Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/40

22, mingled with a rigidity that knew not humor, and a severe opinion of changing fashions, may well explain the interview recorded by Mr. Sanborn, between Miss Emerson and Mrs. Thoreau. The latter, even as her life lengthened, was fond of new and becoming dress; on this occasion, she incurred a severe rebuke from Miss Emerson for wearing bonnet ribbons of bright hue, "so unsuitable for a child of God and a person of your years." Miss Emerson, despite personal oddities, due in part to a rigid training and lonely life, was a woman of fine mind. Her nephew acknowledged her lasting influence upon his formative years. Well did he example her favorite maxims often given to him in letters,—"Lift your aims."—"Scorn trifles." In Thoreau, Miss Emerson always took great interest and their intellectual sympathy has been iterated in his journal. In one place, under date, November 13, 1851, he writes,—"Just spent a couple of hours with Miss Mary Emerson; the wittiest and most vivacious woman I know, certainly that woman among my acquaintances whom it is the most profitable to meet, the least frivolous, who will most surely provoke to good conversation I never talked with any other woman who, I thought, accompanied me so far in describing a poetic experience."