Marston  Watson,  of  Plymouth,  and  who  be-
fore that  lived  for  a  time  at  Mrs.  Emerson's,
while  Thoreau  was  an  inmate  there,  once
made  to  me  a  like  remark  about  the  annoy-
ance which  Emerson  sometimes  felt  at  Tho-
reau's  pugnacious  turn  in  conversation;  and
Hawthorne  had  probably,  with  his  quick
perceptions,  noticed  the  same  thing.    Yet


HAWTHORNE  AND  HIS  FRIENDS  37

the  two  remained  friends  and  townsmen  un-
til Thoreau's  death;  for  he  could  not  long
remain  absent  from  Concord.  Writing  to
Emerson  in  July,  1843,  from  Staten  Island,
Thoreau  expressed  his  home-sickness  for
Concord  and  his  comrades  there,  and,  bear-
ing in  memory  Channing  and  Edmund  Hos-
mer,  who  then  lived  not  very  far  apart  on
one  of  the  roads  to  Lincoln  and  Cambridge,
up  which  Emerson  had  taken  Hawthorne
and  Hillard  to  Walden  the  year  before,
Henry  said:

In  imagination  I  see  you  pilgrims  taking  your
way  by  the  Red  Lodge  [Channing 's  cottage]  and  the
cabin  of  the  brave  farmer  man  [Hosmer]  so  youthful
and  hale,  to  the  still  cheerful  woods.  And  Haw-
thorne, too,  I  remember  as  one  with  whom  I  sauntered
in  old  heroic  times,  along  the  banks  of  the  Scamander,
amid  the  ruins  of  chariots  and  heroes.  Tell  him  not
to  desert,  even  after  the  tenth  year.  Staying  at  home
is  the  heavenly  way.
