But the family advent was effected in June, and although a heavy rain had fallen while the domestic impedimenta were in transit, wetting the mattresses and other exposed furniture, yet when the summer sun came out things began to mend. My mother and Una came a day ahead of the others, and with the help of carpenters and upholsterers, and a neighboring Irishman and his wife for cleaning and moving purposes, they soon got human order into the place of savage chaos. The new carpet was down in the study, the walls had been already papered and the wood-work grained, the pictures were hung in their places, and the books placed on their shelves. By the time the father, the boy, the baby, and the nurse drove up in the hot afternoon a home had been created for their reception. Mr. Emerson was, and he always remained, the hub round which the wheel of Concord's fortunes slowly and contentedly revolved. He was at this time between forty-five and fifty years old, in the prime of his beneficent powers. He had fulfilled the promise of his unique youth--obeyed the voice at eve, obeyed at prime. The sweet austerity of his nature had been mellowed by human sorrows--the loss of his brothers and of his eldest son; he had the breadth and poise that are given by knowledge of foreign lands, and friendships with the best men in them; he had the unstained and indomitable independence of a man who has always avowed his belief, and never failed to be true to each occasion for truth; he had the tranquillity of faith and insight, and he was alert with that immortal curiosity for noble knowledge the fruit of which enriches his writings. Upon his modestly deprecating brows was already set the wreath of a world-wide fame, and yet every village farmer and store-keeper, and every child, found in his conversation the wisdom and companionship suited to his needs, and was made to feel that his own companionship was a valued gift. Emerson becomes more extraordinary the further we get away from him in years; illustrating the truth which Landor puts into the mouth of Barrow in one of his Imaginary Conversations, that "No very great man ever reached the standard of his greatness in the crowd of his contemporaries: this hath always been reserved for the secondary." The wealth contained in his essays has only begun to be put in general circulation, and the harvest of his poetry is still more remote; while the sincere humility of the man himself, who was the best incarnate example of many of his ideals, still puzzles those critics who believe every one must needs be inferior to his professions.