Volume I Part 6 (2/2)
”I said she had no pretensions to beauty Yet she was not plain She escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blond and abundant hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, dancing, busy eyes, which, though usually half closed frolances at those horaceful carriage of her head and neck, which all who knew her will remember as the most characteristic trait in her personal appearance
”In conversation she had already, at that early age, begun to distinguish herself, and made much the same impression in society that she did in after years, with the exception, that, as she advanced in life, she learned to control that tendency to sarcasm,--that disposition to 'quiz,'--which was then so people from her presence, and made her, for a while, notoriously unpopular with the ladies of her circle
”This propensity seeravated by unpleasant encounters in her school-girl experience She was a pupil of Dr Park, of Boston, whose seht of a well-earned reputation, and whose faithful and successful endeavors in this department have doneus Here the inexperienced country girl was exposed to petty persecutions frocriticisms not inaudible, nor meant to be inaudible to their subject, on whatsoever in dress and manner fell short of the cityheart, and laid up for future reflection, how large a place in woiven to fashi+on and frivolity Her mind reacted on these attacks with indiscriminate sarcasms She made herself formidable by her wit, and, of course, unpopular A root of bitterness sprung up in her which years of moral culture were needed to eradicate
”Partly to evade the temporary unpopularity into which she had fallen, and partly to pursue her studies secure from those social avocations which were found unavoidable in the vicinity of Cae and Boston, in 1824 or 5 she was sent to Groton, where she remained two years in quiet seclusion
”On her return to Cae, in 1826, I renewed my acquaintance, and an intimacy was then formed, which continued until her death The next seven years, which were spent in Caroith little variety of incident, and little that was noteworthy of outward experience, but with great intensity of the inner life It ith her, as with es of sixteen and twenty-five, a period of preponderating senti and of passion She pursued at this time, I think, no syste more fro at this tih life,--I mean, a passionate love for the beautiful, which codoms of nature and art I have never known one who seemed to derive such satisfaction from the conteirls of her own age and standing was frank and excellent Personal attractions, and the hoe which they received, awakened in her no jealousy She envied not their success, though vividly aware of the worth of beauty, and inclined to exaggerate her own deficiencies in that kind On the contrary, she loved to draw these fair girls to herself, and to uests, and was never so happy as when surrounded, in company, with such a bevy This attraction wasto Goethe, every attraction is
Where she felt an interest, she awakened an interest Without flattery or art, by the truth and nobleness of her nature, she won the confidence, and e nu ladies,--the belles of their day,--with reater part of her life
”In our evening re-unions she was always conspicuous by the brilliancy of her hich needed but little provocation to break forth in exuberant sallies, that drew around her a knot of listeners, and made her the central attraction of the hour Rarely did she enter a company in which she was not a prominent object
”I have spoken of her conversational talent It continued to develop itself in these years, and was certainly her ift
One could for her converse She didso well as she talked
It is the opinion of all her friends, that her writings do her very imperfect justice For some reason or other, she could never deliver herself in print as she did with her lips She required the sti out all her power She must have her auditory about her
”Her conversation, as it was then, I have seldo Though remarkably fluent and select, it was neither fluency, nor choice diction, nor wit, nor sentiave it its peculiar power, but accuracy of stately with the youth and sex of the speaker I do not re 'like a book' was ever fastened upon her, although, by her precision, she ht seeh finished and true as the most deliberate rhetoric of the pen, had always an air of spontaneity which anic provision thatand hesitation are to ination, she would have made an excellent i the character of Margaret's enerally called a masculine mind; that is, its action was determined by ideas rather than by sentiments And yet, with this masculine trait, she combined a woman's appreciation of the beautiful in sentiment and the beautiful in action Her intellect was rather solid than graceful, yet no one was race She was no artist,--she would never have written an epic, or roo to the h catholic as to kind, no one wasshort of the best in each kind would content her
”She wanted iination, and she wanted productiveness She wrote with difficulty Without external pressure, perhaps, she would never have written at all She was dogth was in characterization and in criticism Her _critique_ on Goethe, in the second volus she has written And, as far as it goes, it is one of the best criticisms extant of Goethe
”What I especially adments took no bribe from her sex or her sphere, nor from custom nor tradition, nor caprice She valued truth supremely, both for herself and others The question with her was not what should be believed, or what ought to be true, but what _is_ true Her yes and no were never conventional; and she often amazed people by a cool and unexpected dissent froaret, we have said, saw in each of her friends the secret interior capability, which ht become hereafter developed into so, this prophetic insight, she gave each to hiave hith and liberty hour by hour Thus her influence was ever ennobling, and each felt that in her society he was truer, wiser, better, and yet ht” which Lord Bacon loved, she never knew; her light was life, was love, ith syh her love flattered and charmed her friends, it did not spoil them, for they knew her perfect truth They knew that she loved theh she saw it only in the germ But as the Greeks beheld a Persephone and Athene in the passing stranger, and ennobled huaret saw all her friends thus idealized She was a balloon of sufficient power to take us all up with her into the serene depth of heaven, where she loved to float, far above the low details of earthly life Earth lay beneath us as a lovely picture,--its sounds caaret was, to persons younger than herself, a Makaria and Natalia
She isdolory ”known to neither sea nor land” To those of her own age she was sibyl and seer,--a prophetess, revealing the future, pointing the path, opening their eyes to the great aims only worthy of pursuit in life To those older than herself she was like the Euphorion in Goethe's drama, child of Faust and Helen,--a wonderful union of exuberance and judgment, born of romantic fulness and classic liood-sense balancing her now of sentie They saw her coave her their confidence, as to one of equal age, because of so ripe a judgment
But it was curious to see hat care and conscience she kept her friendshi+ps distinct Her fine practical understanding, teaching her always the value of limits, enabled her to hold apart all her intimacies, nor did one ever encroach on the province of the other
Like afro wild beauty fro harp string Soive her when compared with others; but I never noticed that she sacrificed in any respect the sreater She fully realized that the Divine Being makes each part of this creation divine, and that He dwells in the blade of grass as really if not as fully as in the majestic oak which has braved the storht of a poeins thus:--
”She was not fair, nor full of grace, Nor croith thought, nor aught beside No wealth had she of ain our pride,-- No lover's thought her heart could touch,-- No poet's dream was round her thrown; And yet we miss her--ah, so much!
Now--she has flown”
I will close this section of Caes, the second of which ritten to some one unknown to me:
'Your letter was of cordial sweetness to ht of our friendshi+p,--that sober-suited friendshi+p, of which the as so deliberately and oven, and which wears so well