the only time,
I think, that he ever came to the house except when persuaded to
come in for a few moments on the rare occasions when he walked
with my father. On this occasion he did not ask for either Mr. or
Mrs. Emerson, but announced that his call was upon Miss Ellen.
Unfortunately, she had gone to bed, but he remained for a time
talking with my sister Edith and me, the school-mates of his
children. To cover his shyness he took up a stereoscope on the
centre-table and began to look at the pictures. After looking at
them for a time he asked where those views were taken. We told him
they were pictures of the Concord Court and Town Houses, the
Common and the Mill-dam; on hearing which he expressed some
surprise and interest, but evidently was as unfamiliar with the
centre of the village where he had lived for years as a deer or a
wood-thrush would be. He walked through it often on his way to the
cars, but was too shy or too rapt to know what was there."

Emerson liked Hawthorne better than his books,--the latter were
too weird, uncanny, and inconclusive. In 1838 he noted in his
journal, "Elizabeth Peabody brought me yesterday Hawthorne's
'Footprints on the Seashore' to read. I complained there was no
inside to it. Alcott and he together would make a man."

Later, when Hawthorne came to live in Concord, Emerson did his
best to get better acquainted; but it was of little use; they had
too little in common. Both men were great walkers, and yet they
seldom walked together. They went to Harvard to see the Shakers,
and Emerson recorded it as a "satisfactory tramp; we had good talk
on the way."

After Hawthorne's death, Emerson made the following entry in his
journal: "I thought him a greater man than any of his works
betray; there was still a great deal of work in him, and he might
one day show a purer power. It would have been a happiness,
doubtless, to both of us, to come into habits of unreserved
intercourse. It was easy to talk with him; there were no barriers;
only he said so little that I talked too much, and stopped only
because, as he gave no indication, I feared to exceed. He showed
no egotism or self-assertion; rather a humility, and at one time a
fear that he had written himself out. I do not think any of his
books worthy his genius. I admired the man, who was simple,
amiable, truth-loving, and frank in conversation, but I never read
his books with pleasure; they are too young."

Emerson was greedy for i