Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/94

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
VISIT TO CONCORD.
79


This death occurred 1841. Margaret visited Concord soon afterward, and has left in her journals a brief record of this visit, in which she made the grief of her friends her own. We gather from its first phrase that Emerson, whom she now speaks of as Waldo," had wished her to commit to writing some of her reminiscences of the dear one lately departed:—

“Waldo brought me at once the ink-horn and pen, I told him if he kept me so strictly to my promise I night lose ardour; however, I began at once to write for him, but not with much success Lidian came in to see me before dinner. She wept for the lost child, and I was tempted to do the same, which relieved much from the oppression I have felt since I cane. Waldo showed me all he and others had written about the child; there is very little from Waldo's own observation, though he was with him so much. He has not much eye for the little signs in children that have such great leadings. The little there is, is good.

"'Mamma, may I have this little bell which I have been making, to stand by the side of my bed?'

"'Yes, it may stand there.'

"'But, mamma, I am afraid it will alarm you. It may sound in the middle of the night, and it will be heard over the whole town. It will sound like some great glass thing which will fall down and break all to pieces; it will be louder than a thousand hawks; it will be hoard across the water and in all the countries, it will be heard all over the world.'

"I like this, because it was exactly so he talked, spinning away without end, and with large, beautiful, earnest eyes. But most of the stories are of short sayings.

"This is good in M. Russell's journal of him. She