L'

XXX.

LETHE.

IFE is unnecessarily long," was a sentence that once startled an audience listening to Emerson. It might be true enough of those he described as floating balloon-like over lands and seas, and settling down the same bubbles of breath that started; but for this man visibly and audibly growing, it was appalling to contemplate decay and death. Long years

afterwards I read in a letter of his an expression of apprehension that he might live too long, and a suggestion that even suicide might be better than to mar or undo one's work. This was near the close of the civil war in America, which, as I have said, was a strain upon Emerson's nerves from which, probably, they never completely recovered. At any rate, those nearest him had observed indications of physical decline before the burning of his house in 1872. He said that, on the morning after this fire, he felt something snap in his brain. It is probable Emerson might not have survived the illness that followed this severe shock, had it not been for the love and devotion which everywhere rose around him. It was the least part of this manifestation that it insisted, despite his reluctance, on rebuilding his house for him; the almost

passionate love, not only of his Concordians, but of many whose names he had never heard, breathed new life into him. Some day, perhaps, the correspondence which passed on this subject may be made public, and it will reveal a touching incident in the life of this great heart, so loving and beloved.

When he came to England after the fire, with his daughter Ellen, his head was quite clear of hair, like When he returned from a visit to

that of an infant. Egypt his head was half an inch long.

covered with a snowy downy hair He was in fair physical condition, and cheerful, but already his memory did him but fitful service. Carlyle contended that Emerson's memory was as good as ever, only "he paid less attention to the foolish things said to him; they came in at one ear and went out at the other." But Emerson knew well enough that this was not the fact. Yet he was good-humoured about it, and when a friend asked after his health replied, "Quite well; I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well."

In 1875, when I stayed at his house in Concord for a little time, it was sad enough to find him sitting as a listener before those who used to sit at his feet in silence. But when alone with him he conversed in the old way, and his faults of memory seemed at times to disappear. There was something striking in the kind of forgetfulness by which he suffered. He remembered the realities and uses of things when he could not recall their names. He would describe what he wanted or thought of; when he could not recall "chair" he could speak of that which supports the human frame, and "the implement that cultivates the

soil must do for plough. Could it be that idealism had such deep root in this mind that even disease, veiling the "nominal" world, was held at bay when assailing mental concepts?

Among the matters we discussed at that time was the report of an interview with him, published in an American paper, in which he had criticised Swinburne severely. He said he could not remember what he had said at the interview, but its publication was one of the damnable things."

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He evinced some emotion when I said the house and rooms were not distinguishable from what they had been before the fire. The loving art with which his friends and neighbours had made this exact restoration, and the welcome they had given him on his last return from England - the music, the hundreds of children singing "Sweet Home," the floral decorations,

had overwhelmed him at the time, but they were now a happy memory that could not be dimmed.

In 1880, when I was last at Concord, the trouble had made heavy strides. The intensity of his silent attention to every word that was said was painful, suggesting a concentration of his powers to break through the invisible walls closing around him. Yet his face was serene; he was even cheerful, and joined in our laughter at some letters his eldest daughter had preserved, from young girls, trying to coax autograph letters, and in one case asking for what price he would write a valedictory address she had to deliver at college! He was still able to joke about his "naughty memory;" and no complaint came from him when he once rallied himself on living too long. Emerson, appeared to me

strangely beautiful at this time, and the sweetness of his voice, when he spoke of the love and providence at his side, is quite indescribable.

The answer of the Methodist, Father Taylor, when told Emerson had not the faith that was saving — that if he went to hell, he would change the climate and emigration would set that way—found one day a curious commentary. A number of Methodist ministers began this emigration by going to Concord together to pay their respects to Emerson. One of them described the call to a friend of mine as delightful. "Emerson," he said, "looked a little doubtful at first as though he thought, perhaps, we had come to put him through the catechism—but became re-assured, affable, and charming, as it dawned on him that it was in compliment to his fame as a wise man and a great scholar." On his death, the Methodist paper, "Zion's Herald," said: Certainly a beautiful life, that for late years has been like an ancient psalm, full of solemn melody, has ceased to be read among men."

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It is to be feared he was not always so happy in his pious visitors. One, at any rate, visited him with the hope of getting some kind of sanction for his own little theology. But Emerson rose to this occasion; and when asked his religious views, walked to the shelf of his works and said, "There are my opinions; I have nothing to take from them."

It is in one sense melancholy to know that Emerson's son was under the necessity of contradicting insinuations that his father had receded from his religious views; while at the same time one cannot wonder that superstition should feel uneasy under its conscious in

ability to produce or to satisfy the finest head and grandest heart in America. It may be that yet such claims will be made; but, if true, as they certainly are not, they would only be of pathological interest, and shew that the real Emerson had departed this life sooner than had been supposed.

Apart from such liabilities and annoyances as this, it was not without compensation that Emerson's memory failed. His sensitive heart was thereby saved many a pang. This occurred to me when I was walking Iwith him and his wife and son to the house of her brother, Dr. Charles Jackson, then recently deceased. The sorrow had swiftly passed by him.

He was never more sweet and gracious, and never forgot his way of saying the kindliest word. Not long before he was seized with the fatal illness, he returned from a walk and found two young ladies of the village in his study. "It is too bad of us, Mr. Emerson," said one, to take possession of your study." "It will be all the brighter that you have thought it worth coming to," was the prompt reply.

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At the funeral of Longfellow, Emerson twice walked up to the coffin, and gazed intently upon the face of his dead friend. Then he turned to a friend and said, "That gentleman was a sweet, beautiful soul, but I have entirely forgotten his name."

Thus did he pass deeper into his Lethe, and forgot griefs that would have wrung his heart, unto the day when the pain came upon his body. But here, too, as

we have seen, a brother's art had provided the anæsthetic draught, of which the mythical Lethe seems a dream. The prophet of love and science by their