Longfellow refused pointedly to go on this excursion, because he had heard that Emerson had bought a gun, and he keenly felt the danger which might arise from such an instrument in the hands of a philosopher, one more familiar with the infinite than with powder and game. When asked why he would not join the party, he said that "somebody will be shot.'

During the earlier years of the Saturday Club, Horatio Woodman was its purveyor, giving voluntary attention to the menu and the other necessities of its existence. He was a clever and a witty man, had a social quality that his intellectual gifts did not equal, and by his genial comradeship won the friendship of men who in every way were greatly his superiors. In later years he appropriated the funds of his friends, resigned from the club, and committed suicide, as Adams says, or disappeared from sight, about 1870, as is stated by Mr. Sanborn. Doctor Holmes says that the club had no Boswell, and its golden hours passed unrecorded. Mr. Adams expresses the regret that Woodman did not serve it in this capacity, for he had all the qualities that would have made him successful in such a role, adding that "he had a craving for the acquaintance and society of men of reputation, and indeed lacked only the industry to have been a sort of Boswell.

In connection with the Saturday Club also an abundant field of interesting gossip and reminiscence opened before him, had he known enough to labor in it. An amusing story-teller, with a natural eye for character and a well developed sense of humor, Woodman had at his command an almost inexhaustible fund of anecdotes relating to the men who in those days made the Parker House and its somewhat famous restaurant a sort of headquarters. Though during the rebellion he was sufficiently active and prominent to have been offered the position of Assistant Secretary of War, yet in his

own mind the great achievement of his life was the founding of the Saturday Club, and his connection with that club, which could only have come about through his being its founder, was the thing of which he most prided himself."

After the disappearance of Woodman, it seems to have in part fallen upon Dwight to manage the affairs of the club.* Writing to a friend, in October, 1877, he said: "We had a delightful club dinner yesterday, William Story sat at my side. J. F. Clarke too was there as a new member, and seemed radiantly happy. Also Bayard Taylor, who is giving a course of Lowell lectures on German literature how that would have interested you! I had a long talk with him and Doctor Hedge on the Nibelungen Lied, and in the evening I heard him lecture on that subject, which was very interesting; his lectures are crowded." Some of Dwight's plans for seating the members and guests, preserved by him, indicate who were present or expected on certain dates. Thus, in April, 1873, his sketch provides for Holmes, Dana, Adams, Howe, Dwight, Eliot, Hoar and Estes Howe. In May of the same year twenty-one members were present and eight guests. On this occasion Longfellow sat at the head of the table and Agassiz at the foot. On the right of the chairman were Robert Dale Owen, Parkman, Perkins, Dana, Appleton, Dwight, Judge Kent, Holmes, Adams, Senator Boutwell, Forbes, Wyman and Professor Gurney. On his left were Emerson, H. W. Bellows, Hedge, Henry James, Fields, Eliot, Hoar, Count Corti, C. C. Perkins, Cabot, Rev. Charles H. Brigham, H. G. Denney, Whipple and Dr. E. H. Clark. The journal of Richard Henry Dana gives the reason for so large an attendance. "Our club dined to-day," he wrote, "the largest number we

*It is Dwight's connection with the club which has led me to make this study, as a part of my forthcoming biography of Dwight, whose life touched so many of the intellectual interests of Boston in his time, in so interesting a way.

ever sat down, partly as the last of the season to which many come, but chiefly to welcome Emerson, on his return from Europe and Egypt. It was really rather a brilliant gathering. Yet, as we sit at a long table, and the room is on the street and, being warm, the windows open, we have no general conversation. All the talking is in All the talking is in sets of two to four each.. Towards the end of the dinner we change places a little. Emerson looks years younger for his European tour, and is in good spirits."

