Emerson's truthfulness was often the cause of mirth even to himself. I
remember that he thought he did not care for the work of Bayard
Taylor, but he confessed one day with sly ruefulness that he had taken
up the last "Atlantic" by chance, and found there some noble
hexameters upon "November;" and "I said to myself, 'Ah! who is this?
this is as good as Clough.' When to my astonishment, and not a little
to my discomfiture, I discovered they were Bayard Taylor's! But how
about this 'Faust'? We have had Dante done over and over, and even now
done, I see, again by a new hand, and Homer forever being done, and
now 'Faust'! I quarrel somewhat with the overmuch labor spent upon
these translations, but first of all I quarrel with Goethe. 'Faust' is
unpleasant to me. The very flavor of the poem repels me, and makes me
wish to turn away." The "Divina Commedia," too, he continued, was a
poem too terrible to him to read. He had never been able to finish it.
It is probable that poor translations of both "Faust" and Dante read
in early youth were at the bottom of these opinions.

Emerson was a true appreciator of Walter Scott. At one of the Saturday
Club dinners it was suggested that Walter Scott be made the subject of
conversation, and the occasion be considered as his birthday. Emerson
spoke with brilliant effect two or three times. He was first called
out by his friend Judge Hoar, who said he was chopping wood that
morning in his woodshed, when Emerson came in and said so many
delightful things about Sir Walter that if he would now repeat to the
table only a portion of the excellent sayings heard in the woodshed he
would delight them all. Emerson rose, and, referring pleasantly to the
brilliancy of the judge's imagination, began by expressing his sense
of gratitude to Walter Scott, and concluded a fine analysis of his
work by saying that the root and gist of his genius was to be found,
in his opinion, in the Border Minstrelsy.