Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare02fullrich).pdf/104

96 the music of “There shoots the healing plant,” I felt what I would ever feel for suffering souls. Somewhere in nature is the Moly, the Nepenthe, desired from the earliest ages of mankind. No-wonder the music dwelt so exultingly on the passage: —

‘Yes; even so would I ever see man. I will wait, and never despair, through all the dull years.’

‘I am “too fiery.” Even so. Ceres put her foster child in the fire because she loved him. If they thought so before, will they not far more now? Yet I wish to be seen as I am, and would lose all rather than soften away anything. Let my friends be patient and gentle, and teach me to be so. I never premised any one patience or gentleness, for those beautiful traits are not natural to me; but I would learn them. Can I not?’

‘Of all the books, and men, and women, that have touched me these weeks past, what has most entered my soul is the music I have heard, — the masterly expression from that violin; the triumph of the orchestra, after the exploits on the piano; Braham, in this best efforts, when he kept true to the dignity of art; the Messiah, which has been given on two successive Sundays, and the last time in a way that deeply expressed its divine life; but above all, Beethoven’s seventh symphony. What majesty! what depth! what tearful sweetness! what victory! This was truly a fire upon an altar. There are a succession of soaring passages, near the end of the third move-