The sun shone brightly, and the air was sweet and pleasant, as if death had never entered the world.

Longfellow and Emerson, Channing and Hoar, Agassiz and Lowell, Greene and Whipple, Alcott and Clarke, Holmes and Hillard, and other friends whom he loved, walked slowly by his side that beautiful spring morning.

The companion of his youth and his manhood, for whom he would willingly, at any time, have given up his own life, Franklin Pierce, was there among the rest, and scattered flowers into the grave.

The unfinished 'Romance,' which had cost him so much anxiety, the last literary work on which he had ever been engaged, was laid in his coffin." Eighteen years later, on April 30, 1882, Emerson was laid at rest a little beyond Hawthorne and Thoreau in a spot chosen by himself.
A special train came from Boston, but many could not get inside the church.

The town was draped; "even the homes of the very poor bore outward marks of grief." At the house, Dr.Furness, of Philadelphia, conducted the services.