e exhausting. I, however, loved
the children, and had many valuable thoughts suggested, and
Mr. A.'s society was much to me.

'As you may imagine, the Life of Goethe is not yet written;
but I have studied and thought about it much. It grows in
my mind with everything that does grow there. My friends in
Europe have sent me the needed books on the subject, and I
am now beginning to work in good earnest. It is very possible
that the task may be taken from me by somebody in England, or
that in doing it I may find myself incompetent; but I go on in
hope, secure, at all events, that it will be the means of the
highest culture.'

In addition to other labors, Margaret translated, one evening every
week, German authors into English, for the gratification of Dr.
Channing; their chief reading being in De Wette and Herder.

'It was not very pleasant,' she writes, 'for Dr. C. takes in
subjects more deliberately than is conceivable to us feminine
people, with our habits of ducking, diving, or flying for
truth. Doubtless, however, he makes better use of what he
gets, and if his sympathies were livelier he would not view
certain truths in so steady a light. But there is much more
talking than reading; and I like talking with him. I do not
feel that constraint which some persons complain of, but
am perfectly free, though less called out than by other
intellects of inferior power. I get too much food for thought
from him, and am not bound to any tiresome formality of
respect on account of his age and rank in the world of
intellect. He seems desirous to meet even one young and
obscure as myself on equal terms, and trusts to the elevation
of his thoughts to keep him in his place.'

She found higher satisfaction still in his preaching:--

'A discourse from Dr. C. on the spirituality of man's nature.
This was delightful! I came away in the most happy, hopeful,
and heroic mood. The tone of the discourse was so dignified,
his manner was so benignant and solemnly earnest, in his voice
there was such a concentration of all his force, physical and
moral, to give utterance to divine truth, that I felt purged
as by fire. If some speakers feed intellect more, Dr. C. feeds
the whole spirit. O for a more calm, more pervading faith
in the divinity of my own nature! I am so far from being
thoroughly temp