and leave the differences henceforward in respectful silence. The recital may still serve to show to sympathetic persons the true lines and enlargements of her genius. It is certain that this incongruity never interrupted for a moment the intercourse, such as it was, that existed between us.
I ought to add here, that certain mental changes brought new questions into conversation. In the summer of 1840, she passed into certain religious states, which did not impress me as quite healthy, or likely to be permanent; and I said, “I do not understand your tone; it seems exaggerated. You are one who can afford to speak and to hear the truth. Let us hold hard to the commonsense, and let us speak in the positive degree.”
And I find, in later letters from her, sometimes playful, sometimes grave allusions to this explanation.
‘Is —— there? Does water meet water? — no need
of wine, sugar, spice, or even a soupçon of lemon to
remind of a tropical climate? I fear me not. Yet, dear
positives, believe me superlatively yours, Margaret.’
The following letter seems to refer, under an Eastern
guise, and with something of Eastern exaggeration of
compliment too, to some such native sterilities in her
correspondent: —
TO R. W. E.
‘23d Feb., 1840. — I am like some poor traveller of the desert, who saw, at early morning, a distant palm, and toiled all day to reach it. All day he toiled. The unfeeling sun shot pains into his temples; the burning air,
