ABSTRACT
This account of lectures by the American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) at the Manchester Athenaeum and the Mechanics’ Institute during the winter of 1847 is widely regarded as having been written by EG. The signature ‘From our Manchester Correspondent’ renders her authorship possible, although the attribution is still conjectural. William Howitt, writing to her on 17 November 1847, ended his letter with the comment, ‘The impressions made by Emerson’s lectures would be very acceptable. We have seen nothing of the kind yet’ (Waller, p. 105). Both WG and EG attended the second night of the lectures, in the company of their friends the Winkworths and Annie Shaen (see Winkworth, vol. i, pp. 130–2). Waller regards the alternative possibility of Catherine Winkworth having written the piece as unlikely. The casual opening, ‘Do any of your readers care to have the desultory impressions made upon an individual mind by three of Emerson’s lectures?’ is characteristic of the tone of EG’s essays, as is her personal response to the lecturer: ‘As I mean to tell you honestly my feelings, I must own that I was disappointed in the lecture.’ Emerson lectured on ‘Representative Men of Great Ideas’ on his 1847 tour, which began in London. The lectures at the Mechanics’ Institute, in Copper Street, near Cross Street Chapel, as EG notes, were on more discursive subjects. The lectures were later published as Representative Men (1850). EG’s account has not been reprinted.
