His insatiability in the study of human nature was shown curiously in our first summer’s camp.  He had the utmost tenderness of animal life and had no sympathy with sport in any form,—­he “named the birds without a gun,”—­and when we were making up the outfit for the outing he at first refused to take a rifle; but, as the discussion of make, calibre, and quality went on, and everybody else was provided, he at length decided, though no shot, to conform, and purchased a rifle.  And when the routine of camp life brought the day of the hunt, the eagerness of the hunters and the passion of the chase, the strong return to our heredity of human primeval occupation gradually involved him, and made him desire to enter into this experience as well as the rest of the forest emotions.  He must understand this passion to kill.  One Sunday morning, when all the others went out for the drive of the deer,—­necessary for the larder, as the drive the day before had failed,—­Emerson asked me to take him out on the lake to some quiet place for meditation.  We landed in a deep bay, where the seclusion was most complete, and he went into the woods to meditate.  Presently we heard the baying of the hound as he circled round the lake, on the hillsides, for the deer at that season were reluctant to take to the water, and gave a long chase; and, as he listened, he began to take in the excitement of the hunters, and finally broke out abruptly, “Let us go after the deer;” and down the lake we went, flying at our best, but we arrived too late,—­Lowell had killed the deer.

He said to me later, and emphatically, “I must kill a deer;” and one night we went out “jack-hunting” to enable him to realize that ambition.  This kind of hunting, as most people know, is a species of pot-hunting, much employed by the hunters for the market, and so destructive to the deer that it is now forbidden by the law in all the Adirondack country.  The deer are stalked by night along the shores, where they come in to feed, the hunter carrying in his boat a light so shaded that it illuminates only the space directly in front of the boat, the glare blinding the animal so that he does not see the boat or the boatman.  In this way the deer may be approached within a few yards if the paddler is skillful; but as he stands perfectly still, and is difficult to see in the dim light, the tyro generally misses him.  We paddled up to within twenty yards of a buck, and the guide gave the signal to shoot; but Emerson could see nothing resembling a deer, and finally the creature took fright and ran, and all we got of him was the sound of galloping hoofs as he sped away, stopping a moment, when at a safe distance, to snort at the intruders, and then off again.  We kept on, and presently came upon another, toward which we drifted even nearer than to the first one, and still Emerson could see nothing to distinguish the deer from the boulders among which he stood; and we were scarcely the boat’s length from him, when, Emerson being still unable to see him, and not caring to run the risk of losing him, for we had no venison in camp and the luck of the morning drive was always uncertain, I shot him.  We had no other opportunity for the “jack-hunt,” and so Emerson went home unsatisfied in this ambition,—­glad, no doubt, when he recalled the incident, that he had failed.