There was plenty of good-fellowship, no doubt, and good cheer, but also the chill of a certain reserve.

The talk seems, after all the years, to have been essentially serious--men expressing themselves not lightly, but judicially, and after long deliberation; Mr.
Bryant gravely conceding the right of Pope or Dryden or Watts, according to the subject of discussion, to be ranked as a poet, or denying the same, while members of lesser note sat about listening and nodding, but preserving becoming reticence.

There was almost a Bostonese austerity about the great men of that early time and circle.

They wore their garments as Roman Senators wore their togas.

It was not good form for the stranger to break lightly into the talk of the Immortals.