l organs intensified! We
could see every wrinkle and line in the fellow's face, could almost
count the stitches in his coat, and the more we looked, and the keener
and more searching became our observation, the more atrocious and subtle
became the fellow and his purpose. With a firmness that astonished
ourself, we said--

"_No, Sir_; if _you_ have business there or elsewhere, you had better
_go!_" and with this determined speech, we walked up to the desk, and
with the air of a "man of business" or the nonchalance of a hero, says
we--

"What are you after--have you any business with _us_?"

"You're kind of crusty, Mister," says he. "I'm canvassing this
State,--_wouldn't you like to subscribe for a first-rate map of
Missouri_, OR A NEW EDITION OF JOSEPHUS?"

We felt too mean all over to "subscribe," but we found a light, and soon
found in the stranger one of the best sort of fellows, a man of
information and morality, and, though he had _looked_ dangerous, he
turned out harmless as a lamb, and we got intimate as brothers before
Captain V---- returned that night.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Of all the public lecturers of our time and place, none have attracted
more attention from the press, and consequently the people, than RALPH
WALDO EMERSON.

Lecturing has become quite a fashionable science--and now, instead of
using the old style phrases for illustrating facts, we call travelling
preachers perambulating showmen, and floating politicians, _lecturers_.

As a lecturer, Ralph Waldo Emerson is extensively known around these
parts; but whether his lectures come under the head of law, logic,
politics, Scripture, or the show business, is a matter of much
speculation; for our own part, the more we read or hear of Ralph, the
more we don't know what it's all about.

Somebody has said, that to his singularity of style or expression,
Carlyle and his works owe their great notoriety or fame--and many
compare Ralph Waldo to old Carlyle. They cannot trace exactly any great
affinity between these two great geniuses of the flash literary school.
Carlyle writes vigorously, quaintly enough, but almost always speaks
when he says something; on the contrary, our flighty friend Ralph speaks
vigorously, yet says nothing! Of all men that have ever stood and
delivered in presence of "a reporter," none surely ever led these
indefatigable knights of the pen such a wild-goose chase over the
verdant and flowery pastures of King's Engli