Volume I Part 7 (2/2)

”Get off, or else -rope Will hit you in the eye”

Then there was B----, the reverse of all this,--tender, susceptible, with soft blue eyes, and s, in which a single strain of pure feeling ever reel symphonies,--

”In all whose music, the patheticor spoke, her eyes had often the expression of one looking _in_ at her thought, not _out_ at her companion

Then there was C----, all ani with ready eye the beauty of Nature and of Thought,--entering with quick sy which belonged to her, and dropping with sure instinct whatever suited her not Unknown to her was struggle, conflict, crisis; she grew up har nutris which round us lie,” and equally frohts and inspirations

Shall I also speak of D----, whose beauty had a half-voluptuous character, fro the well-rounded shoulders, and the hazy softness of those large eyes?

Or of E----, her companion, beautiful too, but in a calmer, purer style,--with eye from which looked forth self-possession, truth and fortitude? Others, orth notice, Iaret, a like variety prevailed One was to her interesting, on account of his quick, active intellect, and his contempt for shows and pretences; for his inexhaustible wit, his exquisite taste, his infinitely varied stores of infor it with Reladly went to for his cohly considered views of God and the world,--for his culture, so much more deep and rich than any other we could find here,--for his conversation, opening in syste native talent, and rich character, she also liked well to knoever deficient in culture, knowledge, or power of utterance Each was to her a study, and she never rested till she had found the bottom of every mind,--till she had satisfied herself of its capacity and currents,-- it with her sure line, as

--”All huular gift of speech that she cast her spells and worked her wonders in this little circle Full of thoughts and full of words; capable of poetic iht of a tendency to the tangible and real; capable of clear, co tendency to life which melted down everht; she was yet, by these excesses, better fitted for the arena of conversation Here she found none adequate for the equal encounter; when she laid her lance in rest, every chao down before it How fluent her hich, for hour after hour, would furnish best entertainment, as she described scenes where she had lately been, or persons she had lately seen! Yet she readily changed frorave, and loved better the serious talk which opened the depths of life Describing a conversation in relation to Christianity, with a friend of strong ion, a hohts, she says--' Ah! what a pleasure 'to , mind as his!'

But her catholic taste found satisfaction in intercourse with persons quite different fro letter, written in her twentieth year, will indicate:

'I was very happy, although greatly restrained by the apprehension of going a little too far with these persons of singular refinement and settled opinions

'However, I believe I did pretty well, though I did make one or two little mistakes, when most interested; but I was not so foolish as to try to retrieve the more fully into his poetical opinions than I could have expected, stated his sentiuided, or, rather, coe; secondly, that 't was his influence which had, in reality, given all his better individuality to Byron He recurred again and again to this opinion, _con amore_, and seeh 'twas hard for ht Mr G----'s Wordsworthianism, however, is excellent; his beautiful simplicity of taste, and love of truth, have preserved hiue and imbecile enthusiasm, which has enervated alreat poet who, are thoroughly intelligent Everything in his ue, and false, nay, even (suppose another horror here, for gra and paradoxical, have their beauty

I think I could know Mr G---- long, and see him perpetually, without any touch of satiety; such variety is made by the very absence of pretension, and the love of truth I foundhim to sketch the scenes and persons which Lockhart portrays in such glowing colors, and which he, too, has seen with the _eye of taste_, but how different!'

Our friend ell aware that her _forte_ was in conversation Here she felt at home Here she felt her power, and the exciteave all her faculties full activity 'After all,' she says, in a letter,

'this writing is --not to shi+ne as in the Parisian saloons, but to learn, to teach, to vent the heart, to clear the ain, in 1832:--

'Conversation is my natural element I need to be called out, and never think alone, without i some companion

Whether this be nature or the force of circumstances, I know not; it is my habit, and bespeaks a second-rate eneral conversation, that her greatest mental efforts were made in intercourse with individuals All her friends will unite in the testimony, that whatever they may have known of wit and eloquence in others, they have never seen one who, like her, by the conversation of an hour or two, could not merely entertain and inform, but make an epoch in one's life We all dated back to this or that conversation with Margaret, in which we took a coreat subjects, came to some clear view of a difficult question, saw our way open before us to a higher plane of life, and were led to so on all our subsequent career For Margaret's conversation turned, at such times, to life,--its destiny, its duty, its prospect With colance she would survey the past, and sum up, in a few brief words, its results; she would then turn to the future, and, by a natural order, sweep through its chances and alternatives,--passing ever into aall to bear on the present, till its duties grew plain, and its opportunities attractive Happy he who can lift conversation, without loss of its cheer, to the highest uses!

Happy he who has such a gift as this, an original faculty thus accomplished by culture, by which he can ive to the hour a beauty and brilliancy which shallafter, amid dreary years of level routine!

I recall many such conversations I reether, on horseback, froe to Newton,--a day all of a piece, in which my eloquent companion helped me to understand my past life, and her own,--a day which left me in that calm repose which coht to do, and are ready to atte seen her for a week or two, I would ith her for hours, beneath the lindens or in the garden, while we related to each other e had read in our Gerress of her arnered, and filled with a new sense of the worth of knowledge, and the value of life

There were other conversations, in which, i instinct of utterance, she would state, in words of tragical pathos, her own needs and longings,--her deles of mind, and of heart,--her conflicts with self, with nature, with the limitations of circumstances, with insoluble problems, with an unattainable desire She seehts, though she gained no light from her companion Many such conversations I ree, and one such in Groton; but afterwards, when I les, and in a self-possessed state which needed no such outlet for its ferive any account of _these_ conversations; but I add a few scraps, to indicate, however slightly, so of her ordinary manner

'Rev Mr ---- preached a sermon on TIME But what business had he to talk about tireat ood use of time; but not of a little et up and tell hi which he knew and felt'