as a good life, and he said that he felt that it was
so.

"... When I was travelling with Miss S., who was near-sighted and kept
her eyes constantly half-shut, it seemed to me that every other young
lady I met had wide, staring eyes. Now, after two years sitting by a
person who never reasons, it strikes me that every other person whom I
meet has been thinking hard, and his logic stands out a prominent
characteristic.

"Aug. 27, 1879. Scientific Association met at Saratoga. ... Professor
Peirce, now over seventy years old, was much the same as ever. He went
on in the cars with us, and was reading Mallock's 'Is Life Worth
Living?' and I asked, 'Is it?' to which Professor Peirce replied, 'Yes,
I think it is.' Then I asked, 'If there is no future state, is life
worth living?' He replied, 'Indeed it is not; life is a cruel tragedy if
there is no immortality.' I asked him if he conceived of the future life
as one of embodiment, and he said 'Yes; I believe with St Paul that
there is a spiritual body....'

"Professor Peirce's paper was on the 'Heat of the Sun;' he considers the
sun fed not by impact of meteors, but by the compression of meteors. I
did not think it very sound. He said some good things: 'Where the truth
demands, accept; what the truth denies, reject.'

"Concord, Mass., 1879. To establish a school of philosophy had been the
dream of Alcott's life; and there he sat as I entered the vestry of a
church on one of the hottest days in August. He looked full as young as
he did twenty years ago, when he gave us a 'conversation' in Lynn.
Elizabeth Peabody came into the room, and walked up to the seat of the
rulers; her white hair streamed over her shoulders in wild carelessness,
and she was as careless as ever about her whole attire, but it was
beautiful to see the attention shown to her by Mr. Alcott and Mr.
Sanborn.

"Emerson entered,--pale, thin, almost ethereal in countenance,--followed
by his daughter, who sat beside him and watched every word that he
uttered. On the whole, it was the same Emerson--he stumbled at a
quotation as he always did; but his thoughts were such as only Emerson
could have thought, and the sentences had the Emersonian pithiness. He
made his frequent sentences very emphatic. It was impossible to see any
thread of connection; but it always was so--the oracular sentences made
the charm. The subject was Memory.' He said, 'We remember the
selfishness or the wrong act that we have committed for