James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[178] this sudden death threw the weight of the whole household upon the eldest child. It came at what had seemed to her the golden moment of her whole life; for she was about to visit Europe with her constant friends, ProfessorFarrar and Mrs. Farrar, and with their friend Harriet Martineau, who was just returning home. But all this must be at once abandoned. Mr. Fuller had left barely property enough to support his widow, and to educate the younger children, with the aid of their elder sister. Mrs. Fuller was in delicate health, and of a more yielding nature than Margaret, who became virtually head of the house. Under her strong supervision, two out of the five boys went honorably through Harvard College,--a third having previously graduated,while the young sister was sent to the best schools, where she showed the family talent.

In the autumn of 1836, Margaret Fuller went to Boston, where she taught Latin and French in Mr. Alcott's school, and had classes of young ladies in French, German, and Italian. She also devoted one evening in every week to translating German authors into English, for the gratification of Dr. Channing,--their chief reading being in De Wette and Herder. The following extract will show how absorbing were her occupations:--

And now let me try to tell you what has been done. To one class I taught the German language, and thought it good success, when, at the end of three months, they could read twenty pages of German at a lesson, and very well. This class, of course, was not interesting, except in the way of observation and analysis of language.

With more advanced pupils I read, in twenty-four weeks, Schiller's Don Carlos, Artists, and Song of the Bell, besides giving a sort of general lecture on Schiller; Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea; Goetz von Berlichingen; Iphigenia;