Author
George Herbert is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, journals, reading notebooks, and manuscripts (1836–1850). 7 distinct works are named, most often in The Two Herberts, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →
Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had George Herbert’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“Write me all about her Thomas a Kempis and George Herbert are constantly at my elbow and remind met”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 18 June 1837
Same explicit ongoing-reading statement, applied to George Herbert.
“Let then no doubt, Celinda, touch, Much less your fairest mind invade... Our equal loves can make them such.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 17th Deer 1842
Substantial multi-line verbatim quotation of Herbert's Ode, implying the text was in hand.
“26 Dec. 1842.—I have been reading the lives of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and of Sir Kenelm Digby”
Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli · 26 Dec. 1842
Explicit dated 'I have been reading the lives of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and of Sir Kenelm Digby.'
“Thou brought'st this little book, and didst diffuse / Oer my dark hour the light of Herbert's muse? / "Oh Elixir" and "Tree hymn" were then thy choice, / And the high strain gained sweetness from thy voice. / The book, before that day to me unknown, / I took to heart at once and made my own. [...] Does Herbert's "Hymn" in thy heart echo now? / Herbert's "Elixir" in thy bosom glow? / In Herbert's "Temper" dost thou strive to be? / Does Herbert's "Pearl" seem the true pearl to thee?”
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“From Herbert's Poems. Sin. Lord with what care hast thou begint as round! [...] Lord! take thy way; for sure thy way is best.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Bouquet, 1836–1837." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (43); Box 6 (43).
Herbert's Temple cataloged as one entry per deduplication rule.
“I have never thanked for Herbert. You could not have given me any-thing I should have liked better. I will keep and love it always.”
Inferred Sturgis gave Fuller George Herbert's The Temple, a gift she treasured immediately, declaring she would "keep and love it always."
“Thomas a Kempis and George Herbert are constantly at my elbow”
Inferred Fuller mentions George Herbert as a book at her elbow, almost certainly his The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, his sole major collection and the near-universal reference for Herbert in this era.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“Thou brought'st this little book, and didst diffuse / Oer my dark hour the light of Herbert's muse?”
Fuller, Margaret. "To E. C. with Herbert's Poems." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
“Still planning when and where, and how the business can be done,”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller quotes George Herbert's "The Church-Porch" from *The Temple" adapting lines 159–160 with slight variations: Herbert's "where, / And when, and how the businesse may be done" becomes Fuller's "when and where, and how the business can be done."
“Herbert / Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects, high, / So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be. / Sink not in spirit: who aimeth at the sky, / Shoots higher much, than he that means a tree.”
“Herbert / Slight those who say amidt their sickly [heaths?], / Thou liv'st by rule. What doth not so but men? / Houses are built by rule, and commonwealths.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal April 1839." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (Box A); Box 5 (99).
“O, that I were an orange tree, / That busy plant! / Then should I ever laden be, / And never want / Some fruit for him that dresseth me.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860.
Inferred This is a verbatim quotation from George Herbert's poem 'Employment (II)', found in his collection The Temple (1633). / Then should I ever laden be, / And never want / Some fruit for him that dressed me.' Fuller's quotation uses 'dresseth' instead of 'dressed', a slight variant that may indicate she was quoting from memory or referencing a different edition.
“Heaven, whose course has ever been to "cross-bias me" as Herbert hath it, is no niggard in its compensations”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred Fuller cites George Herbert by name ("as Herbert hath it") when paraphrasing a line from his poem "Affliction" in the "Church" section of The Temple (1633).
“Destiny which still "cross biases me" as Herbert said it did him, refusing me what I desired, solitude and quiet in which to concentrate my powers, has rewarded my submission to her guidance with more and fairer gifts than I could have deemed the due of any one”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred Fuller names Herbert explicitly and paraphrases "cross biases me as Herbert said it did him," citing the same phrase from Herbert's "Affliction" (I) in The Temple (1633) that appeared in an earlier letter.
“I feel, like Herbert, the weight of "business to be done”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred Fuller explicitly names George Herbert and quotes the essence of his phrase about "business to be done." Hudspeth identified the source as Herbert's "The Church-Porch" from The Temple (published posthumously in 1633), with the specific lines "Let thy minde still be bent, still / plotting where, / And when, and how the businesse may be done."
“It seemed but tuning of the breast / To make the music better.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
“Whenever there was dissonance between us, it ended as being so superficial: / It seemed but tuning of the breast / To make the music better.”
Fuller, Margaret. Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846. With an introduction by Julia Ward Howe. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903.
Inferred This is a quotation of George Herbert's poem "The Temper (I)" from The Temple (1633). Herbert’s published text reads: "Yet take thy way; for sure thy way is best: / Stretch or contract me, thy poor debtor: / This is but tuning of my breast, / To make the music better." Fuller's version substitutes "It seemed but" for "This is but" and "the breast" for "my breast," variations characteristic of quotation from memory. Fuller does not name Herbert.
“Who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake / Makes that and th' action clean.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p302
Inferred Margaret Fuller quotes (with minor orthographic normalization) from George Herbert's poem 'The Elixir' in The Temple (1633).
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“I believe I had the pleasure of making her acquainted with Chaucer, with Ben Jonson, with Herbert, Chapman, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, with Bacon, and Sir Thomas Browne.”
Inferred This entry acknowledges a potential introduction to the poetry of George Herbert, inferred from Emerson's recollection of introducing Margaret Fuller to "Herbert." While no specific work is named, Fuller's later broad references to poets of that era suggest her engagement with devotional verse.
“Heaven, whose course has ever been to cross-bias me, as Herbert said, is no niggard in its compensations.”
“I feel, like Herbert, the weight of "business to be done," but the bird-like particle would skim and sing at these sweet places.”
Inferred In an August 1842 journal entry, Margaret Fuller references George Herbert's poetry, writing of feeling, like Herbert, the weight of "business to be done," while still desiring to "skim and sing at these sweet places." This allusion suggests Fuller's engagement with Herbert's meditations on duty and spiritual life.
“To all who will, it may be true, that, as Herbert says: — "Sundays the pillars are On which Heaven's palace arched lies; The other days fill up the space And hollow room with vanities;”
Inferred Margaret Fuller engages with George Herbert's 1633 collection, The Temple, by quoting a passage from his poem "Sunday." This excerpt, "Sundays the pillars are / On which heav'n's palace arched lies; / The other days fill up the space / And hollow room with vanities," highlights Fuller's contemplation of the spiritual significance and perceived emptiness of secular time in contrast to holy observance.
“The method of Providence with me is evidently that of "cross-biassing," as Herbert hath it.”
Inferred This entry identifies George Herbert's The Temple (1633) as the source of Fuller's description of divine Providence as "cross-biassing." Fuller directly attributes this metaphor to Herbert, who uses it in the poem "Affliction (I)" to describe God's redirection of the speaker from their own path.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“She often quoted from Herbert "Who aimeth at the sky Shoots higher much than he who means a tree.”
Fuller, Richard Frederick. Recollections of Richard F. Fuller. Boston: privately printed, 1936.
Inferred Richard Fuller states 'She often quoted from Herbert' and then transcribes two lines verbatim.