, 
 Intoxicated with the apprehension of each new 
 mystery, never hushed into silence by the highest, 
 flying and singing like a bird, sobbing with the 
 hopelessness of an infant, prophetic, yet astonished 
 at the fulfillment of each prophesy, restless, fear- 
 less, clinging to love, yet unwearied in experiment, 
 — Is not this the pervasive vital force, cause of 
 the effect which we call nature? 
 
 "And Giinderode, in the soft dignity of each 
 look and gesture, whose lightest word has the 
 silvery spiritual clearness of an angel's lyre, har- 
 monizing all objects Into their true relations, draw- 
 ing from every form of life its eternal meaning, 
 checking, reproving, and clarifying all that was 
 unworthy by her sadness at the possibility of Its 
 existence ! Does she not meet the wild, fearless 
 bursts of the friendly genius, to measure, to purify, 
 to interpret, and thereby to elevate? As each 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 229 
 
 word of Bettine's calls to enjoy and behold, like 
 a breath of mountain air, so each of Giinderode's 
 comes like a moon-beam to transfigure the land- 
 scape, to hush the wild beatings of the heart, and 
 dissolve all the sultry vapors of day into the pure 
 dew-drops of the solemn and sacred night." ^ 
 
 Speaking of the interests which these trans- 
 lations must awake, Margaret Fuller says: "A 
 single page of Bettine's gives some notion of her 
 fresh, fragrant and vigorous genius. But a char- 
 acter like Gunderode's, of such subtle harmonies, 
 and soft aerial grace, can only be descried through 
 multiplied traits. She is a soul so delicately 
 apparelled, a woman so tenderly transfigured, that 
 the organs made use of to observe common mor- 
 tals, seem to need refining in her own atmosphere, 
 before they can clearly appreciate her . . . 
 
 *'To those who have eyes to see, and hearts to 
 understand the deep leadings of the two charac- 
 ters, these pages present a treasury of sweetest 
 satisfactions, of lively suggestions; — to the obtuse, 
 the vulgar, and the frivolous, they v/ill seem sheer 
 folly." ' 
 
 Later, however, Margaret Fuller lost much of 
 
 ^ Correspondence of Frdulein Gunderode and Bettine von 
 Arnim, Introduction, p. ix. 
 'Ibid., pp. vi ff. 
 
230 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 her admiration for Bettlne's character, as Is shown 
 by the following extract from one of her letters: 
 "Gunderode Is the Ideal; Bettlne, nature; Giin- 
 derode throws herself Into the river because the 
 world Is all too narrow. Bettlne lives, and follows 
 out every freakish fancy, till the enchanting child 
 degenerates Into an eccentric and undignified old 
 woman." ^ 
 
 Only a slight perusal of this translation by 
 Margaret Fuller Is necessary to see how successful 
 the translator has been In keeping the vivacity and 
 freshness of the one correspondent, and the pe- 
 culiar charm and grace of the other Intact. The 
 easy conversational German style Is translated 
 Into flowing colloquial English (or more properly 
 American) Idiom, with none of Its native vigor 
 or freshness lost. 
 
 Margaret Fuller translated a number of short 
 poems from Goethe, and a few from other authors 
 whom she liked, Schiller and Korner, especially. 
 Those which she translated from Goethe express 
 for the most part, his philosophical and religious 
 views. They were found by me among a mass 
 
 ^Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 192; Memoirs^ L p. 
 248 ; Ibid., II. pp. 41, 140. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 231 
 
 of Margaret Fuller's manuscript letters and papers 
 which were deposited by Mr. T. W. HIgglnson in 
 the Boston Public Library, and appear In print 
 here for the first time. These poems with her com- 
 plete Credo, published in the Appendix, shed more 
 light upon her religious convictions than is evident 
 from any of her works published heretofore, and 
 are valuable perhaps only because they reveal very 
 clearly the close relation between her religious 
 thinking and that of Goethe. 
 
 EINS UND ALLES 
 
 Goethe. 
 Within the infinite its place to find, 
 How longeth forth the Individual Mind! 
 Chagrin and grief can there disturb no more; — 
 Forgetting all hot wishes, or wild Will, 
 Where sounds of daily duties may be still, 
 And thought, in freedom, float creation o'er. 
 
 Soul of the World! Come to pervade our souls. 
 For with the idea which all else controls, 
 
 To live, to do is ours; 
 Ye, sympathizing spirits! lead us on 
 To Him, the Master by whom all is done. 
 
 Who did, who doth create all other powers. 
 
 To aid in the great work, to recreate, 
 Lest matter, by resistance grown elate, 
 
232 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 A stiff reaction take, 
 An ever-living impulse Man must be, 
 From shapes and colors of earth, and sky, and sea, 
 
 A second w^orld must make. 
 
 Let all be breathing, acting, moving, living. 
 Forming, transforming, taking, giving. 
 
 Only apparent be one moment's pause. 
 The Eternal w^ills perpetual change in all, — 
 What w^ould stand fast, must soon to nothing fall. 
 
 Such are our being's laws. 
 
 DAUER IM WECHSEL 
 
 Imitated from Goethe. 
 We were so deeply blest! 
 
 Oh stay, thou fair May-hour! 
 But the full blossom shower 
 Is scattered by the balmy West; — 
 Now I the tree enjoy, 
 
 Its freshness and its shade, — 
 Soon storms will be arrayed 
 Its beauty to destroy. 
 
 Hast thou fruit on thy tree? 
 
 Quick take it from the bough, — 
 
 That which has ripened now 
 Thine still may be; 
 A torrent's force today 
 
 Thy garden will assail. 
 
 Thou through this gentle vale 
 No more wilt take thy way. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 233 
 
 But did all else stand fast, 
 Couldst thou remain the same, — 
 The rocks, the tower of fame 
 
 Are not as in times past 
 To thee. The lips are pale 
 
 Which once met thine in love, — 
 
 And from the cliffs above 
 She looks not on the vale. 
 
 That hand, so quick and mild 
 
 Each gentle deed to do, 
 That step, so light and wild, — 
 
 All this is vanished now! 
 While that which takes her place. 
 
 And is named by thy name, 
 Like waves which leave no trace, 
 
 Is hasting to the main. 
 
 Let the beginning with the end. 
 
 Harmonious linked in one, 
 In thoughts wide current blend, 
 
 Ere yet the whole be flown; 
 The objects pass, — but the behest 
 
 Of the immortal muse 
 Can charm this Idea to thy breast, 
 
 Which shall new forms produce. 
 
 Goethe's poem Eins und Alles, of which the first 
 one of the two poems above is a translation, Is 
 one of the best commentaries of his religion that 
 
234 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 we have. It must have appealed strongly to Mar- 
 garet Fuller, for her translation is in a much more 
 fervent tone than the original. How nearly the 
 religious ideas contained in it coincided with her 
 own religious belief is evident by comparing them 
 with those in her Credo. Yet that Margaret 
 Fuller did not catch the full meaning of this poem, 
 nor of Dauer im Wechsel, is also evident. 
 
 According to Margaret Fuller's version of the 
 first stanza of Eins iind Alles, uniting with the 
 Infinite means a forgetting, an obliteration of 
 one's individuality, a state almost similar to that 
 of the Buddhists' Nirvana ; while the real meaning 
 of Goethe Is that the ego, which usually seeks 
 its own self In pleasure, here, on the contrary, 
 renounces and completely surrenders itself to the 
 All, and In that way finds the fulfillment of Its 
 highest desires coupled with supreme pleasure. 
 
 Nor does her rendering of the second stanza 
 convey Goethe's full meaning. While Margaret 
 Fuller wants the soul of the World to pervade 
 our souls, so that we should live and move with 
 the world soul, or In other words, become its 
 Instruments, Goethe's Idea Is that we should be- 
 come creative competitors of the World Soul. 
 In this, our highest mission, we are aided, accord- 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 235 
 
 ing to Goethe, by Invisible spirits, supreme masters, 
 who guide and lead us to Him who created every- 
 thing. 
 
 The second poem Dauer im JVechsel, which she 
 calls only "an Imitation from Goethe," Is In a 
 way a translation of a poem by Goethe of the 
 same name. It Interested Margaret Fuller proba- 
 bly for the same reason that the first one did. 
 Most of the stanzas of this poem she has trans- 
 lated fairly well; but she missed the fundamental 
 thought of the poem, which appears in the last 
 four lines. 
 
