expressive, sharp, and
well to the fore. In his lips there was geniality as well as firmness.
His smooth hair concealed a head and brow not large but well rounded.
His face was always without beard. Though slight, he was vigorous and
the erect figure striding at a rapid pace could be encountered any day
in all weathers, not only on the streets but in the fields and woods.
Unlike his neighbour Hawthorne his instincts were always social. He
mingled affably with low and high and I have never heard a more hearty
tribute to him than came from an Irish washwoman, his neighbour, who
only knew him as he chatted with her over the fence about the round of
affairs that interested her. He always had a smile and a pleasant word
for the school-children and at town-meeting bore his part among the
farmers in discussing the affairs of the community. His voice in
particular bespoke the man. It had a rich resonance and a subtle
quality that gave to the most cursory listener an impression of
culture. His speech was deliberate, sometimes hesitating, and his
phrases often, even when he talked on simple themes, had especial
point and appropriateness.

As a child I recall him among groups of children in his garden a
little aloof but beaming with a happy smile. At a later time, when
I was in college, we used sometimes to walk the twenty miles from
Cambridge to Concord and the student group always found in him a
hospitable entertainer. By that time he had reached the height of his
fame. Those of us who sought him had been readers of _Nature_ or
the poems, of _Representative Men_, and of _English Traits_.
For my own part while I did not always understand his thought, much
of it was entering into my very fibre. In particular the essays on
self-reliance and idealism were moulding my life. We approached him
with some awe, "If he asks me where I live," said one of our number,
a boy who was slain in the Civil War, "I shall tell him I can be
found at No. So-and-so of such an alley, but if you mean to predicate
concerning the spiritual entity, I dwell in the temple of the infinite
and I breathe the breath of truth." But when Emerson met us at the
gate, things were not at all on a high transcendental plane. There was
a hearty "Good-morning," significant from him as he stood among the
syringas, and there were sandwiches and strawberries in profusion, a
plain bread-and-butter atmosphere very pleasant to us after a long and
dusty tramp. On one occasion Em