Seeing Mr. Fields appear one day, bag in hand, at
a time when he was living in the country, Emerson glanced at him
affectionately, saying half aloud, "Good boy! good boy!" At this
meeting it appeared that Lowell and Emerson had chanced to go
together, while in Paris, to hear Renan. They spoke of the beauty and
perfection of his Hebrew script upon the blackboard; it was faultless,
they said. Emerson added that he could not understand Renan's French,
so he looked at Lowell, who wore a very wise expression, instead.
Emerson was no lover of the sentimental school. The sharp arrow of his
wit found a legitimate target there. Of one person in especial, whom
we all knew and valued for extraordinary gifts, he said: "---- is
irreclaimable. The sentimentalists are the most dangerous of the
insane, for they cannot be shut up in asylums."
The labor bestowed upon his own work before committing himself to
print was limitless. I have referred to this already in speaking of
the publication of his address after the death of Thoreau. Sometimes
in joke a household committee would be formed to sit in judgment on
his essays, and get them out of his hands. The "May-day" poem was long
in reaching its home in print. There were references to it from year
to year, but he could never be satisfied to yield it up. In April,
1865, after the fall of Richmond, he dined with us, full of what he
said was "a great joy to the world, not alone to our little America.
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