The spread of emerald-green and brown, the
knolls, the score or two of little haycocks dotting the meadow, the
loaded-up wagons, the patient horses, the slow-strong action of the
men and pitchforks--all in the just-waning afternoon, with patches of
yellow sun-sheen, mottled by long shadows--a cricket shrilly chirping,
herald of the dusk--a boat with two figures noiselessly gliding along
the little river, passing under the stone bridge-arch--the slight
settling haze of aerial moisture, the sky and the peacefulness
expanding in all directions and overhead--fill and soothe me.
_Same Evening._--Never had I a better piece of luck befall me: a long
and blessed evening with Emerson, in a way I couldn't have wish'd
better or different. For nearly two hours he has been placidly sitting
where I could see his face in the best light, near me. Mrs. S.'s
back-parlor well fill'd with people, neighbors, many fresh and
charming faces, women, mostly young, but some old. My friend A. B.
Alcott and his daughter Louisa were there early. A good deal of talk,
the subject Henry Thoreau--some new glints of his life and fortunes,
with letters to and from him--one of the best by Margaret Fuller,
others by Horace Greeley, Channing, &c.--one from Thoreau himself,
most quaint and interesting. (No doubt I seem'd very stupid to the
roomful of company, taking hardly any part in the conversation; but I
had "my own pail to milk in," as the Swiss proverb puts it.) My seat
and the relative arrangement were such that, without being rude, or
anything of the kind, I could just look squarely at E.
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