Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438

In 1839, she removed from Groton, with her mother and family, to Jamaica Plain, a few miles from Boston; and thence, shortly, to Cambridge and New York. Boston, however, was her point d'appui, and in it she formed acquaintances of every class, the most utilitarian and the most idealistic. In 1839, she published a translation of Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann; in 1841, the Letters of Bettina; in 1843, the Summer on the Lakes—a narrative of her tour to Lake Superior and Michigan. During the same period she was editor of the Dial, since conducted by Emerson and Ripley, and in which appeared her papers on Goethe and Beethoven, the Rhine, the Romaic Ballads, John Sterling's Poems, &c.

Exhausted by continuous exertion in teaching and writing for the press, Miss Fuller, in 1844, sought refreshment and health in change of scene; and, desiring rather new employments than cessation from work, she accepted a liberal offer from Mr Horace Greeley of New York, to become a regular contributor to the Tribune; and for that purpose to take up her abode in his house, first spending some time in the Highlands of the Hudson. At New York, she took an active interest, after Mrs Fry's manner, in the various benevolent institutions, and especially the prisons on Blackwell's Island. For more than a year she wrote regularly for the Tribune, 'always freshly, vigorously, but not always clearly.' The notice attracted by her articles insured fresh hosts of acquaintances, and she became a distinguished character at Miss Lynch's réunions, and at literary soirées of a similar order. In 1846, she left her native land—for ever, as the melancholy event proved—to join Mr and Mrs Spring in a European tour. Her letters home contain much pleasant gossip about some of the Old-World notabilities. Thus she records her interviews with Wordsworth in his Rydal retreat, with Dr Chalmers, Dr Andrew Combe, Mr De Quincey, the Howitts, &c. She visited Paris in the winter, and became acquainted with Lamennais, Béranger, Mme Dudevant, and others. Thence, in the spring of 1847, she went to Italy, where she remained until she embarked in 1850 on board that doomed ship, the Elizabeth. As a resident in Rome, her safety was seriously imperiled during the French siege of 1849. She was appointed by the 'Roman Commission for the succour of the wounded,' to the superintendence of an hospital, and all along took the liveliest interest in the fortunes of Mazzini and the republic. She was then a wife and a mother, having been married privately to the Marquis Ossoli, a Roman, 'of a noble but impoverished house,' whom she described, in a letter to her mother, as 'not in any respect such a person as people in general would expect to find with her,' being a man 'absolutely ignorant of books, and with no enthusiasm of character,' but endowed with excellent practical sense, a nice sense of duty, native refinement, and much sweetness of temper. The peculiar circumstances attending the marriage in that country, and at that agitated crisis, involved Margaret in numerous afflictions, and taxed her powers of endurance to the very uttermost.

She had to suffer compulsory separation from husband and child—the one in hourly peril of a bloody death, the other neglected and pining away in the hands of strangers: penury, loneliness, prostrating sickness, and treachery on the part of those around her, were meanwhile her own lot in the land of strangers. How this season of trial affected her character, may be inferred from the remarks of her friend Mrs Story, then sojourning in Italy, who says, that in Boston she had regarded Margaret as a person on intellectual stilts, with a large share of arrogance, and little sweetness of temper; and adds: 'How unlike to this was she now!—so delicate, so simple, confiding, and affectionate; with a true womanly heart and soul, sensitive and generous, and, what was to me a still greater surprise, possessed of so broad a charity, that she could cover with its mantle the faults and defects of all about her.' Her devotion to her husband, and her passionate attachment to her little Angelo, were exhibited in the liveliest colour: the influence she exercised, too, by love and sympathy, over Italians of every class with whom she came in contact, appears of a kind more tender, chastened, and womanly than that which previously characterised her. When the republican cause at Rome left no hope of present restoration, Margaret found a tranquil refuge in Florence, devoting her mornings to literary labours, and her evenings to social intercourse with cultivated natives and a few foreign visitors, among whom the Brownings occupied a distinguished place. Greatly straitened in means at this time, the repose she and her husband enjoyed at Florence, in their small and scantily-furnished room, seems to have been peculiarly grateful to both. Soon, however, arrangements were made for their departure to the United States; for Margaret was heart-weary at the political reaction in Europe, and the pecuniary expediency of publishing to advantage her chronicles of the revolution, seconded by a yearning to see her family and friends once more, constrained to this step.

