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A MEMOIR OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON
BY JAMES ELLIOT CABOT
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
A MEMOIR
OF
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
BY
JAMES ELLIOT CABOT
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
CAMBRIDGE
primes at tty fttoersfoe press
1887
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
789195 A
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
B. 1935 L
Copyright, 1887,
By JAMES ELLIOT CABOT.
All rights reserved.
No.
Edition fimiteb to #itoe $untiK& Copied.
3 k U-
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CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
CHAPTER XI.
PAGE
Lectures. — The Dial. — Emerson's Transcendenta-
lism 383
CHAPTER XII.
Reform. — First Speech on Slavery. — Address on
West Indian Emancipation. — Letter to Presi-
dent Van Buren on the Cherokee Outrage. —
Brook Farm and Fruitlands. — Emerson's own
Experiments : Domestic Service, Manual Labor,
Vegetarianism. — His Position with Regard to
Reform. — Women's Rights 421
CHAPTER XIII.
The Business of Lecturing. — Pecuniary Circum-
stances. — Poems. — Death of his First Child. —
His Ways with his Children 457
CHAPTER XIV.
Second Visit to England. — Paris 501
CHAPTER XV.
Lecturing at the West. — Death of Margaret Ful-
ler. — Death of Emerson's Mother. — The Anti-
Slavery Conflict 563
IV CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVI.
Views of College Education. — Agassiz and the Sat-
urday Club. — Recognition by his Contempora-
kies. — Emekson Overseer op Harvard College.
— UNrvERSTY Lectures. — Trip to California. —
The Burning of his House 614
CHAPTER XVII.
Third Visit to Europe. — Egypt. — Paris. — London. —
Oxford. — Return Home. — Candedate for Rector-
shd? of Glasgow. — Anniversary of Concord Fight.
— Compilation of a New Volume of Essays. — The
Virginia Address. — Visit to Concord, N. H. — Mr.
French' s Bust. — Last Readings. — Declining Years.
— Illness and Death 657
Appended A 685
Appendix B 689
Appendlx C 695
Appended D 697
Appendix E 703
Appendix F 710
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
CHAPTER XI.
LECTURES. — THE DIAL. EMERSON'S TRANSCEN-
DENTALISM.
At the time of the Divinity Hall address, Em-
erson, as I said, was intending to lecture, the next
winter, in Boston ; and he persevered, though he
expected that his audience would be small. When
the lectures began, however, in December, there
was no appearance of any deterrent effect from the
address.
" The lecturing [he writes to his brother William]
thrives. The good city is more placable than it
was represented, and forgives, like Burke, much to
the spirit of liberty."
The attendance was large, and of the same
class of persons as before, most of them, no doubt,
Liberal Christians, but of a liberality that was not
disturbed by his departure from the Cambridge
platform. They came, as Mr. Lowell says, to hear
Emerson, not to hear his opinions. They would
have admitted, most of them, that his opinions
384 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
were rather visionary ; that his eyes were fixed so
steadily on " the fine horizon line of truth " as to
overlook ordinary mortals and dwell on angelic
forms, too airy and indistinct to be identified with
any of the solid inhabitants of earth. But they
liked to put themselves under the influence of one
who obviously had lived the heavenly life from his
youth up, and who made them feel for the time
as if that were the normal mode of existence.
The subject was " Human Life ; " the soul, the
universal principle in man, unfolding itself in the
individual. The course might have been called
Lectures on Transcendentalism ; a summing-up of
what was to be said for and against the new views.
The indications of development, he says, are not
always agreeable facts. It begins with protest
and rejection, with turbulence and revolution, and
thoughtful persons are apt to overlook, in the rude
and partial expressions, the truth they prefigure.
It is like the rubbish and confusion that go before
the building of a new city ; they are not agreeable,
but they may be welcomed for the sake of what
they announce, — at least for the symptoms of life
and progress.
*' Undoubtedly the movement has its foolish and
canting side. New thoughts will always introduce
a new crop of words, and these are all that the
foolish will get. And yet always there is in man
LECTURES. 385
somewhat incalculable and unexhausted. Men are
not made like boxes, a hundred, a thousand, to
order, and all alike. Out of the darkness and the
awful Cause they come, to be caught up into this
vision of a seeing, partaking, acting and suffering
life ; not foreknown or foremeasurable. Therefore
we welcome the unexact extravagant spirits who
set routine at defiance, and, drawing their impulse
from some profound thought, appear in society as
its accusers and its prophets. What if they be, as
often such are, monotones, men of one idea? How
noble in secret are the men who have never stooped
nor betrayed their faith ! The two or three rusty,
perchance wearisome souls who could never bring
themselves to the smallest composition with society,
rise with grandeur in the background, like the
statues of the gods, whilst we listen to those who
stoop a little."
