Such were the horrible tidings my uncle was bearing to my grandmother and my aunts, instead of the living presence they were expecting. This incident left an ineradicable impression upon my mind. There was one peculiar thing about the accident of the Lexington that struck me at the time as being weird and unforgettable. When the ship went to pieces the pilot-house was shattered, and a portion of it floated away and lodged against the rocks near the shore. The bell itself was uninjured, and still swung from its hangings, and there it remained, clanging dolorously in every wind. It seemed to my boyish fancy to be tolling perpetually for the dead of the Lexington. Years afterward, while making a speech in a political campaign, I made use of this incident. I said the Democratic party of the day was adrift from its ancient moorings, and was always calling up something of the remote past. It was like the bell of the Lexington, caught upon the rocks that had wrecked the ship and tolling forever for the dead. George Ripley, who was the leader at Brook Farm and, long afterward, was associated with Charles A. Dana in the preparation of the American Cyclopedia, was at one time my school-teacher on Waltham Plains. General Nathaniel P. Banks, who was a few years older than I, was chairman of our library committee. We used to have lectures in Rumford Hall. (By the way, this hall was named for Count Rumford, whom most persons take to have been a German or other foreigner, on account of his foreign title; but he was an American.) The lecture night was always a great event in Waltham. One day a man came to me and said, "Here is a remarkable letter." He read it to me, and it was as follows: "_To the Library Committee, Waltham:_ "I will come to lecture for $5 for myself, but ask you for four quarts of oats for my horse. "RALPH WALDO EMERSON." The lecture that Mr. Emerson delivered for us boys of the library committee in Waltham was entitled "Nature." We paid him $5 and four quarts of oats for it. He delivered it many times afterward, when his name was on every lip in the civilized world, and he received $150 to $500 for each delivery. He was just as great then, in that hour in the little old town of Waltham; it was the same lecture, with the same exquisite thought and marvelous wisdom; but it took years for the world to recognize the greatness and the beauty and the wisdom of him, and to value them at their higher worth. The world paid for the name, not for the lecture or the truth and beauty.