American Men of Letters

EDITED BY

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 

 "_Thou wert the morning star among the living, Ere thy fair light had fled: Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving New splendor to the dead. _"

American Men of Letters

 * * * * *

RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

BY

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

1891

NOTE. 

My thanks are due to the members of Mr. Emerson's family, and the otherfriends who kindly assisted me by lending interesting letters andfurnishing valuable information. 

The Index, carefully made by Mr. J. H. Wiggin, was revised and somewhatabridged by myself. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

BOSTON, November 25, 1884. 

CONTENTS. 

 * * * * *

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. 

1803-1823. To AET. 20. 

Birthplace. --Boyhood. --College Life. 

CHAPTER II. 

1823-1828. AET. 20-25. 

Extract from a Letter to a Classmate. --School-Teaching. --Study ofDivinity. --"Approbated" to Preach. --Visit to the South. --Preaching inVarious Places. 

CHAPTER III. 

1828-1833. AET. 25-30. 

Settled as Colleague of Rev. Henry Ware. --Married to Ellen LouisaTucker. --Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. H. B. Goodwin. --His Pastoraland Other Labors. --Emerson and Father Taylor. --Death of Mrs. Emerson. --Difference of Opinion with some of his Parishioners. --SermonExplaining his Views. --Resignation of his Pastorate. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1833-1838. AET. 30-35. 

Section I. Visit to Europe. --On his Return preaches in DifferentPlaces. --Emerson in the Pulpit. --At Newton. --Fixes his Residence atConcord. --The Old Manse. --Lectures in Boston. --Lectures onMichael Angelo and on Milton published in the "North AmericanReview. "--Beginning of the Correspondence with Carlyle. --Letters to theRev. James Freeman Clarke. --Republication of "Sartor Resartus. "

Section 2. Emerson's Second Marriage. --His New Residence inConcord. --Historical Address. --Course of Ten Lectures on EnglishLiterature delivered in Boston. --The Concord Battle Hymn. --Preachingin Concord and East Lexington. --Accounts of his Preaching bySeveral Hearers. --A Course of Lectures on the Nature and Ends ofHistory. --Address on War. --Death of Edward Bliss Emerson. --Death ofCharles Chauncy Emerson. 

Section 3. Publication of "Nature. "--Outline of this Essay. --ItsReception. --Address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society

CHAPTER V. 

1838-1843. AET. 35-40. 

Section 1. Divinity School Address. --Correspondence. --Lectures on HumanLife. --Letters to James Freeman Clarke. --Dartmouth College Address:Literary Ethics. --Waterville College Address: The Method ofNature. --Other Addresses: Man the Reformer. --Lecture on the Times. --TheConservative. --The Transcendentalist. --Boston "Transcendentalism. "--"TheDial. "--Brook Farm. 

Section 2. First Series of Essays published. --Contents: History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect, Art. --Emerson's Accountof his Mode of Life in a Letter to Carlyle. --Death of Emerson'sSon. --Threnody

CHAPTER VI. 

1843-1848. AET. 40-45. 

"The Young American. "--Address on the Anniversary of the Emancipationof the Negroes in the British West Indies. --Publication of theSecond Series of Essays. --Contents: The Poet. --Experience. --Character. --Manners. --Gifts. --Nature. --Politics. --Nominalistand Realist. --New England Reformers. --Publication of Poems. --SecondVisit to England

CHAPTER VII. 

1848-1853. AET. 45-50. 

The "Massachusetts Quarterly Review. "--Visit toEurope. --England. --Scotland. --France. --"Representative Men" published. I. Lives of Great Men. II. Plato; or, the Philosopher; Plato; NewReadings. III. Swedenborg; or, the Mystic. IV. Montaigne; or, theSkeptic. V. Shakespeare; or, the Poet. VI. Napoleon; or, the Man of theWorld. VII. Goethe; or, the Writer. --Contribution to the "Memoirs ofMargaret Fuller Ossoli"

CHAPTER VIII. 

1853-1858. AET. 50-55. 

Lectures in various Places. --Anti-Slavery Addresses. --Woman. A Lectureread before the Woman's Rights Convention. --Samuel Hoar. Speech atConcord. --Publication of "English Traits. "--The "Atlantic Monthly. "--The"Saturday Club"

CHAPTER IX

1858-1863. AET. 55-60. 

Essay on Persian Poetry. --Speech at the Burns CentennialFestival. --Letter from Emerson to a Lady. --Tributes to Theodore Parkerand to Thoreau. --Address on the Emancipation Proclamation. --Publicationof "The Conduct of Life. " Contents: Fate; Power; Wealth; Culture;Behavior; Considerations by the Way; Beauty; Illusions

CHAPTER X. 

1863-1868. AET. 60-65. 

"Boston Hymn. "--"Voluntaries. "--Other Poems. --"May-Day and otherPieces. "--"Remarks at the Funeral Services of President Lincoln. "--Essayon Persian Poetry. --Address at a Meeting of the Free ReligiousAssociation. --"Progress of Culture. " Address before the Phi BetaKappa Society of Harvard University. --Course of Lectures inPhiladelphia. --The Degree of LL. D. Conferred upon Emerson by HarvardUniversity. --"Terminus". 

CHAPTER XI. 

1868-1873. AET. 65-70. 

Lectures on the Natural History of the Intellect. --Publication of"Society and Solitude. " Contents: Society and Solitude. --Civilization. --Art. --Eloquence. --Domestic Life. --Farming. --Works and Days. --Books. --Clubs. --Courage. --Success. --Old Age. --OtherLiterary Labors. --Visit to California. --Burning of his House, and theStory of its Rebuilding. --Third Visit to Europe. --His Reception atConcord on his Return

CHAPTER XII

1873-1878. AET. 70-75. 

Publication of "Parnassus. "--Emerson Nominated as Candidate for theOffice of Lord Rector of Glasgow University. --Publication of"Letters and Social Aims. " Contents: Poetry and Imagination. --SocialAims. --Eloquence. --Resources. --The Comic. --Quotation and Originality. --Progress of Culture. --Persian Poetry. --Inspiration. --Greatness. --Immortality. --Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of "TheMinute-Man" at Concord. --Publication of Collected Poems

CHAPTER XIII. 

1878-1882. AET. 75-79. 

Last Literary Labors. --Addresses and Essays. --"Lectures and BiographicalSketches. "--"Miscellanies"

CHAPTER XIV. 

Emerson's Poems

CHAPTER XV. 

Recollections of Emerson's Last Years. --Mr. Conway's Visits. --Extractsfrom Mr. Whitman's Journal. --Dr. Le Baron Russell's Visit. --Dr. EdwardEmerson's Account. --Illness and Death. --Funeral Services

CHAPTER XVI. 

EMERSON. ---A RETROSPECT. 

Personality and Habits of Life. --His Commission and Errand. --As aLecturer. --His Use of Authorities. --Resemblance to Other Writers. --Asinfluenced by Others. --His Place as a Thinker. --Idealism andIntuition. --Mysticism. --His Attitude respecting Science. --As anAmerican. --His Fondness for Solitary Study. --His Patience andAmiability. --Feeling with which he was regarded. --Emerson andBurns. --His Religious Belief. --His Relations with Clergymen. --Future ofhis Reputation. --His Life judged by the Ideal Standard

INTRODUCTION. 

"I have the feeling that every man's biography is at his own expense. Hefurnishes not only the facts, but the report. I mean that all biographyis autobiography. It is only what he tells of himself that comes to beknown and believed. "

So writes the man whose life we are to pass in review, and it iscertainly as true of him as of any author we could name. He delineateshimself so perfectly in his various writings that the careful readersees his nature just as it was in all its essentials, and has littlemore to learn than those human accidents which individualize himin space and time. About all these accidents we have a natural andpardonable curiosity. We wish to know of what race he came, what werethe conditions into which he was born, what educational and socialinfluences helped to mould his character, and what new elements Natureadded to make him Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

He himself believes in the hereditary transmission of certaincharacteristics. Though Nature appears capricious, he says, "Somequalities she carefully fixes and transmits, but some, and those thefiner, she exhales with the breath of the individual, as too costly toperpetuate. But I notice also that they may become fixed and permanentin any stock, by painting and repainting them on every individual, untilat last Nature adopts them and bakes them in her porcelain. "

 * * * * *

We have in New England a certain number of families who constitute whatmay be called the Academic Races. Their names have been on collegecatalogues for generation after generation. They have filled the learnedprofessions, more especially the ministry, from the old colonial days toour own time. If aptitudes for the acquisition of knowledge can bebred into a family as the qualities the sportsman wants in his dog aredeveloped in pointers and setters, we know what we may expect of adescendant of one of the Academic Races. Other things being equal, hewill take more naturally, more easily, to his books. His features willbe more pliable, his voice will be more flexible, his whole nature moreplastic than those of the youth with less favoring antecedents. Thegift of genius is never to be reckoned upon beforehand, any more thana choice new variety of pear or peach in a seedling; it is always asurprise, but it is born with great advantages when the stock from whichit springs has been long under cultivation. 

These thoughts suggest themselves in looking back at the striking recordof the family made historic by the birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It wasremarkable for the long succession of clergymen in its genealogy, andfor the large number of college graduates it counted on its rolls. 

A genealogical table is very apt to illustrate the "survival of thefittest, "--in the estimate of the descendants. It is inclined toremember and record those ancestors who do most honor to the livingheirs of the family name and traditions. As every man may count twograndfathers, four great-grandfathers, eight great-great-grandfathers, and so on, a few generations give him a good chance for selection. Ifhe adds his distinguished grandmothers, he may double the number ofpersonages to choose from. The great-grandfathers of Mr. Emerson at thesixth remove were thirty-two in number, unless the list was shortened byintermarriage of relatives. One of these, from whom the name descended, was Thomas Emerson of Ipswich, who furnished the staff of life to thepeople of that wonderfully interesting old town and its neighborhood. 

His son, the Reverend Joseph Emerson, minister of the town of Mendon, Massachusetts, married Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend EdwardBulkeley, who succeeded his father, the Reverend Peter Bulkeley, asMinister of Concord, Massachusetts. 

Peter Bulkeley was therefore one of Emerson's sixty-four grandfathersat the seventh remove. We know the tenacity of certain familycharacteristics through long lines of descent, and it is not impossiblethat any one of a hundred and twenty-eight grandparents, if indeed thefull number existed in spite of family admixtures, may have transmittedhis or her distinguishing traits through a series of lives that covermore than two centuries, to our own contemporary. Inherited qualitiesmove along their several paths not unlike the pieces in the game ofchess. Sometimes the character of the son can be traced directly to thatof the father or of the mother, as the pawn's move carries him from onesquare to the next. Sometimes a series of distinguished fathers followsin a line, or a succession of superior mothers, as the black or whitebishop sweeps the board on his own color. Sometimes the distinguishingcharacters pass from one sex to the other indifferently, as the castlestrides over the black and white squares. Sometimes an uncle or auntlives over again in a nephew or niece, as if the knight's move wererepeated on the squares of human individuality. It is not impossible, then, that some of the qualities we mark in Emerson may have come fromthe remote ancestor whose name figures with distinction in the earlyhistory of New England. 

The Reverend Peter Bulkeley is honorably commemorated among the worthiesconsigned to immortality in that precious and entertaining medley offact and fancy, enlivened by a wilderness of quotations at first orsecond hand, the _Magnolia Christi Americana_, of the Reverend CottonMather. The old chronicler tells his story so much better than any onecan tell it for him that he must be allowed to speak for himself in afew extracts, transferred with all their typographical idiosyncrasiesfrom the London-printed, folio of 1702. 

 "He was descended of an Honourable Family in _Bedfordshire_. --He was born at _Woodhil_ (or _Odel_) in _Bedfordshire_, _January_ 31st, 1582. 

 "His _Education_ was answerable unto his _Original_; it was _Learned_, it was _Genteel_, and, which was the top of all, it was very _Pious_: At length it made him a _Batchellor_ of _Divinity_, and a Fellow of Saint _John's_ Colledge in Cambridge. --

 "When he came abroad into the World, a good benefice befel him, added unto the estate of a Gentleman, left him by his Father; whom he succeeded in his Ministry, at the place of his Nativity: Which one would imagine _Temptations_ enough to keep him out of a _Wilderness_. "

But he could not conscientiously conform to the ceremonies of theEnglish Church, and so, --

 "When Sir _Nathaniel Brent_ was Arch-Bishop _Laud's_ General, as Arch-Bishop _Laud_ was _another's_, Complaints were made against Mr. _Bulkly_, for his Non-Conformity, and he was therefore Silenced. 

 "To _New-England_ he therefore came, in the Year 1635; and there having been for a while, at _Cambridge_, he carried a good Number of Planters with him, up further into the _Woods_, where they gathered the _Twelfth Church_, then formed in the Colony, and call'd the Town by the Name of _Concord_. 

 "Here he _buried_ a great Estate, while he _raised_ one still, for almost every Person whom he employed in the Affairs of his Husbandry. --

 "He was a most excellent _Scholar_, a very-_well read_ Person, and one, who in his advice to young Students, gave Demonstrations, that he knew what would go to make a _Scholar_. But it being essential unto a _Scholar_ to love a _Scholar_, so did he; and in Token thereof, endowed the Library of _Harvard_-Colledge with no small part of his own. 

 "And he was therewithal a most exalted _Christian_--In his Ministry he was another _Farel, Quo nemo tonuit fortius_--And the observance which his own People had for him, was also paid him from all sorts of People throughout the Land; but especially from the Ministers of the Country, who would still address him as a _Father_, a _Prophet_, a _Counsellor_, on all occasions. "

These extracts may not quite satisfy the exacting reader, who must bereferred to the old folio from which they were taken, where he willreceive the following counsel:--

"If then any Person would know what Mr. _Peter Bulkly_ was, let him readhis Judicious and Savory Treatise of the _Gospel Covenant_, which haspassed through several Editions, with much Acceptance among the Peopleof God. " It must be added that "he had a competently good Stroke atLatin Poetry; and even in his Old Age, affected sometimes to improve it. Many of his Composure are yet in our Hands. "

It is pleasant to believe that some of the qualities of thisdistinguished scholar and Christian were reproduced in the descendantwhose life we are studying. At his death in 1659 he was succeeded, aswas mentioned, by his son Edward, whose daughter became the wife of theReverend Joseph Emerson, the minister of Mendon who, when that villagewas destroyed by the Indians, removed to Concord, where he died in theyear 1680. This is the first connection of the name of Emerson withConcord, with which it has since been so long associated. 

Edward Emerson, son of the first and father of the second ReverendJoseph Emerson, though not a minister, was the next thing to being one, for on his gravestone he is thus recorded: "Mr. Edward Emerson, sometimeDeacon of the first church in Newbury. " He was noted for the virtue ofpatience, and it is a family tradition that he never complained butonce, when he said mildly to his daughter that her dumplings weresomewhat harder than needful, --"_but not often_. " This same Edward wasthe only break in the line of ministers who descended from Thomas ofIpswich. He is remembered in the family as having been "a merchant inCharlestown. "

Their son, the second Reverend Joseph Emerson, Minister of Malden fornearly half a century, married Mary, the daughter of the Reverend SamuelMoody, --Father Moody, --of York, Maine. Three of his sons were ministers, and one of these, William, was pastor of the church at Concord at theperiod of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. 

As the successive generations narrow down towards the individual whoselife we are recalling, the character of his progenitors becomes more andmore important and interesting to the biographer. The Reverend WilliamEmerson, grandfather of Ralph Waldo, was an excellent and popularpreacher and an ardent and devoted patriot. He preached resistance totyrants from the pulpit, he encouraged his townsmen and their allies tomake a stand against the soldiers who had marched upon their peacefulvillage, and would have taken a part in the Fight at the Bridge, whichhe saw from his own house, had not the friends around him preventedhis quitting his doorstep. He left Concord in 1776 to join the army atTiconderoga, was taken with fever, was advised to return to Concord andset out on the journey, but died on his way. His wife was the daughterof the Reverend Daniel Bliss, his predecessor in the pulpit at Concord. This was another very noticeable personage in the line of Emerson'sancestors. His merits and abilities are described at great length on histombstone in the Concord burial-ground. There is no reason to doubt thathis epitaph was composed by one who knew him well. But the slabswhich record the excellences of our New England clergymen of the pastgenerations are so crowded with virtues that the reader can hardly helpinquiring whether a sharp bargain was not driven with the stonecutter, like that which the good Vicar of Wakefield arranged with theportrait-painter. He was to represent Sophia as a shepherdess, it willbe remembered, with as many sheep as he could afford to put in fornothing. 

William Emerson left four children, a son bearing the same name, andthree daughters, one of whom, Mary Moody Emerson, is well remembered aspictured for us by her nephew, Ralph Waldo. His widow became the wifeof the Reverend Ezra Ripley, Doctor of Divinity, and his successor asMinister at Concord. 

The Reverend William Emerson, the second of that name and profession, and the father of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in the year 1769, andgraduated at Harvard College in 1789. He was settled as Minister in thetown of Harvard in the year 1792, and in 1799 became Minister of theFirst Church in Boston. In 1796 he married Ruth Haskins of Boston. Hedied in 1811, leaving five sons, of whom Ralph Waldo was the second. 

The interest which attaches itself to the immediate parentage of a manlike Emerson leads us to inquire particularly about the characteristicsof the Reverend William Emerson so far as we can learn them from his ownwritings and from the record of his contemporaries. 

The Reverend Dr. Sprague's valuable and well-known work, "Annals of theAmerican Pulpit, " contains three letters from which we learn some ofhis leading characteristics. Dr. Pierce of Brookline, the faithfulchronicler of his time, speaks of his pulpit talents as extraordinary, but thinks there was not a perfect sympathy between him and the peopleof the quiet little town of Harvard, while he was highly acceptable inthe pulpits of the metropolis. In personal appearance he was attractive;his voice was melodious, his utterance distinct, his manner agreeable. "He was a faithful and generous friend and knew how to forgive anenemy. --In his theological views perhaps he went farther on the liberalside than most of his brethren with whom he was associated. --He was, however, perfectly tolerant towards those who differed from him mostwidely. "

Dr. Charles Lowell, another brother minister, says of him, "Mr. Emersonwas a handsome man, rather tall, with a fair complexion, his cheeksslightly tinted, his motions easy, graceful, and gentlemanlike, hismanners bland and pleasant. He was an honest man, and expressed himselfdecidedly and emphatically, but never bluntly or vulgarly. --Mr. Emersonwas a man of good sense. His conversation was edifying and useful; neverfoolish or undignified. --In his theological opinions he was, to say theleast, far from having any sympathy with Calvinism. I have not supposedthat he was, like Dr. Freeman, a Humanitarian, though he may have beenso. "

There was no honester chronicler than our clerical Pepys, good, hearty, sweet-souled, fact-loving Dr. John Pierce of Brookline, who knew thedates of birth and death of the graduates of Harvard, starred andunstarred, better, one is tempted to say (_Hibernice_), than they didthemselves. There was not a nobler gentleman in charge of any Bostonparish than Dr. Charles Lowell. But after the pulpit has said what itthinks of the pulpit, it is well to listen to what the pews have to sayabout it. 

This is what the late Mr. George Ticknor said in an article in the"Christian Examiner" for September, 1849. 

"Mr. Emerson, transplanted to the First Church in Boston six yearsbefore Mr. Buckminster's settlement, possessed, on the contrary, agraceful and dignified style of speaking, which was by no means withoutits attraction, but he lacked the fervor that could rouse the masses, and the original resources that could command the few. "

As to his religious beliefs, Emerson writes to Dr. Sprague as follows:"I did not find in any manuscript or printed sermons that I lookedat, any very explicit statement of opinion on the question betweenCalvinists and Socinians. He inclines obviously to what is ethicaland universal in Christianity; very little to the personal andhistorical. --I think I observe in his writings, as in the writings ofUnitarians down to a recent date, a studied reserve on the subject ofthe nature and offices of Jesus. They had not made up their own minds onit. It was a mystery to them, and they let it remain so. "

Mr. William Emerson left, published, fifteen Sermons and Discourses, anOration pronounced at Boston on the Fourth of July, 1802, a Collectionof Psalms and Hymns, an Historical Sketch of the First Church in Boston, besides his contributions to the "Monthly Anthology, " of which he wasthe Editor. 

Ruth Haskins, the wife of William and the mother of Ralph WaldoEmerson, is spoken of by the late Dr. Frothingham, in an article in the"Christian Examiner, " as a woman "of great patience and fortitude, ofthe serenest trust in God, of a discerning spirit, and a most courteousbearing, one who knew how to guide the affairs of her own house, as longas she was responsible for that, with the sweetest authority, and knewhow to give the least trouble and the greatest happiness after thatauthority was resigned. Both her mind and her character were of asuperior order, and they set their stamp upon manners of peculiarsoftness and natural grace and quiet dignity. Her sensible and kindlyspeech was always as good as the best instruction; her smile, though itwas ever ready, was a reward. "

The Reverend Dr. Furness of Philadelphia, who grew up with her son, says, "Waldo bore a strong resemblance to his father; the other childrenresembled their mother. "

Such was the descent of Ralph Waldo Emerson. If the ideas of parentssurvive as impressions or tendencies in their descendants, no man hada better right to an inheritance of theological instincts than thisrepresentative of a long line of ministers. The same trains of thoughtand feeling might naturally gain in force from another association ofnear family relationship, though not of blood. After the death of thefirst William Emerson, the Concord minister, his widow, Mr. Emerson'sgrandmother, married, as has been mentioned, his successor, Dr. EzraRipley. The grandson spent much time in the family of Dr. Ripley, whosecharacter he has drawn with exquisite felicity in a sketch read beforeThe Social Circle of Concord, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly"for November, 1883. Mr. Emerson says of him: "He was identified with theideas and forms of the New England Church, which expired about the sametime with him, so that he and his coevals seemed the rear guard of thegreat camp and army of the Puritans, which, however in its last daysdeclining into formalism, in the heyday of its strength had planted andliberated America. . . . The same faith made what was strong and what wasweak in Dr. Ripley. " It would be hard to find a more perfect sketch ofcharacter than Mr. Emerson's living picture of Dr. Ripley. I myselfremember him as a comely little old gentleman, but he was not socommunicative in a strange household as his clerical brethren, smilingJohn Foster of Brighton and chatty Jonathan Homer of Newton. Mr. Emersonsays, "He was a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, manly, and public-spirited; his nature social, his house open to allmen. --His brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, andhe had no studies, no occupations, which company could interrupt. Hisfriends were his study, and to see them loosened his talents and histongue. In his house dwelt order and prudence and plenty. There wasno waste and no stint. He was open-handed and just and generous. Ingratitude and meanness in his beneficiaries did not wear out hiscompassion; he bore the insult, and the next day his basket for thebeggar, his horse and chaise for the cripple, were at their door. " Howlike Goldsmith's good Dr. Primrose! I do not know any writing ofMr. Emerson which brings out more fully his sense of humor, --of thepicturesque in character, --and as a piece of composition, continuous, fluid, transparent, with a playful ripple here and there, it isadmirable and delightful. 

Another of his early companionships must have exercised a still morepowerful influence on his character, --that of his aunt, Mary MoodyEmerson. He gave an account of her in a paper read before the Woman'sClub several years ago, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly" forDecember, 1883. Far more of Mr. Emerson is to be found in this aunt ofhis than in any other of his relations in the ascending series, withwhose history we are acquainted. Her story is an interesting one, butfor that I must refer the reader to the article mentioned. Her characterand intellectual traits are what we are most concerned with. "Her earlyreading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, Jonathan Edwards, and always the Bible. Later, Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, Coleridge, Herder, Locke, Madam De Staël, Channing, Mackintosh, Byron. Nobody can read in her manuscript, or recall the conversation ofold-school people, without seeing that Milton and Young had a religiousauthority in their minds, and nowise the slight merely entertainingquality of modern bards. And Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, --how venerableand organic as Nature they are in her mind!"

There are many sentences cited by Mr. Emerson which remind us verystrongly of his own writings. Such a passage as the following might havecome from his Essay, "Nature, " but it was written when her nephew wasonly four years old. 

 "Malden, 1807, September. --The rapture of feeling I would part from for days devoted to higher discipline. But when Nature beams with such excess of beauty, when the heart thrills with hope in its Author, --feels it is related to Him more than by any ties of creation, --it exults, too fondly, perhaps, for a state of trial. But in dead of night, nearer morning, when the eastern stars glow, or appear to glow, with more indescribable lustre, a lustre which penetrates the spirits with wonder and curiosity, --then, however awed, who can fear?"--"A few pulsations of created beings, a few successions of acts, a few lamps held out in the firmament, enable us to talk of Time, make epochs, write histories, --to do more, --to date the revelations of God to man. But these lamps are held to measure out some of the moments of eternity, to divide the history of God's operations in the birth and death of nations, of worlds. It is a goodly name for our notions of breathing, suffering, enjoying, acting. We personify it. We call it by every name of fleeting, dreaming, vaporing imagery. Yet it is nothing. We exist in eternity. Dissolve the body and the night is gone; the stars are extinguished, and we measure duration by the number of our thoughts, by the activity of reason, the discovery of truths, the acquirement of virtue, the approval of God. "

Miss Mary Emerson showed something of the same feeling towards naturalscience which may be noted in her nephews Waldo and Charles. Afterspeaking of "the poor old earth's chaotic state, brought so near in itslong and gloomy transmutings by the geologist, " she says:--

 "Yet its youthful charms, as decked by the hand of Moses' Cosmogony, will linger about the heart, while Poetry succumbs to science. "--"And the bare bones of this poor embryo earth may give the idea of the Infinite, far, far better than when dignified with arts and industry; its oceans, when beating the symbols of countless ages, than when covered with cargoes of war and oppression. How grand its preparation for souls, souls who were to feel the Divinity, before Science had dissected the emotions and applied its steely analysis to that state of being which recognizes neither psychology nor element. "--"Usefulness, if it requires action, seems less like existence than the desire of being absorbed in God, retaining consciousness. . . . Scorn trifles, lift your aims; do what you are afraid to do. Sublimity of character must come from sublimity of motive. "

So far as hereditary and family influences can account for the characterand intellect of Ralph Waldo Emerson, we could hardly ask for a betterinborn inheritance, or better counsels and examples. 

 * * * * *

Having traced some of the distinguishing traits which belong by descentto Mr. Emerson to those who were before him, it is interesting to notehow far they showed themselves in those of his own generation, hisbrothers. Of these I will mention two, one of whom I knew personally. 

Edward Bliss Emerson, who graduated at Harvard College in 1824, threeyears after Ralph Waldo, held the first place in his class. He beganthe study of the law with Daniel Webster, but overworked himself andsuffered a temporary disturbance of his reason. After this he madeanother attempt, but found his health unequal to the task and exiledhimself to Porto Rico, where, in 1834, he died. Two poems preserve hismemory, one that of Ralph Waldo, in which he addresses his memory, --

 "Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star, "

the other his own "Last Farewell, " written in 1832, whilst sailing outof Boston Harbor. The lines are unaffected and very touching, full ofthat deep affection which united the brothers in the closest intimacy, and of the tenderest love for the mother whom he was leaving to see nomore. 

I had in my early youth a key furnished me to some of the leading traitswhich were in due time to develop themselves in Emerson's character andintelligence. As on the wall of some great artist's studio one may findunfinished sketches which he recognizes as the first growing conceptionsof pictures painted in after years, so we see that Nature oftensketches, as it were, a living portrait, which she leaves in itsrudimentary condition, perhaps for the reason that earth has no colorswhich can worthily fill in an outline too perfect for humanity. Thesketch is left in its consummate incompleteness because this mortal lifeis not rich enough to carry out the Divine idea. 

Such an unfinished but unmatched outline is that which I find in thelong portrait-gallery of memory, recalled by the name of Charles ChauncyEmerson. Save for a few brief glimpses of another, almost lost among mylife's early shadows, this youth was the most angelic adolescent my eyesever beheld. Remembering what well-filtered blood it was that ran in theveins of the race from which he was descended, those who knew him inlife might well say with Dryden, --

 "If by traduction came thy mind Our wonder is the less to find A soul so charming from a stock so good. "

His image is with me in its immortal youth as when, almost fifty yearsago, I spoke of him in these lines, which I may venture to quote frommyself, since others have quoted them before me. 

 Thou calm, chaste scholar! I can see thee now, The first young laurels on thy pallid brow, O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down In graceful folds the academic gown, On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought, And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye, Too bright to live, --but O, too fair to die. 

Being about seven years younger than Waldo, he must have received muchof his intellectual and moral guidance at his elder brother's hands. I told the story at a meeting of our Historical Society of CharlesEmerson's coming into my study, --this was probably in 1826 or1827, --taking up Hazlitt's "British Poets" and turning at once to a poemof Marvell's, which he read with his entrancing voice and manner. Theinfluence of this poet is plain to every reader in some of Emerson'spoems, and Charles' liking for him was very probably caught from Waldo. When Charles was nearly through college, a periodical called "TheHarvard Register" was published by students and recent graduates. Threearticles were contributed by him to this periodical. Two of them havethe titles "Conversation, " "Friendship. " His quotations are from Horaceand Juvenal, Plato, Plutarch, Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Shakespeare, andScott. There are passages in these Essays which remind one strongly ofhis brother, the Lecturer of twenty-five or thirty years later. Takethis as an example:--

 "Men and mind are my studies. I need no observatory high in air to aid my perceptions or enlarge my prospect. I do not want a costly apparatus to give pomp to my pursuit or to disguise its inutility. I do not desire to travel and see foreign lands and learn all knowledge and speak with all tongues, before I am prepared for my employment. I have merely to go out of my door; nay, I may stay at home at my chambers, and I shall have enough to do and enjoy. "

The feeling of this sentence shows itself constantly in Emerson's poems. He finds his inspiration in the objects about him, the forest in whichhe walks; the sheet of water which the hermit of a couple of seasonsmade famous; the lazy Musketaquid; the titmouse that mocked his weaknessin the bitter cold winter's day; the mountain that rose in the horizon;the lofty pines; the lowly flowers. All talked with him as brothers andsisters, and he with them as of his own household. 

The same lofty idea of friendship which we find in the man in hismaturity, we recognize in one of the Essays of the youth. 

 "All men of gifted intellect and fine genius, " says Charles Emerson, "must entertain a noble idea of friendship. Our reverence we are constrained to yield where it is due, --to rank, merit, talents. But our affections we give not thus easily. 

 'The hand of Douglas is his own. '"

 --"I am willing to lose an hour in gossip with persons whom good men hold cheap. All this I will do out of regard to the decent conventions of polite life. But my friends I must know, and, knowing, I must love. There must be a daily beauty in their life that shall secure my constant attachment. I cannot stand upon the footing of ordinary acquaintance. Friendship is aristocratical--the affections which are prostituted to every suitor I will not accept. "

Here are glimpses of what the youth was to be, of what the man who longoutlived him became. Here is the dignity which commands reverence, --adignity which, with all Ralph Waldo Emerson's sweetness of manner andexpression, rose almost to majesty in his serene presence. There wassomething about Charles Emerson which lifted those he was with intoa lofty and pure region of thought and feeling. A vulgar soul stoodabashed in his presence. I could never think of him in the presenceof such, listening to a paltry sentiment or witnessing a mean actionwithout recalling Milton's line, "Back stepped those two fair angels half amazed, "

and thinking how he might well have been taken for a celestialmessenger. 

No doubt there is something of idealization in all these reminiscences, and of that exaggeration which belongs to the _laudator temporis acti_. But Charles Emerson was idolized in his own time by many in college andout of college. George Stillman Hillard was his rival. Neck and neckthey ran the race for the enviable position of first scholar in theclass of 1828, and when Hillard was announced as having the first partassigned to him, the excitement within the college walls, and to someextent outside of them, was like that when the telegraph proclaims theresult of a Presidential election, --or the Winner of the Derby. ButHillard honestly admired his brilliant rival. "Who has a part with ****at this next exhibition?" I asked him one day, as I met him in thecollege yard. "***** the Post, " answered Hillard. "Why call him _thePost_?" said I. "He is a wooden creature, " said Hillard. "Hear him andCharles Emerson translating from the Latin _Domus tota inflammata erat_. The Post will render the words, 'The whole house was on fire. ' CharlesEmerson will translate the sentence 'The entire edifice was wrapped inflames. '" It was natural enough that a young admirer should prefer theBernini drapery of Charles Emerson's version to the simple nudity of"the Post's" rendering. 

 * * * * *

The nest is made ready long beforehand for the bird which is to be bredin it and to fly from it. The intellectual atmosphere into which ascholar is born, and from which he draws the breath of his early mentallife, must be studied if we would hope to understand him thoroughly. 

When the present century began, the elements, thrown into confusionby the long struggle for Independence, had not had time to arrangethemselves in new combinations. The active intellects of the country hadfound enough to keep them busy in creating and organizing a new order ofpolitical and social life. Whatever purely literary talent existed wasas yet in the nebular condition, a diffused luminous spot here andthere, waiting to form centres of condensation. 

Such a nebular spot had been brightening in and about Boston for anumber of years, when, in the year 1804, a small cluster of names becamevisible as representing a modest constellation of literary luminaries:John Thornton Kirkland, afterwards President of Harvard University;Joseph Stevens Buckminster; John Sylvester John Gardiner; William Tudor;Samuel Cooper Thacher; William Emerson. These were the chief stars ofthe new cluster, and their light reached the world, or a small part ofit, as reflected from the pages of "The Monthly Anthology, " which verysoon came under the editorship of the Reverend William Emerson. 

The father of Ralph Waldo Emerson may be judged of in good measure bythe associates with whom he was thus connected. A brief sketch of thesefriends and fellow-workers of his may not be out of place, for thesemen made the local sphere of thought into which Ralph Waldo Emerson wasborn. 

John Thornton Kirkland should have been seen and heard as he isremembered by old graduates of Harvard, sitting in the ancientPresidential Chair, on Commencement Day, and calling in his penetratingbut musical accents: "_Expectatur Oratio in Lingua Latina_" or"_Vernacula_, " if the "First Scholar" was about to deliver the Englishoration. It was a presence not to be forgotten. His "shining morningface" was round as a baby's, and talked as pleasantly as his voice did, with smiles for accents and dimples for punctuation. Mr. Ticknor speaksof his sermons as "full of intellectual wealth and practical wisdom, with sometimes a quaintness that bordered on humor. " It was of himthat the story was always told, --it may be as old as the invention ofprinting, --that he threw his sermons into a barrel, where they went topieces and got mixed up, and that when he was going to preach he fishedout what he thought would be about enough for a sermon, and patched theleaves together as he best might. The Reverend Dr. Lowell says: "Healways found the right piece, and that was better than almost any ofhis brethren could have found in what they had written with twice thelabor. " Mr. Cabot, who knew all Emerson's literary habits, says he usedto fish out the number of leaves he wanted for a lecture in somewhat thesame way. Emerson's father, however, was very methodical, accordingto Dr. Lowell, and had "a place for everything, and everything in itsplace. " Dr. Kirkland left little to be remembered by, and like many ofthe most interesting personalities we have met with, has become a verythin ghost to the grandchildren of his contemporaries. 

Joseph Stevens Buckminster was the pulpit darling of his day, in Boston. The beauty of his person, the perfection of his oratory, the finish ofhis style, added to the sweetness of his character, made him one ofthose living idols which seem to be as necessary to Protestantism asimages and pictures are to Romanism. 

John Sylvester John Gardiner, once a pupil of the famous Dr. Parr, wasthen the leading Episcopal clergyman of Boston. Him I reconstruct fromscattered hints I have met with as a scholarly, social man, with asanguine temperament and the cheerful ways of a wholesome Englishparson, blest with a good constitution and a comfortable benefice. MildOrthodoxy, ripened in Unitarian sunshine, is a very agreeable aspect ofChristianity, and none was readier than Dr. Gardiner, if the voice oftradition may be trusted, to fraternize with his brothers of the liberalpersuasion, and to make common cause with them in all that related tothe interests of learning. 

William Tudor was a chief connecting link between the period of the"Monthly Anthology, " and that of the "North American Review, " for he wasa frequent contributor to the first of these periodicals, and he was thefounder of the second. Edward Everett characterizes him, in speaking ofhis "Letters on the Eastern States, " as a scholar and a gentleman, animpartial observer, a temperate champion, a liberal opponent, and acorrect writer. Daniel Webster bore similar testimony to his talents andcharacter. 

Samuel Cooper Thacher was hardly twenty years old when the "Anthology"was founded, and died when he was only a little more than thirty. Hecontributed largely to that periodical, besides publishing variouscontroversial sermons, and writing the "Memoir of Buckminster. "

There was no more brilliant circle than this in any of our cities. There was none where so much freedom of thought was united to so muchscholarship. The "Anthology" was the literary precursor of the "NorthAmerican Review, " and the theological herald of the "ChristianExaminer. " Like all first beginnings it showed many marks of immaturity. It mingled extracts and original contributions, theology and medicine, with all manner of literary chips and shavings. It had Magazineways that smacked of Sylvanus Urban; leading articles with balancedparagraphs which recalled the marching tramp of Johnson; translationsthat might have been signed with the name of Creech, and Odes toSensibility, and the like, which recalled the syrupy sweetness andlanguid trickle of Laura Matilda's sentimentalities. It talked about"the London Reviewers" with a kind of provincial deference. It printedarticles with quite too much of the license of Swift and Prior for theMagazines of to-day. But it had opinions of its own, and would comparewell enough with the "Gentleman's Magazine, " to say nothing of "MyGrandmother's Review, the British. " A writer in the third volume (1806)says: "A taste for the belles lettres is rapidly spreading in ourcountry. I believe that, fifty years ago, England had never seen aMiscellany or a Review so well conducted as our 'Anthology, ' howeversuperior such publications may now be in that kingdom. "

It is well worth one's while to look over the volumes of the "Anthology"to see what our fathers and grandfathers were thinking about, and howthey expressed themselves. The stiffness of Puritanism was pretty wellrelaxed when a Magazine conducted by clergymen could say that "Thechild, "--meaning the new periodical, --"shall not be destitute of themanners of a gentleman, nor a stranger to genteel amusements. He shallattend Theatres, Museums, Balls, and whatever polite diversions the townshall furnish. " The reader of the "Anthology" will find for his rewardan improving discourse on "Ambition, " and a commendable schoolboy's"theme" on "Inebriation. " He will learn something which may be for hisadvantage about the "Anjou Cabbage, " and may profit by a "Remedy forAsthma. " A controversy respecting the merits of Sir Richard Blackmoremay prove too little exciting at the present time, and he can turn forrelief to the epistle "Studiosus" addresses to "Alcander. " If the linesof "The Minstrel" who hails, like Longfellow in later years, from "TheDistrict of Main, " fail to satisfy him, he cannot accuse "R. T. Paine, Jr. , Esq. , " of tameness when he exclaims:--

 "Rise Columbia, brave and free, Poise the globe and bound the sea!"

But the writers did not confine themselves to native or even to Englishliterature, for there is a distinct mention of "Mr. Goethe's new novel, "and an explicit reference to "Dante Aligheri, an Italian bard. " Butlet the smiling reader go a little farther and he will find Mr. Buckminster's most interesting account of the destruction of Goldau. And in one of these same volumes he will find the article, by Dr. JacobBigelow, doubtless, which was the first hint of our rural cemeteries, and foreshadowed that new era in our underground civilization which issweetening our atmospheric existence. 

The late President Josiah Quincy, in his "History of the BostonAthenaeum, " pays a high tribute of respect to the memory and thelabors of the gentlemen who founded that institution and conducted the"Anthology. " A literary journal had already been published in Boston, but very soon failed for want of patronage. An enterprising firm ofpublishers, "being desirous that the work should be continued, appliedto the Reverend William Emerson, a clergyman of the place, distinguishedfor energy and literary taste; and by his exertions several gentlemenof Boston and its vicinity, conspicuous for talent and zealous forliterature, were induced to engage in conducting the work, and for thispurpose they formed themselves into a Society. This Society was notcompletely organized until the year 1805, when Dr. Gardiner was electedPresident, and William Emerson Vice-President. The Society thus formedmaintained its existence with reputation for about six years, and issuedten octavo volumes from the press, constituting one of the most lastingand honorable monuments of the literature of the period, and may beconsidered as a true revival of polite learning in this country afterthat decay and neglect which resulted from the distractions of theRevolutionary War, and as forming an epoch in the intellectual historyof the United States. Its records yet remain, an evidence that it was apleasant, active, high-principled association of literary men, laboringharmoniously to elevate the literary standard of the time, and with asuccess which may well be regarded as remarkable, considering the littlesympathy they received from the community, and the many difficultieswith which they had to struggle. "

The publication of the "Anthology" began in 1804, when Mr. WilliamEmerson was thirty-four years of age, and it ceased to be published inthe year of his death, 1811. Ralph Waldo Emerson was eight years old atthat time. His intellectual life began, we may say, while the somewhatobscure afterglow of the "Anthology" was in the western horizon of theNew England sky. 

The nebula which was to form a cluster about the "North American Review"did not take definite shape until 1815. There is no such memorial ofthe growth of American literature as is to be found in the first halfcentury of that periodical. It is easy to find fault with it for uniformrespectability and occasional dulness. But take the names of itscontributors during its first fifty years from the literary record ofthat period, and we should have but a meagre list of mediocrities, savedfrom absolute poverty by the genius of two or three writers like Irvingand Cooper. Strike out the names of Webster, Everett, Story, Sumner, andCushing; of Bryant, Dana, Longfellow, and Lowell; of Prescott, Ticknor, Motley, Sparks, and Bancroft; of Verplanck, Hillard, and Whipple; ofStuart and Robinson; of Norton, Palfrey, Peabody, and Bowen; and, lastly, that of Emerson himself, and how much American classicliterature would be left for a new edition of "Miller's Retrospect"?

These were the writers who helped to make the "North American Review"what it was during the period of Emerson's youth and early manhood. These, and men like them, gave Boston its intellectual character. Wemay count as symbols the three hills of "this darling town of ours, "as Emerson called it, and say that each had its beacon. Civil libertylighted the torch on one summit, religious freedom caught the flame andshone from the second, and the lamp of the scholar has burned steadilyon the third from the days when John Cotton preached his first sermon tothose in which we are living. 

The social religious influences of the first part of the centurymust not be forgotten. The two high-caste religions of that day werewhite-handed Unitarianism and ruffled-shirt Episcopalianism. What calleditself "society" was chiefly distributed between them. Within less thanfifty years a social revolution has taken place which has somewhatchanged the relation between these and other worshipping bodies. Thismovement is the general withdrawal of the native New Englanders of bothsexes from domestic service. A large part of the "hired help, "--forthe word servant was commonly repudiated, --worshipped, not with theiremployers, but at churches where few or no well-appointed carriagesstood at the doors. The congregations that went chiefly from thedrawing-room and those which were largely made up of dwellers in theculinary studio were naturally separated by a very distinct line ofsocial cleavage. A certain exclusiveness and fastidiousness, notreminding us exactly of primitive Christianity, was the inevitableresult. This must always be remembered in judging the men and womenof that day and their immediate descendants, as much as the survivingprejudices of those whose parents were born subjects of King George inthe days when loyalty to the crown was a virtue. The line of socialseparation was more marked, probably, in Boston, the headquarters ofUnitarianism, than in the other large cities; and even at the presentday our Jerusalem and Samaria, though they by no means refuse dealingwith each other, do not exchange so many cards as they do checks anddollars. The exodus of those children of Israel from the house ofbondage, as they chose to consider it, and their fusion with the mass ofindependent citizens, got rid of a class distinction which was felt evenin the sanctuary. True religious equality is harder to establish thancivil liberty. No man has done more for spiritual republicanism thanEmerson, though he came from the daintiest sectarian circle of the timein the whole country. 

Such were Emerson's intellectual and moral parentage, nurture, andenvironment; such was the atmosphere in which he grew up from youth tomanhood. 

CHAPTER I. 

Birthplace. --Boyhood. --College Life. 

1803-1823. To _AET_. 20. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 25th ofMay, 1803. 

He was the second of five sons; William, R. W. , Edward Bliss, RobertBulkeley, and Charles Chauncy. 

His birthplace and that of our other illustrious Bostonian, BenjaminFranklin, were within a kite-string's distance of each other. Whenthe baby philosopher of the last century was carried from Milk Streetthrough the narrow passage long known as Bishop's Alley, now HawleyStreet, he came out in Summer Street, very nearly opposite the spotwhere, at the beginning of this century, stood the parsonage of theFirst Church, the home of the Reverend William Emerson, its pastor, andthe birthplace of his son, Ralph Waldo. The oblong quadrangle betweenNewbury, now Washington Street, Pond, now Bedford Street, Summer Street, and the open space called Church Green, where the New South Church wasafterwards erected, is represented on Bonner's maps of 1722 and 1769 asan almost blank area, not crossed or penetrated by a single passageway. 

Even so late as less than half a century ago this region was still amost attractive little _rus in urbe_. The sunny gardens of the lateJudge Charles Jackson and the late Mr. S. P. Gardner opened their flowersand ripened their fruits in the places now occupied by great warehousesand other massive edifices. The most aristocratic pears, the "SaintMichael, " the "Brown Bury, " found their natural homes in these shelteredenclosures. The fine old mansion of Judge William Prescott looked outupon these gardens. Some of us can well remember the window of hisson's, the historian's, study, the light from which used every eveningto glimmer through the leaves of the pear-trees while "The Conquest ofMexico" was achieving itself under difficulties hardly less formidablethan those encountered by Cortes. It was a charmed region in whichEmerson first drew his breath, and I am fortunate in having acommunication from one who knew it and him longer than almost any otherliving person. 

Mr. John Lowell Gardner, a college classmate and life-long friend of Mr. Emerson, has favored me with a letter which contains matters ofinterest concerning him never before given to the public. With his kindpermission I have made some extracts and borrowed such facts as seemedespecially worthy of note from his letter. 

 "I may be said to have known Emerson from the very beginning. A very low fence divided my father's estate in Summer Street from the field in which I remember the old wooden parsonage to have existed, --but this field, when we were very young, was to be covered by Chauncy Place Church and by the brick houses on Summer Street. Where the family removed to I do not remember, but I always knew the boys, William, Ralph, and perhaps Edward, and I again associated with Ralph at the Latin School, where we were instructed by Master Gould from 1815 to 1817, entering College in the latter year. 

 ". . . I have no recollection of his relative rank as a scholar, but it was undoubtedly high, though not the highest. He never was idle or a lounger, nor did he ever engage in frivolous pursuits. I should say that his conduct was absolutely faultless. It was impossible that there should be any feeling about him but of regard and affection. He had then the same manner and courtly hesitation in addressing you that you have known in him since. Still, he was not prominent in the class, and, but for what all the world has since known of him, his would not have been a conspicuous figure to his classmates in recalling College days. 

 "The fact that we were almost the only Latin School fellows in the class, and the circumstance that he was slow during the Freshman year to form new acquaintances, brought us much together, and an intimacy arose which continued through our College life. We were in the habit of taking long strolls together, often stopping for repose at distant points, as at Mount Auburn, etc. . . . Emerson was not talkative; he never spoke for effect; his utterances were well weighed and very deliberately made, but there was a certain flash when he uttered anything that was more than usually worthy to be remembered. He was so universally amiable and complying that my evil spirit would sometimes instigate me to take advantage of his gentleness and forbearance, but nothing could disturb his equanimity. All that was wanting to render him an almost perfect character was a few harsher traits and perhaps more masculine vigor. 

 "On leaving College our paths in life were so remote from each other that we met very infrequently. He soon became, as it were, public property, and I was engrossed for many years in my commercial undertakings. All his course of life is known to many survivors. I am inclined to believe he had a most liberal spirit. I remember that some years since, when it was known that our classmate ---- was reduced almost to absolute want by the war, in which he lost his two sons, Emerson exerted himself to raise a fund among his classmates for his relief, and, there being very few possible subscribers, made what I considered a noble contribution, and this you may be sure was not from any Southern sentiment on the part of Emerson. I send you herewith the two youthful productions of Emerson of which I spoke to you some time since. "

The first of these is a prose Essay of four pages, written for adiscussion in which the Professions of Divinity, Medicine, and Law wereto be weighed against each other. Emerson had the Lawyer's side toadvocate. It is a fair and sensible paper, not of special originality orbrilliancy. His opening paragraph is worth citing, as showing the sameinstinct for truth which displayed itself in all his after writings andthe conduct of his life. 

 "It is usual in advocating a favorite subject to appropriate all possible excellence, and endeavor to concentrate every doubtful auxiliary, that we may fortify to the utmost the theme of our attention. Such a design should be utterly disdained, except as far as is consistent with fairness; and the sophistry of weak arguments being abandoned, a bold appeal should be made to the heart, for the tribute of honest conviction, with regard to the merits of the subject. "

From many boys this might sound like well-meaning commonplace, but inthe history of Mr. Emerson's life that "bold appeal to the heart, " that"tribute of honest conviction, " were made eloquent and real. Theboy meant it when he said it. To carry out his law of sincerity andself-trust the man had to sacrifice much that was dear to him, but hedid not flinch from his early principles. 

It must not be supposed that the blameless youth was an ascetic in hisCollege days. The other old manuscript Mr. Gardner sends me is marked"'Song for Knights of Square Table, ' R. W. E. "

There are twelve verses of this song, with a chorus of two lines. TheMuses and all the deities, not forgetting Bacchus, were duly invited tothe festival. 

 "Let the doors of Olympus be open for all To descend and make merry in Chivalry's hall. " * * * * *

Mr. Sanborn has kindly related to me several circumstances told him byEmerson about his early years. 

The parsonage was situated at the corner of Summer and what is nowChauncy streets. It had a yard, and an orchard which Emerson said was aslarge as Dr. Ripley's, which might have been some two or three acres. Afterwards there was a brick house looking on Summer Street, in whichEmerson the father lived. It was separated, Emerson said, by a brickwall from a garden in which _pears grew_ (a fact a boy is likely toremember). Master Ralph Waldo used to _sit on this wall_, --but we cannotbelieve he ever got off it on the wrong side, unless politely asked todo so. On the occasion of some alarm the little boy was carried in hisnightgown to a neighboring house. 

After Reverend William Emerson's death Mrs. Emerson removed to a housein Beacon Street, where the Athenaeum Building now stands. She kept someboarders, --among them Lemuel Shaw, afterwards Chief Justice of the Stateof Massachusetts. It was but a short distance to the Common, and Waldoand Charles used to drive their mother's cow there to pasture. 

 * * * * *

The Reverend Doctor Rufus Ellis, the much respected living successor ofWilliam Emerson as Minister of the First Church, says that R. W. Emersonmust have been born in the old parsonage, as his father (who diedwhen he was eight years old) lived but a very short time in "the newparsonage, " which was, doubtless, the "brick house" above referred to. 

 * * * * *

We get a few glimpses of the boy from other sources. Mr. Cooke tells usthat he entered the public grammar school at the age of eight years, andsoon afterwards the Latin School. At the age of eleven he was turningVirgil into very readable English heroics. He loved the study of Greek;was fond of reading history and given to the frequent writing of verses. But he thinks "the idle books under the bench at the Latin School" wereas profitable to him as his regular studies. 

Another glimpse of him is that given us by Mr. Ireland from the "BoyhoodMemories" of Rufus Dawes. His old schoolmate speaks of him as "aspiritual-looking boy in blue nankeen, who seems to be about ten yearsold, --whose image more than any other is still deeply stamped upon mymind, as I then saw him and loved him, I knew not why, and thought himso angelic and remarkable. " That "blue nankeen" sounds strangely, it maybe, to the readers of this later generation, but in the first quarterof the century blue and yellow or buff-colored cotton from China were acommon summer clothing of children. The places where the factories andstreets of the cities of Lowell and Lawrence were to rise were then openfields and farms. My recollection is that we did not think very highlyof ourselves when we were in blue nankeen, --a dull-colored fabric, toonearly of the complexion of the slates on which we did our ciphering. 

Emerson was not particularly distinguished in College. Having a nearconnection in the same class as he, and being, as a Cambridge boy, generally familiar with the names of the more noted young men in Collegefrom the year when George Bancroft, Caleb Cushing, and Francis WilliamWinthrop graduated until after I myself left College, I might haveexpected to hear something of a young man who afterwards became one ofthe great writers of his time. I do not recollect hearing of him exceptas keeping school for a short time in Cambridge, before he settled as aminister. His classmate, Mr. Josiah Quincy, writes thus of his collegedays:--

 "Two only of my classmates can be fairly said to have got into history, although one of them, Charles W. Upham [the connection of mine referred to above] has written history very acceptably. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert W. Barnwell, for widely different reasons, have caused their names to be known to well-informed Americans. Of Emerson, I regret to say, there are few notices in my journals. Here is the sort of way in which I speak of the man who was to make so profound an impression upon the thought of his time. 'I went to the chapel to hear Emerson's dissertation: a very good one, but rather too long to give much pleasure to the hearers. ' The fault, I suspect, was in the hearers; and another fact which I have mentioned goes to confirm this belief. It seems that Emerson accepted the duty of delivering the Poem on Class Day, after seven others had been asked who positively, refused. So it appears that, in the opinion of this critical class, the author of the 'Woodnotes' and the 'Humble Bee' ranked about eighth in poetical ability. It can only be because the works of the other five [seven] have been 'heroically unwritten' that a different impression has come to prevail in the outside world. But if, according to the measurement of undergraduates, Emerson's ability as a poet was not conspicuous, it must also be admitted that, in the judgment of persons old enough to know better, he was not credited with that mastery of weighty prose which the world has since accorded him. In our senior year the higher classes competed for the Boylston prizes for English composition. Emerson and I sent in our essays with the rest and were fortunate enough to take the two prizes; but--Alas for the infallibility of academic decisions! Emerson received the second prize. I was of course much pleased with the award of this intelligent committee, and should have been still more gratified had they mentioned that the man who was to be the most original and influential writer born in America was my unsuccessful competitor. But Emerson, incubating over deeper matters than were dreamt of in the established philosophy of elegant letters, seems to have given no sign of the power that was fashioning itself for leadership in a new time. He was quiet, unobtrusive, and only a fair scholar according to the standard of the College authorities. And this is really all I have to say about my most distinguished classmate. "

Barnwell, the first scholar in the class, delivered the ValedictoryOration, and Emerson the Poem. Neither of these performances was highlyspoken of by Mr. Quincy. 

I was surprised to find by one of the old Catalogues that Emersonroomed during a part of his College course with a young man whom I wellremember, J. G. K. Gourdin. The two Gourdins, Robert and John GaillardKeith, were dashing young fellows as I recollect them, belonging toCharleston, South Carolina. The "Southerners" were the reigning College_elegans_ of that time, the _merveilleux_, the _mirliflores_, of theirday. Their swallow-tail coats tapered to an arrow-point angle, and theprints of their little delicate calfskin boots in the snow were objectsof great admiration to the village boys of the period. I cannot helpwondering what brought Emerson and the showy, fascinating John Gourdintogether as room-mates. 

CHAPTER II. 

1823-1828. AET. 20-25. 

Extract from a Letter to a Classmate. --School-Teaching. --Study ofDivinity. --"Approbated" to Preach. --Visit to the South. --Preaching inVarious Places. 

We get a few brief glimpses of Emerson during the years following hisgraduation. He writes in 1823 to a classmate who had gone from Harvardto Andover:--

 "I am delighted to hear there is such a profound studying of German and Hebrew, Parkhurst and Jahn, and such other names as the memory aches to think of, on foot at Andover. Meantime, Unitarianism will not hide her honors; as many hard names are taken, and as much theological mischief is planned, at Cambridge as at Andover. By the time this generation gets upon the stage, if the controversy will not have ceased, it will run such a tide that we shall hardly he able to speak to one another, and there will be a Guelf and Ghibelline quarrel, which cannot tell where the differences lie. "

 "You can form no conception how much one grovelling in the city needs the excitement and impulse of literary example. The sight of broad vellum-bound quartos, the very mention of Greek and German names, the glimpse of a dusty, tugging scholar, will wake you up to emulation for a month. "

After leaving College, and while studying Divinity, Emerson employed apart of his time in giving instruction in several places successively. 

Emerson's older brother William was teaching in Boston, and Ralph Waldo, after graduating, joined him in that occupation. In the year 1825 or1826, he taught school also in Chelmsford, a town of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, a part of which helped to constitute the city of Lowell. One of his pupils in that school, the Honorable Josiah Gardiner Abbott, has favored me with the following account of his recollections:--

The school of which Mr. Emerson had the charge was an old-fashionedcountry "Academy. " Mr. Emerson was probably studying for the ministrywhile teaching there. Judge Abbott remembers the impression he madeon the boys. He was very grave, quiet, and very impressive in hisappearance. There was something engaging, almost fascinating, about him;he was never harsh or severe, always perfectly self-controlled, neverpunished except with words, but exercised complete command over theboys. His old pupil recalls the stately, measured way in which, for someoffence the little boy had committed, he turned on him, saying onlythese two words: "Oh, sad!" That was enough, for he had the faculty ofmaking the boys love him. One of his modes of instruction was to givethe boys a piece of reading to carry home with them, --from some booklike Plutarch's Lives, --and the next day to examine them and find outhow much they retained from their reading. Judge Abbott remembers apeculiar look in his eyes, as if he saw something beyond what seemed tobe in the field of vision. The whole impression left on this pupil'smind was such as no other teacher had ever produced upon him. 

Mr. Emerson also kept a school for a short time at Cambridge, and amonghis pupils was Mr. John Holmes. His impressions seem to be very muchlike those of Judge Abbott. 

My brother speaks of Mr. Emerson thus:--

 "Calm, as not doubting the virtue residing in his sceptre. Rather stern in his very infrequent rebukes. Not inclined to win boys by a surface amiability, but kindly in explanation or advice. Every inch a king in his dominion. Looking back, he seems to me rather like a captive philosopher set to tending flocks; resigned to his destiny, but not amused with its incongruities. He once recommended the use of rhyme as a cohesive for historical items. "

In 1823, two years after graduating, Emerson began studying for theministry. He studied under the direction of Dr. Charming, attending someof the lectures in the Divinity School at Cambridge, though not enrolledas one of its regular students. 

The teachings of that day were such as would now be called"old-fashioned Unitarianism. " But no creed can be held to be a finality. From Edwards to Mayhew, from Mayhew to Channing, from Channing toEmerson, the passage is like that which leads from the highest lock ofa canal to the ocean level. It is impossible for human nature to remainpermanently shut up in the highest lock of Calvinism. If the gates arenot opened, the mere leakage of belief or unbelief will before long fillthe next compartment, and the freight of doctrine finds itself onthe lower level of Arminianism, or Pelagianism, or even subsides toArianism. From this level to that of Unitarianism the outlet is freer, and the subsidence more rapid. And from Unitarianism to ChristianTheism, the passage is largely open for such as cannot accept theevidence of the supernatural in the history of the church. 

There were many shades of belief in the liberal churches. If DeTocqueville's account of Unitarian preaching in Boston at the time ofhis visit is true, the Savoyard Vicar of Rousseau would have preachedacceptably in some of our pulpits. In fact, the good Vicar might havebeen thought too conservative by some of our unharnessed theologians. 

At the period when Emerson reached manhood, Unitarianism was thedominating form of belief in the more highly educated classes of both ofthe two great New England centres, the town of Boston and the Universityat Cambridge. President Kirkland was at the head of the College, HenryWare was Professor of Theology, Andrews Norton of Sacred Literature, followed in 1830 by John Gorham Palfrey in the same office. JamesFreeman, Charles Lowell, and William Ellery Channing were preaching inBoston. I have mentioned already as a simple fact of local history, thatthe more exclusive social circles of Boston and Cambridge were chieflyconnected with the Unitarian or Episcopalian churches. A Cambridgegraduate of ambition and ability found an opening far from undesirablein a worldly point of view, in a profession which he was led to chooseby higher motives. It was in the Unitarian pulpit that the brillianttalents of Buckminster and Everett had found a noble eminence from whichtheir light could shine before men. 

Descended from a long line of ministers, a man of spiritual nature, areader of Plato, of Augustine, of Jeremy Taylor, full of hope for hisfellow-men, and longing to be of use to them, conscious, undoubtedly, ofa growing power of thought, it was natural that Emerson should turn fromthe task of a school-master to the higher office of a preacher. It ishard to conceive of Emerson in either of the other so-called learnedprofessions. His devotion to truth for its own sake and his feelingabout science would have kept him out of both those dusty highways. Hisbrother William had previously begun the study of Divinity, but foundhis mind beset with doubts and difficulties, and had taken to theprofession of Law. It is not unlikely that Mr. Emerson was more or lessexercised with the same questionings. He has said, speaking of hisinstructors: "If they had examined me, they probably would not have letme preach at all. " His eyes had given him trouble, so that he had nottaken notes of the lectures which he heard in the Divinity School, whichaccounted for his being excused from examination. In 1826, after threeyears' study, he was "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Associationof Ministers. His health obliging him to seek a southern climate, hewent in the following winter to South Carolina and Florida. During thisabsence he preached several times in Charleston and other places. On hisreturn from the South he preached in New Bedford, in Northampton, inConcord, and in Boston. His attractiveness as a preacher, of which weshall have sufficient evidence in a following chapter, led to hisbeing invited to share the duties of a much esteemed and honored cityclergyman, and the next position in which we find him is that of asettled Minister in Boston. 

CHAPTER III. 

1828-1833. AET. 25-30. 

Settled as Colleague of Rev. Henry Ware. --Married to Ellen LouisaTucker. --Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. H. B. Goodwin. --His Pastoraland Other Labors. --Emerson and Father Taylor. --Death of Mrs. Emerson. --Difference of Opinion with some of his Parishioners. --SermonExplaining his Views. --Resignation of his Pastorate. 

On the 11th of March, 1829, Emerson was ordained as colleague withthe Reverend Henry Ware, Minister of the Second Church in Boston. InSeptember of the same year he was married to Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker. The resignation of his colleague soon after his settlement threw all thepastoral duties upon the young minister, who seems to have performedthem diligently and acceptably. Mr. Conway gives the following briefaccount of his labors, and tells in the same connection a story ofFather Taylor too good not to be repeated:--

 "Emerson took an active interest in the public affairs of Boston. He was on its School Board, and was chosen chaplain of the State Senate. He invited the anti-slavery lecturers into his church, and helped philanthropists of other denominations in their work. Father Taylor [the Methodist preacher to the sailors], to whom Dickens gave an English fame, found in him his most important supporter when establishing the Seaman's Mission in Boston. This was told me by Father Taylor himself in his old age. I happened to be in his company once, when he spoke rather sternly about my leaving the Methodist Church; but when I spoke of the part Emerson had in it, he softened at once, and spoke with emotion of his great friend. I have no doubt that if the good Father of Boston Seamen was proud of any personal thing, it was of the excellent answer he is said to have given to some Methodists who objected to his friendship for Emerson. Being a Unitarian, they insisted that he must go to"--[the place which a divine of Charles the Second's day said it was not good manners to mention in church]. --"'It does look so, ' said Father Taylor, 'but I am sure of one thing: if Emerson goes to'"--[that place]--"'he will change the climate there, and emigration will set that way. '"

In 1830, Emerson took part in the services at the ordination of theReverend H. B. Goodwin as Dr. Ripley's colleague. His address on givingthe right hand of fellowship was printed, but is not included among hiscollected works. 

The fair prospects with which Emerson began his life as a settledminister were too soon darkened. In February, 1832, the wife ofhis youth, who had been for some time in failing health, died ofconsumption. 

He had become troubled with doubts respecting a portion of his duties, and it was not in his nature to conceal these doubts from his people. Onthe 9th of September, 1832, he preached a sermon on the Lord's Supper, in which he announced unreservedly his conscientious scruples againstadministering that ordinance, and the grounds upon which those scrupleswere founded. This discourse, as his only printed sermon, and as onewhich heralded a movement in New England theology which has neverstopped from that day to this, deserves some special notice. The sermonis in no sense "Emersonian" except in its directness, its sweet temper, and outspoken honesty. He argues from his comparison of texts in aperfectly sober, old-fashioned way, as his ancestor Peter Bulkeley mighthave done. It happened to that worthy forefather of Emerson that uponhis "pressing a piece of _Charity_ disagreeable to the will of the_Ruling Elder_, there was occasioned an unhappy _Discord_ in the Churchof _Concord_; which yet was at last healed, by their calling in the helpof a _Council_ and the _Ruling Elder's_ Abdication. " So says CottonMather. Whether zeal had grown cooler or charity grown warmer inEmerson's days we need not try to determine. The sermon was only a moreformal declaration of views respecting the Lord's Supper, which he hadpreviously made known in a conference with some of the most activemembers of his church. As a committee of the parish reported resolutionsradically differing from his opinion on the subject, he preached thissermon and at the same time resigned his office. There was no "discord, "there was no need of a "council. " Nothing could be more friendly, moretruly Christian, than the manner in which Mr. Emerson expressed himselfin this parting discourse. All the kindness of his nature warms itthroughout. He details the differences of opinion which have existedin the church with regard to the ordinance. He then argues from thelanguage of the Evangelists that it was not intended to be a permanentinstitution. He takes up the statement of Paul in the Epistle to theCorinthians, which he thinks, all things considered, ought not to alterour opinion derived from the Evangelists. He does not think that we areto rely upon the opinions and practices of the primitive church. If thatchurch believed the institution to be permanent, their belief does notsettle the question for us. On every other subject, succeeding timeshave learned to form a judgment more in accordance with the spirit ofChristianity than was the practice of the early ages. 

"But, it is said, 'Admit that the rite was not designed to beperpetual. ' What harm doth it?"

He proceeds to give reasons which show it to be inexpedient to continuethe observance of the rite. It was treating that as authoritative which, as he believed that he had shown from Scripture, was not so. It confusedthe idea of God by transferring the worship of Him to Christ. Christ isthe Mediator only as the instructor of man. In the least petition to God"the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to yourmind than your brother or child. " Again:--

 "The use of the elements, however suitable to the people and the modes of thought in the East, where it originated, is foreign and unsuited to affect us. The day of formal religion is past, and we are to seek our well-being in the formation of the soul. The Jewish was a religion of forms; it was all body, it had no life, and the Almighty God was pleased to qualify and send forth a man to teach men that they must serve him with the heart; that only that life was religious which was thoroughly good; that sacrifice was smoke and forms were shadows. This man lived and died true to that purpose; and with his blessed word and life before us, Christians must contend that it is a matter of vital importance, --really a duty to commemorate him by a certain form, whether that form be acceptable to their understanding or not. Is not this to make vain the gift of God? Is not this to turn back the hand on the dial?"

To these objections he adds the practical consideration that it bringsthose who do not partake of the communion service into an unfavorablerelation with those who do. 

The beautiful spirit of the man shows itself in all its noble sincerityin these words at the close of his argument:--

 "Having said this, I have said all. I have no hostility to this institution; I am only stating my want of sympathy with it. Neither should I ever have obtruded this opinion upon other people, had I not been called by my office to administer it. That is the end of my opposition, that I am not interested in it. I am content that it stand to the end of the world if it please men and please Heaven, and I shall rejoice in all the good it produces. "

He then announces that, as it is the prevailing opinion and feelingin our religious community that it is a part of a pastor's duties toadminister this rite, he is about to resign the office which had beenconfided to him. 

This is the only sermon of Mr. Emerson's ever published. It wasimpossible to hear or to read it without honoring the preacher for histruthfulness, and recognizing the force of his statement and reasoning. It was equally impossible that he could continue his ministrationsover a congregation which held to the ordinance he wished to give upentirely. And thus it was, that with the most friendly feelings onboth sides, Mr. Emerson left the pulpit of the Second Church and foundhimself obliged to make a beginning in a new career. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1833-1838. AET. 30-35. 

Section 1. Visit to Europe. --On his Return preaches in DifferentPlaces. --Emerson in the Pulpit. --At Newton. --Fixes his Residence atConcord. --The Old Manse. --Lectures in Boston. --Lectures onMichael Angelo and on Milton published in the "North AmericanReview. "--Beginning of the Correspondence with Carlyle. --Letters to theRev. James Freeman Clarke. --Republication of "Sartor Resartus. "

Section 2. Emerson's Second Marriage. --His New Residence inConcord. --Historical Address. --Course of Ten Lectures on EnglishLiterature delivered in Boston. --The Concord Battle Hymn. --Preachingin Concord and East Lexington. --Accounts of his Preaching bySeveral Hearers. --A Course of Lectures on the Nature and Ends ofHistory. --Address on War. --Death of Edward Bliss Emerson. --Death ofCharles Chauncy Emerson. 

Section 3. Publication of "Nature. "--Outline of this Essay. --ItsReception. --Address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society. 

Section 1. In the year 1833 Mr. Emerson visited Europe for the firsttime. A great change had come over his life, and he needed the reliefwhich a corresponding change of outward circumstances might affordhim. A brief account of this visit is prefixed to the volume entitled"English Traits. " He took a short tour, in which he visited Sicily, Italy, and France, and, crossing from Boulogne, landed at the TowerStairs in London. He finds nothing in his Diary to publish concerningvisits to places. But he saw a number of distinguished persons, of whomhe gives pleasant accounts, so singularly different in tone from therough caricatures in which Carlyle vented his spleen and caprice, thatone marvels how the two men could have talked ten minutes together, or would wonder, had not one been as imperturbable as the other wasexplosive. Horatio Greenough and Walter Savage Landor are the chiefpersons he speaks of as having met upon the Continent. Of these hereports various opinions as delivered in conversation. He mentionsincidentally that he visited Professor Amici, who showed him hismicroscopes "magnifying (it was said) two thousand diameters. " Emersonhardly knew his privilege; he may have been the first American to lookthrough an immersion lens with the famous Modena professor. Mr. Emersonsays that his narrow and desultory reading had inspired him with thewish to see the faces of three or four writers, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, De Quincey, Carlyle. His accounts of his interviews withthese distinguished persons are too condensed to admit of furtherabbreviation. Goethe and Scott, whom he would have liked to look upon, were dead; Wellington he saw at Westminster Abbey, at the funeral ofWilberforce. His impressions of each of the distinguished persons whomhe visited should be looked at in the light of the general remark which, follows:--

 "The young scholar fancies it happiness enough to live with people who can give an inside to the world; without reflecting that they are prisoners, too, of their own thought, and cannot apply themselves to yours. The conditions of literary success are almost destructive of the best social power, as they do not have that frolic liberty which only can encounter a companion on the best terms. It is probable you left some obscure comrade at a tavern, or in the farms, with right mother-wit, and equality to life, when you crossed sea and land to play bo-peep with celebrated scribes. I have, however, found writers superior to their books, and I cling to my first belief that a strong head will dispose fast enough of these impediments, and give one the satisfaction of reality, the sense of having been met, and a larger horizon. "

Emerson carried a letter of introduction to a gentleman in Edinburgh, who, being unable to pay him all the desired attention, handed him overto Mr. Alexander Ireland, who has given a most interesting account ofhim as he appeared during that first visit to Europe. Mr. Ireland'spresentation of Emerson as he heard him in the Scotch pulpit showsthat he was not less impressive and attractive before an audience ofstrangers than among his own countrymen and countrywomen:--

"On Sunday, the 18th of August, 1833, I heard him deliver a discourse inthe Unitarian Chapel, Young Street, Edinburgh, and I remember distinctlythe effect which it produced on his hearers. It is almost needless tosay that nothing like it had ever been heard by them before, and many ofthem did not know what to make of it. The originality of his thoughts, the consummate beauty of the language in which they were clothed, thecalm dignity of his bearing, the absence of all oratorical effort, andthe singular directness and simplicity of his manner, free from theleast shadow of dogmatic assumption, made a deep impression on me. Notlong before this I had listened to a wonderful sermon by Dr. Chalmers, whose force, and energy, and vehement, but rather turgid eloquencecarried, for the moment, all before them, --his audience becoming likeclay in the hands of the potter. But I must confess that the pregnantthoughts and serene self-possession of the young Boston minister had agreater charm for me than all the rhetorical splendors of Chalmers. Hisvoice was the sweetest, the most winning and penetrating of any I everheard; nothing like it have I listened to since. 

 'That music in our hearts we bore Long after it was heard no more. '"

Mr. George Gilfillan speaks of "the solemnity of his manner, and theearnest thought pervading his discourse. "

As to the effect of his preaching on his American audiences, I find thefollowing evidence in Mr. Cooke's diligently gathered collections. Mr. Sanborn says:--

 "His pulpit eloquence was singularly attractive, though by no means equally so to all persons. In 1829, before the two friends had met, Bronson Alcott heard him preach in Dr. Channing's church on 'The Universality of the Moral Sentiment, ' and was struck, as he said, with the youth of the preacher, the beauty of his elocution and the direct and sincere manner in which he addressed his hearers. "

Mr. Charles Congdon, of New Bedford, well known as a popularwriter, gives the following account of Emerson's preaching in his"Reminiscences. " I borrow the quotation from Mr. Conway:--

 "One day there came into our pulpit the most gracious of mortals, with a face all benignity, who gave out the first hymn and made the first prayer as an angel might have read and prayed. Our choir was a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and discordant after Emerson's voice. I remember of the sermon only that it had an indefinite charm of simplicity and wisdom, with occasional illustrations from nature, which were about the most delicate and dainty things of the kind which I had ever heard. I could understand them, if not the fresh philosophical novelties of the discourse. "

Everywhere Emerson seems to have pleased his audiences. The Reverend Dr. Morison, formerly the much respected Unitarian minister of New Bedford, writes to me as follows:--

 "After Dr. Dewey left New Bedford, Mr. Emerson preached there several months, greatly to the satisfaction and delight of those who heard him. The Society would have been glad to settle him as their minister, and he would have accepted a call, had it not been for some difference of opinion, I think, in regard to the communion service. Judge Warren, who was particularly his friend, and had at that time a leading influence in the parish, with all his admiration for Mr. Emerson, did not think he could well be the pastor of a Christian church, and so the matter was settled between him and his friend, without any action by the Society. "

All this shows well enough that his preaching was eminently acceptable. But every one who has heard him lecture can form an idea of what he musthave been as a preacher. In fact, we have all listened, probably, tomany a passage from old sermons of his, --for he tells us he borrowedfrom those old sermons for his lectures, --without ever thinking of thepulpit from which they were first heard. 

Among the stray glimpses we get of Emerson between the time when hequitted the pulpit of his church and that when he came before the publicas a lecturer is this, which I owe to the kindness of Hon. Alexander H. Rice. In 1832 or 1833, probably the latter year, he, then a boy, withanother boy, Thomas R. Gould, afterwards well known as a sculptor, beingat the Episcopal church in Newton, found that Mr. Emerson was sitting inthe pew behind them. Gould knew Mr. Emerson, and introduced young Riceto him, and they walked down the street together. As they went along, Emerson burst into a rhapsody over the Psalms of David, the sublimity ofthought, and the poetic beauty of expression of which they are full, andspoke also with enthusiasm of the Te Deum as that grand old hymn whichhad come down through the ages, voicing the praises of generation aftergeneration. 

When they parted at the house of young Rice's father, Emerson invitedthe boys to come and see him at the Allen farm, in the afternoon. Theycame to a piece of woods, and, as they entered it, took their hats off. "Boys, " said Emerson, "here we recognize the presence of the UniversalSpirit. The breeze says to us in its own language, How d' ye do? How d'ye do? and we have already taken our hats off and are answering it withour own How d' ye do? How d' ye do? And all the waving branches ofthe trees, and all the flowers, and the field of corn yonder, and thesinging brook, and the insect and the bird, --every living thing andthings we call inanimate feel the same divine universal impulse whilethey join with us, and we with them, in the greeting which is thesalutation of the Universal Spirit. "

We perceive the same feeling which pervades many of Emerson's earlierEssays and much of his verse, in these long-treasured reminiscencesof the poetical improvisation with which the two boys were thusunexpectedly favored. Governor Rice continues:--

 "You know what a captivating charm there always was in Emerson's presence, but I can never tell you how this line of thought then impressed a country boy. I do not remember anything about the remainder of that walk, nor of the after-incidents of that day, --I only remember that I went home wondering about that mystical dream of the Universal Spirit, and about what manner of man he was under whose influence I had for the first time come. . . . 

 "The interview left impressions that led me into new channels of thought which have been a life-long pleasure to me, and, I doubt not, taught me somewhat how to distinguish between mere theological dogma and genuine religion in the soul. "

In the summer of 1834 Emerson became a resident of Concord, Massachusetts, the town of his forefathers, and the place destined tobe his home for life. He first lived with his venerable connection, Dr. Ripley, in the dwelling made famous by Hawthorne as the "Old Manse. " Itis an old-fashioned gambrel-roofed house, standing close to the sceneof the Fight on the banks of the river. It was built for the ReverendWilliam Emerson, his grandfather. In one of the rooms of this houseEmerson wrote "Nature, " and in the same room, some years later, Hawthorne wrote "Mosses from an Old Manse. "

The place in which Emerson passed the greater part of his life welldeserves a special notice. Concord might sit for its portrait as anideal New England town. If wanting in the variety of surface whichmany other towns can boast of, it has at least a vision of the distantsummits of Monadnock and Wachusett. It has fine old woods, and nobleelms to give dignity to its open spaces. Beautiful ponds, as theymodestly call themselves, --one of which, Walden, is as well known in ourliterature as Windermere in that of Old England, --lie quietly in theirclean basins. And through the green meadows runs, or rather lounges, a gentle, unsalted stream, like an English river, licking its grassymargin with a sort of bovine placidity and contentment. This is theMusketaquid, or Meadow River, which, after being joined by the morerestless Assabet, still keeps its temper and flows peacefully along byand through other towns, to lose itself in the broad Merrimac. The namesof these rivers tell us that Concord has an Indian history, and there isevidence that it was a favorite residence of the race which preceded ourown. The native tribes knew as well as the white settlers where werepleasant streams and sweet springs, where corn grew tall in the meadowsand fish bred fast in the unpolluted waters. 

The place thus favored by nature can show a record worthy of itsphysical attractions. Its settlement under the lead of Emerson'sancestor, Peter Bulkeley, was effected in the midst of manydifficulties, which the enterprise and self-sacrifice of that nobleleader were successful in overcoming. On the banks of the Musketaquidwas fired the first fatal shot of the "rebel" farmers. Emerson appealsto the Records of the town for two hundred years as illustrating theworking of our American institutions and the character of the men ofConcord:--

 "If the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking counsel did not fail to be suggested; freedom and virtue, if they triumphed, triumphed in a fair field. And so be it an everlasting testimony for them, and so much ground of assurance of man's capacity for self-government. "

What names that plain New England town reckons in the roll of itsinhabitants! Stout Major Buttrick and his fellow-soldiers in the war ofIndependence, and their worthy successors in the war of Freedom; lawyersand statesmen like Samuel Hoar and his descendants; ministers like PeterBulkeley, Daniel Bliss, and William Emerson; and men of genius such asthe idealist and poet whose inspiration has kindled so many souls; asthe romancer who has given an atmosphere to the hard outlines of ourstern New England; as that unique individual, half college-graduate andhalf Algonquin, the Robinson Crusoe of Walden Pond, who carried out aschool-boy whim to its full proportions, and told the story of Nature inundress as only one who had hidden in her bedroom could have told it. Ineed not lengthen the catalogue by speaking of the living, or mentioningthe women whose names have added to its distinction. It has long been anintellectual centre such as no other country town of our own land, if ofany other, could boast. Its groves, its streams, its houses, are hauntedby undying memories, and its hillsides and hollows are made holy by thedust that is covered by their turf. 

Such was the place which the advent of Emerson made the Delphi of NewEngland and the resort of many pilgrims from far-off regions. 

On his return from Europe in the winter of 1833-4, Mr. Emerson began toappear before the public as a lecturer. His first subjects, "Water, " andthe "Relation of Man to the Globe, " were hardly such as we should haveexpected from a scholar who had but a limited acquaintance with physicaland physiological science. They were probably chosen as of a popularcharacter, easily treated in such a way as to be intelligible andentertaining, and thus answering the purpose of introducing himpleasantly to the new career he was contemplating. These lectures arenot included in his published works, nor were they ever published, sofar as I know. He gave three lectures during the same winter, relatingthe experiences of his recent tour in Europe. Having made himself athome on the platform, he ventured upon subjects more congenial to histaste and habits of thought than some of those earlier topics. In 1834he lectured on Michael Angelo, Milton, Luther, George Fox, and EdmundBurke. The first two of these lectures, though not included in hiscollected works, may be found in the "North American Review" for 1837and 1838. The germ of many of the thoughts which he has expanded inprose and verse may be found in these Essays. 

The _Cosmos_ of the Ancient Greeks, the _piu nel' uno_, "The Many inOne, " appear in the Essay on Michael Angelo as they also appear in his"Nature. " The last thought takes wings to itself and rises in the littlepoem entitled "Each and All. " The "Rhodora, " another brief poem, findsitself foreshadowed in the inquiry, "What is Beauty?" and its answer, "This great Whole the understanding cannot embrace. Beauty may be felt. It may be produced. But it cannot be defined. " And throughout this Essaythe feeling that truth and beauty and virtue are one, and that Nature isthe symbol which typifies it to the soul, is the inspiring sentiment. _Noscitur a sociis_ applies as well to a man's dead as to his livingcompanions. A young friend of mine in his college days wrote an essay onPlato. When he mentioned his subject to Mr. Emerson, he got the caution, long remembered, "When you strike at a _King_, you must kill him. "He himself knew well with what kings of thought to measure his ownintelligence. What was grandest, loftiest, purest, in human characterchiefly interested him. He rarely meddles with what is petty or ignoble. Like his "Humble Bee, " the "yellow-breeched philosopher, " whom he speaksof as

 "Wiser far than human seer, "

and says of him, "Aught unsavory or unclean Hath my insect never seen, "

he goes through the world where coarser minds find so much that isrepulsive to dwell upon, "Seeing only what is fair, Sipping only what is sweet. "

Why Emerson selected Michael Angelo as the subject of one of hisearliest lectures is shown clearly enough by the last sentence asprinted in the Essay. 

 "He was not a citizen of any country; he belonged to the human race; he was a brother and a friend to all who acknowledged the beauty that beams in universal nature, and who seek by labor and self-denial to approach its source in perfect goodness. "

Consciously or unconsciously men describe themselves in the charactersthey draw. One must have the mordant in his own personality or he willnot take the color of his subject. He may force himself to picture thatwhich he dislikes or even detests; but when he loves the character hedelineates, it is his own, in some measure, at least, or one of which hefeels that its possibilities and tendencies belong to himself. Let ustry Emerson by this test in his "Essay on Milton:"--

 "It is the prerogative of this great man to stand at this hour foremost of all men in literary history, and so (shall we not say?) of all men, in the power to _inspire_. Virtue goes out of him into others. " . . . "He is identified in the mind with all select and holy images, with the supreme interests of the human race. "--"Better than any other he has discharged the office of every great man, namely, to raise the idea of Man in the minds of his contemporaries and of posterity, --to draw after nature a life of man, exhibiting such a composition of grace, of strength, and of virtue as poet had not described nor hero lived. Human nature in these ages is indebted to him for its best portrait. Many philosophers in England, France, and Germany, have formally dedicated their study to this problem; and we think it impossible to recall one in those countries who communicates the same vibration of hope, of self-reverence, of piety, of delight in beauty, which the name of Milton awakes. "

Emerson had the same lofty aim as Milton, "To raise the idea of man;"he had "the power _to inspire_" in a preëminent degree. If ever a mancommunicated those _vibrations_ he speaks of as characteristic ofMilton, it was Emerson. In elevation, purity, nobility of nature, he isworthy to stand with the great poet and patriot, who began like him as aschool-master, and ended as the teacher in a school-house which had forits walls the horizons of every region where English is spoken. Thesimilarity of their characters might be followed by the curious intotheir fortunes. Both were turned away from the clerical office by arevolt of conscience against the beliefs required of them; both lostvery dear objects of affection in early manhood, and mourned for themin tender and mellifluous threnodies. It would be easy to trace manyparallelisms in their prose and poetry, but to have dared to name anyman whom we have known in our common life with the seraphic singerof the Nativity and of Paradise is a tribute which seems to savor ofaudacity. It is hard to conceive of Emerson as "an expert swordsman"like Milton. It is impossible to think of him as an abusivecontroversialist as Milton was in his controversy with Salmasius. Butthough Emerson never betrayed it to the offence of others, he must havebeen conscious, like Milton, of "a certain niceness of nature, an honesthaughtiness, " which was as a shield about his inner nature. CharlesEmerson, the younger brother, who was of the same type, expresses thefeeling in his college essay on Friendship, where it is all summed up inthe line he quotes:--

 "The hand of Douglas is his own. "

It must be that in writing this Essay on Milton Emerson felt that he waslistening in his own soul to whispers that seemed like echoes from thatof the divine singer. 

 * * * * *

My friend, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, a life-long friend of Emerson, who understood him from the first, and was himself a great part in themovement of which Emerson, more than any other man, was the leader, haskindly allowed me to make use of the following letters:--

 TO REV. JAMES F. CLARKE, LOUISVILLE, KY. 

 PLYMOUTH, MASS. , March 12, 1834. 

 MY DEAR SIR, --As the day approaches when Mr. Lewis should leave Boston, I seize a few moments in a friendly house in the first of towns, to thank you heartily for your kindness in lending me the valued manuscripts which I return. The translations excited me much, and who can estimate the value of a good thought? I trust I am to learn much more from you hereafter of your German studies, and much I hope of your own. You asked in your note concerning Carlyle. My recollections of him are most pleasant, and I feel great confidence in his character. He understands and recognizes his mission. He is perfectly simple and affectionate in his manner, and frank, as he can well afford to be, in his communications. He expressed some impatience of his total solitude, and talked of Paris as a residence. I told him I hoped not; for I should always remember him with respect, meditating in the mountains of Nithsdale. He was cheered, as he ought to be, by learning that his papers were read with interest by young men unknown to him in this continent; and when I specified a piece which had attracted warm commendation from the New Jerusalem people here, his wife said that is always the way; whatever he has writ that he thinks has fallen dead, he hears of two or three years afterward. --He has many, many tokens of Goethe's regard, miniatures, medals, and many letters. If you should go to Scotland one day, you would gratify him, yourself, and me, by your visit to Craigenputtock, in the parish of Dunscore, near Dumfries. He told me he had a book which he thought to publish, but was in the purpose of dividing into a series of articles for "Fraser's Magazine. " I therefore subscribed for that book, which he calls the "Mud Magazine, " but have seen nothing of his workmanship in the two last numbers. The mail is going, so I shall finish my letter another time. 

 Your obliged friend and servant, R. WALDO EMERSON. 

 CONCORD, MASS. , November 25, 1834. 

 MY DEAR SIR, --Miss Peabody has kindly sent me your manuscript piece on Goethe and Carlyle. I have read it with great pleasure and a feeling of gratitude, at the same time with a serious regret that it was not published. I have forgotten what reason you assigned for not printing it; I cannot think of any sufficient one. Is it too late now? Why not change its form a little and annex to it some account of Carlyle's later pieces, to wit: "Diderot, " and "Sartor Resartus. " The last is complete, and he has sent it to me in a stitched pamphlet. Whilst I see its vices (relatively to the reading public) of style, I cannot but esteem it a noble philosophical poem, reflecting the ideas, institutions, men of this very hour. And it seems to me that it has so much wit and other secondary graces as must strike a class who would not care for its primary merit, that of being a sincere exhortation to seekers of truth. If you still retain your interest in his genius (as I see not how you can avoid, having understood it and cooperated with it so truly), you will be glad to know that he values his American readers very highly; that he does not defend this offensive style of his, but calls it questionable tentative; that he is trying other modes, and is about publishing a historical piece called "The Diamond Necklace, " as a part of a great work which he meditates on the subject of the French Revolution. He says it is part of his creed that history is poetry, could we tell it right. He adds, moreover, in a letter I have recently received from him, that it has been an odd dream that he might end in the western woods. Shall we not bid him come, and be Poet and Teacher of a most scattered flock wanting a shepherd? Or, as I sometimes think, would it not be a new and worse chagrin to become acquainted with the extreme deadness of our community to spiritual influences of the higher kind? Have you read Sampson Reed's "Growth of the Mind"? I rejoice to be contemporary with that man, and cannot wholly despair of the society in which he lives; there must be some oxygen yet, and La Fayette is only just dead. 

 Your friend, R. WALDO EMERSON. 

 It occurs to me that 't is unfit to send any white paper so far as to your house, so you shall have a sentence from Carlyle's letter. 

[This may be found in Carlyle's first letter, dated 12th August, 1834. ]Dr. Le Baron Russell, an intimate friend of Emerson for the greater partof his life, gives me some particulars with reference to the publicationof "Sartor Resartus, " which I will repeat in his own words:--

 "It was just before the time of which I am speaking [that of Emerson's marriage] that the 'Sartor Resartus' appeared in 'Fraser. ' Emerson lent the numbers, or the collected sheets of 'Fraser, ' to Miss Jackson, and we all had the reading of them. The excitement which the book caused among young persons interested in the literature of the day at that time you probably remember. I was quite carried away by it, and so anxious to own a copy, that I determined to publish an American edition. I consulted James Munroe & Co. On the subject. Munroe advised me to obtain a subscription to a sufficient number of copies to secure the cost of the publication. This, with the aid of some friends, particularly of my classmate, William Silsbee, I readily succeeded in doing. When this was accomplished, I wrote to Emerson, who up to this time had taken no part in the enterprise, asking him to write a preface. (This is the Preface which appears in the American edition, James Munroe & Co. , 1836. It was omitted in the third American from the second London edition, [1] by the same publishers, 1840. ) Before the first edition appeared, and after the subscription had been secured, Munroe & Co. Offered to assume the whole responsibility of the publication, and to this I assented. 

 [Footnote 1: Revised and corrected by the author. ]

 "This American edition of 1836 was the first appearance of the 'Sartor' in either country, as a distinct edition. Some copies of the sheets from 'Fraser, ' it appears, were stitched together and sent to a few persons, but Carlyle could find no English publisher willing to take the responsibility of printing the book. This shows, I think, how much more interest was taken in Carlyle's writings in this country than in England. "

On the 14th of May, 1834, Emerson wrote to Carlyle the first letter ofthat correspondence which has since been given to the world under thecareful editorship of Mr. Charles Norton. This correspondence lastedfrom the date mentioned to the 2d of April, 1872, when Carlyle wrote hislast letter to Emerson. The two writers reveal themselves as being instrong sympathy with each other, in spite of a radical difference oftemperament and entirely opposite views of life. The hatred of unrealitywas uppermost with Carlyle; the love of what is real and genuine withEmerson. Those old moralists, the weeping and the laughing philosophers, find their counterparts in every thinking community. Carlyle did notweep, but he scolded; Emerson did not laugh, but in his gravest momentsthere was a smile waiting for the cloud to pass from his forehead. TheDuet they chanted was a Miserere with a Te Deum for its Antiphon; a _De__Profundis_ answered by a _Sursum Corda_. "The ground of my existenceis black as death, " says Carlyle. "Come and live with me a year, " saysEmerson, "and if you do not like New England well enough to stay, one ofthese years; (when the 'History' has passed its ten editions, and beentranslated into as many languages) I will come and dwell with you. "

Section 2. In September, 1835, Emerson was married to Miss LydiaJackson, of Plymouth, Massachusetts. The wedding took place in the fineold mansion known as the Winslow House, Dr. Le Baron Russell and hissister standing up with the bridegroom and his bride. After theirmarriage, Mr. And Mrs. Emerson went to reside in the house in whichhe passed the rest of his life, and in which Mrs. Emerson and theirdaughter still reside. This is the "plain, square, wooden house, " withhorse-chestnut trees in the front yard, and evergreens around it, whichhas been so often described and figured. It is without pretensions, butnot without an air of quiet dignity. A full and well-illustrated accountof it and its arrangements and surroundings is given in "Poets' Homes, "by Arthur Gilman and others, published by D. Lothrop & Company in 1879. 

On the 12th of September, 1835, Emerson delivered an "HistoricalDiscourse, at Concord, on the Second Centennial Anniversary ofthe Incorporation of the Town. " There is no "mysticism, " no"transcendentalism" in this plain, straightforward Address. The factsare collected and related with the patience and sobriety which becamethe writer as one of the Dryasdusts of our very diligent, very useful, very matter-of-fact, and for the most part judiciously unimaginativeMassachusetts Historical Society. It looks unlike anything else Emersonever wrote, in being provided with abundant foot-notes and an appendix. One would almost as soon have expected to see Emerson equipped witha musket and a knapsack as to find a discourse of his clogged withannotations, and trailing a supplement after it. Oracles are brief andfinal in their utterances. Delphi and Cumae are not expected to explainwhat they say. 

It is the habit of our New England towns to celebrate their own worthiesand their own deeds on occasions like this, with more or less ofrhetorical gratitude and self-felicitation. The discourses deliveredon these occasions are commonly worth reading, for there was never aclearing made in the forest that did not let in the light on heroes andheroines. Concord is on the whole the most interesting of all the inlandtowns of New England. Emerson has told its story in as painstaking, faithful a way as if he had been by nature an annalist. But with thisfidelity, we find also those bold generalizations and sharp picturesquetouches which reveal the poetic philosopher. 

 "I have read with care, " he says, "the town records themselves. They exhibit a pleasing picture of a community almost exclusively agricultural, where no man has much time for words, in his search after things; of a community of great simplicity of manners, and of a manifest love of justice. I find our annals marked with a uniform good sense. --The tone of the record rises with the dignity of the event. These soiled and musty books are luminous and electric within. The old town clerks did not spell very correctly, but they contrive to make intelligible the will of a free and just community. " . . . "The matters there debated (in town meetings) are such as to invite very small consideration. The ill-spelled pages of the town records contain the result. I shall be excused for confessing that I have set a value upon any symptom of meanness and private pique which I have met with in these antique books, as proof that justice was done; that if the results of our history are approved as wise and good, it was yet a free strife; if the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking counsel did not fail to be suggested; freedom and virtue, if they triumphed, triumphed in a fair field. And so be it an everlasting testimony for them, and so much ground of assurance of man's capacity for self-government. "

There was nothing in this Address which the plainest of Concord'scitizens could not read understandingly and with pleasure. In fact Mr. Emerson himself, besides being a poet and a philosopher, was also aplain Concord citizen. His son tells me that he was a faithful attendantupon town meetings, and, though he never spoke, was an interested andcareful listener to the debates on town matters. That respect for"mother-wit" and for all the wholesome human qualities which revealsitself all through his writings was bred from this kind of intercoursewith men of sense who had no pretensions to learning, and in whom, forthat very reason, the native qualities came out with less disguise intheir expression. He was surrounded by men who ran to extremes in theiridiosyncrasies; Alcott in speculations, which often led him into thefourth dimension of mental space; Hawthorne, who brooded himself intoa dream--peopled solitude; Thoreau, the nullifier of civilization, whoinsisted on nibbling his asparagus at the wrong end, to say nothing ofidolaters and echoes. He kept his balance among them all. It wouldbe hard to find a more candid and sober record of the result ofself-government in a small community than is contained in this simplediscourse, patient in detail, large in treatment, more effective thanany unsupported generalities about the natural rights of man, whichamount to very little unless men earn the right of asserting them byattending fairly to their natural duties. So admirably is the working ofa town government, as it goes on in a well-disposed community, displayedin the history of Concord's two hundred years of village life, thatone of its wisest citizens had portions of the address printedfor distribution, as an illustration of the American principle ofself-government. 

After settling in Concord, Emerson delivered courses of Lectures inBoston during several successive winters; in 1835, ten Lectures onEnglish Literature; in 1836, twelve Lectures on the Philosophy ofHistory; in 1837, ten Lectures on Human Culture. Some of these lecturesmay have appeared in print under their original titles; all of themprobably contributed to the Essays and Discourses which we find in hispublished volumes. 

On the 19th of April, 1836, a meeting was held to celebrate thecompletion of the monument raised in commemoration of the Concord Fight. For this occasion Emerson wrote the hymn made ever memorable by thelines:--

 Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The last line of this hymn quickens the heartbeats of every American, and the whole hymn is admirable in thought and expression. Until theautumn of 1838, Emerson preached twice on Sundays to the church at EastLexington, which desired him to become its pastor. Mr. Cooke says thatwhen a lady of the society was asked why they did not settle a friend ofEmerson's whom he had urged them to invite to their pulpit, she replied:"We are a very simple people, and can understand no one but Mr. Emerson. " He said of himself: "My pulpit is the Lyceum platform. "Knowing that he made his Sermons contribute to his Lectures, we need notmourn over their not being reported. 

In March, 1837, Emerson delivered in Boston a Lecture on War, afterwardspublished in Miss Peabody's "Aesthetic Papers. " He recognizes war as oneof the temporary necessities of a developing civilization, to disappearwith the advance of mankind:--

 "At a certain stage of his progress the man fights, if he be of a sound body and mind. At a certain high stage he makes no offensive demonstration, but is alert to repel injury, and of an unconquerable heart. At a still higher stage he comes into the region of holiness; passion has passed away from him; his warlike nature is all converted into an active medicinal principle; he sacrifices himself, and accepts with alacrity wearisome tasks of denial and charity; but being attacked, he bears it, and turns the other cheek, as one engaged, throughout his being, no longer to the service of an individual, but to the common good of all men. "

In 1834 Emerson's brother Edward died, as already mentioned, in the WestIndia island where he had gone for his health. In his letter to Carlyle, of November 12th of the same year, Emerson says: "Your letter, whichI received last week, made a bright light in a solitary and saddenedplace. I had quite recently received the news of the death of a brotherin the island of Porto Rico, whose loss to me will be a lifelongsorrow. " It was of him that Emerson wrote the lines "In Memoriam, " inwhich he says, --

 "There is no record left on earth Save on tablets of the heart, Of the rich, inherent worth, Of the grace that on him shone Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit; He could not frame a word unfit, An act unworthy to be done. "

Another bereavement was too soon to be recorded. On the 7th of October, 1835, he says in a letter to Carlyle:--

 "I was very glad to hear of the brother you describe, for I have one too, and know what it is to have presence in two places. Charles Chauncy Emerson is a lawyer now settled in this town, and, as I believe, no better Lord Hamlet was ever. He is our Doctor on all questions of taste, manners, or action. And one of the pure pleasures I promise myself in the months to come is to make you two gentlemen know each other. "

Alas for human hopes and prospects! In less than a year from the date ofthat letter, on the 17th of September, 1836, he writes to Carlyle:--

 "Your last letter, dated in April, found me a mourner, as did your first. I have lost out of this world my brother Charles, of whom I have spoken to you, --the friend and companion of many years, the inmate of my house, a man of a beautiful genius, born to speak well, and whose conversation for these last years has treated every grave question of humanity, and has been my daily bread. I have put so much dependence on his gifts, that we made but one man together; for I needed never to do what he could do by noble nature, much better than I. He was to have been married in this month, and at the time of his sickness and sudden death, I was adding apartments to my house for his permanent accommodation. I wish that you could have known him. At twenty-seven years the best life is only preparation. He built his foundation so large that it needed the full age of man to make evident the plan and proportions of his character. He postponed always a particular to a final and absolute success, so that his life was a silent appeal to the great and generous. But some time I shall see you and speak of him. "

Section 3. In the year 1836 there was published in Boston a little bookof less than a hundred very small pages, entitled "Nature. " It bore noname on its title-page, but was at once attributed to its real author, Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

The Emersonian adept will pardon me for burdening this beautiful Essaywith a commentary which is worse than superfluous for him. For it hasproved for many, --I will not say a _pons asinorum_, --but a very narrowbridge, which it made their heads swim to attempt crossing, and yet theymust cross it, or one domain of Emerson's intellect will not be reached. 

It differed in some respects from anything he had hitherto written. Ittalked a strange sort of philosophy in the language of poetry. Beginningsimply enough, it took more and more the character of a rhapsody, until, as if lifted off his feet by the deepened and stronger undercurrent ofhis thought, the writer dropped his personality and repeated the wordswhich "a certain poet sang" to him. 

This little book met with a very unemotional reception. Its style waspeculiar, --almost as unlike that of his Essays as that of Carlyle's"Sartor Resartus" was unlike the style of his "Life of Schiller. " It wasvague, mystic, incomprehensible, to most of those who call themselvescommon-sense people. Some of its expressions lent themselves easily totravesty and ridicule. But the laugh could not be very loud or verylong, since it took twelve years, as Mr. Higginson tells us, to sellfive hundred copies. It was a good deal like Keats's

 "doubtful tale from fairy-land Hard for the non-elect to understand. "

The same experience had been gone through by Wordsworth. 

 "Whatever is too original, " says De Quincey, "will be hated at the first. It must slowly mould a public for itself; and the resistance of the early thoughtless judgments must be overcome by a counter-resistance to itself, in a better audience slowly mustering against the first. Forty and seven years it is since William Wordsworth first appeared as an author. Twenty of these years he was the scoff of the world, and his poetry a by-word of scorn. Since then, and more than once, senates have rung with acclamations to the echo of his name. "

No writer is more deeply imbued with the spirit of Wordsworth thanEmerson, as we cannot fail to see in turning the pages of "Nature, " hisfirst thoroughly characteristic Essay. There is the same thought in thePreface to "The Excursion" that we find in the Introduction to "Nature. "

 "The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?"

 "Paradise and groves Elysian, Fortunate Fields--like those of old Sought in the Atlantic Main, why should they be A history only of departed things, Or a mere fiction of what never was?"

"Nature" is a reflective prose poem. It is divided into eight chapters, which might almost as well have been called cantos. 

Never before had Mr. Emerson given free utterance to the passion withwhich the aspects of nature inspired him. He had recently for the firsttime been at once master of himself and in free communion with all theplanetary influences above, beneath, around him. The air of the countryintoxicated him. There are sentences in "Nature" which are as exaltedas the language of one who is just coming to himself after having beenetherized. Some of these expressions sounded to a considerable part ofhis early readers like the vagaries of delirium. Yet underlying theseexcited outbursts there was a general tone of serenity which reassuredthe anxious. The gust passed over, the ripples smoothed themselves, andthe stars shone again in quiet reflection. 

After a passionate outbreak, in which he sees all, is nothing, loseshimself in nature, in Universal Being, becomes "part or particle ofGod, " he considers briefly, in the chapter entitled _Commodity_, theministry of nature to the senses. A few picturesque glimpses in pleasingand poetical phrases, with a touch of archaism, and reminiscences ofHamlet and Jeremy Taylor, "the Shakspeare of divines, " as he hascalled him, are what we find in this chapter on Commodity, or naturalconveniences. 

But "a nobler want of man is served by Nature, namely, the loveof _Beauty_" which is his next subject. There are some touches ofdescription here, vivid, high-colored, not so much pictures as hints andimpressions for pictures. 

Many of the thoughts which run through all his prose and poetry may befound here. Analogy is seen everywhere in the works of Nature. "What iscommon to them all, --that perfectness and harmony, is beauty. "--"Nothingis quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. "--"Noreason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. " How easilythese same ideas took on the robe of verse may be seen in the Poems, "Each and All, " and "The Rhodora. " A good deal of his philosophy comesout in these concluding sentences of the chapter:--

 "Beauty in its largest and profoundest sense is one expression for the universe; God is the all-fair. Truth and goodness and beauty are but different faces of the same All. But beauty in Nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good. It must therefore stand as a part and not as yet the highest expression of the final cause of Nature. ". 

In the "Rhodora" the flower is made to answer that

 "Beauty is its own excuse for being. "

In this Essay the beauty of the flower is not enough, but it must excuseitself for being, mainly as the symbol of something higher and deeperthan itself. 

He passes next to a consideration of _Language_. Words are signs ofnatural facts, particular material facts are symbols of particularspiritual facts, and Nature is the symbol of spirit. Without going veryprofoundly into the subject, he gives some hints as to the mode inwhich languages are formed, --whence words are derived, how they becometransformed and worn out. But they come at first fresh from Nature. 

 "A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that always a material image, more or less luminous, arises in his mind, contemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the vestment of the thought. Hence good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. "

From this he argues that country life is a great advantage to a powerfulmind, inasmuch as it furnishes a greater number of these materialimages. They cannot be summoned at will, but they present themselveswhen great exigencies call for them. 

 "The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without design and without heed, --shall not lose their lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter, amidst agitations and terror in national councils, --in the hour of revolution, --these solemn images shall reappear in their morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thought which the passing events shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these forms the spells of persuasion, the keys of power, are put into his hands. "

It is doing no wrong to this very eloquent and beautiful passage to saythat it reminds us of certain lines in one of the best known poems ofWordsworth:--

 "These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye; But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness sensations sweet Felt in the blood and felt along the heart. "

It is needless to quote the whole passage. The poetry of Wordsworth mayhave suggested the prose of Emerson, but the prose loses nothing by thecomparison. 

In _Discipline_, which is his next subject, he treats of the influenceof Nature in educating the intellect, the moral sense, and the will. Man is enlarged and the universe lessened and brought within his grasp, because

 "Time and space relations vanish as laws are known. "--"The moral law lies at the centre of Nature and radiates to the circumference. "--"All things with which we deal preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel?"--"From the child's successive possession of his several senses up to the hour when he sayeth, 'Thy will be done!' he is learning the secret that he can reduce under his will, not only particular events, but great classes, nay, the whole series of events, and so conform all facts to his character. "

The unity in variety which meets us everywhere is again referred to. He alludes to the ministry of our friendships to our education. When afriend has done for our education in the way of filling our minds withsweet and solid wisdom "it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time. " Thisthought was probably suggested by the death of his brother Charles, which occurred a few months before "Nature" was published. He hadalready spoken in the first chapter of this little book as if from somerecent experience of his own, doubtless the same bereavement. "To a manlaboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who hasjust lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts downover less worth in the population. " This was the first effect of theloss; but after a time he recognizes a superintending power which ordersevents for us in wisdom which we could not see at first. 

The chapter on _Idealism_ must be read by all who believe themselvescapable of abstract thought, if they would not fall under the judgmentof Turgot, which Emerson quotes: "He that has never doubted theexistence of matter may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysicalinquiries. " The most essential statement is this:--

 "It is a sufficient account of that Appearance we call the World, that God will teach a human mind, and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruent sensations, which we call sun and moon, man and woman, house and trade. In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in Heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the Soul?"

We need not follow the thought through the argument from illusions, likethat when we look at the shore from a moving ship, and others whichcheat the senses by false appearances. 

The poet animates Nature with his own thoughts, perceives the affinitiesbetween Nature and the soul, with Beauty as his main end. Thephilosopher pursues Truth, but, "not less than the poet, postponesthe apparent order and relation of things to the empire of thought. "Religion and ethics agree with all lower culture in degrading Natureand suggesting its dependence on Spirit. "The devotee floutsNature. "--"Plotinus was ashamed of his body. "--"Michael Angelo said ofexternal beauty, 'it is the frail and weary weed, in which God dressesthe soul, which He has called into time. '" Emerson would notundervalue Nature as looked at through the senses and "the unrenewedunderstanding. " "I have no hostility to Nature, " he says, "but achild's love of it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn andmelons. "--But, "seen in the light of thought, the world always isphenomenal; and virtue subordinates it to the mind. Idealism sees theworld in God, "--as one vast picture, which God paints on the instanteternity, for the contemplation of the soul. 

The unimaginative reader is likely to find himself off soundings in thenext chapter, which has for its title _Spirit_. 

Idealism only denies the existence of matter; it does not satisfy thedemands of the spirit. "It leaves God out of me. "--Of these threequestions, What is matter? Whence is it? Where to? The ideal theoryanswers the first only. The reply is that matter is a phenomenon, not asubstance. 

 "But when we come to inquire Whence is matter? and Whereto? many truths arise to us out of the recesses of consciousness. We learn that the highest is present to the soul of man, that the dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; that spirit is one and not compound; that spirit does not act upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves. "--"As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at his need, inexhaustible power. "

Man may have access to the entire mind of the Creator, himself become a"creator in the finite. "

 "As we degenerate, the contrast between us and our house is more evident. We are as much strangers in nature as we are aliens from God. We do not understand the notes of birds. The fox and the deer run away from us; the bear and the tiger rend us. "

All this has an Old Testament sound as of a lost Paradise. In the nextchapter he dreams of Paradise regained. 

This next and last chapter is entitled _Prospects_. He begins witha bold claim for the province of intuition as against induction, undervaluing the "half sight of science" as against the "untaughtsallies of the spirit, " the surmises and vaticinations of the mind, --the"imperfect theories, and sentences which contain glimpses of truth. " Ina word, he would have us leave the laboratory and its crucibles forthe sibyl's cave and its tripod. We can all--or most of us, certainly--recognize something of truth, much of imagination, and moreof danger in speculations of this sort. They belong to visionaries andto poets. Emerson feels distinctly enough that he is getting into therealm of poetry. He quotes five beautiful verses from George Herbert's"Poem on Man. " Presently he is himself taken off his feet into the airof song, and finishes his Essay with "some traditions of man and naturewhich a certain poet sang to me. "--"A man is a god in ruins. "--"Man isthe dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit. Hefilled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from him sprang thesun and moon; from man the sun, from woman the moon. "--But he no longerfills the mere shell he had made for himself; "he is shrunk to a drop. "Still something of elemental power remains to him. "It is instinct. "Such teachings he got from his "poet. " It is a kind of New EnglandGenesis in place of the Old Testament one. We read in the Sermon on theMount: "Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect. "The discourse which comes to us from the Trimount oracle commands us, "Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life tothe pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. " Theseer of Patmos foretells a heavenly Jerusalem, of which he says, "Thereshall in no wise enter into it anything which defileth. " The sage ofConcord foresees a new heaven on earth. "A correspondent revolution inthings will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast will disagreeableappearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, mad-houses, prisons, enemies, vanish; they are temporary and shall be no more seen. "

 * * * * *

It may be remembered that Calvin, in his Commentary on the NewTestament, stopped when he came to the book of the "Revelation. " Hefound it full of difficulties which he did not care to encounter. Yet, considered only as a poem, the vision of St. John is full of nobleimagery and wonderful beauty. "Nature" is the Book of Revelation of ourSaint Radulphus. It has its obscurities, its extravagances, but as apoem it is noble and inspiring. It was objected to on the score of itspantheistic character, as Wordsworth's "Lines composed near TinternAbbey" had been long before. But here and there it found devout readerswho were captivated by its spiritual elevation and great poeticalbeauty, among them one who wrote of it in the "Democratic Review" interms of enthusiastic admiration. 

Mr. Bowen, the Professor of Natural Theology and Moral Philosophyin Harvard University, treated this singular semi-philosophical, semi-poetical little book in a long article in the "Christian Examiner, "headed "Transcendentalism, " and published in the January number for1837. The acute and learned Professor meant to deal fairly with hissubject. But if one has ever seen a sagacious pointer making theacquaintance of a box-tortoise, he will have an idea of the relationsbetween the reviewer and the reviewed as they appear in this article. The professor turns the book over and over, --inspects it from plastronto carapace, so to speak, and looks for openings everywhere, sometimessuccessfully, sometimes in vain. He finds good writing and soundphilosophy, passages of great force and beauty of expression, marred byobscurity, under assumptions and faults of style. He was not, any morethan the rest of us, acclimated to the Emersonian atmosphere, and aftersome not unjust or unkind comments with which many readers will heartilyagree, confesses his bewilderment, saying:--

 "On reviewing what we have already said of this singular work, the criticism seems to be couched in contradictory terms; we can only allege in excuse the fact that the book is a contradiction in itself. "

Carlyle says in his letter of February 13, 1837:--

 "Your little azure-colored 'Nature' gave me true satisfaction. I read it, and then lent it about to all my acquaintances that had a sense for such things; from whom a similar verdict always came back. You say it is the first chapter of something greater. I call it rather the Foundation and Ground-plan on which you may build whatsoever of great and true has been given you to build. It is the true Apocalypse, this when the 'Open Secret' becomes revealed to a man. I rejoice much in the glad serenity of soul with which you look out on this wondrous Dwelling-place of yours and mine, --with an ear for the _Ewigen Melodien_, which pipe in the winds round us, and utter themselves forth in all sounds and sights and things; _not_ to be written down by gamut-machinery; but which all right writing is a kind of attempt to write down. "

The first edition of "Nature" had prefixed to it the following wordsfrom Plotinus: "Nature is but an image or imitation of wisdom, the lastthing of the soul; Nature being a thing which doth only do, but notknow. " This is omitted in after editions, and in its place we read:--

 "A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings; The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose; And striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form. "

The copy of "Nature" from which I take these lines, his own, of course, like so many others which he prefixed to his different Essays, wasprinted in the year 1849, ten years before the publication of Darwin's"Origin of Species, " twenty years and more before the publication of"The Descent of Man. " But the "Vestiges of Creation, " published in 1844, had already popularized the resuscitated theories of Lamarck. It seemsas if Emerson had a warning from the poetic instinct which, when it doesnot precede the movement of the scientific intellect, is the first tocatch the hint of its discoveries. There is nothing more audacious inthe poet's conception of the worm looking up towards humanity, thanthe naturalist's theory that the progenitor of the human race was anacephalous mollusk. "I will not be sworn, " says Benedick, "but love maytransform me to an oyster. " For "love" read science. 

Unity in variety, "_il piu nell uno_" symbolism of Nature and itsteachings, generation of phenomena, --appearances, --from spirit, towhich they correspond and which they obey; evolution of the best andelimination of the worst as the law of being; all this and much more maybe found in the poetic utterances of this slender Essay. It fell like anaerolite, unasked for, unaccounted for, unexpected, almost unwelcome, --astumbling-block to be got out of the well-trodden highway of New Englandscholastic intelligence. But here and there it found a reader to whom itwas, to borrow, with slight changes, its own quotation, --

 "The golden key Which opes the palace of eternity, "

inasmuch as it carried upon its face the highest certificate of truth, because it animated them to create a new world for themselves throughthe purification of their own souls. 

Next to "Nature" in the series of his collected publications comes "TheAmerican Scholar. An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Societyat Cambridge, August 31, 1837. "

The Society known by these three letters, long a mystery to theuninitiated, but which, filled out and interpreted, signify thatphilosophy is the guide of life, is one of long standing, theannual meetings of which have called forth the best efforts of manydistinguished scholars and thinkers. Rarely has any one of the annualaddresses been listened to with such profound attention and interest. Mr. Lowell says of it, that its delivery "was an event without anyformer parallel in our literary annals, a scene to be always treasuredin the memory for its picturesqueness and its inspiration. What crowdedand breathless aisles, what windows clustering with eager heads, whatenthusiasm of approval, what grim silence of foregone dissent!"

Mr. Cooke says truly of this oration, that nearly all his leading ideasfound expression in it. This was to be expected in an address deliveredbefore such an audience. Every real thinker's world of thought has itscentre in a few formulae, about which they revolve as the planets circleround the sun which cast them off. But those who lost themselves now andthen in the pages of "Nature" will find their way clearly enough throughthose of "The American Scholar. " It is a plea for generous culture;for the development of all the faculties, many of which tend to becomeatrophied by the exclusive pursuit of single objects of thought. Itbegins with a note like a trumpet call. 

 "Thus far, " he says, "our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come when it ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the postponed expectations of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt that poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce shall one day be the pole-star for a thousand years?"

Emerson finds his text in the old fable which tells that Man, as he wasin the beginning, was divided into men, as the hand was divided intofingers, the better to answer the end of his being. The fable covers thedoctrine that there is One Man; present to individuals only in a partialmanner; and that we must take the whole of society to find the wholeman. Unfortunately the unit has been too minutely subdivided, and manyfaculties are practically lost for want of use. "The state of society isone in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, andstrut about so many walking monsters, --a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. . . . Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. . . . The priest becomes a form; the attorney a statutebook; the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of the ship. "

This complaint is by no means a new one. Scaliger says, as quotedby omnivorous old Burton: "_Nequaquam, nos homines sumus sed parteshominis_. " The old illustration of this used to be found in pin-making. It took twenty different workmen to make a pin, beginning with drawingthe wire and ending with sticking in the paper. Each expert, skilledin one small performance only, was reduced to a minute fraction of afraction of humanity. If the complaint was legitimate in Scaliger'stime, it was better founded half a century ago when Mr. Emerson foundcause for it. It has still more serious significance to-day, whenin every profession, in every branch of human knowledge, specialacquirements, special skill have greatly tended to limit the range ofmen's thoughts and working faculties. 

 "In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is _Man thinking_. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. In this view of him, as Man thinking, the theory of his office is continued. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her monitory pictures; him the past instructs; him the future invites. "

Emerson proceeds to describe and illustrate the influences of natureupon the mind, returning to the strain of thought with which hisprevious Essay has made us familiar. He next considers the influence ofthe past, and especially of books as the best type of that influence. "Books are the best of things well used; abused among the worst. " It ishard to distil what is already a quintessence without loss of what isjust as good as the product of our labor. A sentence or two may serve togive an impression of the epigrammatic wisdom of his counsel. 

 "Each age must write its own books, or, rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. "

When a book has gained a certain hold on the mind, it is liable tobecome an object of idolatrous regard. 

 "Instantly the book becomes noxious: the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of reason, having once so opened, having received this book, stands upon it and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principle. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. --One must he an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, 'He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies. '--When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. "

It is not enough that the scholar should be a student of nature and ofbooks. He must take a part in the affairs of the world about him. 

 "Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never ripen into truth. --The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products. A strange process, too, this by which experience is converted into thought as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours. "

Emerson does not use the words "unconscious cerebration, " but theselast words describe the process in an unmistakable way. The beautifulparagraph in which he pictures the transformation, the transfigurationof experience, closes with a sentence so thoroughly characteristic, soEmersonially Emersonian, that I fear some readers who thought they werehis disciples when they came to it went back and walked no more withhim, at least through the pages of this discourse. The reader shall havethe preceding sentence to prepare him for the one referred to. 

 "There is no fact, no event in our private history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean. 

 "Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, and ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and many another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend and relative, professions and party, town and country, nation and world must also soar and sing. "

Having spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, byaction, he speaks of the scholar's duties. "They may all, " he says, "becomprised in self-trust. " We have to remember that the _self_ he meansis the highest self, that consciousness which he looks upon as open tothe influx of the divine essence from which it came, and towards whichall its upward tendencies lead, always aspiring, never resting; as hesings in "The Sphinx ":--

 "The heavens that now draw him With sweetness untold, Once found, --for new heavens He spurneth the old. "

 "First one, then another, we drain all cisterns, and waxing greater by all these supplies, we crave a better and more abundant food. The man has never lived that can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side of this unbounded, unboundable empire. It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of the lips of Etna, lightens the Capes of Sicily, and now out of the throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men. "

And so he comes to the special application of the principles he has laiddown to the American scholar of to-day. He does not spare his censure;he is full of noble trust and manly courage. Very refreshing it isto remember in this day of specialists, when the walking fraction ofhumanity he speaks of would hardly include a whole finger, but ratherconfine itself to the single joint of the finger, such words as these:--

 "The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must he a university of knowledges. . . . We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. --The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. --The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant. "

The young men of promise are discouraged and disgusted. 

 "What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. "

Each man must be a unit, --must yield that peculiar fruit which he wascreated to bear. 

 "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. --A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men. "

This grand Oration was our intellectual Declaration of Independence. Nothing like it had been heard in the halls of Harvard since SamuelAdams supported the affirmative of the question, "Whether it be lawfulto resist the chief magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot otherwise bepreserved. " It was easy to find fault with an expression here and there. The dignity, not to say the formality of an Academic assembly wasstartled by the realism that looked for the infinite in "the meal in thefirkin; the milk in the pan. " They could understand the deep thoughtssuggested by "the meanest flower that blows, " but these domesticillustrations had a kind of nursery homeliness about them which thegrave professors and sedate clergymen were unused to expect on sostately an occasion. But the young men went out from it as if a prophethad been proclaiming to them "Thus saith the Lord. " No listener everforgot that Address, and among all the noble utterances of the speakerit may be questioned if one ever contained more truth in language morelike that of immediate inspiration. 

CHAPTER V. 

1838-1843. AET. 35-40. 

Section 1. Divinity School Address. --Correspondence. --Lectures on HumanLife. --Letters to James Freeman Clarke. --Dartmouth College Address:Literary Ethics. --Waterville College Address: The Method ofNature. --Other Addresses: Man the Reformer. --Lecture on the Times. --TheConservative. --The Transcendentalist. --Boston "Transcendentalism. "--"TheDial. "--Brook Farm. 

Section 2. First Series of Essays published. --Contents: History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Oversoul, Circles, Intellect, Art. --Emerson's Accountof his Mode of Life in a Letter to Carlyle. --Death of Emerson'sSon. --Threnody. 

Section 1. On Sunday evening, July 15, 1838, Emerson delivered anAddress before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, which caused a profound sensation in religious circles, and led to acontroversy, in which Emerson had little more than the part of Patrocluswhen the Greeks and Trojans fought over his body. In its simplestand broadest statement this discourse was a plea for the individualconsciousness as against all historical creeds, bibles, churches; forthe soul as the supreme judge in spiritual matters. 

He begins with a beautiful picture which must be transferred without thechange of an expression:--

 "In this refulgent Summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm of Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. "

How softly the phrases of the gentle iconoclast steal upon the ear, and how they must have hushed the questioning audience into pleasedattention! The "Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, " could not have wooedthe listener more sweetly. "Thy lips drop as the honeycomb: honey andmilk are under thy tongue, and the smell of thy garments is like thesmell of Lebanon. " And this was the prelude of a discourse which, whenit came to be printed, fared at the hands of many a theologian, who didnot think himself a bigot, as the roll which Baruch wrote with ink fromthe words of Jeremiah fared at the hands of Jehoiakim, the King ofJudah. He listened while Jehudi read the opening passages. But "whenJehudi had read three or four leaves he cut it with the penknife, andcast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll wasconsumed in the fire that was on the hearth. " Such was probably the fateof many a copy of this famous discourse. 

