O happy town beside the sea, Whose roads lead everywhere to all; Than thine no deeper moat can be, No stouter fence, no steeper wall! Kings shook with fear, old empires crave Which fired the little State to save But right is might through all the world, The sea returning day by day Till these echoes be choked with snows, Or over the town blue ocean flows. II. EMERSON AND ALCOTT. PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF MR. ALCOTT, READ AT THE OPENING OF THE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, JULY 23, 1884. MR. SANBORN said: Among the topics proposed for the discussion we are about to commence concerning the "Genius and Character of Emerson," was one on "Emerson's Friendships." But not the least of the misfortunes which the continued illness of Mr. Alcott brings to us, is this one,-that it deprives us of the voice and the thought of that friend of Emerson who stood beside him for nearly half a century, and who could best have spoken on this delightful theme. Among the qualities of our friend. and master, none was more conspicuous or more charming than his loyalty in friendship. His Arab in the poem "Hermione," who in other passages utters the sentiment of Emerson, nowhere speaks more truly than in saying, "I am of a lineage That each for each doth fast engage;" and that noble poem which precedes the essay on "Friendship" describes no friend more faithfully than Emerson himself: "I fancied he was fled, — But, after many a year, Like daily sunrise there." To no person was this high companionship permitted for a longer and more intimate term than to Mr. Alcott; and we have therefore asked him to allow us the public reading from his Diaries and Correspondence in the last fifty years, of a few passages which illustrate the relation between the two friends, and which also fix the date of certain events in Emerson's career. Mr. Alcott first met Emerson, and heard him speak from Dr. Channing's pulpit, in 1829; but their acquaintance did not begin until after our Connecticut Pestalozzi had returned from Philadelphia and opened in Boston his celebrated school for children at the Masonic Temple, in 1834-1835. Early in 1835, and before knowing Emerson, Mr. Alcott had spent an evening with Allston the painter, at his house in Cambridgeport; and as these two men of geniusAllston and Emerson-had many traits in common, we may first hear what Mr. Alcott said in his Diary of Jan. 13, 1835, concerning the artist: "I was particularly impressed with the uncommon artlessness and modesty of this man of genius, of higher endowments and skill in the art of painting a man than perhaps any other person in our country. I felt myself in the presence of a superior spirit,—an external shaping of the higher traits of the human soul; the power of genius was there. This is a man of genius; and how rarely does the spirit, while invested in flesh, behold such manifestation of its inner life! How rarely doth the soul come forth in shapes of beauty, of truth, and breathe into the dead forms of matter and of words the inspiring life of its own divinity! And yet this same man this spirit of celestial energy - lives in an obscure mansion, away from the noise and stir of everyday life; seldom is his name pronounced; and who are those that behold his face? Verily, he knoweth his mission; he showeth himself only to the spiritually visaged, like himself." How exactly is Emerson, the seer and poet, depicted in this sketch of the superior artist! A few weeks later, after several interviews with Dr. Channing, then at the height of his renown and influence as a preacher in Boston, Mr. Alcott goes to hear Emerson lecture (Feb. 5, 1835), and makes this inadequate record: "This evening I heard Rev. Mr. Emerson give a lecture, at the Temple, on the Character of Michael Angelo.' This is the second lecture of a course embracing Biographical Sketches of eminent men, before the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. I did not hear the first lecture. Miss Peabody informs me that it was a beautiful one. The speaker took a general view of the Theory of Life, and of the means to be used in order to realize it. Few men among us take nobler views of the mission, powers, and destinies of man than Mr. Emerson. I hope the people of this city will go and learn of him the conditions of virtue and wisdom, by what self-denial, what exertions, these are to be sought and won. The lives of the great and good are examples of this strife of the soul." "I heard Mr. Emerson's lecture on 'Martin Luther,' at the Temple. There was much in it bespeaking a high philosophy of life as conceived in the mind of the speaker; and the application of the analysis of Luther's character was beautiful and profound. He deemed Luther not less a poet than a practical man; and if not a philosopher in the common sense of the term, he was a prophet, speaking and acting from an imperative above reason." The Diary contains no more notices of this course of lectures, in which was that remarkable one on "Milton," afterwards printed in the "North American Review;" nor do we find records of interview and conversation between the two friends. But that they were already becoming intimate is seen by this entry of July 12, 1835: "A few days since, Mrs. Morrison, of Philadelphia, came in town, bringing me letters from Mr. Russell. Last evening she saw several of our friends, persons with whom we wished her to be made acquainted. Among these were the following: Mr. Waldo Emerson, Charles Emerson, Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Child, Mr. S. J. May, Miss |