Through acquaintance with Thurlow Weed my father came to know Mr.
Greeley and through Mr. Greeley he came to know Dr. George Ripley and
the circle of literary folk in Boston of which he was the center. Boston
was not at that time a literary city. If there was a seat of literature
in America, then, it was to be found in Philadelphia, there being very
little visible evidence of literary activity, in the three-hilled town;
no Old Corner Book Store, no publishing house like Ticknor and Fields,
no _Scarlet Letter_, no _Atlantic Monthly_ and no _Evening Transcript_,
subsequently one of the best newspapers from a literary point of view
this country ever had. There was, however, at the period referred to,
about 1840, a coterie of brilliant intellectual people in Boston and
Cambridge many of whom attained, later, some degree of eminence in the
literary world.
These were young men and women of fine culture, liberal in opinion and
animated by a new spirit of the times which was in this country first
manifested in their midst.
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