but to Mazzint, who has given his all, and helped
bring his friends to the scaffold in pursuit of such
subjects, it is a matter of life and death.'"
Clearly, Carlyle had not, in Margaret's estimation, the true gospel. She would not bow to the Titanic forces, whcthcr mct with in the romances of Sand or in his force-theory. And so, bidding him farewell with great admiration, she passes on, as she says, "more lowly, more willing to be imperfect, since Fate permits such noble creatures, after all, to be only this or that. Carlylc is only a lion."
Carlyle, on his side, writes of her to Emerson:—
"Margaret is an excellent soul: in real regard with both of us here. Since she went, I have been reading some of her papers in a new Book we have got: greatly superior to all I knew before: in fact, the undeniable utterances (now first undeniable to me) of a truly heroic mind; altogether unique, so far as I know, among the writing women of this generation; rare enough, too, God knows, among the writing men. She is very narrow, sometimes, but she is truly high. Honour to Margaret, and more and more good speed to her."
At a later day he sums up his impressions of her in this wise:—
“Such a predetermination to eat this big Universe as her oyster or her egg, and to be absolute empress of all height and glory in it that her heart could conceive, I have not before seen in any human soul. Her mountain me,'[1] indeed; but her courage, too, is high and clear, her chivalrous nobleness à toute épreuve."
- ↑ Quoted from Emerson's reminiscences.
