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5-
THE
nfFLUE]!^CE OF EMERSON.
BY
WILLIAM R. THAYER,
BOSTON:
CUPPLES, UPHAM, AND COMPANY.
©in Corner ISooftstore.
1886.
I r
^
THE
INFLUEI^CE OF EMERSON.
BY
WILLIAM R. THAYER,
AUTHOR OF "the CONFESSIONS OF HERMES/
> i
* *
> » »
BOSTON:
CUPPLES, UPHAM, AND CO:\rPANY.
©Ill Corner 33aokst0rc.
1886.
1
<
Copyright, 18SG,
By William R. Thayer.
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
^9^"
THE INFLUENCE OF EMERSON.
^ I ^HE oldest masterpiece in literature contains the profoundly
-^ sad utterances of a mighty soul, upon whom tlie frailty
of man, the mystery of evil, the pangs of conscience, the
sorrows and disappointments and failures of life, laid an
almost intolerable burden. " My soul is weary of my life," he
cried; "I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak
in the bitterness of my soul. I will say unto God, Do not con-
demn me; show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it
good unto thee that thou shouldcst oppress, that thou shouldest
despise the work of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel
of the wicked ? " Across the ages that cry of anguish sounds
to us distinct, pathetic, human ; and it has had numberless
echoes in every land which, since Job's Epic of Sorrow was
written, has left literary records of itself Prophets, preachers,
and poets, and builders and destroyers of philosophic systems,
have wailed forth similar notes of doubt and agony, and liave
attempted to discover, by Reason or l)y Faith, the cause of the
heaviness of life and a remedy for it.
Who has not felt his heart sink within him as he realized
the awful discrepancy between what mankind would be and
what they are, between the attainment and the desire ! How
insignificant the individual appears, — a mere time-bubble float-
ing for a moment between two eternities, a child who must face
the inexorable forces by which the stars arc l^alanccd ! Only
by drudgery can he keep himself alive on the planet, only by
bitter experience does he come at last to know which habits
are wholesome and whicli harmful ; and when, after blind
gropings for superhuman help, he reaches tlie conviction that
there is a moral purpose — and consequently a moral Ruler —
in the universe, he is perplexed by a thousand fresh enigmas.
Out of the shadows a Voice asks him : " Why does the Source
of all virtue and goodness make goodness and virtue so hard
for mankind to practise ? Why does the God of truth veil
truth from his creatures ? And what, if God })refers the good
to the wicked, becomes of the wicked ?
" Looked at from one side, the record of organic life on
earth seems but the tale of a perpetual conflict between the
strong and the weak, — a conflict in which the strong always
win and the weak always perish. Those fittest to survive de-
stroy their inferiors. But what becomes of those that fail ?
Were they created merely that their stronger enemies might
destroy them? And, after all, the fittest themselves arc soon
superseded : in a few generations they take the place of the
weak; they are doomed to destruction, and creatures a little
stronger live in their stead. To the tender-hearted, this spec-
tacle of the incessant slaughter of countless millions of indi-
viduals is appalling, saddening. Wherefore this extravagant
waste of life ? To keep each species up to the level of its best
members ? But in the perspective of geology the existence
of a species dwindles to a span of no greater relative breadth
than the existence of the individual in the view of history.
xVnd what value can a Creator who despises the component
members of a race set upon the race as a whole ?
" Wo talk of the forward march of civilization and of the
superiority of our time over preceding ages, and assume that
a beneficent Power is guiding mankind towards perfection.
We persistently look ahead to tliat ideal millennium which,
with the sense of the reality of Sorrow, has lived in the imag-
ination and poetic longings of noblc-hcartcd men. But Avhat
of the generations dead, to Avhicli no inkling of Utopia was
ever whispered ? Did they shoot up and wither merely to fur-
nish manure from which our larger growth should spring ?
May not a similar lot be ours and all men's ? Alas ! if we are
here only to work for a posterity which must in turn perish,
how vain, how unutterably hopeless is life !
••* And see how slowly, with what infinite pain and patience,
a people rises toward what we call civihzation 1 Every im-
provement in mechanical implement, every increase of knowl-
edge and recognition of a higher moral standard, requires
years, perhaps centuries, for dissemination. Each helpful
thouoht or device has been wrested from the invisible Keeper
of Knowledge, who grudgingly surrenders it to his mortal
antagonist. Life is a cruel combat between frailty and omnipo-
tence, in which the former can gain nothing, and the latter
can lose nothing.
" The religions that have dominated mankind have been
pervaded with the conviction that life is hard, that happiness
is illusory, that by renunciation alone can peace of mind be
attained. Do you not hear a piteous Terror sighing througli
every creed ? This conflict between good and evil has been
typified as a struggle between a personal God and a personal
Devil. The human race, it is preached, is under a blight.
Utterly unworthy, it must hasten to perdition, but for the sac-
rifice of some saviour. Prometheus, Buddha, Clu-ist, by their
sublime unselfishness earn for mortals a larger hope of salva-
tion. If the good fail to thrive in this world, they will be
rewarded in the next ; and though the wicked flourish here,
hell awaits them hereafter. The conception of divine venge-
ance jangles strangely with the assertion that God is love.
Yet Christianity offers a great hope, promises that in the
end the rigliteous shall be cared for by God ; it holds out to
the down-trodden and afflicted a prospect of rest and comfort ;
it gives strength to bear present ills for the sake of winning
divine approval. Nevertheless, what Christian can justify the
prevalence of wrongs, of sin, of pain, of failure, in a world
ruled by a God whose pretended attributes are right, justice,
mercy, love ? Among men, the honest do not steal, the truth-
ful do not lie, the loving are not cruel ; why should not the
works of your divinity correspond to the character you ascribe
to him?"
Then will the universe clothe itself in mourning to him who
has listened to this Voice. Pain, disease, crime ; the pettiness
6
of daily life ; the vast uneducated multitudes stretching like
a Slough of Despond over the Past and into the Future ; tlie
incubus of poverty ; heredity crippling offspring to punish
the sins of the fathers ; the plaintive cry of the children, the
curses of the wicked, the jests of the ribald, — will blot out of
his heart the belief in a world governed by a deity which dearly
loves it. A crushing sense of the futility of every effort will
come over him. Why toil to lift one or two, when millions
must inevitably fall? What will become of those millions when
they have fallen ? Were every American a paragon of virtue
and enlightenment, would not Asia, Africa, and the Oceanic
hordes remain unsaved ? Alas ! poor wretches, sinking by
myriads in the angry ocean, the little cork I toss you can keep
none of you from drowning. And so, with a soul full of
anguish and compassion, or of desperate wrath and bitterness,
according as his nature leads him to heed chiefly the sufferings
of others or his own, he is ready to acknowledge with the
pessimist that life is not worth living.
