A cloth on the table where dear Plato sits By one of the Graces was spread With the single request that he would not design New patterns with black ink or red. And when he is soaring away in the clouds I beg he'll remember and think Though the "blackbirds" are fair his cloth will be fairer For not being deluged with ink. May plenty of paper of pens and of quiet To my dear pa forever be given Till he has written such piles that when on the top He can walk calmly on into Heaven. CHAPTER IX FRIENDSHIPS AND BELIEFS RARE friendships existed among the great minds of that period, when Transcendentalism in America was first talked and lived, a close bond of sympathy uniting Bronson Alcott, Emerson, Thoreau, Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody. Such association made its impress upon the Alcott daughters. Anna's diary is filled with references to visits with the Emersons. Louisa's deal less with the family and more with the intellectual life of the great philosopher, whom she made her idol. Through life he was her stanch and understanding friend. "The Apostles of the Newness" was the scoffing term applied to these literary giants of New England by those who lacked the mental and spiritual insight to recognize greatness in others. This attitude of ridicule was largely responsible for the continued attacks upon the _Dial_, a quarterly issued by the Transcendentalists, edited from 1840 to 1844 by Emerson, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, and Thoreau. Between its modest covers were many of the intellectual masterpieces of the time: its rare volumes are still treasure-houses of literature which to-day command any price. Mr. Alcott selected its title and was to a large extent responsible for its policy. His Orphic Sayings in the _Dial_, now looked upon as classics, were the butt of the press at the time, and the derision of Boston society. In these Orphic Sayings, he gave this remarkable definition of Reform: "Reforms are the noblest of facts. Extant in time, they work for eternity: dwelling with men, they are with God." Conversation among these friends was neither trivial nor useless, and in the Alcott circle, which included Emerson, Thoreau, Theodore Parker, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Elizabeth Peabody, Mrs. Cheney, and other of the early Transcendentalists, later on augmented by James Russell Lowell and Nathaniel Hawthorne, a series of drawing-room symposiums was established, with Alcott, whom Emerson called "serious and superior," as a leader. Much of the substance of these conversations is found in the Alcott journals, and in the unpublished manuscripts of the poet-philosopher.