Afterward Emerson said he was reminded of Carlyle's expression
with regard to Lady Duff Gordon, whom he considered a female St. Peter
walking fearlessly over the waves of the sea of humbug."
Opportunities for social communication were sacred in his eyes, and
never to be lightly thrown aside. He wore an expectant look upon his
face in company, as if waiting for some new word from the last comer.
He was himself the stimulus, even when disguised as a listener, and
his additions to the evenings called Mr. Alcott's Conversations were
marked and eagerly expected. Upon the occasion of Longfellow's last
departure for Europe in 1869, a private farewell dinner took place,
where Emerson, Agassiz, Holmes, Lowell, Greene, Norton, Whipple, and
Dana all assembled in token of their regard. Emerson tried to persuade
Longfellow to go to Greece to look after the Klephs, the supposed
authors of Romaic poetry, so beautiful in both their poetic eyes.
Finding this idea unsuccessful, he next turned to the Nile, to those
vast statues which still stand awful and speechless witnesses of the
past. He was interesting and eloquent, but Longfellow was not to be
persuaded. It was an excellent picture of the two contrasting
characters,--Longfellow, serene, considerate, with his plans arranged
and his thought resting in his home and his children's requirements;
Emerson, with eager, unresting thought, excited by the very idea of
travel to plunge farther into the strange world where the thought of
mankind was born.
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