The danger of travel, the danger of learning, the danger of

reading, of profound research and extensive observation, lies in
the fact that some age, city, or country, some man or coterie of
men, may gain too firm a hold, may so absorb the attention and
restrict the imagination that the sense of proportion is lost. It
requires a level head to withstand the allurements of the past,
the fascination of the foreign. Nothing disturbed Shakespeare's
equanimity. Neither Stratford nor London bounded his life. On the
wings of his imagination he visited the known earth and penetrated
beyond the blue skies, he made the universe his home; and yet he
was essentially and to the last an Englishman.

When we stopped before "Orchard House" it was desolate and
forsaken, and the entrance to the "Hillside Chapel," where the
"Concord School of Philosophy and Literature" had its home for
nine years, was boarded up.

Parts of the house had been built more than a century and a half
when Mrs. Alcott bought it in 1857. In her journal for July, 1858,
the author of "Little Women" records, "Went into the new house and
began to settle. Father is happy; mother glad to be at rest; Anna
is in bliss with her gentle John; and May busy over her pictures.
I have plans simmering, but must sweep and dust and wash my
dishpans a while longer till I see my way."

Meanwhile the little women paper and decorate the walls, May in
her enthusiasm filling panels and every vacant place with birds
and flowers and mottoes in old English.

"August. Much company to see the new house. All seem to be glad
that the wandering family is anchored at last. We won't move again
for twenty years" (prophetic soul to name the period so exactly)
"if I can help it. The old people need an abiding place, and now
that death and love have taken two of us away, I can, I hope, soon
manage to take care of the remaining four."

It is one of the ironies of fate that the fame of Bronson Alcott
should hang upon that of his gifted daughter. It was not until she
made her great success with "Little Women" in 1868 that the
outside world began to take a vivid interest in the father. From
that time his lectures and conversations began to pay; he was
seized anew with the desire to publish, and from 1868 until the
beginning of his illness in 1882 he printed or reprinted nearly
his entire works,--some eight or ten volumes; it is no
disparagement to the kindly old philosopher that his books were
bought mainly on the success of his daughter's.

The Summer School of Philosophy was the last ambitious attempt of
a spirit that had been struggling for half a century to teach
mankind.

The small chapel of plain, unpainted boards, nestling among the
trees on the hillside, has not been opened since 1888. It stands a
pathetic memento to a vision. Twenty years ago the "school" was an
overshadowing reality,--to-day it is a memory, a minor incident in
the progress of thought, a passing phase in intellectual
development. Many eminent men lectured there, and the scope of the
work is by no means indicated by the humble building which
remains; but, while strong in conversation and in the expression
of his own views, Alcott was not cut out for a leader. All reports
indicate that he had a wonderful facility in the off-hand
expression of abstruse thought, but he had no faculty whatsoever
for so ordering and systematizing his thoughts as to furnish
explosive material for belligerent followers; the intellectual
ammunition he put up was not in the convenient form of cartridges,
nor even in kegs or barrels, but just poured out on the ground,
where it disintegrated before it could be used.

Leaning on the gate that bright, warm, summer afternoon, it was
not difficult to picture the venerable, white-haired philosopher
seated by the doorstep arguing eloquently with some congenial
visitor, or chatting with his daughter. One could almost see a
small throng of serious men and women wending their way up the
still plainly marked path to the chapel, and catch the measured
tones of the lecturer as he expounded theories too recondite for
this practical age and generation.

Philosophy is the sarcophagus of truth; and most systems of
philosophy are like the pyramids,--impressive piles of useless
intellectual masonry, erected at prodigious cost of time and labor
to secrete from mankind the truth.

A little farther on we came to the fork in the road where Lincoln
Street branches off to the southeast. Emerson's house fronts on
Lincoln and is a few rods from the intersection with Lexington
Street. Here Emerson lived from 1835 until his death in 1882.

It is singular the fascination exercised by localities and things
identified with great men. It is not enough to simply see, but in
so far as possible we wish to place ourselves in their places, to
walk where they walked, sit where they sat, sleep where they
slept, to merge our petty and obscure individualities for the time
being in theirs, to lose our insignificant selves in the
atmosphere they created and left behind. Is it possible that
subtile** distillations of personality penetrate and saturate
inanimate things, so that aromas imperceptible to the sense are
given off for ages and affect all who come in receptive mood
within their influence? It is quite likely that what we feel when
we stand within the shadow of a great soul is all subjective, that
our emotions are but the workings of our imaginations stirred by
suggestive surroundings; but who knows, who knows?

