of a woman. In spite of all this she associated with them as their equal at least, and was really for a time, as editor of the “Dial,” their organizer and their point of union.
Sharing their advantages, she also shared, to some extent, their drawbacks. If they, with all their more regular training, were yet apt to be discursive, unsystematic, with too much reliance on intuition and imagination, — if that in short was the habit of the time, — it was natural that she should share the fault. Her defects were those of Emerson and of Thoreau; and yet, after her “Tribune” training, she learned to shorten her sword better than either of these; became more capable of precise concentration on a specified point. It is also to be noted that, unlike them, she cannot be judged by her maturest work; not a page of her history of the Roman republic of 1848 remains; we can only infer what it might have been from the progress already seen.
And sharing also the drawbacks, she also shared inevitably the prejudices that her companions inspired. These prejudices might be divided into two general heads; it was thought that they were unintelligible and it was said — if this was not indeed the same allegation — that they were German. It is now difficult to recall the peculiar suspicion that was attached to any one in America, forty years ago, who manifested much interest in German thought. Immanuel Kant is now claimed as a corner-stone of religion by evangeli-
