the Little Catechism, and I thought of writing to him on the
subject. But somebody told me that he was an "American Classic" and,
from that, I concluded he was dead, and had doubtless already found out
his mistake.

Perhaps I might have been better engaged in reading the more practical
books offered to boys in our own time, if we had had them. There were
some books then on scientific subjects, reduced to the comprehension of
the young; but not so many as there are now. One of my uncles
recommended the works of Samuel Smiles--"Self-Help" I think was his
favourite; but Samuel Smiles never appealed to me. My small allowance,
paid weekly, could not have been affected by "Thrift", and when my uncle
quoted passages from this tiresome book I astounded him by replying, in
a phrase I wrongly attributed to the adorable Emerson, that if I had a
quarter to spend instead of twelve cents, I would give half of it for a
hyacinth! My miserly uncle said it sounded just like Mohammed, and that
Emerson had doubtless found it in that dangerous book, the Koran.

I cannot imagine any other author doing for me just what the essays of
Emerson did. In the first place, they seemed to me to be really
American; in the second, and largely because of their quality, they
offered an antidote to the materialism in the very air, which had
succeeded the Civil War. At this time there was much talk of money and
luxury everywhere about us. Even in our quiet neighbourhood, where
simple living was the rule, many had burst into ostentation, and moved
away into newer and more pretentious quarters, and there was a rumour
that some of these sought unlimited opportunities for extravagant
expenditure. We saw them driving in new carriages, and condescendingly
stopping before the white doors and the green window-shutters of our
old-fashioned colonial houses. They had made money through the war. For
the first time in our lives we boys heard of money making as the
principal aim of life. The fact that these successful persons were
classed as "shoddy" did not lessen the value of the auriferous
atmosphere about us. Emerson was a corrective to this materialism. As to
his philosophy or theology, that did not concern me any more than the
religious opinions of Julius Caesar, whose "Commentaries" I was obliged
to read. Emerson gave me a taste for the reading of essay.

By chance I fell upon some essays of Carlyle. The inflation of his style
did not deter me from thoroughly en