cups of coffee for a year. "We can have him once in three or four
seasons," said the committees. But really they had him all the time
without knowing it. He was the philosopher Proteus, and he spoke
through all the more popular mouths. The speakers were acceptable
because they were liberal, and he was the great liberalizer. They
were, and they are, the middle-men between him and the public. They
watered the nectar, and made it easy to drink.

The Easy Chair heard from time to time of Proteus on the platform--how
he was more and more eccentric--how he could not be understood--how
abrupt his manner was. But the Chair did not believe that the flame
which had once been so pure could ever be dimmer, especially as he
recognized its soft lustre on every aspect of life around him.

After many years the opportunity to hear him came again; and although
the experiment was dangerous the Chair did not hesitate to try it. The
hall was pretty and not too large, and the audience was the best that
the country could furnish. Every one came solely to hear the speaker,
for it was one lecture in a course of his only. It was pleasant to
look around and mark the famous men and the accomplished women
gathering quietly in the same city where they used to gather to hear
him a quarter of a century before. How much the man who was presently
to speak had done for their lives, and their children's, and the
country! The power of one man is not easily traced in its channels and
details, but it is marked upon the whole. The word "transcendentalism"
has long passed by. It has not, perhaps, even yet gone out of fashion
to smile at wisdom as visionary, but this particular wise man had been
acquitted of being understood by my daughters, and there were rows of
"hardheads," "practical people," curious and interesting to
contemplate in the audience.