ory had been failing for some time, and his
mind as you know was clouded, but the old charm of his voice and
manner had never left him. On the morning after my arrival Mrs.
Emerson took us into the garden to see the beautiful roses in which
she took great delight. One red rose of most brilliant color she
called our attention to especially; its 'hue' was so truly 'angry
and brave' that I involuntarily repeated Herbert's line,--

'Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,'--

from the verses which Emerson had first repeated to me so long ago.
Emerson looked at the rose admiringly, and then as if by a sudden
impulse lifted his hat gently, and said with a low bow, 'I take off
my hat to it.'"

Once a poet, always a poet. It was the same reverence for the beautiful
that he had shown in the same way in his younger days on entering the
wood, as Governor Rice has told us the story, given in an earlier
chapter.

I do not remember Emerson's last time of attendance at the "Saturday
Club," but I recollect that he came after the trouble in finding words
had become well marked. "My memory hides itself," he said. The last time
I saw him, living, was at Longfellow's funeral. I was sitting opposite
to him when he rose, and going to the side of the coffin, looked
intently upon the face of the dead poet. A few minutes later he rose
again and looked once more on the familiar features, not apparently
remembering that he had just done so. Mr. Conway reports that he said to
a friend near him, "That gentleman was a sweet, beautiful soul, but I
have entirely forgotten his name."

Dr. Edward Emerson has very kindly furnished me, in reply to my request,
with information regarding his father's last years which will interest
every one who has followed his life through its morning and midday to
the hour of evening shadows.

"May-Day," which was published in 1867, was made up of the poems written
since his first volume appeared. After this he wrote no poems, but with
some difficulty fitted the refrain to the poem "Boston," which had
remained unfinished since the old Anti-slavery days. "Greatness," and
the "Phi Beta Kappa Oration" of 1867, were among his last pieces of
work. His College Lectures, "The Natural History of the Intellect,"
were merely notes recorded years before, and now gathered and welded
together. In 1876 he revised his poems, and made the selections from
them for the "Little Classic" edition