az ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
music in Boston and refined taste in selection. An 
orchestra of twenty-three musicians, some of them 
amateurs, gave concerts in the Odeon and among 
other great compositions rendered Beethoven’s Fifth 
Symphony. All Boston went to hear these concerts, 
and the zsthetes from Brook Farm took possession 
of the gallery and listened no doubt to the music of the 
spheres. Their generous experiment in democracy was 
then at the full tide of its hopes for humanity. Mar- 
garet Fuller’s talks were the wonder of the times; 
Alcott and Thoreau were trying experiments in liv- 
ing, and Emerson looked on, sympathized and held 
himself aloof from all that savored of exaggeration 
or bad taste. Transcendentalism was at its height, 
indignation at the negro slavery was surging in many 
hearts, and meanwhile alongside of all these enthu- 
siasms a most conventional social world moved on 
as placidly as if nothing in Boston would ever change. 
Boston was then a small and very pretty city. 
The Common was in its perfection, a charming little 
park. The streets around it were picturesque with 
houses individual in style and of a comfortable char- 
acter. The Back Bay was still a bay. There was an 
odd attempt made to turn the Public Garden into a 
private park owned in shares, where there was a con- 
servatory, an aviary, and a faint attempt at a menag- 
erie. I remember my boundless pride when our 
grandfather gave to me among others, a life ticket 
to this infant Jardin des Plantes, but our lives would 
have been short indeed, if we had not survived the 
utility of our tickets, for this enterprise was soon 
