Once, so ran Fraserville tradition, he had been engaged for the lyceum course at Springfield, Missouri, but his contract had been canceled when it was found that his discourse was unillumined by the stereopticon, that vivifying accessory being just then in high favor in that community.
Out of his own reading and reflections Allen had reached the conclusion that Franklin, Emerson, and Lincoln were the greatest Americans.

He talked a great deal of Lincoln and of the Civil War, and the soldiers' monument, in its circular plaza in the heart of the city, symbolized for him all heroic things.

He would sit on the steps in the gray shadow at night, waiting for Dan to finish some task at his office, and Harwood would find him absorbed, dreaming by the singing, foaming fountains.
Allen spoke with a kind of passionate eloquence of This Stupendous Experiment, or This Beautiful Experiment, as he liked to call America.
Dan put Walt Whitman into his hands and afterwards regretted it, for Allen developed an attack of acute Whitmania that tried Dan's patience severely.

Dan had passed through Whitman at college and emerged safely on the other side.

He begged Allen not to call him "camerado" or lift so often the perpendicular hand.