Mr. Emerson’s children can testify how with regard to Scott he always was ready to become a boy again. As we walked in the woods, he would show us the cellar-holes of the Irish colony that came to Concord to build the railroad, and he named these deserted villages Derncleugh and Ellangowan. The sight recalled Meg Merrilies’ pathetic lament to the laird at the eviction of the gypsies, which he would then recite. “Alice Brand,” the “Sair Field o’ Harlaw,” which old Elspeth sings to the children in _The Antiquary_, and “Helvellyn” were again and again repeated to us with pleasure on both sides. With special affection in later years when we walked in Walden woods he would croon the lines from “The Dying Bard,”— “Dinas Emlinn, lament, for the moment is nigh, When mute in the woodlands thine echoes shall die.” Perhaps he had foreboding for his loved woods, beginning to be desecrated with rude city picnics, and since burned over repeatedly by the fires from the railroad,— “When half of their charms with Cadwallon shall die.” Of this poem he wrote in the journal of 1845:— “‘Dinas Emlinn’ of Scott, like his ‘Helvellyn,’ shows how near to a poet he was. All the Birmingham part he had, and what taste and sense! Yet never rose into the creative region. As a practitioner or professional poet he is unrivalled in modern times.” Yet he immediately adds, “In lectures on Poetry almost all Scott would be to be produced.” [214] _Page 463, note 1._ Mr. Emerson took especial pleasure in the passage in the _Lord of the Isles_ where the old abbot, rising to denounce excommunicated Bruce to his foes, is inspired against his will to bless him and prophesy his triumph as Scotland’s deliverer. Mr. Emerson, writing in his journal in 1842 of his impatience of superficial city life, during a visit to New York, alludes to the renewed comfort he had in the _Lord of the Isles_: “Life goes headlong. Each of us is always to be found hurrying headlong in the chase of some fact, hunted by some fear or command behind us. Suddenly we meet a friend. We pause. Our hurry and _empressement_ look ridiculous.... When I read the _Lord of the Isles_ last week at Staten Island, and when I meet my friend, I have the same feeling of shame at having allowed myself to be a mere huntsman and follower.” His boyish love for the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ remained through life. As we walked on Sunday afternoons he recited to his children the stanzas about “the custom of Branksome Hall,” and the passage where the Ladye of Branksome defies the spirits of the flood and fell; and the bleak mile of road between Walden woods and home would often call out from him “The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old,” etc. [215] _Page 465, note 1._ The _Bride of Lammermoor_ was the only dreary tale that Mr. Emerson could abide, except _Griselda_.