But is this the end ? Is life at bottom an abyss of woe spun
across with a gossamer film of illusions through which all
except children — light-footed in their blissful ignorance —
must sink ? Are these failures and wrongs, this weariness and
despair, not real, — nay, the only realities ? Is the " worship
of sorrow" not for all hearts? Has not that lamentation of
Job resounded through the ages, — an endless, pitiful wail like
that heard by Dante in the starless air of Hell, an awful
affirmation of the hopelessness of living ?
Let us listen to one who sings apart from the dolorous choir,
— to Emerson.
Emerson's works, like the Bible or Shakspeare or those
collections of proverbs in which in every language are summed
up the wit and wisdom of unnumbered nameless poets and
philosophers, might furnish texts for sermons of any color,
Theist or pantheist or agnostic might bind his arguments with
quotations from the many-sided Essays. Nay, at different
times Emerson tells a different story to the same person, — as I
have experienced in reading his essay on Fate, for instance,
which has seemed to me both an inspiring assertion of the free-
dom of the will and an unanswerable argument for fatalism.
This apparent shifting is the obstacle that prevents many per-
sons from understanding Emerson. We shun uncertainty, and
seek amid the unceasing changes of life an immutable stand-
point. Those religions which have influenced for the longest
time the largest numbers of human beings have accordingly
made the boldest pretension of resting on impregnable founda-
tions and asserted an adequate knowledge of heavenly as well
as of earthly affairs. To bring order out of the seeming chaos
of the natural and spiritual worlds is the incessant effort of
Reason. It deduces laws, it weaves theories, — cables which
connect it with the shore, no matter how far it drift upon the
undiscovered sea. It has rules for everything, a pigeon-hole
for everything ; and when a fact does not fall directly under
the law. Reason complacently argues from the exception the
truth of the law, itself. But are we really governed by as many
rules capable of exact demonstration as we persuade ourselves ?
Is there not much that is spontaneous and unconscious in our
actions ? Speaking precisely, is not the tracing of laws an
after-process of the Reason, which strives to impose its ex-post-
facto logic on our lives ? For example, we neither love nor
hate by logic, nor by any other formula recognized at the mo-
ment. Each act, each event is new, and will be tinged by the
individuality of each person. The logician who thinks to con-
found Emerson by demanding syllogistic corroboration, or by
confronting him with contradictory opinions bearing on the
same subject, will get no satisfaction. " Let me remind you
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 to me are sacred, none profane. I simply
experiment, — an endless Seeker, with no Past at my back." ^
The object of the present essay is therefore to state as briefly
and as clearly as possible what may he called Emerson's lead-
ing views, often borrowing, for the sake of exactness, his own
1 Circles.
8
language, which defies condensation. To attempt to attack
them with the usual weapons of philosophical criticism would
be ludicrously unprofitable, for only Quixotic philosophers dis-
})lay their prowess by overthrowing systems which do not exist.
Emerson's creed, lilie Shakspeare's, baffles definition ; but
who on this account is blind to the religion and philosophy in
Hamlet and 3Iacheth ? If in one place Emerson makes a half-
statement, be sure that somewhere else its complement and
corrective have been recorded. He can be understood only by
those who seek for the spirit of all his work. To single out a
paragraph or chapter as representative, generally misrepresents
him. Let us examine, then, the Emersonian scheme, taking
care always to remember this warning of his : " I know better
than to claim any completeness for my picture. I am a frag-
ment, and this is a fragment of me. I can very confidently
announce one or another law, which throws itself into relief
and form, but / am too young yet hy some ages to compile a
coder 1
Emerson divides the Universe into Nature and Soul, com-
prising under the former all that is not me in the natural world
and in art. Nature is man's teacher. First of all she dis-
closes herself to him as Commodity P- She is not only the
material, but the result of man's labor. She furnishes every-
thing except the spirit that directs his labor. She is his home,
workshop, and playground ; his food and raiment. These
functions and relations all men, even the dullest, recognize.
But the cleverer man docs not stop here ; he watches her
metliods and invents devices for lessening his toil and increas-
ing his comforts. " The private poor man hatli cities, ships,
canals, bridges, built for him. He goes to the post-office, and
the human race run on liis errands ; to the book-shop, and the
human race read and write of all that happens, for him ; to
the court-house, and nations repair his wrongs."
But Nature has a higher purpose than merely to feed and
clothe man, — services she renders equally to the meanest
1 Experience. ^ Nature, chap. ii.
,/
animals ; in threefold fashion she satisfies his love of Beauty}
First, natural forms in and for themselves give pleasure, by
resting the weary and by causing purely sensuous delight. The
tradesman " comes out of the din and craft of the street and
sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again." A gorgeous
sunrise or sunset, a varied landscape, the succession of plants,
and the orderly march of tribes of birds and insects, have a
perennial fascination for the sympathetic observer. But a higher
element — the spiritual — is essential to its perfection. This
pageant of land and sea and sky is more than a mere wonder-
stirring yet meaningless show, it is the emblem of the Divine
Mind. " Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue." Finally,
*' the beauty of the world may be viewed as it becomes an
object of the intellect." Nature has correspondence with
thought, as well as with virtue and emotion ; and from intel-
lectual admiration is born that desire to re-embody beauty in
new forms from which Art springs. " No reason can be asked
or given why the soul seeks beauty. Truth and goodness and
beauty are but different faces of the same All." Higher than
the beauty in Nature, however, is the inward beauty of the
soul, which it heralds.
Again, Nature is the vehicle of thought ; she furnishes
Languagey Words are primarily signs of natural facts ; later,
they become symbols of spiritual facts. With metaphors
learned from the outside world we clothe our inmost thoughts
susceptible of expression : the poet in words, the sculptor in a
statue, the musician in sounds. "Man is conscious of a uni-
versal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in
a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom,
arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason : it is
not mine or thine or his, but we are its ; we are its property
and men." But how disproportionate it seems that we should
use this " grand cipher," which Reason stamps upon Nature, " to
expedite the affairs of our pot and kettle ! " " We are like
travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs."
