tolerance and delicate regard for the convictions of their parents, with fidelity to my own, frankly uttered.  I assured them of my true friendship, proved by my never having cajoled or caressed them into good.  Every word of praise had been earned; all my influence over them was rooted in reality; I had never softened nor palliated their faults; I had appealed, not to their weakness, but to their strength; I had offered to them, always, the loftiest motives, and had made every other end subordinate to that of spiritual growth.  With a heartfelt blessing, I dismissed them; but none stirred, and we all sat for some moments, weeping.  Then I went round the circle and bade each, separately, farewell.’

PERSONS.

Margaret’s Providence journals are made extremely piquant and entertaining, by her life-like portraiture of people and events; and every page attests the scrupulous justice with which she sought to penetrate through surfaces to reality, and, forgetting personal prejudices, to apply universally the test of truth.  A few sketches of public characters may suffice to show with what sagacious, all-observing eyes, she looked about her.

’At the whig caucus, I heard TRISTAM BURGESS,—­“The old bald Eagle!” His baldness increases the fine effect of his appearance, for it seems as if the locks had retreated, that the contour of his very strongly marked head might be revealed to every eye.  His personnel, as well as I could see, was fitted to command respect rather than admiration.  He is a venerable, not a beautiful old man.

’He is a rhetorician,—­if I could judge from this sample; style in woven and somewhat ornate, matter frequently wrought up to a climax, manner rather declamatory, though strictly that of a gentleman and a scholar.  One art in his oratory was, no doubt, very effective, before he lost force and distinctness of voice.  I allude to his way,—­after having reasoned a while, till he has reached the desired conclusion,—­of leaning forward, with hands reposing but figure very earnest, and communicating, confidentially as it were, the result to the audience.  The impression produced in former days, when those low, emphatic passages could be distinctly heard, must have been very strong.  Yet there is too much apparent trickery in this, to bear frequent repetition.  His manner is well adapted for argument, and for the expression either of satire or of chivalric sentiment.’

* * * * *

’Mr. JOHN NEAL addressed my girls on the destiny and vocation of Woman in this country.  He gave, truly, a manly view, though not the view of common men, and it was pleasing to watch his countenance, where energy is animated by genius.  He then spoke to the boys, in the most noble and liberal spirit, on the exercise of political rights.  If there is one among them who has the germ of a truly independent man, too generous to become