MT. 39.] TO SOPHIA THOREAU. 337
else, did, an inch or so. I said just enough to set them a little by the ears and make it lively. I had excused myself by saying that I could not adapt myself to a particular audience ; for all the speaking and lecturing here have ref erence to the children, who are far the greater part of the audience, and they are not so bright as New England children. Imagine them sit ting close to the wall, all around a hall, with old Quaker-looking men and women here and there. There sat Mrs. Weld [Grimke] and her sister, two elderly gray-headed ladies, the former in ex treme Bloomer costume, which was what you may call remarkable ; Mr. Arnold Buffum, with broad face and a great white beard, looking like a pier-head made of the cork-tree with the bark on, as if he could buffet a considerable wave ; James G. Birney, formerly candidate for the presidency, with another particularly white head and beard ; Edward Palmer, the anti-money man (for whom communities were made), with his ample beard somewhat grayish. Some of them, I suspect, are very worthy people. Of course you are wondering to what extent all these make one family, and to what extent twenty. Mrs. Kirkland l (and this a name only to me) I saw. She has just bought a lot here. They all know
1 Mrs. Caroline Kirkland, wife of Prof. William Kirkland, then of New York, a writer of wit and fame at that time.
