Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I | Page 7

Here, too, were the Queen
Anne authors, his models, and the English novelists; but among them I
found none that charmed me. Smollett, Fielding, and the like, deal too
broadly with the coarse actualities of life. The best of their men and
women--so merely natural, with the nature found every day--do not
meet our hopes. Sometimes the simple picture, warm with life and the
light of the common sun, cannot fail to charm,--as in the wedded love
of Fielding's Amelia,--but it is at a later day, when the mind is trained
to comparison, that we learn to prize excellence like this as it deserves.
Early youth is prince-like: it-will bend only to "the king, my father."
Various kinds of excellence please, and leave their impression, but the
most commanding, alone, is duly acknowledged at that all-exacting
age.
'Three great authors it was my fortune to meet at this important
period,--all, though of unequal, yet congenial powers,--all of rich and

wide, rather than aspiring genius,--all free to the extent of the horizon
their eye took in,--all fresh with impulse, racy with experience; never to
be lost sight of, or superseded, but always to be apprehended more and
more.
'Ever memorable is the day on which I first took a volume of
SHAKSPEARE in my hand to read. It was on a Sunday.
'--This day was punctiliously set apart in our house. We had family
prayers, for which there was no time on other days. Our dinners were
different, and our clothes. We went to church. My father put some
limitations on my reading, but--bless him for the gentleness which has
left me a pleasant feeling for the day!--he did not prescribe what was,
but only what was _not_, to be done. And the liberty this left was a
large one. "You must not read a novel, or a play;" but all other books,
the worst, or the best, were open to me. The distinction was merely
technical. The day was pleasing to me, as relieving me from the routine
of tasks and recitations; it gave me freer play than usual, and there were
fewer things occurred in its course, which reminded me of the divisions
of time; 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.--
'This Sunday--I was only eight years old--I took from the book-shelf a
volume lettered SHAKSPEARE. It was not the first time I had looked
at it, but before I had been deterred from attempting to read, by the
broken appearance along the page, and preferred smooth narrative. But
this time I held in my hand "Romeo and Juliet" long enough to get my
eye fastened to the page. It was a cold winter afternoon. I took the book
to the parlor fire, and had there been 'seated an hour or two, when my
father looked up and asked what I was reading so intently.
"Shakspeare," replied the child, merely raising her eye from the page.
"Shakspeare,--that won't do; that's no book for Sunday; go put it away
and take another." I went as I was bid, but took no other. Returning to
my seat, the unfinished story, the personages to whom I was but just
introduced, thronged and burnt my brain. I could not bear it long; such
a lure it was impossible to resist. I went and brought the book again.
There were several guests present, and I had got half through the play

before I again attracted attention. "What is that child about that she
don't hear a word that's said to her?" quoth my aunt. "What are you
reading?" said my father. "Shakspeare" was again the reply, in a clear,
though somewhat impatient, tone. "How?" said my father angrily,--then
restraining himself before his guests,--"Give me the book and go
directly to bed."
'Into my little room no care of his anger followed me. Alone, in the
dark, I thought only of the scene placed by the poet before my eye,
where the free flow of life, sudden and graceful dialogue, and forms,
whether grotesque or fair, seen in the broad lustre of his imagination,
gave just what I wanted, and brought home the life I seemed born to
live. My fancies swarmed like bees, as I contrived the rest of the
story;--what all would do, what say, where go. My confinement
tortured me. I could not go forth from this prison to ask after these
friends; I could not make my pillow of the dreams about them which
yet I could not forbear to frame. Thus was I absorbed when my father
entered. He felt