From motives of economy, they took passage in a merchantman from Leghorn, the Elizabeth, the expense being one-half what a return by way of France would have been. The remonstrances of her acquaintance, founded on the fatigues of a two months' voyage—the comparative insecurity of such a bark—the exposed position of the cabin (on deck)—and so on, were not unaided by Margaret's own presentiments. Ossoli, when a boy, had been told by a fortune-teller, to 'beware of the sea,' and this was the first ship he had ever set his foot in. In a letter where she describes herself 'suffering, as never before, all the horrors of indecision,' his wife expresses a fervent prayer that it 'may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by unsolaced illness, or amid the howling waves; or if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief.' That 'or if so' is affecting—and was realised, except, indeed, that the anguish was not brief, for it lasted twelve terrible hours—a long communion face to face with Death! The bark sailed May 17, 1850. Captain Hasty, 'so fine a model of the New-England seaman,' inspired the passengers with cheerful confidence, and for a few days all went prosperously. But early in June, Captain Hasty died of confluent small-pox. The child Angelino caught it, but recovered, and won all hearts by his playful innocence, loving especially to be walked up and down in the arms of the steward, who had just such a boy at home waiting his arrival. On Thursday, July 15, the Elizabeth was off the Jersey coast: at evening-tide, a breeze sprang up, which by midnight had become a hurricane. About four o'clock next morning, she struck on Fire Island beach, and lay at the mercy of the maddened ocean. Mr Channing's description of the wreck is a most picturesque narrative, but too long for quotation. Very touching is the sketch of the Ossoli group, remaining on board after nearly all the passengers and crew had perished or escaped to land, which was distant only a few hundred yards—the infant crying passionately, shivering in the wet, till soothed and lullabied to sleep by his mother, a calm expectant of death; and Ossoli tranquillising by counsel and prayer their affrighted handmaid from Italy; all exchanging kindly partings, and sending messages home, if any should survive to be their bearer. Though persons were busy gathering into carts, on the shore, whatever spoil was stranded, no life-boat appeared; and the few remaining on the wreck were now fain to trust themselves to the rioting surf. Margaret would not go alone. With her husband and attendant (Celeste), she was just about to try the planks prepared by four seamen, and the steward had just taken little Nino in his arms, pledged to save him or die, 'when a sea struck the forecastle, and the foremast fell, carrying with it the deck and all upon it. The steward and Angelino were washed upon the beach, both dead, though warm, some twenty minutes after. Celeste and Ossoli were caught for a moment by the rigging, but the next wave swallowed them up. Margaret sank at once. When last seen, she had been seated at the foot of the foremast, still clad in her white night-dress, with her hair fallen loose upon her shoulders.' No trace was found of her manuscript on Italy: her love-correspondence with Ossoli was the only relic—the last memorial of that howling hurricane, pitiless sea, wreck on a sand-bar, an idle life-boat, beach-pirates, and not one friend!

With the exception of certain sections of laboured, writhing wordiness, the feverish restlessness and hectic symptoms of which are but too familiar to persons read in the literature of second-rate transcendentalism, these volumes comprise a large amount of matter that will well repay perusal, and portray a character of no ordinary type—a 'large-brained woman and large-hearted man.'

THE COUNTER-STROKE

Just after breakfast one fine spring morning in 1837, an advertisement in the Times for a curate caught and fixed my attention. The salary was sufficiently remunerative for a bachelor, and the parish, as I personally knew, one of the most pleasantly situated in all Somersetshire. Having said that, the reader will readily understand that it could not have been a hundred miles from Taunton. I instantly wrote, enclosing testimonials, with which the Rev. Mr Townley, the rector, was so entirely satisfied, that the return-post brought me a positive engagement, unclogged with the slightest objection to one or two subsidiary items I had stipulated for, and accompanied by an invitation to make the rectory my home till I could conveniently suit myself elsewhere. This was both kind and handsome; and the next day but one I took coach, with a light heart, for my new destination. It thus happened that I became acquainted, and in some degree mixed up, with the train of events it is my present purpose to relate.

