in 1810. Her father was educated at Harvard, and was a lawyer and a politician. She speaks of him as being largely endowed with that sagacious energy which New England society was so well fitted to develop. The great object of his ambition was to hold an honored place among his fellow men, and provide a comfortable and pleasant home for his family.

Of her mother she says: "She was one of those fair and flower-like natures which sometimes spring up beside the most dusty highways of life-a creature not to be shaped into a merely useful instrument, but bound by one law to the blue sky, the dew, and the frolic birds. Of all persons I have ever known, she had in her most of the angelicof that spontaneous love for every living thing-for man and beast and tree,—which restores the golden age."

Margaret early gave proof of her wonderful power. Her father was proud of her, and stimulated her mind to over-work. At six years of age she read Latin with ease. As she thoroughly understood the mechanism of the language, she was required to give the thought in the briefest and best arranged language possible. Thus her mind was early trained to work with clearness and precision; but this forcing process told fearfully on her health. The poetic, dreaming element, strong in every child, was doubly strong in her, and she became the victim of nervousness, and the whole state of her being was painfully active and intense. It was a wonder to the family

that she was never willing to go to bed, but, using her own language, "they did not know that as soon as the light was taken away she seemed to see colossal faces advancing slowly towards her, the eyes dilating, and each feature swelling loathsomely as they came, till at last, when they were about to close upon her, she started up with a shriek, which drove them away, but only to return when she lay down again. They did not know that when she went to sleep it was to dream of horses trampling over her, and to wake in fright, as she had just read in her Virgil, of being among trees that dropped with blood, where she walked and walked, and could not get out, while the blood became a pool and plashed over her feet, and soon she dreamed it would reach her lips. No wonder the child arose and walked in her sleep, moaning, over the house, till once they came and waked her; and when she told what she had been dreaming of, her father sharply told her to 'leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would be crazy,' never dreaming that he was himself the cause of all these horrors of the night."

But these spectral illusions wore away; the tone of her mind became more healthy, and study ceased to be task work.

When fifteen years of age, she gives the following account of her studies:

"I rise a little before five, walk an hour, and then practice on the piano until seven, when we breakfast. Next I read French —‘Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe'-till eight; then two or

three lectures in 'Brown's Philosophy.' About halfpast nine I go to Mr. Parker's school and study Greek till twelve, when, school being dismissed, I recite, go home and practice again until dinner, at two. Sometimes, if the conversation is very agreeable, I lounge for half-an-hour over the dessert, though rarely so lavish of time. Then, when I can, I read two hours in Italian, but I am often interrupted. At six I walk, or take a drive. Before going to bed, I play or sing for half-an-hour or so, to make all sleepy, and, about eleven, retire to write a little while in my journal, or a series of characteristics, which I am fitting up according to advice. Thus, you see, I am learning Greek and making acquaintance with metaphysics and French and Italian literature."

At twenty years of age, she was again in Cambridge, and beneath the shadows of venerable Harvard. She was gladly welcomed into equal companionship with the strongest thought and ripest culture of the day. She had wealth and wisdom to give as well as to receive.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the details of her life, which, until her visit to Europe, was barren of exciting interest, as the lives of scholars and thinkers usually are.

Her occupation was divided between teaching, writing for the press-the New York "Tribune mainly and authorship; but, wherever placed, she was an intellectual magnet, drawing to herself all

that was rare in culture and rich in intellectual endowment.

She combined the splendor of power and the possession of intellect with the grace of youth and the charm of womanhood, and was at once a personal impulse and an intellectual inspiration in the lives of such men as Clarke, Channing, Ripley, Greeley and Emerson.

It was in conversation that her mind found freest play and most congenial occupation. James Freeman Clarke says:

"She did many things well, but nothing so well as she talked. For some reason or other she could never deliver herself in print as she did with her lips. Her conversation I have seldom heard equaled. Though remarkably fluent and select, it was neither fluency nor choice diction, nor wit nor sentiment, that gave it its peculiar power; but accuracy of statement, keen discrimination, and a certain. weight of judgment, which contrasted strongly and charmingly with the youth and sex of the speaker." Emerson says of her evening conversations, when she was a visitor at his house:

They interested me in every manner; talent, memory, wit, stern introspection, poetic play, religion, the finest personal feeling, the aspects of the future; each followed each in full activity, and left me, I remember, enriched, and somewhat astonished by the gifts of my guest. Her topics were numerous, but the cardinal points of poetry, love and religion, were never far off."

Possessed of this wonderful magnetic power, able to startle, charm or convince at will, it is no wonder that her friends were warmly attached to her, and she to them. So tender was her affection that she made her friends' souls her own, and, like a guardian genius, identified herself with their fortunes. She was everywhere a welcome guest. Her arrival was a holiday, and so was her abode. With her broad web of relations to so many noble friends, she seemed like the queen of some parliament of love, who carried the key to all confidences, and to whom every question was finally referred; and yet there was so much of intellectual aim and activity breathed through her alliances, as to give a dignity to them all. Channing says of her: She was indeed the friend. This was her vocation. Into whatever home she entered, she brought a benediction of truth, justice, tolerance and honor. She knew, if not by experience, then by no questionable intuition, how to interpret the inner life of every man and woman, and by interpreting she could soothe and strengthen. To associates, her presence seemed to touch even common scenes and daily cares with splendor, as when, through the scud of a rain-storm, sunbeams break from serene blue openings, crowning familiar things with glory. To sustain the intimate personal relations which she did to so many representative men of her time, was a higher privilege than has ever fallen to the lot of any other American woman.

66 There are many people who talk as if there were but two extremes of relation which woman can sus