It was soon evident that there was somewhat a little pagan about her;
that she had some faith more or less distinct in a fate, and in a
guardian genius; that her fancy, or her pride, had played with
her religion. She had a taste for gems, ciphers, talismans, omens,
coincidences, and birth-days. She had a special love for the planet
Jupiter, and a belief that the month of September was inauspicious
to her. She never forgot that her name, Margarita, signified a pearl.
'When I first met with the name Leila,' she said, 'I knew, from the
very look and sound, it was mine; I knew that it meant night,--night,
which brings out stars, as sorrow brings out truths.' Sortilege she
valued. She tried _sortes biblicæ_, and her hits were memorable. I
think each new book which interested her, she was disposed to put
to this test, and know if it had somewhat personal to say to her. As
happens to such persons, these guesses were justified by the event.
She chose carbuncle for her own stone, and when a dear friend was to
give her a gem, this was the one selected. She valued what she had
somewhere read, that carbuncles are male and female. The female casts
out light, the male has his within himself. 'Mine,' she said, 'is the
male.' And she was wont to put on her carbuncle, a bracelet, or some
selected gem, to write letters to certain friends. One of her friends
she coupled with the onyx, another in a decided way with the amethyst.
She learned that the ancients esteemed this gem a talisman to dispel
intoxication, to give good thoughts and understanding 'The Greek
meaning is _antidote against drunkenness_.' She characterized
her friends by these stones, and wrote to the last mentioned, the
following lines:--
'TO ----.
'Slow wandering on a tangled way,
To their lost child pure spirits say:--
The diamond marshal thee by day,
By night, the carbuncle defend,
Heart's blood of a bosom friend.
On thy brow, the amethyst,
Violet of purest earth,
When by fullest sunlight kissed,
Best reveals its regal birth;
And when that haloed moment flies,
Shall keep thee steadfast, chaste, and wise.'
Coincidences, good and bad, _contretemps_, seals, ciphers, mottoes,
omens, anniversaries, names, dreams, are all of a certain importance
to her. Her letters are often dated on some marked anniversary of her
own, or of her correspondent's calendar. She signalized saints' days,
"All-Souls," and "All-Saints," by poems, which had for her a mystical
value. She remarked a preëstablished harmony of the names of her
personal friends, as well as of her historical favorites; that
of Emanuel, for Swedenborg; and Rosencrantz, for the head of the
Rosicrucians. 'If Christian Rosencrantz,' she said, 'is not a made
name, the genius of the age interfered in the baptismal rite, as in
the cases of the archangels of art, Michael and Raphael, and in giving
the name of Emanuel to the captain of the New Jerusalem. _Sub rosa
crux_, I think, is the true derivation, and not the chemical one,
generation, corruption, &c.' In this spirit, she soon surrounded
herself with a little mythology of her own. She had a series of
anniversaries, which she kept. Her seal-ring of the flying Mercury
had its legend. She chose the _Sistrum_ for her emblem, and had it
carefully drawn with a view to its being engraved on a gem. And I
know not how many verses and legends came recommended to her by this
symbolism. Her dreams, of course, partook of this symmetry. The same
dream returns to her periodically, annually, and punctual to its
night. One dream she marks in her journal as repeated for the fourth
time:--
'In C., I at last distinctly recognized the figure of the
early vision, whom I found after I had left A., who led me,
on the bridge, towards the city, glittering in sunset, but,
midway, the bridge went under water. I have often seen in her
face that it was she, but refused to believe it.'
She valued, of course, the significance of flowers, and chose emblems
for her friends from her garden.
'TO ----, WITH HEARTSEASE.
'Content, in purple lustre clad,
Kingly serene, and golden glad,
No demi-hues of sad contrition,
No pallors of enforced submission;--
Give me such content as this,
And keep awhile the rosy bliss.'