It is impossible to give any account of these conversations; but I add a few scraps, to indicate, however slightly, something of her ordinary manner.

’Rev. Mr. ——­ preached a sermon on TIME.  But what business had he to talk about time?  We should like well to hear the opinions of a great man, who had made good use of time; but not of a little man, who had not used it to any purpose.  I wished to get up and tell him to speak of something which he knew and felt.’

       * * * * *
    ’The best criticism on those sermons which proclaim so loudly
    the dignity of human nature was from our friend E.S.  She said,
    coming out from Dr. Channing’s church, that she felt fatigued
    by the demands the sermon made on her, and would go home
    and read what Jesus said,—­“Ye are of more value than many
    sparrows.”  That she could bear; it did not seem exaggerated
    praise.’

* * * * *

’The Swedenborgians say, “that is Correspondence,” and the phrenologists, “that it is Approbativeness,” and so think they know all about it.  It would not be so, if we could be like the birds,—­make one method, and then desert it, and make a new one,—­as they build their nests.’

* * * * *

’As regards crime, we cannot understand what we have not already felt;—­thus, all crimes have formed part of our minds.  We do but recognize one part of ourselves in the worst actions of others.  When you take the subject in this light, do you not incline to consider the capacity for action as something widely differing from the experience of a feeling?’

* * * * *

    ’How beautiful the life of Benvenuto Cellini!  How his
    occupations perpetually impelled to thought,—­to gushings of
    thought naturally excited!’

* * * * *

    ’Father lectured me for looking satirical when the man of
    Words spake, and so attentive to the man of Truth,—­that is,
    of God.’

Margaret used often to talk about the books which she and I were reading.

GODWIN.  ’I think you will be more and more satisfied with Godwin.  He has fully lived the double existence of man, and he casts the reflexes on his magic mirror from a height where no object in life’s panorama can cause one throb of delirious hope or grasping ambition.  At any rate, if you study him, you may know all he has to tell.  He is quite free from vanity, and conceals not miserly any of his treasures from the knowledge of posterity.

M’LLE.  D’ESPINASSE.  ’I am swallowing by gasps that cauldrony beverage of selfish passion and morbid taste, the letters of M’lle D’Espinasse.  It is good for me.  How odious is the abandonment