But if, or when, such a monument is erected, it will absolve no one of
the duty of making a pilgrimage to Concord. Even if it had no historic
or literary associations, this simple, dignified, beautiful New England
village, with its plain frame houses and its stately elm avenues, would
be well worth a visit. Village I call it, but township would be a better
word. Let no one go there with less than half a day to spare, for the
places of interest are widely scattered. My companion and I went first
to Walden Pond, then to the Emerson and Hawthorne houses, then to that
ideal burying-place, Sleepy Hollow, where Emerson and Hawthorne and
Thoreau rest side by side, and finally to the bridge--

Where once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Everything here is beautifully appropriate. The commemorative statue of
the "minute-man" with his musket is simple and expressive, and the four
lines of Emerson's hymn graven on the pedestal are the right words
written by the right man, entwining, as it were, the historical and
literary associations of the place. An exquisite appropriateness, too,
presides over the Poets' Corner of Sleepy Hollow. The grave of Emerson
is marked by a rough block of pure white quartz, in which is inserted a
bronze tablet bearing the words:--

The passive master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned.

Altogether, among the places of pilgrimage of the English-speaking race,
there is none more satisfactory or more inspiring than Concord, Mass.