Volume I Part 2 (1/2)

'As she was often at the house of one of our neighbors, and afterwards at our own, hts were fixed on her with all the force of my nature It was rossed me wholly I had seen her,--I should see her,--and my mind lay steeped in the visions that flowed froh with, as I have done on similar occasions all my life, aided by pride that could not bear to fail, or be questioned Could I cease froiven,--”Her head is so co”? Ihted, they say, the mind loses its sense of eternity All forile, the prison of time real, for a God is dead Equally true is this of friendshi+p I thank Heaven that this first feeling was permitted its free flow The years that lay between the woht her beauty into perspective, and enabled me to see her as I did the ate of Paradise That which she was, that which she brought, that which she ion of new life I ruled proprietor of the soil in ht

'Her ht in my warht cast by the flah so delicate a vase cheered and charmed her All who saw adhtly turn her head frolance of full-eyed sweetness on the child, who, from a distance, watched all her looks and motions She did not sayrather than by chosen words Indeed, her proper speech was dance or song, and as less expressive did not greatly interest her But she sawin its perfection the woman's delicate sense for sympathies and attractions We walked in the fields, alone Though others were present, her eyes were gliding over all the field and plain for the objects of beauty to which she was of kin

She was not cold to her see about her like her hts were free, for these civilized beings can really live two lives at the same iven to the child at her side; others did not observe uardian spirit she led reeted el of your life”

'One ti the afternoon with her She had been playing toin happiness aluests were announced She went into another room to receive the, then lately published, and the first of Scott's novels I had ever seen I opened where herour e where hers had been It was the description of the rocks on the sea-coast where the little Harry Bertram was lost I had never seen such places, and ine them The scene rose before me, very unlike reality, doubtless, but majestic and wild I was the little Harry Bertraht her vainly in long dark caves that had no end, plashi+ng through the water; while the crags beetled above, threatening to fall and crush the poor child Absorbed in the painful vision, tears rolled down ht step, and full-bea eye When she saw me thus, a soft cloud stole over her face, and clothed every feature with a lovelier tenderness than I had seen there before She did not question, but fixed on ainst her shoulder and wept,--di that I s,--that the cold wave must rush over , took fro flowers, and gave therant ”They came,” she said, ”from Madeira” These flowers stayed with me seventeen years

”Madeira” seemed to me the fortunate isle, apart in the blue ocean fro in the distance,--if it bore itself with fulness of beautiful certainty,--I felt that it was going to Madeira Those thoughts are all gone now No Madeira exists for me now,--no fortunate purple isle,--and all these hopes and fancies are lifted from the sea into the sky Yet I thank the char,--fixed theolden floere drawn fro me to know my birth-place

'I can tell little else of this ti in which I lived For I _lived_, and when this is the case, there is little to tell in the forht We meet--at least those who are true to their instincts h our lives, all of whom have some peculiar errand to us There is an outer circle, whose existence we perceive, but e stand in no real relation They tell us the news, they act on us in the offices of society, they show us kindness and aversion; but their influence does not penetrate; we are nothing to them, nor they to us, except as a part of the world's furniture Another circle, within this, are dear and near to us We know them and of what kind they are They are to us not hts of the divine mind We like to see how they are unfolded; we like to meet them and part from them: we like their action upon us and the pause that succeeds and enables us to appreciate its quality

Often we leave them on our path, and return no more, but we bear the has been felt

'But yet a nearer group there are, beings born under the same star, and bound with us in a common destiny These are not mere acquaintances, mere friends, but, e meet, are sharers of our very existence There is no separation; the saiven at the sa, and would not otherwise have been called into existence at all These not only know theions of their being, which would else have laid sealed in cold obstruction, burst into leaf and bloos are fated, nor will either party be able ever to meet any other person in the salance into that part of the heavens where the word can be spoken, by which they are revealed to one another and to theained, can never be lost, nor can it be re-trod; for neither party will be again what the other wants They are no longer fit to interchange mutual influence, for they do not really need it, and if they think they do, it is because they weakly pine after a past pleasure