When this house was nearly destroyed by fire in July, 1872,
friends persuaded Emerson to go abroad with his daughter, and
while they were away, the house was completely restored.

His son describes his return: "When the train reached Concord, the
bells were rung and a great company of his neighbors and friends
accompanied him, under a triumphal arch, to his restored house. He
was greatly moved, but with characteristic modesty insisted that
this was a welcome to his daughter, and could not be meant for
him. Although he had felt quite unable to make any speech, yet,
seeing his friendly townspeople, old and young, in groups watching
him enter his own door once more, he turned suddenly back and
going to the gate said, 'My friends! I know this is not a tribute
to an old man and his daughter returned to their home, but to the
common blood of us all--one family--in Concord.'"

The exposure incidental to the fire seriously undermined Emerson's
already failing health; shortly after he wrote a friend in
Philadelphia, "It is too ridiculous that a fire should make an old
scholar sick; but the exposures of that morning and the
necessities of the following days which kept me a large part of
the time in the blaze of the sun have in every way demoralized me
for the present,--incapable of any sane or just action. These
signal proofs of my debility an decay ought to persuade you at
your first northern excursion to come and reanimate and renew the
failing powers of your still affectionate old friend."

The story of his last days is told by his son, who was also his
physician:

"His last few years were quiet and happy. Nature gently drew the
veil over his eyes; he went to his study and tried to work,
accomplished less and less, but did not notice it. However, he
made out to look over and index most of his journals. He enjoyed
reading, but found so much difficulty in conversation in
associating the right word with his idea, that he avoided going
into company, and on that account gradually ceased to attend the
meetings of the Social Circle. As his critical sense became
dulled, his standard of intellectual performance was less
exacting, and this was most fortunate, for he gladly went to any
public occasion where he could hear, and nothing would be expected
of him. He attended the Lyceum and all occasions of speaking or
reading in the Town Hall with unfailing pleasure.

"He read a lecture before his townpeople** each winter as late as
1880, but needed to have one of his family near by to help him out
with a word and assist in keeping the place in his manuscript. In
these last years he liked to go to church. The instinct had always
been there, but he had felt that he could use his time to better
purpose."

"In April, 1882, a raw and backward spring, he caught cold, and
increased it by walking out in the rain and, through
forgetfulness, omitting to put on his over-coat. He had a hoarse
cold for a few days, and on the morning of April 19 I found him a
little feverish, so went to see him next day. He was asleep on his
study sofa, and when he awoke he proved to be more feverish and a
little bewildered, with unusual difficulty in finding the right
word. He was entirely comfortable and enjoyed talking, and, as he
liked to have me read to him, I read Paul Revere's Ride, finding
that he could only follow simple narrative. He expressed great
pleasure, was delighted that the story was part of Concord's
story, but was sure he had never heard it before, and could hardly
be made to understand who Longfellow was, though he had attended
his funeral only the week before."

It was at Longfellow's funeral that Emerson got up from his chair,
went to the side of the coffin and gazed long and earnestly upon
the familiar face of the dead poet; twice he did this, then said
to a friend near him, "That gentleman was a sweet, beautiful soul,
but I have entirely forgotten his name."

Continuing the narrative, the son says: "Though dulled to other
impressions, to one he was fresh as long as he could understand
anything, and while even the familiar objects of his study began
to look strange, he smiled and pointed to Carlyle's head and said,
'That is my man, my good man!' I mention this because it has been
said that this friendship cooled, and that my father had for long
years neglected to write to his early friend. He was loyal while
life lasted, but had been unable to write a letter for years
before he died. Their friendship did not need letters.

"The next day pneumonia developed itself in a portion of one lung
and he seemed much sicker; evidently believed he was to die, and
with difficulty made out to give a word or two of instructions to
his children. He did not know how to be sick, and desired to be
dressed and sit up in his study, and as we had found that any
attempt to regulate his actions lately was very annoying to him,
and he could not be made to understand the reasons for our doing
so in his condition, I determined that it would not be worth while
to trouble and restrain him as it would a younger person who had
more to live for. He had lived free; his life was essentially
spent, and in what must almost surely be his last illness we would
not embitter the occasion by any restraint that was not absolutely
unavoidable.

