CHAPTER II.
LIFE IN CAMBRIDGE.—FRIENDSHIP OF DR. HEDGE.
—JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
Dr. Hedge, a life-long friend of Margaret, has given A very interesting sketch of her in her girlhood. He first met her when he was a student at Harvard, and she a maiden of thirteen, in her father's house at Cambridge. Her precocity, mental and physical, was such that she passed for a much older person, and had already a recognised place in society. She was at this time in blooming and vigorous health, with a tendency to over-stoutness, which, the Doctor thinks, gave her some trouble. She was not handsome nor even pretty, but her animated countenance at once made its own impression, and awakened in those who saw her a desire to know more of her. Fine hair and teeth, vivacious eyes, and a peculiarly graceful carriage of the head and neck were points which redeemed her from the charge of plainness. This face of hers was, indeed, somewhat problematic in its expression, which carried with it the assurance of great possibilities, but not the certainty of their fulfilment. Her conversation was already brilliant full of interest, with a satirical turn which became somewhat modified in after life. Dr. Hedge fixes her stay in the Groton School at the years 1834–1826, and mentions her indulgence in sarcasm as a source of trouble to her in a school earlier attended, that of Dr. Park, of Boston.
In the year 1826 his slight acquaintance with her grew into a friendship which, as we have said, ended only with her life. During the seven years that followed he had abundant occasion to note her steady growth and the intensity of her inner life. This was with her, as with most young persons, "a period of romance and of dreams, of yearning and of passion." He thinks that she did not at this time pursue any systematic study. She read with the heart, and wa learning more from social experience than from books"
One leading trails of her life was already prominent. This was a passionate love of all beauties, both in nature and in art.
If not corresponding to a scholar's idea of systematic study, Margaret's pursuit of culture in those years must have been arduous and many-sided. This we may partly gather from the books named and the themes touched upon in her corresponding with the beloved teacher who had brought her such meat and tender help in her hour of need. To this lady, in a letter dated July 11, 1825, Margaret rehearses the routine of her daily life:—
"I rise a little before five, walk an hour, and then practise on the piano till seven, when we breakfast. Next I read French, Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, till eight, then two or three lectures in Brown's Philosophy. About half-past nine I go to Mr. Perkins's school and study Greek till twelve, when, the school being dismissed, I excite, go home and practise again till dinner, at two. Sometimes, if the conversation is very agreeable, I lounge for half-an-hour over the dessert, though rarely so lavish of time. Then, when I can, I read two hours in Italian, but I am often interrupted. At six I walk or take a drive. Before going to bed I play or sing for half an hour, and about eleven retire to write a little while in my journal—exercises on what 1 have read, or a series of characteristics which I am filling up according to advice."
A year later she mentions studying "Madame de Staël, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Castilian ballads, with great delight." She asks her correspondent whether she would rather be the brilliant De Staël or the useful Edgeworth. In 1827 we find her occupied with a critical study of the elder Italian poets. She now mentions Miss Francis (Lydia Maria Child) as her intended companion in a course of metaphysical study. She characterises this lady as "a natural person, a most rare thing in this age of cant and pretension. Her conversation is charming; she brings all her powers to bear upon it. Her style is varied, and she has a very pleasant and spirited way of thinking."
Margaret's published correspondence with her dear teacher ends in 1830, with these words:—
"My beloved supported in, those sorrowful hours, can I ever forget that to your treatment in that crisis of youth I owe the true life, the love of Truth and Honour?"
From these years of pedagogy and of patience we must now pass to the time when this bud, so full of promise, unfolded into a flower rare and wondrous.
The story of Margaret's early studies, and the wide reach her craving for knowledge, already mark her as a creature of unconumon gifts. A devourer of books she had been from the start; but books alone could not content this ardent mind, at once so critical and so creative. She must also have life at first hand, and feed her intelligence from its deepest source. Hence the long story of her friendships, so many and various, yet so earnest and efficient.
