THE RANDALL FAMILY lO/
that wealth which consists, not in money, but in a multi- tude of exact ideas, a less alienable possession. How often have we expressed our disgust at the shallow thoughts {if want of thought may be so named), the deficient method, and the empty conceits of modern poetry, and observed how useless are the labors of gen- ius itself, when it totally rejects science ! Yet I will not go so far as Mr. Nuttall, who complained of Bryant's "Waterfowl" because the species of goose was not stated ; nor perhaps should I wholly admire the new poet whom you mentioned, Mr. Titcomb or Whitman or what's-his-name, who chiefly excels in enumerating facts.
By the way, it may interest you to know that about a month ago there was in Mr. Bryant's paper a somewhat extended notice of " Consolations of Solitude." The re- mark that it is impossible to find a single scrap of tinsel in the whole volume was to me more satisfactory than if it could be said, with truth, that it is a performance highly finished and lacking nothing for its perfection save ideas.
I am glad you called on Mr. Emerson. I have been pleased, like yourself, with his courteous and affable man- ners. His personal character stands high with those who know him, as being the farthest removed from meanness. I think you will find Miss Elizabeth Hoar an agreeable person to visit. Her father was a classmate of my own father, and has with all his family been held for many years in the most friendly esteem by all the members of our own.
If it were summer, I should wish you to walk half a mile to the junction of rivers, where our lively Assabet joins the Sudbury and forms the Concord river ; also, to the battle monument in the opposite direction between Mr. Simmons's house and the old Ripley mansion-house ;
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