"He suffered very little, took his nourishment well, but had great
annoyance from his inability to find the words which he wished
for. He knew his friends and family, but thought he was in a
strange house. He sat up in a chair by the fire much of the time,
and only on the last day stayed entirely in bed.

"During the sickness he always showed pleasure when his wife sat
by his side, and on one of the last days he managed to express, in
spite of his difficulty with words, how long and happy they had
lived together. The sight of his grandchildren always brought the
brightest smile to his face. On the last day he saw several of his
friends and took leave of them.

"Only at the last came pain, and this was at once relieved by
ether, and in the quiet sleep this produced he gradually faded
away in the evening of Thursday, April 27, 1882.

"Thirty-five years earlier he wrote one morning in his journal: 'I
said, when I awoke, after some more sleepings and wakings I shall
lie on this mattress sick; then dead; and through my gay entry
they will carry these bones. Where shall I be then? I lifted my
head and beheld the spotless orange light of the morning streaming
up from the dark hills into the wide universe.'"

After a few more sleepings and a few more wakings we shall all lie
dead, every living soul on this broad earth,--all who, at this
mathematical point in time called the present, breathe the breath
of life will pass away; but even now the new generation is
springing into life; within the next hour five thousand bodies
will be born into the world to perpetuate mankind; the whole lives
by the constant renewal of its parts; but the individual, what
becomes of the individual?

The five thousand bodies that are born within the hour take the
place of the something less than five thousand bodies that die
within the hour; the succession is preserved; the life of the
aggregate is assured; but the individual, what becomes of the
individual? Is he immortal, and if immortal whence came he and
whither does he go? if immortal, whence come these new souls which
are being delivered on the face of the globe at the rate of nearly
a hundred a minute? Are they from other worlds, exiled for a time
to this, or are they souls revisiting their former habitation?
Hardly the latter, for more are coming than going.

One midsummer night, while leaning over the rail of an ocean
steamer and watching the white foam thrown up by the prow, the
expanse of dark, heaving water, the vast dome of sky studded with
the brilliant jewels of space, an old man stopped by my side and
we talked of the grandeur of nature and the mysteries of life and
death, and he said, "My wife and I once had three boys, whom we
loved better than life; one by one they were taken from us,--they
all died, and my wife and I were left alone in the world; but
after a time a boy was born to us and we gave him the name of the
oldest who died, and then another came and we gave him the name of
my second boy, and then a third was born and we gave him the name
of our youngest;--and so in some mysterious way our three boys
have come back to us; we feel that they went away for a little
while and returned. I have sometimes looked in their eyes and
asked them if anything they saw or heard seemed familiar, whether
there was any faint fleeting memories of other days; they say
'no;' but I am sure that their souls are the souls of the boys we
lost."

And why not? Is it not more than likely that there is but one soul
which dwells in all things animate and inanimate, or rather, are
not all things animate and inanimate but manifestations of the one
soul, so that the death of an individual is, after all, but the
suppression of a particular manifestation and in no sense a
release of a separate soul; so that the birth of a child is but a
new manifestation in physical form of the one soul, and in no
sense the apparition of an additional soul? It is difficult to
think otherwise. The birth and death of souls are inconceivable;
the immortality of a vast and varying number of individual souls
is equally inconceivable. Immortality implies unity, not number.
The mind can grasp the possibility of one soul, the manifestation
of which is the universe and all it contains.

The hypothesis of individual souls first confined in and then
released from individual bodies to preserve their individuality
for all time is inconceivable, since it assumes--to coin a word--
an intersoulular space, which must necessarily be filled with a
medium that is either material or spiritual in its character; if
material, then we have the inconceivable condition of spiritual
entities surrounded by a material medium; if the intersoulular
space be occupied by a spiritual medium, then we have simply souls
surrounded by soul,--or, in the final analysis, one soul, of which
the so-called individual souls are but so many manifestations.

To the assumption of an all-pervading ether which is the physical
basis of the universe, may we not add the suprasumption** of an
all-pervading soul which is the spiritual basis of not only the
ether but of life itself? The seeming duality of mind and matter,
of the soul and body, must terminate somewhere, must merge in
identity. Whether that identity be the Creator of theology or the
soul of speculation does not much matter, since the final result
is the same, namely, the immortality of that suprasumption, the
soul.

But the individual, what becomes of the individual in this
assumption of an all-pervading, immortal soul, of which all things
animate and inanimate are but so many activities?

