Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/262

Rh partly I have been so indisposed, and so depressed in mind, that I have not been able to write; and in part the daily desire to see people and things, the receiving of visits and letters, and such like, have so wholly occupied me that my letters home have suffered in consequence. This also can be merely the slightest summa summarum of the last fortnight's occurrences, for they have come on like a torrent, and I can scarcely remember their detail.

I was present at two other Conversations of Alcott's before I left Boston. They attracted me by Emerson's presence, and the part he took in them. Many interesting persons and persons of talent were present, and the benches were crowded. The conversation was to bear upon the principal tendencies of the age.

First one, then another clever speaker rose, but it was most difficult to centralise. The subjects had a strong inclination to go about through space like wandering stars, without sun or gravitation. But the presence of Emerson never fails to produce a more profound and more earnest state of feeling, and by degrees the conversation arranged itself into something like observation and reply; in particular, through Emerson's good sense in calling upon certain persons to express their sentiments on certain questions. A somewhat unpolished person in the crowd suddenly called upon Emerson, with a rude voice, to stand forth and give a reason for what he meant by “the moral right of victory on earth, and justice of Providence, and many more absurd phrases which he makes use of in his writings, and which were totally opposed to the doctrines of Christianity, the testimony of the martyrs, and which would make all martyrs to be fools or cheats?” The tone in which this inquiry was made was harsh, and in the spirit of an accusation. The whole assembly directed their eyes to Emerson. I could perceive that he breathed somewhat quicker, but when, after