I thought I could well wait his time
and mine for what was so well worth waiting. And as he always appeared
to me superior to his own performances, I counted this yet untold
force an insurance of a long life. Though sternly disappointed in the
manner and working, I do not hold the guarantee less real. But I must
use an early hour to come and see you to say more.
R. W. EMERSON.
If my father expected a full renewal of comradeship with American men
of his own circle, and even the deeper pleasure of such friendship in
a maturer prime alluded to by Emerson, circumstances sadly intervened.
The thunderstorm of the war was not the only cause of his retiring
more into himself than he had done in Europe, although he felt that
sorrow heavily. Or perhaps I might say with greater correctness that
when he appeared, it was without the joyous air that he had lately
displayed in England, among his particular friends, when his literary
work was over for the time being after the finishing of "Monte Beni."
I remember that he often attended the dinners of the Saturday Club. A
bill of fare of one of the banquets, but belonging to an early date,
1852, read: "Tremont House. Paran Stevens, Proprietor. Dinner for
Twelve Persons, at three o'clock." A superb menu follows, wherein
canvas-back ducks and madeira testify to the satisfaction felt by the
gentlemen whose names my father penciled in the order in which they
sat; Mr. Emerson, Mr. Clough, Mr. Ellery Channing, Mr.
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