and brings forth merely hazy and cloudy shapes. He should drink wine and eat meat, or at least, fish, so that there might be marrow and substance in his ideas. Marcus, too, was amused at the Conversation, but in his quiet way. Among the audience were some ladies with splendid, intelligent foreheads, and beautiful forms. But I did not hear them say a word: I wonder how they could sit still and listen in silence; for my part, I could not do it. And, although the company were invited to a new series of Conversations, this of a certainty will be the last at which I shall be present.
January 26th.—Alcott came to me yesterday afternoon; we conversed for two hours; he explained himself better during our dialogue than in his public Conversation, and I understood better than hitherto that there was really at the bottom of his reform-movement a true and excellent thought. This thought is the importance of an earnest and holy disposition of mind in those who enter into the bonds of wedlock, so that the union may be noble, and its offspring good and beautiful. His plans for bringing about these beautiful and holy marriages between good and beautiful people (for none other are to enter into matrimony—oh! oh! for the many!) may be right for aught I know. They are better and more accordant to human nature than those of Plato for the same purpose. But who will deny that it would be better for the world if they who cause human beings to be born into the world did it with a higher consciousness, with a deeper sentiment of responsibility. Marriage, looked at with reference to this subject, stands in general very low. A man and woman marry to be happy, selfishly happy, and beyond that the thought seldom extends; does not elevate itself to the higher thought—“we shall give life to immortal beings!” And yet, this is the highest purport of marriage. Married couples who
