which expressed an overweening sense of power, and slight esteem of others, and partly the prejudice of her fame.  She had a dangerous reputation for satire, in addition to her great scholarship.  The men thought she carried too many guns, and the women did not like one who despised them.  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; for I was, at that time, an eager scholar of ethics, and had tasted the sweets of solitude and stoicism, and I found something profane in the hours of amusing gossip into which she drew me, and, when I returned to my library, had much to think of the crackling of thorns under a pot.  Margaret, who had stuffed me out as a philosopher, in her own fancy, was too intent on establishing a good footing between us, to omit any art of winning.  She studied my tastes, piqued and amused me, challenged frankness by frankness, and did not conceal the good opinion of me she brought with her, nor her wish to please.  She was curious to know my opinions and experiences.  Of course, it was impossible long to hold out against such urgent assault.  She had an incredible variety of anecdotes, and the readiest wit to give an absurd turn to whatever passed; and the eyes, which were so plain at first, soon swam with fun and drolleries, and the very tides of joy and superabundant life.

This rumor was much spread abroad, that she was sneering, scoffing, critical, disdainful of humble people, and of all but the intellectual.  I had heard it whenever she was named.  It was a superficial judgment.  Her satire was only the pastime and necessity of her talent, the play of superabundant animal spirits.  And it will be seen, in the sequel, that her mind presently disclosed many moods and powers, in successive platforms or terraces, each above each, that quite effaced this first impression, in the opulence of the following pictures.

Let us hear what she has herself to say on the subject of tea-table-talk, in a letter to a young lady, to whom she was already much attached:—­

I am repelled by your account of your party.  It is beneath you to amuse yourself with active satire, with what is vulgarly called quizzing.  When such a person as ——­ chooses to throw himself in your way, I sympathize with your keen perception of his ridiculous points.  But to laugh a whole evening at vulgar nondescripts,—­is that an employment for one who was born passionately to love, to admire, to sustain truth?  This would be much more excusable in a chameleon like me.  Yet, whatever may be the vulgar view of my character, I can truly say, I know not the hour in which I ever looked for the ridiculous.  It has always been forced upon me, and is the accident of my existence.  I would not want the sense of it when it comes, for that would show an obtuseness of mental organization; but, on peril of my soul,