of many lives around her, she had gained experience of the laws and limitations of providential order. Gradually, too, she had risen to higher planes of hope, whence opened wider prospects of destiny and duty. More than all, by that attraction of opposites which a strong will is most apt to feel, she had sought, as chosen companions, persons of scrupulous reserve, of modest coolness, and severe elevation of view. Finally, she had been taught, by a discipline specially fitted to her dispositions, to trust the leadings of the Divine Spirit. The result was, that at this period Margaret had become a Mystic. Her prisoned emotions found the freedom they pined for in contemplation of nature's exquisite harmonies, — in poetic regards of the glory that enspheres human existence, when seen as a whole from beyond the clouds, — and above all in exultant consciousness of life ever influent from the All-Living.
A few passages from her papers will best illustrate this proneness to rapture.
‘My tendency is, I presume, rather to a great natural
than to a deep religious life. But though others may
be more conscientious and delicate, few have so steady
a faith in Divine Love. I may be arrogant and
impetuous, but I am never harsh and morbid. May
there not be a mediation, rather than a conflict, between
piety and genius? Greek and Jew, Italian and Saxon,
are surely but leaves on one stem, at last.’
‘I am in danger of giving myself up to experiences
till they so steep me in ideal passion that the desired
goal is forgotten in the rich present. Yet I think I am
learning how to use life more wisely.’
