MY DEAR ----: I entreat you to find the correspondent of the New York
"Tribune," who reports Miss Vaughan's and Henry James's lectures in
Boston, and adjure her or him, as he or she values honesty and honor,
not to report any word of what Mr. Emerson may say or do at his coming
"Conversations." Tell the dangerous person that Mr. E. accepted this
task, proffered to him by private friends, on the assurance that the
audience would be composed of his usual circle of private friends, and
that he should be protected from any report; that a report is so
distasteful to him that it would seriously embarrass and perhaps
cripple or silence much that he proposes to communicate; and if the
individual has bought tickets, these shall gladly be refunded, and
with thanks and great honor of your friend,
R. W. EMERSON.
In spite of all these terrors, the "Conversations" were an entire
success, financially as well as otherwise.
I find in the diary:--
"This afternoon Mr. Emerson gave his first 'Conversation' in this
course, which ---- has arranged for him. He will make over fourteen
hundred dollars by these readings. There was much new and excellent
matter in the discourse to-day, and it was sown, as usual, with
felicitous quotations. His introduction was gracefully done. He said
he regarded the company around him as a society of friends whom it was
a great pleasure to him to meet. He spoke of the value of literature,
but also of the superior value of thought if it can be evolved in
other ways, quoting that old saying of Catherine de Medicis, who
remarked, when she was told of some one who could speak twenty
languages: 'That means he has twenty words for one idea.
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