It is reverential, but it is also revolutionary. The file-leaders ofUnitarianism drew back in dismay, and the ill names which had often beenapplied to them were now heard from their own lips as befitting thisnew heresy; if so mild a reproach as that of heresy belonged to thisalarming manifesto. And yet, so changed is the whole aspect of thetheological world since the time when that discourse was delivered thatit is read as calmly to-day as a common "Election Sermon, " if such areever read at all. A few extracts, abstracts, and comments may give thereader who has not the Address before him some idea of its contents andits tendencies. 

The material universe, which he has just pictured in its summer beauty, deserves our admiration. But when the mind opens and reveals the lawswhich govern the world of phenomena, it shrinks into a mere fable andillustration of this mind. What am I? What is?--are questions alwaysasked, never fully answered. We would study and admire forever. 

But above intellectual curiosity, there is the sentiment of virtue. Manis born for the good, for the perfect, low as he now lies in evil andweakness. "The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in thepresence of certain divine laws. --These laws refuse to be adequatelystated. --They elude our persevering thought; yet we read them hourly ineach other's faces, in each other's actions, in our own remorse. --Theintuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection ofthe laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves. --As we are, so weassociate. The good, by affinity, seek the good; the vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus, of their own volition, souls proceed into heaven, intohell. "

These facts, Emerson says, have always suggested to man that theworld is the product not of manifold power, but of one will, of onemind, --that one mind is everywhere active. --"All things proceed out ofthe same spirit, and all things conspire with it. " While a man seeksgood ends, nature helps him; when he seeks other ends, his beingshrinks, "he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolutebadness is absolute death. "--"When he says 'I ought;' when love warmshim; when he chooses, warned from on high, the good and great deed; thendeep melodies wander through his soul from Supreme Wisdom. "

 "This sentiment lies at the foundation of society and successively creates all forms of worship. --This thought dwelled always deepest in the minds of men in the devout and contemplative East; not alone in Palestine, where it reached its purest expression, but in Egypt, in Persia, in India, in China. Europe has always owed to Oriental genius its divine impulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true. And the unique impression of Jesus upon mankind, whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of this world, is proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion. "

But this truth cannot be received at second hand; it is an intuition. What another announces, I must find true in myself, or I must rejectit. If the word of another is taken instead of this primary faith, thechurch, the state, art, letters, life, all suffer degradation, --"thedoctrine of inspiration is lost; the base doctrine of the majority ofvoices usurps the place of the doctrine of the soul. "

The following extract will show the view that he takes of Christianityand its Founder, and sufficiently explain the antagonism called forth bythe discourse:--

 "Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his World. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, 'I am Divine. Through me God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think. ' But what a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next, and the following ages! There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding. The understanding caught this high chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age, 'This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you if you say he was a man. ' The idioms of his language and the figures of his rhetoric have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principles, but on his tropes. Christianity became a Mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece and of Egypt, before. He spoke of Miracles; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this miracle shines as the character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain. "

He proceeds to point out what he considers the great defects ofhistorical Christianity. It has exaggerated the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has wronged mankind by monopolizing all virtues for theChristian name. It is only by his holy thoughts that Jesus serves us. "To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. " Thepreachers do a wrong to Jesus by removing him from our human sympathies;they should not degrade his life and dialogues by insulation andpeculiarity. 

Another defect of the traditional and limited way of using the mind ofChrist is that the Moral Nature--the Law of Laws--is not explored as thefountain of the established teaching in society. "Men have come to speakof the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God weredead. "--"The soul is not preached. The church seems to totter to itsfall, almost all life extinct. --The stationariness of religion; theassumption that the age of inspiration is past; that the Bible isclosed; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representinghim as a man; indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of ourtheology. It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, notwas; that he speaketh, not spake. The true Christianity--a faith likeChrist's in the infinitude of Man--is lost. "

When Emerson came to what his earlier ancestors would have called the"practical application, " some of his young hearers must have beenstartled at the style of his address. 

 "Yourself a new--born bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity. Look to it first and only, that fashion, custom, authority, pleasure, and money are nothing to you, --are not bandages over your eyes, that you cannot see, --but live with the privilege of the immeasurable mind. "

Emerson recognizes two inestimable advantages as the gift ofChristianity; first the Sabbath, --hardly a Christian institution, --andsecondly the institution of preaching. He spoke not only eloquently, butwith every evidence of deep sincerity and conviction. He had sacrificedan enviable position to that inner voice of duty which he now proclaimedas the sovereign law over all written or spoken words. But he wasassailing the cherished beliefs of those before him, and of Christendomgenerally; not with hard or bitter words, not with sarcasm or levity, rather as one who felt himself charged with a message from the samedivinity who had inspired the prophets and evangelists of old withwhatever truth was in their messages. He might be wrong, but his wordscarried the evidence of his own serene, unshaken confidence that thespirit of all truth was with him. Some of his audience, at least, musthave felt the contrast between his utterances and the formal discoursesthey had so long listened to, and said to themselves, "he speaks 'as onehaving authority, and not as the Scribes. '"

Such teaching, however, could not be suffered to go unchallenged. Itsdoctrines were repudiated in the "Christian Examiner, " the leading organof the Unitarian denomination. The Rev. Henry Ware, greatly esteemedand honored, whose colleague he had been, addressed a letter to him, inwhich he expressed the feeling that some of the statements of Emerson'sdiscourse would tend to overthrow the authority and influence ofChristianity. To this note Emerson returned the following answer:--

 "What you say about the discourse at Divinity College is just what I might expect from your truth and charity, combined with your known opinions. I am not a stick or a stone, as one said in the old time, and could not but feel pain in saying some things in that place and presence which I supposed would meet with dissent, I may say, of dear friends and benefactors of mine. Yet, as my conviction is perfect in the substantial truth of the doctrines of this discourse, and is not very new, you will see at once that it must appear very important that it be spoken; and I thought I could not pay the nobleness of my friends so mean a compliment as to suppress my opposition to their supposed views, out of fear of offence. I would rather say to them, these things look thus to me, to you otherwise. Let us say our uttermost word, and let the all-pervading truth, as it surely will, judge between us. Either of us would, I doubt not, be willingly apprised of his error. Meantime, I shall be admonished by this expression of your thought, to revise with greater care the 'address, ' before it is printed (for the use of the class): and I heartily thank you for this expression of your tried toleration and love. "

Dr. Ware followed up his note with a sermon, preached on the 23d ofSeptember, in which he dwells especially on the necessity of adding theidea of personality to the abstractions of Emerson's philosophy, andsent it to him with a letter, the kindness and true Christian spirit ofwhich were only what were inseparable from all the thoughts and feelingsof that most excellent and truly apostolic man. 

To this letter Emerson sent the following reply:--

 CONCORD, October 8, 1838. 

 "MY DEAR SIR, --I ought sooner to have acknowledged your kind letter of last week, and the sermon it accompanied. The letter was right manly and noble. The sermon, too, I have read with attention. If it assails any doctrine of mine, --perhaps I am not so quick to see it as writers generally, --certainly I did not feel any disposition to depart from my habitual contentment, that you should say your thought, whilst I say mine. I believe I must tell you what I think of my new position. It strikes me very oddly that good and wise men at Cambridge and Boston should think of raising me into an object of criticism. I have always been--from my very incapacity of methodical writing--a 'chartered libertine, ' free to worship and free to rail, --lucky when I could make myself understood, but never esteemed near enough to the institutions and mind of society to deserve the notice of the masters of literature and religion. I have appreciated fully the advantages of my position, for I well know there is no scholar less willing or less able than myself to be a polemic. I could not give an account of myself, if challenged. I could not possibly give you one of the 'arguments' you cruelly hint at, on which any doctrine of mine stands; for I do not know what arguments are in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised to the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage, who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall do no such thing. I shall read what you and other good men write, as I have always done, glad when you speak my thoughts, and skipping the page that has nothing for me. I shall go on just as before, seeing whatever I can, and telling what I see; and, I suppose, with the same fortune that has hitherto attended me, --the joy of finding that my abler and better brothers, who work with the sympathy of society, loving and beloved, do now and then unexpectedly confirm my conceptions, and find my nonsense is only their own thought in motley, --and so I am your affectionate servant, " etc. 

The controversy which followed is a thing of the past; Emerson took nopart in it, and we need not return to the discussion. He knew hisoffice and has defined it in the clearest manner in the letter justgiven, --"Seeing whatever I can, and telling what I see. " But among hislisteners and readers was a man of very different mental constitution, not more independent or fearless, but louder and more combative, whosevoice soon became heard and whose strength soon began to be felt in thelong battle between the traditional and immanent inspiration, --TheodoreParker. If Emerson was the moving spirit, he was the right arm in theconflict, which in one form or another has been waged up to the presentday. 

In the winter of 1838-39 Emerson delivered his usual winter courseof Lectures. He names them in a letter to Carlyle as follows: "TenLectures: I. The Doctrine of the Soul; II. Home; III. The School; IV. Love; V. Genius; VI. The Protest; VII. Tragedy; VIII. Comedy; IX. Duty;X. Demonology. I designed to add two more, but my lungs played me falsewith unseasonable inflammation, so I discoursed no more on Human Life. "Two or three of these titles only are prefixed to his published Lecturesor Essays; Love, in the first volume of Essays; Demonology in "Lecturesand Biographical Sketches;" and "The Comic" in "Letters and SocialAims. "

 * * * * *

I owe the privilege of making use of the two following letters to mykind and honored friend, James Freeman Clarke. 

The first letter was accompanied by the Poem "The Humble-bee, " whichwas first published by Mr. Clarke in the "Western Messenger, " from theautograph copy, which begins "Fine humble-bee! fine humble-bee!" and hasa number of other variations from the poem as printed in his collectedworks. 

 CONCORD, December 7, 1838. 

 MY DEAR SIR, --Here are the verses. They have pleased some of my friends, and so may please some of your readers, and you asked me in the spring if I hadn't somewhat to contribute to your journal. I remember in your letter you mentioned the remark of some friend of yours that the verses, "Take, O take those lips away, " were not Shakspeare's; I think they are. Beaumont, nor Fletcher, nor both together were ever, I think, visited by such a starry gleam as that stanza. I know it is in "Rollo, " but it is in "Measure for Measure" also; and I remember noticing that the Malones, and Stevens, and critical gentry were about evenly divided, these for Shakspeare, and those for Beaumont and Fletcher. But the internal evidence is all for one, none for the other. If he did not write it, they did not, and we shall have some fourth unknown singer. What care we _who_ sung this or that. It is we at last who sing. Your friend and servant, R. W. EMERSON. 

TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 

 CONCORD, February 27, 1839. 

 MY DEAR SIR, --I am very sorry to have made you wait so long for an answer to your flattering request for two such little poems. You are quite welcome to the lines "To the Rhodora;" but I think they need the superscription ["Lines on being asked 'Whence is the Flower?'"]. Of the other verses ["Good-by proud world, " etc] I send you a corrected copy, but I wonder so much at your wishing to print them that I think you must read them once again with your critical spectacles before they go further. They were written sixteen years ago, when I kept school in Boston, and lived in a corner of Roxbury called Canterbury. They have a slight misanthropy, a shade deeper than belongs to me; and as it seems nowadays I am a philosopher and am grown to have opinions, I think they must have an apologetic date, though I well know that poetry that needs a date is no poetry, and so you will wiselier suppress them. I heartily wish I had any verses which with a clear mind I could send you in lieu of these juvenilities. It is strange, seeing the delight we take in verses, that we can so seldom write them, and so are not ashamed to lay up old ones, say sixteen years, instead of improvising them as freely as the wind blows, whenever we and our brothers are attuned to music. I have heard of a citizen who made an annual joke. I believe I have in April or May an annual poetic _conatus_ rather than _afflatus_, experimenting to the length of thirty lines or so, if I may judge from the dates of the rhythmical scraps I detect among my MSS. I look upon this incontinence as merely the redundancy of a susceptibility to poetry which makes all the bards my daily treasures, and I can well run the risk of being ridiculous once a year for the benefit of happy reading all the other days. In regard to the Providence Discourse, I have no copy of it; and as far as I remember its contents, I have since used whatever is striking in it; but I will get the MS. , if Margaret Fuller has it, and you shall have it if it will pass muster. I shall certainly avail myself of the good order you gave me for twelve copies of the "Carlyle Miscellanies, " so soon as they appear. He, T. C. , writes in excellent spirits of his American friends and readers. . . . A new book, he writes, is growing in him, though not to begin until his spring lectures are over (which begin in May). Your sister Sarah was kind enough to carry me the other day to see some pencil sketches done by Stuart Newton when in the Insane Hospital. They seemed to me to betray the richest invention, so rich as almost to say, why draw any line since you can draw all? Genius has given you the freedom of the universe, why then come within any walls? And this seems to be the old moral which we draw from our fable, read it how or where you will, that we cannot make one good stroke until we can make every possible stroke; and when we can one, every one seems superfluous. I heartily thank you for the good wishes you send me to open the year, and I say them back again to you. Your field is a world, and all men are your spectators, and all men respect the true and great-hearted service you render. And yet it is not spectator nor spectacle that concerns either you or me. The whole world is sick of that very ail, of being seen, and of seemliness. It belongs to the brave now to trust themselves infinitely, and to sit and hearken alone. I am glad to see William Channing is one of your coadjutors. Mrs. Jameson's new book, I should think, would bring a caravan of travellers, aesthetic, artistic, and what not, up your mighty stream, or along the lakes to Mackinaw. As I read I almost vowed an exploration, but I doubt if I ever get beyond the Hudson. 

 Your affectionate servant, R. W. EMERSON. 

On the 24th of July, 1838, a little more than a week after the deliveryof the Address before the Divinity School, Mr. Emerson delivered anOration before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College. If any rumorof the former discourse had reached Dartmouth, the audience must havebeen prepared for a much more startling performance than that towhich they listened. The bold avowal which fluttered the dovecotes ofCambridge would have sounded like the crash of doom to the cautiousold tenants of the Hanover aviary. If there were any drops of false orquestionable doctrine in the silver shower of eloquence under whichthey had been sitting, the plumage of orthodoxy glistened with unctuousrepellents, and a shake or two on coming out of church left the sturdyold dogmatists as dry as ever. 

Those who remember the Dartmouth College of that day cannot help smilingat the thought of the contrast in the way of thinking between thespeaker and the larger part, or at least the older part, of hisaudience. President Lord was well known as the scriptural defender ofthe institution of slavery. Not long before a controversy had arisen, provoked by the setting up of the Episcopal form of worship by one ofthe Professors, the most estimable and scholarly Dr. Daniel Oliver. Perhaps, however, the extreme difference between the fundamentalconceptions of Mr. Emerson and the endemic orthodoxy of that placeand time was too great for any hostile feeling to be awakened by thesweet-voiced and peaceful-mannered speaker. There is a kind of harmonybetween boldly contrasted beliefs like that between complementarycolors. It is when two shades of the same color are brought side by sidethat comparison makes them odious to each other. Mr. Emerson could goanywhere and find willing listeners among those farthest in their belieffrom the views he held. Such was his simplicity of speech and manner, such his transparent sincerity, that it was next to impossible toquarrel with the gentle image-breaker. 

The subject of Mr. Emerson's Address is _Literary Ethics. _ It is on thesame lofty plane of sentiment and in the same exalted tone of eloquenceas the Phi Beta Kappa Address. The word impassioned would seemmisplaced, if applied to any of Mr. Emerson's orations. But thesediscourses were both written and delivered in the freshness of hiscomplete manhood. They were produced at a time when his mind had learnedits powers and the work to which it was called, in the struggle whichfreed him from the constraint of stereotyped confessions of faith andall peremptory external authority. It is not strange, therefore, to findsome of his paragraphs glowing with heat and sparkling with imaginativeillustration. 

"Neither years nor books, " he says, "have yet availed to extirpate aprejudice rooted in me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven andearth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men. " And yet, he confesses that the scholars of this country have not fulfilledthe reasonable expectation of mankind. "Men here, as elsewhere, areindisposed to innovation and prefer any antiquity, any usage, any liveryproductive of ease or profit, to the unproductive service of thought. "For all this he offers those correctives which in various forms underlieall his teachings. "The resources of the scholar are proportioned to hisconfidence in the attributes of the Intellect. " New lessons of spiritualindependence, fresh examples and illustrations, are drawn from historyand biography. There is a passage here so true to nature that it permitsa half page of quotation and a line or two of comment:--

 "An intimation of these broad rights is familiar in the sense of injury which men feel in the assumption of any man to limit their possible progress. We resent all criticism which denies us anything that lies In our line of advance. Say to the man of letters, that he cannot paint a Transfiguration, or build a steamboat, or be a grand-marshal, and he will not seem to himself depreciated. But deny to him any quality of literary or metaphysical power, and he is piqued. Concede to him genius, which is a sort of stoical _plenum_ annulling the comparative, and he is content; but concede him talents never so rare, denying him genius, and he is aggrieved. "

But it ought to be added that if the pleasure of denying the genius oftheir betters were denied to the mediocrities, their happiness would beforever blighted. 

From the resources of the American Scholar Mr. Emerson passes to histasks. Nature, as it seems to him, has never yet been truly studied. "Poetry has scarcely chanted its first song. The perpetual admonition ofNature to us is, 'The world is new, untried. Do not believe the past. Igive you the universe a virgin to-day. '" And in the same way he wouldhave the scholar look at history, at philosophy. The world belongs tothe student, but he must put himself into harmony with the constitutionof things. "He must embrace solitude as a bride. " Not superstitiously, but after having found out, as a little experience will teach him, allthat society can do for him with its foolish routine. I have spoken ofthe exalted strain into which Mr. Emerson sometimes rises in the midstof his general serenity. Here is an instance of it:--

 "You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What is this truth you seek? What is this beauty?' men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, 'As others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions: I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season;'--then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. --Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom. Why should you renounce your right to traverse the starlit deserts of truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof and house and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread; and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope. "

The next Address Emerson delivered was "The Method of Nature, " beforethe Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11, 1841. 

In writing to Carlyle on the 31st of July, he says: "As usual at thisseason of the year, I, incorrigible spouting Yankee, am writing anoration to deliver to the boys in one of our little country collegesnine days hence. . . . My whole philosophy--which is very real--teachesacquiescence and optimism. Only when I see how much work is to be done, what room for a poet--for any spiritualist--in this great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious America, I lament my fumbling fingers andstammering tongue. " It may be remembered that Mr. Matthew Arnold quotedthe expression about America, which sounded more harshly as pronouncedin a public lecture than as read in a private letter. 

The Oration shows the same vein of thought as the letter. Its title is"The Method of Nature. " He begins with congratulations on the enjoymentsand promises of this literary Anniversary. 

 "The scholars are the priests of that thought which establishes the foundations of the castle. "--"We hear too much of the results of machinery, commerce, and the useful arts. We are a puny and a fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases. The rapid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansion of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; this luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man. "--"While the multitude of men degrade each other, and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar must be a bringer of hope, and must reinforce man against himself. "

I think we may detect more of the manner of Carlyle in this Address thanin any of those which preceded it. 

 "Why then goest thou as some Boswell or literary worshipper to this saint or to that? That is the only lese-majesty. Here art thou with whom so long the universe travailed in labor; darest thou think meanly of thyself whom the stalwart Fate brought forth to unite his ragged sides, to shoot the gulf, to reconcile the irreconcilable?"

That there is an "intimate divinity" which is the source of all truewisdom, that the duty of man is to listen to its voice and to follow it, that "the sanity of man needs the poise of this immanent force, "that the rule is "Do what you know, and perception is converted intocharacter, "--all this is strongly enforced and richly illustrated inthis Oration. Just how easily it was followed by the audience, just howfar they were satisfied with its large principles wrought into a fewbroad precepts, it would be easier at this time to ask than to learn. We notice not so much the novelty of the ideas to be found in thisdiscourse on "The Method of Nature, " as the pictorial beauty oftheir expression. The deep reverence which underlies all Emerson'sspeculations is well shown in this paragraph:--

 "We ought to celebrate this hour by expressions of manly joy. Not thanks nor prayer seem quite the highest or truest name for our communication with the infinite, --but glad and conspiring reception, --reception that becomes giving in its turn as the receiver is only the All-Giver in part and in infancy. "--"It is God in us which checks the language of petition by grander thought. In the bottom of the heart it is said: 'I am, and by me, O child! this fair body and world of thine stands and grows. I am, all things are mine; and all mine are thine. '"

We must not quarrel with his peculiar expressions. He says, in this sameparagraph, "I cannot, --nor can any man, --speak precisely of things sosublime; but it seems to me the wit of man, his strength, his grace, histendency, his art, is the grace and the presence of God. It is beyondexplanation. "

 "We can point nowhere to anything final but tendency; but tendency appears on all hands; planet, system, constellation, total nature is growing like a field of maize in July; is becoming something else; is in rapid metamorphosis. The embryo does not more strive to be man, than yonder burr of light we call a nebula tends to be a ring, a comet, a globe, and parent of new stars. " "In short, the spirit and peculiarity of that impression nature makes on us is this, that it does not exist to any one, or to any number of particular ends, but to numberless and endless benefit; that there is in it no private will, no rebel leaf or limb, but the whole is oppressed by one superincumbent tendency, obeys that redundancy or excess of life which in conscious beings we call ecstasy. "

Here is another of those almost lyrical passages which seem too long forthe music of rhythm and the resonance of rhyme. 

 "The great Pan of old, who was clothed in a leopard skin to signify the beautiful variety of things, and the firmament, his coat of stars, was but the representative of thee, O rich and various Man! thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the City of God; in thy heart the bower of love and the realms of right and wrong. "

His feeling about the soul, which has shown itself in many of theextracts already given, is summed up in the following sentence:--

 "We cannot describe the natural history of the soul, but we know that it is divine. I cannot tell if these wonderful qualities which house to-day in this mental home shall ever reassemble in equal activity in a similar frame, or whether they have before had a natural history like that of this body you see before you; but this one thing I know, that these qualities did not now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in any grave; but that they circulate through the Universe: before the world was, they were. "

It is hard to see the distinction between the omnipresent Deityrecognized in our formal confessions of faith and the "pantheism" whichis the object of dread to many of the faithful. But there are manyexpressions in this Address which must have sounded strangely andvaguely to his Christian audience. "Are there not moments in the historyof heaven when the human race was not counted by individuals, but wasonly the Influenced; was God in distribution, God rushing into manifoldbenefit?" It might be feared that the practical philanthropists wouldfeel that they lost by his counsels. 

 "The reform whose fame now fills the land with Temperance, Anti-Slavery, Non-Resistance, No Government, Equal Labor, fair and generous as each appears, are poor bitter things when prosecuted for themselves as an end. "--"I say to you plainly there is no end to which your practical faculty can aim so sacred or so large, that if pursued for itself, will not at last become carrion and an offence to the nostril. The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal. Your end should be one inapprehensible to the senses; then it will be a god, always approached, --never touched; always giving health. "

Nothing is plainer than that it was Emerson's calling to supply impulsesand not methods. He was not an organizer, but a power behind manyorganizers, inspiring them with lofty motive, giving breadth, to theirviews, always tending to become narrow through concentration on theirspecial objects. The Oration we have been examining was delivered inthe interval between the delivery of two Addresses, one called "Man theReformer, " and another called "Lecture on the Times. " In the first hepreaches the dignity and virtue of manual labor; that "a man should havea farm, or a mechanical craft for his culture. "--That he cannot give uplabor without suffering some loss of power. "How can the man who haslearned but one art procure all the conveniences of life honestly? Shallwe say all we think?--Perhaps with his own hands. --Let us learn themeaning of economy. --Parched corn eaten to-day that I may have roastfowl to my dinner on Sunday is a baseness; but parched corn and a housewith one apartment, that I may be free of all perturbation, that Imay be serene and docile to what the mind shall speak, and quit androad-ready for the lowest mission of knowledge or good will, isfrugality for gods and heroes. "

This was what Emerson wrote in January, 1841. This "house with oneapartment" was what Thoreau built with his own hands in 1845. In Aprilof the former year, he went to live with Mr. Emerson, but had been onintimate terms with him previously to that time. Whether it was from himthat Thoreau got the hint of the Walden cabin and the parched corn, orwhether this idea was working in Thoreau's mind and was suggested toEmerson by him, is of no great consequence. Emerson, to whom he owedso much, may well have adopted some of those fancies which Thoreauentertained, and afterwards worked out in practice. He was at thephilanthropic centre of a good many movements which he watched otherscarrying out, as a calm and kindly spectator, without losing his commonsense for a moment. It would never have occurred to him to leave all theconveniences and comforts of life to go and dwell in a shanty, so as toprove to himself that he could live like a savage, or like his friends"Teague and his jade, " as he called the man and brother and sister, morecommonly known nowadays as Pat, or Patrick, and his old woman. 

"The Americans have many virtues, " he says in this Address, "but theyhave not Faith and Hope. " Faith and Hope, Enthusiasm and Love, are theburden of this Address. But he would regulate these qualities by "agreat prospective prudence, " which shall mediate between the spiritualand the actual world. 

In the "Lecture on the Times" he shows very clearly the effect which anearer contact with the class of men and women who called themselvesReformers had upon him. 

 "The Reforms have their higher origin in an ideal justice, but they do not retain the purity of an idea. They are quickly organized in some low, inadequate form, and present no more poetic image to the mind than the evil tradition which they reprobated. They mix the fire of the moral sentiment with personal and party heats, with measureless exaggerations, and the blindness that prefers some darling measure to justice and truth. Those who are urging with most ardor what are called the greatest benefit of mankind are narrow, self-pleasing, conceited men, and affect us as the insane do. They bite us, and we run mad also. I think the work of the reformer as innocent as other work that is done around him; but when I have seen it near!--I do not like it better. It is done in the same way; it is done profanely, not piously; by management, by tactics and clamor. "

All this, and much more like it, would hardly have been listened to bythe ardent advocates of the various reforms, if anybody but Mr. Emersonhad said it. He undervalued no sincere action except to suggest a wiserand better one. He attacked no motive which had a good aim, except inview of some larger and loftier principle. The charm of his imaginationand the music of his words took away all the sting from the thoughtsthat penetrated to the very marrow of the entranced listeners. Sometimesit was a splendid hyperbole that illuminated a statement which by thedim light of common speech would have offended or repelled those whosat before him. He knew the force of _felix audacia_ as well as anyrhetorician could have taught him. He addresses the reformer with one ofthose daring images which defy the critics. 

 "As the farmer casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain, the time will come when we too shall hold nothing back, but shall eagerly convert more than we possess into means and powers, when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds. "

He said hard things to the reformer, especially to the Abolitionist, inhis "Lecture on the Times. " It would have taken a long while to getrid of slavery if some of Emerson's teachings in this lecture had beenaccepted as the true gospel of liberty. But how much its last sentencecovers with its soothing tribute!

 "All the newspapers, all the tongues of today will of course defame what is noble; but you who hold not of to-day, not of the times, but of the Everlasting, are to stand for it; and the highest compliment man ever receives from Heaven is the sending to him its disguised and discredited angels. "

The Lecture called "The Transcendentalist" will naturally be looked atwith peculiar interest, inasmuch as this term has been very commonlyapplied to Emerson, and to many who were considered his disciples. It has a proper philosophical meaning, and it has also a local andaccidental application to the individuals of a group which came togethervery much as any literary club might collect about a teacher. All thiscomes out clearly enough in the Lecture. In the first place, Emersonexplains that the "_new views_, " as they are called, are the oldest ofthoughts cast in a new mould. 

 "What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us is Idealism: Idealism as it appears in 1842. As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final, and say, the senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealist on the power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture. "

 "The materialist takes his departure from the external world, and esteems a man as one product of that. The idealist takes his departure from his consciousness, and reckons the world an appearance. --His thought, that is the Universe. "

The association of scholars and thinkers to which the name of"Transcendentalists" was applied, and which made itself an organ in theperiodical known as "The Dial, " has been written about by many who werein the movement, and others who looked on or got their knowledge ofit at second hand. Emerson was closely associated with these "sameTranscendentalists, " and a leading contributor to "The Dial, " which wastheir organ. The movement borrowed its inspiration more from him thanfrom any other source, and the periodical owed more to him than to anyother writer. So far as his own relation to the circle of illuminati andthe dial which they shone upon was concerned, he himself is the bestwitness. 

In his "Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England, " he sketchesin a rapid way the series of intellectual movements which led to thedevelopment of the "new views" above mentioned. "There are always twoparties, " he says, "the party of the Past and the party of the Future;the Establishment and the Movement. "

About 1820, and in the twenty years which followed, an era of activitymanifested itself in the churches, in politics, in philanthropy, inliterature. In our own community the influence of Swedenborg and of thegenius and character of Dr. Channing were among the more immediate earlycauses of the mental agitation. Emerson attributes a great importanceto the scholarship, the rhetoric, the eloquence, of Edward Everett, whoreturned to Boston in 1820, after five years of study in Europe. EdwardEverett is already to a great extent a tradition, somewhat as RufusChoate is, a voice, a fading echo, as must be the memory of every greatorator. These wondrous personalities have their truest and warmest lifein a few old men's memories. It is therefore with delight that one whoremembers Everett in his robes of rhetorical splendor, who recalls hisfull-blown, high-colored, double-flowered periods, the rich, resonant, grave, far-reaching music of his speech, with just enough of nasalvibration to give the vocal sounding-board its proper value in theharmonies of utterance, --it is with delight that such a one reads theglowing words of Emerson whenever he refers to Edward Everett. It isenough if he himself caught inspiration from those eloquent lips; butmany a listener has had his youthful enthusiasm fired by that greatmaster of academic oratory. 

Emerson follows out the train of influences which added themselves tothe impulse given by Mr. Everett. German scholarship, the growth ofscience, the generalizations of Goethe, the idealism of Schelling, theinfluence of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, of Carlyle, and in our immediatecommunity, the writings of Channing, --he left it to others to say ofEmerson, --all had their part in this intellectual, or if we may call itso, spiritual revival. He describes with that exquisite sense of theridiculous which was a part of his mental ballast, the first attempt atorganizing an association of cultivated, thoughtful people. They cametogether, the cultivated, thoughtful people, at Dr. John CollinsWarren's, --Dr. Channing, the great Dr. Channing, among the rest, fullof the great thoughts he wished to impart. The preliminaries went onsmoothly enough with the usual small talk, --

 "When a side-door opened, the whole company streamed in to an oyster supper, crowned by excellent wines [this must have been before Dr. Warren's temperance epoch], and so ended the first attempt to establish aesthetic society in Boston. 

 "Some time afterwards Dr. Channing opened his mind to Mr. And Mrs. Ripley, and with some care they invited a limited party of ladies and gentlemen. I had the honor to be present. --Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, Dr. Convers Francis, Theodore Parker, Dr. Hedge, Mr. Brownson, James Freeman Clarke, William H. Channing, and many others gradually drew together, and from time to time spent an afternoon at each other's houses in a serious conversation. "

With them was another, "a pure Idealist, --who read Plato as anequal, and inspired his companions only in proportion as they wereintellectual. " He refers, of course to Mr. Alcott. Emerson goes on tosay:--

 "I think there prevailed at that time a general belief in Boston that there was some concert of _doctrinaires_ to establish certain opinions, and inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, and religion, of which design the supposed conspirators were quite innocent; for there was no concert, and only here and there two or three men and women who read and wrote, each alone, with unusual vivacity. Perhaps they only agreed in having fallen upon Coleridge and Wordsworth and Goethe, then on Carlyle, with pleasure and sympathy. Otherwise their education and reading were not marked, but had the American superficialness, and their studies were solitary. I suppose all of them were surprised at this rumor of a school or sect, and certainly at the name of Transcendentalism, given, nobody knows by whom, or when it was applied. "

Emerson's picture of some of these friends of his is so peculiar as tosuggest certain obvious and not too flattering comments. 

 "In like manner, if there is anything grand and daring in human thought or virtue; any reliance on the vast, the unknown; any presentiment, any extravagance of faith, the Spiritualist adopts it as most in nature. The Oriental mind has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. The Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says, 'Do not flatter your benefactors, ' but who in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist. 

 "These exacting children advertise us of our wants. There is no compliment, no smooth speech with them; they pay you only this one compliment, of insatiable expectation; they aspire, they severely exact, and if they only stand fast in this watch-tower, and persist in demanding unto the end, and without end, then are they terrible friends, whereof poet and priest cannot choose but stand in awe; and what if they eat clouds, and drink wind, they have not been without service to the race of man. "

The person who adopts "any presentiment, any extravagance as most innature, " is not commonly called a Transcendentalist, but is knowncolloquially as a "crank. " The person who does not thank, by word orlook, the friend or stranger who has pulled him out of the fire orwater, is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name than that of achurl. 

Nothing was farther from Emerson himself than whimsical eccentricity orchurlish austerity. But there was occasionally an air of bravado in someof his followers as if they had taken out a patent for some knowingmachine which was to give them a monopoly of its products. They claimedmore for each other than was reasonable, --so much occasionally thattheir pretensions became ridiculous. One was tempted to ask: "Whatforlorn hope have you led? What immortal book have you written? Whatgreat discovery have you made? What heroic task of any kind have youperformed?" There was too much talk about earnestness and too littlereal work done. Aspiration too frequently got as far as the alpenstockand the brandy flask, but crossed no dangerous crevasse, and scaledno arduous summit. In short, there was a kind of "Transcendentalist"dilettanteism, which betrayed itself by a phraseology as distinctive asthat of the Della Cruscans of an earlier time. 

In reading the following description of the "intelligent and religiouspersons" who belonged to the "Transcendentalist" communion, the readermust remember that it is Emerson who draws the portrait, --a friend andnot a scoffer:--

 "They are not good citizens, not good members of society: unwillingly they bear their part of the public and private burdens; they do not willingly share in the public charities, in the public religious rites, in the enterprise of education, of missions, foreign and domestic, in the abolition of the slave-trade, or in the temperance society. They do not even like to vote. "

After arraigning the representatives of Transcendental or spiritualbeliefs in this way, he summons them to plead for themselves, and thisis what they have to say:--

 "'New, we confess, and by no means happy, is our condition: if you want the aid of our labor, we ourselves stand in greater want of the labor. We are miserable with inaction. We perish of rest and rust: but we do not like your work. '

 'Then, ' says the world, 'show me your own. '

 'We have none. '

 'What will you do, then?' cries the world. 

 'We will wait. '

 'How long?'

 'Until the Universe beckons and calls us to work. '

 'But whilst you wait you grow old and useless. '

 'Be it so: I can sit in a corner and _perish_ (as you call it), but I will not move until I have the highest command. '"

And so the dissatisfied tenant of this unhappy creation goes on with hisreasons for doing nothing. 

It is easy to stay away from church and from town-meetings. It iseasy to keep out of the way of the contribution box and to let thesubscription paper go by us to the next door. The common duties of lifeand the good offices society asks of us may be left to take care ofthemselves while we contemplate the infinite. There is no safer fortressfor indolence than "the Everlasting No. " The chimney-corner is the truearena for this class of philosophers, and the pipe and mug furnish theirall-sufficient panoply. Emerson undoubtedly met with some of them amonghis disciples. His wise counsel did not always find listeners in afitting condition to receive it. He was a sower who went forth to sow. Some of the good seed fell among the thorns of criticism. Some fell onthe rocks of hardened conservatism. Some fell by the wayside and waspicked up by the idlers who went to the lecture-room to get rid ofthemselves. But when it fell upon the right soil it bore a growth ofthought which ripened into a harvest of large and noble lives. 

Emerson shows up the weakness of his young enthusiasts with thatdelicate wit which warns its objects rather than wounds them. But hemakes it all up with the dreamers before he can let them go. 

 "Society also has its duties in reference to this class, and must behold them with what charity it can. Possibly some benefit may yet accrue from them to the state. Besides our coarse implements, there must be some few finer instruments, --rain-gauges, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the by-stander. Perhaps too there might be room for the exciters and monitors; collectors of the heavenly spark, with power to convey the electricity to others. Or, as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks the frigate or "line-packet" to learn its longitude, so it may not be without its advantage that we should now and then encounter rare and gifted men, to compare the points of our spiritual compass, and verify our bearings from superior chronometers. "

It must be confessed that it is not a very captivating picture whichEmerson draws of some of his transcendental friends. Their faults werenaturally still more obvious to those outside of their charmed circle, and some prejudice, very possibly, mingled with their criticaljudgments. On the other hand we have the evidence of a visitor who knewa good deal of the world as to the impression they produced upon him:--

 "There has sprung up in Boston, " says Dickens, in his "American Notes, " "a sect of philosophers known as Transcendentalists. On inquiring what this appellation might be supposed to signify, I was given to understand that whatever was unintelligible would be certainly Transcendental. Not deriving much comfort from this elucidation, I pursued the inquiry still further, and found that the Transcendentalists are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or, I should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. This gentleman has written a volume of Essays, in which, among much that is dreamy and fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying so), there is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold. Transcendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has not?), but it has good healthful qualities in spite of them; not least among the number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to detect her in all the million varieties of her everlasting wardrobe. And therefore, if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be a Transcendentalist. "

In December, 1841, Emerson delivered a Lecture entitled "TheConservative. " It was a time of great excitement among the members ofthat circle of which he was the spiritual leader. Never did Emersonshow the perfect sanity which characterized his practical judgment morebeautifully than in this Lecture and in his whole course with referenceto the intellectual agitation of the period. He is as fair to theconservative as to the reformer. He sees the fanaticism of the one aswell as that of the other. "Conservatism tends to universal seeming andtreachery; believes in a negative fate; believes that men's tempersgovern them; that for me it avails not to trust in principles, they willfail me, I must bend a little; it distrusts Nature; it thinks there is ageneral law without a particular application, --law for all that doesnot include any one. Reform in its antagonism inclines to asinineresistance, to kick with hoofs; it runs to egotism and bloatedself-conceit; it runs to a bodiless pretension, to unnatural refiningand elevation, which ends in hypocrisy and sensual reaction. And so, whilst we do not go beyond general statements, it may be safely affirmedof these two metaphysical antagonists that each is a good half, but animpossible whole. "

He has his beliefs, and, if you will, his prejudices, but he loves fairplay, and though he sides with the party of the future, he will not beunjust to the present or the past. 

We read in a letter from Emerson to Carlyle, dated March 12, 1835, thatDr. Charming "lay awake all night, he told my friend last week, becausehe had learned in the evening that some young men proposed to issuea journal, to be called 'The Transcendentalist, ' as the organ of aspiritual philosophy. " Again on the 30th of April of the same year, ina letter in which he lays out a plan for a visit of Carlyle to thiscountry, Emerson says:--

 "It was suggested that if Mr. C. Would undertake a journal of which we have talked much, but which we have never yet produced, he would do us great service, and we feel some confidence that it could be made to secure him a support. It is that project which I mentioned to you in a letter by Mr. Barnard, --a book to be called 'The Transcendentalist;' or, 'The Spiritual Inquirer, ' or the like. . . . Those who are most interested in it designed to make gratuitous contribution to its pages, until its success could be assured. "

The idea of the grim Scotchman as editor of what we came in due time toknow as "The Dial!" A concert of singing mice with a savage and hungryold grimalkin as leader of the orchestra! It was much safer to becontent with Carlyle's purring from his own side of the water, asthus:--

 "'The Boston Transcendentalist, ' whatever the fate or merit of it may prove to be, is surely an interesting symptom. There must be things not dreamt of over in that _Transoceanic_ parish! I shall certainly wish well to this thing; and hail it as the sure forerunner of things better. "

There were two notable products of the intellectual ferment of theTranscendental period which deserve an incidental notice here, from theclose connection which Emerson had with one of them and the interestwhich he took in the other, in which many of his friends were moredeeply concerned. These were the periodical just spoken of as apossibility realized, and the industrial community known as Brook Farm. They were to a certain extent synchronous, --the Magazine beginning inJuly, 1840, and expiring in April, 1844; Brook Farm being organized in1841, and breaking up in 1847. 

"The Dial" was edited at first by Margaret Fuller, afterwards byEmerson, who contributed more than forty articles in prose and verse, among them "The Conservative, " "The Transcendentalist, " "Chardon Streetand Bible Convention, " and some of his best and best known poems, "TheProblem, " "Woodnotes, " "The Sphinx, " "Fate. " The other principal writerswere Margaret Fuller, A. Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, James FreemanClarke, Theodore Parker, William H. Channing, Henry Thoreau, EliotCabot, John S. Dwight, C. P. Cranch, William Ellery Channing, Mrs. Ellen Hooper, and her sister Mrs. Caroline Tappan. Unequal as thecontributions are in merit, the periodical is of singular interest. It was conceived and carried on in a spirit of boundless hope andenthusiasm. Time and a narrowing subscription list proved too harda trial, and its four volumes remain stranded, like some rare andcuriously patterned shell which a storm of yesterday has left beyondthe reach of the receding waves. Thoreau wrote for nearly every number. Margaret Fuller, less attractive in print than in conversation, did herpart as a contributor as well as editor. Theodore Parker came down withhis "trip-hammer" in its pages. Mrs. Ellen Hooper published a few poemsin its columns which remain, always beautiful, in many memories. Others, whose literary lives have fulfilled their earlier promise, and who arestill with us, helped forward the new enterprise with their frequentcontributions. It is a pleasure to turn back to "The Dial, " with all itscrudities. It should be looked through by the side of the "Anthology. "Both were April buds, opening before the frosts were over, but with thepledge of a better season. 

We get various hints touching the new Magazine in the correspondencebetween Emerson and Carlyle. Emerson tells Carlyle, a few months beforethe first number appeared, that it will give him a better knowledgeof our _young people_ than any he has had. It is true that unfledgedwriters found a place to try their wings in it, and that makes it moreinteresting. This was the time above all others when out of the mouthof babes and sucklings was to come forth strength. The feeling thatintuition was discovering a new heaven and a new earth was theinspiration of these "young people" to whom Emerson refers. He has toapologize for the first number. "It is not yet much, " he says; "indeed, though no copy has come to me, I know it is far short of what it shouldbe, for they have suffered puffs and dulness to creep in for the sakeof the complement of pages, but it is better than anything we had. --TheAddress of the Editors to the Readers is all the prose that is mine, andwhether they have printed a few verses for me I do not know. " They didprint "The Problem. " There were also some fragments of criticism fromthe writings of his brother Charles, and the poem called "The LastFarewell, " by his brother Edward, which is to be found in Emerson's"May-day and other Pieces. "

On the 30th of August, after the periodical had been published a coupleof months, Emerson writes:--

 "Our community begin to stand in some terror of Transcendentalism; and the _Dial_, poor little thing, whose first number contains scarce anything considerable or even visible, is just now honored by attacks from almost every newspaper and magazine; which at least betrays the irritability and the instincts of the good public. "

Carlyle finds the second number of "The Dial" better than the first, andtosses his charitable recognition, as if into an alms-basket, withhis usual air of superiority. He distinguishes what is Emerson'sreadily, --the rest he speaks of as the work of [Greek: oi polloi] forthe most part. "But it is all good and very good as a _soul;_ wants onlya body, which want means a great deal. " And again, "'The Dial, ' too, itis all spirit like, aeri-form, aurora-borealis like. Will no _Angel_body himself out of that; no stalwart Yankee _man_, with color in thecheeks of him and a coat on his back?"

Emerson, writing to Carlyle in March, 1842, speaks of the "dubiousapprobation on the part of you and other men, " notwithstanding which hefound it with "a certain class of men and women, though few, an objectof tenderness and religion. " So, when Margaret Fuller gave it up, at theend of the second volume, Emerson consented to become its editor. "Icannot bid you quit 'The Dial, '" says Carlyle, "though it, too, alas, isAntinomian somewhat! _Perge, perge_, nevertheless. "

In the next letter he says:--

 "I love your 'Dial, ' and yet it is with a kind of shudder. You seem to me in danger of dividing yourselves from the Fact of this present Universe, in which alone, ugly as it is, can I find any anchorage, and soaring away after Ideas, Beliefs, Revelations and such like, --into perilous altitudes, as I think; beyond the curve of perpetual frost, for one thing. I know not how to utter what impression you give me; take the above as some stamping of the fore-hoof. "

A curious way of characterizing himself as a critic, --but he was notalways as well-mannered as the Houyhnhnms. 

To all Carlyle's complaints of "The Dial's" short-comings Emerson didnot pretend to give any satisfactory answer, but his plea of guilty, with extenuating circumstances, is very honest and definite. 

 "For the _Dial_ and its sins, I have no defence to set up. We write as we can, and we know very little about it. If the direction of these speculations is to be deplored, it is yet a fact for literary history that all the bright boys and girls in New England, quite ignorant of each other, take the world so, and come and make confession to fathers and mothers, --the boys, that they do not wish to go into trade, the girls, that they do not like morning calls and evening parties. They are all religious, but hate the churches; they reject all the ways of living of other men, but have none to offer in their stead. Perhaps one of these days a great Yankee shall come, who will easily do the unknown deed. "

"All the bright boys and girls in New England, " and "'The Dial' dying ofinanition!" In October, 1840, Emerson writes to Carlyle:--

 "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and the book. One man renounces the use of animal food; and another of coin; and another of domestic hired service; and another of the state; and on the whole we have a commendable share of reason and hope. "

Mr. Ripley's project took shape in the West Roxbury Association, betterknown under the name of Brook Farm. Emerson was not involved in thisundertaking. He looked upon it with curiosity and interest, as he wouldhave looked at a chemical experiment, but he seems to have had only amoderate degree of faith in its practical working. "It was a noble andgenerous movement in the projectors to try an experiment of betterliving. One would say that impulse was the rule in the society, withoutcentripetal balance; perhaps it would not be severe to say, intellectualsans-culottism, an impatience of the formal routinary character of oureducational, religious, social, and economical life in Massachusetts. "The reader will find a full detailed account of the Brook Farmexperiment in Mr. Frothingham's "Life of George Ripley, " its founder, and the first President of the Association. Emerson had only tangentialrelations with the experiment, and tells its story in his "HistoricNotes" very kindly and respectfully, but with that sense of theridiculous in the aspect of some of its conditions which belongs to thesagacious common-sense side of his nature. The married women, hesays, were against the community. "It was to them like the brassy andlacquered life in hotels. The common school was well enough, but tothe common nursery they had grave objections. Eggs might be hatched inovens, but the hen on her own account much preferred the old way. A henwithout her chickens was but half a hen. " Is not the inaudible, inwardlaughter of Emerson more refreshing than the explosions of our noisiesthumorists?

This is his benevolent summing up:--

 "The founders of Brook Farm should have this praise, that they made what all people try to make, an agreeable place to live in. All comers, even the most fastidious, found it the pleasantest of residences. It is certain, that freedom from household routine, variety of character and talent, variety of work, variety of means of thought and instruction, art, music, poetry, reading, masquerade, did not permit sluggishness or despondency; broke up routine. There is agreement in the testimony that it was, to most of the associates, education; to many, the most important period of their life, the birth of valued friendships, their first acquaintance with the riches of conversation, their training in behavior. The art of letter-writing, it is said, was immensely cultivated. Letters were always flying, not only from house to house, but from room to room. It was a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small, an Age of Reason in a patty-pan. "

The public edifice called the "Phalanstery" was destroyed by firein 1846. The Association never recovered from this blow, and soonafterwards it was dissolved. 

Section 2. Emerson's first volume of his collected Essays was publishedin 1841. In the reprint it contains the following Essays: History;Self-Reliance; Compensation; Spiritual Laws; Love; Friendship; Prudence;Heroism; The Over-Soul; Circles; Intellect; Art. "The Young American, "which is now included in the volume, was not delivered until 1844. 

Once accustomed to Emerson's larger formulae we can to a certain extentproject from our own minds his treatment of special subjects. But wecannot anticipate the daring imagination, the subtle wit, the curiousillustrations, the felicitous language, which make the Lecture or theEssay captivating as read, and almost entrancing as listened to bythe teachable disciple. The reader must be prepared for occasionalextravagances. Take the Essay on History, in the first series of Essays, for instance. "Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written. " When we come to the application, in the same Essay, almost on the same page, what can we make of suchdiscourse as this? The sentences I quote do not follow immediately, oneupon the other, but their sense is continuous. 

 "I hold an actual knowledge very cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, see the lizard on the fence, the fungus under foot, the lichen on the log. What do I know sympathetically, morally, of either of these worlds of life?--How many times we must say Rome and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimau seal-hunter, for the Kamchatcan in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?"

The connection of ideas is not obvious. One can hardly help beingreminded of a certain great man's Rochester speech as commonly reportedby the story-teller. "Rome in her proudest days never had a waterfalla hundred and fifty feet high! Greece in her palmiest days never had awaterfall a hundred and fifty feet high! Men of Rochester, go on! Nopeople ever lost their liberty who had a waterfall a hundred and fiftyfeet high!"

We cannot help smiling, perhaps laughing, at the odd mixture of Romeand rats, of Olympiads and Esquimaux. But the underlying idea of theinterdependence of all that exists in nature is far from ridiculous. Emerson says, not absurdly or extravagantly, that "every history shouldbe written in a wisdom which divined the range of our affinities andlooked at facts as symbols. "

We have become familiar with his doctrine of "Self-Reliance, " which isthe subject of the second lecture of the series. We know that healways and everywhere recognized that the divine voice which speaksauthoritatively in the soul of man is the source of all our wisdom. It is a man's true self, so that it follows that absolute, supremeself-reliance is the law of his being. But see how he guards hisproclamation of self-reliance as the guide of mankind. 

 "Truly it demands something god-like in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a task-master. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!"

"Compensation" might be preached in a synagogue, and the Rabbi would bepraised for his performance. Emerson had been listening to a sermon froma preacher esteemed for his orthodoxy, in which it was assumed thatjudgment is not executed in this world, that the wicked are successful, and the good are miserable. This last proposition agrees with JohnBunyan's view:--

 "A Christian man is never long at ease, When one fright's gone, another doth him seize. "

Emerson shows up the "success" of the bad man and the failures andtrials of the good man in their true spiritual characters, with a noblescorn of the preacher's low standard of happiness and misery, whichwould have made him throw his sermon into the fire. 

The Essay on "Spiritual Laws" is full of pithy sayings:--

 "As much virtue as there is, so much appears; as much goodness as there is, so much reverence it commands. All the devils respect virtue. --A man passes for that he is worth. --The ancestor of every action is a thought. --To think is to act. --Let a man believe in God, and not in names and places and persons. Let the great soul incarnated in some woman's form, poor and sad and single, in some Dolly or Joan, go out to service and sweep chambers and scour floors, and its effulgent day-beams cannot be hid, but to sweep and scour will instantly appear supreme and beautiful actions, the top and radiance of human life, and all people will get mops and brooms; until, lo! suddenly the great soul has enshrined itself in some other form and done some other deed, and that is now the flower and head of all living nature. "

This is not any the worse for being the flowering out of a poetical budof George Herbert's. The Essay on "Love" is poetical, but the threepoems, "Initial, " "Daemonic, " and "Celestial Love" are more nearly equalto his subject than his prose. 

There is a passage in the Lecture on "Friendship" which suggestssome personal relation of Emerson's about which we cannot help beinginquisitive:--

 "It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. . . . Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god that it may deify both. "

Was he thinking of his relations with Carlyle? It is a curious subjectof speculation what would have been the issue if Carlyle had come toConcord and taken up his abode under Emerson's most hospitable roof. "You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house. " How couldthey have got on together? Emerson was well-bred, and Carlyle waswanting in the social graces. "Come rest in this bosom" is a sweet air, heard in the distance, too apt to be followed, after a protracted seasonof close proximity, by that other strain, --

 "No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole! Rise Alps between us and whole oceans roll!"

But Emerson may have been thinking of some very different person, perhaps some "crude and cold companion" among his disciples, who was notequal to the demands of friendly intercourse. 

He discourses wisely on "Prudence, " a virtue which he does not claim forhimself, and nobly on "Heroism, " which was a shining part of his ownmoral and intellectual being. 

The points which will be most likely to draw the reader's attention arethe remarks on the literature of heroism; the claim for our own America, for Massachusetts and Connecticut River and Boston Bay, in spite of ourlove for the names of foreign and classic topography; and most of allone sentence which, coming from an optimist like Emerson, has a sound ofsad sincerity painful to recognize. 

 "Who that sees the meanness of our politics but inly congratulates Washington that he is long already wrapped in his shroud, and forever safe; that he was laid sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him. Who does not sometimes envy the good and brave who are no more to suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite nature? And yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than treacherous has already made death impossible, and affirms itself no mortal, but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable being. "

In the following Essay, "The Over-Soul, " Emerson has attempted theimpossible. He is as fully conscious of this fact as the reader of hisrhapsody, --nay, he is more profoundly penetrated with it than any of hisreaders. In speaking of the exalted condition the soul is capable ofreaching, he says, --

 "Every man's words, who speaks from that life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on their own part. I dare not speak for it. My words do not carry its august sense; they fall short and cold. Only itself can inspire whom it will, and behold! their speech shall be lyrical and sweet, and universal as the rising of the wind. Yet I desire, even by profane words, if I may not use sacred, to indicate the heaven of this deity, and to report what hints I have collected of the transcendent simplicity and energy of the Highest Law. "

"The Over-Soul" might almost be called the Over-_flow_ of a spiritualimagination. We cannot help thinking of the "pious, virtuous, God-intoxicated" Spinoza. When one talks of the infinite in termsborrowed from the finite, when one attempts to deal with the absolutein the language of the relative, his words are not symbols, like thoseapplied to the objects of experience, but the shadows of symbols, varying with the position and intensity of the light of the individualintelligence. It is a curious amusement to trace many of these thoughtsand expressions to Plato, or Plotinus, or Proclus, or Porphyry, toSpinoza or Schelling, but the same tune is a different thing accordingto the instrument on which it is played. There are songs without words, and there are states in which, in place of the trains of thought movingin endless procession with ever-varying figures along the highway ofconsciousness, the soul is possessed by a single all-absorbing idea, which, in the highest state of spiritual exaltation, becomes a vision. Both Plotinus and Porphyry believed they were privileged to look uponHim whom "no man can see and live. "

But Emerson states his own position so frankly in his Essay entitled"Circles, " that the reader cannot take issue with him as againstutterances which he will not defend. There can be no doubt that he wouldhave confessed as much with reference to "The Over-Soul" as he hasconfessed with regard to "Circles, " the Essay which follows "TheOver-Soul. "

 "I am not careful to justify myself. . . . But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back. "

Perhaps, after reading these transcendental essays of Emerson, we mightborrow Goethe's language about Spinoza, as expressing the feeling withwhich we are left. 

 "I am reading Spinoza with Frau von Stein. I feel myself very near to him, though his soul is much deeper and purer than mine. 

 "I cannot say that I ever read Spinoza straight through, that at any time the complete architecture of his intellectual system has stood clear in view before me. But when I look into him I seem to understand him, --that is, he always appears to me consistent with himself, and I can always gather from him very salutary influences for my own way of feeling and acting. "

Emerson would not have pretended that he was always "consistent withhimself, " but these "salutary influences, " restoring, enkindling, vivifying, are felt by many of his readers who would have to confess, like Dr. Walter Channing, that these thoughts, or thoughts like these, as he listened to them in a lecture, "made his head ache. "

The three essays which follow "The Over-Soul, " "Circles, " "Intellect, ""Art, " would furnish us a harvest of good sayings, some of which weshould recognize as parts of our own (borrowed) axiomatic wisdom. 

 "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. "

 "God enters by a private door into every individual. "

 "God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please, --you can never have both. "

 "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. "

But we cannot reconstruct the Hanging Gardens with a few bricks fromBabylon. 

Emerson describes his mode of life in these years in a letter toCarlyle, dated May 10, 1838. 

 "I occupy, or improve, as we Yankees say, two acres only of God's earth; on which is my house, my kitchen-garden, my orchard of thirty young trees, my empty barn. My house is now a very good one for comfort, and abounding in room. Besides my house, I have, I believe, $22, 000, whose income in ordinary years is six per cent. I have no other tithe or glebe except the income of my winter lectures, which was last winter $800. Well, with this income, here at home, I am a rich man. I stay at home and go abroad at my own instance. I have food, warmth, leisure, books, friends. Go away from home, I am rich no longer. I never have a dollar to spend on a fancy. As no wise man, I suppose, ever was rich in the sense of freedom to spend, because of the inundation of claims, so neither am I, who am not wise. But at home, I am rich, --rich enough for ten brothers. My wife Lidian is an incarnation of Christianity, --I call her Asia, --and keeps my philosophy from Antinomianism; my mother, whitest, mildest, most conservative of ladies, whose only exception to her universal preference for old things is her son; my boy, a piece of love and sunshine, well worth my watching from morning to night;--these, and three domestic women, who cook, and sew and run for us, make all my household. Here I sit and read and write, with very little system, and, as far as regards composition, with the most fragmentary result: paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle. "

A great sorrow visited Emerson and his household at this period of hislife. On the 30th of October, 1841, he wrote to Carlyle: "My little boyis five years old to-day, and almost old enough to send you his love. "

Three months later, on the 28th of February, 1842, he writes oncemore:--

 "My dear friend, you should have had this letter and these messages by the last steamer; but when it sailed, my son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all. What would it avail to tell you anecdotes of a sweet and wonderful boy, such as we solace and sadden ourselves with at home every morning and evening? From a perfect health and as happy a life and as happy influences as ever child enjoyed, he was hurried out of my arms in three short days by scarlatina. We have two babes yet, one girl of three years, and one girl of three months and a week, but a promise like that Boy's I shall never see. How often I have pleased myself that one day I should send to you this Morning Star of mine, and stay at home so gladly behind such a representative. I dare not fathom the Invisible and Untold to inquire what relations to my Departed ones I yet sustain. "

This was the boy whose memory lives in the tenderest and most patheticof Emerson's poems, the "Threnody, "--a lament not unworthy of comparisonwith Lycidas for dignity, but full of the simple pathos of Cowper'swell-remembered lines on the receipt of his mother's picture, in theplace of Milton's sonorous academic phrases. 

CHAPTER VI. 

1843-1848. AET. 40-45. 

"The Young American. "--Address on the Anniversary of the Emancipationof the Negroes in the British West Indies. [1]--Publication of the SecondSeries of Essays. --Contents: The Poet. --Experience. --Character. --Manners. --Gifts. --Nature. --Politics. --Nominalist and Realist. --NewEngland Reformers. --Publication of Poems. --Second Visit to England. 

[Footnote 1: These two addresses are to be found in the first andeleventh volumes, respectively, of the last collective edition ofEmerson's works, namely, "Nature, Addresses, and Lectures, " and"Miscellanies. "]

Emerson was American in aspect, temperament, way of thinking, andfeeling; American, with an atmosphere of Oriental idealism; American, sofar as he belonged to any limited part of the universe. He believed inAmerican institutions, he trusted the future of the American race. Inthe address first mentioned in the contents, of this chapter, deliveredFebruary 7, 1844, he claims for this country all that the most ardentpatriot could ask. Not a few of his fellow-countrymen will feel thesignificance of the following contrast. 

 "The English have many virtues, many advantages, and the proudest history in the world; but they need all and more than all the resources of the past to indemnify a heroic gentleman in that country for the mortifications prepared for him by the system of society, and which seem to impose the alternative to resist or to avoid it. . . . It is for Englishmen to consider, not for us; we only say, Let us live in America, too thankful for our want of feudal institutions. . . . If only the men are employed in conspiring with the designs of the Spirit who led us hither, and is leading us still, we shall quickly enough advance out of all hearing of others' censures, out of all regrets of our own, into a new and more excellent social state than history has recorded. "

Thirty years have passed since the lecture from which these passages aretaken was delivered. The "Young American" of that day is the more thanmiddle-aged American of the present. The intellectual independence ofour country is far more solidly established than when this lecture waswritten. But the social alliance between certain classes of Americansand English is more and more closely cemented from year to year, as thewealth of the new world burrows its way among the privileged classesof the old world. It is a poor ambition for the possessor of suddenlyacquired wealth to have it appropriated as a feeder of the impairedfortunes of a deteriorated household, with a family record of whichits representatives are unworthy. The plain and wholesome language ofEmerson is on the whole more needed now than it was when spoken. Hiswords have often been extolled for their stimulating quality; followingthe same analogy, they are, as in this address, in a high degree tonic, bracing, strengthening to the American, who requires to be reminded ofhis privileges that he may know and find himself equal to his duties. 

On the first day of August, 1844, Emerson delivered in Concord anaddress on the Anniversary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in theBritish West India Islands. This discourse would not have satisfied theAbolitionists. It was too general in its propositions, full of humaneand generous sentiments, but not looking to their extreme and immediatemethod of action. 

 * * * * *

Emerson's second series of Essays was published in 1844. There aremany sayings in the Essay called "The Poet, " which are meant for theinitiated, rather than for him who runs, to read:--

 "All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology. "

Does this sound wild and extravagant? What were the political ups anddowns of the Hebrews, --what were the squabbles of the tribes with eachother, or with their neighbors, compared to the birth of that poet towhom we owe the Psalms, --the sweet singer whose voice is still thedearest of all that ever sang to the heart of mankind?