The rector I found to be a stout, portly gentleman, whose years already reached to between sixty and seventy. So many winters, although they had plentifully besprinkled his hair with gray, shone out with ruddy brightness in his still handsome face, and keen, kindly, bright-hazel eyes; and his voice, hearty and ringing, had not as yet one quaver of age in it. I met him at breakfast on the morning after my arrival, and his reception of me was most friendly. We had spoken together but for a few minutes, when one of the French windows, that led from the breakfast-room into a shrubbery and flower-garden, gently opened and admitted a lady, just then, as I afterwards learned, in her nineteenth spring. I use this term almost unconsciously, for I cannot even now, in the glowing summer of her life, dissociate her image from that season of youth and joyousness. She was introduced to me, with old-fashioned simplicity, as 'My grand-daughter, Agnes Townley.' It is difficult to look at beauty through other men's eyes, and, in the present instance, I feel that I should fail miserably in the endeavour to stamp upon this blank, dead paper, any adequate idea of the fresh loveliness, the rose-bud beauty of that young girl. I will merely say, that her perfectly Grecian head, wreathed with wavy bandeaux of bright hair, undulating with golden light, vividly brought to my mind Raphael's halo-tinted portraitures of the Virgin—with this difference, that in place of the holy calm and resignation of the painting, there was in Agnes Townley a sparkling youth and life, that even amidst the heat and glare of a crowded ball-room or of a theatre, irresistibly suggested and recalled the freshness and perfume of the morning—of a cloudless, rosy morning of May. And, far higher charm than feature-beauty, however exquisite, a sweetness of disposition, a kind gentleness of mind and temper, was evidenced in every line of her face, in every accent of the low-pitched, silver voice, that breathed through lips made only to smile.

Let me own, that I was greatly struck by so remarkable a combination of rare endowments; and this, I think, the sharp-eyed rector must have perceived, or he might not perhaps have been so immediately communicative with respect to the near prospects of his idolised grandchild, as he was the moment the young lady, after presiding at the breakfast-table, had withdrawn.

'We shall have gay doings, Mr Tyrrel, at the rectory shortly,' he said. 'Next Monday three weeks will, with the blessing of God, be Agnes Townley's wedding-day.'

'Wedding-day!'

'Yes,' rejoined the rector, turning towards and examining some flowers which Miss Townley had brought in and placed on the table. 'Yes, it has been for some time settled that Agnes shall on that day be united in holy wedlock to Mr Arbuthnot.'

'Mr Arbuthnot of Elm Park?'

'A great match, is it not, in a worldly point of view?' replied Mr Townley, with a pleasant smile at the tone of my exclamation. 'And much better than that: Robert Arbuthnot is a young man of a high and noble nature, as well as devotedly attached to Agnes. He will, I doubt not, prove in every respect a husband deserving and worthy of her; and that from the lips of a doting old grandpapa must be esteemed high praise. You will see him presently.'

I did see him often, and quite agreed in the rector's estimate of his future grandson-in-law. I have not frequently seen a finer-looking young man—his age was twenty-six; and certainly one of a more honourable and kindly spirit, of a more genial temper than he, has never come within my observation. He had drawn a great prize in the matrimonial lottery, and, I felt, deserved his high fortune.

They were married at the time agreed upon, and the day was kept not only at Elm Park, and in its neighbourhood, but throughout 'our' parish, as a general holiday. And, strangely enough—at least I have never met with another instance of the kind—it was held by our entire female community, high as well as low, that the match was a perfectly equal one, notwithstanding that wealth and high worldly position were entirely on the bridegroom's side. In fact, that nobody less in the social scale than the representative of an old territorial family ought, in the nature of things, to have aspired to the hand of Agnes Townley, appeared to have been a foregone conclusion with everybody. This will give the reader a truer and more vivid impression of the bride, than any words or colours I might use.

The days, weeks, months of wedded life flew over Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot without a cloud, save a few dark but transitory ones which I saw now and then flit over the husband's countenance as the time when he should become a father drew near, and came to be more and more spoken of. 'I should not survive her,' said Mr Arbuthnot, one day in reply to a chance observation of the rector's, 'nor indeed desire to do so.' The gray-headed man seized and warmly pressed the husband's hand, and tears of sympathy filled his eyes; yet did he, nevertheless, as in duty bound, utter grave words on the sinfulness of despair under any circumstances, and the duty, in all trials, however heavy, of patient submission to the will of God. But the venerable gentleman spoke in a hoarse and broken voice, and it was easy to see he felt with Mr Arbuthnot that the reality of an event, the bare possibility of which shook them so terribly, were a cross too heavy for human strength to bear and live.

