She had learned the secret of most prominent lives. The majority in
this world will always be mediocre, because they lack high-minded
ambition and the willingness to work.

Two years after, at seventeen, she writes: "I am studying Madame de
Staël, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and the Castilian ballads, with
great delight.... I am engrossed in reading the elder Italian
poets, beginning with Berni, from whom I shall proceed to Pulci and
Politian." How almost infinitely above "beaus and dresses" was such
intellectual work as this!

It was impossible for such a girl not to influence the mind of every
person she met. At nineteen she became the warm friend of Rev. James
Freeman Clarke, "whose friendship," he says, "was to me a gift of the
gods.... With what eagerness did she seek for knowledge! What fire,
what exuberance, what reach, grasp, overflow of thought, shone in her
conversation!... And what she thus was to me, she was to many others.
Inexhaustible in power of insight, and with a good will 'broad as
ether,' she could enter into the needs, and sympathize with the
various excellences, of the greatest variety of characters. One
thing only she demanded of all her friends, that they should not be
satisfied with the common routine of life,--that they should aspire to
something higher, better, holier, than had now attained."

Witty, learned, imaginative, she was conceded to be the best
conversationist in any circle. She possessed the charm that every
woman may possess,--appreciation of others, and interest in their
welfare. This sympathy unlocked every heart to her. She was made the
confidante of thousands. All classes loved her. Now it was a serving
girl who told Margaret her troubles and her cares; now it was a