o bore you;"--which sentence contains
a gentle hint to the posterity of the two most distinguished men of
letters America has produced that even the mystic and the seer sometimes
palled upon the appetites of his personal friends. If any man could be
supposed to be a hero to his valet, that man was surely Emerson; but his
gifted neighbor seems not to have had any strong relish for his society.
Neither did Hawthorne really enjoy Thoreau, who would seem to have been
a sufficiently original person to have interested him, merely as a study
of character. But it does not appear that Hawthorne was ever
particularly fond of the society of men of letters, even though they
were also men of genius. He refused to go to the Saturday Club of
Authors, but would play cards with sea-captains in the smoking-room of
his boarding-house in Liverpool, evening after evening. Indeed, he liked
the piquant flavor of what is commonly called low society, when he
required any society outside his home, better than that which would have
seemed more adapted to his taste. We mean simply by this the society of
back-woodsmen, sailors, laborers, and old hard-headed farmers of New
England stock, with their strong provincial dialect.

Mr. Emerson himself liked the raciness of the conversation of such men,
and, indeed, we think almost all men of genius have something of the
same taste. When we read what Mrs. Hawthorne says of the manner of
conversation between her husband and Emerson, it can scarcely be
considered remarkable that Hawthorne should not have cared to confine
himself to the society of the sage. She says, speaking of Hawthorne:--

"Mr. Emerson delights in him; he talks to him all the time, and Mr.
Hawthorne looks answers. He seems to fascinate Emerson. Whenever he
comes to see him he takes him away, so that no one may interrupt
him in his close and dead-set attack upon his ear."

There is a one-sidedness to a conversation of this nature which might
well weary a person in the body; and only a disembodied spirit, it may
be surmised, could thoroughly enjoy it. A fine thing to do would be to
put two of those great conversationalists against each other, as was
sometimes done with Sydney Smith and Macaulay. It is said that the two
would sit glaring at each other and maintain perfect silence; whereas
either one of them apart from the other would discourse for three hours
without taking breath. Imagine the horrible agony of those amon