ough a
patchwork thing, it has craved time to do it."

* * * * *

We come now to the period of the famous conversations in which, more
fully than in aught else, Margaret may be said to have delivered her
message to the women of her time. The novelty of such a departure in the
Boston of forty years ago may be imagined, and also the division of
opinion concerning it in those social circles which consider themselves
as charged with the guardianship of the taste of the community.

Margaret's attitude in view of this undertaking appears to have been a
modest and sensible one. She found herself, in the first place, under
the necessity of earning money for her own support and in aid of her
family. Her greatest gift, as she well knew, was in conversation. Her
rare eloquence did not much avail her at her desk, and though all that
she wrote had the value of thought and of study, it was in living speech
alone that her genius made itself entirely felt and appreciated. What
more natural than that she should have proposed to make this rare gift
available for herself and others? The reasons which she herself gives
for undertaking the experiment are so solid and sufficient as to make us
blush retrospectively for the merriment in which the thoughtless world
sometimes indulged concerning her. Her wish was "to pass in review the
departments of thought and knowledge, and endeavor to place them in due
relation to one another in our minds; to systematize thought, and give a
precision and clearness in which our sex are so deficient, chiefly, I
think, because they have so few inducements to test and classify what
they receive." In fine, she hoped to be able to throw some light upon
the momentous questions, "What were we born to do, and how shall we do
it?"

In looking forward to this effort, she saw one possible obstacle in
"that sort of vanity which wears the garb of modesty," and which, she
thinks, may make some women fear "to lay aside the shelter of vague
generalities, the art of coterie criticism," and the "delicate disdains
of _good society_," even to obtain a nearer view of truth itself. "Yet,"
she says, "as without such generous courage nothing of value can be
learned or done, I hope to see many capable of it."

The twofold impression which Margaret made is to be remarked in this
matter of the conversations, as elsewhere. Without the fold of her
admirers stood carping, unkind critics; within were ent