'These are but opinions to Carlyle; but to Mazzini, who has given his
all, and helped bring his friends to the scaffold in pursuit of such
subjects, it is a matter of life and death.'"

Clearly, Carlyle had not, in Margaret's estimation, the true gospel. She
would not bow to the Titanic forces, whether met with in the romances of
Sand or in his force-theory. And so, bidding him farewell with great
admiration, she passes on, as she says, "more lowly, more willing to be
imperfect, since Fate permits such noble creatures, after all, to be
only this or that. Carlyle is only a lion."

Carlyle, on his side, writes of her to Mr. Emerson:--

"Margaret is an excellent soul: in real regard with both of us here.
Since she went, I have been reading some of her papers in a new Book we
have got: greatly superior to all I knew before: in fact, the undeniable
utterances (now first undeniable to me) of a truly heroic mind;
altogether unique, so far as I know, among the writing women of this
generation; rare enough, too, God knows, among the writing men. She is
very narrow, sometimes, but she is truly high. Honor to Margaret, and
more and more good speed to her."

At a later day he sums up his impressions of her in this wise:--

"Such a predetermination to eat this big Universe as her oyster or her
egg, and to be absolute empress of all height and glory in it that her
heart could conceive, I have not before seen in any human soul. Her
'mountain me,'[B] indeed; but her courage, too, is high and clear, her
chivalrous nobleness _a toute epreuve_."

Margaret's high estimate of Mazzini will be justified by those who knew
him or knew of him:--

"Mazzini, one of these noble refugees, is not only one of the heroic,
the courageous, and the faithful,--Italy boasts many such,--but he is
also one of the wise,--one of those who, disappointed in the outward
results of their undertakings, can yet 'bate no jot of heart and hope,'
but must 'steer right onward.' For it was no superficial enthusiasm, no
impatient energies, that impelled him, but an understanding of what must
be the designs of Heaven with regard to man, since God is Love, is
Justice. He is one of those beings who, measuring all things by the
ideal standard, have yet no time to mourn over failure or imperfection;
there is too much to be done to obviate it."

She finds in his papers, published in the "People's Journal," "the
purity of impulse, largeness and steadiness of view, and fin