"Life is a flame whose splendor hides its base."

We can imagine the kindly letter which answered the appeal, and how the future of that youth was brightened by it. "Emerson's young man" was a constant joke among his friends, because he was constantly filled with a large hope; and his friend of the one line was not by any means his only discovery.

His feeling respecting the literary work of men nearer to him was not always one of satisfaction. When Hawthorne's volume of "English Sketches" was printed, he said, "It is pellucid, but not deep;" and he cut out the dedication and letter to Franklin Pierce, which offended him. The two men were so unlike that it seemed a strange fate which brought them together in one small town. An understanding of each other's methods or points of view was an impossibility. Emerson spoke once with an intimate friend of the distance which separated Hawthorne and himself. They were utterly at variance upon politics and every theory of life.

Mr. Fields was suggesting to Emerson one day that he should give a series of lectures, when, as they were discussing the topics to be chosen, Emerson said: "One shall be on the Doctrine of Leasts, and one on the Doctrine of Mosts; one shall be about Brook Farm, for ever since Hawthorne's ghastly and untrue account of that community, in his 'Blithedale Romance,' I have desired to give what I think the true account of it."

The sons of Henry James, Senior, being at school in Concord for a period, Emerson invited Mr. James, who had gone to visit his boys, to stay over and be present at one of Mr. Alcott's conversations, which were already "an institution" of the time. Mr. Alcott began to speak upon subjects which interested Mr. James; and the latter, not understanding, naturally enough, that these so-called "Conversations" were in truth monologues, replied to Mr. Alcott in his own striking style. Finding the audience alive to what he wished to say, he continued, and "did the talking himself." Miss Mary Emerson, Emerson's well-beloved aunt, the extraordinary original of one of his most delightful papers, was present. She had never met Mr. James before, and became greatly excited by some of the opinions he advanced. She thought he often used the word "religion," when, to her mind, he appeared to mean, sometimes "dogmatism" and sometimes, "ecclesiasticism."

She bided her time, though a storm had gathered within her. At last, when a momentary silence fell and no one appeared ready to refute certain opinions advanced by Mr. James, "Amita" rose, took a chair, and, placing it in front of him, exclaimed, "Let me confront the monster!" The discussion was then renewed, excited by this sally of "Amita's" wit, and the company parted with a larger understanding of the subject and greater appreciation of each other. "It was a glorious occasion for those who love a battle of words," said one who was present. Mr. James delighted his host by his remarks upon the character of the beloved "Amita."

He had many reservations with regard to Dickens. He could not easily forgive any one who made him laugh immoderately. The first reading of "Dr. Marigold" in Boston was an exciting occasion, and Emerson was invited to "assist." After the reading he sat talking until a very late hour, for he was taken by surprise at the novelty and artistic perfection of the performance. His usual calm had quite broken down under it; he had laughed as if he might crumble to pieces, his face wearing an expression of absolute pain; indeed, the scene was so strange that it was mirth-provoking to those who were near. But when we returned home he questioned and pondered much upon Dickens himself. Finally he said: "I am afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound, and he can never be freed from it nor set at rest. You see him quite wrong evidently, and would persuade me that he is a genial creature, full of sweetness and amenities, and superior to his talents; but I fear he is harnessed to them. He is too consummate an artist to have a thread of nature left. He daunts me. I have not the key." When Mr. Fields came in he repeated: "—— would persuade me that Dickens is a man easy to communicate with, sympathetic and accessible to his friends; but her eyes do not see clearly in this matter, I am sure!"

The tenor of his way was largely stayed by admiration and appreciation of others, often far beyond their worth. He gilded his friends with his own sunshine. He wrote to his publisher: "Give me leave to make you acquainted with ——" (still unknown to fame), "who has written a poem which he now thinks of publishing. It is, in my judgment, a serious and original work of great and various merit, with high intellectual power in accosting the questions of modern thought, full of noble sentiment, and especially rich in fancy, and in sensibility to natural beauty. I remember that while reading it I thought it a welcome proof, and still more a prediction, of American culture. I need not trouble you with any cavils I made on the manuscript I read, as —— assures me that he has lately revised and improved the original draft. I hope you will like the poem as heartily as I did."

I find a record of one very warm day in Boston in July when, in spite of the heat, Mr. Emerson came to dine with us:—

"He talked much of Forceythe Willson, whose genius he thought akin to Dante's, and says E—— H—— agrees with him in this, or possibly suggested it, she having been one of the best readers and lovers of Dante outside the reputed scholars. 'But he is not fertile. A man at his time should be doing new things.' 'Yes,' said ——, 'I fear he never will do much more.' 'Why, how old is he?' asked Emerson; and hearing he was about thirty-five, he replied, with a smile, 'There is hope till forty-five.' He spoke also of Tennyson and Carlyle as the two men connected with literature in England who were most satisfactory to meet, and better than their books. His respect for literature in these degenerate days is absolute. It is religion and life, and he reiterates this in every possible form. Speaking of Jones Very, he said he seemed to have no right to his rhymes; they did not sing to him, but he was divinely led to them, and they always surprised you."

We were much pleased and amused at his quaint expressions of admiration for a mutual friend in New York at whose hospitable house we had all received cordial entertainment. He said: "The great Hindoo, Hatim Tayi, was nothing by the side of such hospitality as hers. Hatim Tayi would soon lose his reputation." His appreciation of the poems of H. H. was often expressed. He made her the keynote of a talk one day upon the poetry of women. The poems entitled "Joy," "Thought," "Ariadne," he liked especially. Of Mrs. Hemans he found many poems which still survive, and he believed must always live.

Matthew Arnold was one of the minds and men to whom he constantly reverted with pleasure. Every traveler was asked for the last news of him; and when an English professor connected with the same university as Arnold, whom Emerson had been invited to meet, was asked the inevitable question, and found to know nothing, Emerson turned away from him, and lost all interest in his conversation. A few days afterward some one was heard to say, "Mr. Emerson, how did you like Professor ——?"

"Let me see," he replied; "is not he the man who was at the same university with Matthew Arnold, and who could tell us nothing of him?"

"How about Matthew Arnold?" he said to B—— on his return from England.

"I did not see him," was the somewhat cool reply.

"Yes! but he is one of the men one wishes not to lose sight of," said Emerson.

"Arnold has written a few good essays," rejoined the other, "but his talk about Homer is all nonsense."

"No, no, no!" said Emerson; "it is good, every word of it!"

When the lecture on Brook Farm really came, it was full of wit and charm, as well as of the truth he so seriously desired to convey. The audience was like a firm, elastic wall, against which he threw the balls of his wit, while they bounded steadily back into his hand. Almost the first thing he said was quoted from Horatio Greenough, whom he esteemed one of the greatest men of our country. But there is nothing more elusive and difficult to retain than Emerson's wit. It pierces and is gone. Some of the broader touches, such as the clothes- pins dropping out of the pockets of the Brook Farm gentlemen as they danced in the evening, were apparent to all, and irresistible. Nothing could be more amusing than the boyish pettishness with which, in speaking of the rareness of best company, he said, "We often found ourselves left to the society of cats and fools."

I find the following note in a brief diary: "October 20, 1868. Last night Mr. Emerson gave his second lecture. It was full of touches of light which dropped from him, to us, his listeners, and made us burn as with a kind of sudden inspiration of truth. He was beautiful both to hear and see. He spoke of poetry and criticism....

"He discovered two reporters present and spoke to them, saying, 'It is not allowed.' Whereat they both replied: 'They were only at work for their own gratification. Of course I could say nothing more; but afterward the Lord smote one of them and he came and confessed.' When he returned after speaking he brought one of the two bouquets which he found upon his desk. 'I bring you back your flowers,' he said gently. There was no loud applause last evening; but there were little shivers of delight or approbation running over the audience from time to time, like breezes over a cornfield."

Emerson was always faithful to his appreciation of Channing's poems. When "Monadnock" was written, he made a special visit to Boston to talk it over, and the fine lines of Channing were always ready in his memory, to come to the front when called for. His love and loyalty to Elizabeth Hoar should never be forgotten, in however imperfect a rehearsal of his valued companionships. One morning at breakfast I heard him describing her attributes and personality in the most tender and engaging way to Mrs. Stowe, who had never known her, which I would give much to be able to reproduce.

Emerson's truthfulness was often the cause of mirth even to himself. I remember that he thought he did not care for the work of Bayard Taylor, but he confessed one day with sly ruefulness that he had taken up the last "Atlantic" by chance, and found there some noble hexameters upon "November;" and "I said to myself, 'Ah! who is this? this is as good as Clough.' When to my astonishment, and not a little to my discomfiture, I discovered they were Bayard Taylor's! But how about this 'Faust'? We have had Dante done over and over, and even now done, I see, again by a new hand, and Homer forever being done, and now 'Faust'! I quarrel somewhat with the overmuch labor spent upon these translations, but first of all I quarrel with Goethe. 'Faust' is unpleasant to me. The very flavor of the poem repels me, and makes me wish to turn away." The "Divina Commedia," too, he continued, was a poem too terrible to him to read. He had never been able to finish it. It is probable that poor translations of both "Faust" and Dante read in early youth were at the bottom of these opinions.

Emerson was a true appreciator of Walter Scott. At one of the Saturday Club dinners it was suggested that Walter Scott be made the subject of conversation, and the occasion be considered as his birthday. Emerson spoke with brilliant effect two or three times. He was first called out by his friend Judge Hoar, who said he was chopping wood that morning in his woodshed, when Emerson came in and said so many delightful things about Sir Walter that if he would now repeat to the table only a portion of the excellent sayings heard in the woodshed he would delight them all. Emerson rose, and, referring pleasantly to the brilliancy of the judge's imagination, began by expressing his sense of gratitude to Walter Scott, and concluded a fine analysis of his work by saying that the root and gist of his genius was to be found, in his opinion, in the Border Minstrelsy.

