RECOGNITION BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 625 Several of Emerson's friends were good laughers,
notably Carlyle and Agassiz, and he never found " the their mirth intemperate but, for himself, ;
we
pleasant spasms
when he was
call laughter,"
surprised into them, seemed almost painful.
" The hour will come, and the world [Emerson writes to Miss
Hoar from England], wherein we
shall quite easily render that account of ourselves
which now we never render."
But by
this time,
without effort and in spite of some occasions for unfavorable impressions, he had rendered account of
and found acceptance and, we may say, reverence for what he was, even from those who took but little account of his writings and sayings, himself,
or perhaps would have counted them folly or worse. " The main J thing about him [says Mr. James ]
was that he unconsciously brought you face to face with the infinite in humanity " and this made ;
own way without
help or hindrance. His lectures had not attracted a great variety of persons ; it was always the same set, and not a large or an its
influential set. In certain quarters something of the odium of the Divinity Hall address still lin-
gered, and yet
more widely everything connected with Transcendentalism presented itself in rather a ludicrous aspect. One can hardly say that his doctrines
had gained many converts
;
he had never
identified himself with his precepts, but 1
Literary Remains, 201.
was always