Of all the visitors coming to Brook Farm, I think Emerson was the most welcome. He was beloved by everyone from Dr. Ripley, dear friend and brother clergyman, to Abby Morton’s little ones. The messages of cheer and the words of wisdom he brought were received and treasured with intelligent appreciation. I have heard it said that Emerson was at his best when talking in monologue of an evening at the Hive, or in more formal discourse in the grove on Sunday. He was companionable and entered into the life of the place with evident enjoyment—happy but not jovial. He smiled readily and most charmingly, but never laughed. As a young man his personality was most attractive, serene loving-kindness illumining his comely countenance! My mother, also a serene spirit, thought his face the most beautiful she ever saw; and she was sure that laughter would be unseemly and disturbing. [Illustration: Ralph Waldo Emerson] Emerson liked to be with us at times, but never to be one of us. In the beginning Dr. Ripley wrote him a cordial invitation to join the association, the only invitation of the kind he ever gave, I believe. The invitation was declined in a note quoted by Rev. O. B. Frothingham in his admirable biography of Dr. Ripley, as follows: “It is quite time that I made an answer to your proposition that I should venture into your new community. The design appears to me noble and generous, proceeding as I plainly see from nothing covert or selfish or ambitious but from a manly heart and mind. So it makes all men its friends and debtors. A matter to be entertained in a friendly spirit and examined as to what it has for us. “I have decided not to join it, yet very slowly and I may almost say, with penitence. I am greatly relieved by learning that your coadjutors are now so many that you will no longer attach that importance to the defection of individuals which you hinted in your letter to me or others might possess—I mean the painful power of defeating the plan.” CHAPTER III. A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND