This was, in fact, the first problem to be solved in gaining real knowledge of her commanding character:  “How did a person, by constitution so impetuous, become so habitually serene?” In temperament Margaret seemed a Bacchante,[A] prompt for wild excitement, and fearless to tread by night the mountain forest, with song and dance of delirious mirth; yet constantly she wore the laurel in token of purification, and, with water from fresh fountains, cleansed the statue of Minerva.  Stagnancy and torpor were intolerable to her free and elastic impulses; a brilliant fancy threw over each place and incident Arcadian splendor; and eager desire, with energetic purposes, filled her with the consciousness of large latent life:  and yet the lower instincts were duly subordinated to the higher, and dignified self-control ordered her deportment.  Somehow, according to the doctrine of the wise Jacob Boehme, the fierce, hungry fire had met in embrace the meek, cool water, and was bringing to birth the pleasant light-flame of love.  The transformation, though not perfected, was fairly begun.

Partly I could see how this change had been wrought.  Ill health, pain, disappointment, care, had tamed her spirits.  A wide range through the romantic literature of ancient and modern times had exalted while expending her passions.  In the world of imagination, she had discharged the stormful energy which would have been destructive in actual life.  And in thought she had bound herself to the mast while sailing past the Sirens.  Through sympathy, also, from childhood, with the tragi-comedy of many lives around her, she had gained experience of the laws and limitations of providential order.  Gradually, too, she had risen to higher planes of hope, whence opened wider prospects of destiny and duty.  More than all, by that attraction of opposites which a strong will is most apt to feel, she had sought, as chosen companions, persons of scrupulous reserve, of modest coolness, and severe elevation of view.  Finally, she had been taught, by a discipline specially fitted to her dispositions, to trust the leadings of the Divine Spirit.  The result was, that at this period Margaret had become a Mystic.  Her prisoned emotions found the freedom they pined for in contemplation of nature’s exquisite harmonies,—­in poetic regards of the glory that enspheres human existence, when seen as a whole from beyond the clouds,—­and above all in exultant consciousness of life ever influent from the All-Living.

A few passages from, her papers will best illustrate this proneness to rapture.

’My tendency is, I presume, rather to a great natural than to a deep religious life.  But though others may be more conscientious and delicate, few have so steady a faith in Divine Love.  I may be arrogant and impetuous, but I am never harsh and morbid.  May there not be a mediation, rather than a conflict, between piety and genius?  Greek and Jew, Italian and Saxon, are surely but leaves on one stern, at last.’

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