y right to this munificent endowment
with which you, and my other friends through you, have astonished
me. But I cannot read your letter or think of its message without
delight, that my companions and friends bear me so noble a
good-will, nor without some new aspirations in the old heart toward
a better deserving. Judge Hoar has, up to this time, withheld from
me the names of my benefactors, but you may be sure that I shall not
rest till I have learned them, every one, to repeat to myself at
night and at morning.

Your affectionate friend and debtor,

R.W. EMERSON.

DR. LE BARON RUSSELL

CONCORD, October 8, 1872.

MY DEAR DOCTOR LE BARON:

I received last night your two notes, and the cheque, enclosed in
one of them, for one thousand and twenty dollars.

Are my friends bent on killing me with kindness? No, you will say,
but to make me live longer. I thought myself sufficiently loaded
with benefits already, and you add more and more. It appears that
you all will rebuild my house and rejuvenate me by sending me in my
old days abroad on a young man's excursion.

I am a lover of men, but this recent wonderful experience of their
tenderness surprises and occupies my thoughts day by day. Now that
I have all or almost all the names of the men and women who have
conspired in this kindness to me (some of whom I have never
personally known), I please myself with the thought of meeting each
and asking, Why have we not met before? Why have you not told me
that we thought alike? Life is not so long, nor sympathy of thought
so common, that we can spare the society of those with whom we best
agree. Well, 'tis probably my own fault by sticking ever to my
solitude. Perhaps it is not too late to learn of these friends a
better lesson.

Thank them for me whenever you meet them, and say to them that I am
not wood or stone, if I have not yet trusted myself so far as to go
to each one of them directly.

My wife insists that I shall also send her acknowledgments to them
and you.

Yours and theirs affectionately,

R.W. EMERSON.

DR. LE BARON KUSSELL.

The following are the names of the subscribers to the fund for
rebuilding Mr. Emerson's house:--

Mrs. Anne S. Hooper.
Miss Alice S. Hooper.
Mrs. Caroline Tappan.
Miss Ellen S. Tappan.
Miss Mary A. Tappan.
Mr. T.G.