Inexhaustible
in power of insight, and with a good-will "broad as ether," she could
enter into the needs, and sympathize with the various excellences, of
the greatest variety of characters. One thing only she demanded of
all her friends,--that they should have some "extraordinary generous
seeking,"[C] that they should not be satisfied with the common routine
of life,--that they should aspire to something higher, better, holier,
than they had now attained. Where this element of aspiration existed,
she demanded no originality of intellect, no greatness of soul. If
these were found, well; but she could love, tenderly and truly, where
they were not. But for a worldly character, however gifted, she felt
and expressed something very like contempt. At this period, she had
no patience with self-satisfied mediocrity. She afterwards learned
patience and unlearned contempt; but at the time of which I write,
she seemed, and was to the multitude, a haughty and supercilious
person,--while to those whom she loved, she was all the more gentle,
tender and true.
Margaret possessed, in a greater degree than any person I ever knew,
the power of so magnetizing others, when she wished, by the power of
her mind, that they would lay open to her all the secrets of their
nature.
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