 Goethe was from his youth up vexed by the 
 continual change taking place In the phenomena 
 of the exterior world, as well as of his Inner life. 
 Hence his passionate attempts to analyze these 
 changing phenomena in order to discover. If pos- 
 sible, the lasting element behind them. Thus in 
 the remarkable poem. Die Freuden, written during 
 his Leipzig period, he analyzes the ever-changing 
 colors of the dragon-fly In an attempt to get at 
 the secret of Its beauty, but, disappointed, ends 
 with the painful outcry : "So geht es dir Zerglle- 
 derer delner Freuden." * A similar outcry of 
 grief and disappointment over the fleeting nature 
 
 * "Thus it fares with you, dissector of your joys." 
 
236 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 of love appears in the poem Das Gliick of the 
 same period: 
 
 "Was hilft es mir, dass ich geniesse? 
 Wie Traume fliehn die warmsten Kiisse, 
 Und alle Freude wie ein Kuss."* 
 
 In the poem Dauer im Wechsel we find the same 
 analyzing of the phenomena of the exterior and 
 inner world, but It Is an analyzing which finally 
 reaches the result for which Goethe had always 
 searched and which he expressed In the lines : 
 
 "Danke, dass die Gunst der Musen 
 Unvergangliches verheisst : 
 Den Gehalt in deinem Busen 
 Und die Form in deinem Geist,"* 
 
 The meaning clearly is, that It Is the Inner world 
 that Is Imperishable, the world which the poet 
 creates for himself and for us from the elements 
 of bare reality. These four lines of verse Mar- 
 garet Fuller translates: "The objects pass, — 
 
 •What good is it to me that I enjoy? 
 
 Like dreams the warmest kisses flee, 
 
 And all joy like a kiss." 
 ** Be thankful that the favor of the Muses 
 Promises the imperishable: 
 The contents within your bosom 
 And form within your spirit 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 237 
 
 but the behest, etc./' clearly drawing the conclu- 
 sion, that in spite of all this change, the promises 
 or behest of the immortal muse comforted or 
 "charmed" us by the thought that new forms are 
 produced to take the place of the old ones, which 
 are gradually changing and passing away, — 
 clearly an altogether different thought. 
 
 Margaret Fuller doubtless shows her limitations 
 here and there in comprehending Goethe's full 
 meaning; yet on the other hand, we are often 
 astounded at her power of grasping Goethe's 
 deepest thoughts. This is especially the case in 
 her interpretation of Prometheus which she trans- 
 lated and sent to a friend, and which expresses 
 the relation between man and the Infinite. The 
 same may be said of the poem The God-like, 
 partly translated by Margaret Fuller, in her first 
 article on Goethe in the Dial, and republished in 
 Life Without and Life JFithin} 
 
 The other poem.s translated from Goethe, The 
 Consolers, Eagles and Dozes, and Epilogue to the 
 Tragedy of Essex, all express a genuine depth of 
 feeling, usually of grief. In the first two the 
 heart is consoled by some happy thought or reflec- 
 tion in the end; but not in the last named. Here, 
 
 ^Life Without and Life Within, pp. 18 f. 
 
238 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 the queen (Elizabeth) desires to be left alone to 
 give vent to her tears for Lord Essex, whom she 
 loves, but whom she has had to condemn to die 
 for treason. 
 
 The technique of the poems above is not uni- 
 form. By comparing the first, Eins und Alles, 
 with the original we see that the lines are generally 
 lengthened by a foot of two syllables. The poetic 
 picture, too. Is sometimes changed, and here and 
 there some of the expressions seem forced. The 
 meter, also, could be Improved In some places. 
 The second poem, Dauer im fVechsel, reads some- 
 what more smoothly; yet it falls far short of the 
 beauty of the original. After a careful study and 
 analysis of these two poems, one feels extremely 
 doubtful as to whether Margaret Fuller ever 
 Intended them for publication at all. If she had, 
 she doubtless would have polished them up con- 
 siderably. What she probably did was to make 
 a rapid translation of these and other poems that 
 appealed to her most strongly In order to send 
 them, as she did Prometheus, to some friend who 
 may not have had such a ready command of Ger- 
 man as she. In nearly every case, however, she 
 remained true to the general thought and spirit of 
 the original. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 239 
 
 The poems which have been published are trans- 
 lated with more care and skill. Especially is this 
 true of the last named, the Epilogue to the Trag- 
 edy of Essex, which is indeed well translated, 
 artistic, and powerful. The poems. The Consoler , 
 and Eagles and Doves^ are also very well trans- 
 lated, and are very interesting when considered 
 from the relation they bear to Margaret Fuller's 
 inner life. 
 
 That which is, however, of most importance to 
 us in these poems is not as to how skillfully and 
 artistically they have been translated, but rather 
 why they appealed to Margaret Fuller, in fact, 
 became a part of her, and how she understood 
 them and interpreted them to her friends. Only 
 when judged from this standpoint, when con- 
 sidered as vehicles of thought, do they become im- 
 portant. 
 
 Of course, Goethe's works are mentioned again 
 and again throughout her works. She uses illus- 
 trations, passages, and ideas from them contin- 
 ually, but so far as the interpretation of Goethe's 
 characters and philosophical doctrines are con- 
 cerned, they remain substantially the same 
 with her throughout. If anything, their impres- 
 sion deepens and grows clearer to her as time 
 
240 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 goes on. It is true Margaret Fuller was much 
 Indebted to Carlyle. She ordered his works for 
 her library as soon as they were published, and 
 read them with the greatest Interest, often even 
 making them the topic of discussion In her letters 
 to Emerson. There Is also a striking similarity 
 between many of her deepest thoughts on the great 
 German writers and those of Carlyle. Doubtless 
 some of these thoughts and much of her Inspira- 
 tion for German had their origin In Carlyle's 
 works. Yet we cannot but feel when we read her 
 letters and criticism of Goethe's works that by 
 far the larger portion of her deep feeling for the 
 great German poet, and therefore the thoughts 
 resulting from them, were Inspired directly by 
 Goethe's works, and were. In this respect, at first 
 hand, and therefore original. That she main- 
 tained an Independence of feeling Is clear from the 
 preceding pages on her study of German. More 
 than this, she even differs from Carlyle quite often, 
 and now and then even vigorously attacks some of 
 his views. ^ 
 
 In judging her criticism and her interpretations 
 of Goethe we see that they compare very favor- 
 ably with the best criticisms of today — three- 
 
 ^ See for example, Memoirs, I. 262 f. 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE 241 
 
 quarters of a century later. But only then can 
 we do Margaret Fuller justice when we consider 
 her time and place and compare her criticisms of 
 these German writers with those of the best 
 literary critics then in America, and see her vast 
 superiority over them all, — only then can we 
 appreciate what her influence and criticisms meant 
 in the way of a proper understanding and appre- 
 ciation of Goethe in America. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 We have seen the powerful Influence of Goethe 
 upon Margaret Fuller; how, through an Intense 
 study of his life and works, she developed her 
 inner life of thought and feeling, and ripened into 
 the extraordinary personality which her contem- 
 poraries conceded her to be. We have seen how 
 she accepted Goethe's religious and philosophical 
 teachings almost in their entirety, though she did 
 not relinquish certain Puritan convictions. While 
 we found that she agreed with the Transcendental- 
 ists, Inasmuch as she, as well as they, strove after 
 a higher, freer, and nobler humanity, we also 
 discovered how radically she differed from them In 
 her fundamental religious and philosophical be- 
 liefs, and the methods by which she hoped to 
 arrive at the goal at which they both aimed. 
 There remains but a few words to be said concern- 
 ing the Influences she exerted for the study of 
 German In America, hitherto not mentioned. 
 
