He was a conservative in the true sense of that nuich-abused
term : satisfied to hold by the present until he could see
clearly how to exchange it for the better ; but his was no
obstinate, bigoted conservatism, but such as became an intel-
ligent and patriotic American. From his first entrance into
Congress, he had been a zealous and effective champion of
Internal Improvements, the Protection of Home Industry, -a
sound and uniform National Currency, — those leading fea-
tures of a comprehensive, beneficent National policy which
commanded the fullest assent of my judgment and the best
exertions of my voice and pen. I loved him for his generous
nature, his gallant bearing, his thrilling eloquence, and his
life-long devotion to what I deemed our country's unity, pros-
perity, and just renown. Hence, from the day of his nomina-
tion in ]\Iay to that of his defeat in November, I gave every
hour, every effort, every thought, to his election. ]My wife
and then surviving child (our third) spent the Summer at a
farm-house in a rural township of Massachusetts, while I
HARRY CLAY. 167
gave heart and soul to the canvass. I travelled and spoke
much ; I wrote, I think, an average of three columns of The
Tribune each secular day; and I gave the residue of the
hours I cQuld save from sleep to watching the canvass, and
doing whatever I could to render our side of it more effective.
Very often, I crept to my lodging near the office at 2 to 3
A.M., with my head so heated by fourteen to sixteen hours of
incessant reading and writing, that I could only win sleep by
means of copious affusions from a shower-bath ; and these,
while they probably saved me from a dangerous fever, brought
out such myriads of boils, that — though I did not heed them
till after the battle was fought out and lost — I was covered
by them for the six months ensuing, often fifty or sixty at
once, so that I could contrive no position in which to rest,
but passed night after night in an easy-chair. And these
unwelcome visitors returned to plague me, though less se-
verely, throughout the following Winter. I have suffered from
their kindred since, but never as I did from their yoimg luxu-
riance in that Winter of '44 - 45.
Looking back through almost a quarter of a centmy on
that Clay canvass of 1844, I say dehberately that it should
not have been lost, — that it need not have been. True, there
was much good work done in it, but not half so much as there
should have been. I, for example, was in the very prime of
life, — thirty-three years old, — and knew how to vTite for a
newspaper ; and I printed in that canvass one of the most
effective daily political journals ever yet issued. It was sold
for two cents ; and it had 15,000 daily subscribers when the
canvass closed. It should have had 100,000 from the first
day onward; and my Clay Tribune — a campaign weekly,
issued six months for fifty cents — should have had not less
than a quarter of a million. And those two issues, wisely
and carefully distributed, could not ha^'e failed to turn the
long-doubtful scale in favor of Mr. Clay's election. Of course,
I mean that other effective, devoted journals should also liave
been systematically disseminated, until every voter who could
and would read a Whig journal had been supplied with one,
even though he had paid nothing for it. A quarter of a million
168 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
Campaign Tribunes would have cost at most $125,000 ; and
there were single houses largely engaged in mining or manu-
facturing who were damaged more than that amount by j\Ir.
Clay's defeat, and the consequent repeal of the Tariff of '42.
There should have been $ 1,000,000 raised by open subscrip-
tion during the week in which Mr. Clay was nominated, and
every dime of it judiciously, providently expended in furnish-
ing information touching the canvass to the voters of New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. To put a good, effi-
cient journal into the hands of every voter who will read it
is the true mode of prosecuting a political canvass ; meetings
and speeches are well enough, but this is indispensable. Mr.
Clay might have been elected, if his prominent, earnest sup-
porters had made the requisite exertions and sacrifices ; and I
cannot but bitterly feel that great and lasting public calami-
ties would thereby have been averted.
