Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/253

 JET. 34.] TO MARSTON WATSON. 229

/

sons had organized Sunday services, that the Transcendentalists and Abolitionists might have a chance to be heard at a time when they were generally excluded from the popular &quot; Lyceum courses &quot; throughout New England. Mr. B. M. Watson says :

&quot; I have found two letters from Thoreau in answer to my invitation in 1852 to address our congregation at Leydeii Hall on Sunday morn ings, an enterprise I undertook about that time. I find among the distinguished men who addressed us the names of Thoreau, Emerson, Ellery Channing, Alcott, Higginson, Remond, S. Johnson, F. J. Appleton, Edmund Quincy, Garrison, Phillips, J. P. Lesley, Shackford, W. F. Channing, N. H. Whiting, Adiii Ballou, Abby K. Foster and her husband, J. T. Sargent, T. T. Stone, Jones Very, Wasson, Hurlbut, F. W. Holland, and Scherb ; so you may depend we had some fun.&quot;

These letters were mere notes. The first, dated February 17, 1852, says : &quot; I have not yet seen Mr. Channing, though I believe he is in town, having decided to come to Plymouth myself, but I will let him know that he is expected. Mr. Daniel Foster wishes me to say that he accepts your invitation, and that he would like to come Sunday after next. I will take the Saturday afternoon train. I shall be glad to