’It is quite separated from all exciting local subjects.  It is serious, without being solemn, and without excluding any mode of intellectual action; it is playful, as well as deep.  It is sufficiently wide, for it is a complete expression of the cultivation of a nation.  It is objective and tangible.  It is, also, generally known, and associated with all our ideas of the arts.

’It originated in the eye of the Greek.  He lived out of doors:  his climate was genial, his senses were adapted to it.  He was vivacious and intellectual, and personified all he beheld.  He saw the oreads, naiads, nereids.  Their forms, as poets and painters give them, are the very lines of nature humanized, as the child’s eye sees faces in the embers or in the clouds.

    ’Other forms of the mythology, as Jupiter, Juno, Apollo,
    are great instincts, or ideas, or facts of the internal
    constitution, separated and personified.’

After exhibiting their enviable mental health, and rebutting the cavils of some of the speakers,—­who could not bear, in Christian times, by Christian ladies, that heathen Greeks should be envied,—­Miss Fuller declared,

’that she had no desire to go back, and believed we have the elements of a deeper civilization; yet, the Christian was in its infancy; the Greek in its maturity; nor could she look on the expression of a great nation’s intellect, as insignificant.  These fables of the Gods were the result of the universal sentiments of religion, aspiration, intellectual action, of a people, whose political and aesthetic life had become immortal; and we must leave off despising, if we would begin to learn.’

The reporter closes her account by saying:—­“Miss Fuller’s thoughts were much illustrated, and all was said with the most captivating address and grace, and with beautiful modesty.  The position in which she placed herself with respect to the rest, was entirely ladylike, and companionable.  She told what she intended, the earnest purpose with which she came, and, with great tact, indicated the indiscretions that might spoil the meeting.”

Here is Margaret’s own account of the first days.

    TO R.W.E.

’25th Nov., 1839.—­My class is prosperous.  I was so fortunate as to rouse, at once, the tone of simple earnestness, which can scarcely, when once awakened, cease to vibrate.  All seem in a glow, and quite as receptive as I wish.  They question and examine, yet follow leadings; and thoughts, not opinions, have ruled the hour every time.  There are about twenty-five members, and every one, I believe, full of interest.  The first time, ten took part in the conversation; the last, still more.  Mrs. ——­ came out in a way that surprised me.  She seems to have shaken off a wonderful number of films.  She showed pure vision, sweet sincerity, and much talent.  Mrs. ——­ ——­ keeps us in good order, and takes