He was the most
difficult of men to persuade of any strange and remarkable event.
Neither did he take the least pains to conceal his disbelief; and when
you were telling him the living truth this was rather difficult to bear.
When we said that a woodpecker had been seen in Walden woods nearly as
large as a crow and quite as black, he shook his head and looked up at
the pine trees. That was not according to his idea of a woodpecker.
Neither did he like to hear anything which tended to prove the depravity
of human nature. Stories of fraud and corruption in commercial or
political life were not pleasant to his ears; and if the perpetrators
escaped punishment he was evidently much annoyed. He liked to tell the
truth better than he did to hear it.
When nearly sixty years of age both Emerson and Alcott fell in love with
a charming young school-teacher of the transcendental sort, and it is
rather pleasant to think that there was so much human nature still left
in those grave old philosophers.
He was the most famous American of his time; not so celebrated perhaps
in his own country as President Lincoln, but in foreign countries he
surpassed all others,--such is the deep impression which a great writer
makes on the minds of men. In Europe he was looked upon as the best
representative of our Western Hemisphere. Carlyle celebrated him in
England, and Grimm in Germany.
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