Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare01fullrich).pdf/166

164 a time it was so with me, and I am not yet good enough to love the Ought.

‘Then I came again into the open air, and saw those resplendent orbs moving so silently, and thought that they were perhaps tenanted, not only by beings in whom I can see the germ of a possible angel, but by myriads like this poor creature, in whom that germ is, so far as we can see, blighted entirely, I could not help saying, “O my Father! Thou, whom we are told art all Power, and also all Love, how canst Thou suffer such even transient specks on the transparence of Thy creation? These grub-like lives, undignified even by passion, — these life-long quenchings of the spark divine, — why dost Thou suffer them? Is not Thy paternal benevolence impatient till such films be dissipated?”

‘Such questionings once had power to move my spirit deeply; now, they but shade my mind for an instant. I have faith in a glorious explanation, that shall make manifest perfect justice and perfect wisdom.’

Cut off from access to the scholars, libraries, lectures, galleries of art, museums of science, antiquities, and historic scenes of Europe, Margaret bent her powers to use such opportunities of culture as she could command in her solitary country-home. Journals and letters thus bear witness to her zeal: —

‘I am having one of my “intense” times, devouring book after book. I never stop a minute, except to talk with mother, having laid all little duties on the shelf