When, therefore, we ask ourselves if these symbols have not
^ Nature, chap. iii. 2 ibid., chap. iv.
10
some inherent significance, we are forced to conclude that
" this relation between the mind and matter is not fancied by-
some poet, but stands in the will of God. . . . There seems to
be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms ;
and day and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid and
alkali, pre-exist in necessary Ideas in the mind of God, and
are what they are by virtue of preceding affections in the
world of spirit. A Fact is the end or last issue of spirit."
And now man discovers that "Nature is a Discipline.'''' I
Every atom, every property of matter brings a lesson. First,
the understanding is instructed in intellectual truths ; it per-
ceives differences. Each natural object has a peculiar use.
Space and Time teach that " things are not huddled and
lumped, but sundered and individual." Therefore " the wise
man shows his wisdom in separation, in gradation, and
Ms scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature. The
foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every man is
as every other man. What is not good they call the worst,
and what is not hateful they call the best." Behold, next,
liow every event proclaims " the exercise of the Will or the
lesson of power." Inch by inch all natural forces are subju-
gated by the man of character. " His victorious thought
comes up with and reduces all things, until the world be-
comes at last only a realized will, — the double of the man."
Moreover, all things are moral ; Nature is the ally of reli-
gion, for " every natural process is a version of a moral
sentence." Borne in upon the mind from all sides is the
conviction of a Unity, in which all exists and which per-
meates all.
Since to the " one end of Discipline all parts of Nature
conspire, a noble doubt perpetually suggests itself, — whether
this end be not the Final Cause of the Universe, and whether
Nature outwardly exists." This doubt can never be settled,
because the evidence of the senses can never be tested, and
must always be ideal. Let no one argue from this Idealism.,'^
however, that the stability of the material world is in danger.
1 Nature, chap. v. ^ Ibid., chap. vi.
,,-ja?«'
11
" God never jests with us," but guards inviolably the perma-
nence of Nature. As our culture in Idealism widens, we
outgrow our earlier superstition that " man and Nature are
indissolubly joined . . . that things are ultimates." We
escape from the " despotism of the senses, which binds us to
Nature as if we were a part of it, and shows us Nature aloof,
and, as it were, afloat. ... If the Reason be stimulated to
more earnest vision, outlines and surfaces become transparent,
and are no longer seen ; causes and spirits are seen through
them." And Nature herself urges us to our emancipation ;
the poet helps us ; the philosopher, the student of intellectual
science, and, finally, ethics and religion, help us to perceive
that Nature is an " appendix of the soul."
Nature is the perpetual reminder of God. "It always
speaks of Spirit,^ suggests the absolute. . . . And of that
ineffable essence which we call Spirit, he that thinks most will
say least." But he will come to recognize that " it does not
act upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but
spiritually, or through ourselves : therefore that Spirit, that is,
the Supreme Being, does not build up Nature around us, but
puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new
branches and leaves through the pores of the old." Under-
standing this, we are " animated to create our own world
through the purification of our soul." Emerson closes this
essay on Nature — the purest and loftiest spiritual message
yet uttered in America — with this promise : "As fast as you
conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will
unfold its great proportions ... so fast will disagreeable ap-
pearances, — swine, spiders, snakes, pests, mad-houses, prisons,
enemies, — vanish ; they are temporary, and shall be no more
seen.- . . . The kingdom of man over Nature, which cometh
not with observation, — a dominion such as now is beyond his
dream of God, — he shall enter without more wonder than the
blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight."
Even from this glimpse we see two principles illuminating
Emerson's faith, — a high Idealism, bespeaking Unity, immor-
^ Nature, chap. vii.
12
tal and infinite, and an unshaken belief in the majesty of the
Individual. Intuition apprises us immediately of an ineffable
Spirit whose abode is the Universe, whose emblems are Wis-
dom, Virtue, and Love. It follows that every individual is a
part of this Spirit, and that he is not necessarily the fallen,
despicable wretch depicted by Moses and still bemoaned in
many churches, but a living child of God, — and who can say
how much that means ?
Emerson is the unwearied champion of Individuals. All
his sentences are addressed to them. He reveals to them the
possibilities lying within reach of all. Mere bigness and burly
multitudes get no praise from him. The glib cant of the
demagogue issues not from his lips. " Leave this hypocritical
prating about the masses," he says sternly. "Masses are rude,
lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and
need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to
concede anything to them, but to tame, drive, divide, and break
them up, and draw individuals out of them. The worst of
charity is, that the lives you are asked to preserve are not
worth preserving. Masses ! the calamity is the masses." ^
Yet Emerson brings the humblest of his listeners up to the
level of the world-heroes. You feel in reading him that no
act of heroism, no ordeal of devotion, no supreme renunciation
would be hard. " I like that every chair shall be a throne
and hold a king."^ Probably no actual king, except the ever-
beautiful Marcus Aurelius, could have filled Emerson's
" throne " worthily.
The Individual, being a sharer in the Infinite Spirit, must
rise in the world of spirit. Each virtue shall add a plume to
his wings. He must be self-reliant. With such a sponsor,
what has he to fear ? It ill becomes one who knows that he
is on a mission for the infinite and eternal to quail before the
finite and transitory. " Why should we feel ourselves to be
men, unless it be to succeed in everything, everywhere?"
exclaims Mirabeau. Emerson adds, " That we are here is
proof that we ought to be here."^ The day dawns when
^ Considerations by the Way. ^ Manners.
13
we realize that we must be ourselves, trust ourselves, accept-
ing cheerfully the time and land into which Providence has
called us. Little will it avail us to pray the prayers and
accept the creeds of others. The authors of those prayers
and creeds relied courageously upon themselves ; they ad-
monish us to imitate, not their words, but their self-reliance.
Why should we ransack England, Italy, and Greece for
patterns ? We shall find no more in Rome than we take
with us thither.
All things conspire to acquaint the Individual with Spirit.
Out of dangers and trials he shall extract self-confidence and
courage. The strength that lay in each difficulty shall, when
overcome, be added to his strength. Art shall make visible
for him Beauty, which before lurked dimly in his mind, and
Beauty shall delight him as the charm that invariably vivifies
perfect work. Books shall introduce him to the assembly of
the choice spirits whom the ages have elected to represent
Immanity. Friendship shall bring him face to face with those
who are pursuing a soul's journey similar to his. Love, finally,
shall disclose to hira most intimately and sweetly the embodi-
ment of the Universal Love.