It was of course decided that the expected heir or heiress should be intrusted to a wet-nurse, and a Mrs Danby, the wife of a miller living not very far from the rectory, was engaged for that purpose. I had frequently seen the woman; and her name, as the rector and I were one evening gossipping over our tea, on some subject or other that I forget, came up.

'A likely person,' I remarked; 'healthy, very good-looking, and one might make oath, a true-hearted creature. But there is withal a timidity, a frightenedness in her manner at times which, if I may hazard a perhaps uncharitable conjecture, speaks ill for that smart husband of hers.'

'You have hit the mark precisely, my dear sir. Danby is a sorry fellow, and a domestic tyrant to boot. His wife, who is really a good, but meek-hearted person, lived with us once. How old do you suppose her to be?'

'Five-and-twenty perhaps.'

'Six years more than that. She has a son of the name of Harper by a former marriage, who is in his tenth year. Anne wasn't a widow long. Danby was caught by her good looks, and she by the bait of a well-provided home. Unless, however, her husband gives up his corn speculations, she will not, I think, have that much longer.'

'Corn speculations! Surely Danby has no means adequate to indulgence in such a game as that?'

'Not he. But about two years ago he bought, on credit, I believe, a considerable quantity of wheat, and prices happening to fly suddenly up just then, he made a large profit. This has quite turned his head, which, by the by, was never, as Cockneys say, quite rightly screwed on.' The announcement of a visitor interrupted anything further the rector might have had to say, and I soon afterwards went home.

A sad accident occurred about a month subsequent to the foregoing conversation. The rector was out riding upon a usually quiet horse, which all at once took it into its head to shy at a scarecrow it must have seen a score of times, and thereby threw its rider. Help was fortunately at hand, and the reverend gentleman was instantly conveyed home, when it was found that his left thigh was broken. Thanks, however, to his temperate habits, it was before long authoritatively pronounced that, although it would be a considerable time before he was released from confinement, it was not probable that the lusty winter of his life would be shortened by what had happened. Unfortunately, the accident threatened to have evil consequences in another quarter. Immediately after it occurred, one Matthews, a busy, thick-headed lout of a butcher, rode furiously off to Elm Park with the news. Mrs Arbuthnot, who daily looked to be confined, was walking with her husband upon the lawn in front of the house, when the great burly blockhead rode up, and blurted out that the rector had been thrown from his horse, and it was feared killed!

The shock of such an announcement was of course overwhelming. A few hours afterwards, Mrs Arbuthnot gave birth to a healthy male-child; but the young mother's life, assailed by fever, was for many days utterly despaired of—for weeks held to tremble so evenly in the balance, that the slightest adverse circumstance might in a moment turn the scale deathward. At length the black horizon that seemed to encompass us so hopelessly, lightened, and afforded the lover-husband a glimpse and hope of his vanished and well-nigh despaired of Eden. The promise was fulfilled. I was in the library with Mr Arbuthnot awaiting the physician's morning report, very anxiously expected at the rectory, when Dr Lindley entered the apartment in evidently cheerful mood.

'You have been causelessly alarmed,' he said. 'There is no fear whatever of a relapse. Weakness only remains, and that we shall slowly, perhaps, but certainly, remove.'

A gleam of lightning seemed to flash over Mr Arbuthnot's expressive countenance. 'Blessed be God!' he exclaimed. 'And how,' he added, 'shall we manage respecting the child? She asks for it incessantly.'

Mr Arbuthnot's infant son, I should state, had been consigned immediately after its birth to the care of Mrs Danby, who had herself been confined, also with a boy, about a fortnight previously. Scarlatina being prevalent in the neighbourhood, Mrs Danby was hurried away with the two children to a place near Bath, almost before she was able to bear the journey. Mr Arbuthnot had not left his wife for an hour, and consequently had only seen his child for a few minutes just after it was born.

