while she is silent, Nature is working for her;
while she talks, she is working for herself. Love is sparingly soluble
in the words of men; therefore they speak much of it; but one
syllable of woman's speech can dissolve more of it than a man's heart
can hold.

Whether I said any or all of these things to the schoolmistress or
not--whether I stole them put of Lord Bacon--whether I cribbed them
from Balzac--whether I dipt them from the ocean of Tupperian
wisdom--or whether I have just found them in my head (laid there by
that solemn fowl, Experience, who, according to my observation,
cackles oftener than she drops real, live eggs), I can not say. Wise
men have said more foolish things--and foolish men, I don't doubt,
have said as wise things. Anyhow, the schoolmistress and I had
pleasant walks and long talks, all of which I do not feel bound to
report.

You are a stranger to me, Ma'am.--I don't doubt you would like to know
all I said to the schoolmistress.--I shan't do it; I had rather get
the publishers to return the money you have invested in this. Besides,
I have forgotten a good deal of it. I shall tell only what I like of
what I remember.

MARGARET FULLER

Born in Massachusetts in 1810; lost in a shipwreck off Fire
Island in 1850; edited _The Dial_ in 1840-42; literary
critic for the New York _Tribune_ in 1844-46; went to Europe
in 1846; married the Marquis d'Ossoli in 1847; in Rome
during the Revolution of 1848-49; published "A Summer on the
Lakes" in 1843, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" in 1845,
"Papers on Art and Literature" in 1846.

I

HER VISIT TO GEORGE SAND[15]

It is the custom to go and call on those to whom you bring letters,
and push yourself upon their notice; thus you must go quite ignorant
whether they are disposed to be cordial. My name is always murdered by
the foreign servants who announce me. I speak very bad French; only
lately have I had sufficient command of it to infuse some of my
natural spirit in my discourse. This has been a great trial to me, who
am eloquent and free in my own tongue, to be forced to feel my
thoughts struggling in vain for utterance.

[Footnote 15: From a letter to Elizabeth Hoar, written in 1847 and
printed in the "Memoirs."]

The servant who admitted me was in the picturesque costume of a
peasant, and as Madame Sand afterward told me, her goddaughter, whom
she had brought from her province. She announced