 Margaret Fuller herself felt that, by the year 
 1846, her efforts to arouse a healthy interest for 
 German had met with a considerable degree of 
 
 242 
 
CONCLUSION 243 
 
 success, for she writes: "I feel with satisfaction 
 that I have done a good deal to extend the influ- 
 ence of the great minds of Germany and Italy 
 among my compatriots." ' She had thus realized 
 the sincere wish expressed a decade before, when 
 she so earnestly desired to interpret, in some 
 periodical, the German authors whose writings 
 she liked best.^ 
 
 Besides her efforts to stimulate an Interest In 
 German by means of her printed articles, she 
 translated (1836-37) for Dr. William EUery 
 Channing, the apostle of the Unitarian church, 
 and discussed with him the works of Herder and 
 De Wette. The effect upon him must have been 
 considerable, for we find a number of the thoughts 
 of these German thinkers incorporated into the 
 doctrines of the Unitarian church. In the schools 
 where Margaret Fuller taught, her favorite sub- 
 ject was German. If we but look at the long list of 
 German works which she read through with her 
 classes we may judge what Interest for German she 
 must have inspired In her pupils. One of the most 
 telling influences which she exerted for German, 
 however, was through her "Conversations" in 
 the cultured circles of Boston. Here, Mr. Clarke 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. i68. 
 
 ^ Introd. to Papers on Literature and Art, p. vii. 
 
244 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 says, she "dazzled all who knew her", and every- 
 body who heard her, Including Emerson, agreed 
 that her power was most remarkable. She in- 
 spired in these meetings, "the Spirit which giveth 
 life", according to one of the reporters of the 
 "Conversations"; "she seemed a priestess of the 
 youth ... a companion". She was even called 
 a "sibyl", a "prophetess", and Emerson says, she 
 was sent to "announce a better day", and "had 
 
 the power to inspire", "the companion was 
 
 made a thinker". ^ Margaret Fuller, herself, says : 
 "All were in a glow." If we add to this what Mrs. 
 Dall has written, namely, that thoughts and illus- 
 trations from Goethe were brought in continually, 
 and that now and then Goethe was even made a 
 subject for a whole evening's discussion, we see 
 what an influence the "Conversations" must have 
 had toward making Goethe better known and 
 more widely read in America. Moreover, the 
 whole glowing account of the "Conversations" 
 shows that, consciously or unconsciously, Marga- 
 ret Fuller followed out, in developing the inner 
 lives of the members of her classes, precisely the 
 suggestions which she found in the works of 
 Goethe. 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 78; 349; 316; 311 f. 
 
CONCLUSION 245 
 
 How far Margaret Fuller's Influence went in 
 the proper understanding and appreciation of 
 Goethe in America we shall never be quite able 
 to tell. This much we know, that all her associates, 
 who, as we have seen, included the brightest and 
 most original minds in New England, became, 
 with few exceptions, diligent and enthusiastic stu- 
 dents of German, and of Goethe especially. The 
 German scholars connected with Harvard college 
 in one way or another, — Charles Follen, George 
 Ticknor, Edward Everett, F. H. Hedge, J. F. 
 Clarke, and others — without doubt did much in 
 arousing a lively interest in the study of German 
 in America. Carlyle and Coleridge, from across 
 the sea, had a powerful influence for Goethe 
 and German studies in general, especially upon 
 such men as Emerson and W. E. Channing. Yet 
 after considering and weighing all these Influences, 
 and giving each of these scholars, writers, and 
 teachers his just dues, there is still no doubt that 
 one of the greatest factors in opening up for 
 America *'the rich gardens of German literature" 
 — to use Rev. W. H. Channlng's expression — was 
 Margaret Fuller. How many of her countrymen j^ 
 
 enjoyed and relished the precious fruits they found 
 there is shown by the zeal with which this whole 
 
246 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 literary circle studied German, and by the demand 
 that this growing Interest soon created for German 
 in the colleges. German has held its own in this 
 country ever since, and the great names of German 
 literature are known In every educated circle In 
 America. 
 
 Though the tendency of all criticism of the 
 present is to avoid, whenever possible, the super- 
 lative degree, yet It does not seem altogether un- 
 fitting. In passing an estimation upon Margaret 
 Fuller's Influence, to quote In conclusion a passage 
 from James Freeman Clarke, who, of all her 
 biographers, certainly knew her and understood 
 her best. "Margaret was," he writes in the 
 Memoirs, "to persons younger than herself, a 
 Macaria and Natalia. She was wisdom and Intel- 
 lectual beauty. . . . To those of her own age, 
 she was a sibyl and seer, — a prophetess, revealing 
 the future, pointing the path, opening their eyes to 
 the great aims only worthy of pursuit In life. To 
 those older than herself she was like the Eupho- 
 rlon In Goethe's drama, child of Faust and Helen, 
 — a wonderful union of exuberance and judgment, 
 born of romantic fulness and classic limitations." ^ 
 
 ^Memoirs, I. 97. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 MARGARET FULLER's RELIGIOUS CREED 
 
 In the following pages Is published for the first 
 time Margaret Fuller's religious creed of 1842 
 In Its complete form, just as It stands In her own 
 handwriting among her other manuscripts dona- 
 ted to the Boston Public Library, by Mr. T. W. 
 HIgglnson, one of Margaret Fuller's friends and 
 biographers. The creed contained originally two 
 and one half lines more, but these have been com- 
 pletely obliterated and blotted out with Ink In the 
 same manner as parts of many of her letters, pre- 
 sumably for the purpose of suppressing the 
 contents. Those parts of the Credo which have 
 been published before In Margaret Fuller's 
 Memoirs,^ are full of Interpolations and omissions. 
 Many of the words are changed and sometimes 
 whole sentences are re-wrltten In such a manner 
 that the original thought Is often very much 
 obscured. The creed, as It stands complete, by no 
 means presumes to be a comprehensive formula- 
 tion of her entire religious and philosophical 
 
 ^Memoirs, II. 88 flF. 
 247 
 
248 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 belief, as any one will soon discover In reading 
 her works. The following note by Margaret 
 Fuller, which was sent to a friend with the Credo 
 shows how she herself considered It. "Ever since 
 
 told me how his feelings had changed towards 
 
 Jesus, I have wished much to write some sort of a 
 Credo, out of my present state, but have had no 
 time till last night. I have not satisfied myself In 
 the least, and have written very hastily, yet, 
 though not full enough to be true, this statement 
 is nowhere false to me." ^ 
 
 A Credo. 
 
 There is a spirit uncontainable and uncontained. — 
 Within it all manifestation Is contained, whether of good 
 (accomplishment) or evil (obstruction). To itself its 
 depths are unknown. By living It seeks to know Itself, 
 thus evolving plants, animals, men, suns, stars, angels, 
 and, it Is to be presumed an Infinity of forms not yet 
 visible In the horizon of this being who now writes. 
 
 Its modes of operation are twofold. First, as genius 
 inspires genius, love love, angel-mother brings forth angel- 
 chlld. This Is the uninterrupted generation, or publica- 
 tion of spirit taking upon Itself congenial forms. Second, 
 conquering obstruction, finding the like in the unlike. 
 
 ^Memoirs, II. 88. 
 
MARGARET FULLER'S CREDO 249 
 
 This IS a secondary generation, a new dynasty, as virtue 
 for simplicity, faith for oneness, charity for pure love. 
 
 Then begins the genesis of man, as through his con- 
 sciousness he attests the laws which regulated the divine 
 genesis. The Father is justified in the Son. 
 
 The mind of man asks 'Why was this second develop- 
 ment? — Why seeks the divine to exchange best for better, 
 bliss for hope, domesticity for knowledge?' We reject 
 the plan in the universe which the Spirit permitted as the 
 condition of conscious life. We reject it In the childhood 
 of the soul's life. The cry of infancy is why should we 
 seek God when He is alwaj^s there, why seek what Is ours 
 as soul's through indefinite pilgrimages, and burdensome 
 cultures ? 
 
 The intellect has no answer to this question, yet as we 
 through faith and purity of deed enter into the nature 
 of the Divine it is answered from our own experience. 
 We understand, though we cannot explain the mystery 
 of something gained where all already Is. 
 
 God, we say. Is Love. If we believe this we must 
 trust Him. Whatever has been permitted by the law of 
 being must be for good, and only in time not good. We 
 do trust Him and are led forward by experience. Sight 
 gives experience of outward life, faith of Inward. We 
 then discern, however faintly, the necessary harmony of 
 the two lives. The moment we have broken through 
 an obstruction, not accidentally, but by the aid of faith, 
 we begin to realize why any was permitted. We begin 
 to interpret the universe and deeper depths are opened 
 with each soul that is convinced. For it would seem that 
 
250 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 the Divine expressed His meaning to Himself more 
 distinctly in man than in the other forms of our sphere, 
 and through him uttered distinctly the Hallelujah which 
 the other forms of nature only intimate. 
 
