The meeting was
called in opposition to Daniel Webster, and Emerson was to address the
people. It was in Cambridgeport. When he rose to speak he was greeted
by hisses, long and full of hate; but a friend said, who saw him
there, that he could think of nothing but dogs baying at the moon. He
was serene as moonlight itself.
The days came, alas! when desire must fail, and the end draw near. One
morning he wrote from Concord: "I am grown so old that, though I can
read from a paper, I am no longer fit for conversation, and dare not
make visits. So we send you our thanks, and you shall not expect us."
It has been a pleasure to rehearse in my memory these glimpses of
Emerson, and, covered with imperfections as they are, I have found
courage for welding them together in the thought that many minds must
know him through his work who long to ask what he was like in his
habit as he lived, and whose joy in their teacher can only be enhanced
by such pictures as they can obtain of the righteousness and beauty of
his personal behavior.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS AND UNPUBLISHED LETTERS
Dr. Holmes's social nature, as expressed in conversation and in his
books, drew him into communication with a very large number of
persons. It cannot be said, however, in this age marked by altruisms,
that he was altruistic; on the contrary, he loved himself, and made
himself his prime study--but as a member of the human race, he had his
own purposes to fulfill, his own self-appointed tasks, and he
preferred to take men only on his own terms.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103