Chapter 6

VISITORS

I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough
to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded
man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might
possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my
business called me thither.
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for
friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and
unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but
they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising
how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had
twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my
roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come
very near to one another. Many of our houses, both public and
private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls
and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of
peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They
are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin
which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his summons
before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come
creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse,
which soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement.
One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house,
the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest
when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room
for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two
before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have
overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last
and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it
may plow out again through the side of his head. Also, our
sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the
interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and
natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between
them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to
a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that
we could not begin to hear -- we could not speak low enough to be
heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that
they break each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious
and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together,
cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak
reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all
animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we
would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which
is without, or above, being