Emerson would give his most direct and unreserved account of his cascading admiration for Margaret—admiration not flourished to impress, as his public commemoration of her after her death would be—in the unadorned candor of his journal: A pure and purifying mind, self-purifying also, full of faith in men and inspiring it. Unable to find any companion great enough to receive the rich effusions of her thought, so that her riches are still unknown and seem unknowable….All natures seem poor beside one so rich, which pours a stream of amber over all objects, clean and unclean, that lie in its
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