Emerson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, F

Elizabeth Oakes Smith, “Recollections of Emerson, His Household and Friends” (1924)

Lecturer, reformer, novelist, poet, and for a brief time the pastor of the Independent Church in Canastota, New York, Elizabeth Oakes Smith was something of a nineteenth-century “Renaissance woman.” The wife of Seba Smith, editor of the Eastern Argus, Oakes Smith (as she was known) published widely in the Ladies’ Companion, the Southern Literary Messenger, Godey’s Lady’s Book, and Graham’s American Monthly Magazine; brought public attention to women’s rights and abolitionism when she took to the lecture circuit in the 1850s; and wrote novels that touched upon spiritualism, sentiment, and the plight of the urban poor. Oakes Smith launched her career as a lecturer in 1851, and on 31 December of that year she delivered a lecture on “Womanhood” in Concord before an audience that included Lidian Emerson and Mary Moody Emerson. She had come to Concord at Waldo’s and Lidian’s invitation, and while there she made the acquaintance of Bronson Alcott, Elizabeth Hoar, Henry Thoreau, and others of the cast of Transcendentalists who gathered around Emerson. The recollections that follow are based on Oakes Smith’s personal observation of the Emerson household and Emerson’s interactions with his friends during the several weeks in 1851 and 1852 that she lived at “Bush” as the Emersons’ guest. [] “Recollections of Emerson, His Household and Friends” () Elizabeth Oakes Smith I had already spoken in Boston, my way made easy by that eloquent Greek and sincere man, Wendell Phillips, and had been well received there. Notwithstanding this, I certainly felt many misgivings when invited to speak to an audience made up of Mr. Emerson’s admirers, acolytes and townspeople . When, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson came in from Concord to Boston,calling upon me,and inviting me to their hospitable home,I was not only gratified but made more comfortable in mind. The evening I spoke before the lyceum of Concord was not only a night of sleet and rain, but the ground, also, was one mass of what Down-East people call slush.Yet I am sure my lady friends will be glad to know I had a full house and an approving auditory. I must own, however, that Mr. Emerson did not hear me; he was to speak the same evening before the Lyceum of Marblehead. Before I went into the hall where I was to speak, I was confronted by Aunt Mary Emerson; now Aunt Mary was a character held in some awe. She was a small,quick-moving woman,with eyes sharp and penetrating[;] ...she not only looked at you but through you. We were all cloaked and ready to leave when Mrs. Emerson had the precaution to take me aside and whisper in my ear what might have seemed necessary . “Now possibly,” she said, “Aunt Mary may not stay to hear your lecture out; she has a way, when not quite pleased with a speaker, of getting up and going out, scattering shawl and gloves or hood all along the aisle; you need not mind it.” My subject was “Womanhood,” and I am happy to say Aunt Mary heard me through and gave me her hand at the close. I passed some weeks in the family of Mr. Emerson and was much interested in Mrs. Emerson, with her weird, grey eyes, and faultless repartee. She was always appropriately dressed as the wife of a philosopher should be: plain black, long folds of drapery, and a delicate white coif over her silver turning hair. She was stately in manner, justifying the term “Queeny,” by which her husband always addressed her. In return there was a simple grace in the tender respect of this model wife. I saw sometimes the sister-in-law of Mr. Emerson, always dressed in widow’s weeds, living upon the sweet memory of Charles Chauncy Emerson , who died young. She was treated with something like worship in the family. Mr. Emerson used to say of her, “Angels must do as they will,” and she certainly carried with her a heavenly presence.The mother of Mr.Emerson , gone into the winter of life, was surrounded by all that the despairing Macbeth declared— “should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.” She found all lavished upon her by reverent children and grandchildren. It was, indeed, a model household, everything fresh as a rose and nice as the most exacting Brownie could wish. There was the wholesome and tempting breakfast, and the long talks over the coffee...