etire to write a little while in my
journal,--exercises on what I have read, or a series of characteristics
which I am filling up according to advice."

A year later she mentions studying "Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton,
Racine, and Castilian ballads, with great delight." She asks her
correspondent whether she would rather be the brilliant De Stael or the
useful Edgeworth. In 1827 we find her occupied with a critical study of
the elder Italian poets. She now mentions Miss Francis (Lydia Maria
Child) as her intended companion in a course of metaphysical study. She
characterizes this lady as "a natural person, a most rare thing in this
age of cant and pretension. Her conversation is charming; she brings all
her powers to bear upon it. Her style is varied, and she has a very
pleasant and spirited way of thinking."

Margaret's published correspondence with her dear teacher ends in 1830,
with these words:--

"My beloved supporter in those sorrowful hours, can I ever forget that
to your treatment in that crisis of youth I owe the true life, the love
of Truth and Honor?"

From these years of pedagogy and of patience we must now pass to the
time when this bud, so full of promise, unfolded into a flower rare and
wondrous.

The story of Margaret's early studies, and the wide reach of her craving
for knowledge, already mark her as a creature of uncommon gifts. A
devourer of books she had been from the start; but books alone could not
content this ardent mind, at once so critical and so creative. She must
also have life at first-hand, and feed her intelligence from its deepest
source. Hence the long story of her friendships, so many and various,
yet so earnest and efficient.

What the chosen associates of this wonderful woman have made public
concerning the interest of her conversation and the value of her
influence tasks to the utmost the believing powers of a time in which
the demon of self-interest seems to unfold himself out of most of the
metamorphic flowers of society. Margaret and her friends might truly
have said, "Our kingdom is not of this world,"--at least, according to
what this world calls kingly. But what imperial power had this
self-poised soul, which could so widely open its doors and so closely
shut them, which could lead in its train the brightest and purest
intelligences, and "bind the sweet influences" of starry souls in the
garland of its happy hours! And here we may say, her kingdom was not
_all_ o