The body, which for a time being is a part of the local
manifestation of the pervading soul, dies and is resolved into its
constituent elements; it is inconceivable that those elements
should ever gather themselves together again and appear in
visible, tangible form. No one could possibly desire they ever
should; those who die maimed, or from sickness and disease, or in
the decrepitude and senility of age, could not possibly wish that
their disordered bodies should appear again; nor could any person
name the exact period of his life when he was so satisfied with
his physical condition that he would choose to have his body as it
then was. No; the body, like the trunk of a fallen tree, decays
and disappears; like ripe fruit, it drops to the earth and
enriches the soil, but nevermore resumes its form and semblance.

The pervading soul, of which the body was but the physical
manifestation, remains; it does not return to heaven or any
hypothetical point in either space or speculation. The dissolution
of the body is but the dissolution of a particular manifestation
of the all-pervading soul, and the immortality of the so-called
individual soul is but the persistence of that, so to speak, local
disturbance in the one soul after the body has disappeared. It is
quite conceivable, or rather the reverse is inconceivable, that
the activity of the pervading soul, which manifests itself for a
time in the body, persists indefinitely after the physical
manifestation has ceased; that, with the cessation of the physical
manifestation, the particular activity which we recognize here as
an individuality will so persist that hereafter we may recognize
it as a spiritual personality. In other words, assuming the
existence of a soul of which the universe and all it contains are
but so many manifestations, it is dimly conceivable that with the
cessation, or rather the transformation, of any particular
manifestation, the effects may so persist as to be forever known
and recognizable,--not by parts of the one soul, which has no
parts, but by the soul itself.

Therefore all things are immortal. Nothing is so lost to the
infinite soul as to be wholly and totally obliterated. The
withering of a flower is as much the act of the all-pervading soul
as the death of a child; but the life and death of a human being
involve activities of the soul so incomparably greater than the
blossoming of a plant, that the immortality of the one, while not
differing in kind, may be infinitely more important in degree. The
manifestation of the soul in the life of the humming-bird is
slight in comparison with the manifestation in the life of a man,
and the traces which persist forever in the case of the former are
probably insignificant compared with the traces which persist in
the case of the latter; but traces must persist, else there is no
immortality of the individual; at the same time there is not the
slightest reason for urging that, whereas traces of the soul's
activity in the form of man will persist, traces of the soul's
activity in lower forms of life and in things inanimate will not
persist. There is no reason why, when the physical barriers which
exist between us and the soul that is within and without us are
destroyed, we should not desire to know forever all that the
universe contains. Why should not the sun and the moon and the
stars be immortal,--as immortal in their way as we in ours, both
immortal in the one all-pervading soul?

"The philosophy of six thousand years has not searched the
chambers and the magazine of the soul. In its experiments there
has always remained, in the last analysis, a residuum it could not
solve," said Emerson in the lecture he called "Over-Soul."

What a pity to use the phrase "Over-Soul," which removes the soul
even farther aloof than it is in popular conception, or which
fosters the belief of an inner and outer, or an inferior and a
superior soul; whereas Emerson meant, as the context shows, the
all-pervading soul.

But, then, who knows what any one else thinks or means? At the
most we only know what others say, what words they use, but in
what sense they use them and the content of thought back of them
we do not know. So far as the problems of life go we are all
groping in the dark, and words are like fireflies leading us
hither and thither with glimpses of light only to go out, leaving
us in darkness and despair.

It is the sounding phrase that catches the ear. "For fools admire
and like all things the more which they perceive to be concealed
under involved language, and determine things to be true which can
prettily tickle the ears and are varnished over with finely
sounding phrase," says Lucretius. We imagine we understand when we
do not; we do not really, truly, and wholly understand Emerson or
any other man; we do not understand ourselves.

We speak of the conceivable and of the inconceivable as if the
words had any clear and tangible meaning in our minds; whereas
they have not; at the best they are of but relative value. What is
conceivable to one man is inconceivable to another; what is beyond
the perception of one generation is matter of fact to the next.

The conceivable is and ever must be bounded by the inconceivable;
the domain of the former is finite, that of the latter is
infinite. It matters not how far we press our speculations, how
extravagant our hypotheses, how distant our vision, we reach at
length the confines of our thought and admit the inconceivable.
The inconceivable is a postulate as essential to reason as is the
conceivable. That the inconceivable exists is as certain as the
existence of the conceivable; it is in a sense more certain, since
we constantly find ourselves in error in our conclusions
concerning the existence of the things we know, while we can never
be in error concerning the existence of things we can never know,
being sure that beyond the confines of the finite there must
necessarily be the infinite.