What the chosen associates of this wonderful woman have made public concerning the interest of her con- versation and the value of her influence tasks to the utmost the believing powers of a time in which the demon of self-interest seems to unfold himself out of most of the metamorphic flowers of society. Margaret and her friends might truly have said, “Our kingdom is not of this world,"--at least, according to what this world calls kingly. But what imperial power had this self-poised soul, which could so widely (pen its doors and so closely shut them, which could lead in its train the brightest and purest intelligences, and "bind the sweet influences " of starry souls in the garland of its happy hours! And here we may say, her kingdom was not all of this world; for the kingdom of noble thought and affection is in this world and beyond it, and the real and ideal are at peace within its bounds.
In the divided task of Margaret's biography it was given to James Freeman Clarke to speak of that early summer of her life in which, these tender and intimate relations had their first and most fervent unfolding. The Harvard student of that day was probably a personage very unlike the present revered pastor of the Church of the disciples. Yet we must believe that the one was graciously foreshadowed in the other, and that Margaret found in him the germ of what the later world has learned so greatly to respect and admire.
The acquaintance between these two began in 1829, and was furthered by a family connection which Margaret, in one of her carly letters, playfully characterised as cousinship in the thirty-seventh degree.
During the four years immediately following, the two young people either met or corresponded daily. In explaining the origin of this friendship, Mr. Clarke modestly says:–
"She needed a friend to whom to speak of her studies, to whom to express the ideas which were dawning and taking shape in her mind. She accepted me for this friend; and to me it was a gift of the gods, an influence like no other."
This intercourse was at first on both sides an entertainment sought and found. In its early stages Margaret characterises her correspondent as "a socialist by vocation, a sentimentalist by nature, and a Channingite from force of circumstance and of fashion.” Further acquaintance opened beneath the superficial interest the deeper sources of sympathy, and a valued letter from Margaret is named by Mr. Clarke as having laid the foundation of a friendship to which he owed both intellectual enlightenment and spiritual enlargement. More than for these he thanks Margaret for having imparted to him an impulse which carried him bravely forward in what has proved to be the Purmal direction of his life. Although destined, after those early years of intimate communion, to live far apart and in widely different spheres of labour and of interest, the regard of the two friends never suffered change or diminution. And here we come upon a governing feature in Margaret's intercourse with her friends. She had the power of leading those who interested her to a confidence which unfolded to her the deepest secrets of their life. Now"came in play that unexplained action of one mind upon another which we call personal magnetism, and which is more distinctly recognised to-day than in other times as an element in social efficiency. It is this power which, united with intellectual force, gives leadership to individual men, and enables the great orator to hold a mighty audience in the hollow of his hand.
With Margaret at the period we speak of the exercise of this power was intensive rather than extensive. The circumstances of the time had something to do with this." Here was a soul whose objects and desires boldly transcended the sphere of ordinary life. It could neither wholly contain nor fitly utter itself. Pulpit and platform were then interdicted to her sex. The mimic stage, had she thought of it, would have mocked her with its unreality. On single souls, one at a time, she laid her detaining grasp, and asked what they could receive and give. Something noble she must perceive in then before she would condescend to this parley. She did not insist that her friends should possess genius; but she could only make friends of those who, like herself, were seekers after the higher life. Worthiness of object commended even mediocrity to her; but shallow worldliness awakened her contempt.
In the exercise of this discrimination she no doubt sometimes gave offence. Mr. Clarke acknowledges that she not only seemed, but was, haughty and supercilious to the multitude, while to the chosen few she was the very embodiment of tender and true regard.
It must also be acknowledged that this same magnetism which attracted some persons so strongly was to others as strongly repellent. Where she was least known this repulsion was most felt. It yielded to admiration and esteem where acquaintance went beyond the mere recognition of Margaret's air and manner, which made a stranger a little uncertain whether he would be amicably entertained or subjected to a reductio ad absurdum. As in any community impressions of personality are more likely to be superficial than thorough, it is probable that a very general misunderstanding which, at a later day, grew up between Margaret and the great world of a small New England city had its origin in a misconstruction of her manner when among strangers, or on the occasion of a first introduction. To recall this shallow popular judgment of her is not pleasant, but some mention of it does belong to any summary of her life. With such friends as she had, she had no reason to look upon herself as one who was neither understood nor appreciated. Yet her heart, which instinctively sought the empire of universal love, may have been grieved at the indifference and dislike which she sometimes encountered. Those who know how, in some circles, her name became a watchword for all that was eccentric and pretentious in the womanhood of her day, will smile or sigh at the contrast between the portraitures of Margaret given in the volumes of the mémoir and the caricature of her which was current in the mind of the public at large.