 Wherever man remains imbedded in nature, whether 
 from sensuality or because he is not yet awakened to 
 consciousness, the purpose of the whole remains unful- 
 filled, hence our displeasure when man is not in a sense 
 above nature. Yet when he is not bound so closely with 
 all other manifestations, as duly ta express their spirit, 
 we are also displeased. He must be at once the highest 
 form of nature and conscious of the meaning she has been 
 striving successively to unfold through those below him. 
 
 Centuries pass, — whole races of men are expended in 
 the effort to produce one that shall realize this idea and 
 publish spirit in the human form. But here and there 
 there is a degree of success. Life enough is lived through 
 a man to justify the great difficulties and obstructions 
 attendant on the existence of mankind. 
 
 Then through all the realms of thought vibrates the 
 affirmation 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well 
 pleased,' and many souls encouraged and instructed offer 
 themselves to the baptism, whether of water, whether of 
 fire. 
 
 I do not mean to lay an undue stress upon the position 
 and office of man, merely because I am of his race, and 
 understand best the scope of his destiny. The history of 
 the earth, the motions of the heavenly bodies suggest 
 already modes of being higher than his, and which fulfill 
 more deeply this office of interpretation. But I do sup- 
 
MARGARET FULLER'S CREDO 251 
 
 pose his life to be the rivet in one series of links in the 
 great chain, and that all these higher existences are anal- 
 ogous to his. Music suggests them, and when carried 
 on these strong wings through realms which on the ground 
 we discern but dimly, we foresee how the next step in 
 the soul's upward course shall interpret man to the uni- 
 verse as he now interprets those forms beneath himself; 
 for there is ever evolving a consciousness of consciousness, 
 and a soul of the soul. To know is to bring to light some- 
 what yet to be known. And as we elucidate the previous 
 workings of spirit, we ourselves become a new material 
 for its development. 
 
 Man is himself one tree in the garden of the spirit. 
 From his trunk grow many branches, social contracts, 
 art, literature, religion, etc. The trunk gives the history 
 of the human race. It has grown up higher into the 
 heavens, but its several acorns, though each expressed 
 the all, did not ripen beyond certain contours and a cer- 
 tain size. 
 
 In the history of matter, however, laws have been more 
 and more clearly discerned, and so in the history of spirit, 
 many features of the God-man have put forth; several 
 limbs, disengaged themselves. One is what men call 
 revelation, different from other kinds only in being made 
 through the acts and words of men. Its law is identical 
 whether displaying itself as genius or piety, but its modes 
 of expression are distinct dialects though of similar 
 structure. 
 
 The way it is done is this. As the Oak desires to plant 
 its acorns, so do souls become the fathers of souls. Some 
 
252 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 do this through the body, others through the intellect. 
 The first class are citizens; the second artists, philoso- 
 phers, lawgivers, poets, saints, — All these are anointed, 
 all Immanuel, all Messiah, so far as they are true to the 
 law of their incorruptible existence; brutes and devils 
 so far as they are subjected to that of their corruptible 
 existence. 
 
 But yet further, as wherever there is a tendency, a 
 form is gradually evolved as its type; as the rose repre- 
 sents the flower world and is its queen, as the lion and 
 eagle compress within themselves the noblest that is ex- 
 pressed in the animal kingdom, as the telescope and 
 microscope express the high and searching desires of man; 
 
 and the organ and ( )* his completeness, so has 
 
 each tribe of thoughts and lives its law upon it to pro- 
 duce a king, a form which shall stand before it a visible 
 representation of the aim of its strivings. It gave laws 
 with Confucius and Moses; it tried them with Brahma, 
 it lived its life of eloquence in the Apollo, it wandered 
 with Osiris. It lived one life as Plato, another as 
 Michael Angelo, or Luther. It has made Gods, it has 
 developed men. Seeking, making it produce ideals of the 
 developments of which humanity is capable, and one of 
 the highest, nay in some respects the very highest it has 
 yet known was the life of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 I suppose few are so much believers in his history as 
 myself. I believe {in my own way) in the long prepara- 
 tion of ages, and the truth of the prophecy. I see a 
 necessity in the character of Jesus why Abraham should 
 
 * Word illegible. 
 
MARGARET FULLER'S CREDO 253 
 
 be the founder of his nation, Moses its lawgiver, and 
 David its king and poet. I believe in the genesis, as given 
 in the Old Testament. 1 believe in the prophets, and 
 that they foreknew, not only what their nation required, 
 but what the development of universal man required, a 
 Redeemer, an Atoner, one to make, at the due crisis, 
 voluntarily the sacrifice Abraham would have made of 
 the child of his old age, a lamb of God, taking away the 
 sins of the world. I believe Jesus came when the time 
 was ripe, that he was peculiarly a messenger and son of 
 God. I have nothing to say in denial (of) the story of 
 his birth. Whatever the true circumstances were in 
 time he was born of a virgin, and the tale expresses a 
 truth of the soul. I have no objection to the miracles, ex- 
 cept where they do not happen to please me. Why should 
 not a soul so consecrate and intent develop new laws and 
 make matter plastic? I can imagine him walking the 
 waves and raising the dead without any violation of my 
 usual habits of thought. He would not remain In the 
 tomb, they say, surely not; death is impossible to such a 
 being. He remained upon earth and all who have met 
 him since on the way have felt their souls burn within 
 them. He ascended to Heaven, surely, it could not be 
 otherwise. 
 
 But when I say to you, also, that though I think all 
 this really happened, it Is of no consequence to me whether 
 it did or not, that the ideal truth such illustrations present 
 to me, is enough, and that if the mind of St. John, for 
 instance, had conceived the whole and offered it to us 
 as a poem, to me, as far as I know, It would be just as 
 
254 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 real. You see how wide the gulf that separates me from 
 the Christian Church. 
 
 Yet you also see that I believe in the history of the 
 Jewish nation and its denouement in Christ, as presenting 
 one great type of spiritual existence. It is very dear to 
 me and occupies a large portion of my thoughts. I have 
 no trouble, so far from the sacrifice required of Abraham, 
 for instance, striking me as it does Mr. Parker, I accept 
 it as prefiguring a thought to be fully expressed by the 
 death of Christ (yet forget not that they who passed 
 their children through the fire to Moloch were pious also, 
 and not more superstitious than an exclusive devotion 
 to Christ has made many of his followers). Do you 
 not place Christ then in a higher place than Socrates, for 
 instance, or Michael Angelo? Yes! Because if his life was 
 not truer, it was deeper, and he is a representative of the 
 ages. But then I consider the Greek Apollo as one also! 
 
 Have men erred in following Christ as a leader? Per- 
 haps rarely. So great a soul must make its mark for 
 many centuries. Yet only when men are freed from him, 
 and interpret him by the freedom of their own souls, 
 open to visits of the Great Spirit from every side can he 
 be known as he is. 
 
 'With your view do you not think He placed undue em- 
 phasis on his own position?' 
 
 In expression he did so, but this is not in my way 
 either, I should like to treat of this separately in another 
 letter. 
 
 Where he was human, not humanly-divine, and where 
 men so received him, there was failure, and is mist and 
 
MARGARET FULLER'S CREDO 255 
 
 sect, — but never where he brought them to the Father. 
 But they knew not what they did with him then and do 
 not now. 
 
 For myself, I believe fn Christ because I can do without 
 him; because the truth he announces I see elsewhere 
 intimated; because it is foreshadowed in the very nature 
 of my own being. But I do not wish to do without him. 
 He is constantly aiding and answering me. Only I 
 will not lay any undue and exclusive emphasis on him. 
 When he comes to me I will receive him; when I feel 
 inclined to go by myself, I will. I do not reject the 
 church either. Let men who can with sincerity live in 
 it. I would not — for I believe far more widely than 
 any body of men I know. And as nowhere I worship 
 less than in the places set apart for that purpose, I will 
 not seem to do so. The blue sky seen above the opposite 
 roof preaches better than any brother, because, at present, 
 a freer, simpler medium of religion. When great souls 
 arise again that dare to be entirely free, yet are humble, 
 gentle, and patient, I will listen, if they wish to speak. 
 But that time is not nigh; these I see around me, here 
 and in Europe, are mostly weak and young. 
 
