Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I | Page 6

treasury to build the palace. I kept their statues as
belonging to the hall of my ancestors, and loved to conquer obstacles,
and fed my youth and strength for their sake.
* * * * *
'Still, though this bias was so great that in earliest years I learned, in
these ways, how the world takes hold of a powerful nature, I had yet

other experiences. None of these were deeper than what I found in the
happiest haunt of my childish years,--our little garden. Our house,
though comfortable, was very ugly, and in a neighborhood which I
detested,--every dwelling and its appurtenances having a mesquin and
huddled look. I liked nothing about us except the tall graceful elms
before the house, and the dear little garden behind. Our back door
opened on a high flight of steps, by which I went down to a green plot,
much injured in my ambitious eyes by the presence of the pump and
tool-house. This opened into a little garden, full of choice flowers and
fruit-trees, which was my mother's delight, and was carefully kept.
Here I felt at home. A gate opened thence into the fields,--a wooden
gate made of boards, in a high, unpainted board wall, and embowered
in the clematis creeper. This gate I used to open to see the sunset
heaven; beyond this black frame I did not step, for I liked to look at the
deep gold behind it. How exquisitely happy I was in its beauty, and
how I loved the silvery wreaths of my protecting vine! I never would
pluck one of its flowers at that time, I was so jealous of its beauty, but
often since I carry off wreaths of it from the wild-wood, and it stands in
nature to my mind as the emblem of domestic love.
'Of late I have thankfully felt what I owe to that garden, where the best
hours of my lonely childhood were spent. Within the house everything
was socially utilitarian; my books told of a proud world, but in another
temper were the teachings of the little garden. There my thoughts could
lie callow in the nest, and only be fed and kept warm, not called to fly
or sing before the time. I loved to gaze on the roses, the violets, the
lilies, the pinks; my mother's hand had planted them, and they bloomed
for me. I culled the most beautiful. I looked at them on every side. I
kissed them, I pressed them to my bosom with passionate emotions,
such as I have never dared express to any human being. An ambition
swelled my heart to be as beautiful, as perfect as they. I have not kept
my vow. Yet, forgive, ye wild asters, which gleam so sadly amid the
fading grass; forgive me, ye golden autumn flowers, which so strive to
reflect the glories of the departing distant sun; and ye silvery flowers,
whose moonlight eyes I knew so well, forgive! Living and blooming in
your unchecked law, ye know nothing of the blights, the distortions,
which beset the human being; and which at such hours it would seem
that no glories of free agency could ever repay!

* * * * *
'There was, in the house, no apartment appropriated to the purpose of a
library, but there was in my father's room a large closet filled with
books, and to these I had free access when the task-work of the day was
done. Its window overlooked wide fields, gentle slopes, a rich and
smiling country, whose aspect pleased without much occupying the eye,
while a range of blue hills, rising at about twelve miles distance, allured
to reverie. "Distant mountains," says Tieck, "excite the fancy, for
beyond them we place the scene of our Paradise." Thus, in the poems
of fairy adventure, we climb the rocky barrier, pass fearless its dragon
caves, and dark pine forests, and find the scene of enchantment in the
vale behind. My hopes were never so definite, but my eye was
constantly allured to that distant blue range, and I would sit, lost in
fancies, till tears fell on my cheek. I loved this sadness; but only in later
years, when the realities of life had taught me moderation, did the
passionate emotions excited by seeing them again teach how glorious
were the hopes that swelled my heart while gazing on them in those
early days.
'Melancholy attends on the best joys of a merely ideal life, else I should
call most happy the hours in the garden, the hours in the book closet.
Here were the best French writers of the last century; for my father had
been more than half a Jacobin, in the time when the French Republic
cast its glare of promise over the world.