who thought it a privilege to do so. I mentioned Hillard as you desired, and also Mrs. Tappan, who, it seems, had written to him and offered any assistance he might need, to the extent of five thousand dollars, personally.

I think it is all right, but he said he must see the list of contributors, and would then say what he had to say about it. He told me that Mr. F. C. Lowell, who was his classmate and old friend, Mr. Bangs, Mrs. Gurney, and a few other friends, had already sent him five thousand dollars, which he seemed to think was as much as he could bear. This makes the whole a very gratifying result, and perhaps explains the absence of some names on your book.

I am glad that Mr. Emerson, who is feeble and ill, can learn what a debt of obligation his friends feel to him, and thank you heartily for what you have done about it. Very truly yours,

MY DEAR LE BARON :

E. R. Hoar.

Concord, August 16, 1872.

I have wondered and melted over your letter and its accompaniments till it is high time that I should reply to it, if I can. My misfortunes, as I have lived along so far in this world, have been so few that I have never needed to ask direct aid of the host of good men and women who have cheered my life, though many a gift has come to me. And this late calamity, however rude and devastating, soon began to look more wonderful in its salvages than in its ruins, so that I can hardly feel any 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,

DR. LE BARON RUSSELL

R. W. EMERSON.

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, 't is 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,

DR. LE BARON RUSSELL.

R. W. EMERSON.

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. Appleton.
Mrs. Henry Edwards.
Miss Susan E. Dorr.
Misses Wigglesworth.
Mr. Edward Wigglesworth.
Mr. J. Elliot Cabot.
Mrs. Sarah S. Russell.

Friends in New York and
Philadelphia, through Mr.
Williams.

Mr. William Whiting.
Mr. Frederick Beck.

Mr. H. P. Kidder.
Mrs. Abel Adams.
Mrs. George Faulkner.
Hon. E. R. Hoar.
Mr. James B. Thayer.
Mr. John M. Forbes.
Mr. James H. Beal.

Mrs. Anna C. Lodge.
Mr. H. H. Hunnewell.
Mr. James A. Dupee.
Mrs. M. F. Sayles.
J. R. Osgood & Co.
Mr. Francis Geo. Shaw.
Mr. William P. Mason.
Mr. Sam'l G. Ward.
Mr. Geo. C. Ward.
Mr. John E. Williams.

Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge.
Mrs. S. Cabot.

Mrs. Anna C. Lowell.
Miss Helen L. Appleton.
Mr. Richard Soule.
Dr. R. W. Hooper.
Mr. William Gray.
Mr. J. I. Bowditch.
Mrs. Lucia J. Briggs.
Dr. Le Baron Russell.

In May, 1873, Emerson returned to Concord. His friends and fellow-citizens received him with every token of affection and reverence. A set of signals was arranged to announce his arrival. Carriages were in readiness for him and his family, a band greeted him with music, and passing under a triumphal arch, he was driven to his renewed old home amidst the welcomes and the blessings of his loving and admiring friends and neighbors.

CHAPTER XII.

1873-1878. T. 70-75.

Publication of "Parnassus." — Emerson Nominated as Candidate for the Office of Lord Rector of Glasgow University.Publication of "Letters and Social Aims." Contents: Poetry and Imagination. Social Aims. — Eloquence. Quotation and Originality. Persian Poetry. Inspiration.—

Resources.

The Comic.

Progress of Culture.

Greatness.

Address at the Unveiling of

the Statue of "The Minute-Man" at Concord.-Publication of Collected Poems.

In December, 1874, Emerson published "Parnassus," a Collection of Poems by British and American authors. Many readers may like to see his subdivisions and arrangement of the pieces he has brought together. They are as follows: "Nature." "Human Life." "Intellectual." -"Contemplation."—"Moral and Religious." "Heroic." "Personal." — "Pictures." "Narrative Poems and Ballads." "Dirges and Pathetic Poems."-"Comic and Humorous."-"Poetry of Terror."-"Oracles and Counsels."

-"Songs."

I have borrowed so sparingly from the rich mine of Mr. George Willis Cooke's "Ralph