“With regard to Mr. Emerson, I had two reasons, if they may deserve to be so called, for wishing him to see my ‘Tasso’ [translated from Goethe]. It gratified me that a mind which had affected mine so powerfully should be dwelling on something of mine, even though 't were only some new dress for the thoughts of another. And I thought he might express something which would be useful to me. I should like very much his correction as well as yours, if it be not too much trouble.”[1]
This clearly shows how powerfully Emerson was already influencing other minds while he was still a clergyman, and had not printed a word that is now included in his writings.
Before this, according to Mr. Emerson's own statement, he had heard Margaret Fuller praised by Dr. Hedge; and he thinks, but is not quite sure, that he first met her at Mrs. Farrar's in 1835.[2] In July, 1836, she visited him in Concord. He has left a record, in one of the most graphic passages contributed by him to her “Memoirs,” of impressions received from her at this first visit. I am glad to be able to place beside this a companion picture of her, during a subsequent visit — in a letter written by that gifted and high-minded woman, Elizabeth Hoar, of Concord, sister of the judge and the senator of that family, and one of the most intimate personal friends of Mr. Emerson. Miss Hoar had been betrothed to Charles Emerson at the time of his early death, and lived all her subsequent life in the close vicinity of his
