capable of religion, capable of love, was moved, all his senses were united in the word or action that followed, and the impression made on you was entire.  I have scarcely known any capable of such true manliness as he.  His poetry, written, or unwritten, was the experience of life.  It lies in few lines, as yet, but not one of them will ever need to be effaced.

’Early that serious eye inspired in me a trust that has never been deceived.  There was no magnetism in him, no lights and shades that could stir the imagination; no bright ideal suggested by him stood between the friend and his self.  As the years matured that self, I loved him more, and knew him as he knew himself, always in the present moment; he could never occupy my mind in absence.’

Another of her early friends, Rev. F.H.  Hedge, has sketched his acquaintance with her in the following paper, communicated by him for these memoirs.  Somewhat older than Margaret, and having enjoyed an education at a German university, his conversation was full of interest and excitement to her.  He opened to her a whole world of thoughts and speculations which gave movement to her mind in a congenial direction.

* * * * *

“My acquaintance with Margaret commenced in the year 1823, at Cambridge, my native place and hers.  I was then a member of Harvard College, in which my father held one of the offices of instruction, and I used frequently to meet her in the social circles of which the families connected with the college formed the nucleus.  Her father, at this time, represented the county of Middlesex in the Congress of the United States.

“Margaret was then about thirteen,—­a child in years, but so precocious in her mental and physical developments, that she passed for eighteen or twenty.  Agreeably to this estimate, she had her place in society, as a lady full-grown.

“When I recall her personal appearance, as it was then and for ten or twelve years subsequent to this, I have the idea of a blooming girl of a florid complexion and vigorous health, with a tendency to robustness, of which she was painfully conscious, and which, with little regard to hygienic principles, she endeavored to suppress or conceal, thereby preparing for herself much future suffering.  With no pretensions to beauty then, or at any time, her face was one that attracted, that awakened a lively interest, that made one desirous of a nearer acquaintance.  It was a face that fascinated, without satisfying.  Never seen in repose, never allowing a steady perusal of its features, it baffled every attempt to judge the character by physiognomical induction.  You saw the evidence of a mighty force, but what direction that force would assume,—­whether it would determine itself to social triumphs, or to triumphs of art,—­it was impossible to divine.  Her moral tendencies, her sentiments, her true and prevailing character, did not appear in the lines of her face.  She seemed equal to anything, but might not choose to put forth her strength.  You felt that a great possibility lay behind that brow, but you felt, also, that the talent that was in her might miscarry through indifference or caprice.