We know that if it was loftily uttered, it got a noble burst of applause from the villagers; yet there isn't a ray of sense in it, or meaning to it.
McClintock finished his education at Yale in 1843, and came to Hartford on a visit that same year.

I have talked with men who at that time talked with him, and felt of him, and knew he was real.

One needs to remember that fact and to keep fast hold of it; it is the only way to keep McClintock's book from undermining one's faith in McClintock's actuality.
As to the book.

The first four pages are devoted to an inflamed eulogy of Woman--simply woman in general, or perhaps as an institution--wherein, among other compliments to her details, he pays a unique one to her voice.

He says it "fills the breast with fond alarms, echoed by every rill." It sounds well enough, but it is not true.