to see what she saw. But on several occasions, finding myself unable to
reach it, I came to suspect my guide, and to believe at last that her
taste in works of art, though honest, was not on universal, but on
idiosyncratic grounds."

CHAPTER VI.

WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING'S PORTRAIT OF MARGARET.--TRANSCENDENTAL
DAYS.--BROOK FARM.--MARGARET'S VISITS THERE.

It is now time for us to speak of the portrait of Margaret drawn by the
hand of William Henry Channing. And first give us leave to say that Mr.
Emerson's very valuable statements concerning her are to be prized
rather for their critical and literary appreciation than accepted as
showing the insight given by strong personal sympathy.

While bound to each other by mutual esteem and admiration, Margaret and
Mr. Emerson were opposites in natural tendency, if not in character.
While Mr. Emerson never appeared to be modified by any change of
circumstance, never melted nor took fire, but was always and everywhere
himself, the soul of Margaret was subject to a glowing passion which
raised the temperature of the social atmosphere around her. Was this
atmosphere heavy with human dulness? Margaret so smote the ponderous
demon with her fiery wand that he was presently compelled to "caper
nimbly" for her amusement, or to flee from her presence. Was sorrow
master of the situation? Of this tyranny Margaret was equally
intolerant. The mourner must be uplifted through her to new hope and
joy. Frivolity and all unworthiness had reason to fear her, for she
denounced them to the face, with somnambulic unconcern. But where high
joys were in the ascendant, there stood Margaret, quick with her inner
interpretation, adding to human rapture itself the deep, calm lessoning
of divine reason. A priestess of life-glories, she magnified her office,
and in its grandeur sometimes grew grandiloquent. But with all this her
sense was solid, and her meaning clear and worthy.

Mr. Emerson had also a priesthood, but of a different order. The calm,
severe judgment, the unpardoning taste, the deliberation which not only
preceded but also followed his utterances, carried him to a remoteness
from the common life of common people, and allowed no intermingling of
this life with his own. For him, too, came a time of fusion which
vindicated his interest in the great issues of his time. But this was
not in Margaret's day, and to her he seemed the palm-tree in the desert,
graceful and admirable, bearing