Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/254

Rh some subject of deep interest. There is the same deep, strong, and at the same time melodious, as it were metallic tones; the same plastic turns of expression, the same happy phraseology, naturally brilliant; the same calm and reposing strength. But his glance is beautiful as he casts it over his audience, and his voice seems more powerful as he sways them. The weather however was this evening horrible; the wind was very high, and the rain fell in torrents, (for it never rains here softly or in moderation) and very few people were present at the lecture. Emerson took it all very coolly, and merely said to some one, “one cannot fire off one's great guns for so few people.” I have visited to-day the Navy Yard of Boston and Massachusetts, and have shaken hands with the officers of the fleet and their ladies at a collation given at the house of the Commodore, during the whole of which we were regaled with fine instrumental music. It is a magnificent Navy Yard, and the whole thing was beautiful and kind, and afforded me pleasure.

I have this week also visited, in company with the distinguished school-teacher, G. B. Emerson (the uncle of Waldo), some of the common schools, and could not but be pleased with the excellent manner in which the children read, the girls in particular, that is to say, with so much life and expression, that one saw they fully understood both the words and the meaning; they also answered questions in natural history extremely well. Mr. E. has himself a large private school which is much celebrated.

In the evening I am going to Fanny Kemble's reading of Shakspeare's “Midsummer Night's Dream,” and after that with Emerson to a musical soirée at the house of a wealthy merchant, his friend Mr. A., whom he greatly esteems for his practical abilities as well as for his honest decided character.