Chapter 5

"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 coöperation 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 _un_written 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 Böhmen, 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.