Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/119

 JET. 25.] TO R. W. EMERSON. 95

TO R. W. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

STATEN ISLAND, June 8, 1843. DEAR FKIEND, I have been to see Henry James, and like him very much. It was a great pleasure to meet him. It makes humanity seem more erect and respectable. I never was more kindly and faithfully catechised. It made me respect myself more to be thought worthy of such wise questions. He is a man, and takes his own way, or stands still in his own place. I know of no one so patient and determined to have the good of yon. It is almost friendship, such plain and human dealing. I think that he will not write or speak inspiringly ; but he is a refreshing, forward-looking and forward-moving man, and he has naturalized and humanized New York for me. He actually reproaches you by his respect for your poor words. I had three hours solid talk with him, and he asks me to make free use of his house. He wants an ex pression of your faith, or to be sure that it is faith, and confesses that his own treads fast upon the neck of his understanding. He exclaimed, at some careless answer of mine, &quot; Well, you Transcendentalists are wonderfully consistent. I must get hold of this somehow ! &quot; He likes Car- lyle s book, 1 but says that it leaves him in an

1 Past and Present.