The case was tried in
Boston next day, and Mr. Sanborn was adjudged to have the right of it. A
lively celebration followed in the Concord town hall that evening, and
Miss Sarah Sanborn was presented with an elegant revolver; but the old
borough had not been so stirred up since '75.
The place was not without some small entertainments. Every autumn there
was an annual cattle-show at which the same bulls, horses and poultry
were brought for exhibition, and one might suppose also the same fruit
and vegetables; for they differed little in appearance from one year to
another. A live bittern in a cage of laths was an unusual curiosity.
Ventriloquists and every kind of a juggler, as well as native Indians
and the wild men of Borneo, came to perform in the town hall.
Then there was the Concord Lyceum. People in those days believed in
obtaining nourishment for the mind as well as the body. Pretty dry
nourishment it often proved to be; but it served to bring them together
for an hour or two, and take them out of themselves and their dull
routine. Wiser remarks and more fresh information were sometimes heard
upon the stairway than in the lecture-hall.
Yet Emerson was always good, and every man and woman who came to hear
him probably felt better for it, even if they were unable to comprehend
what he said to them. In the mind's eyes one can see now his spare
figure standing at the desk between two large kerosene lamps, bending
forward slightly to catch the familiar sentence with his eye, and then
calmly surveying his audience as if to see where he could deliver it
most effectively.
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