But the integrity of the Individual must be carefully guarded ;
he must not be deceived into mistaking any of these for the
end of his existence : God alone is that. So he is frequently
reminded, if he linger too long over business or art or books
or friends, that only the Eternal can permanently satisfy him.
These reminders often seem rude, often they cause heartache ;
but at last he understands their purpose. " The death of a
dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but
privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or
genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of
life, terminates an epoch of infancy or youth which was waiting
to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation or a household or
style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more
friendly to the growth of character. . . . And the man or
woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with
no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by
the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made
14
the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide
neighborhoods of men." ^
One truth of vital importance must, therefore, be learned, —
nothing abides except Spirit. Matter and its accidents under-
go unintermitted change. Life is fluid, not sohd ; progressive,
not stationary. The soul is.
When once this truth has been grasped we wonder no longer
why laws, religions, and social customs cannot be permanent.
They are dams made to fit one time ; the river of Humanity
flows through all times. See, for example, how significant
this is when applied to ethics. The ethical codes, one after
another, grow too small, and must be cast off, or repaired and
enlarged. As men's faith in a personal God diminishes, their
need of a personal symbol of him diminishes; Christ the
Man has more significance than Christ the God. Likewise,
many enlightened persons no longer believe in everlasting
damnation, —a scheme of compensation evidently contrary to
all the testimony of life, because it assumes that the universal
flux will cease and that the guilty soul will remain in a fixed
shape in hell, in spite of the fact that all souls are moving.
Moreover, it attaches an absolute value to a human, relative
act. Which of us would dare to assert that a single act or a
sinole thought is the summary and completion of his career,
or that it is even conceivable that any momentary experience
should become solid, unchanged forevermore? Look where
we will, development, or unfolding, is going on ; no end is
reached, or thinkable. The human imagination has drawn a
finite, temporal hell to do what it intends shall be an infinite
and eternal work. Let us beware of usmg our foot-rule and
hour-^lass to measure immeasurable Space and Time. All
human theories of retribution must be false if they are false to
this law of life ; namely. Growth, or Being, or Becoming.
Emerson overthrows the fetich Consistency because under
the pretence of being consistent men too often remain
dwarfed. They are tethered to a dogma, they have eaten
all the food within their reach; and yet, instead of going forth
1 Compensation. ' See Self-Reliance.
15
to feed in the inexhaustible pastures of the universe, their
consistency makes them revolve hungrily in their little disk of
stubble. Life is larger than a theory, — does it not include
all theories ? The soul is larger than a dogma. But Consis-
tency, which cannot grow, denies the right of growth to his
victim. The clinging to the Past indicates an ignoble suspi-
cion that the Present and Future must fall short, and that
the infinite has limitations. The healthy soul welcomes
change as the creator of newer, grander conditions. " In
proportion to the vigor of the individual, these revolutions
are frequent, until in some happier mind they are incessant,
and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him, becom-
ing, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which
the living form is seen, and not, as in most men, an indurated
heterogeneous fabric of many dates and of no settled character,
in which the man is imprisoned." ^
«
There are two questions which every earnest man has asked
himself, oftenest in trembling or grim desperation: "Am I
the puppet of Fate ? " " What means this crushing mystery
of Sin ? " Upon the answers to these questions depend his
views of morals, his happiness in this world, his hope of im-
mortality, his belief in God. If he ask himself in vain ; if,
in spite of diligent self-questioning and entreaty, the reply
never come, — he will turn to the great wise men who stand at
the entrance to the temple as spokesmen of the gods invisible
within. Lucky will it be if from any lips issue words to put
his perplexity at rest ! It is only too likely that their re-
sponses will be his old riddles in new garb. Then will he
depart in sorrow, crying out with Omar Khayyam, —
" O thou who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin !
" O thou who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And even with Paradise devise the Snake,
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of ]\Ian
Is blackened, Man's Forgiveness give — and take." 2
1 Compensation. ^ Rubaiyat, Ixxx. Ixxxi.
/
16
It seems that the Keeper of these secrets has never yet
revealed them to mortal coaxing or compulsion. They are
impregnable to the assaults of dialecticians. Philosophical
and scientific system-makers have hurled ingeniously contrived
engines against the adamantine stronghold. After the din
and dust of the concussion vanish, the rock rises there, grim,
silent, awful; and the splinters of the puny battering-ram
strew its base. Nevertheless, though dialectics fail and vision
be dim, we live, and, in living, by hints and inklings we begin
to infer something concerning those secrets which we could
not take by storm. Emerson's inestimable worth appears in
this ; he furnishes you with no weapon of attack, but by preg-
nant hints and by discovering hidden relations he will assist
you towards a reasonable certainty. In 1853 he wrote to
Carlyle in regard to the essay on Fate, then recently writ-
ten : " You will survive the reading, and will be a sure proof
that the nut is not cracked. For when we find out what fate
is, I suppose the Sphinx and we are done for, and Sphinx,
(Edipus, and the world ought by good rights to roll down
the steep into the sea." ^
Of what nature, then, is the assistance Emerson gives us
towards accepting that bitter mystery, the apparent conflict of
Fate and Free-will ? Certainly no single phrase sums up his
views. We need not hope to win him for an ally for either
camp. He states with unflinching candor that Fate is omni-
present. "Great men, great nations, have not been boasters
and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have
manned themselves to face it." ^ He shows how heredity, sex,
temperament, circumstances inevitably shape, limit, bind the
individual. He describes the perpetual struggle between brute
matter and thought, " the spirit which composes and decom-
poses Nature,"— a struggle, fierce and necessary, between God
and Devil. But even from the darkest aspect of the enigma
Emerson plucks radiant counsel. " If you believe in Fate to
your harm," he says, " believe in it at least for your good.
For if Fate is so prevailing, man also is part of it, and can
confront fate with fate.'" ^
1 Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, ii. 217. ^ Fate.
