"  Do  you  understand  Mr.  Emerson?  "  asked  one.
"  Not  a  word,  but  I  like  to  go  and  see  him  stand  up
there  and  look  as  if  he  thought  every  one  was  as  good
as  he  was."

Another  nudged  his  neighbor  and  asked :  "  Don't
you  think  we  could  understand  him  better  if  we  stood
on  our  heads  ?  '

The  impressions  of  Lowell,  who  heard  him  as  a
young  man,  are  interesting:  "It  was  as  if,  after
vainly  trying  to  get  his  paragraphs  into  sequence  and
order,  he  had  at  last  tried  the  desperate  expedient  of
shuffling  them  .  .  .  Did  you  say  he  was  disconnected  ?
So  were  the  stars."  And  later,  in  a  letter  to  Norton :
"  Emerson's  oration  was  more  disjointed  than  usual,
even  with  him.  It  began  nowhere  and  ended  every-
where, and  yet,  as  usual  with  that  divine  man,  it  left
you  feeling  that  something  beautiful  had  passed  that
way  —  something  more  beautiful  than  anything  else.
.  .  .  Every  possible  criticism  might  have  been  made  on
it  but  one, —  that  it  was  not  noble  .  .  .  He  boggled,
he  lost  his  place,  he  had  to  put  on  his  glasses;  but  it
was  as  if  a  creature  from  some  fairer  world  had  lost
his  way  in  our  fogs,  and  it  was  our  fault,  not  his.  .  ..
