Miriam could not believe she had heard the deep-toned emphatic words. She stared stupidly at his unconscious thoughtful brow; for a strange moment feeling her own thoughts and her own outlook behind it. She felt an instant’s pang of disappointment; the fine brow had lost something, seemed familiar, almost homely. But an immense relief was surging through her. “No—Ree—ally, most-wonderful,” he reiterated with almost reproachful emphasis, sitting down with his head eagerly forward between his shoulders, waiting for her response. “Yes, isn’t he?” she said encouragingly and waited in a dream while he sat back and drew little volumes from his pocket, his white eyelids downcast below his frowning brow. Would he qualify his praise? Had he read enough to come upon any of the chills and contradictions? However this might be, Emerson had made upon this scholarly foreigner, groping in him with his scanty outfit of language, an overwhelming impression. Her own lonely overwhelming impression was justified. The eyes came up again, gravely earnest. “No,” he said, “I find it most difficult to express the profound impression this reading have made on me.”
“He isn’t a bit original,” said Miriam surprised by her unpremeditated conclusion, “when you read him you feel as if you were following your own thoughts.”
“That is so; he is not himself philosophe; I would call him rather, poète; a most remarkable quality of English, great dignity and with at the same time a most perfect simplicity.”
“He understands everything; since I have had that book I have not wanted to read anything else .... except Maeterlinck” she murmured in afterthought, “and in a way he is the same.”
“I do not know this writer” said Mr. Shatov, “and what you say is perhaps not quite good. But in a manner I can have some sympa-thaytic apprysiacion with this remark. I have read yesterday the whole day; on different omnibuses. Ah. It was for me most-wonderful.”
“Well, I always feel, all the time, all day, that if people would only read Emerson they would understand, and not be like they are, and that the only way to make them understand what one means would be reading pieces of Emerson.”
“That is true; why should you not do it?”
“Quotations are feeble; you always regret making them.”
“No; I do not agree,” said Mr. Shatov devoutly smiling, “you are wrong.”
“Oh, but think of the awful people who quote Shakespeare.”