Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-05-10
A Sunday at Concord.

BosToN, May /, 1882.
Mr.. Editor There come hours now and
then in ones life, when all the soul-ideals
revel in one glorious harmony when every
circumstance combines to fill up the meas
ure of our highest conception Of what is
most fitting in life and death. Such day
was yesterday, when we went to Concord to
participate in the funeral services Of Ralph
Waldo Emerson. The day was one of ma
tures best spring days; a day that left
nothing to be desired, with its soft soothing
air, its shifting white and blue above us,
the budding vegetation everywhere about
us, and the significant sacred stiffness of
New England Sabbath to consecrate it all.
If he who had worshiped the Infinite for
lifetime at the shrine of nature, and had
rested his soul in such supreme content
amid the loveliness of beautiful Concord,
had asked for day in which the hund reds
of his friends who came to say goodbye to
him yesterday could see his lovely home at
its best, he would have asked for that soul
satisfying day. Concord, aside from its his
torical associations and its cluster of bril-
liant minds, is a town OF rare beauty. There
are whole streets of homes that make one
pause and sigh for very gladness in their
beauty. Every home in Concord village
wore the same badge of mourning yesterday,
large rosette with its black and white
drapery clinging to every door, as if the
death angel had passed over every house
hold, when he came for the white soul of
their revered townsman and friend. The
effect was indescribably touching. Each
house, no matter whether poverty or wealth
ruled there, the bank, town hall, post-ofice,
every spot where human souls could live,
love and mourn, showed this universal mark
of grief. Close by the little church in which
were held the last services Aoated at half
mast, the national flag in mourning, and
had it held the emblems of every flag in
Europe, it might still have waved its fare
well regrets, for the hearts that learned to
love him through his incompatible works.
The services were simple, old friends of his
early manhood clustering around him to
the last, and an audience of the rarest in
tellects in New England listened to his own
poetry, read by lips whose loving accents had
blessed him in life. Pine boughs covered
the hard lines Of the old-fashioned pulpit,
calla lilies hid in their green depths an open
book, one page of pure white flowers, another
in richest color rested near the head Of the
casket, and harp of jonquils at its feet
formed the quaint, rustic background, where
reposed in its white, unlocked raiment the
last that remained of the man whose words
shall bloom again each year with the lilies
and whose memory shall be kept as green as
the boughs above him. The face showed
no suffering, the hands were folded over each
other in peculiarly resigned attitude, and
there brooded over it all spirit of restful-
ness and satisfaction that so great a man
had had such fitting close to his modest
home-life. This feeling that it was no occa-
sion for grief seemed universally shared by
everybody present. No tears were to be
seen, but rather feeling Of triumph over
the possession of such man, and gratitude
for such quiet going out Of life that
had been so modestly and quietly lived.
The procession to the grave was made up
of but few carriages, but long, voluntary
line OF friends and admirers who wished to
be near him to the last. Sleepy Hollow is
the dear old name of the cemetery almost in
front Of his home, aud here close by the
graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau lies the
body of Mr.. Emerson. We were particularly
struck and charmed with the device of low
ing friends, who had lined the new-made
grave with green hemlock sprays. Not a
spot of new, displaced earth was visible, but
everywhere this howery branching hemlock
hid the usual dreariness of a new grave and
made it seem lovely resting-place in green
bowers. The mound of earth that had been
removed from the grave was hidden entirely
with pine boughs. Sleepy Hollow is almost
a forest of pine trees, and over this grave
stand two large pines, whispering his re-
QUEEN to world whose soul is not so finely
attuned TO interpret natures language as
was his, but who must still feel that his
highest praise could best be voiced in the
the simplicity of natures tones A wreath
of laurel leaves, rested against the trunk of
one of these pine trees,-nature's laurels, in
harmony with all the rest. How vividly this
spot recalls his lines,
"We a pine grove did prefer
To marble theater."