Volume II Part 12 (1/2)

'But at such times the soul rises up, like some fair child in whom sleep has been mistaken for death, a living flower in the dark tomb. He casts aside his shrouds and bands, rosy and fresh from the long trance, undismayed, not seeing how to get out, yet sure there is a way.

'I think the black jailer laughs now, hoping that while I want to show that Woman can have the free, full action of intellect, he will prove in my own self that she has not physical force to bear it. Indeed, I am too poor an example, and do wish I was bodily strong and fair. Yet, I will not be turned from the deeper convictions.'

'Driven from home to home, as a Renouncer, I gain the poetry of each. Keys of gold, silver, iron, lead, are in my casket.

Though no one loves me as I would be loved, I yet love many well enough to see into their eventual beauty. Meanwhile, I have no fetters, and when one perceives how others are bound in false relations, this surely should be regarded as a privilege. And so varied have been my sympathies, that this isolation will not, I trust, make me cold, ignorant, nor partial. My history presents much superficial, temporary tragedy. The Woman in me kneels and weeps in tender rapture; the Man in me rushes forth, but only to be baffled. Yet the time will come, when, from the union of this tragic king and queen, shall be born a radiant sovereign self.'

'I have quite a desire to try my powers in a narrative poem; but my head teems with plans, of which there will be time for very few only to take form. Milton, it is said, made for himself a list of a hundred subjects for dramas, and the recorder of the fact seems to think this many. I think it very few, so filled is life with innumerable themes.'

'_Sunday Evening._--I have employed some hours of the day, with great satisfaction, in copying the Poet's Dreams from the Pentameron of Landor. I do not often have time for such slow, pleasing labor. I have thus imprinted the words in my mind, so that they will often recur in their original beauty.

'I have added three sonnets of Petrarca, all written after the death of Laura. They are among his n.o.blest, all pertinent to the subject, and giving three aspects of that one mood. The last lines of the last sonnet are a fit motto for Boccaccio's dream.

'In copying both together, I find the prose of the Englishman worthy of the verse of the Italian. It is a happiness to see such marble beauty in the halls of a contemporary.

'How fine it is to see the terms ”onesto,” ”gentile,” used in their original sense and force.

'Soft, solemn day!

Where earth and heaven together seem to meet, I have been blest to greet From human thought a kindred sway; In thought these stood So near the simple Good, That what we n.o.bleness and honor call, They viewed as honesty, the common dower of all.'

Margaret was reading, in these weeks, the Four Books of Confucius, the Desatir, some of Taylor's translations from the Greek, a work on Scandinavian Mythology, Moehler's Symbolism, Fourier's Noveau Monde Industriel, and Landor's Pentameron,--but she says, in her journal,

'No book is good enough to read in the open air, among these mountains; even the best seem partial, civic, limiting, instead of being, as man's voice should be, a tone higher than nature's.'

And again:--

'This morning came ----'s letter, announcing Sterling's death:--

'”Weep for Dedalus all that is fairest.”

'The news was very sad: Sterling did so earnestly wish to do a man's work, and had done so small a portion of his own. This made me feel how fast my years are flitting by, and nothing done. Yet these few beautiful days of leisure I cannot resolve to give at all to work. I want absolute rest, to let the mind lie fallow, to keep my whole nature open to the influx of truth.'

At this very time, however, she was longing to write with full freedom and power. 'Formerly,' she says,

'the pen did not seem to me an instrument capable of expressing the spirit of a life like mine. An enchanter's mirror, on which, with a word, could be made to rise all apparitions of the universe, grouped in new relations; a magic ring, that could transport the wearer, himself invisible, into each region of grandeur or beauty; a divining-rod, to tell where lie the secret fountains of refreshment; a wand, to invoke elemental spirits;--only such as these seemed fit to embody one's thought with sufficient swiftness and force. In earlier years I aspired to wield the sceptre or the lyre; for I loved with wise design and irresistible command to mould many to one purpose, and it seemed all that man could desire to breathe in music and speak in words, the harmonies of the universe. But the golden lyre was not given to my hand, and I am but the prophecy of a poet. Let me use, then, the slow pen.

I will make no formal vow to the long-scorned Muse; I a.s.sume no garland; I dare not even dedicate myself as a novice; I can promise neither patience nor energy:--but I will court excellence, so far as an humble heart and open eye can merit it, and, if I may gradually grow to some degree of worthiness in this mode of expression, I shall be grateful.'

WOMAN.

It was on ”Woman in the Nineteenth Century” that Margaret was now testing her power as a writer. 'I have finished the pamphlet,' she writes, 'though the last day it kept spinning out beneath my hand.

After taking a long walk, early one most exhilarating morning, I sat down to work, and did not give it the last stroke till near nine in the evening. Then I felt a delightful glow, as if I had put a good deal of my true life in it, and as if, should I go away now, the measure of my foot-print would be left on the earth.'

A few extracts from her ma.n.u.scripts upon this subject may be of interest, as indicating the spirit and aim with which she wrote:--