Authors and Friends Part 6

"I have long seen with some terror the necessity closing round me, in spite of all my resistance, that shall hold me from home. It now seems fixed to the 20th or 21st March. I had only consented to 1st March.

But in the negotiations of my agent it would still turn out that the primary engagements made a year ago, and to which the others were only appendages--the primaries, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh--must needs thrust themselves into March, and without remedy. But I cannot allow the 'May-day' to come till I come. There were a few indispensable corrections made and sent to the printer, which he reserved to be corrected on the plates, but of which no revise was ever sent to me; and as good publish no book as leave these _errata_ unexpunged. Then there is one quatrain, to which his notice was not called, for which I wish to subst.i.tute another. So I entreat you not to finish the book except for the fire until I come.

As the public did not die for the book on the 1st January, I presume they can sustain its absence on the 1st April.... Though I do not know that your courage will really hold out to publish it on the 1st April if I were quite ready."

Again in the same spirit he writes to his editor and publisher:--

You ask in your last note for "Leasts and Mosts" for the "Atlantic."

You have made me so popular by your brilliant advertising and arrangements (I will say, not knowing how to qualify your social skill) that I am daily receiving invitations to read lectures far and near, and some of these I accept, and must therefore keep the readable lectures by me for a time, though I doubt not that this mite, like the mountain, will fall into the "Atlantic" at last.

Ever your debtor, R. W. EMERSON.

At another time he wrote:--

"I received the account rendered of the Blue and Gold Edition of the 'Essays' and 'Poems.' I keep the paper before me and study it now and then to see if you have lost money by the transaction, and my prevailing impression is that you have."

It was seldom he showed a sincere willingness or desire to print. One day, however (it was in 1863), he came in bringing a poem he had written concerning his younger brother, who, he said, was a rare man, and whose memory richly deserved some tribute. He did not know if he could finish it, but he would like to print _that_. It was about the same period that he came to town and took a room at the Parker House, bringing with him the unfinished sketch of a few verses which he wished Mr. Fields to hear. He drew a small table into the centre of the room, which was still in disorder (a former occupant having slept there the previous night), and then read aloud the lines he proposed to give to the press. They were written on separate slips of paper, which were flying loosely about the room and under the bed. A question arose of the t.i.tle, when Mr. Fields suggested "Voluntaries," which was cordially accepted and finally adopted.

He was ever seeking suggestions, and ready to accept corrections. He wrote to his publisher:

"I thank you for both the corrections, and accept them both, though in reading, one would always say, 'You pet,' so please write, though I grudge it [Thou pet], and [ma.s.s], and [minster]. Please also to write [arctic], in the second line with small [a] if, as I think, it is now written large [A]. And I forgot, I believe, to strike out a needless series of quotation commas with which the printing was enc.u.mbered."

His painstaking never relaxed, even when he was to read a familiar lecture to an uncritical audience. He had been invited by the members of the Young Ladies' Sat.u.r.day Morning Club to read one of his essays in their parlor. This he kindly consented to do, as well as to pa.s.s the previous night with his friends in Charles Street, and read to them an unpublished paper, which he called "Amita." Some question having arisen as to the possibility of his keeping both the engagements, he wrote as follows:--

"DEAR MRS. F.,--I mean surely to obey your first command, namely, for the visit to you on Friday evening next, and I fully trust that I wrote you that I would.... And now I will untie the papers of 'Amita,'

and see if I dare read them on Friday, or must find somewhat less nervous."

I find the following brief record of the occasion:--

"Mr. Emerson arrived from Concord. He said he took it for granted we should be occupied at that hour, but he would seize the moment to look over his papers. So I begged him to go into the small study and find quiet there as long as he chose.... Presently Emerson came down to tea; the curtains were drawn, and a few guests arrived. We sat round the tea table in the library, while he told us of ----'s life in Berlin, where Mr. and Mrs. Hermann Grimm and Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft had opened a pleasant social circle for him. He also talked much of the Grimms. His friendship for Hermann Grimm had extended over many years, and an interesting correspondence has grown up between them. More guests arrived, and the talk became general until the time came to listen to 'Amita.'"

The charm of that reading can never be forgotten by those who heard it. The paper itself can now be found upon the printed page; but Emerson's enjoyment of his own wit, as reflected back from the faces of his listeners, cannot be reproduced, nor a kind of squirrel-like shyness and swiftness which pervaded it.

The diary continues:--

"C---- and ---- were first at breakfast, but Mr. Emerson soon followed. The latter had been some time at work, and his hands were cold. I had heard him stirring before seven o'clock. He came down bright and fresh, however, with the very spirit of youth in his face.

