l, the test question, which detects the
low-born and low-minded wearer of the robe of gold,--

"Touch them inwardly, they smell of copper."

Margaret's life _had an aim_, and she was, therefore, essentially a
moral person, and not merely an overflowing genius, in whom "impulse
gives birth to impulse, deed to deed." This aim was distinctly
apprehended and steadily pursued by her from first to last. It was a
high, noble one, wholly religious, almost Christian. It gave dignity
to her whole career, and made it heroic.

This aim, from first to last, was SELF-CULTURE. If she ever was
ambitious of knowledge and talent, as a means of excelling others, and
gaining fame, position, admiration,--this vanity had passed before
I knew her, and was replaced by the profound desire for a full
development of her whole nature, by means of a full experience of
life.

In her description of her own youth, she says, 'VERY EARLY I KNEW THAT
THE ONLY OBJECT IN LIFE WAS TO GROW.' This is the passage:--

'I was now in the hands of teachers, who had not, since they
came on the earth, put to themselves one intelligent question
as to their business here. Good dispositions and employment
for the heart gave a tone to all they said, which was
pleasing, and not perverting. They, no doubt, injured those
who accepted the husks they proffered for bread, and believed
that exercise of memory was study, and to know what others
knew, was the object of study. But to me this was all
penetrable. I had known great living minds.--I had seen how
they took their food and did their exercise, and what their
objects were. _Very early I knew that the only object in
life was to grow_. I was often false to this knowledge, in
idolatries of particular objects, or impatient longings for
happiness, but I have never lost sight of it, have always been
controlled by it, and this first gift of thought has never
been superseded by a later love.'

In this she spoke truth. The good and the evil which flow from this
great idea of self-development she fully realized. This aim of life,
originally self-chosen, was made much more clear to her mind by the
study of Goethe, the great master of this school, in whose unequalled
eloquence this doctrine acquires an almost irresistible beauty and
charm.

"Wholly religious, and almost Christian," I said, was this aim. It
was religious, because it recognized something divine