Of all the pages, ay, of all the books, that have been printed concerning Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, there is not one which more vividly and accurately set the men before us and describe their essential characteristics than the casual lines of this old letter:—­Thoreau, the devotee of nature, “figuring dithyrambic dances and Bacchic leaps on the ice,” joyous in the presence of his god; the mystic Hawthorne, wrapped in his sombre cloak, “moved like a self-impelled Greek statue, stately and grave,”—­with magic force these words throw upon the screen of the imagination the figure of the creator of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale; while Emerson is drawn with the inspiration of a poet, “evidently too weary to hold himself erect, pitching headforemost, half lying on the air;” “half lying on the air,”—­the phrase rings in the ear, lingers in the memory, attaches itself to Emerson, and fits like a garment of soft and yielding texture.

The letter concludes as follows:  “After the first snow-storm, before it was so deep, we walked in the woods, very beautiful in winter, and found slides in Sleepy Hollow, where we became children, and enjoyed ourselves as of old,—­only more, a great deal.  Sometimes it is before breakfast that Mr. Hawthorne goes to skate upon the meadow.  Yesterday, before he went out, he said it was very cloudy and gloomy, and he thought it would storm.  In half an hour, oh, wonder! what a scene!  Instead of a black sky, the rising sun, not yet above the hill, had changed the firmament into a vast rose!  On every side, east, west, north, and south, every point blushed roses.  I ran to the study and the meadow sea also was a rose, the reflection of that above.  And there was my husband, careering about, glorified by the light.  Such is Paradise.

“In the evening we are gathered together beneath our luminous star in the study, for we have a large hanging astral lamp, which beautifully illumines the room, with its walls of pale yellow paper, its Holy Mother over the fireplace, and pleasant books, and its pretty bronze vase on one of the secretaries, filled with ferns.  Except once, Mr. Emerson, no one hunts us out in the evening.  Then Mr. Hawthorne reads to me.  At present we can only get along with the old English writers, and we find that they are the hive from which all modern honey is stolen.  They are thick-set with thought, instead of one thought serving for a whole book.  Shakespeare is pre-eminent; Spencer is music.  We dare to dislike Milton when he goes to heaven.  We do not recognize God in his picture of Him.  There is something so penetrating and clear in Mr. Hawthorne’s intellect, that now I am acquainted with it, merely thinking of him as I read winnows the chaff from the wheat at once.  And when he reads to me, it is the acutest criticism.  Such a voice, too,—­such sweet thunder!  Whatever is not worth much shows sadly, coming through such a medium, fit only for noblest ideas.  From reading his books you can have some idea of what it is to dwell with Mr. Hawthorne.  But only a shadow of him is found in his books.  The half is not told there.”