Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/43

Rh were so far from producing antagonism among the younger girls that they rather caused an amusing sense of envy and emulation. “We thought,” said one among them to me, “that if we could only come into school that way, we could know as much Greek as she did.” Other traits of hers these youthful observers also noted with admiration. There was then a social library in one of the village shops; to this she would go, wearing a hooded cloak; she would take off the cloak, fill the hood with books, swing it over her shoulders, books and all, and so carry it home. “We all wished,” said my informant, “that our mothers would let us have hooded cloaks, that we might carry our books in the same way.” Yet it does not seem to have been their impression that she neglected her home duties for the sake of knowledge; such was her conceded ability that she was supposed equal to doing everything at once. It was currently reported that she could rock the cradle, read a book, eat an apple, and knit a stocking, all at the same time; and here also the indefatigable imitation of her young admirers toiled after her in vain. How she impressed the boys, meanwhile, may be gathered from Dr. Holmes’s amusing description of the awe with which he regarded the opening sentence of one of her school compositions: “It is a trite remark.” Alas! he did not know the meaning of the word “trite.”

A lady, who at a later period knew Margaret