that this union of dullness and triviality annoyed him sorely and to his journal he confided some of his irritation. "Many will complain of my lectures, that they are transcendental and they can't understand them. 'Would you have us return to the savage state,' etc., a criticism true enough it may be, from their point of view. But the fact is that the earnest lecturer can speak only to his like, and adapting himself to his audience is a mere compliment which he pays them. . . . If you wish me to speak as if I were you, that is another matter."
In Worcester, Massachusetts, he lectured often, almost annually from 1849 to 1861. His friend, Mr. Harrison G. O. Blake, to whom more attention will be given under Thoreau's friends, began correspondence in March, 1848. From this time, Mr. Blake and another friend, Mr. Theophilus Brown, arranged lectures in Worcester before small, interested audiences, generally in the parlors of Mr. Blake's school. A small admittance fee was charged to meet expenses. As elsewhere, the audience was of two minds. Some were thrilled and stimulated to higher, nobler life; others, says a lady who attended many of the lectures, "could not understand what he meant and thought it was all nonsense." Another Worcester auditor has told me of her utter bewilderment at a lecture "all
