Volume I Part 5 (1/2)

”To have found favor in thy sight Will still reht Divides the plain”

MILNES

”Cui potest vita esse vitalis, (ut ait Ennius,) quae non in amici mutata benevolentia requiescat?”--CICERO

It hile living at Caaret coh her life, and which were the channels for so large a part of her spiritual activity In giving some account of her in these relations, there is only the alternative of a prudent reserve which omits whatever is liable to be ood sense and right feeling of the reader By the last course, we run the risk of allowing our friend to be misunderstood; but by the first we make it certain that the most important part of her character shall not be understood at all I have, therefore, thought it best to follow, as far as I can, her own ideas on this subject, which I find in two of her letters to myself The first is dated, Groton, Jan 8th, 1839 I was at that tiazine, in the West, and this letter was occasioned byher to allow me to publish therein certain poeiven ive my reasons for what you consider absurd squeamishness in me You may not acquiesce in my view, but I think you will respect it _as_to act upon it so far as I a the public for a confidant Genius is universal, and can appeal to the common heart of man But even here I would not have it too direct

I prefer to see the thought or feeling made universal How different the confidence of Goethe, for instance, from that of Byron!

'But for us lesser people, rite verses s of a personal experience, which in every life of any value craves occasionally the accompaniment of the lyre, it seems to me that all the value of this utterance is destroyed by a hasty or indiscriminate publicity Theto any one who chooses to hear, I feel profaned

'When it has passed into experience, when the flower has gone to seed, I don't care who knows it, or whither they wander I aer it,--I stand on it I do not knohether this is peculiar to me, or not, but I am sure the , it is on the wane

'About putting beautiful verses in your Magazine, I have no feeling except what I should have about furnishi+ng a roo-case into a parlor, or a book-case into a dressing-roos in their place, they were not in place there And this, not in consideration of the public, but of my own sense of fitness and harmony'

The next extract is from a letter written to me in 1842, after a journey which we had taken to the White Mountains, in the co this journey Margaret had conversed with es of her private history and experience, and in this letter she asksher reasons as follows:--

'_Ca no secret It is my nature, and has been the tendency of ht lie, as the ”open secrets” of Nature, free to all who are able to understand them I have no reserves, except intellectual reserves; for to speak of things to those who cannot receive them is stupidity, rather than frankness But in this case, I alone aive heed to the subject You have received a key to as before unknown of your friend; you have made use of it, now let it be buried with the past, over whose passages profound and sad, yet touched with heaven-born beauty, ”let silence stand sentinel”'

I shall endeavor to keep true to the spirit of these sentences in speaking of Margaret's friendshi+ps Yet not to speak of the feature of her character It would be worse than the play of Hamlet with Hamlet omitted Henry the Fourth without Sully, Gustavus Adolphus without Oxenstiern, Napoleon without his marshals, Socrates without his scholars, would be aret without her friends

So that, in touching on these private relations, we must be everywhere ”bold,” yet not ”too bold” The extracts will be taken indiscriht which Margaret displayed in finding her friends, the netise of her intimacies, the influence which she exercised to develop the latent ger to each when she had once given and received confidence, the delicate justice which kept every intiuration which took place when shea dazzling lustre to the details of common life,--all these should be at least touched upon and illustrated, to give any adequate view of her in these relations

Such a prejudice against her had been created by her faults of ht most wish to know often retired froacious of her quarry,” and never suffered herself to be repelled by this She sahen any one belonged to her, and never rested till she came into possession of her property I recollect a lady who thus fled from her for several years, yet, at last, became most nearly attached to her This ”wise sweet”

friend, as Margaret characterized her in tords, a flower hidden in the solitude of deep woods, Margaret saw and appreciated froe, she describes to one of her friends her perception of character, and her power of attracting it, when only fifteen years old

'_Ja you, at Cohasset, of a Mr ---- staying with us, when I was fifteen, and all that passed? Well, I have not seen him since, till, yesterday, he cae, I did not overrate those I valued

He was the saly face; the cal _ive hi any trouble, orthat seemed to rise as an attractive influence, and overspread his being He said, nothing since his childhood had been so marked as his visit to our house; that it had dwelt in his thoughts unchanged aes I could have wished he had never returned to change the picture He looked at ain, he should have known ed I must be since that epoch of pride and fulness! He had with him his son, a wild boy of five years old, all brilliant with health and energy, and with the same powerful eye He said,--You know I am not one to confound acuteness and rapidity of intellect with real genius; but he is for those an extraordinary child He would astonish you, but I look deep enough into the prodigy to see the work of an extremely nervous tearet_,” (pronouncing the na way he used to do,) ”I love him so well, I will try to teach him moderation If I can help it, he shall not feed on bitter ashes, nor try these paths of avarice and aely to hear hiulf between! There is scarce a fibre left of the haughty, passionate, ambitious child he remembered and loved I felt affection for him still; for his character was for and expanding! But thus, in other worlds, we shall rearet's constancy to any genuine relation, once established, was surprising If her friends' _aied, so as to take them out of her sphere, she was saddened by it, and did not let thele But wherever they continued ”true to the original standard,”

(as she loved to phrase it) her affectionate interest would follow thees of life The principle of this constancy she thus expresses in a letter to one of her brothers:--

'Great and even _fatal_ errors (so far as this life is concerned) could not destroy my friendshi+p for one in whom I am sure of the kernel of nobleness'

She never forererhest law of each individual, she held thee of their friend from some report of his conduct, as if they had never known hile act to alter the opinion formed by an induction froaret stood wholly free