myself feel as the
others do. He does not take hold of my nature. He is too far back. I
am afraid I am too much of a modern. It is a pity, I know."

"It _is_ a pity," observed Mr. Emerson sarcastically. "What would
you read? The 'Morning Advertiser'?" The Chaucer Club glared at me in
what, I must say, I felt to be unholy triumph.

Not a glance of sympathy reached me, where I sat, demolished before
the rebuke of the great man. I distinctly heard a chuckle from a
feminine member. Yet, what had the dissenter done, or tried to do? To
be quite honest, only, in a little matter where affectation would
have been the flowery way; and I must say that I have never loved the
Father of English Poetry any better for this episode.

The point, however, at which I am coming is the effect wrought upon
Mr. Emerson's mind by the history of that club. It seemed to us
disproportionate to the occasion that he should feel and manifest so
much surprise at our existence. This he did, more than once, and with
a genuineness not to be mistaken.

That an organization for the study of Chaucer could subsist on Andover
Hill, he could not understand. What he thought us, or thought about
us, who can say? He seemed as much taken aback as if he had found a
tribe of Cherokees studying onomatopoeia in English verse.

"A _Chaucer_ club! In _Andover_?" he repeated. The seer was perplexed.

Of course, whenever we found ourselves in forms of society not in
harmony with our religious views, we were accustomed, in various ways,
to meet with a similar predisposition. As a psychological study this
has always interested me, just as one is interested in the attitude of
mind exhibited by the Old School physician towards the Homoeopathist
with whom he graduated at the Harvard Medical School. Possibly that
graduate may have distinguished himself with the honors of the school;
but as soon as he prescribes on the principles of Hahnemann, he is
not to be adjudged capable of setting a collar-bone. By virtue of
his therapeutic views he has become disqualified for professional
recognition. So, by virtue of one's religious views, the man or
woman of orthodox convictions, whatever one's proportion of personal
culture, is regarded with a gentle superiority, as being of a class
still enslaved in superstition, and therefore _per se_ barbaric.

Put in undecorated language, this is about the sum and substance of
a state of feeling which all intelligent evangelical Christians