The poet finds his materials everywhere, as Emerson tells him in thiseloquent apostrophe:--

 "Thou true land-bird! sea-bird! air-bird! Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger and awe and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou should'st walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble. "

"Experience" is, as he says himself, but a fragment. It bears marks ofhaving been written in a less tranquil state of mind than the otheressays. His most important confession is this:--

 "All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having. I would gladly be moral and keep due metes and bounds, which I dearly love, and allow the most to the will of man; but I have set my heart on honesty in this chapter, and I can see nothing at last, in success or failure, than more or less of vital force supplied from the Eternal. "

The Essay on "Character" requires no difficult study, but is well worththe trouble of reading. A few sentences from it show the prevailing toneand doctrine. 

 "Character is Nature in the highest form. It is of no use to ape it, or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance and of persistence and of creation to this power, which will foil all emulation. "

 "There is a class of men, individuals of which appear at long intervals, so eminently endowed with insight and virtue, that they have been unanimously saluted as _divine_, and who seem to be an accumulation of that power we consider. 

 "The history of those gods and saints which the world has written, and then worshipped, are documents of character. The ages have exulted in the manners of a youth who owed nothing to fortune, and who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who, by the pure quality of his nature, shed an epic splendor around the facts of his death which has transfigured every particular into an universal symbol for the eyes of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest fact. "

In his Essay on "Manners, " Emerson gives us his ideas of a gentleman:--

 "The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner dependent and servile either on persons or opinions or possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes good-nature or benevolence: manhood first, and then gentleness. --Power first, or no leading class. --God knows that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door: but whenever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be found to point at original energy. --The famous gentlemen of Europe have been of this strong type: Saladin, Sapor, the Cid, Julius Caesar, Scipio, Alexander, Pericles, and the lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to value any condition at a high rate. --I could better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws than with a sloven and unpresentable person. --The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. --I esteem it a chief felicity of this country that it excels in woman. "

So writes Emerson, and proceeds to speak of woman in language whichseems almost to pant for rhythm and rhyme. 

This essay is plain enough for the least "transcendental" reader. Franklin would have approved it, and was himself a happy illustration ofmany of the qualities which go to the Emersonian ideal of good manners, a typical American, equal to his position, always as much so in thepalaces and salons of Paris as in the Continental Congress, or thesociety of Philadelphia. 

"Gifts" is a dainty little Essay with some nice distinctions and somehints which may help to give form to a generous impulse:--

 "The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. "

 "Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. --Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being attached to them. "

 "It is a great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. "

Emerson hates the superlative, but he does unquestionably love thetingling effect of a witty over-statement. 

We have recognized most of the thoughts in the Essay entitled "Nature, "in the previous Essay by the same name, and others which we have passedin review. But there are poetical passages which will give new pleasure. 

 Here is a variation of the formula with which we are familiar:-- "Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile essence is forever escaping again into the state of free thought. "

And here is a quaint sentence with which we may take leave of thisEssay:--

 "They say that by electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from the seed, whilst your fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of our modern aims and endeavors, --of our condensation and acceleration of objects; but nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's life is but seventy salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow. "

This is pretty and pleasant, but as to the literal value of theprediction, M. Jules Verne would be the best authority to consult. Poetsare fond of that branch of science which, if the imaginative Frenchmangave it a name, he would probably call _Onditologie_. 

It is not to be supposed that the most sanguine optimist could besatisfied with the condition of the American political world at thepresent time, or when the Essay on "Politics" was written, some yearsbefore the great war which changed the aspects of the country in so manyrespects, still leaving the same party names, and many of the charactersof the old parties unchanged. This is Emerson's view of them as theythen were:--

 "Of the two great parties, which, at this hour, almost share the nation between them, I should say that one has the best cause, and the other contains the best men. The philosopher, the poet, or the religious man, will, of course, wish to cast his vote with the democrat, for free trade, for wide suffrage, for the abolition of legal cruelties in the penal code, and for facilitating in every manner the access of the young and the poor to the sources of wealth and power. But he can rarely accept the persons whom the so-called popular party propose to him as representatives of these liberties. They have not at heart the ends which give to the name of democracy what hope and virtue are in it. The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It indicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy, it does not build nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, nor emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the immigrant. From neither party, when in power, has the world any benefit to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate with the resources of the nation. "

The metaphysician who looks for a closely reasoned argument on thefamous old question which so divided the schoolmen of old will finda very moderate satisfaction in the Essay entitled "Nominalism andRealism. " But there are many discursive remarks in it worth gatheringand considering. We have the complaint of the Cambridge "Phi BetaKappa Oration, " reiterated, that there is no complete man, but only acollection of fragmentary men. 

As a Platonist and a poet there could not be any doubt on which sidewere all his prejudices; but he takes his ground cautiously. 

 "In the famous dispute with the Nominalists, the Realists had a good deal of reason. General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round and ennoble the most practical and sordid way of living. 

 "Though the uninspired man certainly finds persons a conveniency in household matters, the divine man does not respect them: he sees them as a rack of clouds, or a fleet of ripples which the wind drives over the surface of the water. But this is flat rebellion. Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million of fresh particulars. "

_New England Reformers_. --Would any one venture to guess how Emersonwould treat this subject? With his unsparing, though amiable radicalism, his excellent common sense, his delicate appreciation of the ridiculous, too deep for laughter, as Wordsworth's thoughts were too deep for tears, in the midst of a band of enthusiasts and not very remote from a throngof fanatics, what are we to look for from our philosopher who unitesmany characteristics of Berkeley and of Franklin?

We must remember when this lecture was written, for it was delivered ona Sunday in the year 1844. The Brook Farm experiment was an index of thestate of mind among one section of the Reformers of whom he was writing. To remodel society and the world into a "happy family" was the aimof these enthusiasts. Some attacked one part of the old system, someanother; some would build a new temple, some would rebuild the oldchurch, some would worship in the fields and woods, if at all; one wasfor a phalanstery, where all should live in common, and another wasmeditating the plan and place of the wigwam where he was to dwell apartin the proud independence of the woodchuck and the musquash. Emerson hadthe largest and kindliest sympathy with their ideals and aims, but hewas too clear-eyed not to see through the whims and extravagances of theunpractical experimenters who would construct a working world with thelay figures they had put together, instead of flesh and blood men andwomen and children with all their congenital and acquired perversities. He describes these Reformers in his own good-naturedly half-satiricalway:--

 "They defied each other like a congress of kings; each of whom had a realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert unprofitable. What a fertility of projects for the salvation of the world! One apostle thought all men should go to farming; and another that no man should buy or sell; that the use of money was the cardinal evil; another that the mischief was in our diet, that we eat and drink damnation. These made unleavened bread, and were foes to the death to fermentation. It was in vain urged by the housewife that God made yeast as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he does vegetation; that fermentation develops the saccharine element in the grain, and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No, they wish the pure wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment. Stop, dear nature, these innocent advances of thine; let us scotch these ever-rolling wheels! Others attacked the system of agriculture, the use of animal manures in farming; and the tyranny of man over brute nature; these abuses polluted his food. The ox must be taken from the plough, and the horse from the cart, the hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, and the man must walk wherever boats and locomotives will not carry him. Even the insect world was to be defended, --that had been too long neglected, and a society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and mosquitoes was to be incorporated without delay. With these appeared the adepts of homoeopathy, of hydropathy, of mesmerism, of phrenology, and their wonderful theories of the Christian miracles!"

We have already seen the issue of the famous Brook Farm experiment, which was a practical outcome of the reforming agitation. 

Emerson has had the name of being a leader in many movements in which hehad very limited confidence, this among others to which the idealizingimpulse derived from him lent its force, but for the organization ofwhich he was in no sense responsible. 

He says in the lecture we are considering:--

 "These new associations are composed of men and women of superior talents and sentiments; yet it may easily be questioned whether such a community will draw, except in its beginnings, the able and the good; whether these who have energy will not prefer their choice of superiority and power in the world to the humble certainties of the association; whether such a retreat does not promise to become an asylum to those who have tried and failed rather than a field to the strong; and whether the members will not necessarily be fractions of men, because each finds that he cannot enter into it without some compromise. "

His sympathies were not allowed to mislead him; he knew human nature toowell to believe in a Noah's ark full of idealists. 

All this time he was lecturing for his support, giving courses oflectures in Boston and other cities, and before the country lyceums inand out of New England. 

His letters to Carlyle show how painstaking, how methodical, howpunctual he was in the business which interested his distant friend. Hewas not fond of figures, and it must have cost him a great effort toplay the part of an accountant. 

He speaks also of receiving a good deal of company in the summer, andthat some of this company exacted much time and attention, --more than hecould spare, --is made evident by his gentle complaints, especially inhis poems, which sometimes let out a truth he would hardly have utteredin prose. 

In 1846 Emerson's first volume of poems was published. Many of the poemshad been long before the public--some of the best, as we have seen, having been printed in "The Dial. " It is only their being broughttogether for the first time which belongs especially to this period, and we can leave them for the present, to be looked over by and by inconnection with a second volume of poems published in 1867, under thetitle, "May-Day and other Pieces. "

In October, 1847, he left Concord on a second visit to England, whichwill be spoken of in the following chapter. 

CHAPTER VII. 

1848-1853. AET. 45-50. 

The "Massachusetts Quarterly Review;" Visit to Europe. --England. --Scotland. --France. --"Representative Men" published. I. Usesof Great Men. II. Plato; or, the Philosopher; Plato; NewReadings. III. Swedenborg; or, the Mystic. IV. Montaigne; or, theSkeptic. V. Shakespeare; or, the Poet. VI. Napoleon; or, the Man of theWorld. VII. Goethe; or, the Writer. --Contribution to the "Memoirs ofMargaret Fuller Ossoli. "

A new periodical publication was begun in Boston in 1847, under the nameof the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review. " Emerson wrote the "Editor'sAddress, " but took no further active part in it, Theodore Parker beingthe real editor. The last line of this address is characteristic: "Werely on the truth for aid against ourselves. "

On the 5th of October, 1847, Emerson sailed for Europe on his secondvisit, reaching Liverpool on the 22d of that month. Many of his admirerswere desirous that he should visit England and deliver some courses oflectures. Mr. Alexander Ireland, who had paid him friendly attentionsduring his earlier visit, and whose impressions of him in the pulpithave been given on a previous page, urged his coming. Mr. Conwayquotes passages from a letter of Emerson's which show that he had somehesitation in accepting the invitation, not unmingled with a wish to beheard by the English audiences favorably disposed towards him. 

"I feel no call, " he said, "to make a visit of literary propagandism inEngland. All my impulses to work of that kind would rather employ me athome. " He does not like the idea of "coaxing" or advertising to gethim an audience. He would like to read lectures before institutions orfriendly persons who sympathize with his studies. He has had a good manydecisive tokens of interest from British men and women, but he doubtswhether he is much and favorably known in any one city, except perhapsin London. It proved, however, that there was a very widespread desireto hear him, and applications for lectures flowed in from all parts ofthe kingdom. 

From Liverpool he proceeded immediately to Manchester, where Mr. Irelandreceived him at the Victoria station. After spending a few hours withhim, he went to Chelsea to visit Carlyle, and at the end of a weekreturned to Manchester to begin the series of lecturing engagementswhich had been arranged for him. Mr. Ireland's account of Emerson'svisits and the interviews between him and many distinguished personsis full of interest, but the interest largely relates to the personsvisited by Emerson. He lectured at Edinburgh, where his liberal way ofthinking and talking made a great sensation in orthodox circles. But hedid not fail to find enthusiastic listeners. A young student, Mr. GeorgeCupples, wrote an article on these lectures from which, as quoted by Mr. Ireland, I borrow a single sentence, --one only, but what could a criticsay more?

Speaking of his personal character, as revealed through his writings, hesays: "In this respect, I take leave to think that Emerson is the mostmark-worthy, the loftiest, and most heroic mere man that ever appeared. "Emerson has a lecture on the superlative, to which he himself was neveraddicted. But what would youth be without its extravagances, --itspreterpluperfect in the shape of adjectives, its unmeasured andunstinted admiration?

I need not enumerate the celebrated literary personages and othernotabilities whom Emerson met in England and Scotland. He thought "thetwo finest mannered literary men he met in England were Leigh Hunt andDe Quincey. " His diary might tell us more of the impressions made uponhim by the distinguished people he met, but it is impossible to believethat he ever passed such inhuman judgments on the least desirable ofhis new acquaintances as his friend Carlyle has left as a bitter legacybehind him. Carlyle's merciless discourse about Coleridge and CharlesLamb, and Swinburne's carnivorous lines, which take a barbarousvengeance on him for his offence, are on the level of political rhetoricrather than of scholarly criticism or characterization. Emerson neverforgot that he was dealing with human beings. He could not have longendured the asperities of Carlyle, and that "loud shout of laughter, "which Mr. Ireland speaks of as one of his customary explosions, wouldhave been discordant to Emerson's ears, which were offended by suchnoisy manifestations. 

During this visit Emerson made an excursion to Paris, which furnishedhim materials for a lecture on France delivered in Boston, in 1856, butnever printed. 

From the lectures delivered in England he selected a certain number forpublication. These make up the volume entitled "Representative Men, "which was published in 1850. I will give very briefly an account of itscontents. The title was a happy one, and has passed into literature andconversation as an accepted and convenient phrase. It would teach us agood deal merely to consider the names he has selected as typical, and the ground of their selection. We get his classification of menconsidered as leaders in thought and in action. He shows his ownaffinities and repulsions, and, as everywhere, writes his own biography, no matter about whom or what he is talking. There is hardly any book ofhis better worth study by those who wish to understand, not Plato, notPlutarch, not Napoleon, but Emerson himself. All his great men interestus for their own sake; but we know a good deal about most of them, andEmerson holds the mirror up to them at just such an angle that wesee his own face as well as that of his hero, unintentionally, unconsciously, no doubt, but by a necessity which he would be the firstto recognize. 

Emerson swears by no master. He admires, but always with a reservation. Plato comes nearest to being his idol, Shakespeare next. But he says ofall great men: "The power which they communicate is not theirs. When weare exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, towhich also Plato was debtor. "

Emerson loves power as much as Carlyle does; he likes "rough andsmooth, " "scourges of God, " and "darlings of the human race. " He likesJulius Caesar, Charles the Fifth, of Spain, Charles the Twelfth, ofSweden, Richard Plantagenet, and Bonaparte. 

 "I applaud, " he says, "a sufficient man, an officer equal to his office; captains, ministers, senators. I like a master standing firm on legs of iron, well born, rich, handsome, eloquent, loaded with advantages, drawing all men by fascination into tributaries and supporters of his power. Sword and staff, or talents sword-like or staff-like, carry on the work of the world. But I find him greater when he can abolish himself and all heroes by letting in this element of reason, irrespective of persons, this subtilizer and irresistible upward force, into our thoughts, destroying individualism; the power is so great that the potentate is nothing. --

 "The genius of humanity is the right point of view of history. The qualities abide; the men who exhibit them have now more, now less, and pass away; the qualities remain on another brow. --All that respects the individual is temporary and prospective, like the individual himself, who is ascending out of his limits into a catholic existence. "

No man can be an idol for one who looks in this way at all men. ButPlato takes the first place in Emerson's gallery of six great personageswhose portraits he has sketched. And of him he says:--

 "Among secular books Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical compliment to the Koran, when he said, 'Burn the libraries; for their value is in this book. ' Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought. "--

 "In proportion to the culture of men they become his scholars. "--"How many great men Nature is incessantly sending up out of night to be _his men_!--His contemporaries tax him with plagiarism. --But the inventor only knows how to borrow. When we are praising Plato, it seems we are praising quotations from Solon and Sophron and Philolaus. Be it so. Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. "

The reader will, I hope, remember this last general statement whenhe learns from what wide fields of authorship Emerson filled hisstorehouses. 

A few sentences from Emerson will show us the probable source of some ofthe deepest thought of Plato and his disciples. 

The conception of the fundamental Unity, he says, finds its highestexpression in the religious writings of the East, especially in theIndian Scriptures. "'The whole world is but a manifestation of Vishnu, who is identical with all things, and is to be regarded by the wise asnot differing from but as the same as themselves. I neither am going norcoming; nor is my dwelling in any one place; nor art thou, thou; nor areothers, others; nor am I, I. ' As if he had said, 'All is for the soul, and the soul is Vishnu; and animals and stars are transient paintings;and light is whitewash; and durations are deceptive; and form isimprisonment; and heaven itself a decoy. '" All of which we seereproduced in Emerson's poem "Brahma. "--"The country of unity, ofimmovable institutions, the seat of a philosophy delighting inabstractions, of men faithful in doctrine and in practice to the idea ofa deaf, unimplorable, immense fate, is Asia; and it realizes this faithin the social institution of caste. On the other side, the geniusof Europe is active and creative: it resists caste by culture; itsphilosophy was a discipline; it is a land of arts, inventions, trade, freedom. "--"Plato came to join, and by contact to enhance, the energy ofeach. "

But Emerson says, --and some will smile at hearing him say it ofanother, --"The acutest German, the lovingest disciple, could never tellwhat Platonism was; indeed, admirable texts can be quoted on both sidesof every great question from him. "

The transcendent intellectual and moral superiorities of this "Euclid ofholiness, " as Emerson calls him, with his "soliform eye and his boniformsoul, "--the two quaint adjectives being from the mint of Cudworth, --arefully dilated upon in the addition to the original article called"Plato: New Readings. "

Few readers will be satisfied with the Essay entitled "Swedenborg; or, the Mystic. " The believers in his special communion as a revealer ofdivine truth will find him reduced to the level of other seers. Thebelievers of the different creeds of Christianity will take offenceat the statement that "Swedenborg and Behmen both failed by attachingthemselves to the Christian symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment, which carries innumerable christianities, humanities, divinities inits bosom. " The men of science will smile at the exorbitant claimsput forward in behalf of Swedenborg as a scientific discoverer. "Philosophers" will not be pleased to be reminded that Swedenborg calledthem "cockatrices, " "asps, " or "flying serpents;" "literary men" willnot agree that they are "conjurers and charlatans, " and will not listenwith patience to the praises of a man who so called them. As for thepoets, they can take their choice of Emerson's poetical or proseestimate of the great Mystic, but they cannot very well accept both. In"The Test, " the Muse says:--

 "I hung my verses in the wind, Time and tide their faults may find; All were winnowed through and through, Five lines lasted good and true . . . Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know. Have you eyes to find the five Which five hundred did survive?"

In the verses which follow we learn that the five immortal poetsreferred to are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, _Swedenborg_, and Goethe. 

And now, in the Essay we have just been looking at, I find that "hisbooks have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no relief to the deadprosaic level. We wander forlorn in a lack-lustre landscape. No birdever sang in these gardens of the dead. The entire want of poetry in sotranscendent a mind betokens the disease, and like a hoarse voice in abeautiful person, is a kind of warning. " Yet Emerson says of him that"He lived to purpose: he gave a verdict. He elected goodness as the clueto which the soul must cling in this labyrinth of nature. "

Emerson seems to have admired Swedenborg at a distance, but seen nearer, he liked Jacob Behmen a great deal better. 

"Montaigne; or, the Skeptic, " is easier reading than the last-mentionedEssay. Emerson accounts for the personal regard which he has forMontaigne by the story of his first acquaintance with him. But no otherreason was needed than that Montaigne was just what Emerson describeshim as being. 

 "There have been men with deeper insight; but, one would say, never a man with such abundance of thought: he is never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care for all that he cares for. 

 "The sincerity and marrow of the man reaches to his sentences. I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the language of conversation transferred to a book. Cut these words and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive. --

 "Montaigne talks with shrewdness, knows the world and books and himself, and uses the positive degree; never shrieks, or protests, or prays: no weakness, no convulsion, no superlative: does not wish to jump out of his skin, or play any antics, or annihilate space or time, but is stout and solid; tastes every moment of the day; likes pain because it makes him feel himself and realize things; as we pinch ourselves to know that we are awake. He keeps the plain; he rarely mounts or sinks; likes to feel solid ground and the stones underneath. His writing has no enthusiasms, no aspiration; contented, self-respecting, and keeping the middle of the road. There is but one exception, --in his love for Socrates. In speaking of him, for once his cheek flushes and his style rises to passion. "

The writer who draws this portrait must have many of the samecharacteristics. Much as Emerson loved his dreams and his dreamers, hemust have found a great relief in getting into "the middle of the road"with Montaigne, after wandering in difficult by-paths which too oftenled him round to the point from which he started. 

As to his exposition of the true relations of skepticism to affirmativeand negative belief, the philosophical reader must be referred to theEssay itself. 

In writing of "Shakespeare; or, the Poet, " Emerson naturally givesexpression to his leading ideas about the office of the poet and ofpoetry. 

"Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than byoriginality. " A poet has "a heart in unison with his time andcountry. "--"There is nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows ofin his times. "

When Shakespeare was in his youth the drama was the popular means ofamusement. It was "ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture, Punch, andlibrary, at the same time. The best proof of its vitality is the crowdof writers which suddenly broke into this field. " Shakespeare found agreat mass of old plays existing in manuscript and reproduced from timeto time on the stage. He borrowed in all directions: "A great poet whoappears in illiterate times absorbs into his sphere all the light whichis anywhere radiating. " Homer, Chaucer, Saadi, felt that all wit wastheir wit. "Chaucer is a huge borrower. " Emerson gives a list of authorsfrom whom he drew. This list is in many particulars erroneous, as I havelearned from a letter of Professor Lounsbury's which I have had theprivilege of reading, but this is a detail which need not delay us. 

The reason why Emerson has so much to say on this subject of borrowing, especially when treating of Plato and of Shakespeare, is obvious enough. He was arguing in his own cause, --not defending himself, as if therewere some charge of plagiarism to be met, but making the proud claimof eminent domain in behalf of the masters who knew how to use theiracquisitions. 

 "Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shakespeare; and even he can tell nothing except to the Shakespeare in us. "--"Shakespeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors as he is out of the crowd. A good reader can in a sort nestle into Plato's brain and think from thence; but not into Shakespeare's. We are still out of doors. "

After all the homage which Emerson pays to the intellect of Shakespeare, he weighs him with the rest of mankind, and finds that he shares "thehalfness and imperfection of humanity. "

 "He converted the elements which waited on his command into entertainment. He was master of the revels to mankind. "

And so, after this solemn verdict on Shakespeare, after looking at theforlorn conclusions of our old and modern oracles, priest and prophet, Israelite, German, and Swede, he says: "It must be conceded that theseare half views of half men. The world still wants its poet-priest, whoshall not trifle with Shakespeare the player, nor shall grope in graveswith Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act withequal inspiration. "

It is not to be expected that Emerson should have much that is new tosay about "Napoleon; or, the Man of the World. "

The stepping-stones of this Essay are easy to find:--

 "The instinct of brave, active, able men, throughout the middle class everywhere, has pointed out Napoleon as the incarnate democrat. --

 "Napoleon is thoroughly modern, and at the highest point of his fortunes, has the very spirit of the newspapers. " As Plato borrowed, as Shakespeare borrowed, as Mirabeau "plagiarized every good thought, every good word that was spoken in France, " so Napoleon is not merely "representative, but a monopolizer and usurper of other minds. "

He was "a man of stone and iron, "--equipped for his work by nature asSallust describes Catiline as being. "He had a directness of actionnever before combined with such comprehension. Here was a man who ineach moment and emergency knew what to do next. He saw only the object;the obstacle must give way. "

"When a natural king becomes a titular king everybody is pleased andsatisfied. "--

"I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of modernsociety. --He was the agitator, the destroyer of prescription, theinternal improver, the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, theopener of doors and markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse. "

But he was without generous sentiments, "a boundless liar, " andfinishing in high colors the outline of his moral deformities, Emersongives us a climax in two sentences which render further condemnationsuperfluous:--

 "In short, when you have penetrated through all the circles of power and splendor, you were not dealing with a gentleman, at last, but with an impostor and rogue; and he fully deserves the epithet of Jupiter Scapin, or a sort of Scamp Jupiter. 

 "So this exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished, and absorbed the power and existence of those who served him; and the universal cry of France and of Europe in 1814 was, Enough of him; '_Assez de Bonaparte_. '"

 It was to this feeling that the French poet Barbier, whose death we have but lately seen announced, gave expression in the terrible satire in which he pictured France as a fiery courser bestridden by her spurred rider, who drove her in a mad career over heaps of rocks and ruins. 

 But after all, Carlyle's "_carrière ouverte aux talens_" is the expression for Napoleon's great message to mankind. 

"Goethe; or, the Writer, " is the last of the Representative Men whoare the subjects of this book of Essays. Emerson says he had read thefifty-five volumes of Goethe, but no other German writers, at least inthe original. It must have been in fulfilment of some pious vow thathe did this. After all that Carlyle had written about Goethe, he couldhardly help studying him. But this Essay looks to me as if he had foundthe reading of Goethe hard work. It flows rather languidly, toys withside issues as a stream loiters round a nook in its margin, and findsan excuse for play in every pebble. Still, he has praise enough for hisauthor. "He has clothed our modern existence with poetry. "--"He hassaid the best things about nature that ever were said. --He flung intoliterature in his Mephistopheles the first organic figure that hasbeen added for some ages, and which will remain as long as thePrometheus. --He is the type of culture, the amateur of all arts andsciences and events; artistic, but not artist; spiritual, but notspiritualist. --I join Napoleon with him, as being both representativesof the impatience and reaction of nature against the morgue ofconventions, --two stern realists, who, with their scholars, haveseverally set the axe at the root of the tree of cant and seeming, forthis time and for all time. "

This must serve as an _ex pede_ guide to reconstruct the Essay whichfinishes the volume. 

In 1852 there was published a Memoir of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, in whichEmerson, James Freeman Clarke, and William Henry Channing each tooka part. Emerson's account of her conversation and extracts fromher letters and diaries, with his running commentaries and hisinterpretation of her mind and character, are a most faithful and vividportraiture of a woman who is likely to live longer by what is writtenof her than by anything she ever wrote herself. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

1858-1858. AEt. 50-55. 

Lectures in various Places. --Anti-Slavery Addresses. --Woman. A Lectureread before the Woman's Rights Convention. --Samuel Hoar. Speech atConcord. --Publication of "English Traits. "--The "Atlantic Monthly. "--The"Saturday Club. "

After Emerson's return from Europe he delivered lectures to differentaudiences, --one on Poetry, afterwards published in "Letters and SocialAims, " a course of lectures in Freeman Place Chapel, Boston, some ofwhich have been published, one on the Anglo-Saxon Race, and manyothers. In January, 1855, he gave one of the lectures in a course ofAnti-Slavery Addresses delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston. In the sameyear he delivered an address before the Anti-Slavery party of New York. His plan for the extirpation of slavery was to buy the slaves from theplanters, not conceding their right to ownership, but because "it isthe only practical course, and is innocent. " It would cost two thousandmillions, he says, according to the present estimate, but "was thereever any contribution that was so enthusiastically paid as this wouldbe?"

His optimism flowers out in all its innocent luxuriance in the paragraphfrom which this is quoted. Of course with notions like these he couldnot be hand in hand with the Abolitionists. He was classed with the FreeSoilers, but he seems to have formed a party by himself in his projectfor buying up the negroes. He looked at the matter somewhat otherwise in1863, when the settlement was taking place in a different currency, --insteel and not in gold:--

 "Pay ransom to the owner, And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? The slave is owner, And ever was. Pay him. "

His sympathies were all and always with freedom. He spoke withindignation of the outrage on Sumner; he took part in the meeting atConcord expressive of sympathy with John Brown. But he was never in thefront rank of the aggressive Anti-Slavery men. In his singular "Odeinscribed to W. H. Channing" there is a hint of a possible solution ofthe slavery problem which implies a doubt as to the permanence of thecause of all the trouble. 

 "The over-god Who marries Right to Might, Who peoples, unpeoples, -- He who exterminates Races by stronger races, Black by white faces, -- Knows to bring honey Out of the lion. "

Some doubts of this kind helped Emerson to justify himself when herefused to leave his "honeyed thought" for the busy world where

 "Things are of the snake. "

The time came when he could no longer sit quietly in his study, and, toborrow Mr. Cooke's words, "As the agitation proceeded, and brave mentook part in it, and it rose to a spirit of moral grandeur, he gave aheartier assent to the outward methods adopted. "

 * * * * *

No woman could doubt the reverence of Emerson for womanhood. In alecture read to the "Woman's Rights Convention" in 1855, he takes bold, and what would then have been considered somewhat advanced, ground inthe controversy then and since dividing the community. This is the wayin which he expresses himself:

 "I do not think it yet appears that women wish this equal share in public affairs. But it is they and not we that are to determine it. Let the laws he purged of every barbarous remainder, every barbarous impediment to women. Let the public donations for education be equally shared by them, let them enter a school as freely as a church, let them have and hold and give their property as men do theirs;--and in a few years it will easily appear whether they wish a voice in making the laws that are to govern them. If you do refuse them a vote, you will also refuse to tax them, --according to our Teutonic principle, No representation, no tax. --The new movement is only a tide shared by the spirits of man and woman; and you may proceed in the faith that whatever the woman's heart is prompted to desire, the man's mind is simultaneously prompted to accomplish. "

Emerson was fortunate enough to have had for many years as a neighbor, that true New England Roman, Samuel Hoar. He spoke of him in Concordbefore his fellow-citizens, shortly after his death, in 1856. Heafterwards prepared a sketch of Mr. Hoar for "Putnam's Magazine, " fromwhich I take one prose sentence and the verse with which the sketchconcluded:--

 "He was a model of those formal but reverend manners which make what is called a gentleman of the old school, so called under an impression that the style is passing away, but which, I suppose, is an optical illusion, as there are always a few more of the class remaining, and always a few young men to whom these manners are native. "

The single verse I quote is compendious enough and descriptive enoughfor an Elizabethan monumental inscription. 

 "With beams December planets dart His cold eye truth and conduct scanned; July was in his sunny heart, October in his liberal hand. "

Emerson's "English Traits, " forming one volume of his works, waspublished in 1856. It is a thoroughly fresh and original book. It is nota tourist's guide, not a detailed description of sights which tiredthe traveller in staring at them, and tire the reader who attacks thewearying pages in which they are recorded. Shrewd observation there isindeed, but its strength is in broad generalization and epigrammaticcharacterizations. They are not to be received as in any sense final;they are not like the verifiable facts of science; they are more or lesssagacious, more or less well founded opinions formed by a fair-minded, sharp-witted, kind-hearted, open-souled philosopher, whose presencemade every one well-disposed towards him, and consequently left himwell-disposed to all the world. 

A glance at the table of contents will give an idea of the objects whichEmerson proposed to himself in his tour, and which take up the principalportion of his record. Only one _place_ is given as the heading of achapter, --_Stonehenge_. The other eighteen chapters have general titles, _Land, Race, Ability, Manners_, and others of similar character. 

He uses plain English in introducing us to the Pilgrim fathers of theBritish Aristocracy:--

 "Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates. They were all alike, they took everything they could carry; they burned, harried, violated, tortured, and killed, until everything English was brought to the verge of ruin. Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent and dignified men now existing boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits by assuming for their types the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally resembled. "

The race preserves some of its better characteristics. 

 "They have a vigorous health and last well into middle and old age. The old men are as red as roses, and still handsome. A clear skin, a peach-bloom complexion, and good teeth are found all over the island. "

English "Manners" are characterized, according to Emerson, by pluck, vigor, independence. "Every one of these islanders is an island himself, safe, tranquil, incommunicable. " They are positive, methodical, cleanly, and formal, loving routine and conventional ways; loving truth andreligion, to be sure, but inexorable on points of form. 

 "They keep their old customs, costumes, and pomps, their wig and mace, sceptre and crown. A severe decorum rules the court and the cottage. Pretension and vaporing are once for all distasteful. They hate nonsense, sentimentalism, and high-flown expressions; they use a studied plainness. "

 "In an aristocratical country like England, not the Trial by Jury, but the dinner is the capital institution. "

 "They confide in each other, --English believes in English. "--"They require the same adherence, thorough conviction, and reality in public men. "

 "As compared with the American, I think them cheerful and contented. Young people in this country are much more prone to melancholy. "

Emerson's observation is in accordance with that of Cotton Mather nearlytwo hundred years ago. 

 "_New England_, a country where splenetic Maladies are prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any other, hath afforded numberless instances, of even pious people, who have contracted those _Melancholy Indispositions_, which have unhinged them from all service or comfort; yea, not a few persons have been hurried thereby to lay _Violent Hands_ upon themselves at the last. These are among the _unsearchable Judgments_ of God. "

If there is a little exaggeration about the following portrait of theEnglishman, it has truth enough to excuse its high coloring, and thelikeness will be smilingly recognized by every stout Briton. 

 "They drink brandy like water, cannot expend their quantities of waste strength on riding, hunting, swimming, and fencing, and run into absurd follies with the gravity of the Eumenides. They stoutly carry into every nook and corner of the earth their turbulent sense; leaving no lie uncontradicted; no pretension unexamined. They chew hasheesh; cut themselves with poisoned creases, swing their hammock in the boughs of the Bohon Upas, taste every poison, buy every secret; at Naples, they put St. Januarius's blood in an alembic; they saw a hole into the head of the 'winking virgin' to know why she winks; measure with an English foot-rule every cell of the inquisition, every Turkish Caaba, every Holy of Holies; translate and send to Bentley the arcanum, bribed and bullied away from shuddering Bramins; and measure their own strength by the terror they cause. "

This last audacious picture might be hung up as a prose pendant toMarvell's poetical description of Holland and the Dutch. 

 "A saving stupidity marks and protects their perception as the curtain of the eagle's eye. Our swifter Americans, when they first deal with English, pronounce them stupid; but, later, do them justice as people who wear well, or hide their strength. --High and low, they are of an unctuous texture. --Their daily feasts argue a savage vigor of body. --Half their strength they put not forth. The stability of England is the security of the modern world. "

Perhaps nothing in any of his vigorous paragraphs is more striking thanthe suggestion that "if hereafter the war of races often predicted, and making itself a war of opinions also (a question of despotismand liberty coming from Eastern Europe), should menace the Englishcivilization, these sea-kings may take once again to their floatingcastles and find a new home and a second millennium of power in theircolonies. "

In reading some of Emerson's pages it seems as if another Arcadia, orthe new Atlantis, had emerged as the fortunate island of Great Britain, or that he had reached a heaven on earth where neither moth nor rustdoth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, --or ifthey do, never think of denying that they have done it. But this was ageneration ago, when the noun "shoddy, " and the verb "to scamp, " had notgrown such familiar terms to English ears as they are to-day. Emersonsaw the country on its best side. Each traveller makes his own England. A Quaker sees chiefly broad brims, and the island looks to him like afield of mushrooms. 

The transplanted Church of England is rich and prosperous andfashionable enough not to be disturbed by Emerson's flashes of lightthat have not come through its stained windows. 

 "The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador's chapel, and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, one cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman. 

 "The church at this moment is much to be pitied. She has nothing left but possession. If a bishop meets an intelligent gentleman, and reads fatal interrogation in his eyes, he has no resource but to take wine with him. "

Sydney Smith had a great reverence for a bishop, --so great that he tolda young lady that he used to roll a crumb of bread in his hand, fromnervousness, when he sat next one at a dinner-table, --and if next anarchbishop, used to roll crumbs with both hands, ---but Sydney Smithwould have enjoyed the tingling felicity of this last stinging touchof wit, left as lightly and gracefully as a _banderillero_ leaves hislittle gayly ribboned dart in the shoulders of the bull with whoseunwieldy bulk he is playing. 

Emerson handles the formalism and the half belief of the EstablishedChurch very freely, but he closes his chapter on Religion withsoft-spoken words. 

 "Yet if religion be the doing of all good, and for its sake the suffering of all evil, _souffrir de tout le monde, et ne faire souffrir personne, _ that divine secret has existed in England from the days of Alfred to those of Romilly, of Clarkson, and of Florence Nightingale, and in thousands who have no fame. "

"English Traits" closes with Emerson's speech at Manchester, at theannual banquet of the "Free Trade Athenaeum. " This was merely anoccasional after-dinner reply to a toast which called him up, but it hadsentences in it which, if we can imagine Milton to have been called upin the same way, he might well have spoken and done himself credit intheir utterance. 

 * * * * *

The total impression left by the book is that Emerson was fascinatedby the charm of English society, filled with admiration of the people, tempted to contrast his New Englanders in many respects unfavorably withOld Englanders, mainly in their material and vital stamina; but with allthis not blinded for a moment to the thoroughly insular limitationsof the phlegmatic islander. He alternates between a turn of genuineadmiration and a smile as at a people that has not outgrown itsplaythings. This is in truth the natural and genuine feeling of aself-governing citizen of a commonwealth where thrones and wigs andmitres seem like so many pieces of stage property. An American need notbe a philosopher to hold these things cheap. He cannot help it. MadameTussaud's exhibition, the Lord-Mayor's gilt coach, and a coronation, ifone happens to be in season, are all sights to be seen by an Americantraveller, but the reverence which is born with the British subject wentup with the smoke of the gun that fired the long echoing shot at thelittle bridge over the sleepy river which works its way along throughthe wide-awake town of Concord. 

In November, 1857, a new magazine was established in Boston, bearingthe name of "The Atlantic Monthly. " Professor James Russell Lowellwas editor-in-chief, and Messrs. Phillips and Sampson, who were theoriginators of the enterprise, were the publishers. Many of the oldcontributors to "The Dial" wrote for the new magazine, among themEmerson. He contributed twenty-eight articles in all, more than half ofthem verse, to different numbers, from the first to the thirty-seventhvolume. Among them are several of his best known poems, such as "TheRomany Girl, " "Days, " "Brahma, " "Waldeinsamkeit, " "The Titmouse, ""Boston Hymn, " "Saadi, " and "Terminus. "

At about the same time there grew up in Boston a literary association, which became at last well known as the "Saturday Club, " the membersdining together on the last Saturday of every month. 

The Magazine and the Club have existed and flourished to the presentday. They have often been erroneously thought to have some organicconnection, and the "Atlantic Club" has been spoken of as if there wasor had been such an institution, but it never existed. 

Emerson was a member of the Saturday Club from the first; in realitybefore it existed as an empirical fact, and when it was only a Platonicidea. The Club seems to have shaped itself around him as a nucleus ofcrystallization, two or three friends of his having first formed thehabit of meeting him at dinner at "Parker's, " the "Will's Coffee-House"of Boston. This little group gathered others to itself and grew into aclub as Rome grew into a city, almost without knowing how. During itsfirst decade the Saturday Club brought together, as members or asvisitors, many distinguished persons. At one end of the table satLongfellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a most agreeablerather than a brilliant talker, but a man upon whom it was alwayspleasant to look, --whose silence was better than many another man'sconversation. At the other end of the table sat Agassiz, robust, sanguine, animated, full of talk, boy-like in his laughter. The strangerwho should have asked who were the men ranged along the sides of thetable would have heard in answer the names of Hawthorne, Motley, Dana, Lowell, Whipple, Peirce, the distinguished mathematician, Judge Hoar, eminent at the bar and in the cabinet, Dwight, the leading musicalcritic of Boston for a whole generation, Sumner, the academic championof freedom, Andrew, "the great War Governor" of Massachusetts, Dr. Howe, the philanthropist, William Hunt, the painter, with others not unworthyof such company. And with these, generally near the Longfellow end ofthe table, sat Emerson, talking in low tones and carefully measuredutterances to his neighbor, or listening, and recording on his mentalphonograph any stray word worth remembering. Emerson was a very regularattendant at the meetings of the Saturday Club, and continued to dine atits table, until within a year or two of his death. 

Unfortunately the Club had no Boswell, and its golden hours passedunrecorded. 

CHAPTER IX. 

1858-1863: AET. 55-60. 

Essay on Persian Poetry. --Speech at the Burns CentennialFestival--Letter from Emerson to a Lady. --Tributes to Theodore Parkerand to Thoreau. --Address on the Emancipation Proclamation. --Publicationof "The Conduct of Life. " Contents: Fate; Power; Wealth; Culture;Behavior; Worship; Considerations by the Way; Beauty; Illusions. 

The Essay on Persian Poetry, published in the "Atlantic Monthly" in1858, should be studied by all readers who are curious in tracing theinfluence of Oriental poetry on Emerson's verse. In many of the shorterpoems and fragments published since "May-Day, " as well as in the"Quatrains" and others of the later poems in that volume, it issometimes hard to tell what is from the Persian from what is original. 

On the 25th of January, 1859, Emerson attended the Burns Festival, heldat the Parker House in Boston, on the Centennial Anniversary of thepoet's birth. He spoke after the dinner to the great audience with suchbeauty and eloquence that all who listened to him have remembered it asone of the most delightful addresses they ever heard. Among his hearerswas Mr. Lowell, who says of it that "every word seemed to have justdropped down to him from the clouds. " Judge Hoar, who was another of hishearers, says, that though he has heard many of the chief orators of histime, he never witnessed such an effect of speech upon men. I was myselfpresent on that occasion, and underwent the same fascination that thesegentlemen and the varied audience before the speaker experienced. Hiswords had a passion in them not usual in the calm, pure flow mostnatural to his uttered thoughts; white-hot iron we are familiar with, but white-hot silver is what we do not often look upon, and hisinspiring address glowed like silver fresh from the cupel. 

I am allowed the privilege of printing the following letter addressedto a lady of high intellectual gifts, who was one of the earliest, mostdevoted, and most faithful of his intimate friends:--

CONCORD, May 13, 1859. 

Please, dear C. , not to embark for home until I have despatched theselines, which I will hasten to finish. Louis Napoleon will not bayonetyou the while, --keep him at the door. So long I have promised towrite! so long I have thanked your long suffering! I have let pass theunreturning opportunity your visit to Germany gave to acquaint you withGisela von Arnim (Bettina's daughter), and Joachim the violinist, andHermann Grimm the scholar, her friends. Neither has E. , --wandering inEurope with hope of meeting you, --yet met. This contumacy of mine Ishall regret as long as I live. How palsy creeps over us, with gossamerfirst, and ropes afterwards! and the witch has the prisoner whenonce she has put her eye on him, as securely as after the bolts aredrawn. --Yet I and all my little company watch every token from you, andcoax Mrs. H. To read us letters. I learned with satisfaction that youdid not like Germany. Where then did Goethe find his lovers? Do all thewomen have bad noses and bad mouths? And will you stop in England, andbring home the author of "Counterparts" with you? Or did----write thenovels and send them to London, as I fancied when I read them? Howstrange that you and I alone to this day should have his secret! I thinkour people will never allow genius, without it is alloyed by talent. But----is paralyzed by his whims, that I have ceased to hope from him. I could wish your experience of your friends were more animating thanmine, and that there were any horoscope you could not cast from thefirst day. The faults of youth are never shed, no, nor the merits, andcreeping time convinces ever the more of our impotence, and of theirresistibility of our bias. Still this is only science, and must remainscience. Our _praxis_ is never altered for that. We must forever holdour companions responsible, or they are not companions but stall-fed. 

I think, as we grow older, we decrease as individuals, and as if in animmense audience who hear stirring music, none essays to offer a newstave, but we only join emphatically in the chorus. We volunteerno opinion, we despair of guiding people, but are confirmed inour perception that Nature is all right, and that we have a goodunderstanding with it. We must shine to a few brothers, as palms orpines or roses among common weeds, not from greater absolute value, butfrom a more convenient nature. But 'tis almost chemistry at last, thougha meta-chemistry. I remember you were such an impatient blasphemer, however musically, against the adamantine identities, in your youth, that you should take your turn of resignation now, and be a preacher ofpeace. But there is a little raising of the eyebrow, now and then, inthe most passive acceptance, --if of an intellectual turn. Here comes outaround me at this moment the new June, --the leaves say June, though thecalendar says May, --and we must needs hail our young relatives again, though with something of the gravity of adult sons and daughtersreceiving a late-born brother or sister. Nature herself seems a littleashamed of a law so monstrous, billions of summers, and now the old gameagain without a new bract or sepal. But you will think me incorrigiblewith my generalities, and you so near, and will be here again thissummer; perhaps with A. W. And the other travellers. My children scancuriously your E. 's drawings, as they have seen them. 

The happiest winds fill the sails of you and yours!

R. W. EMERSON. 

In the year 1860, Theodore Parker died, and Emerson spokeof his life and labors at the meeting held at the Music Hall to do honorto his memory. Emerson delivered discourses on Sundays and week-days inthe Music Hall to Mr. Parker's society after his death. In 1862, he losthis friend Thoreau, at whose funeral he delivered an address which waspublished in the "Atlantic Monthly" for August of the same year. Thoreauhad many rare and admirable qualities, and Thoreau pictured by Emersonis a more living personage than White of Selborne would have been on thecanvas of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

The Address on the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered in Bostonin September, 1862. The feeling that inspired it may be judged by thefollowing extract:--

 "Happy are the young, who find the pestilence cleansed out of the earth, leaving open to them an honest career. Happy the old, who see Nature purified before they depart. Do not let the dying die; hold them back to this world, until you have charged their ear and heart with this message to other spiritual societies, announcing the melioration of our planet:--

 "'Incertainties now crown themselves assured, And Peace proclaims olives of endless age. '"

The "Conduct of Life" was published in 1860. The chapter on "Fate" mightleave the reader with a feeling that what he is to do, as well as whathe is to be and to suffer, is so largely predetermined for him, thathis will, though formally asserted, has but a questionable fraction inadjusting him to his conditions as a portion of the universe. But lethim hold fast to this reassuring statement:--

 "If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character. --We are sure, that, though we know not how, necessity does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with the spirit of the times. "

But the value of the Essay is not so much in any light it throws on themystery of volition, as on the striking and brilliant way in which thelimitations of the individual and the inexplicable rule of law areillustrated. 

 "Nature is no sentimentalist, --does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust. --The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda, --these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity, --expensive races, --race living at the expense of race. --Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity. "

Emerson cautions his reader against the danger of the doctrines which hebelieved in so fully:--

 "They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star, etc. , are in a lower dangerous plane, and invite the evils they fear. "

But certainly no physiologist, no cattle-breeder, no Calvinisticpredestinarian could put his view more vigorously than Emerson, whodearly loves a picturesque statement, has given it in these words, which have a dash of science, a flash of imagination, and a hint of thedelicate wit that is one of his characteristics:--

 "People are born with the moral or with the material bias;--uterine brothers with this diverging destination: and I suppose, with high magnifiers, Mr. Fraunhofer or Dr. Carpenter might come to distinguish in the embryo at the fourth day, this is a whig and that a free-soiler. "

Let us see what Emerson has to say of "Power:"--

 "All successful men have agreed in one thing--they were _causationists_. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and the last of things. 

 "The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe;--the key to all ages is, --Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear. This gives force to the strong, --that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action. --

 "We say that success is constitutional; depends on a _plus_ condition of mind and body, on power of work, on courage; that is of main efficacy in carrying on the world, and though rarely found in the right state for an article of commerce, but oftener in the supernatural or excess, which makes it dangerous and destructive, yet it cannot be spared, and must be had in that form, and absorbents provided to take off its edge. "

The "two economies which are the best _succedanea"_ for deficiency oftemperament are concentration and drill. This he illustrates by example, and he also lays down some good, plain, practical rules which "PoorRichard" would have cheerfully approved. He might have accepted also theEssay on "Wealth" as having a good sense so like his own that he couldhardly tell the difference between them. 

 "Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and wind out; in a good pump that yields you plenty of sweet water; in two suits of clothes, so as to change your dress when you are wet; in dry sticks to burn; in a good double-wick lamp, and three meals; in a horse or locomotive to cross the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to work with; in books to read; and so, in giving, on all sides, by tools and auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it added feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, and knowledge and good will. Wealth begins with these articles of necessity. --

 "To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the masterworks and chief men of each race. --

 "The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth; but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone. "

Who can give better counsels on "Culture" than Emerson? But we mustborrow only a few sentences from his essay on that subject. All kinds ofsecrets come out as we read these Essays of Emerson's. We know somethingof his friends and disciples who gathered round him and sat at his feet. It is not hard to believe that he was drawing one of those compositeportraits Mr. Galton has given us specimens of when he wrote asfollows:--

 "The pest of society is egotism. This goitre of egotism is so frequent among notable persons that we must infer some strong necessity in nature which it subserves; such as we see in the sexual attraction. The preservation of the species was a point of such necessity that Nature has secured it at all hazards by immensely overloading the passion, at the risk of perpetual crime and disorder. So egotism has its root in the cardinal necessity by which each individual persists to be what he is. 

 "The antidotes against this organic egotism are, the range and variety of attraction, as gained by acquaintance with the world, with men of merit, with classes of society, with travel, with eminent persons, and with the high resources of philosophy, art, and religion: books, travel, society, solitude. "

 "We can ill spare the commanding social benefits of cities; they must be used; yet cautiously and haughtily, --and will yield their best values to him who can best do without them. Keep the town for occasions, but the habits should be formed to retirement. Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter, where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. "

We must remember, too, that "the calamities are our friends. Try therough water as well as the smooth. Rough water can teach lessons worthknowing. Don't be so tender at making an enemy now and then. He who aimshigh, must dread an easy home and popular manners. "

Emerson cannot have had many enemies, if any, in his calm and noblecareer. He can have cherished no enmity, on personal grounds at least. But he refused his hand to one who had spoken ill of a friend whom herespected. It was "the hand of Douglas" again, --the same feeling thatCharles Emerson expressed in the youthful essay mentioned in theintroduction to this volume. 

Here are a few good sayings about "Behavior. "

 "There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, --now repeated and hardened into usage. "

Thus it is that Mr. Emerson speaks of "Manners" in his Essay under theabove title. 

 "The basis of good manners is self-reliance. --Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than haste. --

 "Men take each other's measure, when they meet for the first time, --and every time they meet. --

 "It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man that stands by himself, the universe stands by him also. "

In his Essay on "Worship, " Emerson ventures the following prediction:--

 "The religion which is to guide and fulfil the present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith which is science. --There will be a new church founded on moral science, at first cold and naked, a babe in a manger again, the algebra and mathematics of ethical law, the church of men to come, without shawms or psaltery or sackbut; but it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters; science for symbol and illustration; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry. "

It is a bold prophecy, but who can doubt that all improbable andunverifiable traditional knowledge of all kinds will make way for theestablished facts of science and history when these last reach it intheir onward movement? It may be remarked that he now speaks of sciencemore respectfully than of old. I suppose this Essay was of later datethan "Beauty, " or "Illusions. " But accidental circumstances made suchconfusion in the strata of Emerson's published thought that one is oftenat a loss to know whether a sentence came from the older or the newerlayer. 

We come to "Considerations by the Way. " The common-sense side ofEmerson's mind has so much in common with the plain practicalintelligence of Franklin that it is a pleasure to find the philosopherof the nineteenth century quoting the philosopher of the eighteenth. 

 "Franklin said, 'Mankind are very superficial and dastardly: they begin upon a thing, but, meeting with a difficulty, they fly from it discouraged; but they have the means if they would employ them. '"

"Shall we judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By theminority, surely. " Here we have the doctrine of the "saving remnant, "which we have since recognized in Mr. Matthew Arnold's well-rememberedlecture. Our republican philosopher is clearly enough outspoken on thismatter of the _vox populi_. "Leave this hypocritical prating about themasses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands, andneed not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concedeanything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, anddraw individuals out of them. "

Père Bouhours asked a question about the Germans which found its answerin due time. After reading what Emerson says about "the masses, " one istempted to ask whether a philosopher can ever have "a constituency" andbe elected to Congress? Certainly the essay just quoted from would notmake a very promising campaign document. Perhaps there was no greatnecessity for Emerson's returning to the subject of "Beauty, " to whichhe had devoted a chapter of "Nature, " and of which he had so oftendiscoursed incidentally. But he says so many things worth reading in theEssay thus entitled in the "Conduct of Life" that we need not troubleourselves about repetitions. The Essay is satirical and poetical ratherthan philosophical. Satirical when he speaks of science with somethingof that old feeling betrayed by his brother Charles when he was writingin 1828; poetical in the flight of imagination with which he enlivens, entertains, stimulates, inspires, --or as some may prefer to say, --amuseshis listeners and readers. 

The reader must decide which of these effects is produced by thefollowing passage:--

 "The feat of the imagination is in showing the convertibility of everything into every other thing. Facts which had never before left their stark common sense suddenly figure as Eleusinian mysteries. My boots and chair and candlestick are fairies in disguise, meteors, and constellations. All the facts in Nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, treble, or centuple use and meaning. What! has my stove and pepper-pot a false bottom? I cry you mercy, good shoe-box! I did not know you were a jewel-case. Chaff and dust begin to sparkle, and are clothed about with immortality. And there is a joy in perceiving the representative or symbolic character of a fact, which no base fact or event can ever give. There are no days so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination. "

One is reminded of various things in reading this sentence. An ounceof alcohol, or a few whiffs from an opium-pipe, may easily make a daymemorable by bringing on this imaginative delirium, which is apt, ifoften repeated, to run into visions of rodents and reptiles. Acoarser satirist than Emerson indulged his fancy in "Meditations on aBroomstick, " which My Lady Berkeley heard seriously and to edification. Meditations on a "Shoe-box" are less promising, but no doubt somethingcould be made of it. A poet must select, and if he stoops too low hecannot lift the object he would fain idealize. 

The habitual readers of Emerson do not mind an occasionalover-statement, extravagance, paradox, eccentricity; they find themamusing and not misleading. But the accountants, for whom two and twoalways make four, come upon one of these passages and shut the book upas wanting in sanity. Without a certain sensibility to the humorous, noone should venture upon Emerson. If he had seen the lecturer's smileas he delivered one of his playful statements of a runaway truth, factunhorsed by imagination, sometimes by wit, or humor, he would have founda meaning in his words which the featureless printed page could nevershow him. 

The Essay on "Illusions" has little which we have not met with, or shallnot find repeating itself in the Poems. 

During this period Emerson contributed many articles in prose andverse to the "Atlantic Monthly, " and several to "The Dial, " a secondperiodical of that name published in Cincinnati. Some of these havebeen, or will be, elsewhere referred to. 

CHAPTER X. 

1863-1868. AET. 60-65. 

"Boston Hymn. "--"Voluntaries. "--Other Poems. --"May-Day and otherPieces. "--"Remarks at the Funeral Services of Abraham Lincoln. "--Essayon Persian Poetry. --Address at a Meeting of the Free ReligiousAssociation. --"Progress of Culture. " Address before the Phi BetaKappa Society of Harvard University. --Course of Lectures inPhiladelphia. --The Degree of LL. D. Conferred upon Emerson by HarvardUniversity. --"Terminus. "

The "Boston Hymn" was read by Emerson in the Music Hall, on the firstday of January, 1863. It is a rough piece of verse, but noble frombeginning to end. One verse of it, beginning "Pay ransom to the owner, "has been already quoted; these are the three that precede it:--

 "I cause from every creature His proper good to flow: As much as he is and doeth So much shall he bestow. 

 "But laying hands on another To coin his labor and sweat, He goes in pawn to his victim For eternal years in debt. 

 "To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound: Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!"

"Voluntaries, " published in the same year in the "Atlantic Monthly, " ismore dithyrambic in its measure and of a more Pindaric elevation thanthe plain song of the "Boston Hymn. "

 "But best befriended of the God He who, in evil times, Warned by an inward voice, Heeds not the darkness and the dread, Biding by his rule and choice, Feeling only the fiery thread Leading over heroic ground, Walled with mortal terror round, To the aim which him allures, And the sweet heaven his deed secures. Peril around, all else appalling, Cannon in front and leaden rain Him duly through the clarion calling To the van called not in vain. "

It is in this poem that we find the lines which, a moment after theywere written, seemed as if they had been carved on marble for a thousandyears:--

 "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, The youth replies, _I can_. "

"Saadi" was published in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1864, "My Garden" in1866, "Terminus" in 1867. In the same year these last poems with manyothers were collected in a small volume, entitled "May-Day, andOther Pieces. " The general headings of these poems are as follows:May-Day. --The Adirondacs. --Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces. --Natureand Life. --Elements. --Quatrains. --Translations. --Some of these poems, which were written at long intervals, have been referred to in previouspages. "The Adirondacs" is a pleasant narrative, but not to be comparedfor its poetical character with "May-Day, " one passage from which, beginning, "I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth, "

is surpassingly imaginative and beautiful. In this volume will be found"Brahma, " "Days, " and others which are well known to all readers ofpoetry. 

Emerson's delineations of character are remarkable for high-relief andsharp-cut lines. In his Remarks at the Funeral Services for AbrahamLincoln, held in Concord, April 19, 1865, he drew the portrait of thehomespun-robed chief of the Republic with equal breadth and delicacy:--

 "Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no fair weather sailor; the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four years, --four years of battle-days, --his endurance, his fertility of resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the centre of a heroic epoch. He is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by step he walked before them; slow with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent; an entirely public man; father of his country; the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue. "

In his "Remarks at the Organization of the Free Religious Association, "Emerson stated his leading thought about religion in a very succinct andsufficiently "transcendental" way: intelligibly for those who wish tounderstand him; mystically to those who do not accept or wish to acceptthe doctrine shadowed forth in his poem, "The Sphinx. "

 --"As soon as every man is apprised of the Divine Presence within his own mind, --is apprised that the perfect law of duty corresponds with the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, as face to face in a glass; that the basis of duty, the order of society, the power of character, the wealth of culture, the perfection of taste, all draw their essence from this moral sentiment; then we have a religion that exalts, that commands all the social and all the private action. "

Nothing could be more wholesome in a meeting of creed-killers than thesuggestive remark, --

 --"What I expected to find here was, some practical suggestions by which we were to reanimate and reorganize for ourselves the true Church, the pure worship. Pure doctrine always bears fruit in pure benefits. It is only by good works, it is only on the basis of active duty, that worship finds expression. --The interests that grow out of a meeting like this, should bind us with new strength to the old eternal duties. "

 In a later address before the same association, Emerson says:-- "I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous dispensation, --certainly not to the _doctrine_ of Christianity. --If you are childish and exhibit your saint as a worker of wonders, a thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim takes his teachings out of nature, and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on the teachings. "

The "Progress of Culture" was delivered as a Phi Beta Kappa oration justthirty years after his first address before the same society. It is veryinstructive to compare the two orations written at the interval of awhole generation: one in 1837, at the age of thirty-four; the other in1867, at the age of sixty-four. Both are hopeful, but the second is moresanguine than the first. He recounts what he considers the recent gainsof the reforming movement:--

 "Observe the marked ethical quality of the innovations urged or adopted. The new claim of woman to a political status is itself an honorable testimony to the civilization which has given her a civil status new in history. Now that by the increased humanity of law she controls her property, she inevitably takes the next step to her share in power. "

He enumerates many other gains, from the war or from the growth ofintelligence, --"All, one may say, in a high degree revolutionary, teaching nations the taking of governments into their own hands, andsuperseding kings. "

He repeats some of his fundamental formulae. 

 "The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment. 

 "Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. 

 "Periodicity, reaction, are laws of mind as well as of matter. "

And most encouraging it is to read in 1884 what was written in1867, --especially in the view of future possibilities. "Bad kings andgovernors help us, if only they are bad enough. " _Non tali auxilio_, weexclaim, with a shudder of remembrance, and are very glad to read theseconcluding words: "I read the promise of better times and of greatermen. "

In the year 1866, Emerson reached the age which used to be spoken of asthe "grand climacteric. " In that year Harvard University conferred uponhim the degree of Doctor of Laws, the highest honor in its gift. 

In that same year, having left home on one of his last lecturing trips, he met his son, Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson, at the Brevoort House, in NewYork. Then, and in that place, he read to his son the poem afterwardspublished in the "Atlantic Monthly, " and in his second volume, under thetitle "Terminus. " This was the first time that Dr. Emerson recognizedthe fact that his father felt himself growing old. The thought, whichmust have been long shaping itself in the father's mind, had been so farfrom betraying itself that it was a shock to the son to hear it plainlyavowed. The poem is one of his noblest; he could not fold his robesabout him with more of serene dignity than in these solemn lines. Thereader may remember that one passage from it has been quoted for aparticular purpose, but here is the whole poem:--

 TERMINUS. 

 It is time to be old, To take in sail:-- The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: "No more! No farther shoot Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few, Timely wise accept the terms, Soften the fall with wary foot; A little while Still plan and smile, And, --fault of novel germs, -- Mature the unfallen fruit. Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful sinew stark as once, The baresark marrow to thy bones, But left a legacy of ebbing veins, Inconstant heat and nerveless reins, -- Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, Amid the gladiators, halt and numb. 

 "As the bird trims her to the gale I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 'Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed. '"

CHAPTER XI. 

1868-1873. AET. 65-70. 

Lectures on the Natural History of the Intellect. --Publicationof "Society and Solitude. " Contents: Society and Solitude. --Civilization. --Art. --Eloquence. --Domestic Life. --Farming. --Works and Days. --Books. --Clubs. --Courage. --Success. --Old Age. --OtherLiterary Labors. --Visit to California. --Burning of his House, and theStory of its Rebuilding. --Third Visit to Europe. --His Reception atConcord on his Return. 

