is the theory of the newspaper,—­to supersede official by intellectual influence.  But, though the apostles establish the journal, it usually happens that, by some strange oversight, Ananias slips into the editor’s chair.  If, then, we could be provided with a fair proportion of truth-speakers, we could very materially and usefully contract the legislative and the executive functions.  Still, the main sphere for this nobleness is private society, where so many mischiefs go unwhipped, being out of the cognizance of law, and supposed to be nobody’s business.  And society is, at all times, suffering for want of judges and headsmen, who will mark and lop these malefactors.

Margaret suffered no vice to insult her presence, but called the offender to instant account, when the law of right or of beauty was violated.  She needed not, of course, to go out of her way to find the offender, and she never did, but she had the courage and the skill to cut heads off which were not worn with honor in her presence.  Others might abet a crime by silence, if they pleased; she chose to clear herself of all complicity, by calling the act by its name.

It was curious to see the mysterious provocation which the mere presence of insight exerts in its neighborhood.  Like moths about a lamp, her victims voluntarily came to judgment:  conscious persons, encumbered with egotism; vain persons, bent on concealing some mean vice; arrogant reformers, with some halting of their own; the compromisers, who wished to reconcile right and wrong;—­all came and held out their palms to the wise woman, to read their fortunes, and they were truly told.  Many anecdotes have come to my ear, which show how useful the glare of her lamp proved in private circles, and what dramatic situations it created.  But these cannot be told.  The valor for dragging the accused spirits among his acquaintance to the stake is not in the heart of the present writer.  The reader must be content to learn that she knew how, without loss of temper, to speak with unmistakable plainness to any party, when she felt that the truth or the right was injured.  For the same reason, I omit one or two letters, most honorable both to her mind and heart, in which she felt constrained to give the frankest utterance to her displeasure.  Yet I incline to quote the testimony of one witness, which is so full and so pointed, that I must give it as I find it.

“I have known her, by the severity of her truth, mow down a crop of evil, like the angel of retribution itself, and could not sufficiently admire her courage.  A conversation she had with Mr. ——­, just before he went to Europe, was one of these things; and there was not a particle of ill-will in it, but it was truth which she could not help seeing and uttering, nor he refuse to accept.