Thoreau writes in his journal:
Heard [Thomas Wentworth] Higginson lecture to-night on Mohammed [Arab founder Mohamedanism]. Why did I not like it better? Can I deny that it was good? Perhaps I am bound to account to myself at least for any lurking dislike for what others admire and I am not prepared to find fault with. Well, I did not like it, then, because it did not make me like it, it did not carry me away captive. He is not simple enough. For the most part the manner overbore, choked off, and stifled, put out of sight and hearing, the matter. I was inclined to forget that he was speaking, conveying ideas; thought there had been an intermission . . .
