The Wichita daily eagle., 1901-06-02
ghe adathita pag Eagle: Sunday 1orms gmm 2, 1901.
MARGARET 7
FULLER

~ ACK in the eighties summer
y people tarrying at the old
Surf House, Fire island, had
e - two objects of interest point
- ed out 10 them in the neigh
borhood In early morning
after a storm they were told TO go down
10 the great lighthouse and see the dead
birds that lay all around the base
maddened mites that had dashed their
little brains out against the heavy glass
which covered the revolving lamps. On
pleasant mornings when the air was
good for a long walk the summer people
went northward along the beach four
miles TO look at the black masts OF
ship which thrust themselves up
through the ever fosming breakers
skeletonlike and tragic. like fingers
pointing slxyward the souls Of those
who went down in that ship. the Eliza
beth, bound from LeghOrn, Italy, TO
New York.
She was wrecked in a terrific storm
July 16. 1850 and in it, so old Fire is
landers told the summer guests, perish
ed Marchioness Margaret Fuller Ossoli
her italian husband and their beautiful
boy Angelo. They told us-for 1 was
Margaret Fuller could have been saved
or her husband could have been saved
or the little boy. There was a chance
for one more but only one. among the
few that escaped from the ship with
their lives. Wen. Margaret would not
go and leave the marquis, he refused to
survive while she perished; SO the
whole devoted family went to dsath to-
gether.
Years moved on, and little by little
the melancholy masts crumbled away.
I don't know just when they finally dis
appeared. but when revisited Fire is
land in 1897 they were no longer visible.
But the sandy, mosquito haunted,
scrub woods covered shore opposite the
scene of the tragedy was now called
Point O. Woods. and It held the begin
nings of a thriving summer colony.
made up of aesthetic and Intellectual in
dividuals devoted TO the -highah cul-
chah"-some giving it out, others abb
sorbing it. One of the prominent sum-
mer residents was and is that distin-
guished lady. Mrs. Lille Devereux
Blake OF New York. She it is who is at
the head of the movement to erect at
Point O. Woods, opposite the spot where
the Elizabeth was wrecked, memorial
to Margaret Fuller. Funds will be rails
ed by subscription, and the enterprise
will be in charge of the Point O Woods
Village Improvement society, or which
Mrs. Blake is president. The monu-
ment viii consist of an artistic pavilion
facing the breakers and VIII bear a
suitable inscription.
IT is time there should be materialized
.-E- -
greatest women America has produced. !
In all the continent there is TO this day
not a stone to mark her memory except /
a small tablet in a church at Cam |
bridge.
But that she was cut off at 40 Mar |
garet Funer's name would have stood /
in literature with the names of George |
Sand and George Eliot. AS it is, her |
book. Woman IN the Nineteenth Cen |
tury." is the ablest work on the rights
and intellectual development Of the
feminine sex ever penned this side OF
the Atlantic It is almost out of print !
now, mores the pity, for it is fit 10 4
stand alongside Mary Wolstonecraft's /
rights of Woman" and John Stuart I
AIilPs Liberty" It is an inspiration 10 /
au women who have anything in them |
to be inspired
The gifted New England woman seer /
and poet was born in 1910. A wave of /
great souls washed all around the earth !
in 1S09-1O and left upon the shore of life I
Gladstone, Darwin and Leo XIII among /
others in Europe. Here Lincoln. oliver 4
Wendell Holmes and Margaret Fuller 4
were some of those ii gave US.
Like many another genius and some +
who are not geniuses. Margaret was /
born with expensive tastes and very
poor. She was so extraordinarily gifted
in mind that at the age Of 8 she read +
Latin, and at she was wont 10 slip of 4
alone and read Shakespeare and other
heavy literature hours at a time She
was not altogether q pleasant child 10
live with in those days. being freakfsh +
and subject to long fits Of what in ordi-
nary persons are known as "the dumps"
but in geniuses is called melancholy"
Margaret felt herself even in childhood