icture. The heads of Lincoln, Stanton, and Seward nearly finished,
and good portraits.

"Dressed for dinner at Mrs. Eames's, where Secretary Chase and Senator
Sumner were expected. Mr. Chase is a stately man, very fine looking and
rather imposing. I sat by him at dinner; he was very pleasant. After
dinner came Mrs. Douglas in her carriage, to take me to my reading.
Senator Foster and Mr. Chase announced their intention of going to hear
me. Mr. Chase conducted me to Mrs. Douglas's carriage, promising to
follow. 'Proteus, or the Secret of Success,' was my topic. I had many
pleasant greetings after the lecture. Mr. Chase took me in his carriage
to his house, where his daughter had a party for Teresa Carreno. Here I
was introduced to Lord Lyons, British minister, and to Judge Harris.
Spoke with Bertinatti, the Italian minister. Mr. Chase took me in to
supper.

"Mr. Channing brought me into the room, which was well filled. People
were also standing in the entry and on the stairs. I read my lecture on
'The Third Party.' The audience proved very attentive, and included many
people of intelligence. George W. Julian and wife, Solomon Whiting,
Admiral Davis, Dr. Peter Parker, our former minister to China, Hon.
Thomas Eliot, Governor Boutwell, Mrs. Southworth, Professor Bache,--all
these, and many more, were present. They shook hands with me, very
cordially, after the lecture."

I had announced "Practical Ethics" as the theme of my lectures, and had
honestly written them out of my sense of the lapses everywhere
discernible in the working of society. Having accomplished so much, or
so little, I desired to go more deeply into the study of philosophy,
and, having greedily devoured Spinoza, I turned to Kant, whom I knew
only by name. I fed upon his volumes with ever increasing delight and
yet endeavored to obey one of his rules, by having a philosophy of my
own. Among my later productions was an essay entitled "Distinctions
between Philosophy and Religion." This was suggested by a passage in one
of Spinoza's letters, in which he says to his correspondent, "I thought
that we were to correspond upon matters of philosophy. I find that
instead of these you propose to me questions of religion." On reading
this sentence I felt that, in the religious teaching of our own time,
the two were apt to be confounded. It seemed to me that even Theodore
Parker had not always distinguished the boundary line, and I began to
reflect seriously upon th