mean wilfully intended founding one.  What a view must a man have of this Universe, who thinks “he can swallow it all,” who is not doubly and trebly happy that he can keep it from swallowing him!  On the whole, I sometimes hope we have now done with Fanatics and Agonistic Posture-makers in this poor world:  it will be an immense improvement on the Past; and the “New Ideas,” as Alcott calls them, will prosper greatly the better on that account!  The old gloomy Gothic Cathedrals were good; but the great blue Dome that hangs over all is better than any Cologne one.—­On the whole, do not tell the good Alcott a word of all this; but let him love me as he can, and live on vegetables in peace; as I, living partly on vegetables, will continue to love him!

The best thing Alcott did while he staid among us was to circulate some copies of your Man the Reformer.* I did not get a copy; I applied for one, so soon as I knew the right fountain; but Alcott, I think, was already gone.  And now mark,—­for this I think is a novelty, if you do not already know it:  Certain Radicals have reprinted your Essay in Lancashire, and it is freely circulating there, and here, as a cheap pamphlet, with excellent acceptance so far as I discern.  Various Newspaper reviews of it have come athwart me:  all favorable, but all too shallow for sending to you.  I myself consider it a truly excellent utterance; one of the best words you have ever spoken.  Speak many more such.  And whosoever will distort them into any “vegetable” or other crotchet,—­let it be at his own peril; for the word itself is true; and will have to make itself a fact therefore; though not a distracted abortive fact, I hope! Words of that kind are not born into Facts in the seventh month; well if they see the light full-grown (they and their adjuncts) in the second century; for old Time is a most deliberate breeder!—­But to speak without figure, I have been very much delighted with the clearness, simplicity, quiet energy and veracity of this discourse; and also with the fact of its spontaneous appearance here among us.  The prime mover of the Printing, I find, is one Thomas Ballantyne, editor of a Manchester Newspaper, a very good, cheery little fellow, once a Paisley weaver as he informs me,—­a great admirer of all worthy things.

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* “A Lecture read before the Mechanics’ Apprentices’ Library
Association, Boston, January 25, 1841.”
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My paper is so fast failing, let me tell you of the writer on Loyola.  He is a James Stephen, Head Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office,—­that is to say, I believe, real governor of the British Colonies, so far as they have any governing.  He is of Wilberforce’s creed, of Wilberforce’s kin; a man past middle age, yet still in full vigor; reckoned an enormous fellow for “despatch of business,” &c., especially by Taylor (van Artevelde) and others who are with him or under