* * * * *

Having traced some of the distinguishing traits which belong by descent to Mr. Emerson to those who were before him, it is interesting to note how far they showed themselves in those of his own generation, his brothers.  Of these I will mention two, one of whom I knew personally.

Edward Bliss Emerson, who graduated at Harvard College in 1824, three years after Ralph Waldo, held the first place in his class.  He began the study of the law with Daniel Webster, but overworked himself and suffered a temporary disturbance of his reason.  After this he made another attempt, but found his health unequal to the task and exiled himself to Porto Rico, where, in 1834, he died.  Two poems preserve his memory, one that of Ralph Waldo, in which he addresses his memory,—­

  “Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star,”

the other his own “Last Farewell,” written in 1832, whilst sailing out of Boston Harbor.  The lines are unaffected and very touching, full of that deep affection which united the brothers in the closest intimacy, and of the tenderest love for the mother whom he was leaving to see no more.

I had in my early youth a key furnished me to some of the leading traits which were in due time to develop themselves in Emerson’s character and intelligence.  As on the wall of some great artist’s studio one may find unfinished sketches which he recognizes as the first growing conceptions of pictures painted in after years, so we see that Nature often sketches, as it were, a living portrait, which she leaves in its rudimentary condition, perhaps for the reason that earth has no colors which can worthily fill in an outline too perfect for humanity.  The sketch is left in its consummate incompleteness because this mortal life is not rich enough to carry out the Divine idea.

Such an unfinished but unmatched outline is that which I find in the long portrait-gallery of memory, recalled by the name of Charles Chauncy Emerson.  Save for a few brief glimpses of another, almost lost among my life’s early shadows, this youth was the most angelic adolescent my eyes ever beheld.  Remembering what well-filtered blood it was that ran in the veins of the race from which he was descended, those who knew him in life might well say with Dryden,—­

  “If by traduction came thy mind
  Our wonder is the less to find
  A soul so charming from a stock so good.”

His image is with me in its immortal youth as when, almost fifty years ago, I spoke of him in these lines, which I may venture to quote from myself, since others have quoted them before me.

  Thou calm, chaste scholar!  I can see thee now,
  The first young laurels on thy pallid brow,
  O’er thy slight figure floating lightly down
  In graceful folds the academic gown,
  On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught
  How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought,
  And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye,
  Too bright to live,—­but O, too fair to die.