one of her friends her perception of character, and her power of attracting it, when only fifteen years old.
‘Jamaica Plains, July, 1840. — Do you remember my
telling you, at Cohasset, of a Mr. ——— staying with
us, when I was fifteen, and all that passed? Well, I
have not seen him since, till, yesterday, he came here.
I was pleased to find, that, even at so early an age, I
did not overrate those I valued. He was the same as
in memory; the powerful eye dignifying an otherwise
ugly face; the calm wisdom, and refined observation,
the imposing manière d’être, which anywhere would
give him an influence among men, without his taking
any trouble, or making any sacrifice, and the great
waves of feeling that seemed to rise as an attractive
influence, and overspread his being. He said, nothing
since his childhood had been so marked as his visit
to our house; that it had dwelt in his thoughts
unchanged amid all changes. I could have wished
he had never returned to change the picture. He
looked at me continually, and said, again and again,
he should have known me anywhere; but O how
changed I must be since that epoch of pride and
fulness! He had with him his son, a wild boy of five
years old, all brilliant with health and energy, and
with the same powerful eye. He said, — You know
I am not one to confound acuteness and rapidity of
intellect with real genius; but he is for those an
extraordinary child. He would astonish you, but I look
deep enough into the prodigy to see the work of an
extremely nervous temperament, and I shall make him
as dull as I can. “Margaret,” (pronouncing the name
in the same deliberate searching way he used to do,)
