Emerson came to meet us, walking down the little avenue of spruce firs which leads from his house, bare-headed amid the falling snow. He is a quiet nobly grave figure, his complexion pale, with strongly marked features and dark hair. He seemed to me a younger man, but not so handsome as I had imagined him; his exterior less fascinating, but more significant. He occupied himself with us however, and with me in particular, as a lady and a foreigner, kindly and agreeably. He is a very peculiar character, but too cold and hypercritical to please me entirely; a strong, clear, eye, always looking out for an ideal which he never finds realised on earth; discovering wants, short-comings, imperfections: and too strong and healthy himself to understand other people's weaknesses and sufferings, for he even despises suffering as a weakness unworthy of higher natures. This singularity of character leads one to suppose that he has never been ill: sorrows however he has had, and has felt them deeply, as some of his most beautiful poems prove; nevertheless, he has only allowed himself to be bowed for a short time by these griefs; the deaths of two beautiful and beloved brothers, as well as that of a beautiful little boy, his eldest son. He has also lost his first wife after having been married scarcely a year.
Emerson is now married for the second time, and has three children. His pretty little boy, the youngest of his children, seems to be, in particular, dear to him. Mrs. Emerson has beautiful eyes, full of feeling, but she appears delicate, and is in character very different to her husband. He interested me, without warming me. That critical, crystalline and cold nature may be very estimable, quite healthy, and, in its way, beneficial for those who possess it, and also for others, who allow themselves to be measured and criticised by it. But—for me—David's heart with David's songs!
I shall return to this home in consequence of a very