'With respect to the child,' replied Dr Lindley, 'I am of opinion that Mrs Arbuthnot may see it in a day or two. Say the third day from this, if all goes well. I think we may venture so far; but I will be present, for any untoward agitation might be perhaps instantly fatal.' This point provisionally settled, we all three went our several ways: I to cheer the still suffering rector with the good news.

The next day but one, Mr Arbuthnot was in exuberant spirits. 'Dr Lindley's report is even more favourable than we had anticipated,' he said; 'and I start to-morrow morning, to bring Mrs Danby and the child'–The postman's subdued but unmistakable knock interrupted him. 'The nurse,' he added, 'is very attentive and punctual. She writes almost every day.' A servant entered with a salver heaped with letters. Mr Arbuthnot tossed them over eagerly, and seizing one, after glancing at the post-mark, tore it eagerly open, muttering as he did so: 'It is not the usual handwriting; but from her, no doubt'–Merciful God!' I impulsively exclaimed, as I suddenly lifted my eyes to his. 'What is the matter?' A mortal pallor had spread over Mr Arbuthnot's before animated features, and he was glaring at the letter in his hand as if a basilisk had suddenly confronted him. Another moment, and the muscles of his frame appeared to give way suddenly, and he dropped heavily into the easy-chair from which he had risen to take the letters. I was terribly alarmed, and first loosening his neckerchief, for he seemed choking, I said: 'Let me call some one;' and I turned to reach the bell, when he instantly seized my arms, and held me with a grip of iron. 'No—no—no!' he hoarsely gasped; 'water—water!' There was fortunately some on a side-table. I handed it to him, and he drank eagerly. It appeared to revive him a little. He thrust the crumpled letter into his pocket, and said in a low, quick whisper: 'There is some one coming! Not a word, remember—not a word!' At the same time, he wheeled his chair half round, so that his back should be towards the servant we heard approaching.

'I am sent, sir,' said Mrs Arbuthnot's maid, 'to ask if the post has arrived.'

'Yes,' replied Mr Arbuthnot, with wonderful mastery of his voice. 'Tell your mistress I shall be with her almost immediately, and that her—her son is quite well.'

'Mr Tyrrel,' he continued, as soon as the servant was out of hearing, 'there is, I think, a liqueur-stand on the sideboard in the large dining-room. Would you have the kindness to bring it me, unobserved—mind that—unobserved by any one?'

I did as he requested; and the instant I placed the liqueur-frame before him, he seized the brandy carafe, and drank with fierce eagerness. 'For goodness' sake,' I exclaimed, 'consider what you are about, Mr Arbuthnot: you will make yourself ill.'

'No, no,' he answered, after finishing his draught, 'It seems scarcely stronger than water. But I—I am better now. It was a sudden spasm of the heart; that's all. The letter,' he added, after a long and painful pause, during which he eyed me, I thought, with a kind of suspicion—'the letter you saw me open just now, comes from a relative, an aunt, who is ill, very ill, and wishes to see me instantly. You understand?'

I did understand, or at least I feared that I did too well. I, however, bowed acquiescence; and he presently rose from his chair, and strode about the apartment in great agitation, until his wife's bedroom bell rang. He then stopped suddenly short, shook himself, and looked anxiously at the reflection of his flushed and varying countenance in the magnificent chimney-glass.

'I do not look, I think—or, at least shall not, in a darkened room—odder, more out of the way—that is, more agitated—than one might, that one must appear, after hearing of the dangerous illness of—of—an aunt?'

'You look better, sir, than you did awhile since.'

'Yes, yes; much better, much better. I am glad to hear you say so. That was my wife's bell. She is anxious, no doubt, to see me.'

He left the apartment; was gone perhaps ten minutes; and when he returned, was a thought less nervous than before. I rose to go. 'Give my respects,' he said, 'to the good rector; and as an especial favour,' he added, with strong emphasis, 'let me ask of you not to mention to a living soul that you saw me so unmanned as I was just now; that I swallowed brandy. It would appear so strange, so weak, so ridiculous.'

I promised not to do so, and almost immediately left the house, very painfully affected. His son was, I concluded, either dead or dying, and he was thus bewilderedly casting about for means of keeping the terrible, perhaps fatal tidings from his wife. I afterwards heard that he left Elm Park in a postchaise, about two hours after I came away, unattended by a single servant!