Dear Sir, I went south As far as Portsmouth, And found a most charming old woman, Delightfully void Of all that's enjoyed By the animal vaguely called human. She has but one jaw, Has teeth like a saw, Her ears and her eyes I delight in: The one could not hear Tho' a cannon were near, The others are holes with no sight in. Her cinciput lies Just over her eyes, Not far from the bone parietal; The crown of her head, Be it vulgarly said, Is shaped like the back of a beetle. Destructiveness great Combines with conceit In the form of this wonderful noddle, But benev'lence, you know, And a large _philopro_ Give a great inclination to coddle. And so on. CHAPTER VIII FIRST YEARS IN BOSTON In the autumn of 1844 we returned from our wedding journey, and took up our abode in the near neighborhood of the city of Boston, of which at intervals I had already enjoyed some glimpses. These had shown me Margaret Fuller, holding high communion with her friends in her well-remembered conversations; Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was then breaking ground in the field of his subsequent great reputation; and many another who has since been widely heard of. I count it as one of my privileges to have listened to a single sermon from Dr. Channing, with whom I had some personal acquaintance. I can remember only a few passages. Its theme must have been the divine love; for Dr. Channing said that God loved black men as well as white men, poor men as well as rich men, and bad men as well as good men. This doctrine was quite new to me, but I received it gladly. The time was one in which the Boston community, small as it then was, exhibited great differences of opinion, especially regarding the new transcendentalism and the anti-slavery agitation, which were both held much in question by the public at large. While George Ripley, moved by a fresh interpretation of religious duty, was endeavoring to institute a phalanstery at Brook Farm, the caricatures of Christopher Cranch gave great amusement to those who were privileged to see them. One of these represented Margaret Fuller driving a winged team attached to a chariot on which was inscribed the name of her new periodical, "The Dial," while the Rev. Andrews Norton regarded her with holy horror. Another illustrated a passage from Mr. Emerson's essay on Nature--"I play upon myself. I am my own music"--by depicting an individual with a nose of preternatural length, pierced with holes like a flageolet, upon which his fingers sought the intervals. Yet Mr. Cranch belonged by taste and persuasion among the transcendentalists.