Mr. Edgerton, a New England Transcendentalist, a thin, spare man, with a large nose, and a cast of Yankee shrewdness in his not unhandsome face, was not favorable to this plan. “I dislike,” he said, “associations. They absorb the individual, and establish social despotism. All set plans of world-reform are bad. Every one must have a theory, a plan, a Morrison’s pill. No one trusts to nature. None are satisfied with wild flowers or native forests. All seek an artificial garden. They will not hear the robin sing unless it is shut up in a cage. The rich undress of nature is an offence, and she must be decked out in the latest fashion of Paris or London, and copy the grimaces of a French dancing-master, or lisp like an Andalusian beauty, before they will open their hearts to her magic power. Say to all this, Get behind me, Satan. Dare assert yourselves; plant yourselves on your imperishable instincts; sing your own song of joy, your own wail of grief; speak your own word; tell what your own soul seeth, and leave the effect to take care of itself. Eschew the crowd, eschew self-consciousness, form no plan, propose no end, seek no moral, but speak out from your own heart; build as builds the bee her cell, sing as sings the bird, the grasshopper, or the cricket.” “So,” said Mr. Merton, a young man, with a fine classic head and face, who seemed to have been drawn hither by mere curiosity, “so you think the nearer men approach to birds and insects the better it will be for the world.” “I never dispute,” replied Mr. Edgerton. “I utter the word given me to utter, and leave it as the ostrich leaveth her eggs. Men should be seers, not philosophers; prophets, not reasoners. I never offer proof of what I say. I could not prove it, if asked. If it is true, genuine, the fit word, opportunely spoken, it will prove itself. If it approves not itself to you, it is not for you. You are not prepared to receive it. It is not true for you. Be it so. It is true for me, and for those like me. Fash not yourself about it, but leave us to enjoy it in peace.” “But are we to understand,” replied Mr. Merton, “that truth varies as vary individual minds?”