tyosityivityalityationmentnessism_.'

My friend said this with a face nearly as long as the word, made a low
bow, and departed. I took my pen and reduced our conversation to writing.
I hope by this time the reader has a very lucid answer to give to the
question, _What is Transcendentalism?_ It will be a miracle if he can see
one inch farther into the fog-bank than before. I should like to take back
the boast made in the beginning of this paper, that I could prove in five
minutes any reasonable man a transcendentalist. My friend disconcerted my
plan of battle, by taking command of the enemy's forces, instead of
allowing me to marshal them on paper to suit myself; and so a mere
friendly joust ensued, instead of the utter demolition of my adversary,
which I had intended.

And this little circumstance has led me to think, what a miserable
business controversialists would make of it, if each had his opponent
looking over his shoulder, pointing out flaws in his arguments, suggesting
untimely truths, and putting every possible impediment in the path of his
logic; and if, moreover, he were obliged to mend every flaw, prove every
such truth a falsehood, and remove every impediment before he could
advance a step. Were such the case, how much less would there be of
fine-spun theory and specious argument; how much more of practical truth!
Always supposing the logical combatants did not lose their patience and
resort to material means and knock-down arguments; of which, judging by
the spirit sometimes manifested in theological controversies, there would
really seem to be some danger. Oh! it is a very easy thing to sit in one's
study and demolish an opponent, who after all is generally no opponent at
all, but only a man of straw, dressed up for the occasion with a few
purposely-tattered shreds of the adversary's cast-off garments.

* * * * *

NOTE BY THE 'FRIEND.'--The foregoing is a _correct_ sketch of our
conversations, especially as the reporter has, like his congressional
brother, corrected most of the bad grammar, and left out some of the
vulgarisms and colloquialisms, and given me the better side of the
argument in the last conversation; it is _very_ correct. But it seems to
me that the question put at the commencement is as far from being solved
as ever. It is as difficult to be answered as the question, What is
Christianity? to which every sect will return a different reply, and each
prove al