relation between Mr. Emerson and his daughter:"Into the Congressional library walked Emerson, one of the immortals, and smiled his celestial smile, as if two such things as mercury and the thermometer were not. His daughter Ellen by his side, and as she is the incarnation of common sense, she also was sublimely indifferent to the weather. When this rare spirit (far be the day) passes forever from mortal sight we shall hear more from this daughter Ellen. For she, in all likelihood, will be the executor of his papers and the delineator of that deep, still, inward life. It is memorable that the men who have achieved the most in letters and in science have always had a woman standing close beside them within the veil, as Carl Schurz says in homely phrase: 'Handing them the bricks while they build,' and holding up their hands when they were weary. It has just come to light how much Sir William Herschel owed to the tender and tireless sister who, through a lifetime of nights, stood by his side while others slept; who polished till her hands grew numb the mirrors which were to reflect back for him immensity; who had no ambition in life but to be his servant; who underrated her own achievements that she might exalt his, and, as her clear vision swept the paths of the spheres, shrank from her own discoveries of worlds,

lest it might prove a shadow on his fame. So the great American seer has a woman walking close by his side, taking the very thoughts from his mind and translating them for the world, and this woman is his daughter."

"MONDAY CONVERSATIONS" AT CONCORD.

A writer in the "Boston Journal" (April 27, 1872,) gives an account of Emerson's "Monday Conversations" and "Literary Meetings" at the Mechanics' Hall, Concord:-" A venerable gentleman, well preserved, serene and elegant in manner, takes his seat upon the platform of a cosy and comfortable hall, at three o'clock on a Monday afternoon, when the rush and roar of business in practical Boston is at its height, and, gently arranging his papers before him, looks calmly around him upon the large audience gathered to hear him. It is the causerie which he has undertaken-the familiar and delicate enunciation of his ideas in the form invented by our sprightly yet thoughtful French friends and the ladies throng to hear him in greater numbers even than when he appears in the attitude of the lecturer. A red curtain hangs behind him, setting off in sharp relief the keen and noble outline of his features-the head thrown

Side

forward with the poise of daring assertion-and the face now animated with all the warmth and enthusiasm of a genuine poetic admiration, now saddened and reserved with the diffidence of the habitual student and the man of reverie. lights from each wing of the stage throw a sharp light upon the ample manuscript on the readingdesk, for the philosopher and poet is now rapidly nearing seventy years of age, and the fatigues of the lecture-room are easier felt than thirty years ago. Yet the same consummate magnetism lingers around and upon every word and phrase; there is the same thrilling earnestness of antithesis, the same delight and gloating over poetry and excellence of expression, as of old. There is no other man in America who can, by the mere force of what he says, enthrall and dominate an audience. Breathless attention is given, although now and then his voice falls away so that those seated farthest off have to strain every nerve to catch the words. The grand condensation, the unfaltering and almost cynical brevity of expression are at first startling and vexatious; but presently one yields to the charm, and finds his mind in the proper assenting mood. The conversations attract more women than men, but they are of the more intellectual and reflective class of our New England women, who find in

Mr. Emerson is greeted

the intensity and wonderful precision of Mr. Emerson's mind something inexpressibly pleasing. Nor are they blind worshippers merely at a shrine before which they kneel in wonder; but the large majority appreciate and enjoy to the uttermost the continual, unresting surging of thought thrust upon them. by a class of people who are rarely seen together on any other public occasion in Boston. Aside from the large number of professed admirers and disciples, and the literati, who are present each time that he speaks or reads in Boston or vicinity, the men who go to hear him are mainly of the desire-to-be-dazzled-and-shocked order, who seem disagreeably surprised when they do comprehend what he says. Mr. Emerson's terse and vivid sentences cling in the memory, and will not be effaced. The causerie of yesterday afternoon gave an hundred ideas upon poetry, and the relations of nature to man, which will be henceforth grafted inseparably upon the common mind. The emphatic New Englander listens, incredulously at first, but finishes by saying, 'That's so!' Ideals and heretofore farremote abstractions are brought down to the sphere of daily life—admirably illustrated-made plain, and tethered where even the humblest can appreciate them as realities. And in all cases it seems

to the listener as if the phrases uttered were sculptured in the thought of the speaker-as if they had been so from the beginning, and could never be otherwise."

CONCORD AND ITS SCENERY.

The following letter, dated December, 1875, from an American lady to a relative in England, gives an account of a visit to Concord in the Autumn of 1875-that season of the year when the foliage assumes its most brilliant colouring and tints. In this letter we have a pleasant glimpse of Emerson and his home, and the local surroundings :

I have been in Concord, that quaint and lovely New England village, near Boston, where Emerson lives, and where Hawthorne and Thoreau did live, and many other minor literary celebrities drawn there perhaps by the great names of Emerson and Hawthorne, making a society of their own. After a short ride in the twilight of a soft October evening, we reached our destination. It was just light enough to see how goldenly the drooping branches of the elms hung above us, and how brilliant were the scarlet hues of the maples. All day we had had a feast of colour, for our train had come from Albany through the