His loyalty to the Saturday Club was quite as sincere as Dr. Holmes's, but the difficulties in the way of his constant attendance were somewhat greater. Emerson kept a friendly lookout over absent members, and greeted with approval any one who arrived at the monthly tryst in spite of hindrances. Seeing Mr. Fields appear one day, bag in hand, at a time when he was living in the country, Emerson glanced at him affectionately, saying half aloud, "Good boy! good boy!" At this meeting it appeared that Lowell and Emerson had chanced to go together, while in Paris, to hear Renan. They spoke of the beauty and perfection of his Hebrew script upon the blackboard; it was faultless, they said. Emerson added that he could not understand Renan's French, so he looked at Lowell, who wore a very wise expression, instead.

Emerson was no lover of the sentimental school. The sharp arrow of his wit found a legitimate target there. Of one person in especial, whom we all knew and valued for extraordinary gifts, he said: "—— is irreclaimable. The sentimentalists are the most dangerous of the insane, for they cannot be shut up in asylums."

The labor bestowed upon his own work before committing himself to print was limitless. I have referred to this already in speaking of the publication of his address after the death of Thoreau. Sometimes in joke a household committee would be formed to sit in judgment on his essays, and get them out of his hands. The "May-day" poem was long in reaching its home in print. There were references to it from year to year, but he could never be satisfied to yield it up. In April, 1865, after the fall of Richmond, he dined with us, full of what he said was "a great joy to the world, not alone to our little America." That day he brought what he then called some verses on Spring to read aloud; but when the reading was ended, he said they were far "too fragmentary to satisfy him," and quietly folded them up and carried them away again.

This feeling of unreadiness to print sprang as much from the wonderful modesty as from the sincerity of his character. He wrote shortly after to his publisher:—

"I have the more delight in your marked overestimate of my poem that I have been vexed with a belief that what skill I had in whistling was nearly or quite gone, and that I might henceforth content myself with guttural consonants or dissonants, and not attempt warbling. On the strength of your note, I am working away at my last pages of rhyme. But this has been and is a week of company. Yet I shall do the best I can with the quarters of hours."

Again, with his mind upon the "May-day" poem, he wrote:—

"I have long seen with some terror the necessity closing round me, in spite of all my resistance, that shall hold me from home. It now seems fixed to the 20th or 21st March. I had only consented to 1st March. But in the negotiations of my agent it would still turn out that the primary engagements made a year ago, and to which the others were only appendages—the primaries, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh—must needs thrust themselves into March, and without remedy. But I cannot allow the 'May-day' to come till I come. There were a few indispensable corrections made and sent to the printer, which he reserved to be corrected on the plates, but of which no revise was ever sent to me; and as good publish no book as leave these errata unexpunged. Then there is one quatrain, to which his notice was not called, for which I wish to substitute another. So I entreat you not to finish the book except for the fire until I come. As the public did not die for the book on the 1st January, I presume they can sustain its absence on the 1st April.... Though I do not know that your courage will really hold out to publish it on the 1st April if I were quite ready."

Again in the same spirit he writes to his editor and publisher:—

You ask in your last note for "Leasts and Mosts" for the "Atlantic." You have made me so popular by your brilliant advertising and arrangements (I will say, not knowing how to qualify your social skill) that I am daily receiving invitations to read lectures far and near, and some of these I accept, and must therefore keep the readable lectures by me for a time, though I doubt not that this mite, like the mountain, will fall into the "Atlantic" at last.

Ever your debtor, R. W. EMERSON.

At another time he wrote:—

"I received the account rendered of the Blue and Gold Edition of the 'Essays' and 'Poems.' I keep the paper before me and study it now and then to see if you have lost money by the transaction, and my prevailing impression is that you have."

It was seldom he showed a sincere willingness or desire to print. One day, however (it was in 1863), he came in bringing a poem he had written concerning his younger brother, who, he said, was a rare man, and whose memory richly deserved some tribute. He did not know if he could finish it, but he would like to print that. It was about the same period that he came to town and took a room at the Parker House, bringing with him the unfinished sketch of a few verses which he wished Mr. Fields to hear. He drew a small table into the centre of the room, which was still in disorder (a former occupant having slept there the previous night), and then read aloud the lines he proposed to give to the press. They were written on separate slips of paper, which were flying loosely about the room and under the bed. A question arose of the title, when Mr. Fields suggested "Voluntaries," which was cordially accepted and finally adopted.

He was ever seeking suggestions, and ready to accept corrections. He wrote to his publisher:

"I thank you for both the corrections, and accept them both, though in reading, one would always say, 'You pet,' so please write, though I grudge it [Thou pet], and [mass], and [minster]. Please also to write [arctic], in the second line with small [a] if, as I think, it is now written large [A]. And I forgot, I believe, to strike out a needless series of quotation commas with which the printing was encumbered."

His painstaking never relaxed, even when he was to read a familiar lecture to an uncritical audience. He had been invited by the members of the Young Ladies' Saturday Morning Club to read one of his essays in their parlor. This he kindly consented to do, as well as to pass the previous night with his friends in Charles Street, and read to them an unpublished paper, which he called "Amita." Some question having arisen as to the possibility of his keeping both the engagements, he wrote as follows:—

"DEAR MRS. F.,—I mean surely to obey your first command, namely, for the visit to you on Friday evening next, and I fully trust that I wrote you that I would.... And now I will untie the papers of 'Amita,' and see if I dare read them on Friday, or must find somewhat less nervous."

I find the following brief record of the occasion:—

"Mr. Emerson arrived from Concord. He said he took it for granted we should be occupied at that hour, but he would seize the moment to look over his papers. So I begged him to go into the small study and find quiet there as long as he chose.... Presently Emerson came down to tea; the curtains were drawn, and a few guests arrived. We sat round the tea table in the library, while he told us of ——'s life in Berlin, where Mr. and Mrs. Hermann Grimm and Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft had opened a pleasant social circle for him. He also talked much of the Grimms. His friendship for Hermann Grimm had extended over many years, and an interesting correspondence has grown up between them. More guests arrived, and the talk became general until the time came to listen to 'Amita.'"

The charm of that reading can never be forgotten by those who heard it. The paper itself can now be found upon the printed page; but Emerson's enjoyment of his own wit, as reflected back from the faces of his listeners, cannot be reproduced, nor a kind of squirrel-like shyness and swiftness which pervaded it.

The diary continues:—

"C—— and —— were first at breakfast, but Mr. Emerson soon followed. The latter had been some time at work, and his hands were cold. I had heard him stirring before seven o'clock. He came down bright and fresh, however, with the very spirit of youth in his face. At table they fell upon that unfailing resource in conversation, anecdotes of animals and birds. Speaking of parrots, Mr. Emerson said he had never heard a parrot say any of these wonderful things himself, but the Storer family of Cambridge, who were very truthful people, had told him astonishing anecdotes of a bird belonging to them, which he could not disbelieve because they told him.

"At ten o'clock we went to Miss L——'s, where the young ladies' club was convened to hear Mr. Emerson on 'Manners.' He told us we should do better to stay at home, as we had heard this paper many times. Happily we did not take his advice. There were many good things added, beside the pleasure of hearing the old ones revived. One of the things new to me was the saying of a wise woman, who remarked that she 'did not think so much of what people said as of what made them say it.' It was pretty to see the enthusiasm of the girls, and to hear what Celia Thaxter called their 'virile applause.'"

During the same season Emerson consented to give a series of readings in Boston. He was not easily persuaded to the undertaking until he felt assured of the very hearty cooeperation which the proposed title of "Conversations" made evident to him. The following note will give some idea of his feeling with regard to the plan.

CONCORD, 24th February, 1872.

DEAR ——: You are always offering me kindness and eminent privileges, and for this courageous proposition of "Conversations on Literature with Friends, at Mechanics' Hall," I pause and poise between pleasure and fear. The name and the undertaking are most attractive; but whether it can be adequately attempted by me, who have a couple of tasks which Osgood and Company know of, now on my slow hands, I hesitate to affirm. Well, the very proposal will perhaps arm my head and hands to drive these tasks to a completion. And you shall give me a few days' grace, and I will endeavor to send you a considerate answer.

Later, in March, he wrote:—

"For the proposed 'Conversations,' which is a very good name, I believe I must accept your proposition frankly, though the second week of April looks almost too near."

As the appointed time approached, a fresh subject for nervousness suggested itself, which the following note will explain:—

CONCORD, 12th April, 1872.

MY DEAR ——: I entreat you to find the correspondent of the New York "Tribune," who reports Miss Vaughan's and Henry James's lectures in Boston, and adjure her or him, as he or she values honesty and honor, not to report any word of what Mr. Emerson may say or do at his coming "Conversations." Tell the dangerous person that Mr. E. accepted this task, proffered to him by private friends, on the assurance that the audience would be composed of his usual circle of private friends, and that he should be protected from any report; that a report is so distasteful to him that it would seriously embarrass and perhaps cripple or silence much that he proposes to communicate; and if the individual has bought tickets, these shall gladly be refunded, and with thanks and great honor of your friend,

R. W. EMERSON.

In spite of all these terrors, the "Conversations" were an entire success, financially as well as otherwise.