We may indulge in assumptions concerning the infinite based upon
our knowledge of the finite, or, rather, based upon the inflexible
laws of our mental processes. We may say that there must be one
all-pervading soul, not because we can form any conception
whatsoever of the true nature of such a soul, but because the
alternative hypothesis of many individual souls is utterly
obnoxious to our reason.

To those who urge that it is idle to reason about what we cannot
conceive, it is sufficient answer to say that man cannot help it.
The scientist and the materialist in the ardent pursuit of
knowledge soon experience the necessity of indulging in
assumptions concerning force and matter, the hypothetical ether
and molecules, atoms and vortices, which are as purely
metaphysical as any assumptions concerning the soul. The
distinction between the realist and the idealist is a matter of
temperament. All that separated Huxley from Gladstone was a word;
each argued from the unknowable, but disputed over the name and
attributes of the inconceivable. Huxley said he did not know,
which was equivalent to the dogmatic assertion that he did;
Gladstone said he did know, which was a confession of ignorance
denser than that of agnosticism.

Those men who try not to think or reason concerning the infinite
simply imprison themselves within the four walls of the cell they
construct. It is better to think and be wrong than not to think at
all. Any assumption is better than no assumption, any belief
better than none.

Hypotheses enlarge the boundaries of knowledge. With assumptions
the intellectual prospector stakes out the infinite. In life we
may not verify our premises, but death is the proof of all things.

We stopped at Wright's tavern, where patriots used to meet before
the days of the revolution, and where Major Pitcairn is said--
wrongfully in all probability--to have made his boast on the
morning of the 19th, as he stirred his toddy, that they would stir
the rebels' blood before night.

One realizes that "there is but one Concord" as the carriages of
pilgrims are counted in the Square, and the swarm of young guides,
with pamphlets and maps, importune the chance visitor.

We chose the most persistent little urchin, not that we could not
find our way about so small a village, but because he wanted to
ride, and it is always interesting to draw out a child; his story
of the town and its famous places was, of course, the one he had
learned from the others, but his comments were his own, and the
incongruity of going over the sacred ground in an automobile had
its effect.

It was a short run down Monument Street to the turn just beyond
the "Old Manse." Here the British turned to cross the North Bridge
on their way to Colonel Barrett's house, where the ammunition was
stored. Just across the narrow bridge the "embattled farmers stood
and fired the shot heard round the world." A monument marks the
spot where the British received the fire of the farmers, and a
stone at the side recites "Graves of two British soldiers,"--
unknown wanderers from home they surrendered their lives in a
quarrel, the merits of which they did not know. "Soon was their
warfare ended; a weary night march from Boston, a rattling volley
of musketry across the river, and then these many years of rest.
In the long procession of slain invaders who passed into eternity
from the battle-field of the revolution, these two nameless
soldiers led the way." While standing by the grave, Hawthorne was
told a story, a tradition of how a youth, hurrying to the
battle-field axe in hand, came upon these two soldiers, one not yet
dead raised himself up painfully on his hands and knees, and how the
youth on the impulse of the moment cleft the wounded man's head with
the axe. The tradition is probably false, but it made its impression
on Hawthorne, who continues, "I could wish that the grave might be
opened; for I would fain know whether either of the skeleton
soldiers has the mark of an axe in his skull. The story comes home
to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an intellectual and moral exercise,
I have sought to follow that poor youth through his subsequent
career and observe how his soul was tortured by the blood-stain,
contracted as it had been before the long custom of war had robbed
human life of its sanctity, and while it still seemed murderous to
slay a brother man. This one circumstance has borne more fruit for
me than all that history tells us of the fight."

There are souls so callous that the taking of a human life is no
more than the killing of a beast; there are souls so sensitive
that they will not kill a living thing. The man who can relate
without regret so profound it is close akin to remorse the killing
of another--no matter what the provocation, no matter what the
circumstances--is next kin to the common hangman.

