The Poems, vol 2 | Page 8

I feel very proud of the
approbation you give to my works, and of the influence you kindly
attribute to them on your own talent; an author who write as you do is
not a pupil in art any more; he is not far from being himself a master."

Charming and graceful words, of which the young writer was justly
proud.
About this time occurred the death of her mother, the first break in the
home and family circle. In August of 1876 she made a visit to Concord,
at the Emersons', memorable enough for her to keep a journal and note
down every incident and detail. Very touching to read now, in its
almost childlike simplicity, is this record of "persons that pass and
shadows that remain." Mr. Emerson himself meets her at the station,
and drives with her in his little one-horse wagon to his home, the gray
square house, with dark green blinds, set amidst noble trees. A glimpse
of the family,--"the stately, white-haired Mrs. Emerson, and the
beautiful, faithful Ellen, whose figure seems always to stand by the side
of her august father." Then the picture of Concord itself, lovely and
smiling, with its quiet meadows, quiet slopes, and quietest of rivers.
She meets the little set of Concord people: Mr. Alcott, for whom she
does not share Mr. Emerson's enthusiasm; and William Ellery
Channing, whose figure stands out like a gnarled and twisted
scrub-oak,--a pathetic, impossible creature, whose cranks and oddities
were submitted to on account of an innate nobility of character.
"Generally crabbed and reticent with strangers, he took a liking to me,"
says Emma Lazarus. "The bond of our sympathy was my admiration
for Thoreau, whose memory he actually worships, having been his
constant companion in his best days, and his daily attendant in the last
years of illness and heroic suffering. I do not know whether I was most
touched by the thought of the unique, lofty character that had inspired
this depth and fervor of friendship, or by the pathetic constancy and
pure affection of the poor, desolate old man before me, who tried to
conceal his tenderness and sense of irremediable loss by a show of
gruffness and philosophy. He never speaks of Thoreau's death," she
says, "but always 'Thoreau's loss,' or 'when I lost Mr. Thoreau,' or
'when Mr. Thoreau went away from Concord;' nor would he confess
that he missed him, for there was not a day, an hour, a moment, when
he did not feel that his friend was still with him and had never left him.
And yet a day or two after," she goes on to say, "when I sat with him in
the sunlit wood, looking at the gorgeous blue and silver summer sky, he
turned to me and said: 'Just half of the world died for me when I lost

Mr. Thoreau. None of it looks the same as when I looked at it with
him.'. . . He took me through the woods and pointed out to me every
spot visited and described by his friend. Where the hut stood is a little
pile of stones, and a sign, 'Site of Thoreau's Hut,' and a few steps
beyond is the pond with thickly-wooded shore,--everything exquisitely
peaceful and beautiful in the afternoon light, and not a sound to be
heard except the crickets or the 'z-ing' of the locusts which Thoreau has
described. Farther on he pointed out to me, in the distant landscape, a
low roof, the only one visible, which was the roof of Thoreau's
birthplace. He had been over there many times, he said, since he lost
Mr. Thoreau, but had never gone in,--he was afraid it might look lonely!
But he had often sat on a rock in front of the house and looked at it."
On parting from his young friend, Mr. Channing gave her a package,
which proved to be a copy of his own book on Thoreau, and the pocket
compass which Thoreau carried to the Maine woods and on all his
excursions. Before leaving the Emersons she received the proof-sheets
of her drama of "The Spagnoletto," which was being printed for private
circulation. She showed them to Mr. Emerson, who had expressed a
wish to see them, and, after reading them, he gave them back to her
with the comment that they were "good." She playfully asked him if he
would not give her a bigger word to take home to the family. He
laughed, and said he did not know of any; but he went on to tell her that
he had taken it up, not expecting to read it through, and had not been
able to put it down. Every word and line told of richness in the poetry,
he said, and as far as