I find in the diary:—

"This afternoon Mr. Emerson gave his first 'Conversation' in this course, which —— has arranged for him. He will make over fourteen hundred dollars by these readings. There was much new and excellent matter in the discourse to-day, and it was sown, as usual, with felicitous quotations. His introduction was gracefully done. He said he regarded the company around him as a society of friends whom it was a great pleasure to him to meet. He spoke of the value of literature, but also of the superior value of thought if it can be evolved in other ways, quoting that old saying of Catherine de Medicis, who remarked, when she was told of some one who could speak twenty languages: 'That means he has twenty words for one idea. I would rather have twenty ideas to one word.'"

And again:— "April 22.—To-day is the second of Mr. Emerson's 'Readings,' or 'Conversations,' and he is coming with Longfellow and the Hunts to have dinner afterward.... We had a gay, lovely time at the dinner; but, first about the lecture. Emerson talked of poetry, and the unity which exists between science and poetry, the latter being the fine insight which solves all problems. The unwritten poetry of to-day, the virgin soil, was strongly, inspiringly revealed to us. He was not talking, he said, when he spoke of poetry, of the smooth verses of magazines, but of poetry itself wherever it was found. He read favorite single lines from Byron's 'Island,' giving Byron great praise, as if in view of the injustice which has been done him in our time. After Byron's poem he read a lyric written by a traveler to the Tonga Islands, which is in Martin's 'Travels;' also a noble poem called 'The Soul,' and a sonnet, by Wordsworth. We were all entranced as the magic of his sympathetic voice passed from one poetic vision to another. Indeed, we could not bear to see the hour fade away."

I find the following fragment of a note written during May of that year:—

I received on my return home last night, with pleasure which is quite ceasing to surprise, the final installment of one hundred and seven dollars from the singular soliloquies called "Conversations," inaugurated by the best of directors.

Evermore thanks. R. W. EMERSON.

Again, in the journal I find:—

"Another lecture from Emerson—'Poetry, Religion, Love'—'superna respicit amor.' His whole discourse was a storehouse of delights and inspirations. There was a fine contribution from Goethe; a passage where he bravely recounts his indebtedness to the great of all ages. Varnhagen von Ense, Jacob Boehmen, Swedenborg, and the poets brought their share.

"There was an interlude upon domestic life, 'where alone the true man could be revealed,' which was full of beauty.

"He came in to-day to see ——. He flouts the idea of 'that preacher, Horace Greeley,' being put up as candidate for president. 'If it had been Charles Francis Adams, now, we should all have voted for him. To be sure, it would be his father and his grandfather for whom we were voting, but we should all believe in him.'

"We think this present course of lectures more satisfactory than the last. One thing is certain, he flings his whole spirit into them. He reads the poems he loves best in literature, and infuses into their rendering the pure essence of his own poetic life. We can never forget his reading of 'The Wind,' a Welsh poem by Taliesin—the very rush of the elements was in it."

Emerson was perfectly natural and at ease in manner and speech during these readings. He would sometimes bend his brows and shut his eyes, endeavoring to recall a favorite passage, as if he were at his own library table. One day, after searching thus in vain for a passage from Ben Jonson, he said: "It is all the more provoking as I do not doubt many a friend here might help me out with it."

When away from home on his lecture tours, Emerson did not fail to have his share of disasters. He wrote from Albany, in 1865, to Mr. Fields: —An unlucky accident drives me here to make a draft on you for fifty dollars, which I hope will not annoy you. The truth is that I lost my wallet—I fear to some pickpocket—in Fairhaven, Vermont, night before last (some $70 or $80 in it), and had to borrow money of a Samaritan lady to come here. I pray you do not whisper it to the swallows for fear it should go to ——, and he should print it in "Fraser." I am going instantly to the best book-shop to find some correspondent of yours to make me good. I was to have read a lecture here last night, but the train walked all the way through the ice, sixty miles, from six in the morning, and arrived here at ten at night. I hope still that Albany will entreat me on its knees to read to-night. One other piece of bad news if you have not already learned it. Can you not burn down the Boston Athenaeum to-night? for I learned by chance that they have a duplicate of the "Liber Amoris." I hope for great prosperity on my journey as the necessary recoil of such adversities, and specially to pay my debts in twenty days. Yours, with constant regard,

R. W. EMERSON.

The apprehensions which assailed him before his public addresses or readings were not of a kind to affect either speech or behavior. He seemed to be simply detained by his own dissatisfaction with his work, and was forever looking for something better to come, even when it was too late. His manuscripts were often disordered, and at the last moment, after he began to read, appeared to take the form in his mind of a forgotten labyrinth through which he must wait to find his way in some more opportune season.

In the summer of 1867 he delivered the address before the Phi Beta at Harvard. He seemed to have an especial feeling of unreadiness on that day, and, to increase the trouble, his papers slipped away in confusion from under his hand as he tried to rest them on a poorly arranged desk or table. Mr. Hale put a cushion beneath them finally, after Emerson began to read, which prevented them from falling again, but the whole matter was evidently out of joint in the reader's eyes. He could not be content with it, and closed without warming to the occasion. It was otherwise, however, to those who listened; they did not miss the old power: but after the reading he openly expressed his own discontent, and walked away dissatisfied. Miss Emerson writes to me of this occasion: "You recall the sad Phi Beta day of 1867. The trouble that day was that for the first time his eyes refused to serve him; he could not see, and therefore could hardly get along. His work had been on the whole satisfactory to him, and if he could have read it straight all would have been happy instead of miserable."

On another and more private occasion, also, he came away much disappointed himself, because, the light being poor and his manuscript disarranged, he had not been just, he thought, even to such matter as lay before him. And who can forget the occasion of the delivery of the Boston Hymn?—that glad New Year when the people were assembled in our large Music Hall to hear read the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. When it was known that Emerson was to follow with a poem, a stillness fell on the vast assembly as if one ear were waiting to catch his voice; but the awful moment, which was never too great for his will and endeavor, was confusing to his fingers, and the precious leaves of his manuscript fell as he rose, and scattered themselves among the audience. They were quickly gathered and restored, but for one instant it seemed as if the cup so greatly desired was to be dashed from the lips of the listeners.

His perfect grace in conversation can hardly be reproduced, even if one could gather the arrows of his wit. But I find one or two slight hints of the latter which are too characteristic to be omitted. Speaking of some friends who were contemplating a visit to Europe just after our civil war, when exchange was still very high, he said that "the wily American would elude Europe for a year yet, hoping exchange would go down." On being introduced to an invited guest of the Saturday Club, Emerson said: "I am glad to meet you, sir. I often see your name in the papers and elsewhere, and am happy to take you by the hand for the first time."

"Not for the first time," was the reply. "Thirty-three years ago I was enjoying my school vacation in the woods, as boys will. One afternoon I was walking alone, when you saw me and joined me, and talked of the voices of nature in a way which stirred my boyish pulses, and left me thinking of your words far into the night."

Emerson looked pleased, but rejoined that it must have been long ago indeed when he ventured to talk of such fine subjects.

In conversing with Richard H. Dana ("Two Years Before the Mast") the latter spoke of the cold eyes of one of our public men. "Yes," said Emerson meditatively, "holes in his head! holes in his head!"

In speaking once of education and of the slight attention given to the development of personal influence, he said "he had not yet heard of Rarey" (the famous horse-tamer of that time) "having been made Doctor of Laws."

After an agreeable conversation with a gentleman who had suffered from ill health, Emerson remarked, "You formerly bragged of bad health, sir; I trust you are all right now."

Emerson's reticence with regard to Carlyle's strong expressions against America was equally wise and admirable. His friends crowded about him, urging him to denounce Carlyle, as a sacred duty, but he stood serene and silent as the rocks until the angry sea was calm.

Of his grace of manner, what could be more expressive than the following notes of compliment and acknowledgment?

"When I came home from my pleasant visit to your house last week (or was it a day or two before last week?), Mrs. Hawthorne, arriving in Concord a little later than I, brought me the photograph of Raffaelle's original sketch of Dante, and from you. It appears to be a fixed idea in your mind to benefit and delight me, and still in ingenious and surprising ways. Well, I am glad that my lot is cast in the time and proximity of excellent persons, even if I do not often see their faces. I send my thanks for this interesting picture, which so strangely brings us close to the painter again, and almost hints that a supermarine and superaerial telegraph may bring us thoughts from him yet."

And, again, with reference to a small photograph from a very interesting rilievo done by a young Roman who died early, leaving nothing in more permanent form to attest his genius:— "'The Star-led Wizards' arrived safely at my door last night, as the beauty and splendid fancy of their figures, and not less the generous instructions of their last entertainer and guide, might well warrant and secure.

"It was surely a very unlooked-for but to me most friendly inspiration of yours which gave their feet this direction. But they are and shall be gratefully and reverently received and enshrined, and in the good hope that you will so feel engaged at some time or times to stop and make personal inquiry after the welfare of your guests and wards."

And again:—

How do you suppose that unskillful scholars are to live, if Fields should one day die? Serus in coelum redeat!

Affectionately yours and his,

R. W. EMERSON.

Surely the grace and friendly charm of these conversational notes warrant their preservation even to those who are not held by the personal attraction which lay behind them.

Again he writes:—

"I have been absent from home since the noble Saturday evening, or should have sent you this book of Mr. Stirling's, which you expressed a wish to see. The papers on Macaulay, Tennyson, and Coleridge interest me, and the critic is master of his weapons.

"Meantime, in these days, my thoughts are all benedictions on the dwellers in the happy home of number 148 Charles Street."