We rest in what we have done, in what we have
said, or in what others have done or said, and if
we attempt to move, society is against us. " This
deliquium, this ossification of the soul, is the Fall of
Man. The redemption is lodged in the heart of
youth. To every young man and young woman the
world puts the same question, Wilt thou become one
of us? And to this question the soul in each of
them says heartily, No. The world has no interest
so deep as to cherish that resistance. No matter
though the young heart do not yet understand it-
386 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
self, do not know well what it wants, and so con-
tents itself with saying No, No, to unamiable tedi-
ousness, or breaks out into sallies of extravagance.
There is hope in extravagance ; there is none in
routine.
" The hostile attitude of young persons toward
society makes them very undesirable companions to
their friends, querulous, opinionative, impractica-
ble ; and it makes them unhappy in their own soli-
tude. If it continue too long it makes shiftless
and morose men. Yet, on the whole, this crisis
which comes in so forbidding and painful shape in
the life of each earnest man has nothing in it that
need alarm or confound us. In some form the
question comes to each : Will you fulfil the de-
mands of the soul, or will you yield yourself to the
conventions of the world ? None can escape the
challenge. But why need you sit there, pale and
pouting, or why with such a mock-tragic air affect
discontent and superiority? The bugbear of so-
ciety is such only until you have accepted your own
law. Then all omens are good, all stars auspicious,
all men your allies, all parts of life take order and
beauty."
In vain shall we expect to redeem society in any
way but through the integrity of the individuals
who compose it : —
" I am afraid that in the formal arrangements of
the socialists the spontaneous sentiment of any
LECTURES. 387
thoughtful man will find that poetry and sublimity
still cleave to the solitary house. The members
will be the same men we know. To put them in a
phalanx will not much mend matters, for as long
as all people want the things we now have, and not
better things, it is very certain that they will, under
whatever change of forms, keep the old system."
Two of the lectures (" Tragedy " and " Comedy")
were printed a year or two afterwards in the Dial ;
" Demonology," which was the last of the course,
nearly forty years later, in the North American
Review.1 The others were used in the first series
of Essays ; one of them (" Love ") is given there
almost entire.
In closing the course, Emerson said that it was
with regret that he found himself compelled, by
the state of his health, to bring it to a somewhat
abrupt termination. He had intended to give some
completeness to the series by two additional dis-
courses, one on the limitations of human activity
by the laws of the world, and one on the intrinsic
powers and resources of our nature ; but the exe-
cution of these plans he was constrained to post-
pone.
" My lungs [he writes to Carlyle] played me
false with unseasonable inflammation ; ' and in
letters to his brother William after this time he
speaks of troubled health, not amounting to posi-
tive illness, but to an indisposition for work : —
1 Collected Writings, viii. 149. " Comedy," x. 7. " Demonology."
388 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" I have not been very strong this summer, con-
trariwise, very puny, and hoped I should gain vigor
by a journey to the mountains. But I gained lit-
tle. I am, as usual, neither sick nor well, but, for
aught I see, as capable of work as ever, let once
my subject stand, like a good ghost, palpable be-
fore me. But since I came home I do not write
much, and writing is always my meter of health, —
writing, which a sane philosopher would probably
say was the surest symptom of a diseased mind."
" This ill-health of yours and mine and every-
body's [he writes to Miss Fuller] is a sore blemish
on the prospects, because on the powers of society.
If you wish to protest (as most ingenious persons
do for some years) against foibles, traditions, and
conventions, — the thing has one face if you live
only long or strong enough to rail, and quite an-
other if you can serenely and in due time broach
your new law, and show the upholsterers the granite
under their whitewash and gingerbread. When it
gets no farther than superciliousness and indigna-
tion, the Beckendorf s [Metternich, in " Vivian
Grey " ] have every right to ask us what time we
go to bed. Therefore I hate sickness, in common
with all men this side of forty, and am sour and
savage when I anticipate the triumphs of the Philis-
tines. For really, in my best health and hope, it 's
always mean to scold, and when I am lean I am
ten times sorry."
LECTURES. 389
Up to the age of forty or thereabouts Emerson
was subject from time to time to a tenderness of
the lungs and to fits of languor which sometimes
alarmed his wife, though he always treated them
lightly, as only a symptom of the want of sufficient
preoccupation of mind, which he looked upon as
the disease of the times.
" Power and aim, the two halves of felicity [he
says in one of his letters to Miss Fuller] seldomest
meet. A strong mind with a great object finds
good times, good friends, good weather, and fair
lodging ; but wit without object, and not quite
sufficient to make its own, turns all nature upside
down, and Rousseau-, Carlyle-, or Byronizes ever.