During three successive years, 1868, 1869, 1870, Emerson delivered aseries of Lectures at Harvard University on the "Natural History of theIntellect. " These Lectures, as I am told by Dr. Emerson, cost him agreat deal of labor, but I am not aware that they have been collected orreported. They will be referred to in the course of this chapter, in anextract from Prof. Thayer's "Western Journey with Mr. Emerson. " He isthere reported as saying that he cared very little for metaphysics. It is very certain that he makes hardly any use of the ordinary termsemployed by metaphysicians. If he does not hold the words "subject andobject" with their adjectives, in the same contempt that Mr. Ruskinshows for them, he very rarely employs either of these expressions. Once he ventures on the _not me_, but in the main he uses plain Englishhandles for the few metaphysical tools he has occasion to employ. 

"Society and Solitude" was published in 1870. The first Essay in thevolume bears the same name as the volume itself. 

In this first Essay Emerson is very fair to the antagonistic claimsof solitary and social life. He recognizes the organic necessity ofsolitude. We are driven "as with whips into the desert. " But there isdanger in this seclusion. "Now and then a man exquisitely made can livealone and must; but coop up most men and you undo them. --Here again, asso often, Nature delights to put us between extreme antagonisms, andour safety is in the skill with which we keep the diagonal line. --Theconditions are met, if we keep our independence yet do not lose oursympathy. "

The Essay on "Civilization" is pleasing, putting familiar facts in avery agreeable way. The framed or stone-house in place of the cave orthe camp, the building of roads, the change from war, hunting, and pasturage to agriculture, the division of labor, the skilfulcombinations of civil government, the diffusion of knowledge through thepress, are well worn subjects which he treats agreeably, if not withspecial brilliancy:--

 "Right position of woman in the State is another index. --Place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a severe morality gives that essential charm to a woman which educates all that is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing; breeds courtesy and learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate, so that I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women. "

My attention was drawn to one paragraph for a reason which my readerwill readily understand, and I trust look upon good-naturedly:--

 "The ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and compend of a nation's arts: the ship steered by compass and chart, longitude reckoned by lunar observation and by chronometer, driven by steam; and in wildest sea-mountains, at vast distances from home, --

 "'The pulses of her iron heart Go beating through the storm. '"

I cannot be wrong, it seems to me, in supposing those two lines to bean incorrect version of these two from a poem of my own called "TheSteamboat:"

 "The beating of her restless heart Still sounding through the storm. "

It is never safe to quote poetry from memory, at least while the writerlives, for he is ready to "cavil on the ninth part of a hair" where hisverses are concerned. But extreme accuracy was not one of Emerson'sspecial gifts, and vanity whispers to the misrepresented versifier that

 'tis better to be quoted wrong Than to be quoted not at all. 

This Essay of Emerson's is irradiated by a single precept that is worthyto stand by the side of that which Juvenal says came from heaven. Howcould the man in whose thought such a meteoric expression suddenlyannounced itself fail to recognize it as divine? It is not strange thathe repeats it on the page next the one where we first see it. Not havingany golden letters to print it in, I will underscore it for italics, anddoubly underscore it in the second extract for small capitals:--

 "Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to _hitch his wagon to a star_, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. "--

 "'It was a great instruction, ' said a saint in Cromwell's war, 'that the best courages are but beams of the Almighty. ' HITCH YOUR WAGON TO A STAR. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. No god will help. We shall find all their teams going the other way, --Charles's Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo, Hercules: every god will leave us. Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote, --justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility. "--

Charles's Wain and the Great Bear, he should have been reminded, are thesame constellation; the _Dipper_ is what our people often call it, andthe country folk all know "the pinters, " which guide their eyes to theNorth Star. 

I find in the Essay on "Art" many of the thoughts with which we arefamiliar in Emerson's poem, "The Problem. " It will be enough to citethese passages:--

 "We feel in seeing a noble building which rhymes well, as we do in hearing a perfect song, that it is spiritually organic; that it had a necessity in nature for being; was one of the possible forms in the Divine mind, and is now only discovered and executed by the artist, not arbitrarily composed by him. And so every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun. --

 --"The Iliad of Homer, the songs of David, the odes of Pindar, the tragedies of Aeschylus, the Doric temples, the Gothic cathedrals, the plays of Shakspeare, all and each were made not for sport, but in grave earnest, in tears and smiles of suffering and loving men. --

 --"The Gothic cathedrals were built when the builder and the priest and the people were overpowered by their faith. Love and fear laid every stone. --

 "Our arts are happy hits. We are like the musician on the lake, whose melody is sweeter than he knows. "

The discourse on "Eloquence" is more systematic, more professorial, than many of the others. A few brief extracts will give the key to itsgeneral purport:--

 "Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative. Afterwards, it may warm itself until it exhales symbols of every kind and color, speaks only through the most poetic forms; but, first and last, it must still be at bottom a biblical statement of fact. --

 "He who will train himself to mastery in this science of persuasion must lay the emphasis of education, not on popular arts, but on character and insight. --

 --"The highest platform of eloquence is the moral sentiment. --

 --"Its great masters . . . Were grave men, who preferred their integrity to their talent, and esteemed that object for which they toiled, whether the prosperity of their country, or the laws, or a reformation, or liberty of speech, or of the press, or letters, or morals, as above the whole world and themselves also. "

"Domestic Life" begins with a picture of childhood so charming that itsweetens all the good counsel which follows like honey round the rim ofthe goblet which holds some tonic draught:--

 "Welcome to the parents the puny struggler, strong in his weakness, his little arms more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child, --the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation, --soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His flesh is angels' flesh, all alive. --All day, between his three or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-house, sputters and spurs and puts on his faces of importance; and when he fasts, the little Pharisee fails not to sound his trumpet before him. "

Emerson has favored his audiences and readers with what he knew about"Farming. " Dr. Emerson tells me that this discourse was read as anaddress before the "Middlesex Agricultural Society, " and printed in the"Transactions" of that association. He soon found out that the hoe andthe spade were not the tools he was meant to work with, but he had somegeneral ideas about farming which he expressed very happily:--

 "The farmer's office is precise and important, but you must not try to paint him in rose-color; you cannot make pretty compliments to fate and gravitation, whose minister he is. --This hard work will always be done by one kind of man; not by scheming speculators, nor by soldiers, nor professors, nor readers of Tennyson; but by men of endurance, deep-chested, long-winded, tough, slow and sure, and timely. "

Emerson's chemistry and physiology are not profound, but they arecorrect enough to make a fine richly colored poetical picture in hisimaginative presentation. He tells the commonest facts so as to makethem almost a surprise:--

 "By drainage we went down to a subsoil we did not know, and have found there is a Concord under old Concord, which we are now getting the best crops from; a Middlesex under Middlesex; and, in fine, that Massachusetts has a basement story more valuable and that promises to pay a better rent than all the superstructure. "

In "Works and Days" there is much good reading, but I will callattention to one or two points only, as having a slight special interestof their own. The first is the boldness of Emerson's assertions andpredictions in matters belonging to science and art. Thus, he speaks of"the transfusion of the blood, --which, in Paris, it was claimed, enablesa man to change his blood as often as his linen!" And once more, "We are to have the balloon yet, and the next war will be fought in theair. "

Possibly; but it is perhaps as safe to predict that it will be fought onwheels; the soldiers on bicycles, the officers on tricycles. 

The other point I have marked is that we find in this Essay a proseversion of the fine poem, printed in "May-Day" under the title "Days. " Ishall refer to this more particularly hereafter. 

It is wronging the Essay on "Books" to make extracts from it. It is allan extract, taken from years of thought in the lonely study and thepublic libraries. If I commit the wrong I have spoken of, it is underprotest against myself. Every word of this Essay deserves carefulreading. But here are a few sentences I have selected for the reader'sconsideration:--

 "There are books; and it is practicable to read them because they are so few. --

 "I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and I can seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best of it all is already within the four walls of my study at home. --

 "The three practical rules which I have to offer are, 1. Never read any book that is not a year old. 2. Never read any but famed books. 3. Never read any but what you like, or, in Shakspeare's phrase, --

 "'No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en; In brief, Sir, study what you most affect. '"

Emerson has a good deal to say about conversation in his Essay on"Clubs, " but nothing very notable on the special subject of the Essay. Perhaps his diary would have something of interest with reference to the"Saturday Club, " of which he was a member, which, in fact, formed itselfaround him as a nucleus, and which he attended very regularly. But hewas not given to personalities, and among the men of genius and oftalent whom he met there no one was quieter, but none saw and heard andremembered more. He was hardly what Dr. Johnson would have called a"clubable" man, yet he enjoyed the meetings in his still way, or hewould never have come from Concord so regularly to attend them. He givestwo good reasons for the existence of a club like that of which I havebeen speaking:--

 "I need only hint the value of the club for bringing masters in their several arts to compare and expand their views, to come to an understanding on these points, and so that their united opinion shall have its just influence on public questions of education and politics. "

 "A principal purpose also is the hospitality of the club, as a means of receiving a worthy foreigner with mutual advantage. "

I do not think "public questions of education and politics" were veryprominent at the social meetings of the "Saturday Club, " but "worthyforeigners, " and now and then one not so worthy, added variety to themeetings of the company, which included a wide range of talents andcallings. 

All that Emerson has to say about "Courage" is worth listening to, forhe was a truly brave man in that sphere of action where there are morecowards than are found in the battle-field. He spoke his convictionsfearlessly; he carried the spear of Ithuriel, but he wore no breastplatesave that which protects him

 "Whose armor is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill. "

He mentions three qualities as attracting the wonder and reverence ofmankind: 1. Disinterestedness; 2. Practical Power; 3. Courage. "I neednot show how much it is esteemed, for the people give it the first rank. They forgive everything to it. And any man who puts his life in peril ina cause which is esteemed becomes the darling of all men. "--There aregood and inspiriting lessons for young and old in this Essay or Lecture, which closes with the spirited ballad of "George Nidiver, " written "by alady to whom all the particulars of the fact are exactly known. "

Men will read any essay or listen to any lecture which has for itssubject, like the one now before me, "Success. " Emerson complains of thesame things in America which Carlyle groaned over in England:--

 "We countenance each other in this life of show, puffing advertisement, and manufacture of public opinion; and excellence is lost sight of in the hunger for sudden performance and praise. --

 "Now, though I am by no means sure that the reader will assent to all my propositions, yet I think we shall agree in my first rule for success, --that we shall drop the brag and the advertisement and take Michael Angelo's course, 'to confide in one's self and be something of worth and value. '"

Reading about "Success" is after all very much like reading in old booksof alchemy. "How not to do it, " is the lesson of all the books andtreatises. Geber and Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon and Raymond Lully, andthe whole crew of "pauperes alcumistae, " all give the most elaboratedirections showing their student how to fail in transmuting Saturn intoLuna and Sol and making a billionaire of himself. "Success" in itsvulgar sense, --the gaining of money and position, --is not to be reachedby following the rules of an instructor. Our "self-made men, " who governthe country by their wealth and influence, have found their place byadapting themselves to the particular circumstances in which they wereplaced, and not by studying the broad maxims of "Poor Richard, " or anyother moralist or economist. --For such as these is meant the cheapcynical saying quoted by Emerson, "_Rien ne réussit mieux que lesuccès_. "

But this is not the aim and end of Emerson's teaching:--

 "I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other private opinion; one fame, the other desert; one feats, the other humility; one lucre, the other love; one monopoly, and the other hospitality of mind. "

And so, though there is no alchemy in this Lecture, it is profitablereading, assigning its true value to the sterling gold of character, the gaining of which is true success, as against the brazen idol of themarket-place. 

The Essay on "Old Age" has a special value from its containing twopersonal reminiscences: one of the venerable Josiah Quincy, a briefmention; the other the detailed record of a visit in the year 1825, Emerson being then twenty-two years old, to ex-President John Adams, soon after the election of his son to the Presidency. It is enough toallude to these, which every reader will naturally turn to first of all. 

But many thoughts worth gathering are dropped along these pages. Herecounts the benefits of age; the perilous capes and shoals it hasweathered; the fact that a success more or less signifies little, sothat the old man may go below his own mark with impunity; the feelingthat he has found expression, --that his condition, in particular and ingeneral, allows the utterance of his mind; the pleasure of completinghis secular affairs, leaving all in the best posture for the future:--

 "When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare, muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom which was old in infancy is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old. I have heard that whenever the name of man is spoken, the doctrine of immortality is announced; it cleaves to his constitution. The mode of it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes to us from the other side. But the inference from the working of intellect, hiving knowledge, hiving skill, --at the end of life just ready to be born, --affirms the inspirations of affection and of the moral sentiment. "

Other literary labors of Emerson during this period were theIntroduction to "Plutarch's Morals" in 1870, and a Preface to WilliamEllery Channing's Poem, "The Wanderer, " in 1871. He made a speech atHoward University, Washington, in 1872. 

In the year 1871 Emerson made a visit to California with a very pleasantcompany, concerning which Mr. John M. Forbes, one of whose sons marriedEmerson's daughter Edith, writes to me as follows. Professor James B. Thayer, to whom he refers, has more recently written and published anaccount of this trip, from which some extracts will follow Mr. Forbes'sletter:--

 BOSTON, February 6, 1884. 

 MY DEAR DR. , --What little I can give will be of a very rambling character. 

 One of the first memories of Emerson which comes up is my meeting him on the steamboat at returning from Detroit East. I persuaded him to stop over at Niagara, which he had never seen. We took a carriage and drove around the circuit. It was in early summer, perhaps in 1848 or 1849. When we came to Table Rock on the British side, our driver took us down on the outer part of the rock in the carriage. We passed on by rail, and the next day's papers brought us the telegraphic news that Table Rock had fallen over; perhaps we were among the last persons on it!

 About 1871 I made up a party for California, including Mr. Emerson, his daughter Edith, and a number of gay young people. We drove with B----, the famous Vermont coachman, up to the Geysers, and then made the journey to the Yosemite Valley by wagon and on horseback. I wish I could give you more than a mere outline picture of the sage at this time. With the thermometer at 100 degrees he would sometimes drive with the buffalo robes drawn up over his knees, apparently indifferent to the weather, gazing on the new and grand scenes of mountain and valley through which we journeyed. I especially remember once, when riding down the steep side of a mountain, his reins hanging loose, the bit entirely out of the horse's mouth, without his being aware that this was an unusual method of riding Pegasus, so fixed was his gaze into space, and so unconscious was he, at the moment, of his surroundings. 

 In San Francisco he visited with us the dens of the opium smokers, in damp cellars, with rows of shelves around, on which were deposited the stupefied Mongolians; perhaps the lowest haunts of humanity to be found in the world. The contrast between them and the serene eye and undisturbed brow of the sage was a sight for all beholders. 

 When we reached Salt Lake City on our way home he made a point of calling on Brigham Young, then at the summit of his power. The Prophet, or whatever he was called, was a burly, bull-necked man of hard sense, really leading a great industrial army. He did not seem to appreciate who his visitor was, at any rate gave no sign of so doing, and the chief interest of the scene was the wide contrast between these leaders of spiritual and of material forces. 

 I regret not having kept any notes of what was said on this and other occasions, but if by chance you could get hold of Professor J. B. Thayer, who was one of our party, he could no doubt give you some notes that would be valuable. 

 Perhaps the latest picture that remains in my mind of our friend is his wandering along the beaches and under the trees at Naushon, no doubt carrying home large stealings from my domain there, which lost none of their value from being transferred to his pages. Next to his private readings which he gave us there, the most notable recollection is that of his intense amusement at some comical songs which our young people used to sing, developing a sense of humor which a superficial observer would hardly have discovered, but which you and I know he possessed in a marked degree. 

 Yours always, J. M. FORBES. 

Professor James B. Thayer's little book, "A Western Journey with Mr. Emerson, " is a very entertaining account of the same trip concerningwhich Mr. Forbes wrote the letter just given. Professor Thayer kindlyread many of his notes to me before his account was published, andallows me to make such use of the book as I see fit. Such liberty mustnot be abused, and I will content myself with a few passages in whichEmerson has a part. No extract will interest the reader more than thefollowing:--

 "'How _can_ Mr. Emerson, ' said one of the younger members of the party to me that day, 'be so agreeable, all the time, without getting tired!' It was the _naive_ expression of what we all had felt. There was never a more agreeable travelling companion; he was always accessible, cheerful, sympathetic, considerate, tolerant; and there was always that same respectful interest in those with whom he talked, even the humblest, which raised them in their own estimation. One thing particularly impressed me, --the sense that he seemed to have of a certain great amplitude of time and leisure. It was the behavior of one who really _believed_ in an immortal life, and had adjusted his conduct accordingly; so that, beautiful and grand as the natural objects were, among which our journey lay, they were matched by the sweet elevation of character, and the spiritual charm of our gracious friend. Years afterwards, on that memorable day of his funeral at Concord, I found that a sentence from his own Essay on Immortality haunted my mind, and kept repeating itself all the day long; it seemed to point to the sources of his power: 'Meantime the true disciples saw through the letter the doctrine of eternity, which dissolved the poor corpse, and Nature also, and gave grandeur to the passing hour. '"

This extract will be appropriately followed by another alluding to thesame subject. 

 "The next evening, Sunday, the twenty-third, Mr. Emerson read his address on 'Immortality, ' at Dr. Stebbins's church. It was the first time that he had spoken on the Western coast; never did he speak better. It was, in the main, the same noble Essay that has since been printed. 

 "At breakfast the next morning we had the newspaper, the 'Alta California. ' It gave a meagre outline of the address, but praised it warmly, and closed with the following observations: 'All left the church feeling that an elegant tribute had been paid to the creative genius of the Great First Cause, and that a masterly use of the English language had contributed to that end. '"

The story used to be told that after the Reverend Horace Holley haddelivered a prayer on some public occasion, Major Ben. Russell, of ruddyface and ruffled shirt memory, Editor of "The Columbian Centinel, "spoke of it in his paper the next day as "the most eloquent prayer everaddressed to a Boston audience. "

The "Alta California's" "elegant tribute" is not quite up to thisrhetorical altitude. 

 "'The minister, ' said he, 'is in no danger of losing his position; he represents the moral sense and the humanities. ' He spoke of his own reasons for leaving the pulpit, and added that 'some one had lately come to him whose conscience troubled him about retaining the name of Christian; he had replied that he himself had no difficulty about it. When he was called a Platonist, or a Christian, or a Republican, he welcomed it. It did not bind him to what he did not like. What is the use of going about and setting up a flag of negation?'"

 "I made bold to ask him what he had in mind in naming his recent course of lectures at Cambridge, 'The Natural History of the Intellect. ' This opened a very interesting conversation; but, alas! I could recall but little of it, --little more than the mere hintings of what he said. He cared very little for metaphysics. But he thought that as a man grows he observes certain facts about his own mind, --about memory, for example. These he had set down from time to time. As for making any methodical history, he did not undertake it. "

Emerson met Brigham Young at Salt Lake City, as has been mentioned, butneither seems to have made much impression upon the other. Emerson spokeof the Mormons. Some one had said, "They impress the common people, through their imagination, by Bible-names and imagery. " "Yes, " he said, "it is an after-clap of Puritanism. But one would think that after thisFather Abraham could go no further. "

The charm of Boswell's Life of Johnson is that it not merely recordshis admirable conversation, but also gives us many of those lesserpeculiarities which are as necessary to a true biography as lights andshades to a portrait on canvas. We are much obliged to Professor Thayertherefore for the two following pleasant recollections which he has beengood-natured enough to preserve for us, and with which we will takeleave of his agreeable little volume:--

 "At breakfast we had, among other things, pie. This article at breakfast was one of Mr. Emerson's weaknesses. A pie stood before him now. He offered to help somebody from it, who declined; and then one or two others, who also declined; and then Mr. ----; he too declined. 'But Mr. ----!' Mr. Emerson remonstrated, with humorous emphasis, thrusting the knife under a piece of the pie, and putting the entire weight of his character into his manner, --'but Mr. ----, _what is pie for_?'"

A near friend of mine, a lady, was once in the cars with Emerson, andwhen they stopped for the refreshment of the passengers he was verydesirous of procuring something at the station for her solace. Presentlyhe advanced upon her with a cup of tea in one hand and a wedge of pie inthe other, --such a wedge! She could hardly have been more dismayedif one of Caesar's _cunei_, or wedges of soldiers, had made a chargeagainst her. 

Yet let me say here that pie, often foolishly abused, is a goodcreature, at the right time and in angles of thirty or forty degrees. Insemicircles and quadrants it may sometimes prove too much for delicatestomachs. But here was Emerson, a hopelessly confirmed pie-eater, never, so far as I remember, complaining of dyspepsia; and there, on the otherside, was Carlyle, feeding largely on wholesome oatmeal, groaning withindigestion all his days, and living with half his self-consciousnesshabitually centred beneath his diaphragm. 

Like his friend Carlyle and like Tennyson, Emerson had a liking for awhiff of tobacco-smoke:--

 "When alone, " he said, "he rarely cared to finish a whole cigar. But in company it was singular to see how different it was. To one who found it difficult to meet people, as he did, the effect of a cigar was agreeable; one who is smoking may be as silent as he likes, and yet be good company. And so Hawthorne used to say that he found it. On this journey Mr. Emerson generally smoked a single cigar after our mid-day dinner, or after tea, and occasionally after both. This was multiplying, several times over, anything that was usual with him at home. "

Professor Thayer adds in a note:--

 "Like Milton, Mr. Emerson 'was extraordinary temperate in his Diet, ' and he used even less tobacco. Milton's quiet day seems to have closed regularly with a pipe; he 'supped, ' we are told, 'upon . . . Some light thing; and after a pipe of tobacco and a glass of water went to bed. '"

As Emerson's name has been connected with that of Milton in its nobleraspects, it can do no harm to contemplate him, like Milton, indulging inthis semi-philosophical luxury. 

One morning in July, 1872, Mr. And Mrs. Emerson woke to find their roomfilled with smoke and fire coming through the floor of a closet in theroom over them. The alarm was given, and the neighbors gathered and didtheir best to put out the flames, but the upper part of the house wasdestroyed, and with it were burned many papers of value to Emerson, including his father's sermons. Emerson got wet and chilled, and itseems too probable that the shock hastened that gradual loss of memorywhich came over his declining years. 

His kind neighbors did all they could to save his property and relievehis temporary needs. A study was made ready for him in the old CourtHouse, and the "Old Manse, " which had sheltered his grandfather, andothers nearest to him, received him once more as its tenant. 

On the 15th of October he spoke at a dinner given in New York in honorof James Anthony Froude, the historian, and in the course of this samemonth he set out on his third visit to Europe, accompanied by hisdaughter Ellen. We have little to record of this visit, which wassuggested as a relief and recreation while his home was being refittedfor him. He went to Egypt, but so far as I have learned the Sphinx hadno message for him, and in the state of mind in which he found himselfupon the mysterious and dream-compelling Nile it may be suspected thatthe landscape with its palms and pyramids was an unreal vision, --that, as to his Humble-bee, "All was picture as he passed. "

But while he was voyaging his friends had not forgotten him. Thesympathy with him in his misfortune was general and profound. It did notconfine itself to expressions of feeling, but a spontaneous movementorganized itself almost without effort. If any such had been needed, theattached friend whose name is appended to the Address to the Subscribersto the Fund for rebuilding Mr. Emerson's house would have been asenergetic in this new cause as he had been in the matter of procuringthe reprint of "Sartor Resartus. " I have his kind permission to publishthe whole correspondence relating to the friendly project so happilycarried out. 

 _To the Subscribers to the Fund for the Rebuilding of Mr. Emerson's House, after the Fire of July_ 24, 1872:

 The death of Mr. Emerson has removed any objection which may have before existed to the printing of the following correspondence. I have now caused this to be done, that each subscriber may have the satisfaction of possessing a copy of the touching and affectionate letters in which he expressed his delight in this, to him, most unexpected demonstration of personal regard and attachment, in the offer to restore for him his ruined home. 

 No enterprise of the kind was ever more fortunate and successful in its purpose and in its results. The prompt and cordial response to the proposed subscription was most gratifying. No contribution was solicited from any one. The simple suggestion to a few friends of Mr. Emerson that an opportunity was now offered to be of service to him was all that was needed. From the first day on which it was made, the day after the fire, letters began to come in, with cheques for large and small amounts, so that in less than three weeks I was enabled to send to Judge Hoar the sum named in his letter as received by him on the 13th of August, and presented by him to Mr. Emerson the next morning, at the Old Manse, with fitting words. 

 Other subscriptions were afterwards received, increasing the amount on my book to eleven thousand six hundred and twenty dollars. A part of this was handed directly to the builder at Concord. The balance was sent to Mr. Emerson October 7, and acknowledged by him in his letter of October 8, 1872. 

 All the friends of Mr. Emerson who knew of the plan which was proposed to rebuild his house, seemed to feel that it was a privilege to be allowed to express in this way the love and veneration with which he was regarded, and the deep debt of gratitude which they owed to him, and there is no doubt that a much larger amount would have been readily and gladly offered, if it had been required, for the object in view. 

 Those who have had the happiness to join in this friendly "conspiracy" may well take pleasure in the thought that what they have done has had the effect to lighten the load of care and anxiety which the calamity of the fire brought with it to Mr. Emerson, and thus perhaps to prolong for some precious years the serene and noble life that was so dear to all of us. 

 My thanks are due to the friends who have made me the bearer of this message of good-will. 

 LE BARON RUSSELL. 

 BOSTON, May 8, 1882. 

 BOSTON, August 13, 1872. 

 DEAR MR. EMERSON:

 It seems to have been the spontaneous desire of your friends, on hearing of the burning of your house, to be allowed the pleasure of rebuilding it. 

 A few of them have united for this object, and now request your acceptance of the amount which I have to-day deposited to your order at the Concord Bank, through the kindness of our friend, Judge Hoar. They trust that you will receive it as an expression of sincere regard and affection from friends, who will, one and all, esteem it a great privilege to be permitted to assist in the restoration of your home. 

 And if, in their eagerness to participate in so grateful a work, they may have exceeded the estimate of your architect as to what is required for that purpose, they beg that you will devote the remainder to such other objects as may be most convenient to you. 

 Very sincerely yours, LE BARON RUSSELL. 

 CONCORD, August 14, 1872. 

 DR. LE B. RUSSELL:

 _Dear Sir_, --I received your letters, with the check for ten thousand dollars inclosed, from Mr. Barrett last evening. This morning I deposited it to Mr. Emerson's credit in the Concord National Bank, and took a bank book for him, with his little balance entered at the top, and this following, and carried it to him with your letter. I told him, by way of prelude, that some of his friends had made him treasurer of an association who wished him to go to England and examine Warwick Castle and other noted houses that had been recently injured by fire, in order to get the best ideas possible for restoration, and then to apply them to a house which the association was formed to restore in this neighborhood. 

 When he understood the thing and had read your letter, he seemed very deeply moved. He said that he had been allowed so far in life to stand on his own feet, and that he hardly knew what to say, --that the kindness of his friends was very great. I said what I thought was best in reply, and told him that this was the spontaneous act of friends, who wished the privilege of expressing in this way their respect and affection, and was done only by those who thought it a privilege to do so. I mentioned Hillard as you desired, and also Mrs. Tappan, who, it seems, had written to him and offered any assistance he might need, to the extent of five thousand dollars, personally. 

 I think it is all right, but he said he must see the list of contributors, and would then say what he had to say about it. He told me that Mr. F. C. Lowell, who was his classmate and old friend, Mr. Bangs, Mrs. Gurney, and a few other friends, had already sent him five thousand dollars, which he seemed to think was as much as he could bear. This makes the whole a very gratifying result, and perhaps explains the absence of some names on your book. 

 I am glad that Mr. Emerson, who is feeble and ill, can learn what a debt of obligation his friends feel to him, and thank you heartily for what you have done about it. Very truly yours, E. R. HOAR. 

 CONCORD, August 16, 1872. 

 MY DEAR LE BARON:

 I have wondered and melted over your letter and its accompaniments till it is high time that I should reply to it, if I can. My misfortunes, as I have lived along so far in this world, have been so few that I have never needed to ask direct aid of the host of good men and women who have cheered my life, though many a gift has come to me. And this late calamity, however rude and devastating, soon began to look more wonderful in its salvages than in its ruins, so that I can hardly feel any right to this munificent endowment with which you, and my other friends through you, have astonished me. But I cannot read your letter or think of its message without delight, that my companions and friends bear me so noble a good-will, nor without some new aspirations in the old heart toward a better deserving. Judge Hoar has, up to this time, withheld from me the names of my benefactors, but you may be sure that I shall not rest till I have learned them, every one, to repeat to myself at night and at morning. 

 Your affectionate friend and debtor, R. W. EMERSON. 

 DR. LE BARON RUSSELL

 CONCORD, October 8, 1872. 

 MY DEAR DOCTOR LE BARON:

 I received last night your two notes, and the cheque, enclosed in one of them, for one thousand and twenty dollars. 

 Are my friends bent on killing me with kindness? No, you will say, but to make me live longer. I thought myself sufficiently loaded with benefits already, and you add more and more. It appears that you all will rebuild my house and rejuvenate me by sending me in my old days abroad on a young man's excursion. 

 I am a lover of men, but this recent wonderful experience of their tenderness surprises and occupies my thoughts day by day. Now that I have all or almost all the names of the men and women who have conspired in this kindness to me (some of whom I have never personally known), I please myself with the thought of meeting each and asking, Why have we not met before? Why have you not told me that we thought alike? Life is not so long, nor sympathy of thought so common, that we can spare the society of those with whom we best agree. Well, 'tis probably my own fault by sticking ever to my solitude. Perhaps it is not too late to learn of these friends a better lesson. 

 Thank them for me whenever you meet them, and say to them that I am not wood or stone, if I have not yet trusted myself so far as to go to each one of them directly. 

 My wife insists that I shall also send her acknowledgments to them and you. 

 Yours and theirs affectionately, R. W. EMERSON. 

 DR. LE BARON KUSSELL. 

The following are the names of the subscribers to the fund forrebuilding Mr. Emerson's house:--

Mrs. Anne S. Hooper. Miss Alice S. Hooper. Mrs. Caroline Tappan. Miss Ellen S. Tappan. Miss Mary A. Tappan. Mr. T. G. Appleton. Mrs. Henry Edwards. Miss Susan E. Dorr. Misses Wigglesworth. Mr. Edward Wigglesworth. Mr. J. Elliot Cabot. Mrs. Sarah S. Russell. Friends in New York and Philadelphia, through Mr. Williams. Mr. William Whiting. Mr. Frederick Beck. Mr. H. P. Kidder. Mrs. Abel Adams. Mrs. George Faulkner. Hon. E. R. Hoar. Mr. James B. Thayer. Mr. John M. Forbes. Mr. James H. Beal. Mrs. Anna C. Lodge. Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge. Mr. H. H. Hunnewell. Mrs. S. Cabot. Mr. James A. Dupee. Mrs. Anna C. Lowell. Mrs. M. F. Sayles. Miss Helen L. Appleton. J. R. Osgood & Co. Mr. Richard Soule. Mr. Francis Geo. Shaw. Dr. R. W. Hooper. Mr. William P. Mason. Mr. William Gray. Mr. Sam'l G. Ward. Mr. J. I. Bowditch. Mr. Geo. C. Ward. Mrs. Luicia J. Briggs. Mr. John E. Williams. Dr. Le Baron Russell. 

In May, 1873, Emerson returned to Concord. His friends andfellow-citizens received him with every token of affection andreverence. A set of signals was arranged to announce his arrival. Carriages were in readiness for him and his family, a band greeted himwith music, and passing under a triumphal arch, he was driven to hisrenewed old home amidst the welcomes and the blessings of his loving andadmiring friends and neighbors. 

CHAPTER XII. 

1873-1878. AET. 70-75. 

Publication of "Parnassus. "--Emerson Nominated as Candidate for theOffice of Lord Rector of Glasgow University. --Publication of"Letters and Social Aims. " Contents: Poetry and Imagination. --SocialAims. --Eloquence. --Resources. --The Comic. --Quotation andOriginality. --Progress of Culture. --Persian Poetry. --Inspiration. --Greatness. --Immortality. --Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of "TheMinute-Man" at Concord. --Publication of Collected Poems. 

In December, 1874, Emerson published "Parnassus, " a Collection of Poemsby British and American authors. Many readers may like to see hissubdivisions and arrangement of the pieces he has brought together. They are as follows: "Nature. "--"Human Life. "--"Intellectual. "--"Contemplation. "--"Moral and Religious. "--"Heroic. "--"Personal. "--"Pictures. "--"Narrative Poems and Ballads. "--"Songs. "--"Dirges andPathetic Poems. "--"Comic and Humorous. "--"Poetry of Terror. "--"Oraclesand Counsels. "

I have borrowed so sparingly from the rich mine of Mr. George WillisCooke's "Ralph Waldo Emerson, His Life, Writings, and Philosophy, " thatI am pleased to pay him the respectful tribute of taking a leaf from hisexcellent work. 

"This collection, " he says, "was the result of his habit, pursued for many years, of copying into his commonplace book any poem which specially pleased him. Many of these favorites had been read to illustrate his lectures on the English poets. The book has no worthless selections, almost everything it contains bearing the stamp of genius and worth. Yet Emerson's personality is seen in its many intellectual and serious poems, and in the small number of its purely religious selections. With two or three exceptions he copies none of those devotional poems which have attracted devout souls. --His poetical sympathies are shown in the fact that one third of the selections are from the seventeenth century. Shakespeare is drawn on more largely than any other, no less than eighty-eight selections being made from him. The names of George Herbert, Herrick, Ben Jonson, and Milton frequently appear. Wordsworth appears forty-three times, and stands next to Shakespeare; while Burns, Byron, Scott, Tennyson, and Chaucer make up the list of favorites. Many little known pieces are included, and some whose merit is other than poetical. --This selection of poems is eminently that of a poet of keen intellectual tastes. I not popular in character, omitting many public favorites, and introducing very much which can never be acceptable to the general reader. The Preface is full of interest for its comments on many of the poems and poets appearing in these selections. "

I will only add to Mr. Cooke's criticism these two remarks: First, thatI have found it impossible to know under which of his divisions to lookfor many of the poems I was in search of; and as, in the earlier copiesat least, there was no paged index where each author's pieces werecollected together, one had to hunt up his fragments with no little lossof time and patience, under various heads, "imitating the careful searchthat Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris. " The other remark is thateach one of Emerson's American fellow-poets from whom he has quotedwould gladly have spared almost any of the extracts from the poems ofhis brother-bards, if the editor would only have favored us with somespecimens of his own poetry, with a single line of which he has not seenfit to indulge us. 

In 1874 Emerson received the nomination by the independent party amongthe students of Glasgow University for the office of Lord Rector. Hereceived five hundred votes against seven hundred for Disraeli, who waselected. He says in a letter to Dr. J. Hutchinson Sterling:--

 "I count that vote as quite the fairest laurel that has ever fallen on me; and I cannot but feel deeply grateful to my young friends in the University, and to yourself, who have been my counsellor and my too partial advocate. "

Mr. Cabot informs us in his Prefatory Note to "Letters and Social Aims, "that the proof sheets of this volume, now forming the eighth of thecollected works, showed even before the burning of his house and theillness which followed from the shock, that his loss of memory and ofmental grasp was such as to make it unlikely that he would in any casehave been able to accomplish what he had undertaken. Sentences, evenwhole pages, were repeated, and there was a want of order beyond whateven he would have tolerated:--

 "There is nothing here that he did not write, and he gave his full approval to whatever was done in the way of selection and arrangement; but I cannot say that he applied his mind very closely to the matter. "

This volume contains eleven Essays, the subjects of which, as justenumerated, are very various. The longest and most elaborate paper isthat entitled "Poetry and Imagination. " I have room for little more thanthe enumeration of the different headings of this long Essay. By theseit will be seen how wide a ground it covers. They are "Introductory;""Poetry;" "Imagination;" "Veracity;" "Creation;" "Melody, Rhythm, Form;""Bards and Trouveurs;" "Morals;" "Transcendency. " Many thoughts withwhich we are familiar are reproduced, expanded, and illustrated in thisEssay. Unity in multiplicity, the symbolism of nature, and others of hisleading ideas appear in new phrases, not unwelcome, for they look freshin every restatement. It would be easy to select a score of pointedsayings, striking images, large generalizations. Some of these we findrepeated in his verse. Thus:--

 "Michael Angelo is largely filled with the Creator that made and makes men. How much of the original craft remains in him, and he a mortal man!"

And so in the well remembered lines of "The Problem":--

 "Himself from God he could not free. "

"He knows that he did not make his thought, --no, his thought made him, and made the sun and stars. "

 "Art might obey but not surpass. The passive Master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned. "

Hope is at the bottom of every Essay of Emerson's as it was at thebottom of Pandora's box:--

 "I never doubt the riches of nature, the gifts of the future, the immense wealth of the mind. O yes, poets we shall have, mythology, symbols, religion of our own. 

 --"Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song. "

Under the title "Social Aims" he gives some wise counsel concerningmanners and conversation. One of these precepts will serve as aspecimen--if we have met with it before it is none the worse for wear:--

 "Shun the negative side. Never worry people with; your contritions, nor with dismal views of politics or society. Never name sickness; even if you could trust yourself on that perilous topic, beware of unmuzzling a valetudinarian, who will give you enough of it. "

We have had one Essay on "Eloquence" already. One extract from this newdiscourse on the same subject must serve our turn:--

 "These are ascending stairs, --a good voice, winning manners, plain speech, chastened, however, by the schools into correctness; but we must come to the main matter, of power of statement, --know your fact; hug your fact. For the essential thing is heat, and heat comes of sincerity. Speak what you know and believe; and are personally in it; and are answerable for every word. Eloquence is _the power to_ _translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak_. "

The italics are Emerson's. 

If our learned and excellent John Cotton used to sweeten his mouthbefore going to bed with a bit of Calvin, we may as wisely sweeten andstrengthen our sense of existence with a morsel or two from Emerson'sEssay on "Resources":--

 "A Schopenhauer, with logic and learning and wit, teaching pessimism, --teaching that this is the worst of all possible worlds, and inferring that sleep is better than waking, and death than sleep, --all the talent in the world cannot save him from being odious. But if instead of these negatives you give me affirmatives; if you tell me that there is always life for the living; that what man has done man can do; that this world belongs to the energetic; that there is always a way to everything desirable; that every man is provided, in the new bias of his faculty, with a key to nature, and that man only rightly knows himself as far as he has experimented on things, --I am invigorated, put into genial and working temper; the horizon opens, and we are full of good-will and gratitude to the Cause of Causes. "

The Essay or Lecture on "The Comic" may have formed a part of a serieshe had contemplated on the intellectual processes. Two or three sayingsin it will show his view sufficiently:--

 "The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well-intended halfness; a non-performance of what is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. 

 "If the essence of the Comic be the contrast in the intellect between the idea and the false performance, there is good reason why we should be affected by the exposure. We have no deeper interest than our integrity, and that we should be made aware by joke and by stroke of any lie we entertain. Besides, a perception of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure. It appears to be an essential element in a fine character. --A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him. "

These and other sayings of like purport are illustrated bywell-preserved stories and anecdotes not for the most part of veryrecent date. 

"Quotation and Originality" furnishes the key to Emerson's workshop. Hebelieved in quotation, and borrowed from everybody and every book. Notin any stealthy or shame-faced way, but proudly, royally, as a kingborrows from one of his attendants the coin that bears his own image andsuperscription. 

 "All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. --We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs by imitation. --

 "The borrowing is often honest enough and comes of magnanimity and stoutness. A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word as good. 

 "Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. "--

--"The Progress of Culture, " his second Phi Beta Kappa oration, hasalready been mentioned. 

--The lesson of self-reliance, which he is never tired of inculcating, is repeated and enforced in the Essay on "Greatness. "

 "There are certain points of identity in which these masters agree. Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears. --Stick to your own; don't inculpate yourself in the local, social, or national crime, but follow the path your genius traces like the galaxy of heaven for you to walk in. 

 "Every mind has a new compass, a new direction of its own, differencing its genius and aim from every other mind. --We call this specialty the _bias_ of each individual. And none of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. "

If to follow this native bias is the first rule, the second isconcentration. --To the bias of the individual mind must be added themost catholic receptivity for the genius of others. 

 "Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him. "--

 "The man whom we have not seen, in whom no regard of self degraded the adorer of the laws, --who by governing himself governed others; sportive in manner, but inexorable in act; who sees longevity in his cause; whose aim is always distinct to him; who is suffered to be himself in society; who carries fate in his eye;--he it is whom we seek, encouraged in every good hour that here or hereafter he shall he found. "

What has Emerson to tell us of "Inspiration?"

 "I believe that nothing great or lasting can be done except by inspiration, by leaning on the secret augury. --

 "How many sources of inspiration can we count? As many as our affinities. But to a practical purpose we may reckon a few of these. "

I will enumerate them briefly as he gives them, but not attempting toreproduce his comments on each:--

1. Health. 2. The experience of writing letters. 3. The renewedsensibility which comes after seasons of decay or eclipse of thefaculties. 4. The power of the will. 5. Atmospheric causes, especiallythe influence of morning. 6. Solitary converse with nature. 7. Solitudeof itself, like that of a country inn in summer, and of a city hotelin winter. 8. Conversation. 9. New poetry; by which, he says, he meanschiefly old poetry that is new to the reader. 

 "Every book is good to read which sets the reader in a working mood. "

What can promise more than an Essay by Emerson on "Immortality"? It isto be feared that many readers will transfer this note of interrogationto the Essay itself. What is the definite belief of Emerson as expressedin this discourse, --what does it mean? We must tack together suchsentences as we can find that will stand for an answer:--

 "I think all sound minds rest on a certain preliminary conviction, namely, that if it be best that conscious personal life shall continue, it will continue; if not best, then it will not; and we, if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was better so. "

This is laying the table for a Barmecide feast of nonentity, with thepossibility of a real banquet to be provided for us. But he continues:--

 "Schiller said, 'What is so universal as death must be benefit. '"

He tells us what Michael Angelo said, how Plutarch felt, how Montesquieuthought about the question, and then glances off from it to the terrorof the child at the thought of life without end, to the story of the twoskeptical statesmen whose unsatisfied inquiry through a long course ofyears he holds to be a better affirmative evidence than their failureto find a confirmation was negative. He argues from our delight inpermanence, from the delicate contrivances and adjustments of createdthings, that the contriver cannot be forever hidden, and says at lastplainly:--

 "Everything is prospective, and man is to live hereafter. That the world is for his education is the only sane solution of the enigma. "

But turn over a few pages and we may read:--

 "I confess that everything connected with our personality fails. Nature never spares the individual; we are always balked of a complete success; no prosperity is promised to our self-esteem. We have our indemnity only in the moral and intellectual reality to which we aspire. That is immortal, and we only through that. The soul stipulates for no private good. That which is private I see not to be good. 'If truth live, I live; if justice live, I live, ' said one of the old saints, 'and these by any man's suffering are enlarged and enthroned. '"

Once more we get a dissolving view of Emerson's creed, if such a wordapplies to a statement like the following:--

 --"I mean that I am a better believer, and all serious souls are better believers in the immortality than we can give grounds for. The real evidence is too subtle, or is higher than we can write down in propositions, and therefore Wordsworth's 'Ode' is the best modern essay on the subject. "

Wordsworth's "Ode" is a noble and beautiful dream; is it anything more?The reader who would finish this Essay, which I suspect to belong to anearly period of Emerson's development, must be prepared to plungeinto mysticism and lose himself at last in an Oriental apologue. Theeschatology which rests upon an English poem and an Indian fable belongsto the realm of reverie and of imagination rather than the domain ofreason. 

On the 19th of April, 1875, the hundredth anniversary of the "Fight atthe Bridge, " Emerson delivered a short Address at the unveiling of thestatue of "The Minute-Man, " erected at the place of the conflict, tocommemorate the event. This is the last Address he ever wrote, though hedelivered one or more after this date. From the manuscript which liesbefore me I extract a single passage:--

 "In the year 1775 we had many enemies and many friends in England, but our one benefactor was King George the Third. The time had arrived for the political severance of America, that it might play its part in the history of this globe, and the inscrutable divine Providence gave an insane king to England. In the resistance of the Colonies, he alone was immovable on the question of force. England was so dear to us that the Colonies could only be absolutely disunited by violence from England, and only one man could compel the resort to violence. Parliament wavered, Lord North wavered, all the ministers wavered, but the king had the insanity of one idea; he was immovable, he insisted on the impossible, so the army was sent, America was instantly united, and the Nation born. "

There is certainly no mark of mental failure in this paragraph, writtenat a period when he had long ceased almost entirely from his literarylabors. 

Emerson's collected "Poems" constitute the ninth volume of the recentcollected edition of his works. They will be considered in a followingchapter. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

1878-1882. AET. 75-79. 

Last Literary Labors. --Addresses and Essays. --"Lectures and BiographicalSketches. "--"Miscellanies. "

The decline of Emerson's working faculties went on gently and gradually, but he was not condemned to entire inactivity. His faithful daughter, Ellen, followed him with assiduous, quiet, ever watchful care, aidinghis failing memory, bringing order into the chaos of his manuscript, anecho before the voice whose words it was to shape for him when his mindfaltered and needed a momentary impulse. 

With her helpful presence and support he ventured from time to timeto read a paper before a select audience. Thus, March 30, 1878, hedelivered a Lecture in the Old South Church, --"Fortune of the Republic. "On the 5th of May, 1879, he read a Lecture in the Chapel of DivinityCollege, Harvard University, --"The Preacher. " In 1881 he read a paper onCarlyle before the Massachusetts Historical Society. --He also publisheda paper in the "North American Review, " in 1878, --"The Sovereignty ofEthics, " and one on "Superlatives, " in "The Century" for February, 1882. 

But in these years he was writing little or nothing. All these paperswere taken from among his manuscripts of different dates. The samething is true of the volumes published since his death; they wereonly compilations from his stores of unpublished matter, and theirarrangement was the work of Mr. Emerson's friend and literary executor, Mr. Cabot. These volumes cannot be considered as belonging to any singleperiod of his literary life. 

Mr. Cabot prefixes to the tenth volume of Emerson's collected works, which bears the title, "Lectures and Biographical Sketches, " thefollowing:--

"NOTE. 

"Of the pieces included in this volume the following, namely, those from'The Dial, ' 'Character, ' 'Plutarch, ' and the biographical sketches ofDr. Ripley, of Mr. Hoar, and of Henry Thoreau, were printed by Mr. Emerson before I took any part in the arrangement of his papers. Therest, except the sketch of Miss Mary Emerson, I got ready for his usein readings to his friends, or to a limited public. He had given upthe regular practice of lecturing, but would sometimes, upon specialrequest, read a paper that had been prepared for him from hismanuscripts, in the manner described in the Preface to 'Letters andSocial Aims, '--some former lecture serving as a nucleus for the new. Some of these papers he afterwards allowed to be printed; others, namely, 'Aristocracy, ' 'Education, ' 'The Man of Letters, ' 'The Scholar, ''Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England, ' 'Mary MoodyEmerson, ' are now published for the first time. "

Some of these papers I have already had occasion to refer to. Fromseveral of the others I will make one or two extracts, --a difficulttask, so closely are the thoughts packed together. 

From "Demonology":--

 "I say to the table-rappers

 'I will believe Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know, ' And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate!"

 "Meantime far be from me the impatience which cannot brook the supernatural, the vast; far be from me the lust of explaining away all which appeals to the imagination, and the great presentiments which haunt us. Willingly I too say Hail! to the unknown, awful powers which transcend the ken of the understanding. "

I will not quote anything from the Essay called "Aristocracy. " But lethim who wishes to know what the word means to an American whose life hascome from New England soil, whose ancestors have breathed New Englandair for many generations, read it, and he will find a new interpretationof a very old and often greatly wronged appellation. 

"Perpetual Forces" is one of those prose poems, --of his earlier epoch, I have no doubt, --in which he plays with the facts of science withsingular grace and freedom. 

What man could speak more fitly, with more authority of "Character, "than Emerson? When he says, "If all things are taken away, I havestill all things in my relation to the Eternal, " we feel that such anutterance is as natural to his pure spirit as breathing to the frame inwhich it was imprisoned. 

We have had a glimpse of Emerson as a school-master, but behind and farabove the teaching drill-master's desk is the chair from which he speaksto us of "Education. " Compare the short and easy method of the wise manof old, --"He that spareth his rod hateth his son, " with this other, "Bethe companion of his thought, the friend of his friendship, the lover ofhis virtue, --but no kinsman of his sin. "

"The Superlative" will prove light and pleasant reading after thesegraver essays. [Greek: Maedhen agan]--_ne quid nimis_, --nothing inexcess, was his precept as to adjectives. 

Two sentences from "The Sovereignty of Ethics" will go far towardsreconciling elderly readers who have not forgotten the WestminsterAssembly's Catechism with this sweet-souled dealer in spiritualdynamite:--

 "Luther would cut his hand off sooner than write theses against the pope if he suspected that he was bringing on with all his might the pale negations of Boston Unitarianism. --

 "If I miss the inspiration of the saints of Calvinism, or of Platonism, or of Buddhism, our times are not up to theirs, or, more truly, have not yet their own legitimate force. "

So, too, this from "The Preacher":--

 "All civil mankind have agreed in leaving one day for contemplation against six for practice. I hope that day will keep its honor and its use. --The Sabbath changes its forms from age to age, but the substantial benefit endures. "

The special interest of the Address called "The Man of Letters" is, thatit was delivered during the war. He was no advocate for peace wheregreat principles were at the bottom of the conflict:--

 "War, seeking for the roots of strength, comes upon the moral aspects at once. --War ennobles the age. --Battle, with the sword, has cut many a Gordian knot in twain which all the wit of East and West, of Northern and Border statesmen could not untie. "

"The Scholar" was delivered before two Societies at the University ofVirginia so late as the year 1876. If I must select any of its wisewords, I will choose the questions which he has himself italicized toshow his sense of their importance:--

 "For all men, all women, Time, your country, your condition, the invisible world are the interrogators: _Who are you? What do you? Can you obtain what you wish? Is there method in your consciousness? Can you see tendency in your life? Can you help any soul_?

 "Can he answer these questions? Can he dispose of them? Happy if you can answer them mutely in the order and disposition of your life! Happy for more than yourself, a benefactor of men, if you can answer them in works of wisdom, art, or poetry; bestowing on the general mind of men organic creations, to be the guidance and delight of all who know them. "

The Essay on "Plutarch" has a peculiar value from the fact that Emersonowes more to him than to any other author except Plato, who is one ofthe only two writers quoted oftener than Plutarch. _Mutato nomine_, theportrait which Emerson draws of the Greek moralist might stand for hisown:--

 "Whatever is eminent in fact or in fiction, in opinion, in character, in institutions, in science--natural, moral, or metaphysical, or in memorable sayings drew his attention and came to his pen with more or less fulness of record. 

 "A poet in verse or prose must have a sensuous eye, but an intellectual co-perception. Plutarch's memory is full and his horizon wide. Nothing touches man but he feels to be his. 

 "Plutarch had a religion which Montaigne wanted, and which defends him from wantonness; and though Plutarch is as plain spoken, his moral sentiment is always pure. --

 "I do not know where to find a book--to borrow a phrase of Ben Jonson's--'so rammed with life, ' and this in chapters chiefly ethical, which are so prone to be heavy and sentimental. --His vivacity and abundance never leave him to loiter or pound on an incident. --

 "In his immense quotation and allusion we quickly cease to discriminate between what he quotes and what he invents. --'Tis all Plutarch, by right of eminent domain, and all property vests in this emperor. 

 "It is in consequence of this poetic trait in his mind, that I confess that, in reading him, I embrace the particulars, and carry a faint memory of the argument or general design of the chapter; but he is not less welcome, and he leaves the reader with a relish and a necessity for completing his studies. 

 "He is a pronounced idealist, who does not hesitate to say, like another Berkeley, 'Matter is itself privation. '--

 "Of philosophy he is more interested in the results than in the method. He has a just instinct of the presence of a master, and prefers to sit as a scholar with Plato than as a disputant. 

 "His natural history is that of a lover and poet, and not of a physicist. 

 "But though curious in the questions of the schools on the nature and genesis of things, his extreme interest in every trait of character, and his broad humanity, lead him constantly to Morals, to the study of the Beautiful and Good. Hence his love of heroes, his rule of life, and his clear convictions of the high destiny of the soul. La Harpe said that 'Plutarch is the genius the most naturally moral that ever existed. '

 "Plutarch thought 'truth to be the greatest good that man can receive, and the goodliest blessing that God can give. '

 "All his judgments are noble. He thought with Epicurus that it is more delightful to do than to receive a kindness. 

 "Plutarch was well-born, well-conditioned--eminently social, he was a king in his own house, surrounded himself with select friends, and knew the high value of good conversation. --

 "He had that universal sympathy with genius which makes all its victories his own; though he never used verse, he had many qualities of the poet in the power of his imagination, the speed of his mental associations, and his sharp, objective eyes. But what specially marks him, he is a chief example of the illumination of the intellect by the force of morals. "

How much, of all this would have been recognized as just and true if ithad been set down in an obituary notice of Emerson!

I have already made use of several of the other papers contained in thisvolume, and will merely enumerate all that follow the "Plutarch. " Someof the titles will be sure to attract the reader. They are "HistoricNotes of Life and Letters in New England;" "The Chardon StreetConvention;" "Ezra Ripley, D. D. ;" "Mary Moody Emerson;" "Samuel Hoar;""Thoreau;" "Carlyle. "--

Mr. Cabot prefaces the eleventh and last volume of Emerson's writingswith the following "Note":--

 "The first five pieces in this volume, and the 'Editorial Address' from the 'Massachusetts Quarterly Review, ' were published by Mr. Emerson long ago. The speeches at the John Brown, the Walter Scott, and the Free Religious Association meetings were published at the time, no doubt with his consent, but without any active co-operation on his part. The 'Fortune of the Republic' appeared separately in 1879; the rest have never been published. In none was any change from the original form made by me, except in the 'Fortune of the Republic, ' which was made up of several lectures for the occasion upon which it was read. "

The volume of "Miscellanies" contains no less than twenty-three piecesof very various lengths and relating to many different subjects. Thefive referred to as having been previously published are, "The Lord'sSupper, " the "Historical Discourse in Concord, " the "Address at theDedication of the Soldiers' Monument in Concord, " the "Address onEmancipation in the British West Indies, " and the Lecture or Essay on"War, "--all of which have been already spoken of. 

Next in order comes a Lecture on the "Fugitive Slave Law. " Emerson says, "I do not often speak on public questions. --My own habitual view is tothe well-being of scholars. " But he leaves his studies to attack theinstitution of slavery, from which he says he himself has never sufferedany inconvenience, and the "Law, " which the abolitionists would alwayscall the "Fugitive Slave _Bill_. " Emerson had a great admiration forMr. Webster, but he did not spare him as he recalled his speech of theseventh of March, just four years before the delivery of this Lecture. He warns against false leadership:--

 "To make good the cause of Freedom, you must draw off from all foolish trust in others. --He only who is able to stand alone is qualified for society. And that I understand to be the end for which a soul exists in this world, --to be himself the counter-balance of all falsehood and all wrong. --The Anglo-Saxon race is proud and strong and selfish. --England maintains trade, not liberty. "

Cowper had said long before this:--

 "doing good, Disinterested good, is not our trade. "

And America found that England had not learned that trade when, fifteenyears after this discourse was delivered, the conflict between the freeand slave states threatened the ruin of the great Republic, and Englandforgot her Anti-slavery in the prospect of the downfall of "a greatempire which threatens to overshadow the whole earth. "

It must be remembered that Emerson had never been identified with theabolitionists. But an individual act of wrong sometimes gives a sharppoint to a blunt dagger which has been kept in its sheath too long:--

 "The events of the last few years and months and days have taught us the lessons of centuries. I do not see how a barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute one State. I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom. "

These were his words on the 26th of May, 1856, in his speech on "TheAssault upon Mr. Sumner. " A few months later, in his "Speech on theAffairs of Kansas, " delivered almost five years before the first gunwas fired at Fort Sumter, he spoke the following fatally prophetic andcommanding words:--

 "The hour is coming when the strongest will not be strong enough. A harder task will the new revolution of the nineteenth century be than was the revolution of the eighteenth century. I think the American Revolution bought its glory cheap. If the problem was new, it was simple. If there were few people, they were united, and the enemy three thousand miles off. But now, vast property, gigantic interests, family connections, webs of party, cover the land with a net-work that immensely multiplies the dangers of war. 

 "Fellow-citizens, in these times full of the fate of the Republic, I think the towns should hold town meetings, and resolve themselves into Committees of Safety, go into permanent sessions, adjourning from week to week, from month to month. I wish we could send the sergeant-at-arms to stop every American who is about to leave the country. Send home every one who is abroad, lest they should find no country to return to. Come home and stay at home while there is a country to save. When it is lost it will be time enough then for any who are luckless enough to remain alive to gather up their clothes and depart to some land where freedom exists. "

Two short speeches follow, one delivered at a meeting for the relief ofthe family of John Brown, on the 18th of November, 1859, the other afterhis execution:--

 "Our blind statesmen, " he says, "go up and down, with committees of vigilance and safety, hunting for the origin of this new heresy. They will need a very vigilant committee indeed to find its birthplace, and a very strong force to root it out. For the arch-Abolitionist, older than Brown, and older than the Shenandoah Mountains, is Love, whose other name is Justice, which was before Alfred, before Lycurgus, before Slavery, and will be after it. "

From his "Discourse on Theodore Parker" I take the following vigoroussentence:--

 "His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he insisted beyond all men in pulpits, --I cannot think of one rival, --that the essence of Christianity is its practical morals; it is there for use, or it is nothing; and if you combine it with sharp trading, or with ordinary city ambitions to gloze over municipal corruptions, or private intemperance, or successful fraud, or immoral politics, or unjust wars, or the cheating of Indians, or the robbery of frontier nations, or leaving your principles at home to follow on the high seas or in Europe a supple complaisance to tyrants, --it is hypocrisy, and the truth is not in you; and no love of religious music, or of dreams of Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley, or of Jeremy Taylor, can save you from the Satan which you are. "

The Lecture on "American Civilization, " made up from two Addresses, oneof which was delivered at Washington on the 31st of January, 1862, is, as might be expected, full of anti-slavery. That on the "EmancipationProclamation, " delivered in Boston in September, 1862, is as full of"silent joy" at the advent of "a day which most of us dared not hopeto see, --an event worth the dreadful war, worth its costs anduncertainties. "

From the "Remarks" at the funeral services for Abraham Lincoln, heldin Concord on the 19th of April, 1865, I extract this admirably drawncharacter of the man:--

 "He is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by step he walked before them; slow with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent; an entirely public man; father of his country, the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue. "

The following are the titles of the remaining contents of this volume:"Harvard Commemoration Speech;" "Editor's Address: MassachusettsQuarterly Review;" "Woman;" "Address to Kossuth;" "Robert Burns;""Walter Scott;" "Remarks at the Organization of the Free ReligiousAssociation;" "Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Free ReligiousAssociation;" "The Fortune of the Republic. " In treating of the"Woman Question, " Emerson speaks temperately, delicately, with perfectfairness, but leaves it in the hands of the women themselves todetermine whether they shall have an equal part in public affairs. "Thenew movement, " he says, "is only a tide shared by the spirits of man andwoman; and you may proceed in the faith that whatever the woman's heartis prompted to desire, the man's mind is simultaneously prompted toaccomplish. "

It is hard to turn a leaf in any book of Emerson's writing withoutfinding some pithy remark or some striking image or witty comment whichilluminates the page where we find it and tempts us to seize upon it foran extract. But I must content myself with these few sentences from "TheFortune of the Republic, " the last address he ever delivered, in whichhis belief in America and her institutions, and his trust in theProvidence which overrules all nations and all worlds, have foundfitting utterance:--

 "Let the passion for America cast out the passion for Europe. Here let there be what the earth waits for, --exalted manhood. What this country longs for is personalities, grand persons, to counteract its materialities. For it is the rule of the universe that corn shall serve man, and not man corn. 

 "They who find America insipid, --they for whom London and Paris have spoiled their own homes, can be spared to return to those cities. I not only see a career at home for more genius than we have, but for more than there is in the world. 

 "Our helm is given up to a better guidance than our own; the course of events is quite too strong for any helmsman, and our little wherry is taken in tow by the ship of the great Admiral which knows the way, and has the force to draw men and states and planets to their good. "

With this expression of love and respect for his country and trustin his country's God, we may take leave of Emerson's prose writings. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

EMERSON'S POEMS. 

The following "Prefatory Note" by Mr. Cabot introduces the ninth volumeof the series of Emerson's collected works:--

 "This volume contains nearly all the pieces included in the POEMS and MAY-DAY of former editions. In 1876 Mr. Emerson published a selection from his poems, adding six new ones, and omitting many. Of those omitted, several are now restored, in accordance with the expressed wishes of many readers and lovers of them. Also some pieces never before published are here given in an Appendix, on various grounds. Some of them appear to have had Emerson's approval, but to have been withheld because they were unfinished. These it seemed best not to suppress, now that they can never receive their completion. Others, mostly of an early date, remained unpublished doubtless because of their personal and private nature. Some of these seem to have an autobiographic interest sufficient to justify their publication. Others again, often mere fragments, have been admitted as characteristic, or as expressing in poetic form thoughts found in the Essays. 