His appreciation of the hospitality of others was only a reflection from his own. I find a few words in the journal as follows: "Mr. Emerson was like a benediction in the house, as usual. He was up early in the morning looking over books and pictures in the library."

I find also the mention of one evening when he brought his own journal to town and read us passages describing a visit in Edinburgh, where he was the guest of Mrs. Crowe. She was one of those ladies of Edinburgh, he said, "who could turn to me, as she did, and say, 'Whom would you like to meet?' Of course I said, Lord Jeffrey, De Quincey, Samuel Brown, called the alchemist by chemists, and a few others. She was able, with her large hospitality, to give me what I most desired. She drove with Samuel Brown and myself to call on De Quincey, who was then living most uncomfortably in lodgings with a landlady who persecuted him continually. While I was staying at Mrs. Crowe's, De Quincey arrived there one evening, after being exposed to various vicissitudes of weather, and latterly to a heavy rain. Unhappily Mrs. Crowe's apparently unlimited hospitality was limited at pantaloons, and poor De Quincey was obliged to dry his water-soaked garments at the fireside."

Emerson read much also that was interesting of Tennyson and of Carlyle. Of the latter he said that the last time he was in England he drove directly to his house. "Jane Carlyle opened the door for me, and the man himself stood behind and bore the candle. 'Well, here we are, shoveled together again,' was his greeting. Carlyle's talk is like a river, full and never ceasing; we talked until after midnight, and again the next morning at breakfast we went on. Then we started to walk to London; and London bridge, the Tower, and Westminster were all melted down into the river of his speech."

After the reading that evening there was singing, and Emerson listened attentively. Presently he said, when the first song ended, "I should like to know what the words mean." The music evidently signified little to his ears. Before midnight, when we were alone, he again reverted to Tennyson. He loves to gather and rehearse what is known of that wonderful man.

Early in the morning he was once more in the library. I found him there laughing over a little book he had discovered. It was Leigh Hunt's copy of "English Traits," and was full of marginal notes, which amused Emerson greatly.

Not Mrs. Crowe's hospitality nor any other could ever compare in his eyes with that of the New York friend to whom I have already alluded. We all agreed that her genius was preeminent. Here are two brief notes of graceful acknowledgment to his Boston friends which, however, may hardly be omitted. In one of these he says:—

"My wife is very sensible of your brave hospitality, offered in your note a fortnight since, and resists all my attempts to defend your hearth from such a crowd. Of course I am too glad to be persuaded to come to you, and so it is our desire to spend the Sunday of my last lecture at your house."

In the other he says:—

"I ought to have acknowledged and thanked you for the plus-Arabian hospitality which warms your note. It might tempt any one but a galley-slave, or a scholar who is tied to his book-crib as the other to his oar, to quit instantly all his dull surroundings, and fly to this lighted, genial asylum with doors wide open and nailed back."

There is a brief glimpse of Emerson upon his return from California which it is a pleasure to recall. He came at once, even before going to Concord, to see Mr. Fields. "We must not visit San Francisco too young," he said, "or we shall never wish to come away. It is called the 'Golden Gate,' not because of its gold, but because of the lovely golden flowers which at this season cover the whole face of the country down to the edge of the great sea." He smiled at the namby- pamby travelers who turned back because of the discomforts of the trip into the valley of the Yosemite. It was a place full of marvel and glory to him. The only regret attending the trip seems to have been that he was obliged to miss the meetings of the Saturday Club, which were always dear to him.

The following extract gives a picture of him about this time:—"A call from Mr. Emerson, who talked of Lowell's 'joyous genius.' He said: 'I have read what he has done of late with great interest, and am sorry to have been so slow as not to have written him yet, especially as I am to meet him at the club dinner to-day. How is Pope?' he continued, crossing the room to look at an authentic portrait by Richardson of that great master of verse. 'Such a face as this should send us all to re-reading his works again.' Then turning to the bust of Tennyson, by Woolner, which stood near, he said, 'The more I think of this bust and the grand self-assertion in it, the more I like it....' Emerson came in after the club dinner; Longfellow also. Mrs. G—— was present, and bragged grandly, and was very smart in talk. Afterward Emerson said he was reminded of Carlyle's expression with regard to Lady Duff Gordon, whom he considered a female St. Peter walking fearlessly over the waves of the sea of humbug."

Opportunities for social communication were sacred in his eyes, and never to be lightly thrown aside. He wore an expectant look upon his face in company, as if waiting for some new word from the last comer. He was himself the stimulus, even when disguised as a listener, and his additions to the evenings called Mr. Alcott's Conversations were marked and eagerly expected. Upon the occasion of Longfellow's last departure for Europe in 1869, a private farewell dinner took place, where Emerson, Agassiz, Holmes, Lowell, Greene, Norton, Whipple, and Dana all assembled in token of their regard. Emerson tried to persuade Longfellow to go to Greece to look after the Klephs, the supposed authors of Romaic poetry, so beautiful in both their poetic eyes. Finding this idea unsuccessful, he next turned to the Nile, to those vast statues which still stand awful and speechless witnesses of the past. He was interesting and eloquent, but Longfellow was not to be persuaded. It was an excellent picture of the two contrasting characters,—Longfellow, serene, considerate, with his plans arranged and his thought resting in his home and his children's requirements; Emerson, with eager, unresting thought, excited by the very idea of travel to plunge farther into the strange world where the thought of mankind was born.

This lover of hospitalities was also king in his own domain. In the winter of 1872 Mr. Fields was invited to read a lecture in Concord, and an early invitation came bidding us to pass the time under his roof-tree. A few days before, a note was received, saying that Emerson himself was detained in Washington, and could not reach home for the occasion. His absence, however, was to make no difference about our visit. He should return at the earliest possible moment. The weather turned bitterly cold before we left Boston. It was certainly no less bleak when we reached Concord. Even the horse that carried us from the station to the house had on his winter coat. Roaring fires were blazing when we reached the house, which were only less warm than our welcome.

After supper, just as the lecture hour was approaching, I suddenly heard the front door open. In another moment there was the dear sage himself ready with his welcome. He had lectured the previous evening in Washington, and left in the earliest possible train, coming through without pause to Concord. In spite of the snow and cold, he said he should walk to the lecture-room as soon as he had taken a cup of tea, and before the speaker had finished his opening sentence Mr. Emerson's welcome face appeared at the door.

After the lecture the old house presented a cheerful countenance. Again the fire blazed, friends sent flowers, and Mr. Alcott joined in conversation. "Quite swayed out of his habit," said Emerson, "by the good cheer." The spirit of hospitality led the master of the house to be swayed also, for it was midnight before the talk was ended. It was wonderful to see how strong and cheerful and unwearied he appeared after his long journey. "I would not discourage this young acolyte," he said, turning to the lecturer of the evening and laughing, "by showing any sense of discomfort."

When we arose the next morning the sun was just dawning over the level fields of snow. The air was fresh, the sky cloudless, the glory of the scene indescribable. The weight of weariness I had brought from the city was lifted by the scene before me, and by the influence of the great nature who was befriending us within the four walls. It was good to look upon the same landscape which was the source of his own inspirations.

Emerson was already in the breakfast-room at eight o'clock. There was much talk about the lack of education in English literature among our young people. Emerson said a Boston man who usually appeared sufficiently well informed asked him if he had ever known Spinoza. He talked also of Walt Whitman and Coventry Patmore, and asked the last news of Allingham: when suddenly, as it seemed, the little horse came again, in his winter coat, and carried us to the station, and that day was done.

There is a bit of description of Emerson as he appeared at a political meeting in his earlier years which I love to remember. The meeting was called in opposition to Daniel Webster, and Emerson was to address the people. It was in Cambridgeport. When he rose to speak he was greeted by hisses, long and full of hate; but a friend said, who saw him there, that he could think of nothing but dogs baying at the moon. He was serene as moonlight itself.

The days came, alas! when desire must fail, and the end draw near. One morning he wrote from Concord: "I am grown so old that, though I can read from a paper, I am no longer fit for conversation, and dare not make visits. So we send you our thanks, and you shall not expect us."

It has been a pleasure to rehearse in my memory these glimpses of Emerson, and, covered with imperfections as they are, I have found courage for welding them together in the thought that many minds must know him through his work who long to ask what he was like in his habit as he lived, and whose joy in their teacher can only be enhanced by such pictures as they can obtain of the righteousness and beauty of his personal behavior.



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS AND UNPUBLISHED LETTERS

Dr. Holmes's social nature, as expressed in conversation and in his books, drew him into communication with a very large number of persons. It cannot be said, however, in this age marked by altruisms, that he was altruistic; on the contrary, he loved himself, and made himself his prime study—but as a member of the human race, he had his own purposes to fulfill, his own self-appointed tasks, and he preferred to take men only on his own terms. He was filled with righteous indignation, in reading Carlyle, to find a passage where, hearing the door-bell ring one morning when he was very busy, he exclaimed that he was afraid it was "the man Emerson!" Yet Dr. Holmes was himself one of the most carefully guarded men, through his years of actual production, who ever lived and wrote. His wife absorbed her life in his, and mounted guard to make sure that interruption was impossible. Nevertheless, he was eminently a lover of men, or he could not have drawn them perpetually to his side.

His writings were never aimed too high; his sole wish was to hit the heart, if possible; but if a shot hit the head also, he showed a childlike pride in the achievement.

