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!”

There are many sentences cited by Mr. Emerson which remind us very strongly of his own writings.  Such a passage as the following might have come from his Essay, “Nature,” but it was written when her nephew was only four years old.

“Malden, 1807, September.—­The rapture of feeling I would part from for days devoted to higher discipline.  But when Nature beams with such excess of beauty, when the heart thrills with hope in its Author,—­feels it is related to Him more than by any ties of creation,—­it exults, too fondly, perhaps, for a state of trial.  But in dead of night, nearer morning, when the eastern stars glow, or appear to glow, with more indescribable lustre, a lustre which penetrates the spirits with wonder and curiosity,—­then, however awed, who can fear?”—­“A few pulsations of created beings, a few successions of acts, a few lamps held out in the firmament, enable us to talk of Time, make epochs, write histories,—­to do more,—­to date the revelations of