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 and turning to the young people said,
amidst profound silence, "If that young lady and young gentleman prefer
their conversation to my lecture, I should be greatly obliged if they
would continue it outside." The "aunt," he told us, looked daggers at
the poor girl, and the culprits themselves did not dare to so much as
exchange another glance during the rest of the evening; they looked so
uncomfortable that he felt quite sorry for them, and repented of his
irritability. At another place, where it was exceedingly cold, the man
in charge of the stoves took the opportunity to thrust in huge logs
with a great noise whenever he was unusually pathetic. He says that he
bore with this as Job could not have borne with it had he been tempted
to lecture there, but at last even his patience was exhausted, and he
thundered out "words of affectionate remonstrance, which effectually
prevented any more wood being used that evening."

[Footnote 184: The _Kansas City Times_ gave this amusing description
of the accident:--"Kansas City is not a smooth city. Its greatest
pride is its thousand hills, precipices, and bluffs. And the main
characteristics of its inhabitants are their lofty airs, loud tone,
and agility. This style is natural; it is acquired by hopping and
skipping from the top of one side-walk, across a chasm or ravine, to
the end of the "cut" or bluff, a limited distance, or across the street
to a ledge or plank, which offers a temporary relief from acrobatic
exercise. Bradlaugh is unused to Kansas City side-walks, and never
having practised tight-rope dancing, or walking upon an inclined plane
of forty-five degrees, found himself somewhat surprised on Thursday
morning. He had just left the Broadway, or Coates House, in company
with General Lamborn, of the Kansas Pacific, and was about to cross
Tenth Street, when he suddenly found himself falling; his feet slid
down the inclined plane called a crossing, which was covered with ice,
and he fell. Mr Bradlaugh is a large, heavy man, and had a great fear
of falling upon the edge of the pavement. He threw out his right hand,
and the full weight of his body came down upon his wrist. His hand
unfortunately struck upon the edge of some sharp substance, probably
the edge of the side-walk or curbing, the keen knife-like edge of which
tore through the palm of his hand, inflicting a serious wound, reaching
beyond the wrist, creating a painful but not dangerous hurt.... It is
a merciful providence that the life of this great and good man was
saved."]

Shortly after this he was at Chicago, and was amazed to see how
the city had recovered from the recent fire; the spectacle of the
magnificent buildings seemed like reopening a page from "Aladdin and
his Wonderful Lamp." Just before entering the lecture hall he saw a
face he hardly recognised. "It was one I had not seen for a quarter
of a century," he said. "'Don't you know me, Mr Bradlaugh?' was the
greeting, and the voice seemed more familiar than the face. My memory
went back to the days when food was short, and when I shared the
scanty meal with the questioner, her mother, and her sister at Warner
Place; but twenty-five years had sufficiently blotted the memory and
blurred the page to confuse me in the recognition. Half-hesitatingly,
I said, 'I am not quite sure; I think it is Hypatia.' I was wrong,
however; it was her sister Theophila. And thus, after so long a time,
I was again brought face to face with the daughters of one to whom the
English freethought party in great measure owe the free press and free
platforms we use to-day." He only stayed in Chicago one night, and had
but a short interview with his old friends; yet even that brief glimpse
of them brought him a throb of pain, "for," he said, "I could not help
wondering whether, thirty years after my death, my own daughters might
be in a strange land so entirely overlooked" as these ladies were.

From Chicago he went to Kalamazoo, and there the news of the death of
his lecture-agent compelled his instant return to New York. He was very
feverish and unwell at this time; his general health suffering from the
effects of the wound in his hand, which had now become greatly swollen
and inflamed, and caused him acute pain. The last days of the year
found him once more in Boston, and they were made ever memorable to
him by his first meeting with Ralph Waldo Emerson at a reception given
by Mrs Sargent. As soon as he was able to use a pen--although writing
was for some long time a matter of pain and difficulty--he himself
described his meeting with Emerson, the hero of his boyhood's days.

"On Wednesday, December 31st," he wrote, "I had my first interview with
Ralph Waldo Emerson, at a reception given to him by Mrs Sargent at
her residence in Chestnut Street. The rooms were filled by a company
of probably the most chosen amongst New England's illustrious men
and women, gathered to give greeting to 'the sage of Concord.'...
My hostess gratified me soon after my arrival by searching me out
amongst the crowd with the welcome words, 'Mr Emerson is specially
inquiring for you.' I soon found myself face to face with a kind,
truthful-looking man, reminding me somewhat in his countenance of the
late Robert Owen. After a few words of introductory converse, I was
assigned a chair, which had been specially preserved for me, next to
Mr Emerson. The afternoon will always be memorable to me. Ralph Waldo
Emerson commenced by quietly and unaffectedly reading in a clear,
measured voice his new poem on 'The Tea-party Centennial.' His manner
was so gentle that he seemed only reading it to one person, and yet his
voice was so distinct that it filled the room with its lowest tones.
When Mr Emerson ceased reading, a little to my surprise, and much
to my delight, I was called upon to speak. Twenty-six years before,
when too poor to buy the book, I had copied out parts of the famous
lecture on 'Self-Reliance,' and now I stood in the presence of the
great preacher, at least an example of a self-reliant man. After my
tribute of respectful and earnestly thankful words to Emerson as one
of the world's teachers, I could not refrain from using the spirit of
his lines to ground a comparison between the public opinion of Boston
in 1773 and 1873. Mr Emerson smiled an almost fatherly approbation
of my very short speech; but, what the _Traveller_ terms my 'kindly,
courteous, but frank rebuke of the spirit of the age,' called forth
quite a lively debate, which was opened by Wendell Phillips, who was
followed by Henry Wilson, by the Rev. Mr Alger, and Dr Bartol, then by
Mr Alcott, and last, but by no means least, by a notable woman, Julia
Ward Howe. Mrs Howe strongly recalled to me the cold, intellectual
face of Archbishop Manning, but she manifested feeling as well as
intellect in her brief address. Wendell Philips spoke a second time,
and to my immense delight, for it gave me a better opportunity of
judging the greatest orator in New England. I fully expected that Mr
Emerson, 

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