 "In coming to a decision in these cases, it seemed on the whole preferable to take the risk of including too much rather than the opposite, and to leave the task of further winnowing to the hands of time. 

 "As was stated in the Preface to the first volume of this edition of Mr. Emerson's writings, the readings adopted by him in the "Selected Poems" have not always been followed here, but in some cases preference has been given to corrections made by him when he was in fuller strength than at the time of the last revision. 

 "A change in the arrangement of the stanzas of "May-Day, " in the part representative of the march of Spring, received his sanction as bringing them more nearly in accordance with the events in Nature. "

Emerson's verse has been a fertile source of discussion. Some havecalled him a poet and nothing but a poet, and some have made so much ofthe palpable defects of his verse that they have forgotten to recognizeits true claims. His prose is often highly poetical, but his verse issomething more than the most imaginative and rhetorical passages of hisprose. An illustration presently to be given will make this point clear. 

Poetry is to prose what the so-called full dress of the ball-room is tothe plainer garments of the household and the street. Full dress, aswe call it, is so full of beauty that it cannot hold it all, and theredundancy of nature overflows the narrowed margin of satin or velvet. 

It reconciles us to its approach to nudity by the richness of itsdrapery and ornaments. A pearl or diamond necklace or a blushing bouquetexcuses the liberal allowance of undisguised nature. We expect from thefine lady in her brocades and laces a generosity of display which weshould reprimand with the virtuous severity of Tartuffe if ventured uponby the waiting-maid in her calicoes. So the poet reveals himself underthe protection of his imaginative and melodious phrases, --the flowersand jewels of his vocabulary. 

Here is a prose sentence from Emerson's "Works and Days:"--

 "The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans. They come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away. "

Now see this thought in full dress, and then ask what is the differencebetween prose and poetry:--

 "DAYS. 

 "Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleachéd garden watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I too late Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. "

--Cinderella at the fireside, and Cinderella at the prince's ball! Thefull dress version of the thought is glittering with new images likebracelets and brooches and ear-rings, and fringed with fresh adjectiveslike edges of embroidery. That one word _pleachéd, _ an heir-loom fromQueen Elizabeth's day, gives to the noble sonnet an antique dignity andcharm like the effect of an ancestral jewel. But mark that now thepoet reveals himself as he could not in the prosaic form of the firstextract. It is his own neglect of his great opportunity of which henow speaks, and not merely the indolent indifference of others. Itis himself who is the object of scorn. Self-revelation of beautyembellished by ornaments is the privilege of full dress; self-revelationin the florid costume of verse is the divine right of the poet. Passionthat must express itself longs always for the freedom of rhythmicutterance. And in spite of the exaggeration and extravagance whichshield themselves under the claim of poetic license, I venture to affirmthat "_In_ vino _veritas_" is not truer than _In_ carmine _veritas_. As a further illustration of what has just been said of theself-revelations to be looked for in verse, and in Emerson's verse moreespecially, let the reader observe how freely he talks about his bodilypresence and infirmities in his poetry, --subjects he never referred toin prose, except incidentally, in private letters. 

Emerson is so essentially a poet that whole pages of his are like somany litanies of alternating chants and recitations. His thoughts slipon and off their light rhythmic robes just as the mood takes him, as wasshown in the passage I have quoted in prose and in verse. Many of themetrical preludes to his lectures are a versified and condensed abstractof the leading doctrine of the discourse. They are a curious instance ofsurvival; the lecturer, once a preacher, still wants his text; and findshis scriptural motto in his own rhythmic inspiration. 

Shall we rank Emerson among the great poets or not?

 "The great poets are judged by the frame of mind they induce; and to them, of all men, the severest criticism is due. "

These are Emerson's words in the Preface to "Parnassus. "

His own poems will stand this test as well as any in the language. Theylift the reader into a higher region of thought and feeling. This seemsto me a better test to apply to them than the one which Mr. Arnold citedfrom Milton. The passage containing this must be taken, not alone, butwith the context. Milton had been speaking of "Logic" and of "Rhetoric, "and spoke of poetry "as being less subtile and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. " This relative statement, it must not beforgotten, is conditioned by what went before. If the terms are usedabsolutely, and not comparatively, as Milton used them, they must bevery elastic if they would stretch widely enough to include all thepoems which the world recognizes as masterpieces, nay, to include someof the best of Milton's own. 

In spite of what he said about himself in his letter to Carlyle, Emersonwas not only a poet, but a very remarkable one. Whether a great poetor not will depend on the scale we use and the meaning we affix to theterm. The heat at eighty degrees of Fahrenheit is one thing and the heatat eighty degrees of Réaumur is a very different matter. The rank ofpoets is a point of very unstable equilibrium. From the days of Homer toour own, critics have been disputing about the place to be assigned tothis or that member of the poetic hierarchy. It is not the most popularpoet who is necessarily the greatest; Wordsworth never had half thepopularity of Scott or Moore. It is not the multitude of rememberedpassages which settles the rank of a metrical composition as poetry. Gray's "Elegy, " it is true, is full of lines we all remember, and is agreat poem, if that term can be applied to any piece of verse of thatlength. But what shall we say to the "Ars Poetica" of Horace? It iscrowded with lines worn smooth as old sesterces by constant quotation. And yet we should rather call it a versified criticism than a poem inthe full sense of that word. And what shall we do with Pope's "Essay onMan, " which has furnished more familiar lines than "Paradise Lost" and"Paradise Regained" both together? For all that, we know there is aschool of writers who will not allow that Pope deserves the name ofpoet. 

It takes a generation or two to find out what are the passages ina great writer which are to become commonplaces in literature andconversation. It is to be remembered that Emerson is one of thoseauthors whose popularity must diffuse itself from above downwards. Andafter all, few will dare assert that "The Vanity of Human Wishes" isgreater as a poem than Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind, " or Keats's "Odeto a Nightingale, " because no line in either of these poems is half sooften quoted as

 "To point a moral or adorn a tale. "

We cannot do better than begin our consideration of Emerson's poetrywith Emerson's own self-estimate. He says in a fit of humility, writingto Carlyle:--

 "I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low department of literature, the reporters, suburban men. "

But Miss Peabody writes to Mr. Ireland:--

 "He once said to me, 'I am not a great poet--but whatever is of me _is a poet_. '"

These opposite feelings were the offspring of different moods anddifferent periods. 

Here is a fragment, written at the age of twenty-eight, in which hisself-distrust and his consciousness of the "vision, " if not "thefaculty, divine, " are revealed with the brave nudity of the rhythmicconfessional:--

 "A dull uncertain brain, But gifted yet to know That God has cherubim who go Singing an immortal strain, Immortal here below. I know the mighty bards, I listen while they sing, And now I know The secret store Which these explore When they with torch of genius pierce The tenfold clouds that cover The riches of the universe From God's adoring lover. And if to me it is not given To fetch one ingot thence Of that unfading gold of Heaven His merchants may dispense, Yet well I know the royal mine And know the sparkle of its ore, Know Heaven's truth from lies that shine, -- Explored, they teach us to explore. "

These lines are from "The Poet, " a series of fragments given in the"Appendix, " which, with his first volume, "Poems, " his second, "May-Day, and other Pieces, " form the complete ninth volume of the new series. These fragments contain some of the loftiest and noblest passages to befound in his poetical works, and if the reader should doubt which ofEmerson's self-estimates in his two different moods spoken of above hadmost truth in it, he could question no longer after reading "The Poet. "

Emerson has the most exalted ideas of the true poetic function, as thispassage from "Merlin" sufficiently shows:--

 "Thy trivial harp will never please Or fill my craving ear; Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, Free, peremptory, clear. No jingling serenader's art Nor tinkling of piano-strings Can make the wild blood start In its mystic springs; The kingly bard Must smite the chords rudely and hard, As with hammer or with mace; That they may render back Artful thunder, which conveys Secrets of the solar track, Sparks of the supersolar blaze. 

 * * * * *

 Great is the art, Great be the manners of the bard. He shall not his brain encumber With the coil of rhythm and number; But leaving rule and pale forethought He shall aye climb For his rhyme. 'Pass in, pass in, ' the angels say, 'In to the upper doors, Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway of surprise. '"

And here is another passage from "The Poet, " mentioned in the quotationbefore the last, in which the bard is spoken of as performing greatermiracles than those ascribed to Orpheus:--

 "A Brother of the world, his song Sounded like a tempest strong Which tore from oaks their branches broad, And stars from the ecliptic road. Time wore he as his clothing-weeds, He sowed the sun and moon for seeds. As melts the iceberg in the seas, As clouds give rain to the eastern breeze, As snow-banks thaw in April's beam, The solid kingdoms like a dream Resist in vain his motive strain, They totter now and float amain. For the Muse gave special charge His learning should be deep and large, And his training should not scant The deepest lore of wealth or want: His flesh should feel, his eyes should read Every maxim of dreadful Need; In its fulness he should taste Life's honeycomb, but not too fast; Full fed, but not intoxicated; He should be loved; he should be hated; A blooming child to children dear, His heart should palpitate with fear. "

We look naturally to see what poets were Emerson's chief favorites. Inhis poems "The Test" and "The Solution, " we find that the five whomhe recognizes as defying the powers of destruction are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Swedenborg, Goethe. 

Here are a few of his poetical characterizations from "The Harp:"--

 "And this at least I dare affirm, Since genius too has bound and term, There is no bard in all the choir, Not Homer's self, the poet-sire, Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure, Or Shakespeare whom no mind can measure, Nor Collins' verse of tender pain, Nor Byron's clarion of disdain, Scott, the delight of generous boys, Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice, -- Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring. "--

In the notice of "Parnassus" some of his preferences have been alreadymentioned. 

Comparisons between men of genius for the sake of aggrandizing theone at the expense of the other are the staple of the meaner kinds ofcriticism. No lover of art will clash a Venetian goblet against a Romanamphora to see which is strongest; no lover of nature undervalues aviolet because it is not a rose. But comparisons used in the way ofdescription are not odious. 

The difference between Emerson's poetry and that of the contemporarieswith whom he would naturally be compared is that of algebra andarithmetic. He deals largely in general symbols, abstractions, andinfinite series. He is always seeing the universal in the particular. The great multitude of mankind care more for two and two, somethingdefinite, a fixed quantity, than for _a_ + _b's_ and _x^{2's}_, --symbolsused for undetermined amounts and indefinite possibilities. Emerson isa citizen of the universe who has taken up his residence for a few daysand nights in this travelling caravansary between the two inns thathang out the signs of Venus and Mars. This little planet could notprovincialize such a man. The multiplication-table is for the every dayuse of every day earth-people, but the symbols he deals with aretoo vast, sometimes, we must own, too vague, for the unilluminatedterrestrial and arithmetical intelligence. One cannot help feeling thathe might have dropped in upon us from some remote centre of spirituallife, where, instead of addition and subtraction, children were taughtquaternions, and where the fourth dimension of space was as familiarlyknown to everybody as a foot-measure or a yard-stick is to us. Not thathe himself dealt in the higher or the lower mathematics, but he saw thehidden spiritual meaning of things as Professor Cayley or ProfessorSylvester see the meaning of their mysterious formulae. Without usingthe Rosetta-stone of Swedenborg, Emerson finds in every phenomenon ofnature a hieroglyphic. Others measure and describe the monuments, --hereads the sacred inscriptions. How alive he makes Monadnoc! Dinocratesundertook to "hew Mount Athos to the shape of man" in the likeness ofAlexander the Great. Without the help of tools or workmen, Emerson makes"Cheshire's haughty hill" stand before us an impersonation of kinglyhumanity, and talk with us as a god from Olympus might have talked. 

This is the fascination of Emerson's poetry; it moves in a world ofuniversal symbolism. The sense of the infinite fills it with itsmajestic presence. It shows, also, that he has a keen delight in theevery-day aspects of nature. But he looks always with the eye of a poet, never with that of the man of science. The law of association of ideasis wholly different in the two. The scientific man connects objects insequences and series, and in so doing is guided by their collectiveresemblances. His aim is to classify and index all that he sees andcontemplates so as to show the relations which unite, and learn the lawsthat govern, the subjects of his study. The poet links the most remoteobjects together by the slender filament of wit, the flowery chain offancy, or the living, pulsating cord of imagination, always guided byhis instinct for the beautiful. The man of science clings to his object, as the marsupial embryo to its teat, until he has filled himself as fullas he can hold; the poet takes a sip of his dew-drop, throws his headup like a chick, rolls his eyes around in contemplation of the heavensabove him and the universe in general, and never thinks of asking aLinnaean question as to the flower that furnished him his dew-drop. Thepoetical and scientific natures rarely coexist; Haller and Goethe areexamples which show that such a union may occur, but as a rule the poetis contented with the colors of the rainbow and leaves the study ofFraunhofer's lines to the man of science. 

Though far from being a man of science, Emerson was a realist in thebest sense of that word. But his realities reached to the highestheavens: like Milton, --

 "He passed the flaming bounds of place and time; The living throne, the sapphire blaze Where angels tremble while they gaze, HE SAW"--

Everywhere his poetry abounds in celestial imagery. If Galileo had beena poet as well as an astronomer, he would hardly have sowed his versethicker with stars than we find them in the poems of Emerson. 

Not less did Emerson clothe the common aspects of life with the colorsof his imagination. He was ready to see beauty everywhere:--

 "Thou can'st not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake. "

He called upon the poet to

 "Tell men what they knew before; Paint the prospect from their door. "

And his practice was like his counsel. He saw our plain New England lifewith as honest New England eyes as ever looked at a huckleberry-bush orinto a milking-pail. 

This noble quality of his had its dangerous side. In one of his exaltedmoods he would have us

 "Give to barrows, trays and pans Grace and glimmer of romance. "

But in his Lecture on "Poetry and Imagination, " he says:--

 "What we once admired as poetry has long since come to be a sound of tin pans; and many of our later books we have outgrown. Perhaps Homer and Milton will be tin pans yet. "

The "grace and glimmer of romance" which was to invest the tin pan areforgotten, and he uses it as a belittling object for comparison. Hehimself was not often betrayed into the mistake of confounding theprosaic with the poetical, but his followers, so far as the "realists"have taken their hint from him, have done it most thoroughly. Mr. Whitman enumerates all the objects he happens to be looking at as ifthey were equally suggestive to the poetical mind, furnishing his readera large assortment on which he may exercise the fullest freedom ofselection. It is only giving him the same liberty that Lord TimothyDexter allowed his readers in the matter of punctuation, by leaving allstops out of his sentences, and printing at the end of his book a pageof commas, semicolons, colons, periods, notes of interrogation andexclamation, with which the reader was expected to "pepper" the pages ashe might see fit. 

French realism does not stop at the tin pan, but must deal with theslop-pail and the wash-tub as if it were literally true that

 "In the mud and scum of things There alway, alway something sings. "

Happy were it for the world if M. Zola and his tribe would stop eventhere; but when they cross the borders of science into its infecteddistricts, leaving behind them the reserve and delicacy which thegenuine scientific observer never forgets to carry with him, theydisgust even those to whom the worst scenes they describe are toowretchedly familiar. The true realist is such a man as Parent duChatelet; exploring all that most tries the senses and the sentiments, and reporting all truthfully, but soberly, chastely, without needlesscircumstance, or picturesque embellishment, for a useful end, and notfor a mere sensational effect. 

What a range of subjects from "The Problem" and "Uriel" and"Forerunners" to "The Humble-Bee" and "The Titmouse!" Nor let the readerwho thinks the poet must go far to find a fitting theme fail to read thesingularly impressive home-poem, "Hamatreya, " beginning with the namesof the successive owners of a piece of land in Concord, --probably thesame he owned after the last of them:--

 "Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, "

and ending with the austere and solemn "Earth-Song. "

Full of poetical feeling, and with a strong desire for poeticalexpression, Emerson experienced a difficulty in the mechanical partof metrical composition. His muse picked her way as his speech did inconversation and in lecturing. He made desperate work now and then withrhyme and rhythm, showing that though a born poet he was not a bornsinger. Think of making "feeble" rhyme with "people, " "abroad" with"Lord, " and contemplate the following couplet which one cannot makerhyme without actual verbicide:--

 "Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, And up the tall mast runs the woodpeck"-are!

And how could prose go on all-fours more unmetrically than this?

 "In Adirondac lakes At morn or noon the guide rows bare-headed. "

It was surely not difficult to say--

 "At morn or noon bare-headed rows the guide. "And yet while we note these blemishes, many of us will confess that welike his uncombed verse better, oftentimes, than if it were trimmed moreneatly and disposed more nicely. When he is at his best, his lines flowwith careless ease, as a mountain stream tumbles, sometimes rough andsometimes smooth, but all the more interesting for the rocks it runsagainst and the grating of the pebbles it rolls over. 

There is one trick of verse which Emerson occasionally, not very often, indulges in. This is the crowding of a redundant syllable into a line. It is a liberty which is not to be abused by the poet. Shakespeare, thesupreme artist, and Milton, the "mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, "knew how to use it effectively. Shelley employed it freely. Bryantindulged in it occasionally, and wrote an article in an early number ofthe "North American Review" in defence of its use. Willis was fond ofit. As a relief to monotony it may be now and then allowed, --may evenhave an agreeable effect in breaking the monotony of too formal verse. But it may easily become a deformity and a cause of aversion. A humpbackmay add picturesqueness to a procession, but if there are too manyhumpbacks in line we turn away from the sight of them. Can any earreconcile itself to the last of these three lines of Emerson's?

 "Oh, what is Heaven but the fellowship Of minds that each can stand against the world By its own meek and incorruptible will?"

These lines that lift their backs up in the middle--span-worm lines, wemay call them--are not to be commended for common use because some greatpoets have now and then admitted them. They have invaded some of ourrecent poetry as the canker-worms gather on our elms in June. Emersonhas one or two of them here and there, but they never swarm on hisleaves so as to frighten us away from their neighborhood. 

As for the violently artificial rhythms and rhymes which have reappearedof late in English and American literature, Emerson would as soon havetried to ride three horses at once in a circus as to shut himself up intriolets, or attempt any cat's-cradle tricks of rhyming sleight of hand. 

If we allow that Emerson is not a born singer, that he is a carelessversifier and rhymer, we must still recognize that there is somethingin his verse which belongs, indissolubly, sacredly, to his thought. Whowould decant the wine of his poetry from its quaint and antique-looking_lagena_?--Read his poem to the Aeolian harp ("The Harp") and his modelbetrays itself:--

 "These syllables that Nature spoke, And the thoughts that in him woke Can adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. Therein I hear the Parcae reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain, So sweet and mournful falls the strain. And best can teach its Delphian chord How Nature to the soul is moored, If once again that silent string, As erst it wont, would thrill and ring. "

There is no need of quoting any of the poems which have become familiarto most true lovers of poetry. Emerson saw fit to imitate the Egyptiansby placing "The Sphinx" at the entrance of his temple of song. This poemwas not fitted to attract worshippers. It is not easy of comprehension, not pleasing in movement. As at first written it had one verse in itwhich sounded so much like a nursery rhyme that Emerson was prevailedupon to omit it in the later versions. There are noble passages in it, but they are for the adept and not for the beginner. A commonplace youngperson taking up the volume and puzzling his or her way along will comeby and by to the verse:--

 "Have I a lover Who is noble and free?-- I would he were nobler Than to love me. "

The commonplace young person will be apt to say or think _c'estmagnifique, mais ce n'est pas_--_l'amour_. 

The third poem in the volume, "The Problem, " should have stood first inorder. This ranks among the finest of Emerson's poems. All his earlierverse has a certain freshness which belongs to the first outburstof song in a poetic nature. "Each and All, " "The Humble-Bee, " "TheSnow-Storm, " should be read before "Uriel, " "The World-Soul, " or"Mithridates. " "Monadnoc" will be a good test of the reader's taste forEmerson's poetry, and after this "Woodnotes. "

In studying his poems we must not overlook the delicacy of many of theirdescriptive portions. If in the flights of his imagination he islike the strong-winged bird of passage, in his exquisite choice ofdescriptive epithets he reminds me of the _tenui-rostrals. _ His subtleselective instinct penetrates the vocabulary for the one word he wants, as the long, slender bill of those birds dives deep into the flower forits drop of honey. Here is a passage showing admirably the two differentconditions: wings closed and the selective instinct picking out itsdescriptive expressions; then suddenly wings flashing open and theimagination in the firmament, where it is always at home. Follow thepitiful inventory of insignificances of the forlorn being he describeswith a pathetic humor more likely to bring a sigh than a smile, and thenmark the grand hyperbole of the last two lines. The passage is from thepoem called "Destiny":--

 "Alas! that one is born in blight, Victim of perpetual slight: When thou lookest on his face, Thy heart saith 'Brother, go thy ways! None shall ask thee what thou doest, Or care a rush for what thou knowest. Or listen when thou repliest, Or remember where thou liest, Or how thy supper is sodden;' And another is born To make the sun forgotten. "

Of all Emerson's poems the "Concord Hymn" is the most nearly completeand faultless, --but it is not distinctively Emersonian. It is such apoem as Collins might have written, --it has the very movement andmelody of the "Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomson, " and of the "Dirge inCymbeline, " with the same sweetness and tenderness of feeling. Its oneconspicuous line, "And fired the shot heard round the world, "

must not take to itself all the praise deserved by this perfect littlepoem, a model for all of its kind. Compact, expressive, serene, solemn, musical, in four brief stanzas it tells the story of the past, recordsthe commemorative act of the passing day, and invokes the higher Powerthat governs the future to protect the Memorial-stone sacred to Freedomand her martyrs. 

These poems of Emerson's find the readers that must listen to them anddelight in them, as the "Ancient Mariner" fastened upon the man who musthear him. If any doubter wishes to test his fitness for reading them, and if the poems already mentioned are not enough to settle thequestion, let him read the paragraph of "May-Day, " beginning, --

 "I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth, "

"Sea-shore, " the fine fragments in the "Appendix" to his publishedworks, called, collectively, "The Poet, " blocks bearing the mark ofpoetic genius, but left lying round for want of the structural instinct, and last of all, that which is, in many respects, first of all, the"Threnody, " a lament over the death of his first-born son. This poem hasthe dignity of "Lycidas" without its refrigerating classicism, and withall the tenderness of Cowper's lines on the receipt of his mother'spicture. It may well compare with others of the finest memorial poems inthe language, --with Shelley's "Adonais, " and Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis, "leaving out of view Tennyson's "In Memoriam" as of wider scope andlarger pattern. 

Many critics will concede that there is much truth in Mr. Arnold'sremark on the want of "evolution" in Emerson's poems. One is struckwith the fact that a great number of fragments lie about his poeticalworkshop: poems begun and never finished; scraps of poems, chips ofpoems, paving the floor with intentions never carried out. One cannothelp remembering Coleridge with his incomplete "Christabel, " and his"Abyssinian Maid, " and her dulcimer which she never got a tune out of. We all know there was good reason why Coleridge should have been infirmof purpose. But when we look at that great unfinished picture over whichAllston labored with the hopeless ineffectiveness of Sisyphus; when wego through a whole gallery of pictures by an American artist in whichthe backgrounds are slighted as if our midsummer heats had taken awayhalf the artist's life and vigor; when we walk round whole rooms full ofsketches, impressions, effects, symphonies, invisibilities, and otherapologies for honest work, it would not be strange if it should suggesta painful course of reflections as to the possibility that there may besomething in our climatic or other conditions which tends to scholasticand artistic anaemia and insufficiency, --the opposite of what we findshowing itself in the full-blooded verse of poets like Browning and onthe flaming canvas of painters like Henri Regnault. Life seemed lustierin Old England than in New England to Emerson, to Hawthorne, and tothat admirable observer, Mr. John Burroughs. Perhaps we require anothercentury or two of acclimation. 

Emerson never grappled with any considerable metrical difficulties. He wrote by preference in what I have ventured to call the normalrespiratory measure, --octosyllabic verse, in which one common expirationis enough and not too much for the articulation of each line. The "fatalfacility" for which this verse is noted belongs to it as recited andalso as written, and it implies the need of only a minimum of skill andlabor. I doubt if Emerson would have written a verse of poetry if he hadbeen obliged to use the Spenserian stanza. In the simple measures hehabitually employed he found least hindrance to his thought. 

Every true poet has an atmosphere as much as every great painter. Thegolden sunshine of Claude and the pearly mist of Corot belonged to theirway of looking at nature as much as the color of their eyes and hairbelonged to their personalities. So with the poets; for Wordsworth theair is always serene and clear, for Byron the sky is uncertain betweenstorm and sunshine. Emerson sees all nature in the same pearly mistthat wraps the willows and the streams of Corot. Without its owncharacteristic atmosphere, illuminated by

 "The light that never was on sea or land, "

we may have good verse but no true poem. In his poetry there is notmerely this atmosphere, but there is always a mirage in the horizon. 

Emerson's poetry is eminently subjective, --if Mr. Ruskin, who hates theword, will pardon me for using it in connection with a reference to twoof his own chapters in his "Modern Painters. " These are the chapteron "The Pathetic Fallacy, " and the one which follows it "On ClassicalLandscape. " In these he treats of the transfer of a writer's mental oremotional conditions to the external nature which he contemplates. Heasks his readers to follow him in a long examination of what he calls bythe singular name mentioned, "the pathetic fallacy, " because, he says, "he will find it eminently characteristic of the modern mind; and in thelandscape, whether of literature or art, he will also find the modernpainter endeavoring to express something which he, as a living creature, imagines in the lifeless object, while the classical and mediaevalpainters were content with expressing the unimaginary and actualqualities of the object itself. "

Illustrations of Mr. Ruskin's "pathetic fallacy" may be found almostanywhere in Emerson's poems. Here is one which offers itself withoutsearch:--

 "Daily the bending skies solicit man, The seasons chariot him from this exile, The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing wheels, The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along, Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home. "

The expression employed by Ruskin gives the idea that he is dealing witha defect. If he had called the state of mind to which he refers the_sympathetic illusion_, his readers might have looked upon it morejustly. 

It would be a pleasant and not a difficult task to trace theresemblances between Emerson's poetry and that of other poets. Two orthree such resemblances have been incidentally referred to, a few othersmay be mentioned. 

In his contemplative study of Nature he reminds us of Wordsworth, atleast in certain brief passages, but he has not the staying power ofthat long-breathed, not to say long-winded, lover of landscapes. Bothare on the most intimate terms with Nature, but Emerson contemplateshimself as belonging to her, while Wordsworth feels as if she belongedto him. 

 "Good-by, proud world, "

recalls Spenser and Raleigh. "The Humble-Bee" is strongly marked by themanner and thought of Marvell. Marvell's

 "Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade, "

may well have suggested Emerson's

 "The green silence dost displace With thy mellow, breezy bass. "

"The Snow-Storm" naturally enough brings to mind the descriptions ofThomson and of Cowper, and fragment as it is, it will not suffer bycomparison with either. 

"Woodnotes, " one of his best poems, has passages that might have beenfound in Milton's "Comus;" this, for instance:--

 "All constellations of the sky Shed their virtue through his eye. Him Nature giveth for defence His formidable innocence. "

Of course his Persian and Indian models betray themselves in many ofhis poems, some of which, called translations, sound as if they wereoriginal. 

So we follow him from page to page and find him passing through manymoods, but with one pervading spirit:--

 "Melting matter into dreams, Panoramas which I saw, And whatever glows or seems Into substance, into Law. "

We think in reading his "Poems" of these words of Sainte-Beuve:--

 "The greatest poet is not he who has done the best; it is he who suggests the most; he, not all of whose meaning is at first obvious, and who leaves you much to desire, to explain, to study; much to complete in your turn. "

Just what he shows himself in his prose, Emerson shows himself in hisverse. Only when he gets into rhythm and rhyme he lets us see more ofhis personality, he ventures upon more audacious imagery, his flight ishigher and swifter, his brief crystalline sentences have dissolved andpour in continuous streams. Where they came from, or whither they flowto empty themselves, we cannot always say, --it is enough to enjoy themas they flow by us. 

Incompleteness--want of beginning, middle, and end, --is their too commonfault. His pages are too much like those artists' studios all hung roundwith sketches and "bits" of scenery. "The Snow-Storm" and "Sea-Shore"are "bits" out of a landscape that was never painted, admirable, so faras they go, but forcing us to ask, "Where is the painting for whichthese scraps are studies?" or "Out of what great picture have thesepieces been cut?"

We do not want his fragments to be made wholes, --if we did, what handcould be found equal to the task? We do not want his rhythms and rhymessmoothed and made more melodious. They are as honest as Chaucer's, and we like them as they are, not modernized or manipulated by anyversifying drill-sergeant, --if we wanted them reshaped whom could wetrust to meddle with them?

His poetry is elemental; it has the rock beneath it in the eternal lawson which it rests; the roll of deep waters in its grander harmonies; itsair is full of Aeolian strains that waken and die away as the breezewanders over them; and through it shines the white starlight, andfrom time to time flashes a meteor that startles us with its suddenbrilliancy. 

After all our criticisms, our selections, our analyses, our comparisons, we have to recognize that there is a charm in Emerson's poemswhich cannot be defined any more than the fragrance of a rose or ahyacinth, --any more than the tone of a voice which we should know fromall others if all mankind were to pass before us, and each of itsarticulating representatives should call us by name. 

All our crucibles and alembics leave unaccounted for the great mysteryof _style_. "The style is of [a part of] the man himself, " said Buffon, and this saying has passed into the stronger phrase, "The style is theman. "

The "personal equation" which differentiates two observers is notconfined to the tower of the astronomer. Every human being isindividualized by a new arrangement of elements. His mind is a safe witha lock to which only certain letters are the key. His ideas follow inan order of their own. His words group themselves together in specialsequences, in peculiar rhythms, in unlooked-for combinations, thetotal effect of which is to stamp all that he says or writes withhis individuality. We may not be able to assign the reason of thefascination the poet we have been considering exercises over us. Butthis we can say, that he lives in the highest atmosphere of thought;that he is always in the presence of the infinite, and ennobles theaccidents of human existence so that they partake of the absolute andeternal while he is looking at them; that he unites a royal dignityof manner with the simplicity of primitive nature; that his words andphrases arrange themselves, as if by an elective affinity of their own, with a _curiosa felicitas_ which captivates and enthrals the reader whocomes fully under its influence, and that through all he sings as in allhe says for us we recognize the same serene, high, pure intelligence andmoral nature, infinitely precious to us, not only in themselves, but asa promise of what the transplanted life, the air and soil and breedingof this western world may yet educe from their potential virtues, shaping themselves, at length, in a literature as much its own as theRocky Mountains and the Mississippi. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Recollections of Emerson's Last Years. --Mr. Conway's Visits. --Extractsfrom Mr. Whitman's Journal. --Dr. Le Baron Russell's Visit. --Dr. EdwardEmerson's Account. --Illness and Death. --Funeral Services. 

Mr. Conway gives the following account of two visits to Emerson afterthe decline of his faculties had begun to make itself obvious:--

 "In 1875, when I stayed at his house in Concord for a little time, it was sad enough to find him sitting as a listener before those who used to sit at his feet in silence. But when alone with him he conversed in the old way, and his faults of memory seemed at times to disappear. There was something striking in the kind of forgetfulness by which he suffered. He remembered the realities and uses of things when he could not recall their names. He would describe what he wanted or thought of; when he could not recall 'chair' he could speak of that which supports the human frame, and 'the implement that cultivates the soil' must do for plough. --

 "In 1880, when I was last in Concord, the trouble had made heavy strides. The intensity of his silent attention to every word that was said was painful, suggesting a concentration of his powers to break through the invisible walls closing around them. Yet his face was serene; he was even cheerful, and joined in our laughter at some letters his eldest daughter had preserved, from young girls, trying to coax autograph letters, and in one case asking for what price he would write a valedictory address she had to deliver at college. He was still able to joke about his 'naughty memory;' and no complaint came from him when he once rallied himself on living too long. Emerson appeared to me strangely beautiful at this time, and the sweetness of his voice, when he spoke of the love and providence at his side, is quite indescribable. "--

One of the later glimpses we have of Emerson is that preserved in thejournal of Mr. Whitman, who visited Concord in the autumn of 1881. Mr. Ireland gives a long extract from this journal, from which I take thefollowing:--

 "On entering he had spoken very briefly, easily and politely to several of the company, then settled himself in his chair, a trifle pushed back, and, though a listener and apparently an alert one, remained silent through the whole talk and discussion. And so, there Emerson sat, and I looking at him. A good color in his face, eyes clear, with the well-known expression of sweetness, and the old clear-peering aspect quite the same. "

Mr. Whitman met him again the next day, Sunday, September 18th, andrecords:--

 "As just said, a healthy color in the cheeks, and good light in the eyes, cheery expression, and just the amount of talking that best suited, namely, a word or short phrase only where needed, and almost always with a smile. "

Dr. Le Baron Russell writes to me of Emerson at a still later period:--

 "One incident I will mention which occurred at my last visit to Emerson, only a few months before his death. I went by Mrs. Emerson's request to pass a Sunday at their house at Concord towards the end of June. His memory had been failing for some time, and his mind as you know was clouded, but the old charm of his voice and manner had never left him. On the morning after my arrival Mrs. Emerson took us into the garden to see the beautiful roses in which she took great delight. One red rose of most brilliant color she called our attention to especially; its 'hue' was so truly 'angry and brave' that I involuntarily repeated Herbert's line, --

 'Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, '--

 from the verses which Emerson had first repeated to me so long ago. Emerson looked at the rose admiringly, and then as if by a sudden impulse lifted his hat gently, and said with a low bow, 'I take off my hat to it. '"

Once a poet, always a poet. It was the same reverence for the beautifulthat he had shown in the same way in his younger days on entering thewood, as Governor Rice has told us the story, given in an earlierchapter. 

I do not remember Emerson's last time of attendance at the "SaturdayClub, " but I recollect that he came after the trouble in finding wordshad become well marked. "My memory hides itself, " he said. The last timeI saw him, living, was at Longfellow's funeral. I was sitting oppositeto him when he rose, and going to the side of the coffin, lookedintently upon the face of the dead poet. A few minutes later he roseagain and looked once more on the familiar features, not apparentlyremembering that he had just done so. Mr. Conway reports that he said toa friend near him, "That gentleman was a sweet, beautiful soul, but Ihave entirely forgotten his name. "

Dr. Edward Emerson has very kindly furnished me, in reply to my request, with information regarding his father's last years which will interestevery one who has followed his life through its morning and midday tothe hour of evening shadows. 

"May-Day, " which was published in 1867, was made up of the poems writtensince his first volume appeared. After this he wrote no poems, but withsome difficulty fitted the refrain to the poem "Boston, " which hadremained unfinished since the old Anti-slavery days. "Greatness, " andthe "Phi Beta Kappa Oration" of 1867, were among his last pieces ofwork. His College Lectures, "The Natural History of the Intellect, "were merely notes recorded years before, and now gathered and weldedtogether. In 1876 he revised his poems, and made the selections fromthem for the "Little Classic" edition of his works, then called"Selected Poems. " In that year he gave his "Address to the Students ofthe University of Virginia. " This was a paper written long before, andits revision, with the aid of his daughter Ellen, was accomplished withmuch difficulty. 

The year 1867 was about the limit of his working life. During the lastfive years he hardly answered a letter. Before this time it had becomeincreasingly hard for him to do so, and he always postponed and thoughthe should feel more able the next day, until his daughter Ellen wascompelled to assume the correspondence. He did, however, write someletters in 1876, as, for instance, the answer to the invitation of theVirginia students. 

Emerson left off going regularly to the "Saturday Club" probably in1875. He used to depend on meeting Mr. Cabot there, but after Mr. Cabotbegan to come regularly to work on "Letters and Social Aims, " Emerson, who relied on his friendly assistance, ceased attending the meetings. The trouble he had in finding the word he wanted was a reason for hisstaying away from all gatherings where he was called upon to take apart in conversation, though he the more willingly went to lectures andreadings and to church. His hearing was very slightly impaired, and hissight remained pretty good, though he sometimes said letters doubled, and that "M's" and "N's" troubled him to read. He recognized the membersof his own family and his _old_ friends; but, as I infer from thisstatement, he found a difficulty in remembering the faces of newacquaintances, as is common with old persons. 

He continued the habit of reading, --read through all his printed workswith much interest and surprise, went through all his manuscripts, andendeavored, unsuccessfully, to index them. In these Dr. Emerson foundwritten "Examined 1877 or 1878, " but he found no later date. 

In the last year or two he read anything which he picked up on histable, but he read the same things over, and whispered the words like achild. He liked to look over the "Advertiser, " and was interested in the"Nation. " He enjoyed pictures in books and showed them with delight toguests. 

All this with slight changes and omissions is from the letter of Dr. Emerson in answer to my questions. The twilight of a long, bright dayof life may be saddening, but when the shadow falls so gently andgradually, with so little that is painful and so much that is soothingand comforting, we do not shrink from following the imprisoned spirit tothe very verge of its earthly existence. 

But darker hours were in the order of nature very near at hand. Fromthese he was saved by his not untimely release from the imprisonment ofthe worn-out bodily frame. 

In April, 1882, Emerson took a severe cold, and became so hoarse that hecould hardly speak. When his son, Dr. Edward Emerson, called to see him, he found him on the sofa, feverish, with more difficulty of expressionthan usual, dull, but not uncomfortable. As he lay on his couch hepointed out various objects, among others a portrait of Carlyle "thegood man, --my friend. " His son told him that he had seen Carlyle, whichseemed to please him much. On the following day the unequivocal signs ofpneumonia showed themselves, and he failed rapidly. He still recognizedthose around him, among the rest Judge Hoar, to whom he held out hisarms for a last embrace. A sharp pain coming on, ether was administeredwith relief. And in a little time, surrounded by those who loved himand whom he loved, he passed quietly away. He lived very nearly to thecompletion of his seventy-ninth year, having been born May 25, 1803, andhis death occurring on the 27th of April, 1882. 

Mr. Ireland has given a full account of the funeral, from which are, forthe most part, taken the following extracts:--

 "The last rites over the remains of Ralph Waldo Emerson took place at Concord on the 30th of April. A special train from Boston carried a large number of people. Many persons were on the street, attracted by the services, but were unable to gain admission to the church where the public ceremonies were held. Almost every building in town bore over its entrance-door a large black and white rosette with other sombre draperies. The public buildings were heavily draped, and even the homes of the very poor bore outward marks of grief at the loss of their friend and fellow-townsman. 

 "The services at the house, which were strictly private, occurred at 2. 30, and were conducted by Rev. W. H. Furness of Philadelphia, a kindred spirit and an almost life-long friend. They were simple in character, and only Dr. Furness took part in them. The body lay in the front northeast room, in which were gathered the family and close friends of the deceased. The only flowers were contained in three vases on the mantel, and were lilies of the valley, red and white roses, and arbutus. The adjoining room and hall were filled with friends and neighbors. 

 "At the church many hundreds of persons were awaiting the arrival of the procession, and all the space, except the reserved pews, was packed. In front of the pulpit were simple decorations, boughs of pine covered the desk, and in their centre was a harp of yellow jonquils, the gift of Miss Louisa M. Alcott. Among the floral tributes was one from the teachers and scholars in the Emerson school. By the sides of the pulpit were white and scarlet geraniums and pine boughs, and high upon the wall a laurel wreath. 

 "Before 3. 30 the pall-bearers brought in the plain black walnut coffin, which was placed before the pulpit. The lid was turned back, and upon it was put a cluster of richly colored pansies and a small bouquet of roses. While the coffin was being carried in, 'Pleyel's Hymn' was rendered on the organ by request of the family of the deceased. Dr. James Freeman Clarke then entered the pulpit. Judge E. Rockwood Hoar remained by the coffin below, and when the congregation became quiet, made a brief and pathetic address, his voice many times trembling with emotion. "

I subjoin this most impressive "Address" entire, from the manuscriptwith which Judge Hoar has kindly favored me:--

 "The beauty of Israel is fallen in its high place! Mr. Emerson has died; and we, his friends and neighbors, with this sorrowing company, have turned aside the procession from his home to his grave, --to this temple of his fathers, that we may here unite in our parting tribute of memory and love. 

 "There is nothing to mourn for him. That brave and manly life was rounded out to the full length of days. That dying pillow was softened by the sweetest domestic affection; and as he lay down to the sleep which the Lord giveth his beloved, his face was as the face of an angel, and his smile seemed to give a glimpse of the opening heavens. 

 "Wherever the English language is spoken throughout the world his fame is established and secure. Throughout this great land and from beyond the sea will come innumerable voices of sorrow for this great public loss. But we, his neighbors and townsmen, feel that he was _ours_. He was descended from the founders of the town. He chose our village as the place where his lifelong work was to be done. It was to our fields and orchards that his presence gave such value; it was our streets in which the children looked up to him with love, and the elders with reverence. He was our ornament and pride. 

 "'He is gone--is dust, -- He the more fortunate! Yea, he hath finished! For him there is no longer any future. His life is bright--bright without spot it was And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap. Far off is he, above desire and fear; No more submitted to the change and chance Of the uncertain planets. --

 "'The bloom is vanished from my life, For, oh! he stood beside me like my youth; Transformed for me the real to a dream, Clothing the palpable and the familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn. Whatever fortunes wait my future toils, The _beautiful_ is vanished and returns not. '

 "That lofty brow, the home of all wise thoughts and high aspirations, --those lips of eloquent music, --that great soul, which trusted in God and never let go its hope of immortality, --that large heart, to which everything that belonged to man was welcome, --that hospitable nature, loving and tender and generous, having no repulsion or scorn for anything but meanness and baseness, --oh, friend, brother, father, lover, teacher, inspirer, guide! is there no more that we can do now than to give thee this our hail and farewell!"

Judge Hoar's remarks were followed by the congregation singing thehymns, "Thy will be done, " "I will not fear the fate provided by Thylove. " The Rev. Dr. Furness then read selections from the Scriptures. 

The Rev. James Freeman Clarke then delivered an "Address, " from which Iextract two eloquent and inspiring passages, regretting to omit anythat fell from lips so used to noble utterances and warmed by theirsubject, --for there is hardly a living person more competent to speak orwrite of Emerson than this high-minded and brave-souled man, who did notwait until he was famous to be his admirer and champion. 

 "The saying of the Liturgy is true and wise, that 'in the midst of life we are in death. ' But it is still more true that in the midst of death we are in life. Do we ever believe so much in immortality as when we look on such a dear and noble face, now so still, which a few hours ago was radiant with thought and love? 'He is not here: he is risen. ' That power which we knew, --that soaring intelligence, that soul of fire, that ever-advancing spirit, --_that_ cannot have been suddenly annihilated with the decay of these earthly organs. It has left its darkened dust behind. It has outsoared the shadow of our night. God does not trifle with his creatures by bringing to nothing the ripe fruit of the ages by the lesion of a cerebral cell, or some bodily tissue. Life does not die, but matter dies off from it. The highest energy we know, the soul of man, the unit in which meet intelligence, imagination, memory, hope, love, purpose, insight, --this agent of immense resource and boundless power, --this has not been subdued by its instrument. When we think of such an one as he, we can only think of life, never of death. 

 "Such was his own faith, as expressed in his paper on 'Immortality. ' But he himself was the best argument for immortality. Like the greatest thinkers, he did not rely on logical proof, but on the higher evidence of universal instincts, --the vast streams of belief which flow through human thought like currents in the ocean; those shoreless rivers which forever roll along their paths in the Atlantic and Pacific, not restrained by banks, but guided by the revolutions of the globe and the attractions of the sun. "

 * * * * *

 "Let us then ponder his words:--

 'Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach and sunsets show? Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned, Saying, _What is excellent As God lives, is permanent; Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; Hearts' love will meet thee again. _

 * * * *

 House and tenant go to ground Lost in God, in Godhead found. '"

After the above address a feeling prayer was offered by Rev. Howard M. Brown, of Brookline, and the benediction closed the exercises in thechurch. Immediately before the benediction, Mr. Alcott recited thefollowing sonnet, which he had written for the occasion:---

 "His harp is silent: shall successors rise, Touching with venturous hand the trembling string, Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise, And wake to ecstasy each slumbering thing? Shall life and thought flash new in wondering eyes, As when the seer transcendent, sweet, and wise, World-wide his native melodies did sing, Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories? Ah, no! That matchless lyre shall silent lie: None hath the vanished minstrel's wondrous skill To touch that instrument with art and will. With him, winged poesy doth droop and die; While our dull age, left voiceless, must lament The bard high heaven had for its service sent. "

 "Over an hour was occupied by the passing files of neighbors, friends, and visitors looking for the last time upon the face of the dead poet. The body was robed completely in white, and the face bore a natural and peaceful expression. From the church the procession took its way to the cemetery. The grave was made beneath a tall pine-tree upon the hill-top of Sleepy Hollow, where lie the bodies of his friends Thoreau and Hawthorne, the upturned sod being concealed by strewings of pine boughs. A border of hemlock spray surrounded the grave and completely lined its sides. The services here were very brief, and the casket was soon lowered to its final resting-place. 

 "The Rev. Dr. Haskins, a cousin of the family, an Episcopal clergyman, read the Episcopal Burial Service, and closed with the Lord's Prayer, ending at the words, 'and deliver us from evil. ' In this all the people joined. Dr. Haskins then pronounced the benediction. After it was over the grandchildren passed the open grave and threw flowers into it. "

So vanished from human eyes the bodily presence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his finished record belongs henceforth to memory. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

EMERSON. --A RETROSPECT. 

Personality and Habits of Life. --His Commission and Errand. --As aLecturer. --His Use of Authorities. --Resemblance to Other Writers. --Asinfluenced by Others. --His Place as a Thinker. --Idealism andIntuition. --Mysticism. --His Attitude respecting Science. --As anAmerican. --His Fondness for Solitary Study. --His Patience andAmiability. --Feeling with which he was regarded. --Emerson andBurns. --His Religious Belief. --His Relations with Clergymen. --Future ofhis Reputation. --His Life judged by the Ideal Standard. 

Emerson's earthly existence was in the estimate of his own philosophy soslight an occurrence in his career of being that his relations to theaccidents of time and space seem quite secondary matters to one who hasbeen long living in the companionship of his thought. Still, he had tobe born, to take in his share of the atmosphere in which we are allimmersed, to have dealings with the world of phenomena, and at length tolet them all "soar and sing" as he left his earthly half-way house. Itis natural and pardonable that we should like to know the details of thedaily life which the men whom we admire have shared with common mortals, ourselves among the rest. But Emerson has said truly "Great geniuseshave the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing aboutthem. They lived in their writings, and so their home and street lifewas trivial and commonplace. "

The reader has had many extracts from Emerson's writings laid beforehim. It was no easy task to choose them, for his paragraphs areso condensed, so much in the nature of abstracts, that it is likedistilling absolute alcohol to attempt separating the spirit of what hesays from his undiluted thought. His books are all so full of his lifeto their last syllable that we might letter every volume _Emersoniana_, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

From the numerous extracts I have given from Emerson's writings it maybe hoped that the reader will have formed an idea for himself of the manand of the life which have been the subjects of these pages. But he mayprobably expect something like a portrait of the poet and moralist fromthe hand of his biographer, if the author of this Memoir may borrow thename which will belong to a future and better equipped laborer in thesame field. He may not unreasonably look for some general estimate ofthe life work of the scholar and thinker of whom he has been reading. He will not be disposed to find fault with the writer of the Memoirif he mentions many things which would seem very trivial but for theinterest they borrow from the individual to whom they relate. 

Emerson's personal appearance was that of a scholar, the descendant ofscholars. He was tall and slender, with the complexion which is bred inthe alcove and not in the open air. He used to tell his son Edward thathe measured six feet in his shoes, but his son thinks he could hardlyhave straightened himself to that height in his later years. He was verylight for a man of his stature. He got on the scales at Cheyenne, onhis trip to California, comparing his weight with that of a lady ofthe party. A little while afterwards he asked of his fellow-traveller, Professor Thayer, "How much did I weigh? A hundred and forty?" "Ahundred and forty and a half, " was the answer. "Yes, yes, a hundred andforty and a half! That _half_ I prize; it is an index of better things!"

Emerson's head was not such as Schopenhauer insists upon for aphilosopher. He wore a hat measuring six and seven eighths on the_cephalometer_ used by hatters, which is equivalent to twenty-one inchesand a quarter of circumference. The average size is from seven to sevenand an eighth, so that his head was quite small in that dimension. Itwas long and narrow, but lofty, almost symmetrical, and of more nearlyequal breadth in its anterior and posterior regions than many or mostheads. 

His shoulders sloped so much as to be commented upon for thispeculiarity by Mr. Gilfillan, and like "Ammon's great son, " he carriedone shoulder a little higher than the other. His face was thin, his nosesomewhat accipitrine, casting a broad shadow; his mouth rather wide, well formed and well closed, carrying a question and an assertion inits finely finished curves; the lower lip a little prominent, the chinshapely and firm, as becomes the corner-stone of the countenance. Hisexpression was calm, sedate, kindly, with that look of refinement, centring about the lips, which is rarely found in the male NewEnglander, unless the family features have been for two or threecultivated generations the battlefield and the playground of variedthoughts and complex emotions as well as the sensuous and nutritive portof entry. His whole look was irradiated by an ever active inquiringintelligence. His manner was noble and gracious. Few of ourfellow-countrymen have had larger opportunities of seeing distinguishedpersonages than our present minister at the Court of St. James. Ina recent letter to myself, which I trust Mr. Lowell will pardon myquoting, he says of Emerson:--

"There was a majesty about him beyond all other men I have known, and hehabitually dwelt in that ampler and diviner air to which most of us, ifever, only rise in spurts. "

From members of his own immediate family I have derived some particularsrelating to his personality and habits which are deserving of record. 

His hair was brown, quite fine, and, till he was fifty, very thick. His eyes were of the "strongest and brightest blue. " The member of thefamily who tells me this says:--

"My sister and I have looked for many years to see whether any one elsehad such absolutely blue eyes, and have never found them except insea-captains. I have seen three sea-captains who had them. "

He was not insensible to music, but his gift in that direction was verylimited, if we may judge from this family story. When he was in College, and the singing-master was gathering his pupils, Emerson presentedhimself, intending to learn to sing. The master received him, and whenhis turn came, said to him, "Chord!" "What?" said Emerson. "Chord!Chord! I tell you, " repeated the master. "I don't know what you mean, "said Emerson. "Why, sing! Sing a note. " "So I made some kind of a noise, and the singing-master said, 'That will do, sir. You need not comeagain. '"

Emerson's mode of living was very simple: coffee in the morning, tea inthe evening, animal food by choice only once a day, wine only when withothers using it, but always _pie_ at breakfast. "It stood before him andwas the first thing eaten. " Ten o'clock was his bed-time, six his hourof rising until the last ten years of his life, when he rose at seven. Work or company sometimes led him to sit up late, and this he coulddo night after night. He never was hungry, --could go any time frombreakfast to tea without food and not know it, but was always ready forfood when it was set before him. 

He always walked from about four in the afternoon till tea-time, andoften longer when the day was fine, or he felt that he should work thebetter. 

It is plain from his writings that Emerson was possessed all his lifelong with the idea of his constitutional infirmity and insufficiency. He hated invalidism, and had little patience with complaints aboutill-health, but in his poems, and once or twice in his letters toCarlyle, he expresses himself with freedom about his own bodilyinheritance. In 1827, being then but twenty-four years old, he writes:--

 "I bear in youth the sad infirmities That use to undo the limb and sense of age. "

Four years later:--

 "Has God on thee conferred A bodily presence mean as Paul's, Yet made thee bearer of a word Which sleepy nations as with trumpet calls?"

and again, in the same year:--

 "Leave me, Fear, thy throbs are base, Trembling for the body's sake. "--

Almost forty years from the first of these dates we find him bewailingin "Terminus" his inherited weakness of organization. 

And in writing to Carlyle, he says:--

"You are of the Anakirn and know nothing of the debility andpostponement of the blonde constitution. "

Again, "I am the victim of miscellany--miscellany of designs, vastdebility and procrastination. "

He thought too much of his bodily insufficiencies, which, it will beobserved, he refers to only in his private correspondence, and in thatsemi-nudity of self-revelation which is the privilege of poetry. Hispresence was fine and impressive, and his muscular strength was enoughto make him a rapid and enduring walker. 

Emerson's voice had a great charm in conversation, as in thelecture-room. It was never loud, never shrill, but singularlypenetrating. He was apt to hesitate in the course of a sentence, so asto be sure of the exact word he wanted; picking his way throughhis vocabulary, to get at the best expression of his thought, as awell-dressed woman crosses the muddy pavement to reach the oppositesidewalk. It was this natural slight and not unpleasant semicolonpausing of the memory which grew upon him in his years of decline, untilit rendered conversation laborious and painful to him. 

He never laughed loudly. When he laughed it was under protest, as itwere, with closed doors, his mouth shut, so that the explosion had toseek another respiratory channel, and found its way out quietly, whilehis eyebrows and nostrils and all his features betrayed the "groundswell, " as Professor Thayer happily called it, of the half-suppressedconvulsion. He was averse to loud laughter in others, and objected toMargaret Fuller that she made him laugh too much. 

Emerson was not rich in some of those natural gifts which are consideredthe birthright of the New Englander. He had not the mechanical turn ofthe whittling Yankee. I once questioned him about his manual dexterity, and he told me he could split a shingle four ways with one nail, --which, as the intention is not to split it at all in fastening itto the roof of a house or elsewhere, I took to be a confession ofinaptitude for mechanical works. He does not seem to have been veryaccomplished in the handling of agricultural implements either, for itis told in the family that his little son, Waldo, seeing him at workwith a spade, cried out, "Take care, papa, --you will dig your leg. "

He used to regret that he had no ear for music. I have said enough abouthis verse, which often jars on a sensitive ear, showing a want of thenicest perception of harmonies and discords in the arrangement of thewords. 

There are stories which show that Emerson had a retentive memory in theearlier part of his life. It is hard to say from his books whether hehad or not, for he jotted down such a multitude of things in his diarythat this was a kind of mechanical memory which supplied him withendless materials of thought and subjects for his pen. 

Lover and admirer of Plato as Emerson was, the doors of the academy, over which was the inscription [Greek: maedeis hageometraetoseseito]--Let no one unacquainted with geometry enter here, --would havebeen closed to him. All the exact sciences found him an unwillinglearner. He says of himself that he cannot multiply seven by twelve withimpunity. 

In an unpublished manuscript kindly submitted to me by Mr. Frothingham, Emerson is reported as saying, "God has given me the seeing eye, but notthe working hand. " His gift was insight: he saw the germ through itsenvelop; the particular in the light of the universal; the fact inconnection with the principle; the phenomenon as related to the law; allthis not by the slow and sure process of science, but by the suddenand searching flashes of imaginative double vision. He had neither thepatience nor the method of the inductive reasoner; he passed from onethought to another not by logical steps but by airy flights, which leftno footprints. This mode of intellectual action when found united withnatural sagacity becomes poetry, philosophy, wisdom, or prophecy in itsvarious forms of manifestation. Without that gift of natural sagacity(_odoratio quaedam venatica_), --a good scent for truth and beauty, --itappears as extravagance, whimsicality, eccentricity, or insanity, according to its degree of aberration. Emerson was eminently sane foran idealist. He carried the same sagacity into the ideal world thatFranklin showed in the affairs of common life. 

He was constitutionally fastidious, and had to school himself to becomeable to put up with the terrible inflictions of uncongenial fellowships. We must go to his poems to get at his weaknesses. The clown of the firstedition of "Monadnoc" "with heart of cat and eyes of bug, " disappearsin the after-thought of the later version of the poem, but the eye thatrecognized him and the nature that recoiled from him were there still. What must he not have endured from the persecutions of small-mindedworshippers who fastened upon him for the interminable period betweenthe incoming and the outgoing railroad train! He was a model of patienceand good temper. We might have feared that he lacked the sensibility tomake such intrusions and offences an annoyance. But when Mr. Frothinghamgratifies the public with those most interesting personal recollectionswhich I have had the privilege of looking over, it will be seen that hisequanimity, admirable as it was, was not incapable of being disturbed, and that on rare occasions he could give way to the feeling which showeditself of old in the doom pronounced on the barren fig-tree. 

Of Emerson's affections his home-life, and those tender poems in memoryof his brothers and his son, give all the evidence that could be askedor wished for. His friends were all who knew him, for none could behis enemy; and his simple graciousness of manner, with the sincerityapparent in every look and tone, hardly admitted indifference on thepart of any who met him were it but for a single hour. Even the littlechildren knew and loved him, and babes in arms returned his angelicsmile. Of the friends who were longest and most intimately associatedwith him, it is needless to say much in this place. Of those who areliving, it is hardly time to speak; of those who are dead, much hasalready been written. Margaret Fuller, --I must call my early schoolmateas I best remember her, --leaves her life pictured in the mosaic offive artists, --Emerson himself among the number; Thoreau is faithfullycommemorated in the loving memoir by Mr. Sanborn; Theodore Parker livesin the story of his life told by the eloquent Mr. Weiss; Hawthorneawaits his portrait from the master-hand of Mr. Lowell. 

How nearly any friend, other than his brothers Edward and Charles, cameto him, I cannot say, indeed I can hardly guess. That "majesty" Mr. Lowell speaks of always seemed to hedge him round like the divinity thatdoth hedge a king. What man was he who would lay his hand familiarlyupon his shoulder and call him Waldo? No disciple of Father Mathewwould be likely to do such a thing. There may have been such irreverentpersons, but if any one had so ventured at the "Saturday Club, " it wouldhave produced a sensation like Brummel's "George, ring the bell, " tothe Prince Regent. His ideas of friendship, as of love, seem almost tooexalted for our earthly conditions, and suggest the thought as do manyothers of his characteristics, that the spirit which animated his mortalframe had missed its way on the shining path to some brighter and bettersphere of being. 

Not so did Emerson appear among the plain working farmers of the villagein which he lived. He was a good, unpretending fellow-citizen who put onno airs, who attended town-meetings, took his part in useful measures, was no great hand at farming, but was esteemed and respected, and feltto be a principal source of attraction to Concord, for strangers cameflocking to the place as if it held the tomb of Washington. 

 * * * * *

What was the errand on which he visited our earth, --the message withwhich he came commissioned from the Infinite source of all life?

Every human soul leaves its port with sealed orders. These may be openedearlier or later on its voyage, but until they are opened no one cantell what is to be his course or to what harbor he is bound. 

Emerson inherited the traditions of the Boston pulpit, such as theywere, damaged, in the view of the prevailing sects of the country, perhaps by too long contact with the "Sons of Liberty, " and theirrevolutionary notions. But the most "liberal" Boston pulpit still heldto many doctrines, forms, and phrases open to the challenge of anyindependent thinker. 

In the year 1832 this young priest, then a settled minister, "began, " aswas said of another, --"to be about thirty years of age. " He had openedhis sealed orders and had read therein:

Thou shalt not profess that which thou dost not believe. 

Thou shalt not heed the voice of man when it agrees not with the voiceof God in thine own soul. 

Thou shalt study and obey the laws of the Universe and they will be thyfellow-servants. 

Thou shalt speak the truth as thou seest it, without fear, in the spiritof kindness to all thy fellow-creatures, dealing with the manifoldinterests of life and the typical characters of history. 

Nature shall be to thee as a symbol. The life of the soul, in consciousunion with the Infinite, shall be for thee the only real existence. 

This pleasing show of an external world through which thou art passingis given thee to interpret by the light which is in thee. Its leastappearance is not unworthy of thy study. Let thy soul be open and thineeyes will reveal to thee beauty everywhere. 

Go forth with thy message among thy fellow-creatures; teach them theymust trust themselves as guided by that inner light which dwells withthe pure in heart, to whom it was promised of old that they shall seeGod. 

Teach them that each generation begins the world afresh, in perfectfreedom; that the present is not the prisoner of the past, but thattoday holds captive all yesterdays, to compare, to judge, to accept, toreject their teachings, as these are shown by its own morning's sun. 

To thy fellow-countrymen thou shalt preach the gospel of the New World, that here, here in our America, is the home of man; that here is thepromise of a new and more excellent social state than history hasrecorded. 

Thy life shall be as thy teachings, brave, pure, truthful, beneficent, hopeful, cheerful, hospitable to all honest belief, all sincerethinkers, and active according to thy gifts and opportunities. 

 * * * * *

He was true to the orders he had received. Through doubts, troubles, privations, opposition, he would not

 "bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer Right onward. "

All through the writings of Emerson the spirit of these orders manifestsitself. His range of subjects is very wide, ascending to the highestsphere of spiritual contemplation, bordering on that "intense inane"where thought loses itself in breathless ecstasy, and stooping to thehomeliest maxims of prudence and the every-day lessons of good manners, And all his work was done, not so much

 "As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye, "

as in the ever-present sense of divine companionship. 

He was called to sacrifice his living, his position, his intimacies, toa doubt, and he gave them all up without a murmur. He might have been anidol, and he broke his own pedestal to attack the idolatry which he sawall about him. He gave up a comparatively easy life for a toilsome andtrying one; he accepted a precarious employment, which hardly kept himabove poverty, rather than wear the golden padlock on his lips which hasheld fast the conscience of so many pulpit Chrysostoms. Instead of avolume or two of sermons, bridled with a text and harnessed with aconfession of faith, he bequeathed us a long series of Discourses andEssays in which we know we have his honest thoughts, free from thatprofessional bias which tends to make the pulpit teaching of thefairest-minded preacher follow a diagonal of two forces, --the promptingsof his personal and his ecclesiastical opinions. 

