ce of old Catholicism" to "the loop-hole redemption
of modern sagacity." Yet she thinks that Dante, perhaps, "had not so
hard a battle to wage as this other great poet." The fiercest passions
she finds less dangerous to the soul than the cold scepticism of the
understanding. She sums up grandly the spiritual ordeals of different
historical periods:--

"The Jewish demon assailed the man of Uz with physical ills, the Lucifer
of the Middle Ages tempted his passions; but the Mephistopheles of the
eighteenth century bade the finite strive to compass the infinite, and
the intellect attempt to solve all the problems of the soul."

* * * * *

Among Margaret's published papers on literature and art is one entitled
"A Record of Impressions produced by the Exhibition of Mr. Allston's
Pictures in the Summer of 1839." She was moved to write this, she says,
partly by the general silence of the press on a matter of so much import
in the history of American art, and partly by the desire to analyze her
own views, and to ascertain, if possible, the reason why, at the close
of the exhibition, she found herself less a gainer by it than she had
expected. As Margaret gave much time and thought to art matters, and as
the Allston exhibition was really an event of historic interest, some
consideration of this paper will not be inappropriate in this place.

Washington Allston was at that time, had long been, and long continued
to be, the artist saint of Boston. A great personal prestige added its
power to that of his unquestioned genius.

Beautiful in appearance, as much a poet as a painter, he really seemed
to belong to an order of beings who might be called

"Too bright and good
For human nature's daily food."

He had flown into the heart of Europe when few American artists managed
to get so far. He had returned to live alone with his dreams, of which
one was the nightmare of a great painting which he never could finish,
and never did. He had kept the vulgar world at a distance from his life
and thought, intent on coining these into a succession of pictures which
claimed to have a mission to the age. The series of female heads which
are the most admirable of his works appeared to be the portraits of as
many ideal women who, with no existence elsewhere, had disclosed
themselves to him at his dreamy fireside or in his haunted studio. The
spirit of the age, in its highest extreme, was upon