17
Admit the scope of Fate, you must equally admit the free-
dom of the Will. Should this contradiction clash with your logic,
it will nevertheless tally with your experience. Intellect, in
that which pertains to itself, testifies to a Necessity ; Will,
in that which pertains to Will, testifies to Freedom : you must
believe both, since each has no authority either to prove or dis-
prove matters outside of its sj)here. The intuition which
makes you aware of moral responsibility is as indubitable as
any other fact which enters your consciousness. Yet it neces-
sarily transcends mathematical demonstration. Will you on
this account scornfully toss it away as chimerical or worthless ?
Then for the same reason you must deny the commonest, yet
inscrutably secret, facts of experience, such as the union of
mind and matter, or variety proceeding from unity, or motion
from rest. So Emerson maintains that the moral sentiment
demands the freedom of the Will. Every fact is moral, and
manifests the moral nature of Spirit. Fate, therefore, dissi-
pates the immoral delusion that trusts in luck or chance or a
law-breaking " special Providence." Fate presupposes and
asserts the permanence and sacredness of Law and of that
" Blessed Unity which holds natures and souls in perfect so-
lution and compels every atom to serve a universal end."
Believing absolutely in the beneficence of the Great Spirit,
from whom all things ebb and to whom all things flow back,
Emerson could not help believing that the end served by every
atom is not only universal, but ultimately good. With our
relative knowledge we cannot possibly prove that what seems
transiently bad will remain eternally bad, or that even from
what is bad at the moment good may not be derived ; yet even
measuring by our every-day standard of good and bad, we de-
tect numerous instances, either in our own lives or in history,
of great blessings originating in apparent calamities. This
being true of phenomena whose purport we presume to deter-
mine, why should not the same be true of all phenomena ?
Our shortsightedness extends to our view of morals. We do
not behold crime immediately punished according to our code,
and we exclaim, therefore, that the guilty escape, or that there
is no moral law. But every account is settled, though we be
18
not present at the settlement ; and " every ultimate fact is the
first of a new series." ^ Evidently, were Emerson a professed
fatalist and nothing more, he would meet Fate as a friendly,
and not as a malignant, power.
A recent critic^ has brought tlie charge against Emerson
" that he has little to say of that horrid burden and impediment
on the soul which the churches call Sin, and which, by what-
ever name we call it, is a very real catastrophe in the moral
nature of man. He had no eye, like Dante's, for the vileness,
the cruelty, the utter despicableness to which humanity may be
moulded. The courses of Nature and the prodigious injustice
of man in society affect him with neither horror nor awe."
If this charge were true, Emerson's name would already be
foro-otten, — nay, it would never have emerged from obscurity.
Not by " mere playing w^ith words" did he rise to be one of the
great moral forces of this century. Not by shutting his eyes,
not by betaking himself to the clouds, when his questioners put
to him this bitter puzzle or pointed at the hideous spectres of
evil, did he soothe their terrible doubts and revive their courage.
If he had not known their need, how could he have ministered
to them ? How could his spirit still speak the right word to a
new generation of inquirers ? The truth is, that to bring such
a charge against Emerson is to proclaim an imperfect under-
standing of his teaching and a crippled appreciation of his
character. Emerson does not shut his eyes upon the nightmare
of Sin. Less than any other modern moralist does he blink
the truth, because he has no theory or sect to serve by half-
statements or by suppression. On the contrary, it is because
he has dared to scrutinize all that he dares to tell all. We call his
tone optimistic from its habitual healthy ring ; but let nobody
suppose it lacks other notes, or that he wished himself to be
thought of as singing pretty little ditties, jocund madrigals, and
ballads of fair weather.
In the chapters on Fate and Power, in those on Com-
pensation and Considerations by the Way and Behavior,
— not to mention others, — Emerson's deep realization of the
1 Circles. ^ Mr. John Morley.
19
existence and mystery of Evil is recorded. Listen to a few of
his stern facts : —
- We must see that the world is rough and surly, aud will not mind
drowning a man or a woman, but swallows your ship like a gram of dust
The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect uo persons.
- Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, incal-
culable 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 of divinity.- "Nature work
very hard, and only hits the white once in a million throws. In mankind
she is contented if she yield one master m a century.' -
Let these, from among a hundred quotable passages of iden-
tical import, bear witness that Emerson, " unshaken, unseduced,
unterrified," dared "to look at the monster. The quotations
that follow help to corroborate and to explain why the hideous
spectacle overcame neither his courage nor his hope : —
" Fate keeps everything alive so long as the smallest thread of public
neces4tv holds it on to the tree. The coxcomb and bully and thief class
are allowed as proletaries, every one of their vices being the excess or
acridity of a virtue. The mass are animal, in pupilage, and near chim-
panzee." 2 "In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is
the good of evil."i " Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the great
nicht, or shade, on which, as a background, the living nniverse paints
itself forth : but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work, for it is not.
It cannot work any good ; it cannot work any harm. It is harm, inasmuch
as it is worse not to be than to be." ^ " Our philosophy is affirmative, and
readily accepts the testimony of negative facts, as every shadow points to
the sun " " " The Medical College piles up in its museum its grim mon-
sters of morbid anatomv, and there are melancholy sceptics with a taste
for carrion who batten on the hideous facts in history, — perseciitions,
inquisitions, St. Bartholomew massacres, devilish lives, Nero, Caesar
Boro-ia, Marat, Lopez, men in whom every ray of humanity was
extinguished, parricides, matricides, and whatever moral monsters.
These are not cheerful facts, but they do not disturb a healthy mmd;
they require of us a patience as robust as the energy that attacks us, and
an unresting exploration of final causes. Wolf, snake, and crocodile are
not inharmonious in nature, but are made useful as checks, scavengers,
and pioneers; but we must have a scope as large as Nature's to deal with
beast-like men, detect what scullion function is assigned them, and
foresee in the secular melioration of the planet how these will become
unnecessary and will die out." ^
1 Fate. 2 Considerations by the Way. ^ Compensation.
i Spiritual Laws. ^ Courage.
20
Emerson looks upon Sin as relative. He sees, with eyes as
keen as Darwin's, tlie everlasting reciprocity between tlie indi-
vidual and his environment. He understands that in order to
lift the individual you must take him from his lower up to a
higher plane. Why this is true, Emerson pretends not to ex-
plain, fully aware that it is as inexplicable as that anytliing
is; but he insists that the realization of this truth suffices to
direct our conduct. " I have learned," he says, " that I cannot
dispose of other people's facts. . . . They wish to be saved
from the mischiefs of their vices, hut not from their vices.'' ^
Emerson stands on a high cliff, beneath which a crowd of
unfortunates call to him to extricate them from a bog. From
his eminence he sees, beyond the slough, firm land, pleasant
meadows, and wooded hills, and he replies to the strugglers :
" You can never be comfortable while you remain where you
are ; a few brave steps will bring your feet upon solid ground."