 Would I could myself say with some depth what I feel 
 as to religion in my very soul. It would be a clear note 
 of calm security. But for the present, I think you will 
 see how it is with me as to Christ. 
 
 I am grateful here, as everywhere, where spirit bears 
 fruit in fulness. It attests the justice of my desires; it 
 kindles my faith; it rebukes my sloth; it enlightens my 
 resolve. But so does the Apollo, and the beautiful infant, 
 
256 MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 and the summer's earliest rose. It Is only one modifi- 
 cation of the same harmony. Jesus breaks through the 
 soil of the world's life, like some great river through 
 the else inaccessible plains and valleys. I bless Its course. 
 I follow It. But It is a part of the All. There Is nothing 
 peculiar about it, but its form. 
 
 I will not loathe sects, persuasions, systems, though I 
 cannot abide in them one moment. I see most men are 
 still In need of them. To them their banners, their 
 tents; let them be Platonists, Fire-worshippers, Christians; 
 let them live in the shadow of the past revelations. But 
 Oh Father of our souls, I seek thee. I seek thee in 
 these forms; and in proportion as they reveal thee more, 
 they lead me beyond themselves. I would learn from 
 them all, looking to thee. I set no limits from the past 
 to my soul or any soul. Countless ages may not produce 
 another worthy to loose the shoes of Jesus of Nazareth; 
 yet there will surely come another manifestation of that 
 Word that was In the beginning. For It is not dead, but 
 sleepeth; and If it lives, must declare itself. 
 
 All future manifestations will come, like this, — not 
 to destroy the law and the prophets but to fulfill. But 
 as an Abraham called for a Moses, a Moses for a David, 
 so does Christ for another ideal.* . . . 
 
 We want a life more complete and various than that 
 of Christ. We have had the Messiah to reconcile and 
 teach, let us have another to live out all the symbolical 
 forms of human life with the calm beauty and physical 
 
 *Two and one-half lines are blotted out and obliterated here, 
 so as to make it totally illegible. 
 
MARGARET FULLER'S CREDO 257 
 
 fulness of a Greek god, with the deep consciousness of a 
 Moses, with the holy love and purity of Jesus. Amen! 
 Addenda. 
 
 I have not shown with any distinctness how the very 
 greatness of the manifestation in Jesus calls for a greater. 
 But this as the extreme emphasis given by himself to his 
 office, should be treated of separately in a letter or essay 
 on the processes of genius in declaring itself. 
 
 I have not shown my deep feeling of his life as a 
 genuine growth, so that his words are all living and 
 they come exactly to memory with all the tone and gesture 
 of the moment, true runes of a divine oracle. It is the 
 same with Shakespeare and in a less degree with Dante. 
 
 I have not spoken of men clinging to him from the 
 same weakness that makes them so dependent on a priest- 
 hood, or makes idols of the objects of affection. In him 
 hearts seek the Friend; minds the Guide. But this is 
 weakness in religion, as elsewhere. No prop will do. 
 'The soul must do its own immortal work', and books, 
 lovers, friends, meditations fly from us only to return, 
 when we can do without them. But when we can use 
 and learn from them, yet feel able to do without them 
 they will depart no more. If I were to preach on this 
 subject I would take for a text the words of Jesus: 
 
 'Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient for 
 you that I go away; for if I go not, the Comforter will 
 not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send him unto 
 you.'^ 
 
 ^Margaret Fuller MSS. in Boston Public Library. Summer 
 of 1842. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following bibliography does not Include 
 many of the histories and general reference books 
 of literature and philosophy consulted In the pur- 
 suit of this study, such, for example, as those of 
 Kant, Goethe, American literature, etc. For an 
 excellent bibliography of Important works and 
 magazine articles concerning Margaret Fuller (up 
 to the year 1884) the reader is referred to the 
 Bibliographical Appendix In T. W. HIgglnson's 
 Margaret Fuller Ossoli (pp. 315 ff.). 
 
 WORKS OF MARGARET FULLER. 
 
 Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, Translated 
 from the German. Boston, 1839. 
 
 Correspondence of Frdulein Giinderode and Bettine von 
 Arnim [Translated from the German]. Boston, 
 1842. Reprinted, with additional letters trans- 
 lated by Mrs. Minna Wesselhoeft. Boston, 
 1861. 
 
 Summer on the Lakes. Boston, 1843. 
 
 Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York, 1844. 
 
 Literature and Art. New York, 1846, 1852. 
 
 Collected Works, with an Introduction by Horace 
 
 259 
 
26o MARGARET FULLER AND GOETHE 
 
 Greeley, and edited by Margaret Fuller's brother, 
 Arthur B. Fuller. Four Volumes. New York, 
 1855. 
 At Home and Abroad, or Things and Thoughts in 
 America and Europe, containing Summer on the 
 Lakes, her letters from Europe, and a description 
 of her homeward voyage, shipwreck and death. 
 Woman in the Nineteenth Century and Kindred 
 Papers relating to the Sphere, Condition and 
 Duties of Woman. 
 Life Without and Life Within, A collection of re- 
 views and poems. 
 Art, Literature, and the Drama, containing a reprint 
 of Literature and Art and a translation of Goethe's 
 Tasso, 
 
 The Dial, in iwo volumes. Boston, 1840-44. 
 
 Love Letters, 1 845-1 846, with an introduction by Julia 
 Ward Howe. New York, 1903. 
 
 Margaret and Her Friends, or Ten Conversations with 
 Margaret Fuller. Boston, 1895. 
 
 Margaret Fuller Manuscripts. Boston Public Library. 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES OF MARGARET FULLER^ REFERENCE 
 BOOKS^ ETC. 
 
 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, by R. W. Emerson, 
 W. H. Channing, and J. F. Clarke. Two 
 Volumes. Boston, 1852. 
 
 Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli), in Famous Women 
 series, by Julia Ward Howe. Boston, 1883. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 261 
 
 Margaret Fuller Ossoli, in American Men of Letters 
 series, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Bos- 
 ton, 1884. 
 
 Reminiscences of Ednah Dow Cheney. Boston, 1902. 
 
 James Freeman Clarke, Autobiography, Diary and Cor- 
 respondence, edited by Edward Everett Hale. 
 Boston and New York, 1891. 
 
 Memoirs of a Hundred Years, by Edward Everett Hale. 
 New York, 1902. 
 
 Studies in New England Transcendentalism, by Harold 
 Clarke Goddard. New York, 1908. 
 
 Transcendentalism in New England, A History, by 
 Octavius Brooks Frothingham. New York, 1876. 
 
 Brook Farm; Its Members, Scholars, and Visitors, by 
 Lindsay Swift. New York, 1900. 
 
 A History of Literature in America, by Barrett Wendell, 
 and Chester Noyes Greenough. New York, 1907, 
 
 A History of American Literature, 1607-1865, by Wil- 
 liam P. Trent. New York, 1903. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Alcott, A, Bronson, 3, 5 ; 
 estimation of Margaret 
 Fuller's power to enrich our 
 literature, 6. 
 
 Alexandrians, The, 78. 
 
 Alfieri, 52. 
 
 Amalia, the Grand Duchess, 
 Goethe's benefactress, 57, 
 208. 
 
 Ariosto, 52, 159. 
 
 Austin, Sarah, 58. 
 
 Bettine von Arnim (Brentano), 
 Margaret Fuller's transla- 
 tion of Correspondence of 
 Frdulein Giinderode and 
 Bettine von Arnim, 227-230; 
 Margaret Fuller's admira- 
 tion for, 228-229, 230. 
 
 Brook Farm, 129-132. 
 
 Brown, , Margaret Fuller 
 
 studies his Philosophy, 30. 
 
 Brown, Charles Brockden, 12. 
 
 Buhle, , History of Phi- 
 losophy, read by Margaret 
 Fuller, 50. 
 
 Byron, 180. 
 
 Caesar, 28. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, his impres- 
 sion of Margaret Fuller, 11 ; 
 writings arouse interest of 
 Margaret Fuller in German, 
 42 ; friendly attitude toward 
 Goethe, 150-151; Margaret 
 Fuller's indebtedness to, 240; 
 
 aids Margaret Fuller in 
 securing material for her 
 proposer Life of Goethe, 
 225 ; other references, 58, 78, 
 172, 245. 
 
