fest or hidden, his ears open for the words of the Spirit, he did not seem to grow old, except in increasing mellowness of the affections and an afternoon serenity. The accidents of age befel him, but such mild complaint as he made of them was always humorous. Care and anxiety on pecuniary matters were there, but he kept them under. About the year 1870 his power of work, his memory and bodily strength began to fail, yet this was noticed by few until after the exposure and shock occasioned by the burning of his house two years later. The general muster of loving friends, near or far, to his aid, and their gift of restored house and freedom from anxiety, prolonged his life several years. His working power was gone, but he was happy. As he hints in the essay, the affections had their turn when the intellectual forces ebbed. He wrote his serene recognition of Age in his poem “ Terminus,' a portion of which serves for a motto of this chapter. In 1864, about the time that the poem was written, he wrote in his diary, "Within I do not find wrinkles and used heart, but unspent youth."

He wrote in his journal, of the increasing difficulty of composition and arrangement,

1864. "I have heard that the engineers in the locomotives grow nervously vigilant with every year on the road until the employment is intolerable to them: and I think writing is more and more a terror to old scribes."

And again:

1864. "The grief of old age is, that now, only in rare moments and by happiest combinations or consent of the elements, do I attain those enlargements which once were a daily gift."

Yet serene enjoyment of Nature, his friends and family remained:

He had to the full, in the words of Shakspeare, —

"That which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends."

It does not appear exactly when and where the lecture on Old Age was first read, but the reference to the Phi Beta Kappa speech of the venerable ex-President of Harvard University, Josiah Quincy, in June, 1861, and the publication of "Old Age" in the January number of the Atlantic Monthly in 1862, fix the date sufficiently closely. The exordium of the lecture, evidently written during the anxious pause, after the defeat of Bull Run, of the war in Virginia, is as follows:

"I hope I shall not shock the sentiment of the assembly when I say, that I have nothing to offer you this evening relating to war and its works; that, while I sympathize, as every good-hearted man must, with this concentrated curiosity on the public affairs, which listening with over-strained ear to every click of the telegraph, and hearing a cannon in every outdoor sound, makes every liberal study impertinent, I feel that our sanity requires some balance to this fever-heat; some diversion back to old studies and traditions which respect our permanent social welfare. The country which reads nothing but newspapers all day, can surely afford to leave the army bulletins out of its church and lyceum for an evening hour. I shall therefore risk to offer you a topic, the coldest and most remote from these heats, nay, perhaps more repulsive to the American than to any other national temperament."

Page 317, note 1. “The babe in arms is a channel through which the energies we call fate, love and reason visibly stream." Considerations by the Way," Conduct of Life.

On the day of the birth of his second daughter, Mr. Emer

son wrote in his journal:

Nov. 22, 1841. “There came into the house a young maiden, but she seemed to be more than a thousand years old. She came into the house naked and helpless, but she had for her defence more than the strength of millions. She brought into the day the manners of the Night.

Page 317, note 2. This is a version of lines quoted, but not credited, by Mr. Emerson in "The Over-Soul,” of which I have in vain sought for the author. It is said that Spirit

"Can crowd eternity into an hour
Or stretch an hour into eternity."

Page 318, note 1. In his notes upon himself Mr. Emerson wrote, " My only secret was that all men were my masters. I thought each who talked with me older than I."

Page 319, note 1. "I find it a great and fatal difference whether I court the Muse, or the Muse courts me. That is the ugly disparity between age and youth."— Manuscript of "Old Age."

Page 320, note 1. In Tennyson's "Tithonus," the ol and weary man says to Aurora, his divine mistress,

"I ask'd thee, Give me immortality."

Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,
And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,
And tho' they could not end me, left me maimed
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,

And all I was, in ashes."

Page 321, note I. Presque tous les bons ouvriers vivent longtemps: c'est qu'ils accomplissent une loi de la Providence." Béranger.

Page 323, note 1. In connection with the mention of this great man, this quotation from a letter written in his old age is copied from Mr. Emerson's journal: —

"Humboldt in 1843 congratulates his friend Karl Ritter, on the appearance of Zimmermann's map of the Upper Nile. If,' he says, a life prolonged to an advanced period, brings with it several inconveniences to the individual, there is a compensation in the delight of being able to compare older states of knowledge with that which now exists, and to see great advances in knowledge develop themselves under our eyes in departments which had long slept in inactivity, with the exception perhaps of attempts by hypercriticism to render previous acquisitions doubtful. This enjoyment has fallen to our share in our geographical studies.'"'

Page 324, note 1. In the journals written near Mr. Emerson's sixtieth year he good-naturedly treats the semi-comic aspects and compensations, as thus:—

My humorous friend told me that old age was cheap: Time drew out his teeth gratis, and a suction-plate would last him as long as he lived; he does not go to the hair-dresser, for Time cut off his hair; and he had lived so long, and bought so many clothes, that he should not need to buy any

more.

"N. said in the car to a chance companion

'Yes, but I am an old man and can't do so or so.' Instead of the indignant denial he expected, the stranger replied, Yes, you are an old man and that makes a difference.' Vain was his use of the dodge of old men, giving themselves for ten years older than they are; the companion quietly accepted it as true.”

In the journal of 1864 I find this entry:

"The following page should have been printed in Society and Solitude, in the chapter called Old Age.'

"Old age brings along with its uglinesses the comfort that you will soon be out of it, which ought to be a substantial relief to such discontented pendulums as we are. To be out of the war, out of debt, out of the drouth, out of the blues, out of the dentist's hands, out of the second thoughts, mortifications and remorses that inflict such twinges and shooting pains, out of the next winter, and the high prices, and company below your ambition,

surely these are soothing

hints. And harbinger of this, what an alleviator is sleep, which muzzles all these dogs for me every day? Old age —'T is proposed to call an indignation-meeting."

Page 324, note 2. A similar passage is in the first pages of the essay on Culture in Conduct of Life.

Page 325, note I. "In his consciousness of deserving success, the caliph Ali constantly neglected the ordinary means of attaining it; and to the grand interests, a superficial success is of no account.” Aristocracy," Lectures and Biographical Sketches.

Page 328, note I.

And, — fault of novel germs,

Mature the unfallen fruit.

"Terminus," Poems.

Page 329, note 1. The little white star-flower of our May woods, resembling an anemone.

Page 330, note 1. This must have been Dr. John Snelling Popkin, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature at Harvard College, a graduate of 1792.

Page 331, note 1. Virgil, Æneid, Book iv.

654.