He does not tell them to try to fill up the bog, or to spend
their lives in wondering why it is there and why they are in-
volved in it, but he tells them to go out of it. Once let them
reach a stable footing, and all thought of their plight will
vanish. This may illustrate, however rudely, the manner in
which life answers most of our questions : not by a direct Yes,
or M, not by a glib phrase, but by a roundabout experience
in which we live the answer.
In our ordinary transactions we look for a definite, tangible
payment for work. By the introduction of a neutral symbol
of "^exchange we are apt to lose sight of the intrinsic conditions
of compensation. In early times if a man wanted a cow he
did a si)ecified piece of work and received a cow as wages ;
now we work ostensibly for money,— of no value in itself unless
it be the equivalent of a considerable number of articles.
Hence vagueness arises concerning the true relations between
work and wages. Moreover, we are inclined to imagine that
rewards in the moral world come in the same fashion as in the
labor-market.
It need hardly be pointed out that this view has dominated
1 Experience.
21
every organized system of religion. The good Mohammedan
is to be rewarded in heaven by unrestricted license to gratify
his sensual appetites, without risk of satiety. The North
American Indian, through whose robust veins and wiry muscles
vibrates the desire of activity, hopes to awaken in a " happy
hunting-ground," — a region where game never grows scarce,
and where every arrow hits the mark. The more libidinous
Asiatic, finding his chief solace in the flesh, commands that
his women be buried alive with him, so that they may be ready
for his pleasure upon his arrival in the other world. The Turk
has faith that Allah will people heaven with houris ; the more
sceptical and careful Asiatic deems it prudent to provide for
his own comfort. What Arab ever left his darling horse out
of his dream of heaven ? The Christian ideal of paradise
has varied in accordance with the large variety of peoples who
have called themselves Christians. Doubtless, no two ideals
agree ; but the underlying characteristic of all has been that
heaven is a place where all wrongs will be righted and all
longings satisfied. The Almighty sits there as a judge who
rewards or punishes mortals according to their good or evil
deeds on earth. The virtuous will receive a crown, the sym-
bol— is it not? — of their dearest desire; while the wicked
will be doomed to everlasting torment. So completely, at
times, has this fiction of what we may call the " reward-of-
merit" scheme of compensation contaminated branches of tlie
Christian Church that its members did not even wait for the
sentence of the Almighty Judge, but assumed to know before
doomsday what He would decree. The Catholics, for instance,
had a tariff, in which was set down the cost of any transgres-
sion. If a nobleman wished to kill an enemy, or to rob the
poor, or to outrage defenceless women, he could do so with
impunity, provided he bought an " indulgence" of the Pope, —
the indulgence being a certificate for notifying the recording
angel in heaven that the sinner had settled his score on earth.
Even to-day, millions of Catholics are taught that the felicity of
the souls of their loved ones in the other world can be enhanced
by the burning of candles in this!— a superstition which, like
that of those persons who by means of table-rappings and
22
slate-scratcliings think to communicate with the spirits of
departed friends, begets pity, and not contempt.
These examples are cited solely to illustrate the pathetic
extreme to which the notion that heaven is a, place for the distri-
bution of prizes has carried professing Christians. Other illus-
trations might have been chosen whicli would liave shown less
forcibly the same fact ; for the characteristic alkided to is trace-
able even in such noble visions as the " divine rose of Love " of
Dante's Paradise. As religion becomes more spiritual, men
cherish purer views of heaven ; so that if nothing remained of
a race except the picture it had drawn, in hope and in fear, of
heaven, we could determine accurately its civilization.
But is it not possible that here on earth are the conditions
supposed to obtain in the imaginary heaven ? that to-day, that
every day, is a "day of judgment" ? What if it turn out that a
man may not wait until the end of time to be punished for his
evil deed, but that he is punished on the spot, — that the com-
mission of the wrong and the punishment are simultaneous ?
What if it be true that " virtue is its own reward " ?
If we follow the standards of the stock-exchange and the
political platform, or even those of many theologies, we shall
hear that "the wicked prosper ; the good are unhappy ; Wrong
very often tramples upon Right." Not until we agree as to
what makes true prpsperity can we establish wherein true com-
pensation lies. Let us define prosperity, therefore, as "that
state in which the Spirit can most fully exercise its relations
with God." Neither wealth, nor social position, nor business
success, nor public honor, nor any other external profit is
essential to this communion. " Be cheerful also, and seek not
external help, nor the tranquillity which others give : a man
Ihen must stand erect, not be kept erect by others," says
Marcus Aurelius ; and he adds in another passage : " Things
do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immov-
able ; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which
is within. . . . Does any one do wrong ? It is to himself that
he does the wrong." Is not this the meaning of Goethe's
saying: "Every debt is paid in this life"? Is not this the
clue to Emerson's doctrine of Compensation?
23
The soul's health abides in God, in Goodness. Every good
act increases our store of goodness and strengthens our rela-
tions with God. Every bad act, on the other hand, removes
us by just so much from him ; in this removal, this depriva-
tion, consists our punishment. Since the greatest imaginable
bliss is to be pervaded by spirit, the greatest calamity is to be
cut off therefrom ; and each act, to the extent of its moral
value, immediately takes us nearer to or farther from the Over-
Soul. The compensation coincides with the work. The attempt
to separate the good from the price which must be paid for it
would never be tried, says Emerson, were it not that " when
the disease began in the will, of rebellion and separation, the
intellect is at once infected, so that man ceases to see God
whole in each object, but is able to see the sensual allurement
of an object, but not see the sensual hurt, and thinks he can
cut off that which he would have from that which he would
not have." ^ Is this not a more reasonable and spiritual view
than that other in which the avenging deity is represented as
pursuing culprits but never overtaking them until they stumble
over the precipice of death into the bottomless pit of hell ?
In this view each sinful act draws a film between the indi-
vidual and the Great Spirit, until, in the end, no light could
pierce for the guidance of the sinner. His spiritual life be-
comes warped. One by one the qualities that ennoble are
quenched, for want of nourishment. Should the degradation
continue to the lowest conceivable limit, should every channel
of communication with God be closed, the soul must go out
from, or, more precisely, could not enter into, the individual.
