2 Quotes by John Matteson

This book began with the assertion that Margaret Fuller's life was her most remarkable creation. It is just possible, however, that her most wonderful creations may still lie in the future. Fuller's most precious gift to us may reside in the ideas and the works, still yet to be imagined, of women and men who follow her example. We may decide that, despite all that Margaret Fuller endured and suffered in order to become exceptional, her life, or rather her lives, well deserve imitating.

Unfortunately, though, even in our own time, the stigma that can attach to the cleverest person in the room sometimes intensifies if that person happens to be a woman. To imagine that Fuller could conduct herself as she did and never run afoul of gender prejudice is fanciful. To suppose that such biases were alone responsible for her troubles is equally so.