When the moment came to meet men face to face, what unrivaled gayety and good cheer possessed him! He was king of the dinner-table during a large part of the century. He loved to talk, but he was excited and quickened by the conversation of others, for reverence was never absent from his nature. How incomparable his gift of conversation was, it will be difficult, probably impossible, for any one to understand who had never known him. It was not that he was wiser, or wittier, or more profound, or more radiant with humor, than some other distinguished men; the shades of Macaulay, Sydney Smith, De Quincey, and Coleridge rise up before us from the past, and among his contemporaries we recall the sallies of Tom Appleton, the charm of Agassiz, of Cornelius Felton, and others of the Saturday Club; but with Dr. Holmes sunshine and gayety came into the room. It was not a determination to be cheerful or witty or profound; but it was a natural expression, like that of a child, sometimes overclouded and sometimes purely gay, but always open to the influences around him, and ready for "a good time." His power of self-excitement seemed inexhaustible. Given a dinner-table, with light and color, and somebody occasionally to throw the ball, his spirits would rise and coruscate astonishingly. He was not unaware if men whom he considered his superiors were present; he was sure to make them understand that he meant to sit at their feet and listen to them, even if his own excitement ran away with him. "I've talked too much," he often said, with a feeling of sincere penitence, as he rose from the table. "I wanted to hear what our guest had to say." But the wise guest, seizing the opportunity, usually led Dr. Holmes on until he forgot that he was not listening and replying. It was this sensitiveness, perhaps, which made his greatest charm—a power of sympathy which led him to understand what his companion would say if he should speak, and made it possible for him to talk in a measure for others as well as to express himself.

Nothing, surely, could be more unusual and beautiful than such a gift, nor any more purely his own. His conversation reminded one of those beautiful danseuses of the South upon whom every eye is fastened, by whom every sense is fascinated, but who dance up to their companions, and lead them out, and make them feel all the exhilaration of the occasion, while the leader alone possesses all the enchantment and all the inspiration. Of course conversation of this kind is an outgrowth of character. His reverence was one source of its inspiration, and a desire to do everything well which he undertook. He was a faithful friend and a keen appreciator; he disliked profoundly to hear the depreciation of others. His character was clear-cut and defined, like his small, erect figure; perfect of its kind, and possessed of great innate dignity, veiled only by delightful, incomparable gifts and charms.

Our acquaintance and friendship with him lasted through many years, beginning with my husband's early association. I think their acquaintance began about the time when the doctor threatened to hang out a sign, "The smallest fevers gratefully received," and when the young publisher's literary enthusiasm led him to make some excuse for asking medical advice.

The very first letter I find in Dr. Holmes's handwriting is the following amusing note accompanying the manuscript copy of "Astraea: The Balance of Illusions." The note possibly alludes to "Astraea" as the poem to be written.

$100.00.

MY DEAR SIR,—The above is an argument of great weight to all those who, like the late John Rogers, are surrounded by a numerous family.

I will incubate this golden egg two days, and present you with the resulting chicken upon the third. Yours very truly,

O. W. HOLMES.

P. S. You will perceive that the last sentence is figurative, and implies that I shall watch and fast over your proposition for forty- eight hours. But I couldn't on any account be so sneaky as to get up and recite poor old "Hanover" over again. Oh, no! If anything, it must be of the "paullo majora."

"Silvae sint consule dignae." Let us have a brand-new poem or none.

Yours as on the preceding page.

The next letters which I find as having passed between the two friends are dated in the year 1851, and it must have been about this period that their relations began to grow closer. In every succeeding year they became more and more intimate; and when death interrupted their communication, Dr. Holmes's untiring kindness to me continued to the end. Unfortunately for this record, the friendship was not maintained by correspondence. Common interests brought the two men together almost daily, long before Dr. Holmes bought a house in Charles Street within a few doors of our own, and such contiguity made correspondence to any great extent unnecessary.

The removal from Montgomery Place, where he had lived some years, to Charles Street was a matter of great concern. He says in the "Autocrat" that "he had no idea until he pulled up his domestic establishment what an enormous quantity of roots he had been making during the years he had been planted there." Before announcing his intention, he came early one morning, with his friend Lothrop Motley, to inspect our house, which was similar to the one he thought of buying. I did not know his intention at the time, but I was delighted with his enthusiasm for the view over Charles River Bay, which in those days was wider and more beautiful than it can ever be again. Nothing would satisfy him but to go to the attic, which he declared, if it were his, he should make his study.

Shortly after, the doctor took possession of his new house, but characteristically made no picturesque study in which to live. He passed many long days and evenings, even in summer, in a lower room opening on the street, which wore the air of a physician's office, and solaced his love for the picturesque by an occasional afternoon at his early home in Cambridge. Of a visit to this latter house I find the following description in my note-book: "Drove out in the afternoon and overtook Professor Holmes" (he liked to be called "Professor" then), "with his wife and son, who were all on their way to his old homestead in Cambridge. They asked us to go there with them, as it was only a few steps from where we were. The professor went to the small side door, and knocked with a fine brass knocker which had just been presented to him from the old Hancock House. It was delightful to see his pleasure in everything about the old house. There hung a portrait of his father, Abiel Holmes, at the age of thirty-one,—a beautiful face it was; there also a picture of the reverend doctor's first wife, fair, and perhaps a trifle coquettish, or what the professor called 'a little romantic;' the old chairs from France were still there; but no modern knickknacks interfered with the old-fashioned, quiet effect of the whole. He has taken for his writing-room the former parlor looking into the garden. He loves to work there, and he and his wife evidently spend a good deal of time at the old place. There is a legend that Washington spent three nights there, and that Dr. Bradshaw stepped from the door to make a prayer upon the departure of the troops from that point. Behind the house are some fine trees where we sat in the shade talking until the shadows grew long upon the grass."

During the very last years of Dr. Holmes's life he used to talk often of the old Cambridge home and the days of his childhood there. "I can remember, when I shut my eyes," he said one day, "just as if it were yesterday, how beautiful it was looking out of the windows of my father's house, how bright and sunshiny the Common was in front, and the figures which came and went of persons familiar to me. One day some one said, 'There go Russell Sturgis and his bride;' and I looked, and saw what appeared to me then two radiant beings! All this came back to me as I read a volume of his reminiscences lately privately printed, not published, by his children."

Dr. Holmes's out-of-door life was not limited, however, to his excursions to Cambridge. Early in the morning, sometimes before sunrise, standing at my bedroom window overlooking the bay, I have seen his tiny skiff moving quickly over the face of the quiet water; or, later, drifting down idly with the tide, as if his hour of exercise was over, and he was now dreamily floating homeward while he drank in the loveliness of the morning. Sometimes the waves were high and rough, and adventures were to be had; then every muscle was given a chance, and he would return to breakfast tired but refreshed. There was little to be learned about a skiff and its management which he did not acquire. He knew how many pounds a boat ought to weigh, and every detail respecting it. In the "Autocrat" he says,—"My present fleet on the Charles River consists of three rowboats: 1. A small flat-bottomed skiff of the shape of a flat-iron, kept mainly to lend to boys. 2. A fancy 'dory' for two pairs of sculls, in which I sometimes go out with my young folks. 3. My own particular water-sulky, a 'skeleton' or 'shell' race-boat, twenty-two feet long, with huge outriggers, which boat I pull with ten-foot sculls, alone, of course, as it holds but one, and tips him out if he does not mind what he is about." The description is all delightful, and a little later on there is a reference to such a morning as I have already attempted to recall. "I dare not publicly name the rare joys," he says, "the infinite delights, that intoxicate me on some sweet June morning when the river and bay are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing after me, like those wounds of angels which Milton tells of, but the seam still shining for many a long rood behind me.... To take shelter from the sunbeams under one of the thousand-footed bridges, and look down its interminable colonnades, crusted with green and oozy growths, studded with minute barnacles, and belted with rings of dark muscles, while overhead streams and thunders that other river whose every wave is a human soul flowing to eternity as the river below flows to the ocean,—lying there, moored unseen, in loneliness so profound that the columns of Tadmor in the desert could not seem more remote from life, —the cool breeze on one's forehead,—... why should I tell of these things!"

Since the Autocrat has himself told the story of this episode so beautifully, no one else need attempt it. He drank in the very wine of life with the air of those summer mornings.

Returning to some of Dr. Holmes's early letters, written before he moved to Charles Street, I find him addressing his correspondent from Pittsfield, where for seven years he enjoyed a country house in summer. "But," he said one day many years later, "a country house, you will remember, has been justly styled by Balzac 'une plaie ouverte.' There is no end to the expenses it entails. I was very anxious to have a country retreat, and when my wife had a small legacy of about two thousand dollars a good many years ago, we thought we would put up a perfectly plain shelter with that money on a beautiful piece of ground we owned in Pittsfield. Well, the architect promised to put the house up for that. But it cost just twice as much, to begin with; that wasn't much! Then we had to build a barn; then we wanted a horse and carryall and wagon; so one thing led to another, and it was too far away for me to look after it, and at length, after seven years, we sold it. I couldn't bear to think of it or to speak of it for a long time. I loved the trees, and while our children were little it was a good place for them; but we had to sell it; and it was better in the end, although I felt lost without it for a great while." Here is a letter from Pittsfield which describes him there upon his arrival one year in spring:—

PITTSFIELD, June 13, 1852.

MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,—I have just received your very interesting note, and the proof which accompanied it. I don't know when I ever read anything about myself that struck me so piquantly as that story about the old gentleman. It is almost too good to be true, but you are not in the habit of quizzing. The trait is so naturelike and Dickens-like, no American—no living soul but a peppery, crotchety, good-hearted, mellow old John Bull—could have done such a thing. God bless him! Perhaps the verses are not much, and perhaps he is no great judge whether they are or not: but what a pleasant thing it is to win the hearty liking of any honest creature who is neither your relation nor compatriot, and who must fancy what pleases him for itself and nothing else!

