delicacy I was master of in bowing the way to them. Sometimes my utmost
did not avail, or more strictly speaking it did not avail in one instance
with Emerson. He had given me upon much entreaty a poem which was one of
his greatest and best, but the proof-reader found a nominative at odds
with its verb. We had some trouble in reconciling them, and some other
delays, and meanwhile Doctor Holmes offered me a poem for the same
number. I now doubted whether I should get Emerson's poem back in time
for it, but unluckily the proof did come back in time, and then I had to
choose between my poets, or acquaint them with the state of the case, and
let them choose what I should do. I really felt that Doctor Holmes had
the right to precedence, since Emerson had withheld his proof so long
that I could not count upon it; but I wrote to Emerson, and asked (as
nearly as I can remember) whether he would consent to let me put his poem
over to the next number, or would prefer to have it appear in the same
number with Doctor Holmes's; the subjects were cognate, and I had my
misgivings. He wrote me back to "return the proofs and break up the
forms." I could not go to this iconoclastic extreme with the
electrotypes of the magazine, but I could return the proofs. I did so,
feeling that I had done my possible, and silently grieving that there
could be such ire in heavenly minds.




X.

Emerson, as I say, I had once met in Cambridge, but Whittier never; and I
have a feeling that poet as Cambridge felt him to be, she had her
reservations concerning him. I cannot put these into words which would
not oversay them, but they were akin to those she might have refined upon