Emerson first left home, and I doubt if he read it at any time. He
found his mountain scenery in Carlyle and his lakes and vales
elsewhere among agreeable people. My father's conscience worked in a
different way; he thought himself under obligations to see whatever in
the way of towns, ruins, cathedrals, and scenery was accounted worthy
a foreigner's attention; but I think he would have enjoyed seeing them
much more had that feeling of obligation not been imposed upon him.
Set sights, as he often remarked, wearied him, just because they were
set; things that he happened upon unpremeditatedly, especially if they
were not described in guide-books, pleased him more and tired him
less. It can hardly be affirmed, however, that he would have missed
the set sights if he could have done so, and no doubt he was glad,
after the job was done, that he had done it. And he was greatly helped
along by the inexhaustible faith and energy in such matters of his
wife; she shrank from no enterprise, and seemed always in precisely
the right mood to appreciate whatever she beheld. She could go day
after day to a picture-gallery, and stay all day long; she would make
herself as familiar with churches, castles, and cathedrals as she was
with her own house; she would wander interminably and delightedly
about old towns and cities, or gaze with never-waning joy upon lakes
and mountains, and my father, accompanying her, was, in a measure,
recuperated and strengthened by her enthusiasm. In the end, as is
evidenced by Our Old Home and The Marble Faun, he got a good deal out
of Europe. On the other hand, he seemed to think himself justified in
avoiding persons as much as he decently might, even the most
distinguished; and if he had not been a consul, and a writer of books
that had been read, I doubt if he would have formed any acquaintances
during his foreign residence, and he would thereby have missed one of
the greatest and most enduring pleasures of memory that he took back
with him. For no one cared more for a friend, or was more stimulated