In 1839, Margaret Fuller, delicate in health and much overtaxed, consented to gratify many who loved her by opening in Boston a series of “Conversations for Women.” In a Circular quoted by Emerson, she says to Mrs. Sophia Ripley:— “Could a circle be assembled in earnest, desirous to answer the questions, ‘What were we born to do?’ and ‘How shall we do it?’ I should think the undertaking a noble one.” This was certainly the original intent of the famous “Fuller Conversations,” which, beginning th

About thirty persons usually attended. George Ripley. The well-known clergyman, settled over a Unitarian church in Purchase St., Boston, afterward the President of the Association at Brook Farm, and later literary editor of the New York “Tribune.” Sophia Dana Ripley , his wife. Elisabeth Palmer Peabody. A woman of remarkable accumulations of learning, and as remarkable a breadth of sympathy. She was a teacher,—an enthusiastic advocate of the Kindergarten, and opened at No. 13 West St., Boston, a

Monday Evening, March 1, 1841. Margaret opened the conversation by a beautiful sketch of the origin of Mythology. The Greeks she thought borrowed their Gods from the Hindus and Egyptians, but they idealized their personifications to a far greater extent. The Hindus dwelt in the All, the Infinite, which the Greeks analyzed and to some degree humanized. All things sprang from Cœlus and Terra.,—that is, from Heaven and Earth, or spirit and matter. Rhea, or the Productive Energy, and Saturn, or Time

March 8, 1841. Margaret recapitulated the statements she made last week. By thus giving to each fabled Deity its place in the scheme of Mythology, she did not mean to ignore the enfolding ideas, the one thought developed in all—as in Rhea, Bacchus, Pan. She would only imply that each personification was individual, served a particular purpose, and was worshipped in a particular way. Before proceeding to talk about Ceres, she wished to remind us of the mischief of wandering from our subject. She

The third conversation was delayed by Margaret’s illness, and finally took place— March 19, 1841. Margaret again complained that we wandered from the subject, and told the following story from Novalis. Imagine a room, on one side of it Eros and Fable at play. On the other, before a marble slab on which rests a vase of pure water, sits a fair woman named Sophia. Her head rests upon her hand. Between her and the children sits a man of reverend age, before a table at which he writes whatever has be

March 26, 1841. Margaret opened our talk by saying that the subject of Wisdom presented more conversable points than that of Genius. We could all think and talk about Wisdom, and any man who had ever scratched his finger was to a degree wise. Minerva was the child of Counsel and Intelligent Will. She had no infancy, but sprang full-armed into being. Ready, agile, she was in herself the history of thought. She did not need that her life should be one of incident. Her attendant emblems are express

April 2, 1841. The story of Venus and Cupid and Psyche was discussed. Margaret said that of Venus she had less to say than of either of the preceding Deities! She was not the expression of a thought, but of a fact. She was the Greek idea of a lovely woman,—the best physical development of woman. When we have said, “It is,” we have said all. The birth of Beauty was the only ideal thing about her. She sprang from the wave, from the flux and reflux of things, from the undulating line. On this Venus

April 9, 1841. Margaret thought it would be very impertinent to begin by telling what everybody knew,—the old story of Cupid and Psyche. E. P. P. declared that Margaret never told it twice alike, and at last she yielded and said:— The beautiful young princess Psyche was envied by Venus, who sent Eros to destroy her; but the God, finding Psyche wholly lovely, wedded her. They lived happily until Psyche began to doubt. Eros had told her that she must not seek to know him; but curiosity prevailed o

April 15, 1841. Margaret said very little about Pluto. On the first evening she had called him the depth of things, and James Clarke now had a good deal to say upon the three ideas which she thought pervaded the Greek mythology,—the source, the depth, and the extent or flow of thought. He said that this distinction had struck him very forcibly when Margaret first mentioned it. We speak of widely diffused thought, of aspiring and profound thought; of sympathetic, exalted, or deep feeling,—and thi

April 22, 1841. Margaret said it surprised her that young men did not seek to be Mercuries. She said that one of the ugliest young men that she knew had become so enraptured with one of Raphael’s Mercuries, that he confessed to her that he was never alone without trying to assume its attitude before the glass. She said she could not help laughing at the image he suggested, an ugly figure in high-heeled boots and a strait-coat in the act of flying, commissioned with every grace from Heaven to men

April 29, 1841. We did not have a very bright talk. There were few present, and we had only the subject of last week. Margaret did not speak at length. Wheeler had been ill, and his physician prescribed light diet of both body and mind. Somebody spoke of Mercury sweeping the courts of the Gods, but that suggested nothing to Margaret. Sarah Shaw had a pin, with a Mercury on it, represented as holding the head of a goat. Margaret had never seen anything that would explain it, and there was some di

May 6, 1841. Few present. Our last talk, and we were all dull. For my part, Bacchus does not inspire me, and I was sad because it was the last time that I should see Margaret. She does not love me; I could not venture to follow her into her own home, and I love her so much! Her life hangs on a thread. Her face is full of the marks of pain. Young as I am, I feel old when I look at her. Margaret spoke of Hercules as representing the course of the solar year. The three apples were the three seasons