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[Eleanor Heidecker]

Inpresenting to the public the last volume of Margaret Fuller's works,the Editor is encouraged to hope for them a candid, cordial reception.It has been a work of love on his part, for which he has ever feltinadequate, and from it for a time shrunk. But each volume has had awider and more cordial welcome than its predecessor, and works receivedby the great public almost with coldness when first published, have,when republished, had a large and cheering circulation, and, what is farbetter, a kindly appreciation not only by the few, but even by the many.This is evidence enough that the progress of time has brought the publicand my sister into closer sympathy and agreement, and a betterunderstanding on its part of her true views and character.

The present volume is less than any of its predecessors a republication.Only one of its articles has ever appeared before in book form. As abook, it is, then, essentially new, though some of its reviews andessays have appeared in the columns of the Tribune and Dial. A largeportion of it has never appeared at all in print, especially itspoetical portions. The work of collecting these essays, reviews, andpoems has been a difficult one, much more than attended the preparationof the previous volumes. Unable, of course, to consult their author asto any of them, the revision I have given is doubtless very imperfect,and requires large allowance. It is even possible that among the poemsone or more written by friends and sent her, or copied from some otherauthor, may have crept in unawares; but this all possible pains havebeen taken to prevent. Such as it is, the volume is now before thepublic; it truly reveals her inner and outer life, and is doubtless thelast of the volumes containing the writings of MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.

MENZEL'S view of Gœthe is that of a Philistine, in the leastopprobrious sense of the term. It is one which has long been applied inGermany to petty cavillers and incompetent critics. I do not wish toconvey a sense so disrespectful in speaking of Menzel. He has a vigorousand brilliant mind, and a wide, though imperfect, culture. He is a manof talent, but talent cannot comprehend genius. He judges of Gœthe asa Philistine, inasmuch as he does not enter into Canaan, and read theprophet by the light of his own law, but looks at him from without, andtries him by a rule beneath which he never lived. That there wassomething Menzel saw; what that something was not he saw, but whatit was he could not see; none could see; it was something to be feltand known at the time of its apparition, but the clear sight of it wasreserved to a day far enough removed from its sphere to get a commandingpoint of view. Has that day come? A little while ago it seemed so;certain features of Gœthe's personality, certain results of histendency, 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, adeeper insight, make rejected words come true, and bring a more refinedperception of meaning already discerned. Like all his elder brothers ofthe elect band, the forlorn hope of humanity, he obliges us to live andgrow, that we may walk by his side; vainly we strive to leave him behindin some niche of the hall of our ancestors; a few steps onward and wefind him again, of yet serener eye and more towering mien than on hisother pedestal. Former measurements of his size have, like the girdlebound by the nymphs round the infant Apollo, only served to make himoutgrow the unworthy compass. The still rising sun, with its broaderlight, shows us it is not yet noon. In him is soon perceived a prophetof our own age, as well as a representative of his own; and we doubtwhether the revolutions of the century be not required to interpret thequiet depths of his Saga.

Yet much truth has been spoken of him in detail, some by Menzel, but inso superficial a spirit, and with so narrow a view of its bearings, asto have all the effect of falsehood. Such denials of the crown can onlyfix it more firmly on the head of the "Old Heathen." To such the bestanswer may be given in the words of Bettina Brentan: "The otherscriticise thy works; I only know that they lead us on and on till welive in them." And thus will all criticism end in making more men andwomen read these works, and "on and on," till they forget whether theauthor be a patriot or a moralist, in the deep humanity of the thought,the breathing nature of the scene. While words they have accepted withimmediate 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 wastrue and wise, capable of all things. Because he did not in one shortlife complete his circle, can we afford to lose him out of sight? Canwe, in a world where so few men have in any degree redeemed theirinheritance, neglect a nature so rich and so manifestly progressive?

"His mother was surprised, that when his brother Jacob died, who hadbeen his playmate, he shed no tear, but rather seemed annoyed by thelamentations of those around him. But afterwards, when his mother askedwhether he had not loved his brother, he ran into his room and broughtfrom under his bed a bundle of papers, all written over, and said he haddone all this for Jacob."

