In the year 1866, Emerson reached the age which used to be spoken of as the “grand climacteric.”  In that year Harvard University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, the highest honor in its gift.

In that same year, having left home on one of his last lecturing trips, he met his son, Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson, at the Brevoort House, in New York.  Then, and in that place, he read to his son the poem afterwards published in the “Atlantic Monthly,” and in his second volume, under the title “Terminus.”  This was the first time that Dr. Emerson recognized the fact that his father felt himself growing old.  The thought, which must have been long shaping itself in the father’s mind, had been so far from betraying itself that it was a shock to the son to hear it plainly avowed.  The poem is one of his noblest; he could not fold his robes about him with more of serene dignity than in these solemn lines.  The reader may remember that one passage from it has been quoted for a particular purpose, but here is the whole poem:—­

  TERMINUS.

  It is time to be old,
  To take in sail:—­
  The god of bounds,
  Who sets to seas a shore,
  Came to me in his fatal rounds,
  And said:  “No more! 
  No farther shoot
  Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. 
  Fancy departs:  no more invent;
  Contract thy firmament
  To compass of a tent. 
  There’s not enough for this and that,
  Make thy option which of two;
  Economize the failing river,
  Not the less revere the Giver,
  Leave the many and hold the few,
  Timely wise accept the terms,
  Soften the fall with wary foot;
  A little while
  Still plan and smile,
  And,—­fault of novel germs,—­
  Mature the unfallen fruit. 
  Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
  Bad husbands of their fires,
  Who when they gave thee breath,
  Failed to bequeath
  The needful sinew stark as once,
  The baresark marrow to thy bones,
  But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
  Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,—­
  Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
  Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.

  “As the bird trims her to the gale
  I trim myself to the storm of time,
  I man the rudder, reef the sail,
  Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 
  ’Lowly faithful, banish fear,
  Right onward drive unharmed;
  The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
  And every wave is charmed.’”

CHAPTER XI.

1868-1873.  AET. 65-70.

Lectures on the Natural History of the Intellect.—­Publication of “Society and Solitude.”  Contents:  Society and Solitude.  —­Civilization.—­Art.—­Eloquence.—­Domestic Life.—­Farming.  —­Works and Days.—­Books.—­Clubs.—­Courage.—­Success.—­Old Age.—­Other Literary Labors.—­Visit to California.—­Burning of his House, and the Story of its Rebuilding.—­Third Visit to Europe.—­His Reception at Concord on his Return.