is, after all, the test question, which detects the low-born and low-minded wearer of the robe of gold, —
“Touch them inwardly, they smell of copper.”
Margaret's life had an aim, and she was, therefore, essentially a moral person, and not merely an overflowing genius, in whom “impulse gives birth to impulse, deed to deed.” This aim was distinctly apprehended and steadily pursued by her from first to last. It was a high, noble one, wholly religious, almost Christian. It gave dignity to her whole career, and made it heroic.
This aim, from first to last, was Self-culture. If she ever was ambitious of knowledge and talent, as a means of excelling others, and gaining fame, position, admiration, — this vanity had passed before I knew her, and was replaced by the profound desire for a full development of her whole nature, by means of a full experience of life.
In her description of her own youth, she says, ‘Very early I knew that the only object in life was to grow.’ This is the passage: —
‘I was now in the hands of teachers, who had not,
since they came on the earth, put to themselves one
intelligent question as to their business here. Good
dispositions and employment for the heart gave a tone
to all they said, which was pleasing, and not perverting.
They, no doubt, injured those who accepted the husks
they proffered for bread, and believed that exercise of
memory was study, and to know what others knew,
was the object of study. But to me this was all
penetrable. I had known great living minds, — I had seen
