to her,--and I often think it good for me
to listen to her patiently,--the expressions you used in your
letter, about "drudgery," occurred to me. I remember the time
when I, too, deified the "soul's impulses." It is a noble
worship; but, if we do not aid it by a just though limited
interpretation of what "Ought" means, it will degenerate into
idolatry. For a time it was so with me, and I am not yet good
enough to love the _Ought_.

'Then I came again into the open air, and saw those
resplendent orbs moving so silently, and thought that they
were perhaps tenanted, not only by beings in whom I can see
the germ of a possible angel, but by myriads like this poor
creature, in whom that germ is, so far as we can see, blighted
entirely, I could not help saying, "O my Father! Thou, whom
we are told art all Power, and also all Love, how canst Thou
suffer such even transient specks on the transparence of
Thy creation? These grub-like lives, undignified even by
passion,--these life-long quenchings of the spark divine.--why
dost Thou suffer them? Is not Thy paternal benevolence
impatient till such films be dissipated?"

'Such questionings once had power to move my spirit deeply;
now, they but shade my mind for an instant. I have faith in a
glorious explanation, that shall make manifest perfect justice
and perfect wisdom.'

LITERATURE.

Cut off from access to the scholars, libraries, lectures, galleries of
art, museums of science, antiquities, and historic scenes of Europe,
Margaret bent her powers to use such opportunities of culture as she
could command in her solitary country-home. Journals and letters thus
bear witness to her zeal:--

'I am having one of my "intense" times, devouring book after
book. I never stop a minute, except to talk with mother,
having laid all little duties on the shelf for a few days.
Among other things, I have twice read through the life of Sir
J. Mackintosh; and it has suggested so much to me, that I
am very sorry I did not talk it over with you. It is quite
gratifying, after my late chagrin, to find Sir James, with
all his metaphysical turn, and ardent desire to penetrate it,
puzzling so over the German philosophy, and particularly what
I was myself troubled about, at Cambridge,--Jacobi's letters
to Fichte.

'Few things have ever been written mor