"I pray you, O excellent wife, not to cumber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our gate, nor a bed-chamber made ready at too great a cost. These things, if they are curious in, they can get for a dollar at any village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your looks, in your accent and behavior, read your heart and earnestness, your thought and will,—which he cannot buy at any price in any village or city, and which he may well travel fifty miles, and dine sparely and sleep hard, in order to behold. Certainly let the board be spread, and let the bed be dressed for the traveller, but let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in these things. Honor to the house where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the intellect is awake and reads the law of the universe, the soul worships truth and love, honor and courtesy flow into all deeds."
If the American people had heeded such wise words as these the old-fashioned virtue of hospitality would not have become so rare among us. The "emphasis of hospitality" has been placed upon the material things to such an extent that one hardly dares to invite his friend now, unless it be to an elaborate feast; and the labor, to say nothing of the expense, of preparing the elaborate feast is so great that more and more we neglect to call our friends around us, and to bind their hearts to ours by loving and tender ministrations.
Let us learn of Emerson the meaning of economy. He says:—
"Parched corn eaten to-day that I may have roast fowl to my dinner Sunday is a baseness; but parched corn and a house with one apartment, that I may be free of all perturbations, that I may be serene and docile to what the mind shall speak, and quit and road-ready for the lowest mission of knowledge or good-will, is frugality for gods and heroes."
This was the sort of frugality that Thoreau practised in his hut on Walden Pond, and it is a frugality which has made him famed throughout the hero-worshipping world.
The charm of Emerson's home life lay largely in his manners, which were simple, yet faultless. He greeted his friends with all the mildness and serenity of the very god of repose, and induced in them that most enjoyable sensation, a feeling of entire contentment with all the world. No heat, no fret, no hurry, no great call to strenuous exertion to appear well or make a fine impression. All was ease, calm, unstudied attention to every little want, and talk fit for the noblest and the best. He was an example of what he himself honored most.
"I honor that man whose ambition it is, not to win laurels in the state or the army, not to be a jurist or a naturalist, not to be a poet or a commander, but to be a master of living well, and to administer the offices of master or servant, of husband, father, and friend."
In all these relations Emerson shone resplendently, and in the old-fashioned relation of neighbor he was always at his best. To the family of his old friend Alcott he was as a special providence for many years, and beautiful indeed was the affection in which he was held by them. When, during Emerson's absence in Europe, his house was partly burned, his neighbors promptly rebuilt it, ready for his return. Of these helpers Emerson wrote, in accepting their gift:—
"Judge Hoar has up to this time withheld from me the names of my benefactors; but you may be sure I shall not rest till I have learned them, every one, to repeat to myself at night and at morning."
Emerson's personal appearance was that of a scholar and the descendant of scholars,—tall, slender, and with the complexion which is bred in the alcove and not in the open air. His hair was brown, fine, and thick. His eyes were of the deepest blue. His mode of living was very simple, but he was constitutionally fastidious, and very much averse to vulgar or commonplace companionship. He loved all children and simple-minded people, and the very babies in Concord knew and loved him. "Incorrigible spouting Yankee" he called himself; but he was rather a silent man in reality, and did not care to talk excepting when he had somewhat to say. He did not prate eternally of silence, as Carlyle did, while wreaking himself upon speech in the most frantically vehement manner all his days, but he knew when and how to be silent. The glimpses he gives of Mrs. Emerson, in the long correspondence with Carlyle, are all of the most pleasing nature, and his home life was apparently as perfect as music all his life long. Of the boy Waldo, who died, he was fond of speaking, and he evidently mourned him very deeply for a long time. Of his other children he never boasted, but always spoke most kindly. The most entire revelation that Emerson ever made of himself was doubtless in the letters to Carlyle; and it must be said that nowhere else has Carlyle appeared to so good advantage as in this correspondence with Emerson. One loves the grim, sardonic old man better after seeing that he could love his friend faithfully and loyally for so many years, and after reading all the tender and touching things he puts into his letters to him. Especially is this the case in the later days, when both had grown to be old men, and had been saddened by their life experience. Carlyle's letters after his wife's death are very touching. In the first after the sad event he says:—