Incessant exertion in teaching and writing, added to pecuniary
anxieties and domestic cares, had so exhausted Margaret's energy, in
1844, that she felt a craving for fresh interests, and resolved to
seek an entire change of scene amid freer fields of action.
'The tax on my mind is such,' she writes,
'and I am so unwell, that I can scarcely keep up the spring of
my spirits, and sometimes fear that I cannot go through with
the engagements of the winter. But I have never stopped yet
in fulfilling what I have undertaken, and hope I shall not be
compelled to now. How farcical seems the preparation needed to
gain a few moments' life; yet just so the plant works all the
year round for a few days' flower.'