remains mistress of herself. Her
thought is upheld by the general sympathy, which she suddenly lifts to a
height undreamed of before. She divines what each most purely wishes,
most deeply hopes; and so her words reveal to those present not only
their own unuttered thoughts, but also the higher significance and
completeness which she is able to give to these thoughts under the seal
of her own conviction. These fleeting utterances, alas! are lost, like
the leaves swept of old from the sibyl's cave. But as souls are, after
all, the most permanent facts that we know of, who shall say that one
breath of them is wasted?

Young hearts to-day, separated from the time we speak of by two or three
generations, may still keep the generous thrill which Margaret awakened
in the bosom of a grandmother, herself then in the bloom of youth.
Books, indeed, are laid away and forgotten, manuscripts are lost or
destroyed. The spoken word, fleeting though it be, may kindle a flame
that ages shall not quench, but only brighten.

While, therefore, it may well grieve us to-day that we cannot know
exactly what Margaret said nor how she said it, we may believe that the
inspiration which she felt and communicated to others remains, not the
less, a permanent value in the community.

Having already somewhat the position of a "come-outer," Margaret was
naturally supposed to be in entire sympathy with the Transcendentalists.
This supposition was strengthened by her assuming the editorship of the
"Dial," and Christopher Cranch, in caricaturing it, represented her as a
Minerva driving a team of the new _illuminati_. Margaret's journals and
letters, however, show that while she welcomed the new outlook towards a
possible perfection, she did not accept without reserve the enthusiasms
of those about her. "The good time coming," which seemed to them so
near, appeared to her very distant, and difficult of attainment. Her
views at the outset are aptly expressed in the following extract from
one of her letters:--

"Utopia it is impossible to build up. At least, my hopes for our race on
this one planet are more limited than those of most of my friends. I
accept the limitations of human nature, and believe a wise
acknowledgment of them one of the best conditions of progress. Yet every
noble scheme, every poetic manifestation, prophesies to man his eventual
destiny. And were not man ever more sanguine than facts at the moment
justify, he would remain torpid, o