From this time the paths of these two young scholars diverged. Emerson
became an idealist and an ethical reformer. Elizur Wright became a
realist and a political reformer. Realism seems to belong to the soil of
Ohio.
Ill health came next in turn, a natural consequence of his severe life at
Yale College. He was obliged to leave his school, and for an occupation
he circulated tracts for the American Congregational Society, making a
stipulation, however, which was characteristic of him, that he should not
distribute any that ran contrary to his convictions. In this itinerant
fashion he became sufficiently recuperated at the end of a year to marry
Miss Clark, September 13, 1829, and accept the professorship of
mathematics at Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio. There he
remained till 1833, strengthening himself in the repose of matrimony for
the conflict that lay before him,--a conflict that every justice-loving
man feels that he will have to face at one time or another.
This probably came sooner than he expected. Some anti-slavery tracts,
circulated by Garrison, reached Western Reserve College and set the place
in a ferment. Elizur Wright became the champion of the anti-slavery
movement, not only in the town of Hudson but throughout the State.
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