"Not like to like, but like in difference; Yet in the long years liker must they grow,-- The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care; More as the double-natured poet each; Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words."
Incessant exertion in teaching and writing, added to pecuniary anxieties and domestic cares, had so exhausted Margaret's energy, in 1844, that she felt a craving for fresh interests, and resolved to seek an entire change of scene amid freer fields of action.
'The tax on my mind is such,' she writes,
'and I am so unwell, that I can scarcely keep up the spring of my spirits, and sometimes fear that I cannot go through with the engagements of the winter. But I have never stopped yet in fulfilling what I have undertaken, and hope I shall not be compelled to now. How farcical seems the preparation needed to gain a few moments' life; yet just so the plant works all the year round for a few days' flower.'
'I congratulate myself that I persisted, against every persuasion, in doing all I could last winter; for now I am and shall be free from debt, and I look on the position of debtor with a dread worthy of some respectable Dutch burgomaster. My little plans for others, too, have succeeded; our small household is well arranged, and all goes smoothly as a wheel turns round. Mother, moreover, has learned not to be over-anxious when I suffer, so that I am not obliged to suppress my feelings when it is best to yield to them. Thus, having more calmness, I feel often that a sweet serenity is breathed through every trifling duty. I am truly grateful for being enabled to fulfil obligations which to some might seem humble, but which to me are sacred.'
And in mid-summer comes this pleasant picture:--
'Every day, I rose and attended to the many little calls which are always on me, and which have been more of late. Then, about eleven, I would sit down to write, at my window, close to which is the apple-tree, lately full of blossoms, and now of yellow birds. Opposite me was Del Sarto's Madonna; behind me Silenus, holding in his arms the infant Pan. I felt very content with my pen, my daily bouquet, and my yellow birds. About five I would go out and walk till dark; then would arrive my proofs, like crabbed old guardians, coming to tea every night. So passed each day. The 23d of May, my birth-day, about one o'clock, I wrote the last line of my little book;[A] then I went to Mount Auburn, and walked gently among the graves.'