Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/62

Rh. In the sequel she was not only justified, but rewarded. The sacrifice she had made secured the blessings of education to the younger members of her family. Her prayer that the lifting of her moral nature might not lower the tone of her intellect was answered, as it was sure to be, and she found near at hand a field of honour and usefulness which the brilliant capitals of Europe would not have offered her.

Margaret's remaining days in Groton were passed in assiduous reading, and her letters and journals make suggestive comments on Goethe, Shelley, Sir James Mackintosh, Herschel, Wordsworth, and others. Her scheme of culture was what we should now call encyclopedic, and embraced most, if not all, departments of human knowledge. If she was at all mistaken in her scope, it was in this, that she did not sufficiently appreciate the inevitable limitations of brain power and of bodily strength. Her impatience of such considerations led her to an habitual over-use of her brilliant faculties which resulted in an impaired state of health.

In the autumn of 1836 Margaret left Groton not without acknowledgment of "many precious lessons given there in faith, fortitude, self-command, and unselfish love.

"There, too, in solitude, the mind acquired more power of concentration, and discerned the beauty of strict method; there, too, more than all, the heart was awaked to sympathize with the ignorant, to pity the vulgar, to hope for the seemingly worthless, and to commune with the Divine Spirit of Creation."