Jo went prepared to bow down and adore the mighty ones whom she had worshiped with youthful enthusiasm afar off . But her reverence for genius received a severe shock that night , and it took her some time to recover from the discovery that the great creatures were only men and women after all . Imagine her dismay , on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on ` spirit , fire , and dew ' , to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance . Turning as from a fallen idol , she made other discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions . The great novelist vibrated between two decanters with the regularity of a pendulum ; the famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Staels of the age , who looked daggers at another Corinne , who was amiably satirizing her , after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher , who imbibed tea Johnsonianly and appeared to slumber , the loquacity of the lady rendering speech impossible . The scientific celebrities , forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods , gossiped about art , while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy ; the young musician , who was charming the city like a second Orpheus , talked horses ; and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party . Before the evening was half over , Jo felt so completely disillusioned , that she sat down in a corner to recover herself . Mr. Bhaer soon joined her , looking rather out of his element , and presently several of the philosophers , each mounted on his hobby , came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess . The conversations were miles beyond Jo 's comprehension , but she enjoyed it , though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods , the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms , and the only thing ` evolved from her inner consciousness ' was a bad headache after it was all over . It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces , and put together on new and , according to the talkers , on infinitely better principles than before , that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness , and intellect was to be the only God . Jo knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort , but a curious excitement , half pleasurable , half painful , came over her as she listened with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space , like a young balloon out on a holiday . She looked round to see how the Professor liked it , and found him looking at her with the grimmest expression she had ever seen him wear . He shook his head and beckoned her to come away , but she was fascinated just then by the freedom of Speculative Philosophy , and kept her seat , trying to find out what the wise gentlemen intended to rely upon after they had annihilated all the old beliefs . Now , Mr. Bhaer was a diffident man and slow to offer his own opinions , not because they were unsettled , but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken . As he glanced from Jo to several other young people , attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics , he knit his brows and longed to speak , fearing that some inflammable young soul would be led astray by the rockets , to find when the display was over that they had only an empty stick or a scorched hand . He bore it as long as he could , but when he was appealed to for an opinion , he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth -- an eloquence which made his broken English musical and his plain face beautiful . He had a hard fight , for the wise men argued well , but he did n't know when he was beaten and stood to his colors like a man . Somehow , as he talked , the world got right again to Jo . The old beliefs , that had lasted so long , seemed better than the new . God was not a blind force , and immortality was not a pretty fable , but a blessed fact .
She felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again , and when Mr. XXXXX paused , outtalked but not one whit convinced , Jo wanted to clap her hands and thank him .
Bhaer British Corinne English Professor Staels decanters pyrotechnics right second