"I do not like the papers to talk about me," was the answer; "but if it
will help you, go ahead and practise on me. You haven't stolen my books
when you were told to do so, and I don't think you'll steal my name."
The boy went back to his hotel, and wrote an article much as this
account is here written, which he sent to Doctor Brooks. "Let me keep it
by me," the doctor wrote, "and I will return it to you presently."
And he did, with his comment on the Sunday newspaper, just as it is
given here, and with this note:
If I must go into the
newspapers at all--which
I should always vastly
prefer to avoid--no words could
have been more kind than
those of your article. You
were very good to send it
to me. I am ever
Sincerely, Your friend,
Phillips Brooks
As he let the boy out of his house, at the end of that first meeting, he
said to him:
"And you're going from me now to see Emerson? I don't know," he added
reflectively, "whether you will see him at his best. Still, you may. And
even if you do not, to have seen him, even as you may see him, is
better, in a way, than not to have seen him at all."
Edward did not know what Phillips Brooks meant. But he was, sadly, to
find out the next day.
A boy of sixteen was pretty sure of a welcome from Louisa Alcott, and
his greeting from her was spontaneous and sincere.
"Why, you good boy," she said, "to come all the way to Concord to see
us," quite for all the world as if she were the one favored.
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