 Cervantes, 28. 
 
 Channing, Dr. W. E., Mar- 
 garet Fuller's tribute to his 
 preaching, 30; she translates 
 and discusses Herder and 
 De Wette with, 50, 243 ; 
 245. 
 
 Channing, W. H., a member 
 of "Transcendental Club", 
 3 ; Margaret Fuller's tribute 
 to his preaching, 36; her 
 great personal influence on 
 him and others, 8, 18, 117, 
 137, 245; gives definition 
 and characteristics of Tran- 
 scendentalism, 78, 82, 115, 
 116, n8, 119, 121, 124. 
 
 Cheney, Edna Dow, testimony 
 concerning character and 
 power of Margaret Fuller's 
 "Conversations", 120; Mar- 
 garet Fuller's religion, 146- 
 147. 
 
 Clarke, James Freeman, 
 Goethe's influence on, 46, 61- 
 62, 85; Margaret Fuller's 
 close personal relations with, 
 6-7, 46-48 ; both attracted to 
 German literature at same 
 
 263 
 
264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 time, 42; his assistance in 
 her study of German, 44, 46- 
 47; writes of her German 
 studies and development of 
 inner life, 47-48, 72; of her 
 character and religious life, 
 43, 144, 71-72, 85-86, 147; 
 of her power to inspire 
 ambition and draw out indi- 
 viduality, 7-8, 69, 244, 246 ; 
 other references, 3, 18, 36, 
 45, 245. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 61, 78, 218, 
 245. 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore, 12. 
 
 Cousin, v., 78. 
 
 Credo of 1842, Margaret 
 Fuller's in full, 347-357; 
 references to, 36, 89, 90; 
 Goethe's doctrine of "Spirit- 
 Nature" in, 94-98, 105, 145, 
 234; interpolations and omis- 
 sions in Credo as published 
 in Memoirs, 247-248. 
 
 Creizenach, Theodore, empha- 
 sizes Goethe as liberator, 60, 
 61. 
 
 Dall, Caroline H,, 100, 137, 
 244. 
 
 Dante, 52. 
 
 De Wette, W. M. L., 50, 78, 
 
 243- 
 Dial, Margaret Fuller editor 
 
 of, 5, 113; character of, 114, 
 115; its importance, 4-5; 
 Emerson's definition of 
 Transcendentalism in, 75 ; 
 John A, Saxton's article 
 "Prophecy-Transcendent- 
 sHsm-Progress", 77 ; refer- 
 
 ences to passages from, 12. 
 15, 106, 151; references to 
 passages from Margaret 
 Fuller's criticism of Goethe 
 and his works, 154, 176, 181, 
 182, 183, 196; other refer- 
 ences, 17, 68, 73, 103. 
 
 Eckermann, J. P., 20, 67 ; his 
 Conversations nvith Goethe 
 translated by Margaret 
 Fuller, 220-223. 
 
 Eichhorn, J. G., 50. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 3, 5, 15; 
 defines Transcendentalism, 
 75; characterizes Dial, 113; 
 with Carlyle aids Margaret 
 Fuller in her proposed 
 Life of Goethe, 224-225; 
 gives Goethe as source of 
 Margaret Fuller's person- 
 ality, 52-53; effects of his 
 preaching upon her, 36, 134- 
 135; her influence on him, 
 8-10, 244; studies Goethe at 
 solicitation of Carlyle, 151, 
 245 ; his Puritan feeling 
 against Goethe, 136, 149- 
 153; 157-158; difference be- 
 tween his temperament, reli- 
 gion, and philosophy and 
 Margaret Fuller's, 54, 134- 
 143 ; references to Margaret 
 Fuller's studies and develop- 
 ment, 31, 52-53, 68-69; to 
 her belief in daemonolog}', 
 107-108 ; to her character 
 and personality, 18, 101-102, 
 144; to her religion, 147. 
 
 Epictetus, 31. 
 
 Everett, Edward, 44, 245. 
 
INDEX 
 
 265 
 
 Farrar, Professor John, 50. 
 Felton, Professor at Harvard, 
 
 59- 
 
 Fichte, J. G., 50, 78. 
 
 Follen, Dr. Charles, teacher of 
 German and ethics in Har- 
 vard, 44; his influence on 
 Margaret Fuller in study of 
 German ; 44, 45, 46, 49 ; 245. 
 
 Fourier, his doctrine of char- 
 acter-building criticised and 
 compared with Goethe's by 
 Margaret Fuller, 129-132. 
 
 Fuller, Arthur B., defends 
 Margaret Fuller's and his 
 father against criticism of 
 Margaret, 24 {footnote). 
 
 Fuller, Edith D., niece of Mar- 
 garet Fuller, letter quoted, 
 
 45- 
 
 Fuller, Margaret (Crane), 
 mother of Margaret Fuller, 
 character of, 21, 22. 
 
 Fuller, Sarah Margaret 
 (Ossoli), biographical sketch, 
 list and dates of her publica- 
 tions, 20-21 ; manuscripts, 
 230-231, 247; her influence 
 on American literature under- 
 estimated, v-vi ; leader in 
 movement to free and 
 deepen American literature, 
 I, 3-6; editor of Dial, 4, 
 114; its importance in Amer- 
 ican literature, 4-5 ; she dis- 
 closes weakness in American 
 literature and suggests reme- 
 dies, I, 12-17; estimate of 
 her power as a literary 
 critic: by Higginson, 5-6; 
 by Alcott, 6; by Greeley, 6; 
 Carlyle's estimation of, 11; 
 influence upon Channing, 
 
 Clarke, Emerson, and other 
 noted men, 6-io, 243-244, 
 246 ; leader in Boston "Con- 
 versations", 4, 117-121, 243- 
 244; brings Americans to 
 appreciation of German 
 literature, 2, 66, 67, 242-246; 
 unjust criticism against, 17, 
 18; her early education, 19- 
 40; her father her first but 
 severe teacher, 20, 23, 24; 
 character of parents and in- 
 herited traits, 21-25, 33 \ her 
 studies, 23, 30-31 ; Greek 
 and Roman ideals, 27-28 ; 
 evil effects of overstudy and 
 living in books, 24-25, 29; 
 little read in Shakespeare, 
 31; barrenness of inner life, 
 26-27, 29, 39; attends 
 School of Dr. Park in Bos- 
 ton, 29 ; at Groton in Girls' 
 school of the Misses Prescott, 
 29-30; idealizes an English 
 friend, 26; strict religious 
 bringing-up, 23, 33; attitude 
 toward orthodox church, 
 32-36, 89-90; premature de- 
 velopment of mind to neglect 
 of other powers, 24, 25, 39; 
 a longing for an inner life, 
 23, 24, 26, 29, 37-39; study 
 of German, 4, 42; power of 
 comprehension, 43 ; scope 
 and intensity of her German 
 studies, 42, 48-53, 66 {foot- 
 note) ; advantage in moving 
 in Harvard circles, 43, 44; 
 f^reat scholars who assisted 
 her: Follen, Hedge, Clarke, 
 44-47; inner life quickened, 
 transformed by German 
 studies, 47-48; 52-53, 62-70; 
 