Mr. Clay, born in poverty and obscurity, had not even a
common-school education, and had only a few months' clerk-
ship in a store, with a somewhat longer training in a lawyer's
office, as preparation for his great career. Tall in person,
though plain in features, graceful in manner, and at once
dignified and affable in bearing, I think his fervid patriotism
and thrilling eloquence combined with decided natural abili-
ties and a wide and varied experience to render him the
American more fitted to win and enjoy popularity, than any
other who has lived. That popularity he steadily achieved
and extended through the earlier half of his long public life ;
but he was now confronted by a political combination well-
nigh invincible, based on the potent personal strength of
General Jackson ; and this overcame him. Five times pre-
sented as a candidate for President, he was always beaten, —
twice in conventions of his political associates, thrice in the
choice of electors by the people. The careless reader of our
history in future centuries will scarcely realize the force of
his personal magnetism, nor conceive how millions of hearts
glowed with sanguine hopes of his election to the Presidency,
and bitterly lamented his and their discomfiture.
XXII.
MARGARET FULLER,
THE year 1840 — rendered notable by the Harrison can-
vass — was signalized by several less noisy reactions
and uprisings against prescription and routine. One of these
made itself manifest in the appearance at Boston of The Dial,
— the quarterly utterance of a small fraternity of scholars
and thinkers, who had so far outgrown the recognized stand-
ards of orthodox opinion in theology and philosophy as to be
grouped, in the vague, awkrsvard terminology of this stammer-
ing century, as TransccncUntalists. Inexcusably bad as the
term is, it so clearly indicates an aspiration, a tendency, as
contradistinguished from a realization, an achievement, that
it may be allowed to stand. Those to whom it was apphed
had ahke transcended the preexisting limitations of decorous
and allowable thinking ; but they were alike in little else.
The chosen editor of this magazine was Sakah Margaret
Fuller, while Ealph Waldo Emerson and George Eipley
were announced as her associates. After a time, Mr. Emer-
son became the editor, with his predecessor as his chief as-
sistant, but there was in reality little change ; and, while
others contributed to its pages. The Dial, throughout the four
or five years of its precarious existence, was cliiefly regarded
and valued as an expression and exponent of the ideas and
convictions of these two rarest, if not ripest, fruits of New
England's culture and reflection in the middle of the Nine-
teenth Century. The original editor was to have been paid
a salary of two hundred dollars per annum, had the sale of
the work justified so liberal a stipend • but I believe it never
170 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
did. What was purposed by its projectors is thus stated in
one of her private letters : —
" A perfectly free organ is to be offered for the expression of
individual thought and character. There are no party measures
to be caiTied, no particular standard 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 a wise self-trust
We cannot show high culture, and I doubt about vigorous thought.
But 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."
I presume the circulation of The Dial never reached two
thousand copies, and that it hardly averaged one thousand.
But its influence and results are nowise measured by the
number of its patrons, nor even of its readers. To the " fit
audience, though few," who had long awaited and needed its
advent, without clearly comprehending their need, it was like
manna in the wilderness ; and scores of them found in its
pages incitement and guidance to a noble and beneficent, even
though undistinguished, career.
S. Margaret Fuller, the eldest child of Timothy and
Margaret Crane Fuller, was born at Cambridgeport, Mass., on
the 23d of May, 1810. Her father was a la^vyer of hum-
ble origin, who had risen, by force of resolution and industry,
to a respectable position at the Boston l^ar, though he was a
Eepublican, and all the wealth arid business of that city were
intensely Federal ; and he ultimately represented in Congress,
for several terms, the Middlesex district adjacent. This did
not increase his popularity nor his professional gains in Bos-
ton ; so that, when he died of cholera (Oct. 2, 1835), after
a hfe of labor and frugality, he left but a narrow competence
MARGARET FULLER. 171
to liis -widow and large family of mainly young, dependent
children.
But that widow was a woman of signal excellence of soul
and hfe. He was well established in practice, and must have
been ten or fifteen years at the bar when he met her, — a
young girl of humble family and little education, but of rare
beauty, physical and mental ; and, falling in love with her at
sight, sought her acquaintance, wooed, won, and married her.
And, though she never found time for extensive study, her
natural refinement was such that the deficiencies of her edu-
cation were seldom or never perceptible.
