Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/230

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212
MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.
New York, January 15, 1845.

Always dear Aunt Mary, — … This stopped me, just as I had begun to visit the institutions here, of a remedial and benevolent kind. So soon as I am quite well, I shall resume the survey. Mr. Greeley is desirous I should make it, and make what use of it I think best, in the paper. I go with William C. [Channing]. It is a great pleasure to us to coöperate in these ways. I do not expect to do much, practically, for the suffering, but having such an organ of expression [the ‘New York Tribune’], any suggestions that are well grounded may be of use. I have always felt great interest for those women who are trampled in the mud to gratify the brute appetites of men, and wished I might be brought naturally into contact with them. Now I am so, I think I shall have much that is interesting to tell you when we meet.

“I go on very moderately, for my strength is not great, and I am now connected with a person who is anxious I should not overtask it; yet I shall do more for the paper by and by. At present, beside the time I spend in looking round and examining my new field, I am publishing a volume of which you will receive a copy, called ‘Woman in the Nineteenth Century;’ a part of my available time is spent in attending to it as it goes through the press; for really the work seems but half done when your book is written. I like being here; the streams of life flow free, and I learn much. I feel so far satisfied as to have laid my plans to stay a year and a half, if not longer, and to have told Mr. G. that I probably shall. That is long enough for a mortal to look forward and not too long, as I must look forward in order to get what I want from Europe.