Unselfing into Oneness with the All: Transcendentalist Queen Margaret Fuller on Transcendence

“How is it that I seem to be this Margaret Fuller? What does it mean? What shall I do about it?”

This essay is adapted from the sixth chapter of Figuring.

“I am determined on distinction,” Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810–July 19, 1850) writes to her former teacher. She is fifteen. The year is 1825 and she is ineligible for any formal education, so she has taken the reins of her character into her own hands, with resolute guidance from her father — a man who has tempered his disappointment that hi...