Her eldest daughter was too early stimulated to protracted,
excessive mental labor by her fond, exacting, ambitious fa-
ther, justly proud of her great natural powers, and ignorant
of the peril of overtaxing them. I have heard that, when but
eight years old, she had her " stint " of so many Latin verses
to compose j)er day, ready to recite to him on his return to
their suburban home from his day's work in the city. This
may be idle gossip ; I only know that, Avhen I first made her
acquaintance, she was, mentally, the best instructed w^oman
in America ; while she was, physically, one of the least envi-
able, — a prey to spinal affliction, nervous disorder, and pro-
tracted, fearfully torturing headaches. Those who knew her
in early youth have assured me that she was then the picture
of rude health, — red-cheeked, robust, vigorous, and comely,
if not absolutely beautiful. Too much of this was sacrificed
to excessive study. Her near friend and literary associate,
Ealph Waldo Emerson, gives this account of his first impres-
sions of her in her early prime of Avomanhood, ten years be-
fore I met her : —
" I still remember the first half-hour of Margaret's conversation.
She was then twenty-six years old. She had a face and frame that
would indicate fulness and tenacity of life. She was rather under
the middle height ; her complexion was fair, with strong, fair hair.
She was then, as always, carefully and becomingly dressed, and of
lady-like self-possession. For the rest, her appearance had noth-
ing prepossessing. Her extreme plainness, a trick of incessantly
172 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
opening and shutting her eyelids, the nasal tones of her voice, all
repelled ; and I said to myself, ' We shall never get far.' It is to
be said that Margaret made a disagreeable first impression on
most persons, including those who became afterward her best
friends, to such an extreme that they did not wish to be in the
same room with her. This was partly the effect of her manners,
which expressed an overweening sense of power, and slight esteem
of others ; and partly the prejudice of her fame. She had a dan-
gerous reputation for satire, in addition to her great scholarship.
The men thought she cairied too many guns, and the women did
not like one who despised them. I believe I fancied her too much
interested in personal history ; and her talk was a comedy, in
which dramatic justice was done to everybody's foibles. I remem-
ber that she made me laugh more than I liked ; for I was, at that
time, an eager scholar of ethics, and had tasted the sweets of soli-
tude and stoicism, and I found something profane in the hom's of
axQusing gossip into which she drew me ; and, when I returned to
my library, had much to think of the crackling of thorns under a
pot."
Her beloved and loving cousin, Eev. "William H. Chan-
ning, in his account of a visit he paid her, somewhat lat-
er, when she lived at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, in 1840,
says : —
" As, leaning on one arm, she poured otxt her stream of thought,
turning now and then her full eyes upon me to see whether I
caught her meaning, there was leisure to study her thoroughly.
Her temperament was predominantly what the physiologist woidd
call nervous-sanguine ; and the gray eye, rich brown hair, and
light complexion, with the muscular and well-developed frame,
bespoke delicacy balanced by vigor. Here was a sensitive yet
powerful being, fit at once for rapture or sustained effort, intensely
active, prompt for adventure, firm for trial. She certainly had no
beauty ; yet the high-arched dome of her head, the changeful
expressiveness of every feature, and her whole air of mingled dig-
nity and impulse, gave her a commanding charm. Especially
characteristic were two physical traits. The first was a contraction
of the eyelids almost to a point, — a trick caught from near-sight-
edness, — and then a sudden dilation, till the iris seemed to
MARGARET FULLER.
173
emit flashes, — an effect, no doubt, dependent on her highly-
magnetized condition. The second was a singular pliancy of the
vertebrae and muscles of the neck, enabling her, by a mere move-
ment, to denote each varying emotion ; in moments of tenderness,
or pensive feeling, its curves were swan-like in grace ; but, when
she was scornful or indignant, it contracted, and made swift tm^ns,
like that of a bird of prey. Finally, in the animation, yet abandon,
of Margaret's attitude and look, were rarely blended the fiery
com-se of northern, and the soft languor of southern races."
Margaret Fuller.
Such a â– svoman could not live idly, especially in diligent,
practical New England, even had she been shielded by for-
tune from the most obvious necessity for habitual industry.
