doubt me. Yet have I been true to the best light I had, and if I am so now much will be given.
‘During my last weeks of solitude I was very happy, and all that had troubled me became clearer. The angel was not weary of waiting for Gunhilde, till she had unravelled her mesh of thought, and seeds of mercy, of purification, were planted in the breast. Whatever the past has been, I feel that I have always been reading on and on, and that the Soul of all souls has been patient in love to mine. New assurances were given me, that if I would be faithful and humble, there was no experience that would not tell its heavenly errand. If shadows have fallen, already they give way to a fairer if more tempered light; and for the present I am so happy that the spirit kneels.
‘Life is richly worth living, with its continual revelations of mighty woe, yet infinite hope; and I take it to my breast. Amid these scenes of beauty, all that is little, foreign, unworthy, vanishes like a dream. So shall it be some time amidst the Everlasting Beauty, when true joy shall begin and never cease.’
Filled thus as Margaret was with ecstasy, she was yet
more than willing, — even glad, — to bear her share in the
universal sorrow. Well she knew that pain must be
proportioned to the fineness and fervor of her organization;
that the very keenness of her sensibility exposed her to
constant disappointment or disgust; that no friend,
however faithful, could meet the demands of desires so eager,
of sympathies so absorbing. Contrasted with her radiant
visions, how dreary looked actual existence; how galling
was the friction of petty hindrances; how heavy
the yoke of drudging care! Even success seemed failure,
