Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare02fullrich).pdf/100

92 the beginning. And all future manifestations will come, like Christianity, “not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil.” The very greatness of this manifestation demands a greater. As an Abraham called for a Moses, and a Moses for a David, so does Christ for another Ideal. We want a life more complete and various than that of Christ. We have had a Messiah to teach and reconcile; let us now have a Man to live out all the symbolical forms of human life, with the calm beauty of a Greek God, with the deep consciousness of a Moses, with the holy love and purity of Jesus.’

To one studying the signs of the times, it was quite instructive to watch the moods of a mind so sensitive as Margaret's; for her delicate meter indicated in advance each coming change in the air-currents of thought. But I was chiefly interested in the processes whereby she was gaining harmony and unity. The more one studied her, the more plainly he saw that her peculiar power was the result of fresh, fervent, exhaustless, and indomitable affections. The emotive force in her, indeed, was immense in volume, and most various in tendency; and it was wonderful to observe the outward equability of one inwardly so impassioned.

This was, in fact, the first problem to be solved in gaining real knowledge of her commanding character: “How did a person, by constitution so impetuous, become so habitually serene?” In temperament Margaret seemed