Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/201

 of ultra-idealism in his philosophy. He has fought against the Jesuits in Switzerland, and is now a teacher and lecturer in America. Lastly, I made the acquaintance of a Doctor Jackson, the discoverer of the somnific effects of ether on the human frame and consciousness, and for which he received a medal from our King Oscar, which was shown to me. He made the discovery entirely by accident, as he has described. I congratulated him on having thus become the means of an infinite blessing to millions of suffering beings.

I left Concord accompanied by this gentleman, who is brother to Mrs. Emerson. But Concord did not leave my memory; its snow-covered scenery; its blue, clear sky; its human beings; its transcendentalists:—all that I had experienced, heard and seen in Concord, and most of all, its sphinx (as Maria Lowell calls Emerson), these all form a sort of alpine region in my mind which has a power of fascination for me, and to which I shall long to return as to the scenes and sights of my native land.

When I reached home last evening I found Marcus S., who had come hither on business. It was a heart-felt joy to me, to see, once more, that excellent, good friend. After I had spent an hour in conversing with him and Mr. Sumner, I went with Marcus to Alcott's concluding “Conversation,” where several pre-arranged topics with regard to diet and its importance to humanity, were discussed. Alcott maintained that all high and holy teachers of the human race had paid great attention to diet, and in particular had abstained from flesh. Some one said that Christ had eaten flesh. Another said that that could not be proved. A third said that he, at all events, had eaten fish. I said that that stood written in the Gospels. A second agreed. “No matter,” said Alcott, “I know better than to eat fish.”

The man is incorrigible. He drinks too much water,