* * * * *
It was quite a study to watch the phases through which Margaret
passed, in one of these assemblies. There was something in the air
and step with which she chose her place in the company, betokening
an instinctive sense, that, in intellect, she was of blood royal and
needed to ask no favors. And then she slowly gathered her attention
to take in the significance of the scene. Near-sighted and habitually
using an eye-glass, she rapidly scanned the forms and faces, pausing
intently where the expression of particular heads or groups suggested
thought, and ending her survey with some apt home-thrust to her next
neighbors, as if to establish full _rapport_, and so to become a
medium for the circulating life. Only when thus in magnetic relations
with all present, by a clear impress of their state and place, did
she seem prepared to rise to a higher stage of communion. Then she
listened, with ear finely vibrating to every tone, with all
capacities responsive in sympathy, with a swift and ductile power of
appreciation, that made her feel to the quick the varying moods of
different speakers, and yet the while with coolest self-possession.
Now and then a slight smile, flickering over her countenance, as
lightning plays on the surface of a cloud, marked the inward process
whereby she was harmonizing in equilibrium opposing thoughts. And,
as occasion offered, a felicitous quotation, pungent apothegm, or
symbolic epithet, dropped unawares in undertone, showed how swiftly
scattered rays were brought in her mind to a focus.
When her turn came, by a graceful transition she resumed the subject
where preceding speakers had left it, and, briefly summing up their
results, proceeded to unfold her own view. Her opening was deliberate,
like the progress of some massive force gaining its momentum; but as
she felt her way, and moving in a congenial element, the sweep of her
speech became grand. The style of her eloquence was sententious,
free from prettiness, direct, vigorous, charged with vitality.
Articulateness, just emphasis and varied accent, brought out most
delicate shades and brilliant points of meaning, while a rhythmical
collocation of words gave a finished form to every thought. She was
affluent in historic illustration and literary allusion, as well as
in novel hints. She knew how to concentrate into racy phrases the
essential truth gathered from wide research, and distilled with
patient toil; and by skilful treatment she could make green again the
wastes of common-place. Her statements, however rapid, showed breadth
of comprehension, ready memory, impartial judgment, nice analysis of
differences, power of penetrating through surfaces to realities, fixed
regard to central laws and habitual communion with the Life of
life. Critics, indeed, might have been tempted to sneer at a certain
oracular grandiloquence, that bore away her soberness in moments of
elation; though even the most captious must presently have smiled at
the humor of her descriptive touches, her dexterous exposure of
folly and pretension, the swift stroke of her bright wit, her shrewd
discernment, promptitude, and presence of mind. The reverential,
too, might have been pained at the sternness wherewith popular men,
measures, and established customs, were tried and found guilty, at
her tribunal; but even while blaming her aspirations as rash,
revolutionary and impractical, no honest conservative could fail
to recognize the sincerity of her aim. And every deep observer of
character would have found the explanation of what seemed vehement
or too high-strung, in the longing of a spirited woman to break every
trammel that checked her growth or fettered her movement.
In conversations like these, one saw that the richness of Margaret's
genius resulted from a rare combination of opposite qualities. To her
might have been well applied the words first used as describing George
Sand: "Thou large-brained Woman, and large-hearted Man." She blended
in closest union and swift interplay feminine receptiveness with
masculine energy. She was at once impressible and creative,
impulsive and deliberate, pliant in sympathy yet firmly self-centred,
confidingly responsive while commanding in originality. By the vivid
intensity of her conceptions, she brought out in those around their
own consciousness, and, by the glowing vigor of her intellect, roused
into action their torpid powers. On the other hand, she reproduced a
truth, whose germ had just been imbibed from others, moulded after her
own image and quickened by her own life, with marvellous rapidity. And
the presence of congenial minds so stimulated the prolific power of
her imagination, that she was herself astonished at the fresh beauty
of her new-born thoughts. 'There is a mortifying sense,' she writes,
'of having played the Mirabeau after a talk with a circle
of intelligent persons. They come with a store of acquired
knowledge and reflection, on the subject in debate, about
which I may know little, and have reflected less; yet, by
mere apprehensiveness and prompt intuition, I may appear their
superior. Spontaneously I appropriate all their material, and
turn it to my own ends, as if it was my inheritance from
a long train of ancestors. Rays of truth flash out at the
moment, and they are startled by the light thrown over their
familiar domain. Still they are gainers, for I give them new
impulse, and they go on their way rejoicing in the bright
glimpses they have caught. I should despise myself, if I
purposely appeared thus brilliant, but I am inspired as by a
power higher than my own.'
All friends will bear witness to the strict fidelity of this sketch.
There were seasons when she seemed borne irresistibly on to the verge
of prophecy, and fully embodied one's notion of a sibyl.
Admirable as Margaret appeared in public, I was yet more affected by
this peculiar mingling of impressibility and power to influence,
when brought within her private sphere. I know not how otherwise
to describe her subtle charm, than by saying that she was at once a
clairvoyante and a magnetizer. She read another's bosom-secret, and
she imparted of her own force. She interpreted the cipher in the
talisman of one's destiny, that he had tried in vain to spell alone;
by sympathy she brought out the invisible characters traced by
experience on his heart; and in the mirror of her conscience he might
see the image of his very self, as dwarfed in actual appearance, or
developed after the divine ideal. Her sincerity was terrible. In her
frank exposure no foible was spared, though by her very reproof she
roused dormant courage and self-confidence. And so unerring seemed
her insight, that her companion felt as if standing bare before a
disembodied spirit, and communicated without reserve thoughts and
emotions, which, even to himself, he had scarcely named.
This penetration it was that caused Margaret to be so dreaded, in
general society, by superficial observers. They, who came nigh
enough to test the quality of her spirit, could not but perceive how
impersonal was her justice; but, contrasted with the dead flat of
conventional tolerance, her candor certainly looked rugged and sharp.
The frivolous were annoyed at her contempt of their childishness, the
ostentatious piqued at her insensibility to their show, and the decent
scared lest they should be stripped of their shams; partisans were
vexed by her spurning their leaders; and professional sneerers,--civil
in public to those whom in private they slandered,--could not pardon
the severe truth whereby she drew the sting from their spite. Indeed,
how could so undisguised a censor but shock the prejudices of the
moderate, and wound the sensibilities of the diffident; how but enrage
the worshippers of new demi-gods in literature, art and fashion, whose
pet shrines she demolished; how but cut to the quick, alike by silence
or by speech, the self-love of the vain, whose claims she ignored?
So gratuitous, indeed, appeared her hypercriticism, that I could not
refrain from remonstrance, and to one of my appeals she thus replied:
'If a horror for the mania of little great men, so prevalent
in this country,--if aversion to the sentimental exaggerations
to which so many minds are prone,--if finding that most men
praise, as well as blame, too readily, and that overpraise
desecrates the lips and makes the breath unworthy to blow the
coal of devotion,--if rejection of the ----s and ----s, from
a sense that the priestess must reserve her pæans for
Apollo,--if untiring effort to form my mind to justice and
revere only the superlatively good, that my praise might be
praise; if this be to offend, then have I offended.'