After' the completion of her school-day education, and before
undertaking the editorship of The Dial, she had taught classes
of girls in her home, given two years to the conduct of a sem-
inary in Providence, E. I. (for which she was never paid),
had translated (in 1839) Eckermann's " Conversations with
Goethe," and in the autumn of this year she planned and an-
nounced her most unique enterprise, — a series of couversa-
174 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
tions (in Boston), for women only, wherein she was to take a
leading part ; but every one who attended was required to
contribute according to her ability, by written essay or spoken
word, as should be suggested or found possible. The general
object of these conferences, as declared in her programme, was
to svipply an-swers to these questions : " What were we born
to do ? " and " How shall we do it ? " or (as I think she else-
where said), " to vindicate the right of Woman to think," by
showing that she can tliink nobly and to good purpose ; but
Life, Literature, Mythology, Art, Culture, Eeligion, were hb-
erally drawn upon for material and stimulus in the progress
of tliis most arduous undertaking.
But Margaret had higher qualifications for such a task than
any other person that America had yet produced, being " the
best talker since De Stael," as I once heard her characterized.
And, as the ablest and most cultivated women in and around
Boston were naturally attracted to her conversations, and in-
cited to take part in them, I doubt not that they were more
interesting and profitable than any intellectual exercises which
had preceded them ; and, while the attendance was necessarily
limited, — averaging less than fifty persons, — there are still
many living who gratefully recall them as the starting-point
and incitement of a new and noblpr existence. Yet an at-
tempt by jMargaret to extend their advantages to men proved
a failure ; and, even when repeated under the guidance of so
eminent a conversationist as Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, I judge
that no decided success was achieved.
In 1839, she had visited, Avith a party of friends, what was
then " the Great West " ; spending weeks in traversing the
prairies of Illinois, as yet undeformed by fences and un vexed
by the plough. Her observations and impressions, embodied
in a volume entitled " Summer on the Lakes," evinced an un-
American ripeness of culture, and a sympathetic enjoyment
of Nature in her imtamed luxuriance. But the alternating
meadow and forest of that bounteous region in its primitive
state evinced little of tlie rugged wildness of mountain or
desert ; and she remarked that it seemed a reproduction,
MARGARET FULLER. 175
though on a gigantic scale, and mthout enclosures, of the
great baronial domains and parks of Europe ; so that the
traveller was constantly looking for the castles and other evi-
dences of human occupation and enjoyment which, it seemed,
must be just at hand. Half a century hence, Illinoians will
read her book, and wonder if the region it vividly depicts and
describes can indeed be identical with that wliich surrounds
them.
But the work by which she will be longest and widest
kno^\^l first appeared in The Dial (1843) as " The Great Law-
suit," and, when afterward expanded into a separate volume,
was entitled, "AVoman in the Nineteenth Century." If not
the clearest and most logical, it was the loftiest and most
commanding assertion yet made of the right of Woman to be
regarded and treated as an indejiendent, intelligent, rational
being, entitled to an equal voice in framing and modifying
the laws she is required to obey, and in controlling and dis-
posing of the property she has inherited or aided to acquire.
Yet questions of property, personal rights, guardianship of
cluldren, &c., are but incidental, not essential. She says : —
" It is the fault of Marriage, and of the present relations be-
tween the sexes, that the woman belongs to the man, instead of
forming a whole with him "Woman, self-centred, would
never be absorbed by any relation ; it would only be an experience
to her, as to Man. It is a vulgar eiTor, that love — a love — is to
Woman her whole existence : she also is bom for Truth and Love
in their universal energy. Would she but assume her inheritance,
Mary would not be the only virgin mother."
If you say this is vague, mystical, unmeaning, I shall not
contradict you ; I am not arguing that Woman's undoubted
\ATongs are to be redressed by the concession of what Mar-
garet, or any of her disciples, has claimed as Woman's in-
herent rights ; I only feel that hers is the ablest, bravest,
broadest, assertion yet made of what are termed Woman's
Eights ; and I suspect that the statement might lose in force
by gaining in clearness. And, at all events, I am confident
that there lives no man or woman who would not profit (if
176 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
he or she has not already profited) by a thoughtful perusal of
" Woman in the Nineteenth Centviry."
