Newport, Rhode Island. There was something in the dreamy serenity of the bay upon which my friend's house stood that greatly charmed Mr. Emerson, and his remark at first looking out over the water was a characteristic one. It was from the dining-room windows that he looked. We had given him a seat from which he could see the bay. As we took our places for breakfast he gazed across the shining silver surface, and said half dreamily, "And are there any clocks in Newport?" It was some minutes before anyone perceived the precise drift of this question, and during the brief interval of our bewilderment the smile on. Mr. Emerson's face deepened and spread until his whole countenance beamed with humorous enjoyment of our perplexity.

How precious is every memory of those days! The tender, yet beneficent, way in which Mr. Emerson listened for replies to the searching questions he sometimes put had in it a certain. expression of unconscious royalty that no words could convey; and it kindled in one's breast that mingled sentiment of affection and incentive to all possible effort, for which allegiance is the only fitting name. As time goes on it will be more and more sure that he is the one truest representative our republic has borne, his thought and his words the

truest rendering of the republic's idea, and his life and character the truest fulfilling of the republic's ideal. "Atlantic Monthly," September, 1882.

AWKWARD POSITION WHILE ON A LECTURING TOUR.

Many of Emerson's friends and acquaintances thought that his sense of humour was almost as keen as his sense of Beauty and his sense of Right. I do not remember an instance in my conversations with him, when the question came up of his being not understood, or, what is worse, misunderstood by the public, that he did not treat the matter in an exquisitely humorous way, telling the story of his defeats in making himself comprehended by the audience or the readers he addressed as if the misapprehensions of his meaning were properly subjects of mirth, in which he could heartily join. This is the test of the humourist, that he can laugh with those who laugh at him. For example, on one occasion I recollect saying that of all his college addresses I thought the best was that on "The Method of Nature," delivered before the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11, 1841. He then gave me a most amusing account of the circumstances under which the oration was delivered. It seems

that after conceiving the general idea of the address, he banished himself to Nantasket Beach, secluded himself for a fortnight in a room in the public-house, the windows of which looked out on the ocean, moving from his chamber and writingdesk only to take early morning and late evening walks on the beach; and thought, at the end, he had produced something which was worthy of being listened to even by the Society of the Adelphi. At that time a considerable portion of the journey to Waterville had to be made by stage. He arrived late in the evening, travel-worn and tired out, when almost all the sober inhabitants of Waterville had gone to bed. It appeared that there was some doubt as to the particular citizen's house at which he was to pass the night. "The stage-driver," said Emerson, "stopped at one door; rapped loudly; a window was opened; something in a night-gown asked what he wanted; the stagedriver replied that he had inside a man who said he was to deliver the lit-ra-rye oration to-morrow, and thought he was to stop there; but the nightgown disappeared, with the chilling remark that he was not to stay at his house. Then we went to another, and still another dwelling, rapped, saw similar night-gowns and heard similar voices at similar raised windows; and it was only after

repeated disturbances of the peace of the place that the right house was hit, where I found a hospitable reception. The next day I delivered my oration, which was heard with cold, silent, unresponsive attention, in which there seemed to be a continuous unuttered rebuke and protest. The services were closed by prayer, and the good man who prayed, prayed for the orator, but also warned his hearers against heresies and wild notions, which appeared to me of that kind for which I was held responsible. The address was really written in the heat and happiness of what I thought a real inspiration ; but all the warmth was extinguished in that lake of iced water." The conversation occurred so long ago that I do not pretend to give Emerson's exact words, but this was the substance of his ludicrous. statement of the rapture with which he had written what was so frigidly received. He seemed intensely to enjoy the fun of his material discomforts and his spiritual discomfiture.-Some Recollections of Emerson, by Edwin P. Whipple, in "Harper's Monthly Magazine," September, 1882.

MR. ALCOTT AND HIS DAUGHTERS.

The following account of the venerable Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, Emerson's life-long friend, still living, in his eighty-third year, will be read with

interest. His name is inseparably associated with that of his distinguished fellow-townsman. It is from a paper in the New York "Home Journal," entitled "Literati at Concord," November, 1874 :

"Not far from Mr. Emerson's hemlock grove— writes a pilgrim of the Inter-Ocean-is the picturesque home of the Alcotts. It is the queerest little cottage in the world. It stands at the foot of the hill which the British soldiers crossed the morning, nearly a hundred years ago, when they marched up from Lexington. The house is a dull brown colour, with peaked roof and many a gable end, in one of which, hooded by the jutting roof and festooned by some airy sprays of woodbine, is the window whence Aunt Joe' looks out on the sunny meadows. On each side of the front walk there is a huge elm with rustic seat built around its roots, and among the branches tame squirrels hold high revelry. Yonder a hammock swings under some apple trees, and around the whole runs a rustic fence, built by Mr. Alcott himself. It is made entirely of pine boughs, knotted, gnarled, and twisted into every conceivable shape. No two pieces are alike; the gates are wonderful, and they alone would make credible the story that he spent years collecting the branches.

"Mr. Alcott, the 'Orphic Alcott,' as Curtis calls

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