It was new talk in their world.

But it impressed them.

Their boy was earnest, with a fine intelligence; he left them stirred.
Sharon Whipple was a silent, uneasy listener at many of these talks.

He declared, later and to others, for Merle was not his son, that the young man was highly languageous and highly crazy; that his talk was the crackling of thorns under a pot; that he was a vain canter--"forever canting," said Sharon--"a buffle-headed fellow, talking, bragging." He was equally intolerant of certain of Merle's little band of forward-looking intellectuals who came to stay week-ends at the Whipple New Place.

There was Emmanuel Schilsky, who talked more pithily than Merle and who would be the editor-in-chief of the projected _New Dawn_.
Emmanuel, too, had come from his far-off home to flush America's spiritual darkness with a new light.