as if it was my inheritance from a long train of ancestors.  Rays of truth flash out at the moment, and they are startled by the light thrown over their familiar domain.  Still they are gainers, for I give them new impulse, and they go on their way rejoicing in the bright glimpses they have caught.  I should despise myself, if I purposely appeared thus brilliant, but I am inspired as by a power higher than my own.’

All friends will bear witness to the strict fidelity of this sketch.  There were seasons when she seemed borne irresistibly on to the verge of prophecy, and fully embodied one’s notion of a sibyl.

Admirable as Margaret appeared in public, I was yet more affected by this peculiar mingling of impressibility and power to influence, when brought within her private sphere.  I know not how otherwise to describe her subtle charm, than by saying that she was at once a clairvoyante and a magnetizer.  She read another’s bosom-secret, and she imparted of her own force.  She interpreted the cipher in the talisman of one’s destiny, that he had tried in vain to spell alone; by sympathy she brought out the invisible characters traced by experience on his heart; and in the mirror of her conscience he might see the image of his very self, as dwarfed in actual appearance, or developed after the divine ideal.  Her sincerity was terrible.  In her frank exposure no foible was spared, though by her very reproof she roused dormant courage and self-confidence.  And so unerring seemed her insight, that her companion felt as if standing bare before a disembodied spirit, and communicated without reserve thoughts and emotions, which, even to himself, he had scarcely named.

This penetration it was that caused Margaret to be so dreaded, in general society, by superficial observers.  They, who came nigh enough to test the quality of her spirit, could not but perceive how impersonal was her justice; but, contrasted with the dead flat of conventional tolerance, her candor certainly looked rugged and sharp.  The frivolous were annoyed at her contempt of their childishness, the ostentatious piqued at her insensibility to their show, and the decent scared lest they should be stripped of their shams; partisans were vexed by her spurning their leaders; and professional sneerers,—­civil in public to those whom in private they slandered,—­could not pardon the severe truth whereby she drew the sting from their spite.  Indeed, how could so undisguised a censor but shock the prejudices of the moderate, and wound the sensibilities of the diffident; how but enrage the worshippers of new demi-gods in literature, art and fashion, whose pet shrines she demolished; how but cut to the quick, alike by silence or by speech, the self-love of the vain, whose claims she ignored?  So gratuitous, indeed, appeared her hypercriticism, that I could not refrain from remonstrance, and to one of my appeals she thus replied: