Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli

[313] the lingering prevalence of the colonial spirit, which she battled stoutly to banish. It was especially hard for women in that profession because there were few of them, their early education was won at great disadvantage, and much was conceded reluctantly that now comes as a matter of course. Were she living to-day her life would be far smoother; she would find plenty of remunerative work, fair recognition, and kindly sympathy. On the other hand, she would have to adapt herself to a somewhat different world, for she would not be surrounded by that ardent and effusive social atmosphere which prevailed throughout the limited world of Transcendentalism. It was a fresh, glowing, youthful, hopeful, courageous period, and those who were its children must always rejoice that they were born before it faded away.

My friend Mr. O. B. Frothingham, the only direct historian of the Transcendental period, has failed, in my judgment, to give more than the husk and outside of it, although for this his book is valuable. The trouble was that he was neither a part of that great impulse nor immediately its child; in the day of Transcendentalism he was looking in a different direction and had no sympathy for its aims; and yet he was not quite far enough away to view it in perspective. To its immediate offspring, even if of a younger race, it bequeathed a glow and a joy that have been of life-long permanence. I have noticed that most of those who,