Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/56

 I will not ask about it. Emerson is just and true. Would that many were like him!

But now I must tell you something of my late doings in society. Miss Catherine Sedgwick, the author of “Redwood,”; came here, together with her young niece, Susan, a few days after my arrival. Mr. Downing, who greatly esteems her, wished me to make her acquaintance. She is between fifty and sixty, and her countenance indicates a very sensible, kind, and benevolent character. Her figure is beautifully feminine, and her whole demeanor womanly, sincere, and frank, without a shadow of affectation. I felt my soul a little slumbrous while with her for the first few days; but this feeling was, as it were, blown quite away in a moment by a touching and beautiful expression of cordiality on her side, which revealed us to each other; and since then I have felt that I could live with her as with a heavenly soul, in which one has the most undoubting trust. I derived pleasure, also, from her highly sensible conversation, and from her truly womanly human sympathies. She has a true and gentle spirit; and I feel that I could really depend upon her. Of late years she has written much for, what I will call, the people of lower degree in society; because here, where almost every person works for their living, one cannot properly speak of a working-class, but quite correctly of people of small means and narrow circumstances—a class which has not yet worked itself up. Franklin, himself a workman, and one who worked himself upwards, wrote for this class. Miss Sedgwick writes for the same; and her little novels and stories are much liked, and produce a great deal of good. People praise, in particular, a story called “Home,” which I shall endeavour to read. Miss Sedgwick was at this time occupied in preparing a new edition of her collected works. She consulted me about some proposed alterations in some of these works, and I told her that I,