whose character he has drawn with exquisite felicity in a sketch read before The Social Circle of Concord, and published in the “Atlantic Monthly” for November, 1883.  Mr. Emerson says of him:  “He was identified with the ideas and forms of the New England Church, which expired about the same time with him, so that he and his coevals seemed the rear guard of the great camp and army of the Puritans, which, however in its last days declining into formalism, in the heyday of its strength had planted and liberated America....  The same faith made what was strong and what was weak in Dr. Ripley.”  It would be hard to find a more perfect sketch of character than Mr. Emerson’s living picture of Dr. Ripley.  I myself remember him as a comely little old gentleman, but he was not so communicative in a strange household as his clerical brethren, smiling John Foster of Brighton and chatty Jonathan Homer of Newton.  Mr. Emerson says, “He was a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, manly, and public-spirited; his nature social, his house open to all men.—­His brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, and he had no studies, no occupations, which company could interrupt.  His friends were his study, and to see them loosened his talents and his tongue.  In his house dwelt order and prudence and plenty.  There was no waste and no stint.  He was open-handed and just and generous.  Ingratitude and meanness in his beneficiaries did not wear out his compassion; he bore the insult, and the next day his basket for the beggar, his horse and chaise for the cripple, were at their door.”  How like Goldsmith’s good Dr. Primrose!  I do not know any writing of Mr. Emerson which brings out more fully his sense of humor,—­of the picturesque in character,—­and as a piece of composition, continuous, fluid, transparent, with a playful ripple here and there, it is admirable and delightful.

Another of his early companionships must have exercised a still more powerful influence on his character,—­that of his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson.  He gave an account of her in a paper read before the Woman’s Club several years ago, and published in the “Atlantic Monthly” for December, 1883.  Far more of Mr. Emerson is to be found in this aunt of his than in any other of his relations in the ascending series, with whose history we are acquainted.  Her story is an interesting one, but for that I must refer the reader to the article mentioned.  Her character and intellectual traits are what we are most concerned with.  “Her early reading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, Jonathan Edwards, and always the Bible.  Later, Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, Coleridge, Herder, Locke, Madam De Stael, Channing, Mackintosh, Byron.  Nobody can read in her manuscript, or recall the conversation of old-school people, without seeing that Milton and Young had a religious authority in their minds, and nowise the slight merely entertaining quality of modern bards.  And Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus,—­how venerable and organic as Nature they are in her mind!”