From the windows of the "Old Manse," the Rev. William Emerson,
grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson, looked out upon the battle,
and he would have taken part in the fight had not his neighbors
held him back; as it was, he sacrificed his life the following
year in attempting to join the army at Ticonderoga, contracting a
fever which proved fatal.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery lies on Bedford Street not far from the
Town Hall. We followed the winding road to the hill where
Hawthorne, Thoreau, the Alcotts, and Emerson lie buried within a
half-dozen paces of one another.

Thoreau came first in May, 1862. Emerson delivered the funeral
address. Mrs. Hawthorne writes in her diary, "Mr. Thoreau died
this morning. The funeral services were in the church. Mr. Emerson
spoke. Mr. Alcott read from Mr. Thoreau's writings. The body was
in the vestibule covered with wild flowers. We went to the grave."

Hawthorne came next, just two years later. "On the 24th of May,
1864 we carried Hawthorne through the blossoming orchards of
Concord," says James T. Fields, "and laid him down under a group
of pines, on a hillside, overlooking historic fields. All the way
from the village church to the grave the birds kept up a perpetual
melody. The sun shone brightly, and the air was sweet and
pleasant, as if death had never entered the world. Longfellow and
Emerson, Channing and Hoar, Agassiz and Lowell, Greene and
Whipple, Alcott and Clarke, Holmes and Hillard, and other friends
whom he loved, walked slowly by his side that beautiful spring
morning. The companion of his youth and his manhood, for whom he
would willingly, at any time, have given up his own life, Franklin
Pierce, was there among the rest, and scattered flowers into the
grave. The unfinished 'Romance,' which had cost him so much
anxiety, the last literary work on which he had ever been engaged,
was laid in his coffin."

Eighteen years later, on April 30, 1882, Emerson was laid at rest
a little beyond Hawthorne and Thoreau in a spot chosen by himself.

A special train came from Boston, but many could not get inside
the church. The town was draped; "even the homes of the very poor
bore outward marks of grief." At the house, Dr. Furness, of
Philadelphia, conducted the services. "The body lay in the front
northeast room, in which were gathered the family and close
friends." The only flowers were lilies of the valley, roses, and
arbutus.

At the church, Judge Hoar, standing by the coffin, spoke briefly;
Dr. Furness read selections from the Scriptures; James Freeman
Clarke delivered the funeral address, and Alcott read a sonnet.

"Over an hour was occupied by the passing files of neighbors,
friends, and visitors looking for the last time upon the face of
the dead poet. The body was robed completely in white, and the
face bore a natural and peaceful expression. From the church the
procession took its way to the cemetery. The grave was made
beneath a tall pine-tree upon the hill-top of Sleepy Hollow, where
lie the bodies of his friends Thoreau and Hawthorne, the upturned
sod being concealed by strewings of pine boughs. A border of
hemlock spray surrounded the grave and completely lined its sides.
The services were very brief, and the casket was soon lowered to
its final resting-place. The grandchildren passed the open grave
and threw flowers into it."

In her "Journal," Louisa Alcott wrote, "Thursday, 27th. Mr.
Emerson died at nine P.M. suddenly. Our best and greatest American
gone. The nearest and dearest friend father ever had, and the man
who has helped me most by his life, his books, his society. I can
never tell all he has been to me,--from the time I sang Mignon's
song under his window (a little girl) and wrote letters _… la_
Bettine to him, my Goethe, at fifteen, up through my hard years,
when his essays on Self-Reliance, Character, Compensation, Love,
and Friendship helped me to understand myself and life, and God
and Nature. Illustrious and beloved friend, good-by!

"Sunday, 30th.--Emerson's funeral. I made a yellow lyre of
jonquils for the church, and helped trim it up. Private service at
the house, and a great crowd at the church. Father read his
sonnet, and Judge Hoar and others spoke. Now he lies in Sleepy
Hollow among his brothers under the pines he loved."

On March 4, 1888, Bronson Alcott died, and two days later Louisa
Alcott followed her father. They lie near together on the ridge a
little beyond Hawthorne. Initials only mark the graves of her
sisters, but it has been found necessary to place a small stone
bearing the name "Louisa" on the grave of the author of "Little
Women." She had made every arrangement for her death, and by her
own wish her funeral was in her father's rooms in Boston, and
attended by only a few of her family and nearest friends.

"They read her exquisite poem to her mother, her father's noble
tribute to her, and spoke of the earnestness and truth of her
life. She was remembered as she would have wished to be. Her body
was carried to Concord and placed in the beautiful cemetery of
Sleepy Hollow, where her dearest ones were already laid to rest.
'Her boys' went beside her as 'a guard of honor,' and stood around
as she was placed across the feet of father, mother, and sister,
that she might 'take care of them as she had done all her life.'"