These remarks anticipate the pains and distinctions of a later period. For the present let us confine our attention to the happy days at Cambridge, which Margaret may not have recognised as such, but which must have seemed bright to her 'when contrasted with the years of labour and anxiety which followed them.
Mr. Clarke tells us that Margaret and he began the study of the German language in 1832, moved thereunto by Thomas Carlyle’s brilliant exposition of the merits of leading German authors. In three months' time Margaret had acquired easy command of the language, and within the year had read the most important works of Goethe and Schiller, with the writings also of Tieck, Korner, Richter, and Novalis. Extracts from her letters at this time show that this extensive reading, was neither hasty nor superficial.
She finds herself happier in the companionship of Schiller than in that of Goethe, of whom she says, "That perfect wisdom and merciless reason seems cold after those seducing pictures of forms "more beautiful than truth." The "Elective Affinities" suggests to her various critical questions, but does not carry her away with the sweep of its interest. From the immense superiority of Goethe” she finds it a relief to turn to the simplicity of Novalis, “wondrous youth, who has written only one volume," and whose “one-sidedness, imperfection, and glow, seem refreshingly human” to her. Körner becomes a fixed star in the heaven of her thought Lessing interests her less. She credits him with the production of "well conceived and sustained characters and interesting situations,” but not with any profound knowledge of human nature. "I think him easily followed; strong, but not deep."
This was with Margaret, as Dr. Hedge has well observed, the period of romance. Her superiority to common individuals appeared in the fact that she was able to combine with intense personal aspirations and desires a wide outlook into the destinies of the human race.
We find her, in these very days, "engaged in surveying the level on which the public mind is poised." She turns from the poetic tragedy and comedy of life to study, as she says, “the rules of its prose," and to learn from the talk of common people what elements and modes of thought go to make up the average American mind. She listens to George Thompson, the English anti-slavery orator, and is led to say that, if she had been a man, she should have coveted the gift of eloquence above all others, and this for the intensity of its effects. She thinks of writing six historical tragedies, and devises the plan for three of them. Tales of Hebrew history it is also in her mind to compose. Becoming convinced that "some fixed opinion on the subject of metaphysics is an essential aid to systematic culture," she addresses herself to the study of Fichte and Jacobi, of Brown and Stewart. The first of these appeared to her incomprehensible. Of the second, she conjectures that his views are derived from some author whom she has not read. She thinks in good earnest of writing a life of Goethe, and wishes to visit Larope, in order to collect the material requisite for this. Her appreciation of Dr. Channing is shown in a warm encomium on his work treating of slavery, of which she says, "It comes like a breath borne over some solemn sea which separates us from an island of righteousness."
In summing up his account of this part of Margaret's life, Mr. Clarke characterises self-culture as the object in which she was content to lose sight of all others. Her devotion to this great end was, he says, "wholly religious, and almost Christian." She was religious in her recognition of the divine element in human experience, and Christian in her elevation above the sordid interests of life, and in her devotion to the highest standards of duty and of destiny. He admits, however, that her aim, noble as it was, long remained too intensely personal to reach the absolute generosity required by the Christian rule. This defect made itself felt outwardly by a certain want of esteem for "the vulgar herd," and in an exaggerated worship of great personalities. Its inner effects were more serious. To her darling desire for growth and development she sacrificed "everything but manifest duty." The want of harmony between her outward circumstances and her inward longings so detained her thoughts that she was unable to pass beyond the confines of the present moment, and could not foresee that true growth must bring her, as it soon did, a great enlargement of influence.