er helped me.' This was in a particular sense, of
course, for she helped all who knew her. She was interested in my
rough history, but could not be intimate, in any just sense, with
a soul so unbalanced, so inharmonious as mine then was. For my
part, I reverenced her. She was to me the embodiment of wisdom and
tenderness. I heard her converse, and, in the rich and varied
intonations of her voice, I recognized a being to whom every shade
of sentiment was familiar. She knew, if not by experience then by
no questionable intuition, how to interpret the inner life of
every man and woman; and, by interpreting, she could soothe and
strengthen. To her, psychology was an open book. When she came to
Brook Farm, it was my delight to wait on one so worthy of all
service,--to arrange her late breakfast in some remnants of
ancient China, and to save her, if it might be, some little
fatigue or annoyance, during each day. After a while she seemed to
lose sight of my more prominent and disagreeable peculiarities,
and treated me with affectionate regard."

Being a confirmed Socialist, I often had occasion to discuss with
Margaret the problems involved in the "Combined Order" of life; and
though unmoved by her scepticism, I could not but admire the sagacity,
foresight, comprehensiveness, and catholic sympathy with which she
surveyed this complicated subject. Her objections, to be sure, were of
the usual kind, and turned mainly upon two points,--the difficulty of
so allying labor and capital as to secure the hoped-for cooeperation,
and the danger of merging the individual in the mass to such degree
as to paralyze energy, heroism, and genius; but these objections were
urged in a way that brought out her originality and generous hopes.
There was nothing abject, timid, or conventional in her doubts. The
end sought she prized; but the means she questioned. Though pleased
in listening to sanguine visions of the future, she was slow to credit
that an organization by "Groups and Series" would yield due incentive
for personal development, while ensuring equilibrium through exact and
universal justice. She felt, too, that Society was not a machine to be
put together and set in motion, but a living body, whose breath must
be Divine inspiration, and whose healthful growth is only hindered
by forcing. Finally, while longing as earnestly as any Socialist for
"Liberty and Law made one in li