evening talking of American literature,--she contrasting its boyish
crudity, half boastful, half timid, with the tempered, manly equipoise
of thorough-bred European writers, and I asserting that in its mingled
practicality and aspiration might be read bright auguries; when,
betrayed by sympathy, she laid bare her secret hope of what Woman
might be and do, as an author, in our Republic. The sketch was an
outline only, and dashed off with a few swift strokes, but therein
appeared her own portrait, and we were strangers no more.

It was through the medium of others, however, that at this time I best
learned to appreciate Margaret's nobleness of nature and principle. My
most intimate friend in the Theological School, James Freeman Clarke,
was her constant companion in exploring the rich gardens of German
literature; and from his descriptions I formed a vivid image of her
industry, comprehensiveness, buoyancy, patience, and came to honor
her intelligent interest in high problems of science, her
aspirations after spiritual greatness, her fine æsthetic taste, her
religiousness. By power to quicken other minds, she showed how living
was her own. Yet more near were we brought by common attraction toward
a youthful visitor in our circle, the untouched freshness of whose
beauty was but the transparent garb of a serene, confiding, and
harmonious soul, and whose polished grace, at once modest and naïve,
sportive and sweet, fulfilled the charm of innate goodness of heart.
Susceptible in temperament, anticipating with ardent fancy the lot of
a lovely and refined woman, and morbidly exaggerating her own slight
personal defects, Margaret seemed to long, as it were, to transfuse
with her force this nymph-like form, and to fill her to glowing with
her own lyric fire. No drop of envy tainted the sisterly love,
with which she sought by genial sympathy thus to live in another's
experience, to be her guardian-angel, to shield her from contact with