Louisa Alcott's last written words were the acknowledgment of the
receipt of a flower. "It stands beside me on Marmee's (her mother)
work-table, and reminds me tenderly of her favorite flowers; and
among those used at her funeral was a spray of this, which lasted
for two weeks afterwards, opening bud by bud in the glass on her
table, where lay the dear old 'Jos. May' hymn-book, and her diary
with the pen shut in as she left it when she last wrote there,
three days before the end, 'The twilight is closing about me, and
I am going to rest in the arms of my children.' So, you see, I
love the delicate flower and enjoy it very much."

Reverently, with bowed heads, we stood on that pine-covered ridge
which contained the mortal remains of so many who are great and
illustrious in the annals of American literature. A scant patch of
earth hides their dust, but their fancies, their imaginings, their
philosophy spanned human conduct, emotions, beliefs, and
aspirations from the cradle to the grave.

The warm September day was drawing to a close; the red sun was
sinking towards the west; the hilltop was aflame with a golden
glow from the slanting rays of the declining sun. Slowly we wended
our way through the shadowy hollow below; looking back, the mound
seemed crowned with glory.

Leaving Concord by Main Street we passed some famous homes, among
them Thoreau's earlier home, where he made lead-pencils with the
deftness which characterized all his handiwork; turning to the
left on Thoreau Street we crossed the tracks and took the Sudbury
road through all the Sudburys,--four in number; the roads were
good and the country all the more interesting because not yet
invaded by the penetrating trolley. It would be sacrilegious for
electric cars to go whizzing by the ancient tombs and monuments
that fringe the road down through Sudbury; the automobile felt out
of place and instinctively slowed down to stately and measured
pace.

In all truth, one should walk, not ride, through this beautiful
country, where every highway has its historic associations, every
burying-ground its honored dead, every hamlet its weather-beaten
monument. But if one is to ride, the automobile--incongruous as it
may seem--has this advantage,--it will stand indefinitely
anywhere; it may be left by the roadside for hours; no one can
start it; hardly any person would maliciously harm it, providing
it is far enough to one side so as not to frighten passing horses;
excursions on foot may be made to any place of interest, then,
when the day draws to a close, a half-hour suffices to reach the
chosen resting-place.

It was getting dark as we passed beneath the stately trees
bordering the old post-road which leads to the door of the
"Wayside Inn."

Here the stages from Boston to Worcester used to stop for dinner.
Here Washington, Lafayette, Burgoyne, and other great men of
Revolutionary days had been entertained, for along this highway
the troops marched and countermarched. The old inn is rich in
historic associations.

The road which leads to the very door of the inn is the old
post-road; the finely macadamized State road which passes a little
farther away is of recent dedication, and is located so as to
leave the ancient hostelry a little retired from ordinary travel.

A weather-beaten sign with a red horse rampant swings at one
corner of the main building.

"Half effaced by rain and shine,
The Red Horse prances on the sign."

For nearly two hundred years, from 1683 to 1860, the inn was owned
and kept by one family, the Howes, and was called by many "Howe's
Tavern," by others "The Red Horse Inn."

Since the publication of Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn,"
the place has been known by no other name than the one it now
bears.

"As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality;
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall."

A portrait of Lyman Howe, the last landlord of the family, hangs
in the little bar-room,

"A man of ancient pedigree,
A Justice of the Peace was he,
Known in all Sudbury as 'The Squire.'
Proud was he of his name and race,
Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh."

And now as of yore

"In the parlor, full in view,
His coat-of-arms, well framed and glazed,
Upon the wall in colors blazed."

The small window-panes which the poet describes as bearing

"The jovial rhymes, that still remain,
Writ near a century ago,
By the great Major Molineaux,
Whom Hawthorne has immortal made,"

are preserved in frames near the mantel in the parlor, one deeply
scratched by diamond ring with name of Major Molineaux and the
date, "June 24th, 1774," the other bears this inscription,--

"What do you think?
Here is good drink,
Perhaps you may not know it;
If not in haste, Do stop and taste,
You merry folk will show it."

A worthy, though not so gifted, successor of the jolly major
rendered the following "true accomp.," which, yellow and faded,
hangs on the bar-room wall: