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228 Professional Woman, Private Passion When Fuller in November 1844 went to New York City to work as a literary critic and social commentator for Horace Greeley’s New-York Daily Tribune, she meant to focus on her public career and less on personal relations. Though some friends thought journalism beneath her, Fuller hoped that in writing for a newspaper she might “soar and sing” in a way she had not before. Like the character Wilhelm Meister, who moves in Goethe’s novel from the pursuit of theatrical illusion and pleasure to maturity of vision, Fuller, at the age of thirty-four, intended to cease pursuing the childish illusions of a girl with a “head full” of Hamlet and Rousseau and become a keen observer of the New York world.1 As a writer, Fuller did mature. Her writing style sharpened as she witnessed disturbing urban scenes of human poverty and suffering.2 Yet even as she began to channel her tumultuous energies into writing newspaper columns about actresses and theater productions, reforms needed to improve hospital and prison conditions , as well as Fourierist solutions to the problems of poverty and inequality, her hunger for love gradually undercut her asserted resolve not to yield to illusion. Though in public Fuller functioned as a social activist and celebrity, in private she continued to escape her demons by retreating to dreams, this time to an unfortunate fantasy obsession, one we examine in the eleven chapters in this section of the book. 36SA Divided Life Determined to live the chaste, productive life she had recommended for women in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Fuller now in New York City cultivated the image of an independent professional woman. As such she made, as Greeley said, part six ...

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