John Brown went now, grave and severe, his whole nature breathing a terrible earnestness, to New England, demanding rather than asking fresh support for the reorganization of his band. He talked at Concord Town Hall, and the sight and thought of him inspired Concord to an unwonted fire. He impressed the people with his marvellous simplicity. "He is so transparent," Emerson said, "that all men see him through." Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott went to hear him; and no one of them ever wrote anything better than the praise that each one lavished, at this moment, on the old fanatic. These oracles of Concord spoke of Brown as if they had seen a spirit.
Brown was much at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Stearns at Medford, his truest friends and most generous benefactors and supporters. They endured