In the first anecdote is observable that love of symmetry in externalrelations which, in manhood, made him give up the woman he loved,because she would not have been in place among the old-fashionedfurniture of his father's house; and dictated the course which, at thecrisis of his life, led him to choose an outward peace rather than aninward joy. In the second, he displays, at the earliest age, a sense ofhis vocation as a recorder, the same which drew him afterwards to writehis life into verse, rather than clothe it in action. His indirectness,his aversion to the frankness of heroic meetings, is repulsive andsuspicious to generous and flowing natures; yet many of the moredelicate products of the mind seem to need these sheaths, lest bird andinsect rifle them in the bud.

And if this subtlety, isolation, and distance be the dictate of nature,we submit, even as we are not vexed that the wild bee should hide itshoney in some old moss-grown tree, rather than in the glass hives of ourgardens. We believe it will repay the pains we take in seeking for it,by some peculiar flavor from unknown flowers. Was Gœthe the wild bee?We see that even in his boyhood he showed himself a very Egyptian, inhis love for disguises; forever expressing his thought in roundaboutways, which seem idle mummery to a mind of Spartan or Roman mould. Hadhe some simple thing to tell his friend, he read it from the newspaper,or wrote it into a parable. Did he make a visit, he put on the hat orwig of some other man, and made his bow as Schmidt or Schlosser, thatthey might stare, when he spoke as Gœthe. He gives as the highestinstance of passionate grief, that he gave up for one day watching thetedious ceremonies of the imperial coronation. In daily life many ofthese carefully recorded passages have an air of platitude, at which nowonder the Edinburgh Review laughed. Yet, on examination, they are fullof meaning. And when we see the same propensity writing itself intoGanymede, Mahomet's song, the Bayadere, and Faust, telling allGœthe's religion in Mignon and Makana, all his wisdom in theWestern-Eastern Divan, we respect it, accept, all but love it.

This theme is for a volume, and I must quit it now. A brief summary ofwhat Gœthe was suffices to vindicate his existence, as an agent inhistory and a part of nature, but will not meet the objections of thosewho measure him, as they have a right to do, by the standard of idealmanhood.

So possible is it that our consciences may be more enlightened than thatof the Gentile under consideration. And if we can find out how much wasgiven him, we are told, in a pure evangelium, to judge thereby how muchshall be required.

Now, Gœthe has given us both his own standard and the way to applyit. "To appreciate any man, learn first what object he proposed tohimself; next, what degree of earnestness he showed with regard toattaining that object."

And this office of a judge, who is of purer eyes than to beholdiniquity, and of a sacred oracle, to whom other men may go to ask whenthey should choose a friend, when face a foe, this great genius does notadequately fulfil. Too often has the priest left the shrine to go andgather simples by the aid of spells whose might no pure power needs.Glimpses are found in his works of the highest spirituality, but it isblue sky seen through chinks in a roof which should never have beenbuilded. He has used life to excess. He is too rich for his nobleness,too judicious for his inspiration, too humanly wise for his divinemission. He might have been a priest; he is only a sage.

An Epicurean sage, say the multitude. This seems to me unjust. He isalso called a debauchee. There may be reason for such terms, but it ispartial, and received, as they will be, by the unthinking, they are asfalse as Menzel's abuse, in the impression they convey. Did Gœthevalue the present too much? It was not for the Epicurean aim ofpleasure, but for use. He, in this, was but an instance of reaction, inan age of painful doubt and restless striving as to the future. Was hisprivate life stained by profligacy? That far largest portion of hislife, which is ours, and which is expressed in his works, is an unbrokenseries of efforts to develop the higher elements of our being. I cannotspeak to private gossip on this subject, nor even to well-authenticatedversions of his private life. Here are sixty volumes, by himself andothers, which contain sufficient evidence of a life of severe labor,steadfast forbearance, and an intellectual growth almost unparalleled.That he has failed of the highest fulfilment of his high vocation iscertain, but he was neither Epicurean nor sensualist, if we consider hislife as a whole.

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