Margaret  Fuller,  too,  had  begun  her  series  of
"  Conversations "  in  Boston.  The  description  of
them  in  the  Life  of  her  by  Freeman  Clarke,
William  Henry  Channing,  and  Emerson,  is  from
Channing's  pen  and  her  own.  Her  conduct  of
these  classes,  as  they  were  called  for  want  of  a
better  name,  was  "  excellent,"  to  take  Mr.  Emer-
son's phrase.  She  sat  at  one  end  of  the  room,
and  the  body  of  visitors,  or  "  assistants,"  arranged
themselves  as  they  could,  so  that  they  might  see
and  hear  her.  Nine-tenths  of  them  were  in  the
mood  of  people  paying  homage,  which  indeed  she


252  Sixty  Years

well  deserved.  But  she  would  not  and  did  not
accept  it.  The  skill,  the  tact,  with  which  she
threw  back  the  ball  of  conversation,  so  as  to  start
this  listener  or  that,  and  the  success  with  which
she  made  him  speak  and  say  his  best,  were  clear
tokens  of  her  real  genius,  and,  more  than  anything
she  said  herself,  showed  that  she  was  the  mistress
of  the  company  and  of  the  occasion.