At table they fell upon that unfailing resource in conversation, anecdotes of animals and birds. Speaking of parrots, Mr. Emerson said he had never heard a parrot say any of these wonderful things himself, but the Storer family of Cambridge, who were very truthful people, had told him astonishing anecdotes of a bird belonging to them, which he could not disbelieve because they told him.

"At ten o'clock we went to Miss L----'s, where the young ladies' club was convened to hear Mr. Emerson on 'Manners.' He told us we should do better to stay at home, as we had heard this paper many times. Happily we did not take his advice. There were many good things added, beside the pleasure of hearing the old ones revived. One of the things new to me was the saying of a wise woman, who remarked that she 'did not think so much of what people said as of what made them say it.' It was pretty to see the enthusiasm of the girls, and to hear what Celia Thaxter called their 'virile applause.'"

During the same season Emerson consented to give a series of readings in Boston. He was not easily persuaded to the undertaking until he felt a.s.sured of the very hearty cooeperation which the proposed t.i.tle of "Conversations" made evident to him. The following note will give some idea of his feeling with regard to the plan.

CONCORD, 24th February, 1872.

DEAR ----: You are always offering me kindness and eminent privileges, and for this courageous proposition of "Conversations on Literature with Friends, at Mechanics' Hall," I pause and poise between pleasure and fear. The name and the undertaking are most attractive; but whether it can be adequately attempted by me, who have a couple of tasks which Osgood and Company know of, now on my slow hands, I hesitate to affirm. Well, the very proposal will perhaps arm my head and hands to drive these tasks to a completion. And you shall give me a few days' grace, and I will endeavor to send you a considerate answer.

Later, in March, he wrote:--

"For the proposed 'Conversations,' which is a very good name, I believe I must accept your proposition frankly, though the second week of April looks almost too near."

As the appointed time approached, a fresh subject for nervousness suggested itself, which the following note will explain:--

CONCORD, 12th April, 1872.

MY DEAR ----: I entreat you to find the correspondent of the New York "Tribune," who reports Miss Vaughan's and Henry James's lectures in Boston, and adjure her or him, as he or she values honesty and honor, not to report any word of what Mr. Emerson may say or do at his coming "Conversations." Tell the dangerous person that Mr. E. accepted this task, proffered to him by private friends, on the a.s.surance that the audience would be composed of his usual circle of private friends, and that he should be protected from any report; that a report is so distasteful to him that it would seriously embarra.s.s and perhaps cripple or silence much that he proposes to communicate; and if the individual has bought tickets, these shall gladly be refunded, and with thanks and great honor of your friend,

R. W. EMERSON.

In spite of all these terrors, the "Conversations" were an entire success, financially as well as otherwise.

I find in the diary:--

"This afternoon Mr. Emerson gave his first 'Conversation' in this course, which ---- has arranged for him. He will make over fourteen hundred dollars by these readings. There was much new and excellent matter in the discourse to-day, and it was sown, as usual, with felicitous quotations. His introduction was gracefully done. He said he regarded the company around him as a society of friends whom it was a great pleasure to him to meet. He spoke of the value of literature, but also of the superior value of thought if it can be evolved in other ways, quoting that old saying of Catherine de Medicis, who remarked, when she was told of some one who could speak twenty languages: 'That means he has twenty words for one idea. I would rather have twenty ideas to one word.'"

And again:-- "_April_ 22.--To-day is the second of Mr. Emerson's 'Readings,'

or 'Conversations,' and he is coming with Longfellow and the Hunts to have dinner afterward.... We had a gay, lovely time at the dinner; but, first about the lecture. Emerson talked of poetry, and the unity which exists between science and poetry, the latter being the fine insight which solves all problems. The _un_written poetry of to-day, the virgin soil, was strongly, inspiringly revealed to us. He was not talking, he said, when he spoke of poetry, of the smooth verses of magazines, but of poetry itself wherever it was found. He read favorite single lines from Byron's 'Island,' giving Byron great praise, as if in view of the injustice which has been done him in our time. After Byron's poem he read a lyric written by a traveler to the Tonga Islands, which is in Martin's 'Travels;' also a n.o.ble poem called 'The Soul,' and a sonnet, by Wordsworth. We were all entranced as the magic of his sympathetic voice pa.s.sed from one poetic vision to another. Indeed, we could not bear to see the hour fade away."

I find the following fragment of a note written during May of that year:--

I received on my return home last night, with pleasure which is quite ceasing to surprise, the final installment of one hundred and seven dollars from the singular soliloquies called "Conversations,"

inaugurated by the best of directors.

Evermore thanks. R. W. EMERSON.

