Emerson follows out the train of influences which added themselves to the impulse given by Mr. Everett.  German scholarship, the growth of science, the generalizations of Goethe, the idealism of Schelling, the influence of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, of Carlyle, and in our immediate community, the writings of Channing,—­he left it to others to say of Emerson,—­all had their part in this intellectual, or if we may call it so, spiritual revival.  He describes with that exquisite sense of the ridiculous which was a part of his mental ballast, the first attempt at organizing an association of cultivated, thoughtful people.  They came together, the cultivated, thoughtful people, at Dr. John Collins Warren’s,—­Dr. Channing, the great Dr. Channing, among the rest, full of the great thoughts he wished to impart.  The preliminaries went on smoothly enough with the usual small talk,—­

“When a side-door opened, the whole company streamed in to an oyster supper, crowned by excellent wines [this must have been before Dr. Warren’s temperance epoch], and so ended the first attempt to establish aesthetic society in Boston.

“Some time afterwards Dr. Channing opened his mind to Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and with some care they invited a limited party of ladies and gentlemen.  I had the honor to be present.—­Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, Dr. Convers Francis, Theodore Parker, Dr. Hedge, Mr. Brownson, James Freeman Clarke, William H. Channing, and many others gradually drew together, and from time to time spent an afternoon at each other’s houses in a serious conversation.”

With them was another, “a pure Idealist,—­who read Plato as an equal, and inspired his companions only in proportion as they were intellectual.”  He refers, of course to Mr. Alcott.  Emerson goes on to say:—­

“I think there prevailed at that time a general belief in Boston that there was some concert of doctrinaires to establish certain opinions, and inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, and religion, of which design the supposed conspirators were quite innocent; for there was no concert, and only here and there two or three men and women who read and wrote, each alone, with unusual vivacity.  Perhaps they only agreed in having fallen upon Coleridge and Wordsworth and Goethe, then on Carlyle, with pleasure and sympathy.  Otherwise their education and reading were not marked, but had the American superficialness, and their studies were solitary.  I suppose all of them were surprised at this rumor of a school or sect, and certainly at the name of Transcendentalism, given, nobody knows by whom, or when it was applied.”

Emerson’s picture of some of these friends of his is so peculiar as to suggest certain obvious and not too flattering comments.