Finding Margaret Fuller: A Novel

“We had an audacity to us that frightened many, an independence of spirit and circumstance that made us not a little bit threatening to some of the men who wrote about freedom and lectured about liberty.”

Margaret describes the traits she has in common with Eliza Peabody. Both women are educated spinsters who aspire to become professional writers. Her words archly point to a fundamental contradiction in the writings of contemporary men of letters who preach the natural law of universal liberty. Apparently, this universal doctrine is only meant to apply to males.

“Well, then…love is a bonding of the souls […] But marriage as a legal institution is a bonding of the physical bodies. Once one’s soul no longer feels itself bound to the other, why, then, doesn’t marriage become a sort of entrapment of the body and the being? For that reason I chose the word unnatural.”

Margaret explains her philosophy of marriage to Waldo shortly after they first meet. She makes the distinction between the emotion of love and the contract of marriage. One stems from the spirit, the other from the rule of law. Throughout the novel, Margaret’s critics often describe her as being unnatural. Here, she turns the tables.

“So you’re just like them. All of you…great thinkers…with your desire to remake the world according to your great visions. You all exist on another plane, I suppose, and I’m down here, a mortal, walking with my heavy feet on this earth.”

Lidian explains her perspective to Margaret. She sees herself as the practical one who maintains the Emerson household, allowing her husband to flit about, spinning his philosophical theories. These words convey a sense of bitterness that the contributions of those who support the lives of geniuses are never respected. They’re merely the mundane drudges that enable ethereal intellectuals to survive in the real world.