didst borrow from those errors the inspiration of thy genius.
Why is it not thus with me? Is it because, as a woman, I
am bound by a physical-law, which prevents the soul from
manifesting itself? Sometimes the moon seems mockingly to say
so,--to say that I, too, shall not shine, unless I can find a
sun. O, cold and barren moon, tell a different tale!

'But thou, oh blessed master! dost answer all my questions,
and make it my privilege to be. Like a humble wife to the
sage, or poet, it is my triumph that I can understand and
cherish thee: like a mistress, I arm thee for the fight: like
a young daughter, I tenderly bind thy wounds. Thou art to me
beyond compare, for thou art all I want. No heavenly sweetness
of saint or martyr, no many-leaved Raphael, no golden
Plato, is anything to me, compared with thee. The infinite
Shakspeare, the stern Angelo, Dante,--bittersweet like
thee,--are no longer seen in thy presence. And, beside these
names, there are none that could vibrate in thy crystal
sphere. Thou hast all of them, and that ample surge of life
besides, that great winged being which they only dreamed of.
There is none greater than Shakspeare; he, too, is a god; but
his creations are successive; thy _fiat_ comprehends them all.

'Last summer, I met thy mood in nature, on those wide
impassioned plains flower and crag-bestrown. There, the tide
of emotion had rolled over, and left the vision of its smiles
and sobs, as I saw to-night from thee.

'If thou wouldst take me wholly to thyself--! I am lost in
this world, where I sometimes meet angels, but of a different
star from mine. Even so does thy spirit plead with all
spirits. But thou dost triumph and bring them all in.

'Master, I have this summer envied the oriole which had even
a swinging nest in the high bough. I have envied the least
flower that came to seed, though that seed were strown to the
wind. But I envy none when I am with thee.'

SELF-ESTEEM.

Margaret at first astonished and repelled us by a complacency that
seemed the most assured since the days of Scaliger. She spoke, in the
quietest manner, of the girls she had formed, the young men who owed
everything to her, the fine companions she had long ago exhausted. In
the coolest way, she said to her friends, 'I now know all the people
worth knowing in America, and I f