266 
 
 INDEX 
 
 "pupil" of Goethe, 52, 63- 
 64, 66 ; passionate love for 
 beautiful, 47; how diflFerent 
 German writers impress and 
 afreet her, 49-53 ; interest in 
 German composers, 51 ; a 
 residue of Puritanism in her 
 nnture; effect upon her criti- 
 cisms, 54-56, 149 ; supremacy 
 and permanency of Goethe's 
 influence on her, 56-59, 67- 
 69 ; its character, 59-60, 62, 
 159-162; desires to publish 
 articles on German writers, 
 66-67 a strong harmoni- 
 ously developed personality, 
 68-70, 143, 242, 246; in- 
 fluence of Goethe upon her 
 religious and philosophical 
 thinking, 71 ff., 242; desire 
 to grow, 37, 71-72; *'Ger- 
 raanico" and not Transcen- 
 dental, 72-73 ; reasons for 
 wrong classification, 73-74; 
 advocate of Goethe-Schiller 
 doctrine of harmonious unity 
 of character, 82; self-de- 
 velopment from within out- 
 wards through experience, 
 19, 85-89, 143, 146; seeks to 
 be active, thoughtful, natural 
 woman, 102; the spirit of 
 Faust, 87-88 ; unorthodox, 
 89-90; man's mission to be 
 free and a creator with God, 
 90-91; 93-94; Goethe's doc- 
 trine of "Spirit-Nature" in 
 Credo, 94-98 ; good mission 
 of evil, 98-101 ; abandon- 
 ment to higher nature, loi ; 
 mission of poetry, 102; of 
 art, 103, 104; eternal pro- 
 gression, 105-106 ; daemon- 
 
 ology, 107 113; though editor 
 of Dial does not consider her- 
 self or it transcendental, 114- 
 115; her relations to "Tran- 
 scendental Club", 115; aim 
 and character of her "talks", 
 117-121, 243-244; sees differ- 
 ence between her views and 
 Transcendental, 121, 128, 
 also 73 ; her criticism of 
 Transcendentalism, 122-128 ; 
 accepts limitations of man, 
 passions to be brought into 
 sympathy with higher nature, 
 not killed, 126-127; her 
 criticism of Fourier and 
 Brook Farm scheme and pref- 
 erence of Goethe's doctrine, 
 129-132; speculative philo- 
 sophy not congenial for her, 
 132-133; difference between 
 her and Emerson's tempera- 
 ments and teaching, 134-143; 
 Emerson's influence on her, 
 134-135; "white light" vs. 
 "glow of action", 137-138, 
 140-142; her Goethean real- 
 ism, divinity of human 
 nature, 144, 147 ; natural re- 
 ligion, her power to call out 
 inner life of others, 145-147; 
 a defender of Goethe's works 
 and doctrines, 148-149, 154- 
 173 ; her fitness to become 
 Goethe's critic, 174-176, 240; 
 her historical attitude in 
 criticisms, 165, 172-173 ; see 
 also 5-6, II ; prejudices and 
 influences to overcome, 148- 
 153; critic and interpreter of 
 Goethe's works, 174-216; 
 her limitations, 234-239; 
 
INDEX 
 
 267 
 
 criticism and interpretation 
 of Faust, 175-182, 209; of 
 Wtlhelm Meister, 1 31-132, 
 182-191, 210-214; of 
 
 Werther, 191-195, 198 ; of 
 Tasso, 57, 195-198, 220; of 
 Egmont, 198; of Gotz von 
 Berlichingen, 198; of the 
 Elective Ajjiiiities, 58, 198- 
 205 ; of Iphigenie, 58, 198, 
 205-207, 210; of Entsagung, 
 215; of Prometheus, 94, 215, 
 237; lyric poetry, 63-64, 102- 
 103, 216; characters of 
 women from Goethe's works 
 as ideals of womanhood, 
 207-216; her translations 
 from Goethe, 216-239; 
 Tasso, 217-220; her theor}^ 
 as to content and form in 
 translations, 218-220; Ecker- 
 mann's Conversations ivith 
 Goethe, Sjy 220-223 ; proposed 
 Life of Goethe, 67, 223-226; 
 Correspondence of Fraiilein 
 Giinderode and Bettine von 
 Arnim, 227-230; her admira- 
 tion of these women, 228- 
 229, 230; shorter poems, 230- 
 239: Eins und A lies, 231- 
 232, 233-234; Dauer im 
 Wechsel, 232-233, 234, 235- 
 237; Prometheus, 237, 238; 
 The Godlike, 167-168, 237; 
 The Consolers, 237, 239; 
 Eagles and Doves, 237, 239; 
 Epilogue to the Tragedy of 
 Essex, 237, 239; quality, aim 
 and importance of these 
 translations, 238-239; in- 
 debtedness to Carlyle, 240; 
 independence of feeling, 240, 
 242; worth of her criticisms. 
 
 173, 240-241 ; extent of her 
 influence in furthering the 
 study of German in America, 
 222, 242-246 ; translates 
 Herder and De Wette for 
 Dr. W. E. Channing, 243 ; 
 her personal influence, 243- 
 246 ; a Macaria, Natalia, 
 and Euphorion, 246 ; her re- 
 ligious Credo of 1842 in 
 full, 247-257. 
 
 Fuller, Timothy, father of 
 Margaret Fuller, his char- 
 acteristics, 20-21, 23, 24; 
 scholarship, 21 ; Margaret's 
 first and severest teacher, 20- 
 25 ; his religious rigorism, 
 23, 33-34; characteristics in- 
 herited from him by Mar- 
 garet Fuller, 22, 23. 
 
 Goddard, Dr. H. C, 55, 72, 
 
 75, 134- . 
 
 Goebel, Julius, 60, 100. 
 
 Goethe, quoted as "the pivotal 
 mind in modern literature", 
 "apostle of individual cul- 
 ture", 2 ; Margaret Fuller's 
 great second schoolmaster, 
 40 ; she forms acquaintance 
 of, 41, 42; the impulse to 
 freer, larger life for J. F. 
 Clarke and associates, 46, 
 61-62, 85; Margaret Fuller's 
 inner life transformed by 
 study of, 47, 48, 52, 53, 62- 
 70; inborn residue of Puri- 
 tanism affects her criticism 
 of, 54-56; supremacy and 
 permanency of Goethe's in- 
 fluence on her, 56-59, 67-69; 
 character of Goethe's in- 
 fluence, 59-60, 62; liberator 
 of the ego, 60-62; influence 
 
268 
 
 INDEX 
 
 upon Margaret Fuller's reli- 
 gious and philosophical 
 thinking, 71 flf., 242; Goe- 
 the-Schiller doctrine of unity 
 of character, 79-85 ; char- 
 acter-building through ex- 
 perience in life, 86-87 > doc- 
 trine of man's mission to be 
 free and a creator with God, 
 90"93 j "Spirit-Nature" doc- 
 trine, 94-98 ; evil a power for 
 good, 99-101 ; eternal pro- 
 gression, 106-107; Margaret 
 Fuller's enthusiasm for art 
 inspired by Goethe, 103 ; 
 daemonology: quotations from 
 Goethe, 108, 111-112; Mar- 
 garet Fuller an advocate of 
 his realism and doctrine of 
 character-building "from 
 within outwards", 145-147 ; 
 Emerson and Goethe, 136,139, 
 140, 141, 143, 144, Emerson's 
 rigorous attitude towards, 
 149-153 ; studies Goethe at 
 friendly solicitation of Car- 
 lyle, 150-151; Longfellow's 
 antagonism towards, 149, 
 153 ; religious prejudice of 
 public against, 153, 156, 175, 
 199-200; Menzel's harsh 
 view of, 162, i66, 168; Mar- 
 garet Fuller's defense of, 
 148-149, 154-173 ; her fitness 
 to become his critic, 174-176 ; 
 her historical attitude in 
 criticism of, 165, 172-173 ; 
 Margaret Fuller's interpreta- 
 tion of Goethe's works, 174- 
 216; of Faust, 176-182, 209; 
 of Wilhelm Meister, 131-132, 
 182-191, 210-214; of 
 Werther, 191-195, 198; of 
 
 Tasso, 57, 195-198, 220; of 
 Egmont, 198 ; of Gotz von 
 Berliching£L, 198; of The 
 Elective Affinities, 58, 198- 
 205 ; of Iphigenie, 58, 198, 
 205-207, 210; of Entsagung, 
 215; of Prometheus, 94, 215, 
 237; lyric poetry, 63-64, 102- 
 103, 216; characters of 
 women from Goethe's works 
 as ideals of womanhood, 
 207-216; Margaret Fuller's 
 translations of Goethe's 
 works, 216-239; Tasso, 217- 
 220; Eckermann's Conversa- 
 tions voith Goethe, 67, 220- 
 223 ; her proposed Life of 
 Goethe, 67, 223-226 ; shorter 
 poems, 230-239: Eins und 
 A lies, 231-232, 233-234; 
 Dauer im Wechsel, 232-233, 
 234, 235-237; Prometheus, 
 137, 238; The Godlike, 167- 
 168, 237; The Consolers, 237, 
 239; Eagles and Doves, 237, 
 239 ; Epilogue to the Tragedy 
 of Essex, 237, 239; other 
 references, 16, 39, 49, 51, 
 102, 103, 105, 125, 126, 134, 
 227; Die Freuden, 235; 
 value of Margaret Fuller's 
 criticisms of, 173, 240-241, 
 242-243 ; extent of Margaret 
 Fuller's influence in intro- 
 ducing Goethe to her country- 
 men, 222, 244-245. 
 Greeley, Horace, estimation of 
 Margaret Fuller as a woman, 
 6, 18, 102; of her ability to 
 enrich our literature, 6 ; of 
 the qualities of Emerson's 
 part of Margaret Fuller's 
 biography, 9. 
 
