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Rh Mr. Emerson says that words cannot express his admiration of Mr. Phillips' lecture. Did you receive the paper containing Henry's article about it? I am glad that you like the Hutchinsons. One of our meetings last May was closed with their Emancipation Song,—the whole audience rising and joining in the last huzza.

"I long to see you in Concord again. We always have something stirring here. Aunt M. will, of course, tell you all the news. Remember me to your brother and sister and believe me ever yours,

3em

When Emerson, in 1834, came to his ancestral town, to mingle a poet's coveted quiet with delight in intellectual and congenial society, new impetus was given to the freedom and culture already existent in Concord, and a literary fame was added, which the writings of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott, and his daughter were destined to augment. Like nearly all New England towns of sixty years ago, Concord was, in aim, liberal and democratic in social and educational affairs, yet she maintained rigidly certain traditions and exclusions. Emerson's residence, bringing hither poets, philosophers, orators and reformers, of all social grades, acted somewhat as a social leveler and largely eliminated that aristocratic coldness so prevalent elsewhere in New England. Concord retained, and justly, pride in her family names of renown; to her venerable