The last passage describes a peculiar illumination, to which Margaret
often referred as the period when her earthly being culminated, and
when, in the noon-tide of loving enthusiasm, she felt wholly at one
with God, with Man, and the Universe. It was ever after, to her,
an earnest that she was of the Elect. In a letter to one of her
confidential female friends, she thus fondly looks back to this
experience on the mount of transfiguration:--

'You know how, when the leadings of my life found their
interpretation, I longed to share my joy with those I prized
most; for I felt that if they could but understand the past we
should meet entirely. They received me, some more, some less,
according to the degree of intimacy between our natures. But
now I have done with the past, and again move forward. The
path looks more difficult, but I am better able to bear its
trials. We shall have much communion, even if not in the
deepest places. I feel no need of isolation, but only of
temperance in thought and speech, that the essence may not
evaporate in words, but grow plenteous within. The Life will
give me to my own. I am not yet so worthy to love as some
others are, because my manifold nature is not yet harmonized
enough to be faithful, and I begin, to see how much it was the
want of a pure music in me that has made the good doubt me.
Yet have I been true to the best light I had, and if I am so
now much will be given.

'During my last weeks of solitude I was very happy, and all
that had troubled me became clearer. The angel was not weary
of waiting for Gunhilde, till she had unravelled her mesh of
thought, and seeds of mercy, of purification, were planted
in the breast. Whatever the past has been, I feel that I have
always been reading on and on, and that the Soul of all souls
has been patient in love to mine. New assurances were given
me, that if I would be faithful and humble, there was no
experience that would not tell its heavenly errand. If
shadows have fallen, already they give way to a fairer if more
tempered light; and for the present I am so happy that the
spirit kneels.

'Life, is richly worth living, with its continual revelations
of mighty woe, yet infinite hope: and I take it to my breast.
Amid these scenes of beauty, all that is little, foreign,
unworthy, vanishes like a dream. So s