to his task and avoiding domestic entanglement, although his study was close by the front door and separated but by thin doors from the parlor.
To show the good school of domesticity in which Mr. Emerson was reared, this picture of the home after his father's death may be given. The letter was written to his Aunt Mary when Ralph was not quite ten years old.
BOSTON, APRIL 16, 1813.
DEAR AUNT,
—… I mean now to give you an account of what I do commonly in one day, if that is what you mean by giving an account of one single day in my life. Friday, 9th, I choose for the day of telling what I did. In the Morning I rose, as I commonly do, about five minutes before six. I then help Wm. in making the fire, after which I set the table for Prayers. I then call Mamma about quarter after six. We spell as we did before you went away. I confess I often feel an angry passion start in one corner of my heart when one of my Brothers gets above me, which I think sometimes they do by unfair means, after which we eat our breakfast; then I have from about quarter after seven to play or read. I think I am rather inclined to the former. I then go to school where I hope I can say I study more than I did a little while ago. I am in another book called Virgil, and our class are even with another which came to the Latin School one year before us. After attending this school I go to Mr. Webb's private school where I write and cipher. I go to this place at eleven and stay till one o'clock.1 1.1 After I come home I eat my dinner and at two o'clock I resume my studies at the Latin School