'To this inmost circle of relations but few are ade has prevented theto their instincts the first tiarded it becomes fainter each time, till, at last, it is wholly silenced, and the er to its real life, deluded like the maniac who fancies he has attained his throne, while in reality he is on a bed of musty straw

Yet, if the voice finds a listener and servant the first tied to more and more clearness Thus it ith ood fortune to be free enough to yield to my impressions

Common ties had not bound me; there were no traditionary notions ins on trust Thus my mind was open to their sway

'This wo star, and I worshi+pped her She too was elevated by that worshi+p, and her fairest self called out To the enial with its tendencies and tastes, a region of elegant culture and intercourse, whose object, fulfilled or not, was to gratify the sense of beauty, not the mere utilities of life In our relation she was lifted to the top of her being She had known many celebrities, had roused to passionate desire many hearts, and became afterwards a wife; but I do not believe she ever more truly realized her best self than towards the lonely child whose heaven she hose eye she met, and whose possibilities she predicted ”He raised me,” said a wohts, and wings came at once, but I did not fly away I stood there with downcast eyes worthy of his love, for he had made me so”

'Thus we do always for those who inspire us to expect from them the best That which they are able to be, they become, because we demand it of thelish friend went across the sea She passed into her forrossed her days But she has never ceased to think of hts turn forcibly back to the child as to her all she saw of the really New World On the promised coasts she had found only cities, careful men and women, the aims and habits of ordinary life in her own land, without that elegant culture which she, probably, over-estimated, because it was her home But in the mind of the child she found the fresh prairie, the untrodden forests for which she had longed I saw in her the storied castles, the fair stately parks and the wind laden with tones from the past, which I desired to know We wrote to one another for many years;--her shallow and delicate epistles did not disenchantof the old poetry inspeech But we ain

'When this friend ithdrawn I fell into a profound depression I knew not how to exert myself, but lay bound hand and foot Melancholy enfolded , too, was out of the gradual and natural course Those who are really children could not know such love, or feel such sorrow ”I a irls, needs play and variety She does not see, you say I see she grows thin She ought to change the scene”

'I was indeed _dull_ The books, the garden, had lost all char to ht of life was set, and every leaf ithered At such an early age there are no back or side scenes where the mind, weary and sorrowful, may retreat

Older, we realize the width of the world more, and it is not easy to despair on any point The effort at thought to which we are co in a brick-kiln till the shower be over But then all joy seemed to have departed with my friend, and the emptiness of our house stood revealed This I had not felt while I every day expected to see or had seen her, or annoyance and dulness were unnoticed or sed up in the one thought that clothed one, and I was roused fro or reverie to feel the fiery temper of the soul, and to learn that it must have vent, that it would not be pacified by shadows, neitherwhat lay around it I avoided the table aswalks and lay in bed, or on the floor ofto do so, for a sense of dulness and suffocation, if not pain, was there constantly

'But when it was proposed that I should go to school, that was a remedy I could not listen to with patience for a moment The peculiarity of irls around, except that when they were playing at active gao out and join them I liked violent bodily exercise, which always relievedwith them beyond the mere play Not only I was not their school-iven a cold aloofness to my whole expression, and veiled my manner with a hauteur which turned all hearts away

Yet, as this reserve was superficial, and rather ignorance than arrogance, it produced no deep dislike Besides, the girls supposed me really superior to the it, but neither did they like iven up all such wishes myself; for they seemed to me rude, tiresoe This experience had been earlier, before I was admitted to any real friendshi+p; but now that I had been lifted into the life of mature years, and into just that at, the thought of sending ust

'Yet what could I tell s? I resisted all I could, but in vain He had no faith in enerally, and justly saw that this was no occasion for its use He thought I needed change of scene, and to be roused to activity by other children ”I have kept you at ho you myself, and besides I knew that you would learn faster with one who is so desirous to aid you But you will learn fast enough wherever you are, and you ought to be e I shall soon hear that you are better, I trust”'

SCHOOL-LIFE

The school to which Margaret was sent was that of the Misses Prescott, in Groton, Massachusetts And her experience there has been described with touching truthfulness by herself, in the story of ”Mariana”[A]

'At first her school-mates were captivated with her ways; her love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion and of wit She was always neays surprising, and, for a ti