Again, in the journal I find:--

"Another lecture from Emerson--'Poetry, Religion, Love'--'superna respicit amor.' His whole discourse was a storehouse of delights and inspirations. There was a fine contribution from Goethe; a pa.s.sage where he bravely recounts his indebtedness to the great of all ages.

Varnhagen von Ense, Jacob Boehmen, Swedenborg, and the poets brought their share.

"There was an interlude upon domestic life, 'where alone the true man could be revealed,' which was full of beauty.

"He came in to-day to see ----. He flouts the idea of 'that preacher, Horace Greeley,' being put up as candidate for president. 'If it had been Charles Francis Adams, now, we should all have voted for him. To be sure, it would be his father and his grandfather for whom we were voting, but we should all believe in him.'

"We think this present course of lectures more satisfactory than the last. One thing is certain, he flings his whole spirit into them. He reads the poems he loves best in literature, and infuses into their rendering the pure essence of his own poetic life. We can never forget his reading of 'The Wind,' a Welsh poem by Taliesin--the very rush of the elements was in it."

Emerson was perfectly natural and at ease in manner and speech during these readings. He would sometimes bend his brows and shut his eyes, endeavoring to recall a favorite pa.s.sage, as if he were at his own library table. One day, after searching thus in vain for a pa.s.sage from Ben Jonson, he said: "It is all the more provoking as I do not doubt many a friend here might help me out with it."

When away from home on his lecture tours, Emerson did not fail to have his share of disasters. He wrote from Albany, in 1865, to Mr. Fields: --An unlucky accident drives me here to make a draft on you for fifty dollars, which I hope will not annoy you. The truth is that I lost my wallet--I fear to some pickpocket--in Fairhaven, Vermont, night before last (some $70 or $80 in it), and had to borrow money of a Samaritan lady to come here. I pray you do not whisper it to the swallows for fear it should go to ----, and he should print it in "Fraser." I am going instantly to the best book-shop to find some correspondent of yours to make me good. I was to have read a lecture here last night, but the train _walked_ all the way through the ice, sixty miles, from six in the morning, and arrived here at _ten_ at night. I hope still that Albany will entreat me on its knees to read to-night.

One other piece of bad news if you have not already learned it. Can you not burn down the Boston Athenaeum to-night? for I learned by chance that they have a duplicate of the "Liber Amoris." I hope for great prosperity on my journey as the necessary recoil of such adversities, and specially to pay my debts in twenty days. Yours, with constant regard,

R. W. EMERSON.

The apprehensions which a.s.sailed him before his public addresses or readings were not of a kind to affect either speech or behavior. He seemed to be simply detained by his own dissatisfaction with his work, and was forever looking for something better to come, even when it was too late. His ma.n.u.scripts were often disordered, and at the last moment, after he began to read, appeared to take the form in his mind of a forgotten labyrinth through which he must wait to find his way in some more opportune season.

In the summer of 1867 he delivered the address before the Phi Beta at Harvard. He seemed to have an especial feeling of unreadiness on that day, and, to increase the trouble, his papers slipped away in confusion from under his hand as he tried to rest them on a poorly arranged desk or table. Mr. Hale put a cushion beneath them finally, after Emerson began to read, which prevented them from falling again, but the whole matter was evidently out of joint in the reader's eyes.

He could not be content with it, and closed without warming to the occasion. It was otherwise, however, to those who listened; they did not miss the old power: but after the reading he openly expressed his own discontent, and walked away dissatisfied. Miss Emerson writes to me of this occasion: "You recall the sad Phi Beta day of 1867. The trouble that day was that for the first time his eyes refused to serve him; he could not see, and therefore could hardly get along. His work had been on the whole satisfactory to him, and if he could have read it straight all would have been happy instead of miserable."

On another and more private occasion, also, he came away much disappointed himself, because, the light being poor and his ma.n.u.script disarranged, he had not been just, he thought, even to such matter as lay before him. And who can forget the occasion of the delivery of the Boston Hymn?--that glad New Year when the people were a.s.sembled in our large Music Hall to hear read the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.

When it was known that Emerson was to follow with a poem, a stillness fell on the vast a.s.sembly as if one ear were waiting to catch his voice; but the awful moment, which was never too great for his will and endeavor, was confusing to his fingers, and the precious leaves of his ma.n.u.script fell as he rose, and scattered themselves among the audience. They were quickly gathered and restored, but for one instant it seemed as if the cup so greatly desired was to be dashed from the lips of the listeners.

His perfect grace in conversation can hardly be reproduced, even if one could gather the arrows of his wit. But I find one or two slight hints of the latter which are too characteristic to be omitted.