I will not say what pleasure I have received from Miss Mitford's kind words. I am going to sit down, and write her a letter with a good deal of myself in it, which I am quite sure she will read with indulgence, if not with gratification. If you see her, or write to her, be sure to let her know that she must make up her mind to such a letter as she will have to sit down to.

I am afraid I have not much of interest for you. It is a fine thing to see one's trees and things growing, but not so much to tell of. I have been a week in the country now, and am writing at this moment amidst such a scintillation of fireflies and chorus of frogs as a cockney would cross the Atlantic to enjoy. During the past winter I have done nothing but lecture, having delivered between seventy and eighty all round the country from Maine to western New York, and even confronted the critical terrors of the great city that holds half a million and P—— M——. All this spring I have been working on microscopes, so that it is only within a few days I have really got hold of anything to read—to say nothing of writing, except for my lyceum audiences. I had a literary rencontre just before I came away, however, in the shape of a dinner at the Revere House with Griswold and Epes Sargent. What a curious creature Griswold is! He seems to me a kind of naturalist whose subjects are authors, whose memory is a perfect fauna of all flying, running, and creeping things that feed on ink. Epes has done mighty well with his red-edged school-book, which is a very creditable-looking volume, to say the least.

It would be hard to tell how much you are missed among us. I really do not know who would make a greater blank if he were abstracted. As for myself, I have been all lost since you have been away in all that relates to literary matters, to say nothing of the almost daily aid, comfort, and refreshment I imbibed from your luminous presence. Do come among us as soon as you can; and having come, stay among your devoted friends, of whom count

O. W. HOLMES.

From this letter also we get a glimpse of the literary world of New England at that time, and an idea of his own occupations.

By degrees, as the intimacy between the two friends and neighbors grew closer, we find the publisher asking his opinion of certain manuscripts. I have no means of knowing who was the author of the poems frankly described in the following note, [Footnote: The name of the writer has been sent to me kindly. He was George H. Miles, Professor of English Literature at St. Mary's (Catholic) College, Baltimore, Maryland.] but one can only wish that writers, especially young writers, could sometimes see themselves in such a glass—not darkly!

8 MONTGOMERY PLACE, July 24, 1857.

MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,—I return the three poems you sent me, having read them with much gratification. Each of them has its peculiar merits and defects, as it seems to me, but all show poetical feeling and artistic skill.

"Sleep On!" is the freshest and most individual in its character. You will see my pencil comment at the end of it. "Inkerman" is comparatively slipshod and careless, though not without lyric fire and vivid force of description.

"Raphael Sanzio" would deserve higher praise if it were not so closely imitative.

In truth, all these poems have a genuine sound; they are full of poetical thought, and breathed out in softly modulated words. The music of "Sleep On!" is very sweet, and I have never seen heroic verse in which the rhyme was less obtrusive or the rhythm more diffluent. Still it would not be fair to speak in these terms of praise without pointing out the transparent imitativeness which is common to all these poems.

"Inkerman" is a poetical Macaulay stewed. The whole flow of its verse and resonant passion of its narrative are borrowed from the "Lays of Ancient Rome." There are many crashing lines in it, and the story is rather dashingly told; but it is very inferior in polish, and even correctness, to both the other poems. I have marked some of its errata.

"Raphael," good as it is, is nothing more than Browning browned over. Every turn of expression, and the whole animus, so to speak, is taken from those poetical monologues of his. Call it an imitation, and it is excellent.

The best of the three poems, then, is "Sleep On!" I see Keats in it, and one or both of the Brownings; but though the form is borrowed, the passion is genuine—the fire has passed along there, and the verse has followed before the ashes were quite cool.

Talent, certainly; taste very fine for the melodies of language; deep, quiet sentiment. Genius? If beardless, yea; if in sable silvered,—and I think this cannot be a very young hand,—why, then ... we will suspend our opinion.

Faithfully yours, O. W. HOLMES.

I find several amusing personal letters of this period which are characteristic enough to be preserved. Among them is the following:

21 CHARLES STREET, July 6, 8:33 A. M. Barometer at 30-1/10.

MY DEAR FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR,—Your most unexpected gift, which is not a mere token of remembrance, but a permanently valuable present, is making me happier every moment I look at it. It is so pleasant to be thought of by our friends when they have so much to draw their thoughts away from us; it is so pleasant, too, to find that they have cared enough about us to study our special tastes,—that you can see why your beautiful gift has a growing charm for me. Only Mrs. Holmes thinks it ought to be in the parlor among the things for show, and I think it ought to be in the study, where I can look at it at least once an hour every day of my life.

I have observed some extraordinary movements of the index of the barometer during the discussions that ensued, which you may be interested enough to see my notes of.

BAROMETER.

Mrs. H.

My dear, we shall of course keep this beautiful barometer in the parlor. Fair.

Dr. H.

Why, no, my clear; the study is the place. Dry.

Mrs. H.

I'm sure it ought to go in the parlor. It's too handsome for your old den. Change.

Dr. H.

I shall keep it in the study. Very dry.

Mrs. H.

I don't think that's fair. Rain.

Dr. H.

I'm sorry. Can't help it. Very dry.

Mrs. H.

It's—too—too—ba-a-ad. Much rain.

Dr. H.

(Music omitted.) 'Mid pleas-ures and paaal-a-a-c-es. Set Fair.

Mrs. H.

I will have it! You horrid— Stormy.

You see what a wonderful instrument this is that you have given me. But, my dear Mr. Fields, while I watch its changes it will be a constant memorial of unchanging friendship; and while the dark hand of fate is traversing the whole range of mortal vicissitudes, the golden index of the kind affections shall stand always at SET FAIR. Yours ever,

O. W. HOLMES.

There are many notes also showing how the two friends played into each other's hands. This one is a sample:—

21 CHARLES STREET, July 17, 1864.

MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,—Can you tell me anything that will get this horrible old woman of the C—— California off from my shoulders? Do you know anything about this pestilent manuscript she raves about? This continent is not big enough for me and her together, and if she doesn't jump into the Pacific I shall have to leap into the Atlantic —I mean the original damp spot so called. Yours always,

O. W. HOLMES.

P. S. To avoid the necessity of the latter, I have written to her, cordially recommending suicide as adapted to her case.

Surely there must have been something peculiarly exasperating about this applicant for literary honors, because Dr. Holmes erred, if at all, in the opposite direction. He was far more apt to write and to behave as the following note recommends: "Will you read this young lady's story, and let me know what you propose to do with it? A young woman of tender feelings, I think, and to be treated very kindly." Again: "Will it be too late for a few paragraphs about Forcey the Willson? If not, in what paper? And can you tell me anything? Will you do it yourself?"

The number of these notes is legion, bringing every variety of form and subject and problem to his friend as editor or publisher, or for private advice. In one of them he says, "Please give me your grandpaternal council." But I have quoted enough upon this head to give an idea of the kind and busy brain not too deeply immersed in its own projects to have a tender regard for those of others. Meanwhile his own work was continually progressing. Lowell had already made him feel that he was the mainspring of the "Atlantic," which at the time of the war attained the height of its popularity, and achieved a position where it found no peer. The care which Dr. Holmes bestowed upon the finish of his work, the endless labor over its details, are almost inconceivable when we remember that "this power of taking pains," which Carlyle calls one of the attributes of genius, was combined with a gay, mercurial temperament ready to take fire at every chance spark.

One Sunday afternoon in the sad spring of 1864, during the terrible days of the war, he came in to correct a poem. "I am ashamed," he said, "to be troubled by so slight a thing when battles are raging about us; but I have written:—

Where Genoa's deckless caravels were blown.

Now Columbus sailed from Palos, and I must change the verse before it is too late."

This habit of always doing his best is surely one of the fine lessons of his life. It has given his prose a perfection which will carry it far down the shores of time. The letter sent during the last summer of his life to be read at the celebration of Bryant's birthday was a model of simplicity in the expression of feeling. It was brief, and at another time would have been written and revised in half a day; but in his enfeebled condition it was with the utmost difficulty that he could satisfy himself. He worked at it patiently day after day, until his labor became a pain; nevertheless, he continued, and won what he deserved—the applause of men practiced in his art who were there to listen and appreciate.

Any record of Dr. Holmes's life would be imperfect which contained no mention of the pride and pleasure he felt in the Saturday Club. Throughout the forty years of its prime he was not only the most brilliant talker of that distinguished company, but he was also the most faithful attendant. He was seldom absent from the monthly dinners either in summer or in winter, and he lived to find himself at the head of the table where Agassiz, Longfellow, Emerson, and Lowell had in turn preceded him. Could a shorthand writer have been secretly present at those dinners, what a delightful book of wise talk and witty sayings would now lie open before us! Fragments of the good things were sometimes brought away, as loving parents bring sugar- plums from a feast to the children at home; but they are only fragments, and bear out but inefficiently the reputation which has run before them. The following pathetic incident, related on one of those occasions by Dr. Holmes, need not, however, be omitted:—

"Just forty years ago," he said one day, "I was whipped at school for a slight offense—whipped with a ferule right across my hands, so that I went home with a blue mark where the blood had settled, and for a fortnight my hands were stiff and swollen from the blows. The other day an old man called at my house and inquired for me. He was bent, and could just creep along. When he came in he said: 'How do you do, sir; do you recollect your old teacher Mr. ——?' I did, perfectly! He sat and talked awhile about indifferent subjects, but I saw something rising in his throat, and I knew it was that whipping. After a while he said, 'I came to ask your forgiveness for whipping you once when I was in anger; perhaps you have forgotten it, but I have not.' It had weighed upon his mind all these years! He must be rid of it before lying down to sleep peacefully."

