At the second conversation, some days later, the circle was smaller, and no one showed any sign of weariness or indifference. The subject was Impulse, chosen by Margaret because she observed among her new friends "a great tendency to advocate spontaneousness at the expense of reflection." Of her own part in this exercise she says:--
"I defended nature, as I always do,--the spirit ascending through, not superseding nature. But in the scale of sense, intellect, spirit, I advocated to-night the claims of intellect, because those present were rather disposed to postpone them."
After the lapse of a year she found the tone of the society much improved. The mere freakishness of unrestraint had yielded to a recognition of the true conditions of liberty, and tolerance was combined with sincerity.
MARGARET'S LOVE OF CHILDREN.--VISIT TO CONCORD AFTER THE DEATH OF WALDO EMERSON.--CONVERSATIONS IN BOSTON.--SUMMER ON THE LAKES.
Among Margaret's life-long characteristics was a genuine love of little children, which sprang from a deep sense of the beauty and sacredness of childhood. When she visited the homes of her friends, the little ones of their households were taken into the circle of her loving attention. Three of these became so especially dear to her that she called them her children. These were Waldo Emerson, Pickie Greeley, and Herman Clarke. For each of them the span of earthly life was short, no one of them living to pass out of childhood.
Waldo was the eldest son of Mr. Emerson, the child deeply mourned and commemorated by him in the well-known threnody:--
"The hyacinthine boy for whom Morn well might break and April bloom. The gracious boy who did adorn The world whereinto he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day, Has disappeared from the Day's eye."
This death occurred in 1841. Margaret visited Concord soon afterward, and has left in her journals a brief record of this visit, in which she made the grief of her friends her own. We gather from its first phrase that Mr. Emerson, whom she now speaks of as "Waldo," had wished her to commit to writing some of her reminiscences of the dear one lately departed:--
"Waldo brought me at once the inkhorn and pen. I told him if he kept me so strictly to my promise I might lose my ardor; however, I began at once to write for him, but not with much success. Lidian came in to see me before dinner. She wept for the lost child, and I was tempted to do the same, which relieved much from the oppression I have felt since I came. Waldo showed me all he and others had written about the child; there is very little from Waldo's own observation, though he was with him so much. He has not much eye for the little signs in children that have such great leadings. The little there is, is good.