Minerva.

* * * * *

She will take an old notion and make it her own,
By saying it o'er in her sibylline tone;{40}
Or persuade you 'tis something tremendously deep,
By repeating it so as to put you to sleep;
And she well may defy any mortal to see through it,
When once she has mixed up her infinite me through it.

* * * * *

Here Miranda came up and said: Phœbus, you know
That the infinite soul has its infinite woe,
As I ought to know, having lived cheek by jowl,
Since the day I was born, with the infinite soul."

These remarks, explanatory and apologetic, are suggested partly by Mr. Emerson's statements concerning the beginning of his acquaintance with Margaret, and partly by the writer's own recollections of the views of outsiders concerning her, which contrasted strongly with the feeling and opinion of her intimates.

Mr. Emerson first heard of Margaret from Dr. Hedge, and afterwards from Miss Martineau. Both were warm in their praise of her, and the last-named was especially desirous to introduce her to Mr. Emerson, whom she very much wished to know. After one or more chance meetings, it was arranged that Margaret should spend a fortnight with Mrs. Emerson. The date of this visit was in July, 1836.

To the description of her person already quoted from Dr. Hedge, we may add a sentence or two from Mr. Emerson's record of his first impressions of her:—

"She had a face and frame that would indicate{41} fulness and tenacity of life.... She was then, as always, carefully and becomingly dressed, and of lady-like self-possession. For the rest, her appearance had nothing prepossessing. Her extreme plainness, a trick of incessantly opening and shutting her eyelids, the nasal tone of her voice, all repelled; and I said to myself, we shall never get far."

But Margaret greatly esteemed Mr. Emerson, and was intent upon establishing a friendly relation with him. Her reputation for satire was well known to him, and was rather justified in his eyes by the first half-hour of her conversation with him.

"I believe I fancied her too much interested in personal history; and her talk was a comedy in which dramatic justice was done to everybody's foibles. I remember that she made me laugh more than I liked."

Passing into a happier vein, she unfolded her brilliant powers of repartee, expressed her own opinions, and sought to discover those of her companion. Soon her wit had effaced the impression of her personal unattractiveness; "and the eyes, which were so plain at first, swam with fun and drolleries, and the very tides of joy and superabundant life." He now saw that "her satire was only the pastime and necessity of her talent," and as he learned to know her{42} better, her plane of character rose constantly in his estimation, disclosing "many moods and powers, in successive platforms or terraces, each above each."

Mr. Emerson likens Margaret's relations with her friends to the wearing of a necklace of social brilliants of the first water. A dreaded waif among the merely fashionable, her relations with men and women of higher tastes were such that, as Mr. Emerson says, "All the art, the thought, and the nobleness in New England seemed at that moment related to her, and she to it."

In the houses of such friends she was always a desired guest, and in her various visitings she "seemed like the queen of some parliament of love, who carried the key to all confidences, and to whom every question had been referred."

Mr. Emerson gives some portraits which make evident the variety as well as the extent of Margaret's attraction. Women noted for beauty and for social talent, votaries of song, students of art and literature,—men as well as women,—vied with each other in their devotion to her. To each she assumed and sustained a special relation whose duties and offices she never neglected nor confounded. To each she became at once a source of inspiration and a court of appeal. The beneficence of her influence may be inferred from the lasting gratitude of her friends, who always{43} remembered her as having wisely guided and counselled them.

Any human life is liable to be modified by the supposition that its results are of great interest to some one whose concern in them is not a selfish one. Where this supposition is verified by corresponding acts, the power of the individual is greatly multiplied. This merciful, this providential interest Margaret felt for each of her many friends. There was no illusion in the sense of her value which they, all and severally, entertained.

Where, we may ask, shall we look to-day for a friendliness so wide and so availing? We can only answer that such souls are not sent into the world every day. Few of us can count upon inspiring even in those who are nearest and dearest to us this untiring concern in our highest welfare. But such a friend to so many it would be hard to find.

When we consider Margaret's love of literature, and her power of making its treasures her own, we must think of this passion of hers for availing intercourse with other minds as indeed a providential gift which no doubt lavished in passing speech much that would have been eloquent on paper, but which evidently had on society the immediate and intensified effect which distinguishes the living word above the dead letter.{44}