receiving your kind and eloquent letters. I should be most
impatient of the long interval between one and another, but that
they savor always of Eternity, and promise me a friendship and
friendly inspiration not reckoned or ended by days or years.
Your last letter, dated in April, found me a mourner, as did your
first. I have lost out of this world my brother Charles,* of
whom I have spoken to you,--the friend and companion of many
years, the inmate of my house, a man of a beautiful genius, born
to speak well, and whose conversation for these last years has
treated every grave question of humanity, and has been my daily
bread. I have put so much dependence on his gifts that we made
but one man together; for I needed never to do what he could do
by noble nature much better than I. He was to have been married
in this month, and at the time of his sickness and sudden
death I was adding apartments to my house for his permanent
accommodation. I wish that you could have known him. At
twenty-seven years the best life is only preparation. He built
his foundation so large that it needed the full age of man to make
evident the plan and proportions of his character. He postponed
always a particular to a final and absolute success, so that his
life was a silent appeal to the great and generous. But some
time I shall see you and speak of him.

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* Charles Chauncy Emerson,--died May 9, 1836,--whose memory still
survives fresh and beautiful in the hearts of the few who remain
who knew him in life. A few papers of his published in the
_Dial_ show to others what he was and what he might have become.
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