"May God enable me to see the way clear, and not to let down the intellectual in raising the moral tone of my mind. Difficulties and duties became distinct the very night after my father's death, and a solemn prayer was offered then that I might combine what is due to others with what is due to myself. The spirit of that prayer I shall constantly endeavor to maintain."
This death, besides the sorrow and perplexity which followed it, brought to Margaret a disappointment which seemed to her to bar the fulfilment of her highest hopes. She had for two years been contemplating a visit to Europe, with a view to the better prosecution of her studies. She had earned the right to this indulgence beforehand, by assisting in the education of the younger children of the family. An opportunity now offered itself of making this journey under[{58}] the most auspicious circumstances. Her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Farrar, were about to cross the ocean, and had invited her to accompany them. Miss Martineau was to be of the party, and Margaret now saw before her, not only this beloved companionship, but also the open door which would give her an easy access to literary society in England, and to the atmosphere of old-world culture which she so passionately longed to breathe.
With this brilliant vision before her, and with her whole literary future trembling, as she thought, in the scale, Margaret prayed only that she might make the right decision. This soon became clear to her, and she determined, in spite of the entreaties of her family, to remain with her careworn mother, and not to risk the possibility of encroaching upon the fund necessary for the education of her brothers and sister.
Of all the crownings of Margaret's life, shall we not most envy her that of this act of sacrifice? So near to the feast of the gods, she prefers the fast of duty, and recognizes the claims of family affection as more imperative than the gratification of any personal taste or ambition.
Margaret does not seem to have been supported in this trial by any sense of its heroism. Her decision was to her simply a following of[{59}] the right, in which she must be content, as she says, to forget herself and act for the sake of others.
We may all be glad to remember this example, and to refer to it those who find themselves in a maze of doubt between what they owe to the cultivation of their own gifts, what to the need and advantage of those to whom they stand in near relation. Had Margaret at this time forsaken her darkened household, the difference to its members would have been very great, and she herself would have added to the number of those doubting or mistaken souls who have been carried far from the scene of their true and appointed service by some dream of distinction never to be fulfilled. In the sequel she was not only justified, but rewarded. The sacrifice she had made secured the blessings of education to the younger members of her family. Her prayer that the lifting of her moral nature might not lower the tone of her intellect was answered, as it was sure to be, and she found near at hand a field of honor and usefulness which the brilliant capitals of Europe would not have offered her.
Margaret's remaining days in Groton were passed in assiduous reading, and her letters and journals make suggestive comments on Goethe,[{60}] Shelley, Sir James Mackintosh, Herschel, Wordsworth, and others. Her scheme of culture was what we should now call encyclopedic, and embraced most, if not all, departments of human knowledge. If she was at all mistaken in her scope, it was in this, that she did not sufficiently appreciate the inevitable limitations of brain power and of bodily strength. Her impatience of such considerations led her to an habitual over-use of her brilliant faculties which resulted in an impaired state of health.
In the autumn of 1836 Margaret left Groton, not without acknowledgment of "many precious lessons given there in faith, fortitude, self-command, and unselfish love.
"There, too, in solitude, the mind acquired more power of concentration, and discerned the beauty of strict method; there, too, more than all, the heart was awakened to sympathize with the ignorant, to pity the vulgar, to hope for the seemingly worthless, and to commune with the Divine Spirit of Creation."[{61}]