Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare01fullrich).pdf/136

134 her case, only in a certain supercilious tone toward “the vulgar herd,” in the absence (at this period) of a tender humanity, and in an idolatrous hero-worship of genius and power. Afterward, too, she may have suffered from, her desire for a universal human experience, and an unwillingness to see that we must often be content to enter the Kingdom of Heaven halt and maimed, — that a perfect development here must often be wholly renounced.

But how much better to pursue with devotion, like that of Margaret, an imperfect aim, than to worship with lip-service, as most persons do, even though it be in a loftier temple, and before a holier shrine! With Margaret, the doctrine of self-culture was a devotion to which she sacrificed all earthly hopes and joys, — everything but manifest duty. And so her course was “onward, ever onward,” like that of Schiller, to her last hour of life.

But this high idea which governed our friend’s life, brought her into sharp conflicts, which constituted the pathos and tragedy of her existence, — first with her circumstances, which seemed so inadequate to the needs of her nature, — afterwards with duties to relatives and friends, — and, finally, with the law of the Great Spirit, whose will she found it so hard to acquiesce in.