Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/181

 articles which I have mentioned, are difficult of digestion and highly injurious to weak stomachs.

And now adieu to this food, physic, and stomach chapter, but which has a great interest for me and many others, and which ought to be seriously taken into consideration here.

As to my doctor, I must tell you that his name is David Osgood, that he visits me every day, and treats me with the greatest tenderness, and that he has promised to make me quite cheerful and strong before I leave Boston. He is of an old Puritan family, and is himself a real original; he has a rough exterior, but the most gentle and the best of hearts, as may be seen by his eyes. There are certain eyes which certainly can never die. They must remain in heaven as they are on earth. That which I remember most clearly about my friends, is always their eyes, their glance. I am sure that at the resurrection I shall recognise my friends by their eyes.

I must now tell you about Concord, and the Sphinx in Concord, Waldo Emerson, because I went to Concord five days ago, attended by—“himself.” I was wretchedly unwell; I do not know what it was that I had eaten the day before, or whether it was merely the removal and the journey to a new home which had caused me to have no sleep the preceding night. Whatever the cause might be, I sate, weak with fever and dejected in mind, by the side of the strong man, silent and without being able to say a single word, merely mechanically turning my head as he pointed out to me a few remarkable places which we passed. And he perfectly understood what was amiss with me, and let me be silent. I was weak with fever, and oppressed with a feeling as if I should fall to pieces during the first four-and-twenty hours that I was in Emerson's house; but after that, whether it was the little white nothing-powder,