His respect for literature, often in these degenerate days smiled upon from some imaginary hills by surrounding multitudes, is absolute and regnant. It is religion and life, and he reiterating them in every form.
The first and second of the “Conversations” arranged for Emerson by Fields are duly described in the journal. In the evening that followed the second, Emerson and his daughter dined at Charles Street, in company with Longfellow and his daughter Alice, William Morris Hunt and his wife, Dr. Holmes, and the Fieldses. The scene and talk were recorded by the hostess.
... Coming home, Ellen’s trunk had not arrived, so she came, like a good child, most difficult in a woman grown, to dinner in her travelling dress. Alice Longfellow looked very pretty in a polonaise of lovely olive brown over black; a little feather of the same color in her hair. Rooshue [Mrs. Hunt] and her husband came in their everydays too. I wore a lilac polonaise with a yellow rose—I speak of the latter because it seemed to please W. M. Hunt to see the dash of color....
Hunt convulsed us with a story of seeing a man run through by an iron bolt, when a distinguished physician is called in; the physician asks if he can sleep well, and a thousand and one questions of like relevancy, to all of which the patient only replies by gasps of agony. Hunt acted the whole scene famously. The sunset too delighted him as it gilded the old sheds back of the house and made them “like Solomon’s temple.” Longfellow has written to Miss Rossetti, the author of the “Shadow of Dante,” to thank her for her pleasant book. He asks her the difficult question why Dante puts Venus nearest the sun. Also he points out her fault of saying the spirits of the blest inhabited the planets, whereas Dante clearly states that they all lived in one heaven but visited the planets.
The truth of Hawthorne’s tale of the minister with the black veil was hunted up. His name was Moody and he was one of the Emerson family. It seems the poor man in his youth shot a boy by accident, and as he grew older a morbid temper settled upon him and he did not think himself fit to preach; so he withdrew from the ministry but taught a small school, always wore a black veil, literally a handkerchief. Ellen said her aunt was taught by him and she appeared anxious to set the matter right. Rose Hawthorne and her husband have been to see Mr. Emerson, and he likes them both well; thinks Rose looks happy and the young man promising, which is much. There is hope of Una’s recovery and return.
After dinner, we ladies looked over manuscripts for a time until Longfellow went—when Mrs. Hunt went to the piano and played and sang. Finally he came, and they sang their little duets together and afterward she sang a song with words by Channing about a pine tree, set to a scrap of a sonata by Helen Bell, and after that a touching German song with English words—then she read Celia’s [Mrs. Thaxter’s] new poem to Mr. Emerson, called “The Tryst.” She read it only pretty well, which disgusted her; and she said it reminded her of William’s reading, which was the worst she ever knew; he could literally stop in the middle of a sentence because it happened to be the bottom of a page, and ask her what it meant. At that he took Celia’s poem and read it through word for word like a school-boy, looking up at her to see if he was right and should go on. She laughed immoderately, and as for Mr. Emerson, J. said his eyes left their wonted sockets and went to laugh far back in his brain.
Putting down his book, Hunt launched off into his own life as a painter. His lonely position here without anyone to look up to in his art—his idea of art being entirely misunderstood, his determination not to paint cloth and cheeks, but to paint the glory of age and the light of truth. He became almost too excited to find words, but when he did grasp a phrase, it was such a fine one that it went a great way. His wife sat by making running comments, but when he said, “If any man who was talking could not be heard, he would naturally try to talk so that he could be heard,” we tried to urge him to stand firm and to assure him that his efforts were neither lost nor in vain. “If the books you wrote were left all dusty and untouched upon the shelves, don’t you think you would try to write so that people should want them? I am sure you would.” His wife tried to say he must stand in the way he knew was right—as did we all—but he seemed to think it too hard, too Sisyphus-like a labor. The portrait of little Paul is still unsold. After keeping the carriage waiting one hour and a half, they went—a most interesting pair.
A CORNER OF THE CHARLES STREET LIBRARY