Here is a very different picture:—­

’——­ has infinite grace and shading in her character:  a springing and tender fancy, a Madonna depth of meditative softness, and a purity which has been unstained, and keeps her dignified even in the most unfavorable circumstances.  She was born for the love and ornament of life.  I can scarcely forbear weeping sometimes, when I look on her, and think what happiness and beauty she might have conferred.  She is as yet all unconscious of herself, and she rather dreads being with me, because I make her too conscious.  She was on the point, at ——­, of telling me all she knew of herself; but I saw she dreaded, while she wished, that I should give a local habitation and a name to what lay undefined, floating before her, the phantom of her destiny; or rather lead her to give it, for she always approaches a tragical clearness when talking with me.’

* * * * *

’——­ has been to see us.  But it serves not to know such a person, who perpetually defaces the high by such strange mingling with the low.  It certainly is not pleasant to hear of God and Miss Biddeford in a breath.  To me, this hasty attempt at skimming from the deeps of theosophy is as unpleasant as the rude vanity of reformers.  Dear Beauty! where, where, amid these morasses and pine barrens, shall we make thee a temple? where find a Greek to guard it,—­clear-eyed, deep-thoughted, and delicate enough to appreciate the relations and gradations which nature always observes?’

An acute and illuminated woman, who, in this age of indifferentism, holds on with both hands to the creed of the Pilgrims, writes of Margaret, whom she saw but once:—­“She looked very sensible, but as if contending with ill health and duties.  She lay, all the day and evening, on the sofa, and catechized me, who told my literal traditions, like any old bobbin-woman.”

I add the testimony of a man of letters, and most competent observer, who had, for a long time, opportunities of daily intercourse with her:—­

“When I knew Margaret, I was so young, and perhaps too much disposed to meet people on my own ground, that I may not be able to do justice to her.  Her nature was so large and receptive, so sympathetic with youth and genius, so aspiring, and withal so womanly in her understanding, that she made her companion think more of himself, and of a common life, than of herself.  She was a companion as few others, if indeed any one, have been.  Her heart was underneath her intellectualness, her mind was reverent, her spirit devout; a thinker without dryness; a scholar without pedantry.  She could appreciate the finest thoughts, and knew the rich soil and large fields of beauty that made the little vase of otto.  With her unusual wisdom and religious spirit, she seemed like the priestess of the youth, opening to him the fields of nature; but she was more than a priestess, a companion also.  As I recall her image, I think she may have been too intellectual, and too conscious of intellectual relation, so that she was not sufficiently self-centred on her own personality; and hence something of a duality:  but I may not be correct in this impression.”