Speaking of dining at Taft's, an excellent eating-house at Point Shirley for fish and game, Dr. Holmes said: "The host himself is worth seeing. He is the one good uncooked thing at his table."

He had been to Philadelphia with one of his lectures, but he did not have a free chance at any conversation afterward. "I did go to Philadelphia," he said, "with one remark, but I brought it back unspoken. It struck in."

Soon after Dr. Holmes's removal to Charles Street began a long series of early morning breakfasts at his publisher's house—feasts of the simplest kind. Many strangers came to Boston in those days, on literary or historical errands—men of tastes which brought them sooner or later to the "Old Corner" where the "Atlantic Monthly" was already a power. Of course one of the first pleasures sought for was an interview with Dr. Holmes, the fame of whose wit ripened early— even before the days of the "Autocrat." It came about quite naturally, therefore, that they should gladly respond to any call which gave them the opportunity to listen to his conversation; and the eight-o'clock breakfast hour was chosen as being the only time the busy guests and host could readily call their own. Occasionally these breakfasts would take place as frequently as two or three times a week. The light of memory has a wondrous gift of heightening most of the pleasures of this life, but the conversation of those early hours was far more stimulating and inspiring than any memory of it can ever be. There were few men, except Poe, famous in American or English literature of that era who did not appear once at least. The unexpectedness of the company was a great charm; for a brief period Boston enjoyed a sense of cosmopolitanism, and found it possible, as it is really possible only in London, to bring together busy guests with full and eager brains who are not too familiar with one another's thought to make conversation an excitement and a source of development.

Of Dr. Holmes's talk on these occasions it is impossible to give any satisfactory record. The simple conditions of his surroundings gave him a sense of perfect ease, and he spoke with the freedom which marked his nature. It was one of the charms by which he drew men to himself that he not only wore a holiday air of finding life full and interesting, but that he believed in freedom of speech for himself, and therefore wished to find it in others. This emancipation in expression did not extend altogether into the practical working of his life. Conventionalities had a strong hold upon him. He loved to avoid the great world when it was inconvenient, and to get a certain freedom outside of it; but once in the current, the manners of the Romans were his own. He reminded one sometimes of Hawthorne's saying that "in these days men are born in their clothes," although Dr. Holmes's conventions were more easily shuffled off than a casual observer would believe. Nothing could be farther from the ordinary idea of the romantic "man of genius" than was his well-trimmed little figure, and nothing more surprising and delightful than the way in which his childlikeness of nature would break out and assert itself. He declared one morning that he had discovered the happiest animal in creation— "next to a poet, of course, if we may call him an animal; it is the acheron, the parasite of the honey-bee. And why? Because he attaches himself to the wing of the bee, is carried without exertion to the sweetest flowers, where the bee gathers the honey while the acheron eats it; and all the while the music of the bee attends him as he is borne through the air."

He met Hawthorne for the first time, I think, in this informal way. Holmes had been speaking of Renan, whose books interested him.

"A long while ago," he began, "I said Rome or Reason; now I am half inclined to put it, Rome or Renan." Then suddenly turning to Hawthorne, he said, "By the way, I would write a new novel if you were not in the field, Mr. Hawthorne." "I am not," said Hawthorne; "and I wish you would do it." There was a moment's silence. Holmes said quickly, "I wish you would come to the club oftener." "I should like to," said Hawthorne, "but I can't drink." "Neither can I." "Well, but I can't eat." "Nevertheless, we should like to see you." "But I can't talk, either." After which there was a shout of laughter. Then said Holmes, "You can listen, though; and I wish you would come."

On another occasion, when Lowell was present, he was talking of changes in physical conditions. Dr. Holmes said, now, at the age of fifty-four, he could eat almost anything set before him, which he could by no means do formerly. Lowell found opportunity somehow at this point to laugh at Holmes for having lately said in print that "Beecher was a man whose thinking marrow was not corrugated by drink or embrowned by meerschaum." Lowell said he had no "thinking marrow," and objected to such anatomical terms applied to the best part of a man.

By and by Lowell came out of his critical mood, and said pleasantly, after some talk upon lyric poetry in general, "I like your lyrics, you know, Holmes." "Well," said Holmes, pleased, but speaking earnestly and with a childlike honesty, "but there is something too hopping about them. To tell the truth, nothing has injured my reputation so much as the too great praise which has been bestowed upon my 'windfalls.' After all, the value of a poet to the world is not so much his reputation as a writer of this or that poem, as the fact that the poet is known to be one who is rapt out of himself at times, and carried away into the region of the divine; it is known that the spirit has descended upon him, and taught him what he should speak."

Holmes's admiration of Dickens's genius was very sincere. "He is the greatest of all of them," he loved to say. "Such fertility, such Shakespearean breadth,—there is enough of him; you feel as you do when you see the ocean."

Speaking of the difficulty of being a good listener, he said that it was a terrible responsibility for him to listen to a story. He could never be rid of the feeling that he must remember accurately, or all would be lost. There was one story in particular, told by a friend remarkable as a raconteur, which tried him more than anything he knew in the world,—of the kind. He felt like one of the old Greek chorus with strophe and antistrophe, and it was a weight upon his mind lest he should not laugh properly at the end. I recall one day, when the subject of Walt Whitman's poetry was introduced, Dr. Holmes said he abhorred playing the critic, partly because he was not a good reader, —had read too cursorily and carelessly; but he thought the right thing had not been said about Walt Whitman. "His books sell largely, and there is a large audience of friends in Washington who praise and listen. Emerson believes in him; Lowell not at all; Longfellow finds some good in his 'yaup;' but the truth is, he is in an amorphous condition."

Longfellow was once speaking of an address he had heard which he considered quite a perfect performance. "Yes—yes," said Dr. Holmes; "I don't doubt it was very good; but the speaker is such an unpleasant person! He is just one of those fungi that always grow upon universities."

The following extract is from a brief diary:

"Charles Sumner, Longfellow, Greene, Dr. Holmes, came to dine. The latter sparkled and coruscated as I have seldom heard him before. We are more than ever convinced that no one since Sydney Smith was ever so brilliant, so witty, spontaneous, naif, and unfailing as he."

In speaking of his own class in college he said: "There never was such vigor in any class before, it seems to me. Almost every member turns out sooner or later distinguished for something. We have had every grade of moral status from a criminal to a chief justice, and we never let any one of them drop. We keep hold of their hands year after year, and lift up the weak and failing ones till they are at last redeemed. Ah, there was one exception! Years ago we voted to cast a man out who had been a defaulter or who had committed some offense of that nature. The poor fellow sank down, and before the next year, when we repented of this decision, he had gone too far down and presently died. But we have kept all the rest!

"Every fourth man in our class is a poet. Sam. Smith belongs to our class, who wrote 'My Country 't is of Thee.' Sam. Smith will live when Longfellow, Whittier, and all the rest of us have gone into oblivion....

"Queer man, ——. Looked ten years older than he was, like Caliban. Calibans look always ten years older than they are. A perfect potato of a man. If five hundred pieces of a man had been flung together from different points and stuck, they could not have been more awkwardly concocted than he was.

"James Freeman Clarke was in our class. Ever read his history of the 'Ten Great Religions?' Very good book. Nobody knows how much Clarke is until he reads that book. How he surprises us from time to time. Came out well about 'bolting,' with regard to Butler the other day. Writes good verses, too,—not as good as mine, but good verses." ... Holmes was abstemious and never ceased talking. "Most men write too much. I would rather risk my future fame upon one lyric than upon ten volumes. But I have said 'Boston is the hub of the Universe;' I will rest upon that."

He spoke also with great feeling of the women who came to him for literary advice and assistance. ——, he says, is his daughter in letters. He has only seen her once, but he has been a faithful correspondent and assistant to her.

Sumner said some one had called —— "an impediment in the path of science." What did he mean? "It means just this," said Holmes: "—— is no longer young, and I was reading the other day in a book on the Sandwich Islands of an old Fejee man who had been carried away among strangers, but who prayed that he might be carried home and his brains beaten out in peace by his son, according to the custom of those lands. It flashed over me then that our sons beat out our brains in the same way. They do not walk in our ruts of thought or begin exactly where we leave off, but they have a new standpoint of their own."

The talk went on for about four hours, when the company broke up.

One evening the doctor came in after the Phi Beta Kappa dinner at Cambridge. "I can't stop," he said. "I only came to read you my verses which I gave at the dinner to-day: they made such a queer impression! I didn't mean to go, but James Lowell was to preside, and sent me word that I really must be there, so I just wrote these off, and here they are. I don't know that I should have brought them in to read to you, but Hoar declares they are the best I have ever done." After some delay, and in the fading light of sunset reflected from the river, he read the well-known verses "Bill and Joe." He must have been still warm with the excitement of the first reading, for I can never forget the tenderness with which he recited the lines. They are still pleasant on the printed page, but to those who heard him they are divested of the passion of affection with which they were written and read.

Late in life he said to a friend who was speaking of the warm friendships embalmed in his poetry, and which would help to make it endure: "I don't know how that may be; but the writing of these poems has been a passionate joy."

The following amusing note gives a picture of Dr. Holmes in his most natural and social mood:—

296 BEACON STREET, February 11, 1872.

My dear Mr. Fields,—On Friday evening last I white-cravated myself, took a carriage, and found myself at your door at 8 of the clock P. M.