It is as if we should descend the scale of organic life : at each
descent some organ or faculty would be extinguished, until we
reached those shapeless creatures whose single attribute is life;
beyond them is Nothingness, the real perdition. In this de-
parture from perfection, in this loss of those characteristics
which we associate with the noblest ideal, in this imbruting,
lives the real curse of guilt, the real punishment ; and not in
the confinement of the wretch in a prison during this life and
' Compensation.
24
in a hell during the next. " Crime and punishment grow out
of one stem." Be it again noted that in the ordinary concep-
tion of heaven and hell, Time enters as an impossible element:
tortures and rewards are referred to temporal standards ; but
Spirit is eternal.
Over the world of possessions the same balance is held.
Despite apparent disparity, justice is done. The peasant,
seehig only the splendor, power, ease, and luxury of the king,
dreams that if he were king all his desires could be easily
gratified ; he does not see the cares and responsibilities of
kingship, which make a sovereign often less free than his sub-
jects. We daily hear persons who would " give anything "
(that is, nothing) to own So-and-so's millions ; but they forget
that the millionnaire has paid cent for cent for all his fortune,
and that he has acquired with it its very real limitations and
burdens. These persons " see the mermaid's head," but over-
look " the dragon's tail." So, too, with genius. Everybody
would -gladly write the great poem or symphony, or paint the
great picture ; but how many would pay the artist's price for
the privilege ? How many would learn with Dante, during
twenty years of exile, how hard it is to mount and descend a
stranger's stairs, and how salt is a stranger's bread ? How
many would bear Beethoven's burden of melancholy and deaf-
ness ? How many would share Michael Angelo's ninety years
of titanic but unspeakably sad loneliness ? We arrange to re-
ceive everything and to give nothing, and our hearts convict
the plan as ignoble. " He is base — and that is the one base
thing in the universe — to receive favors and render none."^
Thus the " radical tragedy of Nature, the seeming distinc-
tion of More or Less," assumes a different aspect. Inequalities,
injustice, deprivations, the lifting up of the dishonest and the
beating down of the virtuous, affect the external world, and not
the Soul. The wise man knows that equality is everywhere
preserved. The immemorial experience of mankind empha-
sizes the fact tliat upon no race, time of life, rank, or posses-
sions is conferred the right to a monopoly in happiness. The
1 Compensation.
25
spiritual sustenance necessary for the soul's welfare, like light
and air, is free to all. Does any one think of Socrates or
Christ as poor? or of Spinoza, patiently grinding lenses in
Amsterdam, as lacking in aught that the worldly rich Dutch
merchants could have given him ? Which of us would prefer
to be Yanderbilt, with all his millions, rather than Emerson ?
You cannot hril)e him who places virtue above all other
things, unless you offer him virtue. Shall you persuade him
to lead a virtuous life by promising him a heaven filled with
rewards that he despises? Does the lover ask for any higher
recompense than the bliss of loving? Yerily, we insult man's
divinest attributes w^hen we treat them like mercenaries hired
to fight the battle of life with him!
I fear that to those unacquainted with Emerson a controver-
sial temper may seem at times to intrude itself into this
review of the problems of Fate, Sin, and Compensation ; but
Emerson never descends to controversy. He never argues, —
he affirms. He tells what he sees ; if you do not see it like-
wise, he does not present credentials testifying to his veracity.
He addresses the soul rather than the intellect. He knows
that spiritual experience is not less but more real because it
eludes verbal expression. The misunderstandings and wrang-
lings which we call " theology " arise from the vain attempt to
explain spiritual experience in terms of material experience,
to fortify Faith (which is not Reason) by Reason (which is not
Faith). Should we smile at, or pity, a father who should try
to demonstrate to us, by means of the binomial theorem, that
he loved his children ? Emerson excels as a spiritual guide
and mental stimulator because he never falls into this confu-
sion. He does not try to overthrow by Faith the evidence that
Reason has authority to judge ; neither does he, like so many
theologians, lead Faith away from her coign of vantage to be
attacked and grievously wounded by Reason. Both bring him
priceless messages, but of different quality.
Health needs no advocate. Emerson takes this truth for
granted, and he also takes it for granted that you will know
intuitively when you are in health. Pain in the physical world
26
and evil in the moral world are the symptoms of ill-health. Be
sure that whatever lifts, broadens, cheers, is good for you, and
that whatever lowers, warps, depresses, is bad for you. Do not
waste time philosophizing why the latter should be, but get rid
of it in all haste. Emerson calls the theological problems of
predestination, original sin, and evil " the soul's mumps, mea-
sles, and whooping-coughs," and he declares that " a simple
mind will not know these enemies." His object is not to tell
you why the poisonous air stifles you, but to call you away from
the miasma into a salubrious neighborhood. Of all men he has
the largest faculty of discovering spiritual good. He finds it
everywhere and in everybody. Carlyle took him through the
slums of London, and asked : " Don't you believe in a hell
now ? " Emerson said firmly, " No." For him, at the bottom
of the deepest well the stars are shining. Underneath the
evil on the surface he sees the permanent substance. Good.
We marvel at the keenness of his insight. He takes pagans
or Christians, ancients or moderns, to illustrate his convictions,
and the very wealth and variety of his illustrations suggest to
us that Virtue has belonged to no single age or people, neither
has it been the honor of any particular creed ; the godlike m
man hallows all ages and places.
Emerson extols to-day ; he never disturbs himself about
the future. If you are doing your best now, he says, you are
fittino- yourself for any career that may come to you five years
or five hundred years hence. Herein his teaching differs
from that of Buddha and the Stoics and from the interpreta-
tion his followers have assigned to Christ's teaching. The
Hindoo saviour exhorts his disciples to destroy all desire, be-
cause thus alone can they be absorbed into that dreamless rest
which is Nirvana. The Stoics aspired to attain to tranquillity
by smothering the passions and by keeping austerely in view
the axiom that it mattered not whether one lived or died;
and Christ's words have been so read that " othcr-worldliness "
— or the regulating of conduct with an eye upon the rewards
and demands of the next life, to the maiming of the highest
development in this life — has been a prominent and depress-
ing characteristic among almost all classes of Christians.
