From early morning till bed-time he was always the
same, always self-possessed. There was no relaxation of it; he was like
an athlete in full training. It was difficult to place him in a position
where he did not appear to advantage. But he expected nearly as much
from others, and had small patience with those who from ignorance or
carelessness infringed the rules of etiquette. One of his expressions
was, that death or mutilation was the only excuse for being late to
dinner. The notion that poets are an unpractical class of people is pure
illusion. The lives of our chief American poets will be sufficient to
contradict it; if Dante had not been a just governor of Florence and
Aeschylus had not fought like a tiger in the battle of Salamis. Bryant
was the able editor of a newspaper; Lowell made an excellent ambassador;
and Longfellow also had the reputation with his publishers of being a
very shrewd man of business. So was Emerson in all things eminently
practical. He would sometimes say, "I allow myself to be cheated by one
Irishman"; but I do not think he was cheated very much.
In fair weather he always left his books half an hour or so before
dinner and walked out, to get fresh-air and see what was going forward
on his little place. The poem called "Hamatreya" and many of his best
thoughts were evidently suggested by these short excursions. He says in
the "Conduct of Life": "The scholar goes into his garden to obtain a
juster statement of his thought.
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