Emerson told me once:
"I got together some people a little while ago to meet Alcott
and hear him converse. I wanted them to know what a rare
fellow he was. But we did not get along very well. Poor
Alcott had a hard time. Theodore Parker came all stuck full
of knives. He wound himself round Alcott like an anaconda;
you could hear poor Alcott's bones crunch."
Margaret Fuller used to visit Concord a good deal, and at
one time boarded in the village for several months.
She was very peculiar in her ways, and made people whom she
did not like feel very uncomfortable in her presence. She
was not generally popular, although the persons who knew her
best valued her genius highly. But old Doctor Bartlett, a
very excellent and kind old doctor, though rather gruff in
manner, could not abide her.
About midnight one very dark, stormy night the doctor was
called out of bed by a sharp knocking at the door. He got
up and put his head out of the window, and said, "Who's there?
What do you want?" He was answered by a voice in the darkness
below, "Doctor, how much camphire can anybody take by mistake
without its killing them?" To which the reply was, "Who's
taken it?" And the answer was "Margaret Fuller.
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