A cautious female responded to my ring, and opened the chained portal about as far as a clam opens his shell to see what is going on in Cambridge Street, where he is waiting for a customer.

Her first glance impressed her with the conviction that I was a burglar. The mild address with which I accosted her removed that impression, and I rose in the moral scale to the comparatively elevated position of what the unfeeling world calls a "sneak-thief."

By dint, however, of soft words, and that look of ingenuous simplicity by which I am so well known to you and all my friends, I coaxed her into the belief that I was nothing worse than a rejected contributor, an autograph collector, an author with a volume of poems to dispose of, or other disagreeable but not dangerous character.

She unfastened the chain, and I stood before her.

"I calmed her fears, and she was calm And told"

me how you and Mrs. F. had gone to New York, and how she knew nothing of any literary debauch that was to come off under your roof, but would go and call another unprotected female who knew the past, present, and future, and could tell me why this was thus, that I had been lured from my fireside by the ignis fatuus of a deceptive invitation.

It was my turn to be afraid, alone in the house with two of the stronger sex; and I retired.

On reaching home, I read my note and found it was Friday the 16th, not the 9th, I was invited for....

Dear Mr. Fields, I shall be very happy to come to your home on Friday evening, the 16th February, at 8 o'clock, to meet yourself and Mrs. Fields and hear Mr. James read his paper on Emerson. Always truly yours,

O. W. HOLMES. On occasions of social dignity few men have ever surpassed Dr. Holmes in grace of compliment and perfection of easy ceremony. It was an acquired gift; perhaps it always must be. But as soon as human nature was given a chance to show itself, he was always eager, bringing an unsated store of intellectual curiosity to bear upon every new person or condition. He was generous to a fault in showing his own hand, moving with "infinite jest" over the current of his experiences until he could tempt his interlocutor out upon the same dangerous waters. If others were slow to embark, he nevertheless interested them in the history of his own voyage of life.

Dr. Holmes had never known any very difficult hand to hand struggle with life, but he was quite satisfied with its lesser difficulties. He could laugh at his own want of courage, as he called a certain lack of love for adventure, and he could admire the daring of others. He was happy in the circle of his home affections, and never cared to stray faraway. He had a golden sense of comfort in his home life, an entire satisfaction, which made his rare absences a penance. Added to this was his tendency to asthma, from which he suffered often very severely. In a letter written in 1867 from Montreal, whither he had gone to obtain a copyright of one of his books, we can see how his domestic habits, as well as his asthma, made any long absence intolerable to him.

MONTREAL, October 23, 1867.

Dear Mr. Fields:... I am as comfortable here as I can be, but I have earned my money, for I have had a full share of my old trouble.

Last night was better, and to-day I am going about the town. Miss Frothingham sent me a basket of black Hamburg grapes to-day, which were very grateful after the hotel tea and coffee and other 'pothecary's stuff.

Don't talk to me about taverns! There is just one genuine, clean, decent, palatable thing occasionally to be had in them,—namely, a boiled egg. The soups taste pretty good sometimes, but their sources are involved in a darker mystery than that of the Nile. Omelettes taste as if they had been carried in the waiter's hat, or fried in an old boot. I ordered scrambled eggs one day. It must be that they had been scrambled for by somebody, but who—who in the possession of a sound reason could have scrambled for what I had set before me under that name? Butter! I am thinking just now of those exquisite little pellets I have so often seen at your table, and wondering why the taverns always keep it until it is old. Fool that I am! As if the taverns did not know that if it was good it would be eaten, which is not what they want. Then the waiters, with their napkins,—what don't they do with those napkins! Mention any one thing of which you think you can say with truth, "That they do not do."...

I have a really fine parlor, but every time I enter it I perceive that

"Still, sad 'odor' of humanity"

which clings to it from my predecessor. Mr. Hogan got home yesterday, I believe. I saw him for the first time to-day. He was civil—they all are civil. I have no fault to find except with taverns here and pretty much everywhere.

Every six months a tavern should burn to the ground, with all its traps, its "properties," its beds and pots and kettles, and start afresh from its ashes like John Phoenix-Squibob.

No; give me home, or a home like mine, where all is clean and sweet, where coffee has preexisted in the berry, and tea has still faint recollections of the pigtails that dangled about the plant from which it was picked, where butter has not the prevailing character which Pope assigned to Denham, where soup could look you in the face if it had "eyes" (which it has not), and where the comely Anne or the gracious Margaret takes the place of these napkin-bearing animals.

Enough! But I have been forlorn and ailing and fastidious—but I am feeling a little better, and can talk about it. I had some ugly nights tell you; but I am writing in good spirits, as you see. I have written once before to Low, as I think I told you, and on the 25th mean to go to a notary with Mr. Dawson, as he tells me it is the right thing to do.

Yours always, O. W. H.

P. S. Made a pretty good dinner, after all; but better a hash at home than a roast with strangers.

With much the same experience of asthma as a result, he visited Princeton three or four years later, and wrote after his return:—

296 BEACON STREET, August 24, 1871.

My dear Fields:... I only sat up one whole night, it is true, which was a great improvement on Montreal; but I do not feel right yet, and it is quite uncertain whether I shall be in a condition to enjoy the club by Saturday. So if I come, all the better for me; and if I don't come, you can say that you have in your realm at Parker's not "five hundred as good as he," but a score or so that will serve your turn.

I cut the first leaves I wanted to meddle with in the last "Atlantic" for No. IX. of the "Whispering Gallery," and took it all down like an oyster in the height of the season. It is captivating, like all the rest. Why don't you make a book as big as Allibone's out of your store of unparalleled personal recollections? It seems too bad to keep them for posterity. When I think of your bequeathing them for the sole benefit of people that are unborn, I want to cry out with Horace:—

"Eheu—Postume, Postume!"

Always yours, O. W. HOLMES.

Again, three years later, he writes: "I hope you are reasonably careful of yourself during this cold weather. Look out! A hot lecture- room, a cold ride, the best-chamber sheets like slices of cucumber, and one gives one's friends the trouble of writing an obituary, when he might just as well have lived and written theirs. We had a grand club last Saturday. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Adams, Tom Appleton (just home a few weeks ago), and Norton (who has been sick a good while) were there, and lots of others, and Lord Hought on as a guest. You ought to have been there; it was the best club for a long time."

The following note, written in 1873, shows how closely Dr. Holmes kept the growth of the club in mind, and his eagerness to bring into it the distinguished intellectual life of Boston.

296 BEACON STREET, February 21, 1873.

My dear Mr. Fields,—I doubt whether I shall feel well enough to go to the club to-morrow, as I am somewhat feverish and sore-throaty to-day, though I must crawl out to my lecture. Mr. Parkman and Professor Wolcott Gibbs are to be voted for, you know.

President Eliot, who nominated Professor Gibbs, will, I suppose, urge his claims if he thinks it necessary, or see that some one does it.

As for Mr. Francis Parkman, proposed by myself, I suppose his reputation is too solidly fixed as a scholar and a writer to need any words from me or others of his friends who may be present.

He has been a great sufferer from infirmities which do not prevent him from being very good company, and which I have thought the good company he would find at the Saturday Club would perhaps enable him to forget for a while more readily. It has seemed to me so clear that he ought to belong to the club, if he were inclined to join it, that I should have nominated him long ago had I not labored under the impression that he must have been previously proposed....

Yours very truly, O. W. HOLMES.

For many years it seemed that time stood still with the Autocrat. His happy home and his cheerful temper appeared to stay the hand of the destroyer. At last a long illness fell upon his wife; and after her death, when his only daughter, who had gone to keep her father's house, was suddenly taken from his side, the shadows of age gathered about him; then we learned that he was indeed an old man.

For the few years that remained to him before his summons came he accepted the lot of age with extraordinary good cheer. His hearing became very imperfect. "I remind myself sometimes," he said, "of those verses I wrote some years ago. I wonder if you would remember them! I called the poem 'The Archbishop and Gil Bias: A Modernized Version.'" He then repeated with great humor and pathos a few of the lines:—

"Can you read as once you used to? Well, the printing is so bad, No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that once we had. Are you quite as quick of hearing? Please to say that once again. Don't I use plain words, your Reverence? Yes, I often use a cane."

"As to my sight," he continued, "I have known for some years that I have cataracts slowly coming over my eyes; but they increase so very slowly that I often wonder which will win the race first—the cataracts or death."

He was most carefully watched over during the succeeding years of disability by his distinguished son and his daughter-in-law, of whose talent he was sincerely proud. Nevertheless, he suffered of necessity many lonely hours, in spite of all that devotion could do for him.

Such a wife and such a loving daughter could not pass from his side and find their places filled. But he did not "mope," as he wrote me one day, "I am too busy for that;" or, he might have said truthfully, too well sustained. His habit of carrying himself with an air of kindliness toward all, and of enjoyment in the opportunities still left him, was very beautiful and unusual. "If the Lord thinks it best for me to stay until I tumble to pieces, I'm willing—I'm willing," he said. He was always capable of amusing his friends on the subject, as in the former days when Old Age came and offered him "a cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of overshoes. 'No; much obliged to you,' said I.... So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way, and walked out alone; got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with lumbago, and had time to think over the whole matter."

Who that heard him can ever forget the exquisite reading of "The Last Leaf" at the Longfellow memorial meeting. The pathos of it was then understood for the first time. The poem had become an expression of his later self, and it was given with a personal significance which touched the hearts of all his hearers.