27
With Emerson, however, the " eternal Now" is all important-
Hair-shirts, sackcloth and ashes, monasticism, and other pious
methods of stunting the growth of the soul he would abolish
as being as harmful as the British practice of dwarfing physi-
cal growth by dosing prospective jockeys with gin. He dis-
approves as much of the remorse which wastes the Present by
brooding over the Past, as of the discontent which wastes the
Present by brooding over the Future. Repentence manifests
itself in the turning to good works, not in the consumption of
precious hours by weeping over the irrevocable. To reach your
Heaven you must journey through To-day ; therefore let To-
day's journey bring you on as bravely and as far as possible.
Your welfare can be found wherever you are ; do not imagine
that it awaits you in Paris or Athens. God fills all zones
with his presence. Cultivate, then, a noble contentment and
a high reverence for your surroundings, — parents, friends,
business, and native land. Cheerfulness and courage are the
supreme virtues after Emerson's heart ; they shine through his
writings and lived in his conduct. He exacts a deep patriotism
and a love of one's time.
The practicalness of his teaching stimulates every one who
has tasted it: and what teaching is more than miserable hum-
bug unless it be practical ? We have in him a unique combi-
nation of common sense and spiritual insight. Mr. Lowell's
couplet says, with truth, —
" A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, -whose range
Has Olympus for one pole, for t' other the Exchange."
Other philosophers bewilder you with their abstractions, —
their " subjectives" and "objectives," their " ologies" and
" isms," — until they convert your search for truth into a search
of meanings in the dictionary. Emerson discourses to you of
the everlasting verities, and uses for examples the common facts
and events of your daily life. In his hand the vulgarest object
sparkles with a divine lustre. Has it not been remarked that
his sentences have the homeliness as well as the pith of prov-
erbs? He beckons mankind from hopeless sfjcculation over
the mysteries of the universe, and points out that improvement
28
and liappiness lie only in or through present realities. '" The
only path of escape known in all the worlds of God is per-
formance." 1 He alone is consistent who obeys the voice of
the Spirit, and that voice calls him ever upward. It has no
fixed cry, no password whose significance has been worn
away by repetition. To each it speaks new words, suited to
his new conditions ; what it whispered to the child it no longer
wiiispers to the man. But though the message change, the
voice changes not ; in the evening of life we recognize that it
emanates from the same eternal source whence it came to
gladden our infancy and our prime.
The complaint is heard that Emerson does not lift the cur-
tain of Death and allow us to peer into the mystery beyond,
and that he has little to tell us about the immortality of the
soul. Persons who make this complaint have failed lamentably
to apprehend the unvarying theme of his belief, which is the
imperishability of Spirit. They have been blind, too, to his
written word. " Men ask," he says, " concerning the immor-
tality of the soul, the employments of heaven, the state of the
sinner, and so forth. Tbey even dream that Jesus has left
replies to precisely these interrogatories. Never a moment did
that sublime spirit speak in their patois. To truth, justice,
love, the attributes of the soul, the idea of imrautableness is
essentially associated. Jesus, living in these moral sentiments,
heedless of sensual fortunes, heeding only the manifestations
of these, never made the separation of the idea of duration
from the essence of these attributes, nor uttered a syllable con-
cerning the duration of the soul. It was left to his disciples
to sever duration from the moral elements and to teach the
immortality of tlie soul as a doctrine and maintain it by
evidences. The moment the doctrine of the immortality of
the soul is separately taught, man is already fallen." ^ Seek
where you will througli Emerson's prose or poetry, and you
will find that conviction re-affirmed, —
" Wliat is excellent,
As God lives, is permanent;
Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain;
Heart's love will meet thee again." ^
1 Worship. 2 The Over-Soul. 3 Threnody.
29
Those who had personal acquaintance with Emerson state
that one thing particularly impressed them, — " the sense tliat
he seemed to have of a certain great amplitude of time and
leisure : it was the behavior of one who really hdieved in an
immortal life, and had adjusted his conduct accordingly." ^
Happy the man whose soul has been brimmed with a sense
of that great amplitude in his converse with Emerson's
thoughts !
But let us not blink the fact that many persons do not
understand Emerson ; that some pronounce his Essays
" commonplace," while others lift their eyebrows and with
a superior air say, "moonshine;" that others again with
exemplary modesty — if genuine — declare that " he is too
deep for them." There is another class of Emersonian
fanatics who take it amiss that everybody will not w^orship
at the little altar they have dedicated to him. By argument
or sarcasm or browbeating they would capture that homage
which is worthless unless it come by love. But those who
have imbibed even the humblest drop of Emerson's meaning
will be annoyed by none of these, for they have learned from
him that only the Infinite can satisfy all needs and appease all
yearnings. To no book, or music, or landscape, or friend is
it granted to say the right word at every moment ; but
it is Emerson's high distinction to appeal to us in those
moments the soul recognizes as the best. Seek him in lower
moods, and his words kindle no response.
These are some of the keys of the instrument upon which
Emerson plays his mighty Hymn of Life. To those persons
who require an explanation of the universe by reference to
fixed dogmas, Emerson must seem vague, and obscure to those
who are not accustomed to contemplate earnestly matters
pertaining to the Spirit ; but to those who, in reverence and
sympathy, seek his wisdom he unfolds precious revelations.
He strips things and persons of their material wrap, and shows,
beneath, the Spirit, which is their substance, imperishable and
infinite, the soul of the world.
1 A Western Journey with Mr. Emerson, by Prof. J. B. Thayer.
30
One hesitates to hand to a stranger a mere cupful from so
broad and pure a lake ; but to all of us — both to those who
have listened gratefully to his words, and to those who have
not — the supreme fact of Emerson's life endures as an en-
couragement and a blessing. That we all understand; and
we can never forget that there was recently among us a pure
and beautiful spirit who looked out upon the world we see,
who lived in conditions similar to those which surround
us, who shirked no duty as son, husband, father, friend, or
citizen, who was familiar with the wisdom of the ages, who
knew the frailty and the strength, the disappointments and the
aspirations, of humanity, and who gave to us and to posterity
out of the sincerity of his soul a message of joy. " Fair is the
prize and the hope is great," Plato, antiquity's sentinel, calls
from his watch in Athens. Wlr heissen Emli hoffen,—
" We bid you to hope," — Goethe echoes, mounting guard at
Weimar. And Emerson from Concord responds serenely :
" Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed."
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