Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare01fullrich).pdf/316

314 feeling of new light and life, in terms whose modesty might have done honor to the wisest.’

‘This afternoon we met Mr. —— in his wood; and he sat down and told us the story of his life, his courtship, and painted the portraits of his father and mother with most amusing naïveté. He says: — “How do you think I offered myself? I never had told Miss —— that I loved her; never told her she was handsome; and I went to her, and said, ‘Miss ——, I’ve come to offer myself; but first I’ll give you my character. I'm very poor; you'll have to work: I’m very cross and irascible; you'll have everything to bear: and I’ve liked many other pretty girls. Now what do you say?’ and she said, ‘I’ll have you:’ and she’s been everything to me.

My mother was a Calvinist, very strict, but she was always reading ‘Abelard and Eloisa,’ and crying over it. At sixteen, I said to her: ‘Mother, you’ve brought me up well; you've kept me strict. Why don’t I feel that regeneration they talk of? why an’t I one of the elect?’ And she talked to me about the potter using his clay as he pleased; and I said: ‘Mother, God is not a potter: He’s a perfect being; and he can't treat the vessels he makes, anyhow, but with perfect justice, or he's no God. So I’m no Calvinist.’

Here is a very different picture: —

‘—— has infinite grace and shading in her character: a springing and tender fancy, a Madonna depth of meditative softness, and a purity which has been unstained, and keeps her dignified even in the most