'Conversation is my natural element. I need to be called
out, and never think alone, without imagining some companion.
Whether this be nature or the force of circumstances, I know
not; it is my habit, and bespeaks a second-rate mind.'
I am disposed to think, much as she excelled in general 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 complete survey of great 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 some definite resolution or purpose
which has had a bearing on all our subsequent career. For Margaret's
conversation turned, at such times, to life,--its destiny, its duty,
its prospect. With comprehensive glance 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 a more earnest tone, into a more
serious view,--and then bring all 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 make our common life rich,
significant and fair,--can give to the hour a beauty and brilliancy
which shall make it eminent long after, amid dreary years of level
routine!
I recall many such conversations. I remember one summer's day, in
which we rode together, on horseback, from Cambridge 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 comes to us, when we clearly apprehend what we ought to do, and
are ready to attempt it. I recall other mornings when, not having seen
her for a week or two, I would walk with her for hours, beneath the
lindens or in the garden, while we related to each other what we had
read in our German studies. And I always left her astonished at the
progress of her mind, at the amount of new thoughts she had garnered,
and filled with a new sense of the worth of knowledge, and the value
of life.
There were other conversations, in which, impelled by the strong
instinct of utterance, she would state, in words of tragical pathos,
her own needs and longings,--her demands on life,--the struggles of
mind, and of heart,--her conflicts with self, with nature, with
the limitations of circumstances, with insoluble problems, with an
unattainable desire. She seemed to feel relief from the expression of
these thoughts, though she gained no light from her companion. Many
such conversations I remember, while she lived in Cambridge, and one
such in Groton; but afterwards, when I met her, I found her mind risen
above these struggles, and in a self-possessed state which needed no
such outlet for its ferment.
It is impossible to give any account of _these_ conversations; but
I add a few scraps, to indicate, however slightly, something of her
ordinary manner.
'Rev. Mr. ---- preached a sermon on TIME. But what business
had he to talk about time? We should like well to hear the
opinions of a great man, who had made good use of time; but
not of a little man, who had not used it to any purpose. I
wished to get up and tell him to speak of something which he
knew and felt.'
* * * * *
'The best criticism on those sermons which proclaim so loudly
the dignity of human nature was from our friend E.S. She said,
coming out from Dr. Channing's church, that she felt fatigued
by the demands the sermon made on her, and would go home
and read what Jesus said,--"_Ye are of more value than many
sparrows." That_ she could bear; it did not seem exaggerated
praise.'
* * * * *
'The Swedenborgians say, "that is _Correspondence_," and the
phrenologists, "that it is _Approbativeness,_" and so think
they know all about it. It would not be so, if we could be
like the birds,--make one method, and then desert it, and make
a new one,--as they build their nests.'
* * * * *
'As regards crime, we cannot understand what we have not
_already_ felt;--thus, all crimes have formed part of our
minds. We do but recognize one part of ourselves in the worst
actions of others. When you take the subject in this light,
do you not incline to consider the capacity for action as
something widely differing from the experience of a feeling?'
* * * * *
'How beautiful the life of Benvenuto Cellini! How his
occupations perpetually impelled to thought,--to gushings of
thought naturally excited!'
* * * * *
'Father lectured me for looking satirical when the man of
Words spake, and so attentive to the man of Truth,--that is,
of God.'
Margaret used often to talk about the books which she and I were
reading.
GODWIN. 'I think you will be more and more satisfied with
Godwin. He has fully lived the double existence of man, and he
casts the reflexes on his magic mirror from a height where
no object in life's panorama can cause one throb of delirious
hope or grasping ambition. At any rate, if you study him, you
may know all he has to tell. He is quite free from vanity, and
conceals not miserly any of his treasures from the knowledge
of posterity.
M'LLE. D'ESPINASSE. 'I am swallowing by gasps that _cauldrony_
beverage of selfish passion and morbid taste, the letters
of M'lle D'Espinasse. It is good for me. How odious is the
abandonment of passion, such as this, unshaded by pride or
delicacy, unhallowed by religion,--a selfish craving only;
every source of enjoyment stifled to cherish this burning
thirst. Yet the picture, so minute in its touches, is true as
death. I should not like Delphine now.'
Events in life, apparently trivial, often seemed to her full of mystic
significance, and it was her pleasure to turn such to poetry. On one
occasion, the sight of a passion-flower, given by one lady to another,
and then lost, appeared to her so significant of the character,
relation, and destiny of the two, that it drew from her lines of
which two or three seem worth preserving, as indicating her feeling of
social relations.
'Dear friend, my heart grew pensive when I saw
The flower, for thee so sweetly set apart,
By one whose passionless though tender heart
Is worthy to bestow, as angels are,
By an unheeding hand conveyed away,
To close, in unsoothed night, the promise of its day.
* * * * *
'The mystic flower read in thy soul-filled eye
To its life's question the desired reply,
But came no nearer. On thy gentle breast
It hoped to find the haven of its rest;
But in cold night, hurried afar from thee,
It closed its once half-smiling destiny.
'Yet thus, methinks, it utters as it dies,--
"By the pure truth of those calm, gentle eyes
Which saw my life should find its aim in thine,
I see a clime where no strait laws confine.
In that blest land where _twos_ ne'er know a _three_,
Save as the accord of their fine sympathy,
O, best-loved, I will wait for thee!"'