My wife, having spent much time in and near Boston, had
there made Margaret's acquaintance, attended her conversa-
tions, accepted her leading ideas ; and, desiring to enjoy her
society more intimately and continuously, Mrs. G. planned
and partly negotiated an arrangement whereby her monitor
and friend became an inmate of our family and a writer for
The Tribune.
Up to the close of the Presidential canvass in 1844, I had
lived thirteen years in New York, and never half a mile
from the City Hall, — usually within sixty rods of it. The
newspaper business requiring close attention, and being wdiolly
prosecuted " down town," it seemed, when I once ventured to
live so far up as Broome Street, that I had strayed to an
inconvenient distance from my work ; but, when the great
struggle was over, and I the worst beaten man on the conti-
nent, — worn out by incessant anxiety and effort, covered with
boils, and thoroughly used up, — I took a long stride landward,
removing to a spacious old wooden house, built as a country
or summer residence by Isaac Lawrence, formerly President
of the United States Branch Bank, but which, since his death,
had been neglected, and suffered to decay. It was located on
eight acres of ground, including a wooded ravine, or dell, on
the East Eiver, at Turtle Bay, nearly opposite the southern-
most point of Blackwell's Island, amid shade and fruit trees,
abundant shrubbery, ample garden, &c. ; and, though now for
years perforated by streets, and in good part covered by build-
ings, was then so secluded as to be only reached by a narrow,
devious, private lane, exceedingly dark at night for one accus-
tomed to the glare of gas-lamps ; the nearest highway being
the old " Boston Poad " at Forty-nintli Street ; while an hourly
stage on the Third Avenue, just beyond, afforded our readiest
means of transit to and from the city proper. Accustomed to
the rumble and roar of carriages, the stillness here at night
seemed at first so sepiilchral, unearthly, that I found difficulty
MARGARET FULLER. 177
in sleeping. Of tlie place it^eK, Margaret — who became one
of our household soon after we took possession — wrote thus
to a friend : —
" This place is, to me, entirely charming ; it is so completely in
the country, and all around is so bold and free. It is two miles
or more from the thickly settled parts of New York, but omnibuses
and cars give me constant access to the city; and, while I can
readily see what and whom I will, I can command time and retire-
ment. Stopping on the Harlem Road, you enter a lane nearly a
quarter of a mile long, and, going by a small brook and pond that
locks in the place, and ascending a slightly rising ground, get sight
of the house, which, old-fashioned and of mellow tint, fronts on a
flower-garden filled with shrubs, large vines, and trim box borders.
On both sides of the house are beautifid trees, standing fair, fidl-
grown, and clear. Passing through a wide hall, you come out upon
a piazza stretching the whole length of the house, where one can
walk in all weathers ; and thence, by a step or two, on a lawn,
with picturesque masses of rocks, shrubs, and trees, overlooking
the East River. Gravel-paths lead, by several turns, down the
steep bank to the water's edge, where, round the rocky point, a
small bay curves, in which boats are lying ; and, owing to the ciu -
rents and the set of the tide, the sails glide sidelong, seeming to
greet the house as they sweep by. The beauty here, seen by
moonliglit, is tndy transporting. I enjoy it greatly, and the genus
loci receives me as to a home."
We have seen that the first impressions made by Margaret,
even on those who soon learned to admire her most, were not
favorable ; and it was decidedly so in my case. A sufferer
myself, and at times scarcely able to ride to and from the
office, I yet did a day's work each day, regardless of nerves or
moods ; but she had no such capacity for incessant labor. If
quautity only were considered, I could easily ^vrite ten columns
to her one : indeed, she would only ^\Tite at all when in the
vein ; and her headaches and other infirmities often precluded
all labor for days. Meantime, perhaps, the interest of the
theme had evaporated, or the book to be reviewed had the
12
178 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
bloom brushed from its cheek by 'some rival journal. Attend-
ance and care were very needful to her ; she would evidently
have been happier amid other and more abundant furniture
than graced our dwelling ; and, while nothing was said, I felt
that a richer and more generous diet than ours would have
been more accordant with her tastes and wishes. Then I had
a notion that strong-minded women should be above the