INDEX 
 
 269 
 
 Giinderode, Caroline von, Mar- 
 garet Fuller's translation of 
 Correspondence of Frdulein 
 Giinderode and Bettine 'von 
 Arnim, 227-230; Margaret 
 Fuller's admiration for, 228- 
 229, 230. 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett, v, 46, 
 61. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 18. 
 
 Hedge, Frederick H., 3, 245, 
 an esteemed friend of Mar- 
 garet Fuller, 45 ; assists her 
 in study of German, 44, 45- 
 46 ; writes of intensity of 
 Margaret Fuller's study of 
 German, 47; of the qualities 
 of her criticism of Goethe, 
 173. 
 
 Hegel, G. F. W., 78, 172- 
 
 Heine, Heinrich, 50. 
 
 Herder, J. G., 41, 50, 56, 99, 
 192, 243. 
 
 Herschel, F. W., 50. 
 
 Higginson, T. W., writes of 
 Margaret Fuller as a force 
 in American literature, v, 4, 
 5-6; of importance of Dial, 
 4-5; 8, 17; of character of 
 Margaret Fuller's parents, 
 22, 25 ; letter quoted, 45 ; 
 underestimates influence of 
 Goethe on Margaret Fuller, 
 53-54; his definition of 
 Transcendentalism inade- 
 quate, 73-74; pays high com- 
 pliment to effectiveness of 
 Margaret Fuller's transla- 
 tion of Eckermann's Cotwer- 
 sations ivith Goethe, 222 ; 
 manuscripts of Margaret 
 Fuller's letters, papers, poems, 
 and complete religious Credo 
 
 of 1842 deposited by hira in 
 Boston Public Library, 230- 
 233, 247. 
 
 Hildebrand, Rudolph, discus- 
 sion of Goethe as a liberator, 
 60-61. 
 
 Horace, 28. 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward, description 
 of the orthodox churchman, 
 32; of Margaret's traits and 
 character, 39, 72, 144; char- 
 acteristics of Transcendental- 
 ism, 99, 121 ; difference in 
 "natural tendency", between 
 Margaret Fuller and Emer- 
 son, 138. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 12, 74. 
 
 Jacobi, F. H., 50, 78, 166. 
 
 Jahn, F. L., 50. 
 
 Jameson, Mrs. Anna, 58. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 75, 76, 77, 78, 
 79, 80. 
 
 Karl August, Duke of Weimar, 
 no, 112, 150. 
 
 Korner, K. T., 42, 49, 230. 
 
 Lessing, G. E., 49, 52. 
 
 Locke, John, 31, 61. 
 
 Longfellow, H. W., his 
 prophecy as to future char- 
 acter of American literature, 
 13, 14; his antagonism to 
 Goethe, 153. 
 
 Lov^rell, James Russell, carica- 
 tures Margaret Fuller as 
 "Miranda" in Fable for 
 Critics, 18. 
 
 Luther, Martin, 180. 
 
 Manzoni, 52. 
 
 Menzel, Wolfgang, Margaret 
 Fuller defends Goethe 
 against his criticisms, 59, 
 162-172. 
 
 Merck, J. H., 192. 
 
270 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Milton, John, 31, 159, i8o. 
 
 Moliere, 28. 
 
 Napoleon, 112. 
 
 Novalis (Hardenberg, F. L. 
 von), Margaret Fuller reads 
 his works, 42, 52 ; her ad- 
 miration for his writings, 49, 
 
 165; 78, 133- 
 
 Park, Dr., Margaret Fuller at- 
 tends his school, 29. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 3, 5, 50. 
 
 Peabody, Elizabeth P., 3, 138. 
 
 Perkins, Mr., Margaret Fuller 
 attends his school, 30. 
 
 Petrarca, 52. 
 
 Plato, 78. 
 
 Plutarch, 78. 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, 18, 74. 
 
 Prescott, The Misses, 2, 9. 
 
 Puritanism, Margaret Fuller's 
 Puritan home and surround- 
 ings, 21, 23, 32-33, 153 ; effect 
 upon Margaret Fuller, 54, 
 56, 135, 149, 242; her dissent 
 with, 33-35, 36, 39, 88-89, 
 242; difference between P. 
 and Goethe-Schiller doctrine 
 of the harmonious unity of 
 character, 79-80, loo-ioi, 
 126, 175, 199; element of P. 
 in Transcendentalism, 79, 
 175; P. in Emerson, 150, 135, 
 136, 143- 
 
 Racine, 31. 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul, Margaret 
 Fuller reads, 42, 52; her 
 great admiration for, 50, 165. 
 
 Ripley, George, 3. 
 
 Rousseau, 107, 129. 
 
 Russell, Tour in Germany, 31, 
 41. 
 
 Sand, George, loi. 
 
 Saxton, John A., article in 
 
 Dial, "Prophecy-Transcen- 
 dentalism-Progress", 76. 
 
 Schelling, F. W. J., 78. 
 
 Schiller, Margaret Fuller 
 learns of and reads, 41, 42; 
 her great admiration for, 51- 
 52, 165, 230; Goethe-Schiller 
 doctrine of harmonious unity 
 of character, 79-85, 126; 
 Ueber Naive und Sentim en- 
 tale Dichtung, 126; other 
 references, i, 159, 194. 
 
 Schlegels, The (A. W. and 
 F.), i66. 
 
 Schleiermacher, F. E. D., 78. 
 
 Seneca, 78. 
 
 Shakespeare, 28, 159; Mar- 
 garet Fuller not allowed to 
 read his works on Sunday, 
 33; Margaret Fuller little 
 read in, 31. 
 
 Sismondi, 30. 
 
 Spinoza, B., 50. 
 
 Stael, Madame de, 31, 78; 
 works aid Margaret Fuller 
 in making acquaintance of 
 German, 41 ; Margaret 
 Fuller's admiration for, 41. 
 
 Tasso, 52, 107, 159, 197. 
 
 Tennemann, History of Philo- 
 sophy read by Margaret 
 Fuller, 53. 
 
 Thoreau, H. D., 4, 5. 
 
 Ticknor, George, 44, 245. 
 
 Tieck, J. L., 42, 49, 50, 52. 
 
 Transcendental Club, members 
 of, 3; character of, 115-116; 
 Margaret Fuller's connec- 
 tion with, 3, 4, 12; reform 
 and deepening of American 
 literature by, 12, 15-17. 
 
 Transcendentalism, Emerson's 
 and other definitions of, 75- 
 
INDEX 
 
 271 
 
 79 ; Higginson's definition 
 inadequate, 73-74; Margaret 
 Fuller not Transcendental, 
 but "Germanico", 73 ; Mar- 
 garet Fuller wrongly classed 
 as Transcendental, 72-73, 
 loi, 121, 126, 128, 132, 143, 
 144-146, 242; her criticism 
 of, 123-128 ; comparison of, 
 with Goethe's doctrine of 
 character-building, 79-85, 
 
 loi, 126, 129-130, 143, 175; 
 rigorism and asceticism of 
 Puritanism in, 54, 79, 175; 
 Fourier, Brook Farm and, 
 
 128-130, 132; characteristics 
 of, 117, 118-119, 121, 123- 
 128, 132, 144. 
 
 Uhland, J. L., 50. 
 
 Unitarianism, relation to 
 Transcendentalism, 78 ; char- 
 acteristics in which Mar- 
 garet Fuller differed with, 
 i43> 175 'y doctrines of Herder 
 and De Wette incorporated 
 in, 243. 
 
 Wallenstein, 107. 
 
 Wieland, C. M., 56. 
 
 Zelter, K. F., 108. 
 
 } n -7 
 
XI •?