deas, and the pure, limpid literature of
Hawthorne did not satisfy him.

Hawthorne's estimate of Emerson was far more just and penetrating;
he described him very correctly as "a great original thinker"
whose "mind acted upon other minds of a certain constitution with
wonderful magnetism, and drew many men upon long pilgrimages to
speak with him face to face. Young visionaries--to whom just so
much of insight had been imparted as to make life all a labyrinth
around them--came to seek the clew that should guide them out of
their self-involved bewilderment. Gray-headed theorists--whose
systems, at first air, had finally imprisoned them in an iron
framework--travelled painfully to his door, not to ask
deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into their own
thraldom. People that had lighted on a new thought, or a thought
that they fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a
glittering gem hastens to a lapidary to ascertain its quality and
value. Uncertain, troubled, earnest wanderers through the midnight
of the moral world beheld his intellectual face as a beacon
burning on a hill-top, and, climbing the difficult ascent, looked
forth into the surrounding obscurity more hopefully than hitherto.
For myself, there had been epochs in my life when I, too, might
have asked of this prophet the master word that should solve me
the riddle of the universe, but, now, being happy, I feel as if
there were no question to be put, and therefore admired Emerson as
a poet of deep and austere beauty, but sought nothing from him as
a philosopher. It was good nevertheless to meet him in the
wood-paths, or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual
gleam diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining
one; and he, so quiet, so simple, so without pretension,
encountering each man alive as if expecting to receive more than
he could impart."

It was fortunate for Hawthorne, doubly fortunate for us who read
him, that he could withstand the influence of Emerson, and go on
writing in his own way; his dreams and fancies were undisturbed by
the clear vision which sought so earnestly to distract him from
his realm of the imagination.

On first impressions Emerson rated Alcott very high. "He has more
of the godlike than any man I have ever seen, and his presence
rebukes, and threatens, and raises. He is a teacher." "Yesterday
Alcott left us after a three days' visit. The most extraordinary
man, and the highest genius of hi