II. GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT.
THIS was the golden age of hope and achieve ment for the Concord poets and philosophers. Their ranks were not yet broken by death (for Stearns Wheeler was hardly one of them), their spirits were high, and their faith in each other unbounded. Emerson wrote thus from Concord, while Thoreau was perambulating Staten Island and calling on " the false booksellers : " " Ellery Charming is excellent company, and we walk in all directions. He remembers you with great faith and hope ; thinks you ought not to see Concord again these ten years that you ought to grind up fifty Concords in your mill and much other opinion and counsel he holds in store on this topic. Hawthorne walked with me yes terday afternoon, and not until after our return did I read his Celestial Railroad, which has a serene strength which we cannot afford not to praise, in this low life."
The Transcendentalists had their " Quarterly," and even their daily organ, for Mr. Greeley put the " Tribune " at their service, and gave places
