proud.

About this time occurred the death of her mother, the first break in
the home and family circle. In August of 1876 she made a visit to
Concord, at the Emersons', memorable enough for her to keep a journal
and note down every incident and detail. Very touching to read now,
in its almost childlike simplicity, is this record of "persons that
pass and shadows that remain." Mr. Emerson himself meets her at the
station, and drives with her in his little one-horse wagon to his
home, the gray square house, with dark green blinds, set amidst noble
trees. A glimpse of the family,--"the stately, white-haired Mrs.
Emerson, and the beautiful, faithful Ellen, whose figure seems always
to stand by the side of her august father." Then the picture of
Concord itself, lovely and smiling, with its quiet meadows, quiet
slopes, and quietest of rivers. She meets the little set of Concord
people: Mr. Alcott, for whom she does not share Mr. Emerson's
enthusiasm; and William Ellery Channing, whose figure stands out like
a gnarled and twisted scrub-oak,--a pathetic, impossible creature,
whose cranks and oddities were submitted to on account of an innate
nobility of character. "Generally crabbed and reticent with
strangers, he took a liking to me," says Emma Lazarus. "The bond
of our sympathy was my admiration for Thoreau, whose memory he
actually worships, having been his constant companion in his best
days, and his daily attendant in the last years of illness and heroic
suffering. I do not know whether I was most touched by the thought
of the unique, lofty character that had inspired this depth and
fervor of friendship, or by the pathetic constancy and pure affection
of the poor, desolate old man before me, who tried to conceal his
tenderness and sense of irremediable loss by a show of gruffness and
philosophy. He never speaks of Thoreau's death," she says, "but