[Boston—Saturday, 15 July 1865]
July 15. Yesterday Mrs Hawthorne completed her two days visit here and Mr Emerson came with Julian to dine in the afternoon. Mr E. said he would like to admit Mr Thoreau’s poem to the Maiden in the East partly because it was written of Mrs Watson—Miss Russell—and would please her partly because others like it. “I looked over the poems again and again” he said “and at last reserved but ten, finding some blemish in all the others which prevented them from seeming perfect to me. How grand is his poem about the mountains! As it was said of Goethe that he never spoke of the stars but with respect so we may say of Thoreau and the mountains.”
He was glad to know we had seen Willson and a little entertained I thought rather than persuaded about “Psycometry” if that is what the character reading from the touch of mss. may be called. He spoke of the seriousness of the man and said that Edward thought him fearfully sombre.
He congratulated me upon enjoying Plotinus, said he hoped I found the description of Paradise and the Sphinx. The last I was obliged to tell him I did not get. The truth was the sword and the book did not come together for long enough. I have needed it in these few last quiet days more than the foregoing novelty. He spoke of Taylor, the translator, his devoted life; and Niebuhr’s reference to him which happily I had just been reading.
Jamie tells me that Mr Emerson agrees with him about not printing the article “Character” in the A.M. It will be reserved for his own audience and his next volume.
He spoke of Normal Schools. He had just been to the annual examination of one of the 4 of Massachusetts. He described “Ellen Chandler” to us who read “Rosalind” and was as “arch” as the lady herself and more piquant than Fanny Kemble. The Governor’s speech was so fitting as to excite even the seer to express satisfaction in it.
Packed & came to Manchester.
Sorry to leave our dear retired home for in summer it may often be that and yet this week being Commencement week at Cambridge we should probably have found it a busy one with company.