Dana was wrong in saying that this was the last meeting of the season, for at the June dinner Emerson sat at the head of the table and Agassiz at the foot. There were present Holmes, Brimmer, Pierce, Forbes, Cabot, Dwight, Howe and Hoar, with Weiss and Barnard as guests. At the January meeting of 1877, Judge Hoar was at the head of the table, and opposite him was Edmund Quincy. On the right of the chairman

were

Holmes, Harding, C. C. Perkins, Brimmer, Estes Howe and Dwight; and on his left were Emerson, Parkman, Gibbs, Gray, Godkin, Norton and Edward N. Perkins.

A pleasant episode in the history of the club was the admittance of Richard Henry Dana, senior, the author of "The Buccaneer," "The Idle Man," and other works in prose and poetry, as an honorary member of the club, the only person accorded such distinction. Under the date of October 28, 1873, the younger Dana wrote in his journal: "Yesterday my father had a great success and pleasure. I took him to the club to dine. We had Emerson, Longfellow, Agassiz, Charles Francis Adams, Sumner, Holmes, Judge Hoar, President Eliot and others, our usual set; and, after a while, Emerson rose and asked a moment's attention, and said: 'We are gratified to-day by the presence of Mr. Dana. He has a higher as well as an older claim on the respect and honor of men of letters and lovers of literature than any of us here, and we must not let

the occasion go by without an expression of our feeling towards him. I propose that, instead of nominating him for election as a regular member of the club, which we would gladly have done years ago, we unanimously declare him an honorary member and permanent guest of the club,' etc., etc. Agassiz put the question, and they all rose to their feet in response, and gave him a hearty cheer. It was very gratifying, touching, and in the best possible taste.

During the first decade of its existence, at least, before other clubs in great numbers had been organized, the Saturday Club was of real service to its members. It gave them social recreation, and it brought to them. mental stimulus. It brought together many distinguished people, as Doctor Holmes mentions, and it was a place where the intellectual leaders of the city could meet men from other cities and other countries in a friendly and happy way. "At one end of the table," says Doctor Holmes, "sat Longfellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft voiced, a most agreeable rather than a brilliant talker, but a man upon whom it was always pleasant to look, — whose silence was better than any other man's conversation. At the other end of the table sat Agassiz, robust, sanguine, animated, full of talk, boy-like in his laughter." Mrs. Agassiz says that her husband was especially attached to the club; and Doctor Holmes remarks that "the most jovial man at table was Agassiz, his laugh was that of a big giant." Around him were usually grouped the men of wit, and those who most enjoyed laughter and fun. In this connection Jules Marcou, the biographer of Agassiz, has said that the members "lingered long round the table, while hour after hour passed in animated conversation, in which bon mots and repartees were exchanged as rapidly as a discharge of fireworks- an encounter of anecdote, wit and erudition. At such times Agassiz was at his best, with his inexhaustible bonhomie. With a

lighted cigar in each hand, he would force the attention of every one around him. Excited by the pyrotechnic wit of James Russell Lowell, Judge Rockwell Hoar and Doctor Holmes, Agassiz, whose vivid imagination was always on the qui vive, was not a man to let others eclipse him. Then would come one of his made-up stories a mixture of dream and science. If he thought any one in the company was doubting its truth, he would look at him with a dumb request not to betray him. On the next occasion he would repeat the same story without any hesitation, and the third time he told it, he was sure that it really happened, and was true."

Lowell said nothing about the club in his letters, so far as they have been published; but he wrote to Motley, when ambassador of the United States to Great Britain: "I have never seen society, on the whole, so good as I used to meet at our Saturday club." In his memorial poem to Agassiz, however, he described the club with a poet's appreciation and sympathy. Of Agassiz and his place at the table these are his words:

While Holmes's rockets curve their long

ellipse,

And burst in seeds the fire that burst again To drop in scintillating rain.

Later on in the poem he describes the breaking up of the club meeting, and says:

Now forth into the darkness all are gone, But memory, still unsated, follows on, Retracing step by step our homeward walk, With many a laugh among our serious talk.

