Her earlier contributions to the _Tribune_ were not her best, and I did not at first prize her aid so highly as I afterwards learned to do. She wrote always freshly, vigorously, but not always clearly; for her full and intimate acquaintance with continental literature, especially German, seemed to have marred her felicity and readiness of expression in her mother tongue. While I never met another woman who conversed more freely or lucidly, the attempt to commit her thoughts to paper seemed to induce a singular embarrassment and hesitation. She could write only when in the vein; and this needed often to be waited for through several days, while the occasion sometimes required an immediate utterance. The new book must be reviewed before other journals had thoroughly dissected and discussed it, else the ablest critique would command no general attention, and perhaps be, by the greater number, unread. That the writer should wait the flow of inspiration, or at least the recurrence of elasticity of spirits and relative health of body, will not seem unreasonable to the general reader; but to the inveterate hack-horse of the daily press, accustomed to write at any time, or on any subject, and with a rapidity limited only by the physical ability to form the requisite pen-strokes, the notion of waiting for a brighter day or a happier frame of mind, appears fantastic and absurd. He would as soon think of waiting for a change in the moon. Hence, while I realized that her contributions evinced rare intellectual wealth and force, I did not value them as I should have done had they been written more fluently and promptly. They often seemed to make their appearance “a day after the fair.” HORACE GREELEY: _Communication_ in ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Carlyle’s first impression of Margaret Fuller.] Yesternight there came a bevy of Americans from Emerson, one Margaret Fuller, the chief figure of them, a strange, lilting, lean old maid, not nearly such a bore as I expected. THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter_ in ‘Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London,’ by James Anthony Froude. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons, 1884. * * * * * [Sidenote: Free translation of the above.] Miss Fuller came duly as you announced; was welcomed for your sake and her own. A high-soaring, clear, enthusiast soul; in whose speech there is much of all that one wants to find in speech. A sharp, subtle intellect too; and less of that shoreless Asiatic dreaminess than I have sometimes met with in her writings.... Her dialect is very vernacular,--extremely exotic in the London climate. THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter to R. W. Emerson_, December, 1846. ‘The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson’: Supplementary Letters. Boston: Ticknor & Co., 1886. * * * * * [Sidenote: Account of her visit to Ambleside.]