Is it possible that subtile** distillations of personality penetrate and saturate inanimate things, so that aromas imperceptible to the sense are given off for ages and affect all who come in receptive mood within their influence?
It is quite likely that what we feel when we stand within the shadow of a great soul is all subjective, that our emotions are but the workings of our imaginations stirred by suggestive surroundings; but who knows, who knows?
When this house was nearly destroyed by fire in July, 1872, friends persuaded Emerson to go abroad with his daughter, and while they were away, the house was completely restored.
His son describes his return: "When the train reached Concord, the bells were rung and a great company of his neighbors and friends accompanied him, under a triumphal arch, to his restored house.

He was greatly moved, but with characteristic modesty insisted that this was a welcome to his daughter, and could not be meant for him.

Although he had felt quite unable to make any speech, yet, seeing his friendly townspeople, old and young, in groups watching him enter his own door once more, he turned suddenly back and going to the gate said, 'My friends! I know this is not a tribute to an old man and his daughter returned to their home, but to the common blood of us all--one family--in Concord.'" The exposure incidental to the fire seriously undermined Emerson's already failing health; shortly after he wrote a friend in Philadelphia, "It is too ridiculous that a fire should make an old scholar sick; but the exposures of that morning and the necessities of the following days which kept me a large part of the time in the blaze of the sun have in every way demoralized me for the present,--incapable of any sane or just action.

These signal proofs of my debility an decay ought to persuade you at your first northern excursion to come and reanimate and renew the failing powers of your still affectionate old friend." The story of his last days is told by his son, who was also his physician: "His last few years were quiet and happy.

Nature gently drew the veil over his eyes; he went to his study and tried to work, accomplished less and less, but did not notice it.