’Mr. Greeley is a man of genuine excellence, honorable, benevolent, and of an uncorrupted disposition.  He is sagacious, and, in his way, of even great abilities.  In modes of life and manner he is a man of the people, and of the American people.’  And again:—­Mr. Greeley is in many ways very interesting for me to know.  He teaches me things, which my own influence on those, who have hitherto approached me, has prevented me from learning.  In our business and friendly relations, we are on terms of solid good-will and mutual respect.  With the exception of my own mother, I think him the most disinterestedly generous person I have ever known.’

And later she writes:—­

’You have heard that the Tribune Office was burned to the ground.  For a day I thought it must make a difference, but it has served only to increase my admiration for Mr. Greeley’s smiling courage.  He has really a strong character.’

On the other side, Mr. Greeley thus records his recollections of his friend:—­

“My first acquaintance with Margaret Fuller was made through the pages of ‘The Dial.’  The lofty range and rare ability of that work, and its un-American richness of culture and ripeness of thought, naturally filled the ’fit audience, though few,’ with a high estimate of those who were known as its conductors and principal writers.  Yet I do not now remember that any article, which strongly impressed me, was recognized as from the pen of its female editor, prior to the appearance of ‘The Great Lawsuit,’ afterwards matured into the volume more distinctively, yet not quite accurately, entitled ‘Woman in the Nineteenth Century.’  I think this can hardly have failed to make a deep impression on the mind of every thoughtful reader, as the production of an original, vigorous, and earnest mind.  ‘Summer on the Lakes,’ which appeared some time after that essay, though before its expansion into a book, struck me as less ambitious in its aim, but more graceful and delicate in its execution; and as one of the clearest and most graphic delineations, ever given, of the Great Lakes, of the Prairies, and of the receding barbarism, and the rapidly advancing, but rude, repulsive semi-civilization, which were contending with most unequal forces for the possession of those rich lands.  I still consider ‘Summer on the Lakes’ unequalled, especially in its pictures of the Prairies and of the sunnier aspects of Pioneer life.

“Yet, it was the suggestion of Mrs. Greeley,—­who had spent some weeks of successive seasons in or near Boston, and who had there made the personal acquaintance of Miss Fuller, and formed a very high estimate and warm attachment for her,—­that induced me, in the autumn of 1844, to offer her terms, which were accepted, for her assistance in the literary department of the Tribune.  A home in my family was included in the stipulation.  I was myself barely acquainted with her, when she thus came to reside with us,