ou fancy that you know--. It is too absurd; you have never seen
him. When I found him here, sitting like a statue, I was alarmed,
and thought him ill. You sit with courteous, _un_confiding smile, and
suppose him to be a mere man of talent. He is so with you. But the
moment I was alone with him, he was another creature; his manner, so
glassy and elaborate before, was full of soul, and the tones of
his voice entirely different.' And I have no doubt that she saw
expressions, heard tones, and received thoughts from her companions,
which no one else ever saw or heard from the same parties, and that
her praise of her friends, which seemed exaggerated, was her exact
impression. We were all obliged to recall Margaret's testimony, when
we found we were sad blockheads to other people.

I find among her letters many proofs of this power of disposing
equally the hardest and the most sensitive people to open their
hearts, on very short acquaintance. Any casual rencontre, in a
walk, in a steamboat, at a concert, became the prelude to unwonted
confidences.

* * * * *

1843.--'I believe I told you about one new man, a Philistine,
at Brook Farm. He reproved me, as such people are wont, for my
little faith. At the end of the first meeting in the hall, he
seemed to me perfectly hampered in his old ways and technics,
and I thought he would not open his mind to the views of
others for years, if ever. After I wrote, we had a second
meeting, by request, on personal relations; at the end of
which, he came to me, and expressed delight, and a 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
naivete. 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