Then follows an account of his conversations with Agassiz as they find their way homeward, and of the reluctant "Good-night" with which they parted from each other when the end of their walk had been reached.

on

Doctor Holmes said that he was not able to forget the very modest, delicate, musical way in which Longfellow read his charming verse addressed to Agassiz on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday; and Mrs. Agassiz says the poet had an exquisite touch for occasions of this kind, whether serious or mirthful. If the wit and laughter of the club flowed around Agassiz, the quieter conversation secured its opportunity near Longfellow, whose left Emerson most often found his place. Longfellow often spoke of the club in his diary, and with evident enjoyment and appreciation of its meetings. He seldom does more than mention his attendance, with perhaps some brief word as to who was present and what was done of special importance; but his frequent reference to it indicates how much it was in his life for some years.

Emerson was described by Doctor Holmes as usually sitting near the Longfellow end of the table, "talking in low tones and carefully measured utterances to his neighbor or listening and recording any stray word worth remembering on his mental photograph." "I went to the club last Saturday," wrote Holmes to Motley, in April, 1870, "and met some of the friends you always like to hear of. I sat by the side of Emerson, who always charms me with his delicious.

voice, his fine sense and wit, and the delicate way he steps about among the words of his vocabulary, and at last seizing his noun or adjective, the best, the only one which would serve the need of his thought." "I well remember amongst other things," says Doctor Holmes again, "how the club would settle itself to listen when Dana had a story to tell. Not a word was missed, and those who were absent were told at the next club what they had lost. Emerson smoked his cigar and was supremely happy, and laughed under protest when the point. of the story was reached." Probably no one attended the club more regularly than Emerson, for he greatly enjoyed the meetings; and he was wont to praise the brilliant conversation he heard there. His own attitude was that of an eager listener, and he took less satisfaction in speaking himself than in hearing the clever men about him. In 1864, when the club held a Shakespearean anniversary meeting, he rose to speak, stood for a minute or two, and then quietly sat down. Speech did not come, and he serenely permitted silence to speak for him. Emerson continued his connection with the club until about 1875, always taking a warm interest in the meetings, until his failing speech and memory made them no longer attractive to him.

No one can doubt that Doctor Holmes furnished his full share of the wit and wisdom of the club. He has written of it in his biographies of Motley and Emerson, as well as on other occasions. In his letters it was a frequent subject of mention, especially to those correspondents, like Motley and Lowell, who were themselves members of the club. He first mentioned it in his biography of Motley, and then said that "it offered a wide gamut of intelligencies, and the meetings were noteworthy occasions. The vitality of this club has depended in a great measure on its utter poverty in statutes and by-laws, its entire absence of formalism, and its blessed freedom from speech-making." His

biographer says that outside of his own front door there was nothing that gave him so much pleasure as did the Saturday Club. "He loved it; he hugged the thought of it." He could not keep its affairs out of his letters, and he gossiped about its doings with a flowing pen. Evidently it had a large place in his heart, because of the fellowship it gave him, and because of the noble men with whom it brought him into frequent contact.

In writing to Motley, in February, 1861, Holmes shows how important the club had already become in his life, for he says: "The club has flourished greatly, and proved to all of us a source of the greatest delight. I do not believe there ever were such agreeable periodical meetings in Boston as these we have had at Parker's." Writing to the same friend, in 1865, he again expresses his interest in the club meetings. "What a fine thing it would be," he says, "to see you back at the Saturday club again! Longfellow has begun to come again. He was at his old place, the end of the table, at our last meeting. We have had a good many of the notabilities here within the last three or four months; and I have been fortunate enough to have some pleasant talks with most of them." "We come together on Saturdays and have good talks and pleasant," he says in 1871, "rather than jolly times. Many of your old friends are commonly there, among the rest Sumner not rarely. There is a great deal of good feeling, I think, in our little circle of literary and scientific people. I find Longfellow peculiarly sweet in disposition, gentle, soothing to be with, not commonly brilliant in conversation, but at times very agreeable, and saying excellent things with a singular modesty." Ten years later many changes had taken place in the club; some of the members had died, and others had gone away to Europe or were too far away from Boston to attend the meetings. "I go to the Saturday club quite regularly," wrote Doctor Holmes to