Without a church or a pulpit, he soon had a congregation. It was largelymade up of young persons of both sexes, young by nature, if notin years, who, tired of routine and formulae, and full of vagueaspirations, found in his utterances the oracles they sought. To them, in the words of his friend and neighbor Mr. Alcott, he

 "Sang his full song of hope and lofty cheer. "

Nor was it only for a few seasons that he drew his audiences of devoutlisteners around him. Another poet, his Concord neighbor, Mr. Sanborn, who listened to him many years after the first flush of novelty wasover, felt the same enchantment, and recognized the same inspiring lifein his words, which had thrilled the souls of those earlier listeners. 

 "His was the task and his the lordly gift Our eyes, our hearts, bent earthward, to uplift. "

This was his power, --to inspire others, to make life purer, loftier, calmer, brighter. Optimism is what the young want, and he could no morehelp taking the hopeful view of the universe and its future than Claudecould help flooding his landscapes with sunshine. 

"Nature, " published in 1836, "the first clear manifestation of hisgenius, " as Mr. Norton calls it, revealed him as an idealist and apoet, with a tendency to mysticism. If he had been independent incircumstances, he would doubtless have developed more freely in thesedirections. But he had his living to get and a family to support, andhe must look about him for some paying occupation. The lecture-roomnaturally presented itself to a scholar accustomed to speaking fromthe pulpit. This medium of communicating thought was not as yet verypopular, and the rewards it offered were but moderate. Emerson was of avery hopeful nature, however, and believed in its possibilities. 

--"I am always haunted with brave dreams of what might be accomplishedin the lecture-room, --so free and so unpretending a platform, --a Delosnot yet made fast. I imagine an eloquence of infinite variety, rich asconversation can be, with anecdote, joke, tragedy, epics and pindarics, argument and confession. " So writes Emerson to Carlyle in 1841. 

It would be as unfair to overlook the special form in which Emerson gavemost of his thoughts to the world, as it would be to leave out of viewthe calling of Shakespeare in judging his literary character. Emersonwas an essayist and a lecturer, as Shakespeare was a dramatist and aplay-actor. 

The exigencies of the theatre account for much that is, as it were, accidental in the writings of Shakespeare. The demands of thelecture-room account for many peculiarities which are characteristic ofEmerson as an author. The play must be in five acts, each of a givenlength. The lecture must fill an hour and not overrun it. Both play andlecture must be vivid, varied, picturesque, stimulating, or the audiencewould tire before the allotted time was over. 

Both writers had this in common: they were poets and moralists. They reproduced the conditions of life in the light of penetrativeobservation and ideal contemplation; they illustrated its duties intheir breach and in their observance, by precepts and well-chosenportraits of character. The particular form in which they wrote makeslittle difference when we come upon the utterance of a noble truth or anelevated sentiment. 

It was not a simple matter of choice with the dramatist or the lecturerin what direction they should turn their special gifts. The actor hadlearned his business on the stage; the lecturer had gone through hisapprenticeship in the pulpit. Each had his bread to earn, and he mustwork, and work hard, in the way open before him. For twenty years theplaywright wrote dramas, and retired before middle age with a goodestate to his native town. For forty years Emerson lectured andpublished lectures, and established himself at length in competence inthe village where his ancestors had lived and died before him. He neverbecame rich, as Shakespeare did. He was never in easy circumstancesuntil he was nearly seventy years old. Lecturing was hard work, but hewas under the "base necessity, " as he called it, of constant labor, writing in summer, speaking everywhere east and west in the trying anddangerous winter season. 

He spoke in great cities to such cultivated audiences as no other mancould gather about him, and in remote villages where he addressedplain people whose classics were the Bible and the "Farmer's Almanac. "Wherever he appeared in the lecture-room, he fascinated his listeners byhis voice and manner; the music of his speech pleased those who foundhis thought too subtle for their dull wits to follow. 

When the Lecture had served its purpose, it came before the publicin the shape of an Essay. But the Essay never lost the character itborrowed from the conditions under which it was delivered; it was alay sermon, --_concio ad populum_. We must always remember what we aredealing with. "Expect nothing more of my power of construction, --noship-building, no clipper, smack, nor skiff even, only boards and logstied together. "--"Here I sit and read and write, with very littlesystem, and, as far as regards composition, with the most fragmentaryresult: paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely repellentparticle. " We have then a moralist and a poet appearing as a Lecturerand an Essayist, and now and then writing in verse. He liked the freedomof the platform. "I preach in the Lecture-room, " he says, "and there ittells, for there is no prescription. You may laugh, weep, reason, sing, sneer, or pray, according to your genius. " In England, he says, "I findthis lecturing a key which opens all doors. " But he did not tend toovervalue the calling which from "base necessity" he followed sodiligently. "Incorrigible spouting Yankee, " he calls himself; and again, "I peddle out all the wit I can gather from Time or from Nature, andam pained at heart to see how thankfully that little is received. "Lecture-peddling was a hard business and a poorly paid one in theearlier part of the time when Emerson was carrying his precious waresabout the country and offering them in competition with the cheapestitinerants, with shilling concerts and negro-minstrel entertainments. But one could get a kind of living out of it if he had invitationsenough. I remember Emerson's coming to my house to know if I couldfill his place at a certain Lyceum so that he might accept a veryadvantageous invitation in another direction. I told him that I wasunfortunately engaged for the evening mentioned. He smiled serenely, saying that then he supposed he must give up the new stove for thatseason. 

No man would accuse Emerson of parsimony of ideas. He crams his pageswith the very marrow of his thought. But in weighing out a lecture hewas as punctilious as Portia about the pound of flesh. His utterance wasdeliberate and spaced with not infrequent slight delays. Exactly at theend of the hour the lecture stopped. Suddenly, abruptly, but quietly, without peroration of any sort, always with "a gentle shock of mildsurprise" to the unprepared listener. He had weighed out the fullmeasure to his audience with perfect fairness. 

 [Greek: oste thalanta gunhae cheruhaetis halaethaes Aetestathmhon hechon echousa kahi heirion hamphis hanhelkei Ishazous ina paishin haeikhea misthon haraetai, ]

or, in Bryant's version, "as the scales Are held by some just woman, who maintains By spinning wool her household, --carefully She poises both the wool and weights, to make The balance even, that she may provide A pittance for her babes. "--

As to the charm of his lectures all are agreed. It is needless to handlethis subject, for Mr. Lowell has written upon it. Of their effect onhis younger listeners he says, "To some of us that long past experienceremains the most marvellous and fruitful we have ever had. Emersonawakened us, saved us from the body of this death. It is the sound ofthe trumpet that the young soul longs for, careless of what breath mayfill it. Sidney heard it in the ballad of 'Chevy Chase, ' and we inEmerson. Nor did it blow retreat, but called us with assurance ofvictory. "

There was, besides these stirring notes, a sweet seriousness inEmerson's voice that was infinitely soothing. So might "Peace, bestill, " have sounded from the lips that silenced the storm. I rememberthat in the dreadful war-time, on one of the days of anguish and terror, I fell in with Governor Andrew, on his way to a lecture of Emerson's, where he was going, he said, to relieve the strain upon his mind. Anhour passed in listening to that flow of thought, calm and clear as thediamond drops that distil from a mountain rock, was a true nepenthe fora careworn soul. 

An author whose writings are like mosaics must have borrowed from manyquarries. Emerson had read more or less thoroughly through a very widerange of authors. I shall presently show how extensive was his reading. No doubt he had studied certain authors diligently, a few, it wouldseem, thoroughly. But let no one be frightened away from his pages bythe terrible names of Plotinus and Proclus and Porphyry, of Behmen orSpinoza, or of those modern German philosophers with whom it is notpretended that he had any intimate acquaintance. Mr. George Ripley, aman of erudition, a keen critic, a lover and admirer of Emerson, speaksvery plainly of his limitations as a scholar. 

"As he confesses in the Essay on 'Books, ' his learning is second hand;but everything sticks which his mind can appropriate. He defends the useof translations, and I doubt whether he has ever read ten pages ofhis great authorities, Plato, Plutarch, Montaigne, or Goethe, in theoriginal. He is certainly no friend of profound study any more thanof philosophical speculation. Give him a few brilliant and suggestiveglimpses, and he is content. "

One correction I must make to this statement. Emerson says he has"contrived to read" almost every volume of Goethe, and that he hasfifty-five of them, but that he has read nothing else in German, and hasnot looked into him for a long time. This was in 1840, in a letter toCarlyle. It was up-hill work, it may be suspected, but he could not wellbe ignorant of his friend's great idol, and his references to Goethe arevery frequent. 

Emerson's quotations are like the miraculous draught of fishes. I hardlyknow his rivals except Burton and Cotton Mather. But no one would accusehim of pedantry. Burton quotes to amuse himself and his reader; Matherquotes to show his learning, of which he had a vast conceit; Emersonquotes to illustrate some original thought of his own, or becauseanother writer's way of thinking falls in with his own, --never witha trivial purpose. Reading as he did, he must have unconsciouslyappropriated a great number of thoughts from others. But he was profusein his references to those from whom he borrowed, --more profuse thanmany of his readers would believe without taking the pains to count hisauthorities. This I thought it worth while to have done, once for all, and I will briefly present the results of the examination. The namedreferences, chiefly to authors, as given in the table before me, arethree thousand three hundred and ninety-three, relating to eight hundredand sixty-eight different individuals. Of these, four hundred and elevenare mentioned more than once; one hundred and fifty-five, five timesor more; sixty-nine, ten times or more; thirty-eight, fifteen times ormore; and twenty-seven, twenty times or more. These twenty-seven namesalone, the list of which is here given, furnish no less than onethousand and sixty-five references. 

 Authorities. Number of times mentioned. Shakespeare. . . . . 112 Napoleon. . . . . . . . . 84 Plato. . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Plutarch. . . . . . . . . 70 Goethe. . . . . . . . . . . 62 Swift. . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Bacon. . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Milton. . . . . . . . . . . 46 Newton. . . . . . . . . . . 43 Homer. . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Socrates. . . . . . . . . 42 Swedenborg. . . . . . . 40 Montaigne. . . . . . . . 30 Saadi. . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Luther. . . . . . . . . . . 30 Webster. . . . . . . . . . 27 Aristotle. . . . . . . . 25 Hafiz. . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Wordsworth. . . . . . . 25 Burke. . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Saint Paul. . . . . . . 24 Dante. . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Shattuck (Hist. Of Concord). . . . . . . 21 Chaucer. . . . . . . . . . 20 Coleridge. . . . . . . . 20 Michael Angelo. . . 20 The name of Jesus occurs fifty-four times. 

It is interesting to observe that Montaigne, Franklin, and Emerson allshow the same fondness for Plutarch. 

Montaigne says, "I never settled myself to the reading of any book ofsolid learning but Plutarch and Seneca. "

Franklin says, speaking of the books in his father's library, "There wasamong them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I still thinkthat time spent to great advantage. "

Emerson says, "I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than toall the ancient writers. "

Studies of life and character were the delight of all these fourmoralists. As a judge of character, Dr. Hedge, who knew Emerson well, has spoken to me of his extraordinary gift, and no reader of "EnglishTraits" can have failed to mark the formidable penetration of theintellect which looked through those calm cerulean eyes. 

_Noscitur a sociis_ is as applicable to the books a man most affects aswell as to the companions he chooses. It is with the kings ofthought that Emerson most associates. As to borrowing from his royalacquaintances his ideas are very simple and expressed without reserve. 

"All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. Bynecessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. "

What Emerson says of Plutarch applies very nearly to himself. 

"In his immense quotation and allusion we quickly cease to discriminatebetween what he quotes and what he invents. We sail on his memory intothe ports of every nation, enter into every private property, and do notstop to discriminate owners, but give him the praise of all. "

Mr. Ruskin and Lord Tennyson have thought it worth their while to defendthemselves from the charge of plagiarism. Emerson would never have takenthe trouble to do such a thing. His mind was overflowing with thought asa river in the season of flood, and was full of floating fragments froman endless variety of sources. He drew ashore whatever he wanted thatwould serve his purpose. He makes no secret of his mode of writing. "Idot evermore in my endless journal, a line on every knowable in nature;but the arrangement loiters long, and I get a brick-kiln instead ofa house. " His journal is "full of disjointed dreams and audacities. "Writing by the aid of this, it is natural enough that he should speak ofhis "lapidary style" and say "I build my house of boulders. "

"It is to be remembered, " says Mr. Ruskin, "that all men who have senseand feeling are continually helped: they are taught by every person theymeet, and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The greatestis he who has been oftenest aided; and if the attainments of all humanminds could be traced to their real sources, it would be found that theworld had been laid most under contribution by the men of most originalpowers, and that every day of their existence deepened their debt totheir race, while it enlarged their gifts to it. "

The reader may like to see a few coincidences between Emerson's wordsand thoughts and those of others. 

Some sayings seem to be a kind of family property. "Scorn trifles"comes from Aunt Mary Moody Emerson, and reappears in her nephew, RalphWaldo. --"What right have you, Sir, to your virtue? Is virtue piecemeal?This is a jewel among the rags of a beggar. " So writes Ralph WaldoEmerson in his Lecture "New England Reformers. "--"Hiding the badges ofroyalty beneath the gown of the mendicant, and ever on the watch lesttheir rank be betrayed by the sparkle of a gem from under their rags. "Thus wrote Charles Chauncy Emerson in the "Harvard Register" nearlytwenty years before. 

 "The hero is not fed on sweets, Daily his own heart he eats. "

The image comes from Pythagoras _via_ Plutarch. 

Now and then, but not with any questionable frequency, we find asentence which recalls Carlyle. 

"The national temper, in the civil history, is not flashy or whiffling. The slow, deep English mass smoulders with fire, which at last sets allits borders in flame. The wrath of London is not French wrath, but has along memory, and in hottest heat a register and rule. "

Compare this passage from "English Traits" with the following one fromCarlyle's "French Revolution":--

"So long this Gallic fire, through its successive changes of color andcharacter, will blaze over the face of Europe, and afflict and scorchall men:--till it provoke all men, till it kindle another kind of fire, the Teutonic kind, namely; and be swallowed up, so to speak, in a day!For there is a fire comparable to the burning of dry jungle and grass;most sudden, high-blazing: and another fire which we liken to theburning of coal, or even of anthracite coal, but which no known thingwill put out. "

 "O what are heroes, prophets, men But pipes through which the breath of man doth blow A momentary music. "

The reader will find a similar image in one of Burns's letters, again inone of Coleridge's poetical fragments, and long before any of them, in aletter of Leibnitz. 

 "He builded better than he knew"

is the most frequently quoted line of Emerson. The thought is constantlyrecurring in our literature. It helps out the minister's sermon; and aFourth of July Oration which does not borrow it is like the "Addresswithout a Phoenix" among the Drury Lane mock poems. Can we find anytrace of this idea elsewhere?

In a little poem of Coleridge's, "William Tell, " are these two lines:

 "On wind and wave the boy would toss Was great, nor knew how great he was. "

The thought is fully worked out in the celebrated Essay of Carlylecalled "Characteristics. " It reappears in Emerson's poem "Fate. "

 "Unknown to Cromwell as to me Was Cromwell's measure and degree; Unknown to him as to his horse, If he than his groom is better or worse. "

It is unnecessary to illustrate this point any further in thisconnection. In dealing with his poetry other resemblances will suggestthemselves. All the best poetry the world has known is full of suchresemblances. If we find Emerson's wonderful picture, "Initial Love"prefigured in the "Symposium" of Plato, we have only to look in the"Phaedrus" and we we shall find an earlier sketch of Shakespeare'sfamous group, --

 "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet. "

Sometimes these resemblances are nothing more than accidentalcoincidences; sometimes the similar passages are unconsciously borrowedfrom another; sometimes they are paraphrases, variations, embellishedcopies, _éditions de luxe_ of sayings that all the world knows are old, but which it seems to the writer worth his while to say over again. The more improved versions of the world's great thoughts we have, thebetter, and we look to the great minds for them. The larger the riverthe more streams flow into it. The wide flood of Emerson's discourse hasa hundred rivers and thousands of streamlets for its tributaries. 

It was not from books only that he gathered food for thought and for hislectures and essays. He was always on the lookout in conversation forthings to be remembered. He picked up facts one would not have expectedhim to care for. He once corrected me in giving Flora Temple's time atKalamazoo. I made a mistake of a quarter of a second, and he set meright. He was not always so exact in his memory, as I have already shownin several instances. Another example is where he speaks of QuintusCurtius, the historian, when he is thinking of Mettus Curtius, theself-sacrificing equestrian. Little inaccuracies of this kind did notconcern him much; he was a wholesale dealer in illustrations, and couldnot trouble himself about a trifling defect in this or that particulararticle. 

Emerson was a man who influenced others more than others influenced him. Outside of his family connections, the personalities which can be mosteasily traced in his own are those of Carlyle, Mr. Alcott, and Thoreau. Carlyle's harsh virility could not be without its effect on hisvalid, but sensitive nature. Alcott's psychological and physiologicalspeculations interested him as an idealist. Thoreau lent him a new setof organs of sense of wonderful delicacy. Emerson looked at nature as apoet, and his natural history, if left to himself, would have been asvague as that of Polonius. But Thoreau had a pair of eyes which, likethose of the Indian deity, could see the smallest emmet on the blackeststone in the darkest night, --or come nearer to seeing it than those ofmost mortals. Emerson's long intimacy with him taught him to give anoutline to many natural objects which would have been poetic nebulae tohim but for this companionship. A nicer analysis would detect manyalien elements mixed with his individuality, but the family traitspredominated over all the external influences, and the personality stoodout distinct from the common family qualities. Mr. Whipple has wellsaid: "Some traits of his mind and character may be traced back to hisancestors, but what doctrine of heredity can give us the genesis of hisgenius? Indeed the safest course to pursue is to quote his own words, and despairingly confess that it is the nature of genius 'to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish thepast and refuse all history. '"

 * * * * *

Emerson's place as a thinker is somewhat difficult to fix. He cannotproperly be called a psychologist. He made notes and even deliveredlectures on the natural history of the intellect; but they seem to havebeen made up, according to his own statement, of hints and fragmentsrather than of the results of systematic study. He was a man ofintuition, of insight, a seer, a poet, with a tendency to mysticism. This tendency renders him sometimes obscure, and once in a while almost, if not quite, unintelligible. We can, for this reason, understand whythe great lawyer turned him over to his daughters, and Dr. WalterChanning complained that his lecture made his head ache. But it is notalways a writer's fault that he is not understood. Many persons havepoor heads for abstractions; and as for mystics, if they understandthemselves it is quite as much as can be expected. But that which ismysticism to a dull listener may be the highest and most inspiringimaginative clairvoyance to a brighter one. It is to be hoped that noreader will take offence at the following anecdote, which may be foundunder the title "Diogenes, " in the work of his namesake, DiogenesLaertius. I translate from the Latin version. 

"Plato was talking about ideas, and spoke of _mensality_ and _cyathity_[_tableity_, and _gobletity_]. 'I can see a table and a goblet, ' saidthe cynic, 'but I can see no such things as tableity and gobletity. ''Quite so, ' answered Plato, 'because you have the eyes to see a gobletand a table with, but you have not the brains to understand tableity andgobletity. '"

This anecdote may be profitably borne in mind in following Emerson intothe spheres of intuition and mystical contemplation. 

Emerson was an idealist in the Platonic sense of the word, aspiritualist as opposed to a materialist. He believes, he says, "asthe wise Spenser teaches, " that the soul makes its own body. This, ofcourse, involves the doctrine of preexistence; a doctrine older thanSpenser, older than Plato or Pythagoras, having its cradle in India, fighting its way down through Greek philosophers and Christian fathersand German professors, to our own time, when it has found Pierre Leroux, Edward Beecher, and Brigham Young among its numerous advocates. Each hashis fancies on the subject. The geography of an undiscovered country andthe soundings of an ocean that has never been sailed over may belong toromance and poetry, but they do not belong to the realm of knowledge. 

That the organ of the mind brings with it inherited aptitudes is asimple matter of observation. That it inherits truths is a differentproposition. The eye does not bring landscapes into the world on itsretina, --why should the brain bring thoughts? Poetry settles suchquestions very simply by saying it is so. 

The poet in Emerson never accurately differentiated itself from thephilosopher. He speaks of Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations ofImmortality as the high-water mark of the poetry of this century. Itsometimes seems as if he had accepted the lofty rhapsodies of this nobleOde as working truths. 

 "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home. "

In accordance with this statement of a divine inheritance from apreexisting state, the poet addresses the infant:--

 "Mighty prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest Which we are toiling all our lives to find. "--

These are beautiful fancies, but the philosopher will naturally ask thepoet what are the truths which the child has lost between its cradle andthe age of eight years, at which Wordsworth finds the little girl of whom he speaks in the lines, --

 "A simple child-- That lightly draws its breath And feels its life in every limb, -- What should it know of death?"

What should it, sure enough, or of any other of those great truths whichTime with its lessons, and the hardening of the pulpy brain can alonerender appreciable to the consciousness? Undoubtedly every brain has itsown set of moulds ready to shape all material of thought into its ownindividual set of patterns. If the mind comes into consciousness with agood set of moulds derived by "traduction, " as Dryden called it, from agood ancestry, it may be all very well to give the counsel to the youthto plant himself on his instincts. But the individual to whom thiscounsel is given probably has dangerous as well as wholesome instincts. He has also a great deal besides the instincts to be considered. Hisinstincts are mixed up with innumerable acquired prejudices, erroneousconclusions, deceptive experiences, partial truths, one-sidedtendencies. The clearest insight will often find it hard to decide whatis the real instinct, and whether the instinct itself is, in theologicallanguage, from God or the devil. That which was a safe guide for Emersonmight not work well with Lacenaire or Jesse Pomeroy. The cloud of glorywhich the babe brings with it into the world is a good set of instincts, which dispose it to accept moral and intellectual truths, --not thetruths themselves. And too many children come into life trailing afterthem clouds which are anything but clouds of glory. 

It may well be imagined that when Emerson proclaimed the newdoctrine, --new to his young disciples, --of planting themselves on theirinstincts, consulting their own spiritual light for guidance, --trustingto intuition, --without reference to any other authority, he opened thedoor to extravagances in any unbalanced minds, if such there were, whichlistened to his teachings. Too much was expected out of the mouths ofbabes and sucklings. The children shut up by Psammetichus got as far asone word in their evolution of an original language, but _bekkos_ was avery small contribution towards a complete vocabulary. "The Dial"was well charged with intuitions, but there was too much vagueness, incoherence, aspiration without energy, effort without inspiration, tosatisfy those who were looking for a new revelation. 

The gospel of intuition proved to be practically nothing more or lessthan this: a new manifesto of intellectual and spiritual independence. It was no great discovery that we see many things as truths which wecannot prove. But it was a great impulse to thought, a great advancein the attitude of our thinking community, when the profoundly devoutreligious free-thinker took the ground of the undevout and irreligiousfree-thinker, and calmly asserted and peaceably established the rightand the duty of the individual to weigh the universe, its laws and itslegends, in his own balance, without fear of authority, or names, orinstitutions. 

All this brought its dangers with it, like other movements ofemancipation. For the Fay _ce que voudras_ of the revellers of MedmenhamAbbey, was substituted the new motto, Pense _ce que voudras_. There wasan intoxication in this newly proclaimed evangel which took hold of somesusceptible natures and betrayed itself in prose and rhyme, occasionallyof the Bedlam sort. Emerson's disciples were never accused of fallinginto the more perilous snares of antinomianism, but he himselfdistinctly recognizes the danger of it, and the counterbalancingeffect of household life, with its curtain lectures and other benigninfluences. Extravagances of opinion cure themselves. Time wore off theeffects of the harmless debauch, and restored the giddy revellers to theregimen of sober thought, as reformed spiritual inebriates. 

Such were some of the incidental effects of the Emersonian declarationof independence. It was followed by a revolutionary war of opinion notyet ended or at present like to be. A local outbreak, if you will, butso was throwing the tea overboard. A provincial affair, if the Bohemianpress likes that term better, but so was the skirmish where the gun wasfired the echo of which is heard in every battle for freedom all overthe world. 

 * * * * *

Too much has been made of Emerson's mysticism. He was an intellectualrather than an emotional mystic, and withal a cautious one. He never letgo the string of his balloon. He never threw over all his ballast ofcommon sense so as to rise above an atmosphere in which a rational beingcould breathe. I found in his library William Law's edition of JacobBehmen. There were all those wonderful diagrams over which the readermay have grown dizzy, --just such as one finds on the walls of lunaticasylums, --evidences to all sane minds of cerebral strabismus in thecontrivers of them. Emerson liked to lose himself for a little while inthe vagaries of this class of minds, the dangerous proximity of which toinsanity he knew and has spoken of. He played with the incommunicable, the inconceivable, the absolute, the antinomies, as he would have playedwith a bundle of jack-straws. "Brahma, " the poem which so mystifiedthe readers of the "Atlantic Monthly, " was one of his spiritualdivertisements. To the average Western mind it is the nearest approachto a Torricellian vacuum of intelligibility that language can pump outof itself. If "Rejected Addresses" had not been written half a centurybefore Emerson's poem, one would think these lines were certainly meantto ridicule and parody it. 

 "The song of Braham is an Irish howl; Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, And nought is everything and everything is nought. "

Braham, Hazlitt might have said, is so obviously the anagram of Brahmathat dulness itself could not mistake the object intended. 

Of course no one can hold Emerson responsible for the "Yoga" doctrineof Brahmanism, which he has amused himself with putting in verse. Theoriental side of Emerson's nature delighted itself in these narcoticdreams, born in the land of the poppy and of hashish. They lend apeculiar charm to his poems, but it is not worth while to try toconstruct a philosophy out of them. The knowledge, if knowledge it be, of the mystic is not transmissible. It is not cumulative; it begins andends with the solitary dreamer, and the next who follows him has tobuild his own cloud-castle as if it were the first aerial edifice that ahuman soul had ever constructed. 

Some passages of "Nature, " "The Over-Soul, " "The Sphinx, " "Uriel, "illustrate sufficiently this mood of spiritual exaltation. Emerson'scalm temperament never allowed it to reach the condition he sometimesrefers to, --that of ecstasy. The passage in "Nature" where he says "Ibecome a transparent eyeball" is about as near it as he ever came. Thiswas almost too much for some of his admirers and worshippers. One of hismost ardent and faithful followers, whose gifts as an artist are wellknown, mounted the eyeball on legs, and with its cornea in front fora countenance and its optic nerve projecting behind as a queue, thespiritual cyclops was shown setting forth on his travels. 

Emerson's reflections in the "transcendental" mood do beyond questionsometimes irresistibly suggest the close neighborhood of the sublime tothe ridiculous. But very near that precipitous border line there is acharmed region where, if the statelier growths of philosophy die out anddisappear, the flowers of poetry next the very edge of the chasm havea peculiar and mysterious beauty. "Uriel" is a poem which finds itselfperilously near to the gulf of unsounded obscurity, and has, I doubtnot, provoked the mirth of profane readers; but read in a lucid moment, it is just obscure enough and just significant enough to give thevoltaic thrill which comes from the sudden contacts of the highestimaginative conceptions. 

Human personality presented itself to Emerson as a passing phase ofuniversal being. Born of the Infinite, to the Infinite it was to return. Sometimes he treats his own personality as interchangeable with objectsin nature, --he would put it off like a garment and clothe himself in thelandscape. Here is a curious extract from "The Adirondacs, " in which thereader need not stop to notice the parallelism with Byron's--

 "The sky is changed, --and such a change! O night And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong. "--

Now Emerson:--

 "And presently the sky is changed; O world! What pictures and what harmonies are thine! The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene, _So like the soul of me, what if't were me_?"

We find this idea of confused personal identity also in a brief poemprinted among the "Translations" in the Appendix to Emerson's Poems. These are the last two lines of "The Flute, from Hilali":--

 "Saying, Sweetheart! the old mystery remains, If I am I; thou, thou, or thou art I?"

The same transfer of personality is hinted in the line of Shelley's "Odeto the West Wind":

 "Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!"

Once more, how fearfully near the abyss of the ridiculous! A few dropsof alcohol bring about a confusion of mind not unlike this poeticalmetempsychosis. 

The laird of Balnamoon had been at a dinner where they gave himcherry-brandy instead of port wine. In driving home over a wild tract ofland called Munrimmon Moor his hat and wig blew off, and his servant gotout of the gig and brought them to him. The hat he recognized, but notthe wig. "It's no my wig, Hairy [Harry], lad; it's no my wig, " and hewould not touch it. At last Harry lost his patience: "Ye'd better tak'it, sir, for there's nae waile [choice] o' wigs on Munrimmon Moor. "And in our earlier days we used to read of the bewildered market-woman, whose _Ego_ was so obscured when she awoke from her slumbers that shehad to leave the question of her personal identity to the instinct ofher four-footed companion:--

 "If it be I, he'll wag his little tail; And if it be not I, he'll loudly bark and wail. "

I have not lost my reverence for Emerson in showing one of his fanciesfor a moment in the distorting mirror of the ridiculous. He woulddoubtless have smiled with me at the reflection, for he had a keen senseof humor. But I take the opportunity to disclaim a jesting remark about"a foresmell of the Infinite" which Mr. Conway has attributed to me, whoam innocent of all connection with it. 

The mystic appeals to those only who have an ear for the celestialconcords, as the musician only appeals to those who have the specialendowment which enables them to understand his compositions. It isnot for organizations untuned to earthly music to criticise the greatcomposers, or for those who are deaf to spiritual harmonies to criticisethe higher natures which lose themselves in the strains of divinecontemplation. The bewildered reader must not forget that passage ofarms, previously mentioned, between Plato and Diogenes. 

 * * * * *

Emerson looked rather askance at Science in his early days. I rememberthat his brother Charles had something to say in the "Harvard Register"(1828) about its disenchantments. I suspect the prejudice may have comepartly from Wordsworth. Compare this verse of his with the lines ofEmerson's which follow it. 

 "Physician art thou, one all eyes; Philosopher, a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave?"

Emerson's lines are to be found near the end of the Appendix in the newedition of his works. 

 "Philosophers are lined with eyes within, And, being so, the sage unmakes the man. In love he cannot therefore cease his trade; Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek, He feels it, introverts his learned eye To catch the unconscious heart in the very act. His mother died, --the only friend he had, -- Some tears escaped, but his philosophy Couched like a cat, sat watching close behind And throttled all his passion. Is't not like That devil-spider that devours her mate Scarce freed from her embraces?"

The same feeling comes out in the Poem "Blight, " where he says the"young scholars who invade our hills"

 "Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names;"

and in "The Walk, " where the "learned men" with their glasses arecontrasted with the sons of Nature, --the poets are no doubt meant, --muchto the disadvantage of the microscopic observers. Emerson's mindwas very far from being of the scientific pattern. Science isquantitative, --loves the foot-rule and the balance, --methodical, exhaustive, indifferent to the beautiful as such. The poet is curious, asks all manner of questions, and never thinks of waiting for theanswer, still less of torturing Nature to get at it. Emerson wonders, for instance, --

 "Why Nature loves the number five, "

but leaves his note of interrogation without troubling himself anyfarther. He must have picked up some wood-craft and a little botanyfrom Thoreau, and a few chemical notions from his brother-in-law, Dr. Jackson, whose name is associated with the discovery of artificialanaesthesia. It seems probable that the genial companionship of Agassiz, who united with his scientific genius, learning, and renown, mostdelightful social qualities, gave him a kinder feeling to men of scienceand their pursuits than he had entertained before that great master cameamong us. At any rate he avails himself of the facts drawn from theirspecialties without scruple when they will serve his turn. But he lovesthe poet always better than the scientific student of nature. In hisPreface to the Poems of Mr. W. E. Channing, he says:--

"Here is a naturalist who sees the flower and the bud with a poet'scuriosity and awe, and does not count the stamens in the aster, nor thefeathers in the wood-thrush, but rests in the surprise and affectionthey awake. "--

This was Emerson's own instinctive attitude to all the phenomena ofnature. 

Emerson's style is epigrammatic, incisive, authoritative, sometimesquaint, never obscure, except when he is handling nebulous subjects. His paragraphs are full of brittle sentences that break apart and areindependent units, like the fragments of a coral colony. His imagery isfrequently daring, leaping from the concrete to the abstract, from thespecial to the general and universal, and _vice versa_, with a boundthat is like a flight. Here are a few specimens of his pleasing_audacities_:--

"There is plenty of wild azote and carbon unappropriated, but it isnaught till we have made it up into loaves and soup. "--

"He arrives at the sea-shore and a sumptuous ship has floored andcarpeted for him the stormy Atlantic. "--

"If we weave a yard of tape in all humility and as well as we can, longhereafter we shall see it was no cotton tape at all but some galaxywhich we braided, and that the threads were Time and Nature. "--

"Tapping the tempest for a little side wind. "--

"The locomotive and the steamboat, like enormous shuttles, shootevery day across the thousand various threads of national descent andemployment and bind them fast in one web. "--

He is fond of certain archaisms and unusual phrases. He likesthe expression "mother-wit, " which he finds in Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and other old writers. He often uses the word "husband"in its earlier sense of economist. His use of the word "haughty" is sofitting, and it sounds so nobly from his lips, that we could wish itsemployment were forbidden henceforth to voices which vulgarize it. Buthis special, constitutional, word is "fine, " meaning something likedainty, as Shakespeare uses it, --"my dainty Ariel, "--"fine Ariel. " Itbelongs to his habit of mind and body as "faint" and "swoon" belong toKeats. This word is one of the ear-marks by which Emerson's imitatorsare easily recognized. "Melioration" is another favorite word ofEmerson's. A clairvoyant could spell out some of his most characteristictraits by the aid of his use of these three words; his inbornfastidiousness, subdued and kept out of sight by his large charity andhis good breeding, showed itself in his liking for the word "haughty;"his exquisite delicacy by his fondness for the word "fine, " with acertain shade of meaning; his optimism in the frequent recurrence of theword "melioration. "

We must not find fault with his semi-detached sentences until we quarrelwith Solomon and criticise the Sermon on the Mount. The "point andsurprise" which he speaks of as characterizing the style of Plutarchbelong eminently to his own. His fertility of illustrative imagery isvery great. His images are noble, or, if borrowed from humble objects, ennobled by his handling. He throws his royal robe over a milking-stooland it becomes a throne. But chiefly he chooses objects of comparisongrand in themselves. He deals with the elements at first hand. Suchdelicacy of treatment, with such breadth and force of effect, is hard tomatch anywhere, and we know him by his style at sight. It is as when theslight fingers of a girl touch the keys of some mighty and many-voicedorgan, and send its thunders rolling along the aisles and startlingthe stained windows of a great cathedral. We have seen him as anunpretending lecturer. We follow him round as he "peddles out all thewit he can gather from Time or from Nature, " and we find that "he haschanged his market cart into a chariot of the sun, " and is carryingabout the morning light as merchandise. 

 * * * * *

Emerson was as loyal an American, as thorough a New Englander, ashome-loving a citizen, as ever lived. He arraigned his countrymensharply for their faults. Mr. Arnold made one string of his epithetsfamiliar to all of us, --"This great, intelligent, sensual, andavaricious America. " This was from a private letter to Carlyle. In hisEssay, "Works and Days, " he is quite as outspoken: "This mendicantAmerica, this curious, peering, itinerant, imitative America. " "Isee plainly, " he says, "that our society is as bigoted to therespectabilities of religion and education as yours. " "The war, " hesays, "gave back integrity to this erring and immoral nation. " All hislife long he recognized the faults and errors of the new civilization. All his life long he labored diligently and lovingly to correct them. To the dark prophecies of Carlyle, which came wailing to him across theocean, he answered with ever hopeful and cheerful anticipations. "Here, "he said, in words I have already borrowed, "is the home of man--here isthe promise of a new and more excellent social state than history hasrecorded. "

Such a man as Emerson belongs to no one town or province or continent;he is the common property of mankind; and yet we love to think of himas breathing the same air and treading the same soil that we and ourfathers and our children have breathed and trodden. So it pleases usto think how fondly he remembered his birthplace; and by the side ofFranklin's bequest to his native city we treasure that golden verse ofEmerson's:--

 "A blessing through the ages thus Shield all thy roofs and towers, GOD WITH THE FATHERS, SO WITH US, Thou darling town of ours!"

Emerson sympathized with all generous public movements, but he was notfond of working in associations, though he liked well enough to attendtheir meetings as a listener and looker-on. His study was his workshop, and he preferred to labor in solitude. When he became famous he paid thepenalty of celebrity in frequent interruptions by those "devastators ofthe day" who sought him in his quiet retreat. His courtesy and kindnessto his visitors were uniform and remarkable. Poets who come to recitetheir verses and reformers who come to explain their projects areamong the most formidable of earthly visitations. Emerson acceptedhis martyrdom with meek submission; it was a martyrdom in detail, butcollectively its petty tortures might have satisfied a reasonableinquisitor as the punishment of a moderate heresy. Except in that onephrase above quoted he never complained of his social oppressors, so faras I remember, in his writings. His perfect amiability was one of hismost striking characteristics, and in a nature fastidious as was his inits whole organization, it implied a self-command worthy of admiration. 

 * * * * *

The natural purity and elevation of Emerson's character show themselvesin all that he writes. His life corresponded to the ideal we form of himfrom his writings. This it was which made him invulnerable amidst allthe fierce conflicts his gentle words excited. His white shield was sospotless that the least scrupulous combatants did not like to leavetheir defacing marks upon it. One would think he was protected by somesuperstition like that which Voltaire refers to as existing aboutBoileau, --

 "Ne disons pas mal de Nicolas, --cela porte malheur. "

(Don't let us abuse Nicolas, --it brings ill luck. ) The cooped-updogmatists whose very citadel of belief he was attacking, and who hadtheir hot water and boiling pitch and flaming brimstone ready for theassailants of their outer defences, withheld their missiles from him, and even sometimes, in a movement of involuntary human sympathy, sprinkled him with rose-water. His position in our Puritan New Englandwas in some respects like that of Burns in Presbyterian Scotland. The_dour_ Scotch ministers and elders could not cage their minstrel, andthey could not clip his wings; and so they let this morning lark riseabove their theological mists, and sing to them at heaven's gate, untilhe had softened all their hearts and might nestle in their bosoms andfind his perch on "the big ha' bible, " if he would, --and as he did. Sodid the music of Emerson's words and life steal into the hearts of ourstern New England theologians, and soften them to a temper which wouldhave seemed treasonable weakness to their stiff-kneed forefathers. Whena man lives a life commended by all the Christian virtues, enlightenedpersons are not so apt to cavil at his particular beliefs or unbeliefsas in former generations. We do, however, wish to know what are theconvictions of any such persons in matters of highest interest aboutwhich there is so much honest difference of opinion in this age of deepand anxious and devout religious scepticism. 

It was a very wise and a very prudent course which was taken bySimonides, when he was asked by his imperial master to give him hisideas about the Deity. He begged for a day to consider the question, butwhen the time came for his answer he wanted two days more, and at theend of these, four days. In short, the more he thought about it, themore he found himself perplexed. 

The name most frequently applied to Emerson's form of belief isPantheism. How many persons who shudder at the sound of this word cantell the difference between that doctrine and their own professed beliefin the omnipresence of the Deity?

Theodore Parker explained Emerson's position, as he understood it, in anarticle in the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review. " I borrow this quotationfrom Mr. Cooke:--

"He has an absolute confidence in God. He has been foolishly accused ofPantheism, which sinks God in nature, but no man Is further from it. He never sinks God in man; he does not stop with the law, in matter ormorals, but goes to the Law-giver; yet probably it would not be so easyfor him to give his definition of God, as it would be for most graduatesat Andover or Cambridge. "

We read in his Essay, "Self-Reliance ": "This is the ultimate fact whichwe so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of allinto the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of theSupreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree inwhich it enters into all lower forms. "

The "ever-blessed ONE" of Emerson corresponds to the Father in thedoctrine of the Trinity. The "Over-Soul" of Emerson is that aspect ofDeity which is known to theology as the Holy Spirit. Jesus was for him adivine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been inall ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just ashe was willing to be called a Platonist. 

Explanations are apt not to explain much in dealing with subjects likethis. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out theAlmighty unto perfection?" But on certain great points nothing could beclearer than the teaching of Emerson. He believed in the doctrine ofspiritual influx as sincerely as any Calvinist or Swedenborgian. Hisviews as to fate, or the determining conditions of the character, brought him near enough to the doctrine of predestination to make himafraid of its consequences, and led him to enter a caveat against anydenial of the self-governing power of the will. 

His creed was a brief one, but he carried it everywhere with him. In allhe did, in all he said, and so far as all outward signs could show, inall his thoughts, the indwelling Spirit was his light and guide; throughall nature he looked up to nature's God; and if he did not worship the"man Christ Jesus" as the churches of Christendom have done, he followedhis footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father Taylor, spoke ofhim as more like Christ than any man he had known. 

Emerson was in friendly relations with many clergymen of the churchfrom which he had parted. Since he left the pulpit, the lesson, notof tolerance, for that word is an insult as applied by one set ofwell-behaved people to another, not of charity, for that implies animpertinent assumption, but of good feeling on the part of divergentsects and their ministers has been taught and learned as never before. Their official Confessions of Faith make far less difference in theirhuman sentiments and relations than they did even half a century ago. These ancient creeds are handed along down, to be kept in their phialswith their stoppers fast, as attar of rose is kept in its littlebottles; they are not to be opened and exposed to the atmosphere so longas their perfume, --the odor of sanctity, --is diffused from the carefullytreasured receptacles, --perhaps even longer than that. 

Out of the endless opinions as to the significance and final outcome ofEmerson's religious teachings I will select two as typical. 

Dr. William Hague, long the honored minister of a Baptist church inBoston, where I had the pleasure of friendly acquaintance with him, haswritten a thoughtful, amiable paper on Emerson, which he read before theNew York Genealogical and Biographical Society. This Essay closes withthe following sentence:--

"Thus, to-day, while musing, as at the beginning, over the works ofRalph Waldo Emerson, we recognize now as ever his imperial genius as oneof the greatest of writers; at the same time, his life work, as a whole, tested by its supreme ideal, its method and its fruitage, shows also agreat waste of power, verifying the saying of Jesus touching the harvestof human life: 'HE THAT GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD. '"

"But when Dean Stanley returned from America, it was to report, " saysMr. Conway "('Macmillan, ' June, 1879), that religion had there passedthrough an evolution from Edwards to Emerson, and that 'the genialatmosphere which Emerson has done so much to promote is shared by allthe churches equally. '"

What is this "genial atmosphere" but the very spirit of Christianity?The good Baptist minister's Essay is full of it. He comes asking whathas become of Emerson's "wasted power" and lamenting his lack of"fruitage, " and lo! he himself has so ripened and mellowed in that sameEmersonian air that the tree to which he belongs would hardly know him. The close-communion clergyman handles the arch-heretic as tenderly as ifhe were the nursing mother of a new infant Messiah. A few generationsago this preacher of a new gospel would have been burned; a little laterhe would been tried and imprisoned; less than fifty years ago he wascalled infidel and atheist; names which are fast becoming relinquishedto the intellectual half-breeds who sometimes find their way intopulpits and the so-called religious periodicals. 

It is not within our best-fenced churches and creeds that theself-governing American is like to find the religious freedom which theConcord prophet asserted with the strength of Luther and the sweetnessof Melancthon, and which the sovereign in his shirt-sleeves will surelyclaim. Milton was only the precursor of Emerson when he wrote:--

"Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what placethese his chosen shall be first heard to speak; for he sees not as mansees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves againto set places and assemblies, and outward callings of men, planting ourfaith one while in the old convocation house, and another while in theChapel at Westminster, when all the faith and religion that shall bethere canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, andthe charity of patient instruction, to supple the least bruise ofconscience, to edify the meanest Christian who desires to walk in thespirit and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number ofvoices that can be there made; no, though Harry the Seventh himselfthere, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend their voices fromthe dead, to swell their number. "

The best evidence of the effect produced by Emerson's writings and lifeis to be found in the attention he has received from biographers andcritics. The ground upon which I have ventured was already occupied bythree considerable Memoirs. Mr. George Willis Cooke's elaborate work isremarkable for its careful and thorough analysis of Emerson's teachings. Mr. Moncure Daniel Conway's "Emerson at Home and Abroad" is a livelypicture of its subject by one long and well acquainted with him. Mr. Alexander Ireland's "Biographical Sketch" brings together, from a greatvariety of sources, as well as from his own recollections, the facts ofEmerson's history and the comments of those whose opinions were bestworth reproducing. I must refer to this volume for a bibliography of thevarious works and Essays of which Emerson furnished the subject. 

From the days when Mr. Whipple attracted the attention of ourintelligent, but unawakened reading community, by his discriminating andappreciative criticisms of Emerson's Lectures, and Mr. Lowell drew theportrait of the New England "Plotinus-Montaigne" in his brilliant "Fablefor Critics, " to the recent essays of Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. JohnMorley, Mr. Henry Norman, and Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, Emerson'swritings have furnished one of the most enduring _pièces de résistance_at the critical tables of the old and the new world. 

He early won the admiration of distinguished European thinkers andwriters: Carlyle accepted his friendship and his disinterested services;Miss Martineau fully recognized his genius and sounded his praises; MissBremer fixed her sharp eyes on him and pronounced him "a noble man. "Professor Tyndall found the inspiration of his life in Emerson'sfresh thought; and Mr. Arnold, who clipped his medals reverently butunsparingly, confessed them to be of pure gold, even while he questionedwhether they would pass current with posterity. He found discerningcritics in France, Germany, and Holland. Better than all is thetestimony of those who knew him best. They who repeat the saying that"a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, " will find anexception to its truth in the case of Emerson. Read the impressive wordsspoken at his funeral by his fellow-townsman, Judge Hoar; read theglowing tributes of three of Concord's poets, --Mr. Alcott, Mr. Channing, and Mr. Sanborn, --and it will appear plainly enough that he, whose famehad gone out into all the earth, was most of all believed in, honored, beloved, lamented, in the little village circle that centred about hisown fireside. 

It is a not uninteresting question whether Emerson has bequeathed to thelanguage any essay or poem which will resist the flow of time like "theadamant of Shakespeare, " and remain a classic like the Essays of Addisonor Gray's Elegy. It is a far more important question whether his thoughtentered into the spirit of his day and generation, so that it modifiedthe higher intellectual, moral, and religious life of his time, and, asa necessary consequence, those of succeeding ages. _Corpora non aguntnisi soluta_, and ideas must be dissolved and taken up as well asmaterial substances before they can act. "That which thou sowest is notquickened except it die, " or rather lose the form with which it wassown. Eight stanzas of four lines each have made the author of "TheBurial of Sir John Moore" an immortal, and endowed the language with aclassic, perfect as the most finished cameo. But what is the gift of amourning ring to the bequest of a perpetual annuity? How many liveshave melted into the history of their time, as the gold was lostin Corinthian brass, leaving no separate monumental trace of theirinfluence, but adding weight and color and worth to the age of whichthey formed a part and the generations that came after them! We can dareto predict of Emerson, in the words of his old friend and disciple, Mr. Cranch:--

 "The wise will know thee and the good will love, The age to come will feel thy impress given In all that lifts the race a step above Itself, and stamps it with the seal of heaven. "

It seems to us, to-day, that Emerson's best literary work in prose andverse must live as long as the language lasts; but whether it live orfade from memory, the influence of his great and noble life andthe spoken and written words which were its exponents, blends, indestructible, with the enduring elements of civilization. 

 * * * * *

It is not irreverent, but eminently fitting, to compare any singularlypure and virtuous life with that of the great exemplar in whosefootsteps Christendom professes to follow. The time was when the divineauthority of his gospel rested chiefly upon the miracles he is reportedto have wrought. As the faith in these exceptions to the general lawsof the universe diminished, the teachings of the Master, of whom it wassaid that he spoke as never man spoke, were more largely relied uponas evidence of his divine mission. Now, when a comparison of theseteachings with those of other religious leaders is thought by many tohave somewhat lessened the force of this argument, the life of thesinless and self-devoted servant of God and friend of man is appealed toas the last and convincing proof that he was an immediate manifestationof the Divinity. 

Judged by his life Emerson comes very near our best ideal of humanity. He was born too late for the trial of the cross or the stake, or eventhe jail. But the penalty of having an opinion of his own and expressingit was a serious one, and he accepted it as cheerfully as any of QueenMary's martyrs accepted his fiery baptism. His faith was too large andtoo deep for the formulae he found built into the pulpit, and he was toohonest to cover up his doubts under the flowing vestments of a sacredcalling. His writings, whether in prose or verse, are worthy ofadmiration, but his manhood was the underlying quality which gave themtheir true value. It was in virtue of this that his rare genius acted onso many minds as a trumpet call to awaken them to the meaning and theprivileges of this earthly existence with all its infinite promise. No matter of what he wrote or spoke, his words, his tones, his looks, carried the evidence of a sincerity which pervaded them all and was tohis eloquence and poetry like the water of crystallization; withoutwhich they would effloresce into mere rhetoric. He shaped an ideal forthe commonest life, he proposed an object to the humblest seeker aftertruth. Look for beauty in the world around you, he said, and you shallsee it everywhere. Look within, with pure eyes and simple trust, and youshall find the Deity mirrored in your own soul. Trust yourself becauseyou trust the voice of God in your inmost consciousness. 

There are living organisms so transparent that we can see their heartsbeating and their blood flowing through their glassy tissues. Sotransparent was the life of Emerson; so clearly did the true nature ofthe man show through it. What he taught others to be, he was himself. His deep and sweet humanity won him love and reverence everywhereamong those whose natures were capable of responding to the highestmanifestations of character. Here and there a narrow-eyed sectary mayhave avoided or spoken ill of him; but if He who knew what was in manhad wandered from door to door in New England as of old in Palestine, wecan well believe that one of the thresholds which "those blessed feet"would have crossed, to hallow and receive its welcome, would have beenthat of the lovely and quiet home of Emerson. 

INDEX. 

[For many references, not found elsewhere, see under the generalheadings of _Emerson's Books, Essays, Poems_. ]

 Abbott, Josiah Gardiner, a pupil of Emerson, 49, 50. 

 Academic Races, 2, 3. (See _Heredity_. )

 Action, subordinate, 112. 

 Adams, John, old age, 261. 

 Adams, Samuel, Harvard debate, 115. 

 Addison, Joseph, classic, 416. 

 Advertiser, The, Emerson's interest in, 348. 

 Aeolian Harp, his model, 329, 340. (See _Emerson's Poems_, --Harp. )

 Aeschylus, tragedies, 253. (See _Greek_. )

 Agassiz, Louis: Saturday Club, 222; companionship, 403. 

 Agriculture: in Anthology, 30; attacked, 190; not Emerson's field, 255, 256, 365. 

 Akenside, Mark, allusion, 16. 

 Alchemy, adepts, 260, 261. 

 Alcott, A. Bronson: hearing Emerson, 66; speculations, 86; an idealist, 150; The Dial, 159; sonnet, 355; quoted, 373; personality traceable, 389. 

 Alcott, Louisa M. , funeral bouquet, 351. 

 Alexander the Great: allusion, 184; mountain likeness, 322. 

 Alfred the Great, 220, 306. 

 Allston, Washington, unfinished picture, 334. (See _Pictures_. )

 Ambition, treated in Anthology, 30. 

 America: room for a poet, 136, 137; virtues and defects, 143; faith in, 179; people compared with English, 216; things awry, 260; _aristocracy_, 296; in the Civil War, 304; Revolution, 305; Lincoln, the true history of his time, 307; passion for, 308, 309; artificial rhythm, 329; its own literary style, 342; home of man, 371; loyalty to, 406; epithets, 406, 407. (See _England, New England_, etc. )

 Amici, meeting Emerson, 63. (See _Italy_. )

 Amusements, in New England, 30. 

 Anaemia, artistic, 334. 

 Ancestry: in general, 1-3; Emerson's, 3 _et seq. _ (See _Heredity_. )

 Andover, Mass. : Theological School, 48; graduates, 411. 

 Andrew, John Albion: War Governor, 223; hearing Emerson, 379. (See _South_. )

 Angelo. (See _Michael Angelo_. )

 Antinomianism: in The Dial, 162; kept from, 177. (See _God, Religion_, etc. )

 Anti-Slavery: in Emerson's pulpit, 57; the reform, 141, 145, 152; Emancipation address, 181; Boston and New York addresses, 210-212; Emancipation Proclamation, 228; Fugitive Slave Law, and other matters, 303-307. (See _South_. )

 Antoninus, Marcus, allusion, 16. 

 Architecture, illustrations, 253. 

 Arianism, 51. (See _Unitarianism_. )

 Aristotle: influence over Mary Emerson, 17; times mentioned, 382. 

 Arminianism, 51. (See _Methodism, Religion_, etc. )

 Arnim, Gisela von, 225. 

 Arnold, Matthew: quotation about America, 137: lecture, 236; on Milton, 315; his Thyrsis, 333; criticism, 334; string of Emerson's epithets, 406. 

 Aryans, comparison, 312. 

 Asia: a pet name, 176; immovable, 200. 

 Assabet River, 70, 71. 

 Astronomy: Harp illustration, 108; stars against wrong, 252, 253. (See _Galileo, Stars, Venus_, etc. )

 Atlantic Monthly: sketch of Dr. Ripley, 14, 15; of Mary Moody Emerson, 16; established, 221; supposititious club, 222; on Persian Poetry, 224; on Thoreau, 228; Emerson's contributions, 239, 241; Brahma, 296. 

 Atmosphere: effect on inspiration, 290; spiritual, 413, 414. 

 Augustine, Emerson's study of, 52. 

 Authors, quoted by Emerson, 381-383. (See _Plutarch_, etc. )

 Bacon, Francis: allusion, 22, 111; times quoted, 382. 

 Bancroft, George: literary rank, 33; in college, 45. 

 Barbier, Henri Auguste, on Napoleon, 208. 

 Barnwell, Robert W. : in history, 45; in college, 47. 

 Beaumont and Fletcher, disputed, line, 128, 129. 

 Beauty: its nature, 74, 94, 95; an end, 99, 135, 182; study, 301. 

 Beecher, Edward, on preexistence, 391. (See _Preexistence_. )

 Behmen, Jacob: mysticism, 201, 202, 396; citation, 380. 

 Berkeley, Bishop: characteristics, 189; matter, 300. 

 Bible: Mary Emerson's study, 16; Mosaic cosmogony, 18; the Exodus, 35; the Lord's Supper, 58; Psalms, 68, 181, 182, 253; lost Paradise, 101; Genesis, Sermon on the Mount, 102; Seer of Patmos, 102, 103; Apocalypse, 105; Song of Songs, 117; Baruch's roll, 117, 118; not closed, 122; the Sower, 154; Noah's Ark, 191; Pharisee's trumpets, 255; names and imagery, 268; sparing the rod, 297; rhythmic mottoes, 314; beauty of Israel, 351; face of an angel, 352; barren fig-tree, 367; a classic, 376; body of death, "Peace be still!" 379; draught of fishes, 381; its semi-detached sentences, 405; Job quoted, 411; "the man Christ Jesus, " 412; scattering abroad, 414. (See _Christ, God, Religion, _ etc. )

 Bigelow, Jacob, on rural cemeteries, 31. 

 Biography, every man writes his own, 1. 

 Blackmore, Sir Richard, controversy, 31. 

 Bliss Family, 9. 

 Bliss, Daniel, patriotism, 72. 

 Blood, transfusion of, 256. 

 Books, use and abuse, 110, 111. (See _Emerson's Essays_. )

 Boston, Mass. : First Church, 10, 12, 13; Woman's Club, 16; Harbor, 19; nebular spot, 25, 26; its pulpit darling, 27; Episcopacy, 28; Athenaeum, 31; magazines, 28-34; intellectual character, lights on its three hills, high caste religion, 34; Samaria and Jerusalem, 35; streets and squares, 37-39; Latin School, 39, 40, 43; new buildings, 42; Mrs. Emerson's boarding-house, the Common as a pasture, 43; Unitarian preaching, 51; a New England centre, 52; Emerson's settlement, 54; Second Church, 55-61; lectures, 87, 88, 191; Trimount Oracle, 102; stirred by the Divinity-School address, 126; school-keeping, Roxbury, 129; aesthetic society, 149; Transcendentalists, 155, 156; Bay, 172; Freeman Place Chapel, 210: Saturday Club, 221-223; Burns Centennial, 224, 225; Parker meeting, 228; letters, 263, 274, 275; Old South lecture, 294; Unitarianism, 298; Emancipation Proclamation, 307; special train, 350; Sons of Liberty, 369; birthplace, 407; Baptists, 413. 

 Boswell, James: allusion, 138; one lacking, 223; Life of Johnson, 268. 

 Botany, 403. (See _Science_. )

 Bowen, Francis: literary rank, 34; on Nature, 103, 104. 

 Brook Farm, 159, 164-166, 189, 191. (See _Transcendentalism_, etc. )

 Brown, Howard N. , prayer, 355. 

 Brown, John, sympathy with, 211. (See _Anti-Slavery, South_. )

 Brownson, Orestes A. , at a party, 149. 

 Bryant, William Cullen: his literary rank, 33; redundant syllable, 328; his translation of Homer quoted, 378. 

 Buckminster, Joseph Stevens: minister in Boston, 12, 26, 27, 52; Memoir, 29; destruction of Goldau, 31. 

 Buddhism: like Transcendentalism, 151; Buddhist nature, 188; saints 298. (See _Emerson's Poems_, --Brahma, --_India_, etc. )

 Buffon, on style, 341. 

 Bulkeley Family, 4-7. 

 Bulkeley, Peter: minister of Concord, 4-7, 71; comparison of sermons, 57; patriotism, 72; landowner, 327. 

 Bunyan, John, quoted, 169. 

 Burke, Edmund: essay, 73; times mentioned, 382. 

 Burns, Robert: festival, 224, 225; rank, 281; image referred to, 386; religious position, 409. (See _Scotland_. )

 Burroughs, John, view of English life, 335. 

 Burton, Robert, quotations, 109, 381. 

 Buttrick, Major, in the Revolution, 71, 72. 

 Byron, Lord: allusion, 16; rank, 281; disdain, 321; uncertain sky, 335; parallelism, 399. 

 CABOT, J. ELLIOT: on Emerson's literary habits, 27; The Dial, 159; prefaces, 283, 302; Note, 295, 296; Prefatory Note, 310, 311; the last meetings, 347, 348. 

 Caesar, Julius, 184, 197. 

 California, trip, 263-271, 359. (See _Thayer_. )

 Calvin, John: his Commentary, 103; used by Cotton, 286. 

 Calvinism: William Emerson's want of sympathy with, 11, 12; outgrown, 51; predestination, 230; saints, 298; spiritual influx, 412. (See _God, Puritanism, Religion, Unitarianism. )_

 Cambridge, Mass. : Emerson teaching there, 50; exclusive circles, 52. (See _Harvard University_. )

 Cant, disgust with, 156. 

 Carlyle, Thomas: meeting Emerson, 63; recollections of their relations, 78-80, 83; Sartor Resartus, 81, 82, 91; correspondence, 82, 83, 89, 90, 127, 176, 177, 192, 315, 317, 374, 380, 381, 406, 407; Life of Schiller, 91; on Nature, 104, 105; Miscellanies, 130; the Waterville Address, 136-138; influence, 149, 150; on Transcendentalism, 156-158; The Dial, 160-163; Brook Farm, 164; friendship, 171; Chelsea visit, 194; bitter legacy, 196; love of power, 197; on Napoleon and Goethe, 208; grumblings, 260; tobacco, 270; Sartor reprinted, 272; paper on, 294; Emerson's dying friendship, 349; physique, 363; Gallic fire, 386; on Characteristics, 387; personality traceable, 389. 

 Carpenter, William B. , 230. 

 Century, The, essay in, 295. 

 Cerebration, unconscious, 112, 113. 

 Chalmers, Thomas, preaching, 65. 

 Channing, Walter, headache, 175, 390. 

 Channing, William Ellery: allusion, 16; directing Emerson's studies, 51; preaching, 52; Emerson in his pulpit, 66; influence, 147, 149; kept awake, 157. 

 Channing, William Ellery, the poet: his Wanderer, 263; Poems, 403. 

 Channing, William Henry: allusions, 131, 149; in The Dial, 159; the Fuller Memoir, 209; Ode inscribed to, 211, 212. 

 Charleston, S C, Emerson's preaching, 53. (See _South_. )

 Charlestown, Mass. , Edward Emerson's residence, 8. 

 Charles V. , 197. 

 Charles XII. , 197. 

 Chatelet, Parent du, a realist, 326. 

 Chatham, Lord, 255. 

 Chaucer, Geoffrey: borrowings, 205; rank, 281; honest rhymes, 340; times mentioned, 382. 

 Chelmsford, Mass. , Emerson teaching there, 49, 50. 

