Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare01fullrich).pdf/134

132 is, after all, the test question, which detects the low-born and low-minded wearer of the robe of gold, —

Margaret's life had an aim, and she was, therefore, essentially a moral person, and not merely an overflowing genius, in whom “impulse gives birth to impulse, deed to deed.” This aim was distinctly apprehended and steadily pursued by her from first to last. It was a high, noble one, wholly religious, almost Christian. It gave dignity to her whole career, and made it heroic.

This aim, from first to last, was. If she ever was ambitious of knowledge and talent, as a means of excelling others, and gaining fame, position, admiration, — this vanity had passed before I knew her, and was replaced by the profound desire for a full development of her whole nature, by means of a full experience of life.

In her description of her own youth, she says, ‘’ This is the passage: —

‘I was now in the hands of teachers, who had not, since they came on the earth, put to themselves one intelligent question as to their business here. Good dispositions and employment for the heart gave a tone to all they said, which was pleasing, and not perverting. They, no doubt, injured those who accepted the husks they proffered for bread, and believed that exercise of memory was study, and to know what others knew, was the object of study. But to me this was all penetrable. I had known great living minds, — I had seen