You must have written me since July. I have reckoned upon
your projected visit the ensuing summer or autumn, and have
conjectured the starlike influences of a new spiritual element.
Especially Lectures. My own experiments for one or two winters,
and the readiness with which you embrace the work, have led me to
think much and to expect much from this mode of addressing men.
In New England the Lyceum, as we call it, is already a great
institution. Beside the more elaborate courses of lectures in
the cities, every country town has its weekly evening meeting,
called a Lyceum, and every professional man in the place is
called upon, in the course of the winter, to entertain his
fellow-citizens with a discourse on whatever topic. The topics
are miscellaneous as heart can wish. But in Boston, Lowell,
Salem, courses are given by individuals. I see not why this is
not the most flexible of all organs of opinion, from its
popularity and from its newness permitting you to say what you
think, without any shackles of prescription. The pulpit in our
age certainly gives forth an obstructed and uncertain sound, and
the faith of those in it, if men of genius, may differ so much
from that of those under it, as to embarrass the conscience of
the speaker, because so much is attributed to him from the fact
of standing there. In the Lyceum nothing is presupposed. The
orator is only responsible for what his lips articulate. Then
what scope it allows! You may handle every member and relation
of humanity. What could Homer, Socrates, or St. Paul say that
cannot be said here? The audience is of all classes, and its
character will be determined always by the name of the lecturer.
Why may you not give the reins to your wit, your pathos, your
philosophy, and become that good despot which the virtuous