 Chemistry, 403. (See _Science_. )

 Cheshire, its "haughty hill, " 323. 

 Choate, Rufus, oratory, 148. 

 Christ: reserved expressions about, 13; mediatorship, 59; true office, 120-122; worship, 412. (See _Jesus, Religion_, etc. )

 Christianity: its essentials, 13; primitive, 35; a mythus, defects, 121; the true, 122; two benefits, 123; authority, 124; incarnation of, 176; the essence, 306; Fathers, 391. 

 Christian, Emerson a, 267. 

 Christian Examiner, The: on William Emerson, 12; its literary predecessor, 29; on Nature, 103, 104; repudiates Divinity School Address, 124. 

 Church: activity in 1820, 147; avoidance of, 153; the true, 244; music, 306. (See _God, Jesus, Religion_, etc. )

 Cicero, allusion, 111. Cid, the, 184. 

 Clarke, James Freeman: letters, 77-80, 128-131; transcendentalism, 149; The Dial, 159; Fuller Memoir, 209; Emerson's funeral, 351, 353-355. 

 Clarke, Samuel, allusion, 16. 

 Clarke, Sarah, sketches, 130. 

 Clarkson, Thomas, 220. 

 Clergy: among Emerson's ancestry, 3-8; gravestones, 9. (See _Cotton, Heredity_, etc. )

 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: allusion, 16; Emerson's account, 63; influence, 149, 150; Carlyle's criticism, 196; Ancient Mariner, 333; Christabel, Abyssinian Maid, 334; times mentioned, 382; an image quoted, 386; William Tell, 387. 

 Collins, William: poetry, 321; Ode and Dirge, 332. 

 Commodity, essay, 94. 

 Concentration, 288. 

 Concord, Mass. : Bulkeley's ministry, 4-7; first association with the Emerson name, 7; Joseph's descendants, 8; the Fight, 9; Dr. Ripley, 10; Social Club, 14; Emerson's preaching, 54; Goodwin's settlement, 56; discord, 57; Emerson's residence begun, 69, 70; a typical town, 70; settlement, 71; a Delphi, 72; Emerson home, 83; Second Centennial, 84, 85, 303; noted citizens, 86; town government, the, monument, 87; the Sage, 102; letters, 125-131, 225; supposition of Carlyle's life there, 171; Emancipation Address, 181; leaving, 192; John Brown meeting, 211; Samuel Hoar, 213; wide-awake, 221; Lincoln obsequies, 243, 307; an _under_-Concord, 256; fire, 271-279; letters, 275-279; return, 279; Minute Man unveiled, 292; Soldiers' Monument, 303; land-owners, 327; memorial stone, 333; Conway's visits, 343, 344; Whitman's, 344, 345; Russell's, 345; funeral, 350-356; founders, 352; Sleepy Hollow, 356; a strong attraction, 369; neighbors, 373; Prophet, 415. 

 Congdon, Charles, his Reminiscences, 66. 

 Conservatism, fairly treated, 156, 157. (See _Reformers, Religion, Transcendentalism, _ etc. )

 Conversation: C. C. Emerson's essay, 22, 258; inspiration, 290. 

 Conway, Moncure D. : account of Emerson, 55, 56, 66, 194; two visits, 343, 344; anecdote, 346; error, 401; on Stanley, 414. 

 Cooke, George Willis: biography of Emerson, 43, 44, 66, 88; on American Scholar, 107, 108; on anti-slavery, 212; on Parnassus, 280-282; on pantheism, 411. 

 Cooper, James Fenimore, 33. 

 Corot, pearly mist, 335, 336. (See _Pictures_, etc. )

 Cotton, John: service to scholarship, 34; reading Calvin, 286. 

 Counterparts, the story, 226. 

 Cowper, William: Mother's Picture, 178; disinterested good, 304; tenderness, 333; verse, 338. 

 Cranch, Christopher P. : The Dial, 159; poetic prediction, 416, 417. 

 Cromwell, Oliver: saying by a war saint, 252; in poetry, 387. 

 Cudworth, Ralph, epithets, 200. 

 Cupples, George, on Emerson's lectures, 195. 

 Curtius, Quintus for Mettus, 388. 

 Cushing, Caleb: rank, 33; in college, 45. 

 Dana, Richard Henry, his literary place, 33, 223. 

 Dante: allusion in Anthology, 31; rank, 202, 320; times mentioned, 382. 

 Dartmouth College, oration, 131-135. 

 Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species, 105. 

 Dawes, Rufus, Boyhood Memories, 44. 

 Declaration of Independence, intellectual, 115. (See _American_, etc. )

 Delirium, imaginative, easily produced, 238. (See _Intuition_. )

 Delia Cruscans, allusion, 152. (See _Transcendentalism_. )

 Delos, allusion, 374. 

 Delphic Oracle: of New England, 72; illustration, 84. 

 Democratic Review, The, on Nature, 103. 

 De Profundis, illustrating Carlyle's spirit, 83. 

 De Quincey, Thomas: Emerson's interview with, 63, 195; on originality, 92. 

 De Staël, Mme. , allusion, 16. 

 De Tocqueville, account of Unitarianism, 51. Dewey, Orville, New Bedford ministry, 67. 

 Dexter, Lord Timothy, punctuation, 325, 326. 

 Dial, The: established, 147, 158; editors, 159; influence, 160-163; death, 164; poems, 192; old contributors, 221; papers, 295; intuitions, 394. 

 Dial, The (second), in Cincinnati, 239. 

 Dickens, Charles: on Father Taylor, 56; American Notes, 155. 

 Diderot, Denis, essay, 79. 

 Diogenes, story, 401. (See _Laertius_. )

 Disinterestedness, 259. 

 Disraeli, Benjamin, the rectorship, 282. 

 Dramas, their limitations, 375. (See _Shakespeare_. )

 Dress, illustration of poetry, 311, 312. 

 Dryden, John, quotation, 20, 21. 

 Dwight, John S. : in The Dial, 159; musical critic, 223. 

 East Lexington, Mass. , the Unitarian pulpit, 88. 

 Economy, its meaning, 142. 

 Edinburgh, Scotland: Emerson's visit and preaching, 64, 65; lecture, 195. 

 Education: through friendship, 97, 98; public questions, 258, 259. 

 Edwards, Jonathan: allusions, 16, 51; the atmosphere changed, 414. (See _Calvinism, Puritanism, Unitarianism_, etc. )

 Egotism, a pest, 233. 

 Egypt: poetic teaching, 121; trip, 271, 272; Sphinx, 330. (See _Emerson's Poems_, --Sphinx. )

 Election Sermon, illustration, 112. 

 Elizabeth, Queen, verbal heir-loom, 313. (See _Raleigh_, etc. )

 Ellis, Rufus, minister of the First Church, Boston, 43. 

 Eloquence, defined, 285, 286. 

 Emerson Family, 3 _et seq_. 

 Emerson, Charles Chauncy, brother of Ralph Waldo: feeling towards natural science, 18, 237; memories, 19-25, 37, 43; character, 77; death, 89, 90; influence, 98; The Dial, 161; "the hand of Douglas, " 234; nearness, 368; poetry, 385; Harvard Register, 401. 

 Emerson, Edith, daughter of Ralph Waldo, 263. 

 Emerson, Edward, of Newbury, 8. 

 Emerson, Edward Bliss, brother of Ralph Waldo: allusions, 19, 20, 37, 38; death, 89; Last Farewell, poem, 161; nearness, 368. 

 Emerson, Edward Waldo, son of Ralph Waldo: in New York, 246; on the Farming essay, 255; father's last days, 346-349; reminiscences, 359. 

 Emerson, Ellen, daughter of Ralph Waldo: residence, 83; trip to Europe, 271; care of her father, 294; correspondence, 347. 

 Emerson, Mrs. Ellen Louisa Tucker, first wife of Ralph Waldo, 55. 

 Emerson, Joseph, minister of Mendon, 4, 7, 8. 

 Emerson, Joseph, the second, minister of Malden, 8. 

 Emerson, Mrs. Lydia Jackson, second wife of Ralph Waldo: marriage, 83; _Asia_, 176. 

 Emerson, Mary Moody: influence over her nephew, 16-18; quoted, 385. 

 Emerson, Robert Bulkeley, brother of Ralph Waldo, 37. 

 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, His Life: moulding influences, 1; New England heredity, 2; ancestry, 3-10; parents, 10-16; Aunt Mary, 16-19; brothers, 19-25; the nest, 25; noted scholars, 26-36; birthplace, 37, 38; boyhood, 39, 40; early efforts, 41, 42; parsonages, 42; father's death, 43; boyish appearance, 44; college days, 45-47; letter, 48; teaching, 49, 50; studying theology, and preaching, 51-54; ordination, marriage, 55; benevolent efforts, wife's death, 56; withdrawal from his church, 57-61; first trip to Europe, 62-65; preaching in America, 66, 67; remembered conversations, 68, 69; residence in the Old Manse, 69-72; lecturing, essays in The North American, 73; poems, 74; portraying himself, 75; comparison with Milton, 76, 77; letters to Clarke, 78-80, 128-131; interest in Sartor Resartus, 81; first letter to Carlyle, 82; second marriage and Concord home, 83; Second Centennial, 84-87; Boston lectures, Concord Fight; 87; East Lexington church, War, 88; death of brothers, 89, 90; Nature published, 91; parallel with Wordsworth, 92; free utterance, 93; Beauty, poems, 94; Language, 95-97; Discipline, 97, 98; Idealism, 98, 99; Illusions, 99, 100; Spirit and Matter, 100; Paradise regained, 101; the Bible spirit, 102; Revelations, 103; Bowen's criticism, 104; Evolution, 105, 106; Phi Beta Kappa oration, 107, 108; fable of the One Man, 109; man thinking, 110; Books, 111; unconscious cerebration, 112; a scholar's duties, 113; specialists, 114; a declaration of intellectual independence, 115; address at the Theological School, 116, 117; effect on Unitarians, 118; sentiment of duty, 119; Intuition, 120; Reason, 121; the Traditional Jesus, 122; Sabbath and Preaching, 123; correspondence with Ware, 124-127; ensuing controversy, 127; Ten Lectures, 128; Dartmouth Address, 131-136; Waterville Address, 136-140; reforms, 141-145; new views, 146; Past and Present, 147; on Everett, 148; assembly at Dr. Warren's, 149; Boston _doctrinaires_, 150; unwise followers, 151-156; Conservatives, 156, 157; two Transcendental products, 157-166; first volume of Essays, 166; History, 167, 168; Self-reliance, 168, 169; Compensation, 169; other essays, 170; Friendship, 170, 171; Heroism, 172; Over-Soul, 172-175; house and income, 176; son's death, 177, 178; American and Oriental qualities, 179; English virtues, 180; Emancipation addresses in 1844, 181; second series of Essays, 181-188; Reformers, 188-191; Carlyle's business, Poems published, 192; a second trip to Europe, 193-196; Representative Men, 196-209; lectures again, 210; Abolitionism, 211, 212; Woman's Rights, 212, 213; a New England Roman, 213, 214; English Traits, 214-221; a new magazine, 221; clubs, 222, 223; more poetry, 224; Burns Festival, 224; letter about various literary matters, 225-227; Parker's death, Lincoln's Proclamation, 228; Conduct of Life, 228-239; Boston Hymn, 240; "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, " 241; Atlantic contributions, 242; Lincoln obsequies, 243; Free Religion, 243, 244; second Phi Beta Kappa oration, 244-246; poem read to his son, 246-248; Harvard Lectures, 249-255; agriculture and science, 255, 256; predictions, 257; Books, 258; Conversation, 258; elements of Courage, 259; Success, 260, 261; on old men, 261, 262; California trip, 263-268; eating, 269; smoking, 270; conflagration, loss of memory, Froude banquet, third trip abroad, 272; friendly gifts, 272-279; editing Parnassus, 280-282; failing powers, 283; Hope everywhere, 284; negations, 285; Eloquence, Pessimism, 286; Comedy, Plagiarism, 287; lessons repeated, 288; Sources of Inspiration, 289, 290; Future Life, 290-292; dissolving creed, 292; Concord Bridge, 292, 293; decline of faculties, Old South lecture, 294; papers, 294, 295; quiet pen, 295; posthumous works, 295 _et seq. ;_ the pedagogue, 297; University of Virginia, 299; indebtedness to Plutarch, 299-302; slavery questions, 303-308; Woman Question, 308; patriotism, 308, 309; nothing but a poet, 311; antique words, 313; self-revelation, 313, 314; a great poet? 314-316; humility, 317-319; poetic favorites, 320, 321; comparison with contemporaries, 321; citizen of the universe, 322; fascination of symbolism, 323; realism, science, imaginative coloring, 324; dangers of realistic poetry, 325; range of subjects, 326; bad rhymes, 327; a trick of verse, 328; one faultless poem, 332; spell-bound readers, 333; workshop, 334; octosyllabic verse, atmosphere, 335, 336; comparison with Wordsworth, 337; and others, 338; dissolving sentences, 339; incompleteness, 339, 340; personality, 341, 342; last visits received, 343-345; the red rose, 345; forgetfulness, 346; literary work of last years, 346, 347; letters unanswered, 347; hearing and sight, subjects that interested him, 348; later hours, death, 349; last rites, 350-356; portrayal, 357-419; atmosphere, 357; books, distilled alcohol, 358; physique, 359; demeanor, 360; hair and eyes, insensibility to music, 361; daily habits, 362; bodily infirmities, 362, 363; voice, 363; quiet laughter, want of manual dexterity, 364; spade anecdote, memory, ignorance of exact science, 305; intuition and natural sagacity united, fastidiousness, 366; impatience with small-minded worshippers, Frothingham's Biography, 367; intimates, familiarity not invited, 368; among fellow-townsmen, errand to earth, inherited traditions, 369; sealed orders, 370, 371; conscientious work, sacrifices for truth, essays instead of sermons, 372; congregation at large, charm, optimism, 373; financially straitened, 374; lecture room limitations, 374, 375; a Shakespeare parallel, 375, 376; platform fascination, 376; constructive power, 376, 377; English experiences, lecture-peddling, 377; a stove relinquished, utterance, an hour's weight, 378; trumpet-sound, sweet seriousness, diamond drops, effect on Governor Andrew, 379; learning at second hand, 380; the study of Goethe, 380; a great quoter, no pedantry, 381; list of authors referred to, 381, 382; special indebtedness, 382; penetration, borrowing, 383; method of writing and its results, aided by others, 384; sayings that seem family property, 385; passages compared, 385-387; the tributary streams, 388; accuracy as to facts, 388; personalities traceable in him, 389; place as a thinker, 390; Platonic anecdote, 391; preëxistence, 391, 392; mind-moulds, 393; relying on instinct, 394; dangers of intuition, 395; mysticism, 396; Oriental side, 397; transcendental mood, 398; personal identity confused, 399; a distorting mirror, 400; distrust of science, 401-403; style illustrated, 403, 404; favorite words, 405; royal imagery, 406; comments on America, 406, 407; common property of mankind, 407; public spirit, solitary workshop, martyrdom from visitors, 408; white shield invulnerable, 409; religious attitude, 409-411; spiritual influx, creed, 412; clerical relations, 413; Dr. Hague's criticism, 413, 414; ameliorating religious influence, 414; freedom, 415; enduring verse and thought, 416, 417; comparison with Jesus, 417; sincere manhood, 418; transparency, 419. 

 Emerson's Books:-- Conduct of Life, 229, 237. English Traits: the first European trip, 62; published, 214; analysis, 214-220; penetration, 383; Teutonic fire, 386. Essays: Dickens's allusion, 156; collected, 166. Essays, second series, 183. Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 128, 295, 296, 347. Letters and Social Aims, 210, 283, 284, 296. May-day and Other Pieces, 161, 192, 224, 242, 257, 310, 318, 346. Memoir of Margaret Fuller, 209. Miscellanies, 302, 303. Nature, Addresses, and Lectures, 179. Nature: resemblance of extracts from Mary Moody Emerson, 17; where written, 70; the Many in One, 73; first published, 91, 92, 373; analysis, 93-107; obscure, 108; Beauty, 237. Parnassus: collected, 280; Preface, 314; allusion, 321. Poems, 293, 310, 318, 339. Representative Men, 196-209. Selected Poems, 311, 347. Society and Solitude, 250. 

 Emerson's Essays, Lectures, Sermons, Speeches, etc. :-- In general: essays, 73, 88, 91, 92, 310; income from lectures, 176, 191, 192; lectures in England, 194-196; long series, 372; lecture-room, 374; plays and lectures, 375; double duty, 376, 377; charm, 379. (See _Emerson's Life, Lyceum_, etc. ) American Civilization, 307. American Scholar, The, 107-115, 133, 188. Anglo-Saxon Race, The, 210. Anti-Slavery Address, New York, 210-212. Anti-Slavery Lecture, Boston, 210, 211. Aristocracy, 296. Art, 166, 175, 253, 254. Beauty, 235-237. Behavior, 234. Books, 257, 380. Brown, John, 302, 305, 306. Burke, Edmund, 73. Burns, Robert, 224, 225, 307. Carlyle, Thomas, 294, 302, 317. Channing's Poem, preface, 262, 263, 403. Character, 183, 295, 297. Chardon Street and Bible Convention, 159, 302. Circles, 166, 174, 175. Civilization, 250-253. Clubs, 258. Comedy. 128. Comic, The, 286, 287. Commodity, 94. Compensation, 166, 169. Concord Fight, the anniversary speech, 292, 293. Concord, Second Centennial Discourse, 84-86. Conservative, The, 156, 157, 159. Considerations by the Way, 235. Courage, 259. Culture, 232, 233. Demonology, 128, 296. Discipline, 97, 98. Divinity School Address, 116-127, 131. Doctrine of the Soul, 127. Domestic Life, 254, 255. Duty, 128. Editorial Address, Mass. Quarterly Review, 193, 302, 307. Education, 296, 297. Eloquence, 254; second essay, 285, 286. Emancipation in the British West Indies, 181, 303. Emancipation Proclamation, 228, 307. Emerson, Mary Moody, 295, 296, 302. English Literature, 87. Experience, 182. Farming, 255, 256. Fate, 228-330. Fortune of the Republic, 294, 302, 307-309. Fox, George, 73. France, 196. Free Religious Association, 243, 302, 307. Friendship, 166, 170. Froude, James Anthony, after-dinner speech, 271. Fugitive Slave Law, 303, 304. Genius, 127. Gifts, 184, 185. Goethe, or the Writer, 208, 209. Greatness, 288, 346. Harvard Commemoration, 307. Heroism, 166, 172. Historical Discourse, at Concord, 303. Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England, 147, 165, 296, 302. History, 166, 167. Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214, 295, 302. Home, 127. Hope, 284, 285. Howard University, speech, 263. Human Culture, 87. Idealism, 98-100. Illusions, 235, 239. Immortality, 266, 290-292, 354. Inspiration, 289. Intellect, 166, 175. Kansas Affairs, 305. Kossuth, 307. Language, 95-97. Lincoln, Abraham, funeral remarks, 242, 243, 307. Literary Ethics, 131-136. Lord's Supper, 57-60, 303. Love, 127, 128, 166, 170. (See _Emerson's Poems_. ) Luther, 73. Manners, 183, 234. Man of Letters, The, 296, 298. Man the Reformer, 142, 143. Method of Nature, The, 136-141. Michael Angelo, 73, 75. Milton, 73, 75. Montaigne, or the Skeptic, 202-204. Napoleon, or the Man of the World, 206-209. Natural History of the Intellect, 249, 268, 347. Nature (the essay), 185, 186, 398. New England Reformers, 188-191, 385. Nominalism and Realism, 188. Old Age, 261, 262. Over-Soul, The, 166, 172-175, 398, 411. Parker, Theodore, 228, 306. Perpetual Forces, 297. Persian Poetry, 224. Phi Beta Kappa oration, 347. Philosophy of History, 87. Plato, 198-200; New Readings, 200. Plutarch, 295, 299-302. Plutarch's Morals, introduction, 262. Poet, The, 181, 182. Poetry, 210. Poetry and Imagination, 283; subdivisions: Bards and Trouveurs, Creation, Form, Imagination, Melody, Morals, Rhythm, Poetry, Transcendency, Veracity, 283, 284; quoted, 325. Politics, 186, 187. Power, 230, 231. Preacher, The, 294, 298. Professions of Divinity, Law, and Medicine, 41. Progress of Culture, The, 244, 288. Prospects, 101-103. Protest, The, 127. Providence Sermon, 130. Prudence, 166, 171, 172. Quotation and Originality, 287, 288. Relation of Man to the Globe, 73. Resources, 286. Right Hand of Fellowship, The, at Concord, 56. Ripley, Dr. Ezra, 295, 302. Scholar, The, 296, 299. School, The, 127. Scott, speech, 302, 307. Self-Reliance, 166, 168, 411. Shakespeare, or the Poet, 204-206. Social Aims, 285. Soldiers' Monument, at Concord, 303. Sovereignty of Ethics, The, 295, 297, 298. Spirit, 100, 101. Spiritual Laws, 166, 168. Success, 260, 261. Sumner Assault, 304. Superlatives, 295, 297. Swedenborg, or the Mystic, 201, 202, 206. Thoreau, Henry D. , 228, 295, 302. Times, The, 142-145. Tragedy, 127. Transcendentalist, The, 145-155, 159. Universality of the Moral Sentiment, 66. University of Virginia, address, 347. War, 88, 303. Water, 73. Wealth, 231, 232. What is Beauty? 74, 94, 95. Woman, 307, 308. Woman's Rights, 212, 213. Work and Days, 256, 312, 406, 407. Worship, 235. Young American, The, 166, 180, 181. 

 Emerson's Poems:-- In general: inspiration from nature, 22, 96; poetic rank in college, 45, 46; prose-poetry and philosophy, 91, 93; annual _afflatus_, in America, 136, 137; first volume, 192; five immortal poets, 202; ideas repeated, 239; true position, 311 _et seq. ; in carmine veritas_, 313; litanies, 314; arithmetic, 321, 322; fascination, 323; celestial imagery, 324; tin pans, 325; realism, 326; metrical difficulties, 327, 335; blemishes, 328; careless rhymes, 329; delicate descriptions, 331; pathos, 332; fascination, 333; unfinished, 334, 339, 340; atmosphere, 335; subjectivity, 336; sympathetic illusion, 337; resemblances, 337, 338; rhythms, 340; own order, 341, 342; always a poet, 346. (See _Emerson's Life, Milton, Poets_, etc. ) Adirondacs, The, 242, 309, 327. Blight, 402. Boston, 346, 407, 408. Boston Hymn, 211, 221, 241, 242. Brahma, 221, 242, 396, 397. Celestial Love, 170. (Three Loves. ) Class Day Poem, 45-47. Concord Hymn, 87, 332. Daemonic Love, 170. (Three Loves. ) Days, 221, 242, 257, 312; _pleachéd_, 313. Destiny, 332. Each and All, 73, 74, 94, 331. Earth-Song, 327. Elements, 242. Fate, 159, 387. Flute, The, 399. Good-by, Proud World, 129, 130, 338. Hamatreya, 327. Harp, The, 320, 321, 329, 330. (See _Aeolian Harp_. ) Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214. Humble Bee, 46, 74, 75, 128, 272, 326, 331, 338. Initial Love, 170, 387. (Three Loves. ) In Memoriam, 19, 89. Latin Translations, 43. May Day, 242; changes, 311, 333. Merlin, 318, 319. (Merlin's Song. ) Mithridates, 331. Monadnoc, 322, 331; alterations, 366. My Garden, 242. Nature and Life, 242. Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces, 242. Ode inscribed to W. H. Channing, 211, 212. Poet, The, 317-320, 333. Preface to Nature, 105. Problem, The, 159, 161, 253, 284, 326, 337, 380. Quatrains, 223, 242. Rhodora, The, 74, 94, 95, 129. Romany Girl, The, 221. Saadi, 221, 242. Sea-Shore, 333, 339. Snow-Storm, 331, 338, 339. Solution, 320. Song for Knights of Square Table, 42. Sphinx, The, 113, 159, 243, 330, 398. Terminus, 221, 242; read to his son, 246-248, 363. Test, The, 201, 202, 320. Threnody, 178, 333. Titmouse, The, 221, 326. Translations, 242, 399. Uriel, 326, 331, 398. Voluntaries, 241. Waldeinsamkeit, 221. Walk, The, 402. Woodnotes, 46, 159, 331, 338. World-Soul, The, 331. 

 Emersoniana, 358. 

 Emerson, Thomas, of Ipswich, 38. 

 Emerson, Waldo, child of Ralph Waldo: death, 177, 178; anecdote, 265. 

 Emerson, William, grandfather of Ralph Waldo: minister of Concord, 8-10, 14; building the Manse, 70; patriotism, 72. 

 Emerson, William, father of Ralph Waldo: minister, in Harvard and Boston, 10-14; editorship, 26, 32, 33; the parsonage, 37, 42; death, 43. 

 Emerson, William, brother of Ralph Waldo, 37, 39, 49, 53. 

 England: first visit, 62-65; Lake Windermere, 70; philosophers, 76; the virtues of the people, 179, 180; a second visit, 192 _et seq. ;_ notabilities 195; the lectures, 196; Stonehenge, 215; the aristocracy, 215; matters wrong, 260; Anglo-Saxon race, trade and liberty, 304; lustier life, 335; language, 352; lecturing, a key, 377; smouldering fire, 385. (See _America, Europe_, etc. )

 Enthusiasm: need of, 143; weakness, 154. 

 Epicurus, agreement with, 301. 

 Episcopacy: in Boston, 28, 34, 52; church in Newton, 68; at Hanover, 132; quotation from liturgy, 354; burial service, 356. (See _Calvinism, Church, Religion_, etc. )

 Esquimau, allusion, 167. 

 Establishment, party of the, 147. (See _Puritanism, Religion, Unitarianism_, etc. )

 Eternal, relations to the, 297. (See _God, Jesus, Religion_, etc. )

 Europe: Emerson's first visit, 62-65; return, 72; the Muses, 114; debt to the East, 120; famous gentlemen, 184; second visit, 193-196; weary of Napoleon, 207; return, 210; conflict possible, 218; third visit, 271-279; cast-out passion for, 308. (See _America, England, France_, etc. )

 Everett, Edward: on Tudor, 28; literary rank, 33; preaching, 52; influence, 148. 

 Evolution, taught in "Nature, " 105, 106. 

 Eyeball, transparent, 398. 

 Faith: lacking in America, 143, building cathedrals, 253. (See _God, Religion_, etc. )

 Fine, a characteristic expression, 405. 

 Fire, illustration, 386. (See _England, France_, etc. )

 Forbes, John M. , connected with the Emerson family, 263-265; his letter, 263. 

 Foster, John, minister of Brighton, 15. 

 Fourth-of-July, orations, 386. (See _America_, etc. )

 Fox, George, essay on, 73. 

 France: Emerson's first visit, 62, 63; philosophers, 76; Revolution, 80; tired of Napoleon, 207, 208; realism, 326; wrath, 385, 386. (See _Carlyle, England, Europe_, etc. )

 Francis, Convers, at a party, 149. 

 Franklin, Benjamin: birthplace, 37; allusion, 184; characteristics, 189; Poor Richard, 231; quoted, 236; maxims, 261; fondness for Plutarch, 382; bequest, 407. 

 Fraunhofer, Joseph, optician, 230, 324. 

 Frazer's Magazine: "The Mud, " 79; Sartor Resartus, 81. (See _Carlyle_. )

 Freeman, James, minister of King's Chapel, 11, 12, 52. Free Trade, Athenaeum banquet, 220. 

 Friendship, C. C. Emerson's essay, 22, 23, 77. 

 Frothingham, Nathaniel L. , account of Emerson's mother, 13. 

 Frothingham, Octavius Brooks: Life of Ripley, 165; an unpublished manuscript, 365-367. 

 Fuller, Margaret: borrowed sermon, 130; at a party, 149; The Dial, 159, 160, 162; Memoir, 209; causing laughter, 364; mosaic Biography, 368. 

 Furness, William Henry: on the Emerson family, 14; Emerson's funeral, 350, 353. 

 Future, party of the, 147. 

 Galton, Francis, composite portraits, 232. 

 Gardiner, John Sylvester John: allusion, 26; leadership in Boston, 28; Anthology Society, 32. (See _Episcopacy_. )

 Gardner, John Lowell, recollections of Emerson's boyhood, 38-42. 

 Gardner, S. P. , garden, 38. 

 Genealogy, survival of the fittest, 3. (See _Heredity_. )

 Gentleman's Magazine, 30. 

 Gentleman, the, 183. 

 Geography, illustration, 391. 

 German: study of, 48, 49, 78, 380; philosophers, 76; scholarship, 148; oracles, 206; writers unread, 208; philosophers, 380; professors, 391. 

 Germany, a visit, 225, 226. (See _Europe, France, Goethe_, etc. )

 Gifts, 185. 

 Gilfillan, George: on Emerson's preaching, 65; Emerson's physique, 360. 

 Gilman, Arthur, on the Concord home, 83. 

 Glasgow, the rectorship, 280. 

 God: the universal spirit, 68, 69, 94; face to face, 92, 93; teaching the human mind, 98, 99; aliens from, 101; in us, 139-141; his thought, 146; belief, 170; seen by man, 174; divine offer, 176; writing by grace, 182; presence, 243; tribute to Great First Cause, 267; perplexity about, 410; ever-blessed One, 411; mirrored, 412. (See _Christianity, Religion_, etc. )

 Goethe: called _Mr_. , 31; dead, 63; Clarke's essay, 79; generalizations, 148; influence, 150; on Spinoza, 174, 175; rank as a poet, 202, 320; lovers, 226; rare union, 324; his books read, 380, 381; times quoted, 382. (See _German_, etc. )

 Goldsmith, Oliver, his Vicar of Wakefield, 9, 10, 15. 

 Good, the study of, 301. 

 Goodwin, H. B. , Concord minister, 56. 

 Gould, Master of Latin School, 39. 

 Gould, Thomas R. , sculptor, 68. 

 Gourdin, John Gaillard Keith and Robert, in college, 47. 

 Government, abolition of, 141. 

 Grandmother's Review, 30. 

 Gray, Thomas, Elegy often quoted, 316, 317, 416. 

 Greece: poetic teaching, 121; allusion, 108. 

 Greek: Emerson's love for, 43, 44; in Harvard, 49; poets, 253; moralist, 299; Bryant's translation, 378; philosophers, 391. (See _Homer_, etc. )

 Greenough, Horatio, meeting Emerson, 63. 

 Grimm, Hermann, 226. 

 Guelfs and Ghibellines, illustration, 47. 

 Hafiz, times mentioned, 382. (See _Persia_. )

 Hague, William, essay, 413. 

 Haller, Albert von, rare union, 324. 

 Harvard, Mass. , William Emerson's settlement, 10, 11. 

 Harvard University: the Bulkeley gift, 6; William Emerson's graduation, 10; list of graduates, 12; Emerson's brothers, 19, 21; Register, 21, 24, 385, 401; Hillard, 24, 25; Kirkland's presidency, 26, 27; Gardner, 39-41; Emerson's connection, 44-49; the Boylston prizes, 46; Southern students, 47; graduates at Andover, 48; Divinity School, 51, 53; a New England centre, 52; Bowen's professorship, 103; Phi Beta Kappa oration, 107, 115, 133, 188, 244; Divinity School address, 116-132; degree conferred, 246; lectures, 249; library, 257; last Divinity address, 294; Commemoration, 307; singing class, 361; graduates, 411. (See _Cambridge_. )

 Haskins, David Green, at Emerson's funeral, 356. 

 Haskins, Ruth (Emerson's mother), 10, 13, 14. Haughty, a characteristic expression, 405. 

 Hawthorne, Nathaniel: his Mosses, 70; "dream-peopled solitude, " 86; at the club, 223; view of English life, 335; grave, 356; biography, 368. 

 Hazlitt, William: British Poets, 21. 

 Health, inspiration, 289. 

 Hebrew Language, study, 48. (See _Bible_. )

 Hedge, Frederic Henry: at a party, 149; quoted, 383. 

 Henry VII. , tombs, 415. 

 Herbert, George: Poem on Man, 102; parallel, 170; poetry, 281; a line quoted, 345. 

 Herder, Johann Gottfried, allusion, 16. 

 Heredity: Emerson's belief, 1, 2; in Emerson family, 4, 19; Whipple on, 389; Jonson, 393. 

 Herrick, Robert, poetry, 281. 

 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. (See _Emerson's Books_, --Nature. )

 Hilali, The Flute, 399. 

 Hillard, George Stillman: in college, 24, 25; his literary place, 33; aid, 276. 

 Hindoo Scriptures, 199, 200. (See _Bible, India_, etc. )

 History, how it should be written, 168. 

 Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood: reference to, 223; on the Burns speech, 225; kindness, 273, 274, 276-279; at Emerson's death-bed, 349; funeral address, 351-353. 

 Hoar, Samuel: statesman, 72; tribute, 213, 214. 

 Holland, description of the Dutch, 217. 

 Holley, Horace, prayer, 267. 

 Holmes, John, a pupil of Emerson, 50. 

 Holmes, Oliver Wendell: memories of Dr. Ripley, 15; of C. C. Emerson, 20, 21; familiarity with Cambridge and its college, 45; erroneous quotation from, 251, 252; jest erroneously attributed to, 400, 401. 

 Holy Ghost, "a new born bard of the, " 123. (See _Christ, God, Religion_, etc. )

 Homer: poetic rank, 202, 320; plagiarism, 205; Iliad, 253; allusion, 315; tin pans, 325; times quoted, 382. (See _Greek_, etc. )

 Homer, Jonathan, minister of Newton, 15. 

 Hooper, Mrs. Ellen, The Dial, 159, 160. 

 Hope: lacking in America, 143; in every essay, 284. 

 Horace: allusion, 22; Ars Poetica, 316. 

 Horses, Flora Temple's time, 388. 

 Howard University, speech, 263. 

 Howe, Samuel Gridley, the philanthropist, 223. 

 Hunt, Leigh, meeting Emerson, 195. 

 Hunt, William, the painter, 223. 

 Idealism, 98-100, 146, 150. 

 Idealists: Ark full, 191; Platonic sense, 391. 

 Imagination: the faculty, 141; defined, 237, 238; essay, 283; coloring life, 324. 

 Imbecility, 231. 

 Immortality, 262. (See _God, Religion_, etc. )

 Incompleteness, in poetry, 339. 

 India: poetic models, 338; idea of preëxistence, 391; Brahmanism, 397. (See _Emerson's Poems_, --Brahma. )

 Indians: in history of Concord, 71; Algonquins, 72. 

 Inebriation, subject in Monthly Anthology, 30. 

 Insects, defended, 190. 

 Inspiration: of Nature, 22, 96, 141; urged, 146. 

 Instinct, from God or Devil, 393. 

 Intellect, confidence in, 134. 

 Intuition, 394. 

 Ipswich, Mass. , 3, 4, 8. 

 Ireland, Alexander: glimpses of Emerson, 44, 64, 65: reception, 193, 194; on Carlyle, 196; letter from Miss Peabody, 317; quoting Whitman, 344; quoted, 350. 

 Irving, Washington, 33. 

 Italy: Emerson's first visit, 62, 63; Naples, 113. 

 Jackson, Charles, garden, 38. 

 Jackson, Dr. Charles Thomas, anaesthesia, 403. 

 Jackson, Miss Lydia, reading Carlyle, 81. (See _Mrs. Emerson_. )

 Jahn, Johann, studied at Andover, 48. 

 Jameson, Anna, new book, 131. 

 Jesus: times mentioned, 382; a divine manifestation, 411; followers, 417; and Emerson, 419. (See _Bible, Christ, Church, Religion_, etc. ) Joachim, the violinist, 225, 226. 

 Johnson, Samuel, literary style, 29. 

 Jonson, Ben: poetic rank, 281; a phrase, 300; _traduction_, 393. (See _Heredity_, etc. )

 Journals, as a method of work, 384. 

 Jupiter Scapin, 207. 

 Jury Trial, and dinners, 216. 

 Justice, the Arch Abolitionist, 306. 

 Juvenal: allusion, 22; precept from heaven, 252. 

 Kalamazoo, Mich. , allusion, 388. 

 Kamschatka, allusion, 167. 

 Keats, John: quoted, 92; Ode to a Nightingale, 316; _faint, swoon_, 405. 

 King, the, illustration, 74. 

 Kirkland, John Thornton: Harvard presidency, 26, 52; memories, 27. 

 Koran, allusion, 198. (See _Bible, God, Religion_, etc. )

 Labor: reform, 141; dignity, 142. 

 Lacenaire, evil instinct, 392. 

 Laertius, Diogenes, 390, 391. 

 La Harpe, Jean Francois, on Plutarch, 301. 

 Lamarck, theories, 166. 

 Lamb, Charles, Carlyle's criticism, 196. 

 Landor, Walter Savage, meeting Emerson, 63. 

 Landscape, never painted, 339, 240. (See _Pictures, etc_. )

 Language: its symbolism, 95-97; an original, 394. 

 Latin: Peter Bulkeley's scholarship, 7; translation, 24, 25; Emerson's Translations, 43, 44. 

 Laud, Archbishop, 6. 

 Law, William, mysticism, 396. 

 Lawrence, Mass. , allusion, 44. 

 Lecturing, given up, 295. (See _Emerson's Essays, Lectures_, etc. )

 Leibnitz, 386. 

 Leroux, Pierre, preëxistance, 391. 

 Letters, inspiration, 289. 

 Lincoln, Abraham, character, 307. (See _Emerson's Essays_. )

 Linnaeus, illustration, 323, 324. 

 Litanies, in Emerson, 314. (See _Episcopacy_. )

 Literature: aptitude for, 2, 3; activity in 1820, 147. 

 Little Classics, edition, 347. 

 Liverpool, Eng. , a visit, 193, 194. (See _England, Europe, Scotland_, etc. )

 Locke, John, allusion, 16, 111. 

 London, England. : Tower Stairs, 63; readers, 194; sights, 221; travellers, 308; wrath, 385. (See _England_, etc. )

 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: allusions, 31, 33; Saturday Club, 222, 223; burial, 346. 

 Lord, Nathan, President of Dartmouth College, 132. 

 Lord's Supper, Emerson's doubts, 57-61. 

 Lothrop & Co. , publishers, 83. 

 Louisville, Ky. , Dr. Clarke's residence, 78-80. 

 Lounsbury, Professor, Chaucer letter, 205. 

 Love: in America, 143; the Arch Abolitionist, 306. (See _Emerson's Poems_. )

 Lowell, Charles: minister of the West Church, 11, 12, 52; on Kirkland, 27. 

 Lowell, F. C. , generosity, 276. 

 Lowell, James Russell: an allusion, 33; on The American Scholar, 107; editorship, 221; club, 223; on the Burns speech, 225; on Emerson's bearing, 360, 361; Hawthorne biography, 368; on lectures, 379. 

 Lowell, Mass. , factories, 44. 

 Luther, Martin: lecture, 73; his conservatism, 298; times mentioned, 382. 

 Lyceum, the: a pulpit, 88; New England, 192; a sacrifice, 378. (See _Lecturing, Emerson's Lectures_, etc. )

 Lycurgus, 306. (See _Greece_. )

 Mackintosh, Sir James, an allusion, 16. 

 Macmillan's Magazine, 414. 

 Malden, Mass. : Joseph Emerson's ministry, 8; diary, 17. 

 Man: a fable about, 109, 110; faith in, 122; apostrophe, 140. 

 Manchester, Eng. : visit, 194, 195; banquet, 220. (See _England_, etc. )

 Marlowe, Christopher, expressions, 404. 

 Marvell, Andrew: reading by C. C. Emerson, 21; on the Dutch, 217; verse, 338. 

 Mary, Queen, her martyrs, 418. 

 Massachusetts Historical Society: tribute to C. C. Emerson, 21; quality of its literature, 84; on Carlyle, 294. 

 Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 193, 302, 307, 411. Materialism, 146, 391. (See _Religion_. )

 Mather, Cotton: his Magnalia, 5-7; on Concord discord, 57; on New England Melancholy, 216; a borrower, 381. 

 Mathew, Father, disciples, 368. 

 Mayhew, Jonathan, Boston minister, 51. 

 Melioration, a characteristic expression, 405. 

 Mendon, Mass. , Joseph Emerson's ministry, 4. 

 Mephistopheles, Goethe's creation, 208. 

 Merrimac River, 71. 

 Metaphysics, indifference to, 249. 

 Methodism, in Boston, 56. (See _Father Taylor_. )

 Michael Angelo: allusions, 73, 75; on external beauty, 99; course, 260; filled with God, 284; on immortality, 290; times mentioned, 382. 

 Middlesex Agricultural Association, 235. (See _Agriculture, Emerson's Essays. _)

 Middlesex Association, Emerson admitted, 53. 

 Miller's Retrospect, 34. 

 Milton, John: influence in New England, 16; quotation, 24; essay, 73, 75; compared with Emerson, 76, 77; Lycidas, 178; supposed speech, 220; diet, 270, 271; poetic rank, 281; Arnold's citation, Logic, Rhetoric, 315; popularity, 316; quoted, 324; tin pans, 325; inventor of harmonies, 328; Lycidas, 333; Comus, 338; times mentioned, 382; precursor, quotation, 415. 

 Miracles: false impression, 121, 122; and idealism, 146; theories, 191; St. Januarius, 217; objections, 244. (See _Bible, Christ, Religion_, etc. )

 Modena, Italy, Emerson's visit, 63. 

 Monadnoc, Mount, 70. 

 Montaigne: want of religion, 300; great authority, 380; times quoted, 382. 

 Montesquieu, on immortality, 291. 

 Monthly Anthology: Wm. Emerson's connection, 13, 26; precursor of North American Review, 28, 29; character, 30, 31; Quincy's tribute, 31; Society formed, 32; career, 33; compared with The Dial, 160. 

 Moody Family, of York, Me. , 8, 10. 

 Morals, in Plutarch, 301. 

 Morison, John Hopkins, on Emerson's preaching, 67. 

 Mormons, 264, 268. 

 Mother-wit, a favorite expression, 404, 405. 

 Motley, John Lothrop, 33, 223. 

 Mount Auburn, strolls, 40. 

 Movement, party of the, 147. 

 Munroe & Co. , publishers, 81. 

 Music: church, 306; inaptitude for, 361; great composers, 401. 

 Musketaquid River, 22, 70, 71. 

 Mysticism: unintelligible, 390; Emerson's, 396. 

 Napoleon: allusion, 197; times mentioned, 382. 

 Napoleon III. , 225. 

 Nation, The, Emerson's interest in, 348. 

 Native Bias, 288. 

 Nature: in undress, 72; solicitations, 110; not truly studied, 135; great men, 199; tortured, 402. (See _Emerson's Books, Emerson's Essays_, etc. )

 Negations, to be shunned, 285. 

 New Bedford, Mass. , Emerson's preaching, 52, 67. 

 Newbury, Mass. , Edward Emerson's deaconship, 8. 

 New England: families, 2, 3, 5; Peter Bulkeley's coming, 6; clerical virtues, 9; Church, 14; literary sky, 33; domestic service, 34, 35; two centres, 52; an ideal town, 70, 71; the Delphi, 72; Carlyle invited, 83; anniversaries, 84; town records, 85; Genesis, 102; effect of Nature, 106; boys and girls, 163; Massachusetts, Connecticut River, 172; lyceums, 192; melancholy, 216; New Englanders and Old, 220; meaning of a word, 296, 297; eyes, 325; life, 325, 335; birthright, 364; a thorough New Englander, 406; Puritan, 409; theologians, 410; Jesus wandering in, 419. (See _America, England_, etc. )

 Newspapers: defaming the noble, 145; in Shakespeare's day, 204. 

 Newton, Mass. : its minister, 15; Episcopal Church, 68. (See _Rice_. )

 Newton, Sir Isaac, times quoted, 382. 

 Newton, Stuart, sketches, 130. 

 New World, gospel, 371. (See _America_. )

 New York: Brevoort House, 246; Genealogical Society, 413. 

 Niagara, visit, 263. 

 Nidiver, George, ballad, 259. 

 Nightingale, Florence, 220. 

 Nithsdale, Eng. , mountains, 78. 

 Non-Resistance, 141. 

 North American Review: its predecessor, 28, 29, 33; the writers, 34; Emerson's contributions, 73; Ethics, 294, 295; Bryant's article, 328. 

 Northampton, Mass. , Emerson's preaching, 53. 

 Norton, Andrews: literary rank, 34; professorship, 52. 

 Norton, Charles Eliot: editor of Correspondence, 82; on Emerson's genius, 373. 

 Old Manse, The: allusion, 70; fire, 271-279. (See _Concord_. )

 Oliver, Daniel, in Dartmouth College, 132. 

 Optimism: in philosophy, 136; "innocent luxuriance, " 211; wanted by the young, 373. 

 Oriental: genius, 120; spirit in Emerson, 179. 

 Orpheus, allusion, 319. 

 Paine, R. T. , JR. , quoted, 31. 

 Palfrey, John Gorham: literary rank, 34; professorship, 52. 

 Pan, the deity, 140. 

 Pantheism: in Wordsworth and Nature, 103; dreaded, 141; Emerson's, 410, 411. 

 Paris, Trance: as a residence, 78; allusion, 167; salons, 184; visit, 196, 308. 

 Parker, Theodore: a right arm of freedom, 127; at a party, 149; The Dial, 159, 160; editorship, 193; death, 228; essence of Christianity, 306; biography, 368; on Emerson's position, 411. 

 Parkhurst, John, studied at Andover, 48. 

 Parr, Samuel, allusion, 28. 

 Past, party of the, 147. 

 Peabody, Andrew Preston, literary rank, 34. 

 Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer: her Aesthetic Papers, 88; letter to Mr. Ireland, 317. 

 Peirce, Benjamin, mathematician, 223. 

 Pelagianisin, 51. (See _Religion_. )

 Pepys, Samuel, allusion, 12. 

 Pericles, 184, 253. 

 Persia, poetic models, 338. (See _Emerson's Poems, Saadi_). 

 Pessimism, 286. (See _Optimism_). 

 Philadelphia, Pa. , society, 184. 

 Philanthropy, activity in 1820, 147. 

 Philolaus, 199. 

 Pie, fondness for, 269. 

 Pierce, John: the minister of Brookline, 11; "our clerical Pepys, " 12. 

 Pindar, odes, 253. (See _Greek, Homer_, etc. )

 Plagiarism, 205, 206, 287, 288, 384. (See _Quotations, Mather_, etc. )

 Plato: influence on Mary Emerson, 16, 17; over Emerson, 22, 52, 173, 188, 299, 301; youthful essay, 74; Alcott's study, 150; reading, 197; borrowed thought, 205, 206; Platonic idea, 222; a Platonist, 267; saints of Platonism, 298; academy inscription, 365; great authority, 380; times quoted, 382; Symposium and Phaedrus quoted, 387; _tableity_, preëxistence, 391; Diogenes dialogue, 401; a Platonist, 411. (See _Emerson's Books_, and _Essays, Greek_, etc. )

 Plotinus: influence over Mary Emerson, 16, 17; ashamed of his body, 99; motto, 105; opinions, 173, 174; studied, 380. 

 Plutarch: allusion, 22; his Lives, 50; study, 197; on immortality, 291; influence over Emerson, 299 _et seq_. ; his great authority, 380; times mentioned, 382; Emerson on, 383; imagery quoted, 385; style, 405. 

 Plymouth, Mass. : letters written, 78, 79; marriage, 83. 

 Poetry: as an inspirer, 290; Milton on, 315. (See _Shakespeare_, etc. )

 Poets: list in Parnassus, 281; comparative popularity, 316, 317; consulting Emerson, 408. (See _Emerson's Poems_). 

 Politics: activity in 1820, 147; in Saturday Club, 259. 

 Pomeroy, Jesse, allusion, 393. 

 Pope, Alexander, familiar lines, 316

 Porphyry: opinions, 173, 174; studied, 380. 

 Porto Rico, E. B. Emerson's death, 19. 

 Power, practical, 259. 

 Prayer: not enough, 138, 139; anecdotes, 267. (See _God, Religion_, etc. )

 Preaching, a Christian blessing, 123. Preëxistence, 391. 

 Presbyterianism, in Scotland, 409. 

 Prescott, William, the Judge's mansion, 38. 

 Prescott, William Hickling: rank, 33; Conquest of Mexico, 38. 

 Prior, Matthew, 30. 

 Proclus, influence, 173, 380. 

 Prometheus, 209. 

 Prospects, for man, 101-103. (See _Emerson's Essays_. )

 Protestantism, its idols, 28. (See _Channing, Religion, Unitarianism_, etc. )

 Psammetichus, an original language, 394. (See _Heredity, Language_, etc. )

 Punch, London, 204. 

 Puritans, rear guard, 15. (See _Calvinism_, etc. )

 Puritanism: relaxation from, 30; after-clap, 268; in New England, 409. (See _Unitarianism_. )

 Putnam's Magazine, on Samuel Hoar, 213, 214. 

 Pythagoras: imagery quoted, 385; preëxistence, 391. 

 Quakers, seeing only broad-brims, 218. 

 Quincy, Josiah: History of Boston Athenaeum, 31; tribute to the Anthology, 32, 33; memories of Emerson, 45-47; old age, 261. 

 Quotations, 381-383. (See _Plagiarism_, etc. )

 Raleigh, Sir Walter, verse, 338. 

 Raphael, his Transfiguration, 134. (See _Allston, Painters_, etc. )

 Rats, illustration, 167, 168. 

 Reed, Sampson, his Growth of the Mind, 80. 

 Reforms, in America, 141-145. 

 Reformers, fairness towards, 156, 157, 188-192. (See _Anti-Slavery, John Brown_. )

 Religion: opinions of Wm. Emerson and others, 11-13; nature the symbol of spirit, 95; pleas for independence, 117; universal sentiment, 118-120; public rites, 152; Church of England, 219; of the future, 235; relative positions towards, 409, 410; Trinity, 411; Emerson's belief, 412-415; bigotry modified, 414. (See _Calvinism, Channing, Christ, Emerson's Life, Essays_, and _Poems, Episcopacy, God, Unitarianism_, etc. )

 Republicanism, spiritual, 36. 

 Revolutionary War: Wm. Emerson's service, 8, 9; subsequent confusion, 25, 32; Concord's part, 71, 72, 292, 293. (See _America, New England_, etc. )

 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 228. 

 Rhythm, 328, 329, 340. (See _Emerson's Poems_, etc. )

 Rice, Alexander H. , anecdote, 68, 69, 346. (See _Newton_. )

 Richard Plantagenet, 197. 

 Ripley, Ezra: minister of Concord, 10; Emerson's sketch, 14-16; garden, 42; colleague, 56; residence, 70. 

 Ripley, George: a party, 149; The Dial, 159; Brook Farm, 164-166; on Emerson's limitations, 380. 

 Robinson, Edward, literary rank, 34. 

 Rochester, N. Y. , speech, 168. 

 Rome: allusions, 167, 168; growth, 222; amphora, 321. (See _Latin_. )

 Romilly, Samuel, allusion, 220. 

 Rose, anecdote, 345. (See _Flowers_. )

 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, his Savoyard Vicar, 51, 52. 

 Ruskin, John: on metaphysics, 250; certain chapters, 336; pathetic fallacy, 337; plagiarism, 384. 

 Russell, Ben. , quoted, 267. 

 Russell, Le Baron: on Sartor Resartus, 81, 82; groomsman, 83; aid in rebuilding the Old Manse, 272-279; Concord visit, 345. 

 Saadi: a borrower, 205; times mentioned, 382. (See _Persia_. )

 Sabbath: a blessing of Christianity, 123, 298. 

 Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, on poetry, 339. 

 Saint Paul, times mentioned, 382. (See _Bible_. )

 Saladin, 184. 

 Sallust, on Catiline, 207. 

 Sanborn, Frank B. : facts about Emerson, 42, 43, 66; Thoreau memoir, 368; old neighbor, 373. 

 Sapor, 184. 

 Satan, safety from, 306. (See _Mephistopheles, Religion_, etc. )

 Saturday Club: establishment, 221-223, 258; last visits, 346, 347; familiarity at, 368. 

 Scaliger, quotation, 109, 110. 

 Schelling, idealism, 148; influence 173. 

 Schiller, on immortality, 290. 

 Scholarship: a priesthood, 137; docility of, 289. 

 School-teaching, 297. (See _Chelmsford_. )

 Schopenhauer, Arthur: his pessimism, 286; idea of a philosopher, 359. 

 Science: growth of, 148; Emerson inaccurate in, 256; attitude toward, 401, 402. (See _C. C. Emerson_. )

 Scipio, 184. 

 Scotland: Carlyle's haunts, 79; notabilities, 195, 196; Presbyterian, 409. 

 Scott, Sir Walter: allusion, 22; quotations, 23, 77; dead, 63; "the hand of Douglas, " 234; as a poet, 281; popularity, 316; poetic rank, 321. 

 Self: the highest, 113; respect for, 288, 289. 

 Seneca, Montaigne's study, 382. 

 Shakespeare: allusion, 22; Hamlet, 90, 94; Benedick and love, 106; disputed line, 128, 129; an idol, 197; poetic rank, 202, 281, 320, 321; plagiarism, 204-206; on studies, 257, 258; supremacy, 328; a comparison, 374; a playwright, 375, 376; punctiliousness of Portia, 378; times mentioned, 382; lunatic, lover, poet, 387; Polonius, 389; _mother-wit_, 404; _fine_ Ariel, 405; adamant, 418. 

 Shattuck, Lemuel, History of Concord, 382. 

 Shaw, Lemuel, boarding-place, 43. 

 Shelley, Percy Bysshe: Ode to the West Wind, 316, 399; redundant syllable, 328; Adonais, 333. 

 Shenandoah Mountain, 306. 

 Shingle, Emerson's jest, 364. 

 Ships: illustration of longitude, 154; erroneous quotation, 251, 252; building illustration, 376, 377. 

 Sicily: Emerson's visit, 62; Etna, 113. 

 Sidney, Sir Philip, Chevy Chace, 379. 

 Silsbee, William, aid in publishing Carlyle, 81. 

 Simonides, prudence, 410. 

 Sisyphus, illustration, 334. 

 Sleight-of-hand, illustration, 332. 

 Smith, James and Horace, Rejected Addresses, 387, 397. 

 Smith, Sydney, on bishops, 219. 

 Socrates: allusion, 203; times mentioned, 382. 

 Solitude, sought, 135. 

 Solomon, epigrammatic, 405. (See _Bible_. )

 Solon, 199. 

 Sophron, 199. 

 South, the: Emerson's preaching tour, 53; Rebellion, 305, 407. (See _America, Anti-Slavery_, etc. )

 Southerners, in college, 47. 

 Sparks, Jared, literary rank, 33. 

 Spenser, Edmund: stanza, 335, 338; soul making body, 391; _mother-wit_, 404. 

 Spinoza, influence, 173, 380. 

 Spirit and matter, 100, 101. (See _God, Religion, Spenser_, etc. )

 Spiritualism, 296. 

 Sprague, William Buel, Annals of the American Pulpit, 10-12. 

 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, on American religion, 414. 

 Star: "hitch your wagon to a star, " 252, 253; stars in poetry, 324. 

 Sterling, J. Hutchinson, letter to, 282, 283. 

 Stewart, Dugald, allusion, 16. 

 Story, Joseph, literary rank, 33. 

 Stuart, Moses, literary rank, 33. 

 Studio, illustration, 20. 

 Summer, description, 117. 

 Sumner, Charles: literary rank, 33: the outrage on, 211; Saturday Club, 223. 

 Swedenborg, Emanuel: poetic rank, 202, 320; dreams, 306; Rosetta-Stone, 322; times mentioned, 382. 

 Swedenborgians: liking for a paper of Carlyle's, 78; Reed's essay, 80; spiritual influx, 412. 

 Swift, Jonathan: allusion, 30; the Houyhnhnms, 163; times mentioned, 382. 

 Synagogue, illustration, 169. 

 Tappan, Mrs. Caroline, The Dial, 159. 

 Tartuffe, allusion, 312. 

 Taylor, Father, relation to Emerson, 55, 56, 413. 

 Taylor, Jeremy: allusion, 22; Emerson's study, 52; "the Shakespeare of divines, " 94; praise for, 306. 

 Teague, Irish name, 143. 

 Te Deum: the hymn, 68; illustration, 82. 

 Temperance, the reform, 141, 152. (See _Reforms_. )

 Tennyson, Alfred: readers, 256; tobacco, 270; poetic rank, 281; In Memoriam, 333; on plagiarism, 384. 

 Thacher, Samuel Cooper: allusion, 26; death, 29. 

 Thayer, James B. : Western Journey with Emerson, 249, 263, 265-271, 359; _ground swell_, 364. (See _California_. )

 Thinkers, let loose, 175. 

 Thomson, James, descriptions, 338. 

 Thoreau, Henry D. : allusion, 22; a Crusoe, 72; "nullifier of civilization, " 86; one-apartment house, 142, 143; The Dial, 159, 160; death, 228; Emerson's burial-place, 356; biography, 368; personality traceable, 389; woodcraft, 403. 

 Ticknor, George: on William Emerson, 12; on Kirkland, 27; literary rank, 33. 

 Traduction, 393. (See _Heredity, Jonson_, etc. )

 Transcendentalism: Bowen's paper, 103, 104; idealism, 146; adherents, 150-152; dilettanteism, 152-155; a terror, 161. 

 Transcendentalist, The, 157-159. 

 Truth: as an end, 99; sought, 135. 

 Tudor, William: allusion, 26; connecting literary link, 28, 29. 

 Turgot, quoted, 98, 99. 

 Tyburn, allusion, 183. 

 Unitarianism: Dr. Freeman's, 11, 12; nature of Jesus, 13; its sunshine, 28; white-handed, 34; headquarters, 35; lingual studies, 48, 49; transition, 51; domination, 52; pulpits, 53, 54; chapel in Edinburgh, 65; file-leaders, 118; its organ, 124; "pale negations, " 298. (See _Religion, Trinity_, etc. )

 United States, intellectual history, 32. (See _America, New England_, etc. )

 Unity, in diversity, 73, 106, 284. 

 Upham, Charles W. , his History, 45. 

 Verne, Jules, _onditologie_, 186. 

 Verplanck, Gulian Crommelin, literary rank, 33. 

 Virginia, University of, 299. 

 Volcano, illustration, 113. 

 Voltaire, 409. 

 Voting, done reluctantly, 152, 153. 

 Wachusett, Mount, 70. 

 Walden Pond: allusion, 22, 70, 72; cabin, 142, 143. (See _Concord_. )

 War: outgrown, 88, 89; ennobling, 298. 

 Ware, Henry, professorship, 52. (See _Harvard University_. )

 Ware, Henry, Jr. : Boston ministry, 55; correspondence, 124-127. (See _Unitarianism_, etc. )

 Warren, John Collins, Transcendentalism and Temperance, 149. 

 Warren, Judge, of New Bedford, 67. 

 Warwick Castle, fire, 275. 

 Washington City, addresses, 307. (See _Anti-Slavery_, etc. )

 Waterville College, Adelphi Society, 135-142. 

 Webster, Daniel: E. B. Emerson's association with, 19; on Tudor, 28, 29; literary rank, 33; Seventh-of-March Speech, 303; times mentioned, 382. 

 Weiss, John, Parker biography, 368. 

 Wellington, Lord, seen by Emerson, 63, 64. 

 Wesley, John, praise of, 306. (See _Methodism_. )

 Western Messenger, poems in, 128. 

 West India Islands, Edward B. Emerson's death, 89. 

 Westminster Abbey, Emerson's visit, 63, 64. (See _Emerson's Books_, --English Traits, --_England_, etc. )

 Westminster Catechism, 298. (See _Calvinism, Religion_, etc. )

 Whipple, Edwin Percy: literary rank, 33; club, 223; on heredity, 389. 

 White of Selborne, 228. 

 Whitman, Walt: his enumerations, 325, 326; journal, 344, 346. 

 Wilberforce, William, funeral, 64. 

 Will: inspiration of, 289; power of, 290. 

 Windermere, Lake, 70. (See _England_. )

 Winthrop, Francis William, in college, 45. 

 Wolfe, Charles, Burial of Moore, 416. 

 Woman: her position, 212, 213, 251; crossing a street, 364. 

 Woman's Club, 16. 

 Words, Emerson's favorite, 404, 405. (See _Emerson's Poems_, --Days. )

 Wordsworth, William: Emerson's account, 63; early reception, Excursion, 92, 95; quoted, 96, 97; Tintern Abbey, 103; influence, 148, 150; poetic rank, 281, 321; on Immortality, 293, 392; popularity, 316; serenity, 335; study of nature, 337; times mentioned, 382; We are Seven, 393; prejudice against science, 401. 

 Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted, 259. 

 Yankee: a spouting, 136; _improve_, 176; whittling, 364. (See _America, New England_, etc. )

 Yoga, Hindoo idea, 397. 

 Young, Brigham: Utah, 264, 268; on preëxistence, 391. 

 Young, Edward, influence in New England, 16, 17. 

 Zola, Émile, offensive realism, 326.