Emerson should keep back a smile so striking and circumstantial for rare occasions, such as enormous surprise; or, he should make it the precursor to a tremendous roar of laughter. I have yet to learn that any one heard him laugh aloud,--which pastime he has called, with certainly a familiar precision that indicates personal experience, a "pleasant spasm," a "muscular irritation." In maturer years I believed that his smile brought refreshment, encouragement, and waves of virtue to those who saw it. To be sure, it was a sort of questioning; sometimes even quizzical; sometimes only a safeguard; but it was eminently kind, and no one else could do it. His manner was patronizing, in spite of its suavity; but it grew finer every spring, until it had become as exquisitely courteous as Sir Philip Sidney's must have been. The arch of his dark eyebrows sometimes seemed almost angry, being quickly lifted, and then bent in a scowl of earnestness; but as age advanced this sternness of brow grew to be, unchangeably, a calm sweep of infinite kindness. It was never so well understood at The Wayside that its owner had retiring habits as when Alcott was reported to be approaching along the Larch Path, which stretched in feathery bowers between our house and his. Yet I was not aware that the seer failed at any hour to gain admittance,--one cause, perhaps, of the awe in which his visits were held. I remember that my observation was attracted to him curiously from the fact that my mother's eyes changed to a darker gray at his advents, as they did only when she was silently sacrificing herself. I clearly understood that Mr. Alcott was admirable; but he sometimes brought manuscript poetry with him, the dear child of his own Muse, and a guest more unwelcome than the enfant terrible of the drawing-room. There was one particularly long poem which he had read aloud to my mother and father; a seemingly harmless thing, from which they never recovered. Out of the mentions made of this effusion I gathered that it was like a moonlit expanse, quiet, somnolent, cool, and flat as a month of prairies. Rapture, conviction, tenderness, often glowed upon Alcott's features and trembled in his voice. I believe he was never once startled from the dream of illusive joy which pictured to him all high aims as possible of realization through talk. Often he was so happy that he could have danced like a child; and he laughed merrily like one; and the quick, upward lift of his head, which his great height induced him to hold, as a rule, slightly bent forward,--this rapid, playful lift, and the glance, bright and eager though not deep, which sparkled upon you, were sweet and good to see. Yet I have noticed his condition as pale and dolorous enough, before the event of his noble daughter's splendid success. But such was not his character; circumstances had enslaved him, and he appeared thin and forlorn by incongruous accident, like a lamb in chains. He