'I wish I could write you often, to bring before you the
varied world-scene you cannot so well go out to unfold for
yourself. But it was never permitted me, even where I wished
it most. But the forest leaves fall unseen, and make a soil on
which shall be reared the growths and fabrics of a nobler era.
This thought rounds off each day. Your letter was a little
golden key to a whole volume of thoughts and feelings. I
cannot make the one bright drop, like champagne in ice,
but must pour a full gush, if I speak at all, and not think
whether the water is clear either.'
With this great heart, and these attractions, it was easy to add daily
to the number of her friends. With her practical talent, her counsel
and energy, she was pretty sure to find clients and sufferers enough,
who wished to be guided and supported. 'Others,' she said, 'lean on
this arm, which I have found so frail. Perhaps it is strong enough to
have drawn a sword, but no better suited to be used as a _bolt_, than
that of Lady Catharine Douglas, of loyal memory.' She could not make a
journey, or go to an evening party, without meeting a new person, who
wished presently to impart his history to her. Very early, she had
written to ----, 'My museum is so well furnished, that I grow lazy
about collecting new specimens of human nature.' She had soon enough
examples of the historic development of rude intellect under the first
rays of culture. But, in a thousand individuals, the process is much
the same; and, like a professor too long pent in his college, she
rejoiced in encountering persons of untutored grace and strength, and
felt no wish to prolong the intercourse when culture began to have
its effect I find in her journal a characteristic note, on receiving a
letter on books and speculations, from one whom she had valued for his
heroic qualities in a life of adventure:--
'These letters of ---- are beautiful, and moved me deeply. It
looks like the birth of a soul. But I loved _thee_, fair, rich
_earth_,--and all that is gone forever. This that comes now,
we know in much farther stages. Yet there is silver sweet in
the tone, generous nobility in the impulses.'
* * * * *
'Poor Tasso in the play offered his love and service too
officiously to all. They all rejected it, and declared him
mad, because he made statements too emphatic of his feelings.
If I wanted only ideal figures to think about, there are those
in literature I like better than any of your living ones.
But I want far more. I want habitual intercourse, cheer,
inspiration, tenderness. I want these for myself; I want to
impart them. I have done as Timon did, for these last eight
years. My early intercourses were more equal, because more
natural. Since I took on me the vows of renunciation, I have
acted like a prodigal. Like Timon, I have loved to give,
perhaps not from beneficence, but from restless love. Now,
like Fortunatus, I find my mistresses will not thank me for
fires made of cinnamon; rather they run from too rich an odor.
What shall I do? not curse, like him, (oh base!) nor dig my
grave in the marge of the salt tide. Give an answer to my
questions, dæmon! Give a rock for my feet, a bird of peaceful
and sufficient song within my breast! I return to thee, my
Father, from the husks that have been offered me. But I return
as one who meant not to leave Thee.'
Of course, she made large demands on her companions, and would soon
come to sound their knowledge, and guess pretty nearly the range of
their thoughts. There yet remained to command her constancy, what she
valued more, the quality and affection proper to each. But she could
rarely find natures sufficiently deep and magnetic. With her sleepless
curiosity, her magnanimity, and her diamond-ring, like Annie of
Lochroyan's, to exchange for gold or for pewter, she might be pardoned
for her impatient questionings. To me, she was uniformly generous; but
neither did I escape. Our moods were very different; and I remember,
that, at the very time when I, slow and cold, had come fully to
admire her genius, and was congratulating myself on the solid good
understanding that subsisted between us, I was surprised with hearing
it taxed by her with superficiality and halfness. She stigmatized our
friendship as commercial. It seemed, her magnanimity was not met, but
I prized her only for the thoughts and pictures she brought me;--so
many thoughts, so many facts yesterday,--so many to-day;--when there
was an end of things to tell, the game was up: that, I did not
know, as a friend should know, to prize a silence as much as a
discourse,--and hence a forlorn feeling was inevitable; a poor
counting of thoughts, and a taking the census of virtues, was the
unjust reception so much love found. On one occasion, her grief broke
into words like these: 'The religious nature remained unknown to you,
because it could not proclaim itself, but claimed to be divined. The
deepest soul that approached you was, in your eyes, nothing but a
magic lantern, always bringing out pretty shows of life.'
But as I did not understand the discontent then,--of course, I cannot
now. It was a war of temperaments, and could not be reconciled by
words; but, after each party had explained to the uttermost, it was
necessary to fall back on those grounds of agreement which remained
and leave the differences henceforward in respectful silence. The
recital may still serve to show to sympathetic persons the true lines
and enlargements of her genius. It is certain that this incongruity
never interrupted for a moment the intercourse, such as it was, that
existed between us.
I ought to add here, that certain mental changes brought new questions
into conversation. In the summer of 1840, she passed into certain
religious states, which did not impress me as quite healthy, or likely
to be permanent; and I said, "I do not understand your tone; it seems
exaggerated. You are one who can afford to speak and to hear the
truth. Let us hold hard to the common-sense, and let us speak in the
positive degree."
And I find, in later letters from her, sometimes playful, sometimes
grave allusions to this explanation.
'Is ---- there? Does water meet water?--no need of wine,
sugar, spice, or even a _soupçon_ of lemon to remind of a
tropical climate? I fear me not. Yet, dear positives, believe
me superlatively yours, MARGARET.'
The following letter seems to refer, under an Eastern guise, and with
something of Eastern exaggeration of compliment too, to some such
native sterilities in her correspondent:---
* * * * *