'I bring you back your flowers,' he said gently.
There was no loud applause last evening; but there were little shivers
of delight or approbation running over the audience from time to time,
like breezes over a cornfield."
Emerson was always faithful to his appreciation of Channing's poems.
When "Monadnock" was written, he made a special visit to Boston to
talk it over, and the fine lines of Channing were always ready in his
memory, to come to the front when called for. His love and loyalty to
Elizabeth Hoar should never be forgotten, in however imperfect a
rehearsal of his valued companionships. One morning at breakfast I
heard him describing her attributes and personality in the most tender
and engaging way to Mrs. Stowe, who had never known her, which I would
give much to be able to reproduce.
Emerson's truthfulness was often the cause of mirth even to himself. I
remember that he thought he did not care for the work of Bayard
Taylor, but he confessed one day with sly ruefulness that he had taken
up the last "Atlantic" by chance, and found there some noble
hexameters upon "November;" and "I said to myself, 'Ah! who is this?
this is as good as Clough.' When to my astonishment, and not a little
to my discomfiture, I discovered they were Bayard Taylor's! But how
about this 'Faust'? We have had Dante done over and over, and even now
done, I see, again by a new hand, and Homer forever being done, and
now 'Faust'! I quarrel somewhat with the overmuch labor spent upon
these translations, but first of all I quarrel with Goethe.
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