The middle name does not belong in such ill com-
pany; but my friend, I think, wants nothing but
work commensurate with his faculty. It must be
more the malady, one sometimes thinks, of our
day than of others ; for you cannot talk with any
intelligent company without presently hearing ex-
pressions of regret and impatience whose scope af-
fects the whole order of good institutions. Certainly
we expect that time will yield some adequate revo-
lution, regeneration, and, under better hours, will
fetch us somewhat to do ; but whilst the grass
grows, the noble steed starves, — forgive the pro-
verb, — we shall die of the numb-palsy. Ethics,
however, remain, when experience and prudence
have nothing to show."
390 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
The want of definiteness in his subject, where he
wished to protest against the foibles of society, was
due in part to a characteristic slowness to take
sides. We have a vicious way, he says in one of
these lectures, of esteeming the defects of men
organic. We identify the man with his faults,
judging them from our point of view. We should
rather ask how they appear from his point of view.
Pride, for example, may be an impure form of self-
reliance ; the willingness to accept obligations
would only show that he has suffered a fatal slack-
ness in his springs. The love of fighting, beastly
as it may look to us, is the first appearance of the
manly spirit, the willingness to venture all for a
principle. At a certain stage of progress the man
fights, if he be of a sound body and mind. So
again we accuse the people of incapacity for self-
direction ; they can only follow their leaders, who
flatter them. But the flattery consists in telling
them that they are capable of governing them-
selves, and would lose its attraction were they en-
tirely devoid of this capacity. It is possible to be
below these vices as well as to be above them.
In principle, Emerson stood, of course, with the
idealists, the reformers, the party of progress, or
at least of aspiration and hope. But he could not
help seeing that the existing order, since it is here,
has the right to be here, and the right to all the
force it can exert. It is not disposed of (he says)
LECTURES. 391
because we see or think we see something better ;
still less by merely rejecting it ; but only by its
developing in us the force that is needed for put-
ting the better in its place. Nothing is gained
by insisting on the omnipotence of limitations, but
neither is anything gained by ignoring them ; they
are like the iron walls of the gun, that concentrate
the force and make it irresistible.
This was very well for a " chimney-corner phi-
losophy," but it did not lend itself readily to the ex-
igencies of the lecturer's desk. The audience must
have a definite statement ; but Emerson did not see
his way to a comprehensive theory. The reconcile-
ment of fate and freedom — the might of estab-
lished facts and the rights of the soul — must be
made by each man for himself, as the occasion
arises for deciding between conformity and follow-
ing his own bent ; it must be realized in a life ; it
cannot be stated in propositions.
" We wish [he says in his journal] to sum the
conflicting impressions by saying that all point
at last to a unity which inspires all, but disdains
words and passes understanding. Our poetry, our
religions, are its skirts and penumbrae. Yet the
charm of life is the hints we derive from this.
They overcome us like perfumes from a far-off
shore of sweetness, and their meaning is that no
tongue shall syllable it without leave ; that only it-
self can name it ; that by casting ourselves on it
392 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and being its voice, it rushes each moment to pos-
itive commands, creating men and methods. If we
attempt to define it we say nothing.
" We must affirm the endless possibilities in
every man that is born, but if we affirm nothing
else, we are checked in our speech by the need of
recognizing that every fact contains the same, —
until speech presently becomes rambling, general,
indefinite, and mere tautology. The only speech
will at last be action."
He would have preferred, he says in a letter to
Carlyle,1 to retire to his study, hoping to give some
form to his " formless scripture." But he had no
choice ; money must be had, among other things
for advances on Carlyle' s account. He had re-
printed the " French Revolution," and was now re-
printing the " Miscellanies ; " there were bills to
be paid, — one bill of five hundred dollars for pa-
per ; and he had already exhausted his credit in
borrowing for his friend. Of all which, of course,
Carlyle remained blissfully ignorant.
He writes to his brother William : —
Concord, September 26, 1839.
I have just decided, somewhat unwillingly, to
read one more course of lectures in Boston next
winter, but their tenor and topics float yet far off
and undefined before me.
1 Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, i. 259.
LECTURES. 393
The topic he fixed upon was the " Present Age."
The characteristic trait of the period, he says, is
the growing consciousness in the individual man of
his access to the Universal Mind. This tends to
degrade and weaken all other relations. Super-
ficially it shows itself in a spirit of analysis and de-
tachment. Ours is the age of the first person sin-
gular, of freedom and the casting-off of all ties.
In the infancy of society, Reason has a kind of
passive presence in Dread; a salutary dread de-
fends man in his nonage from crime and degrada-
tion. Analysis destroys this check ; the world is
stripped of love and terror, and is looked upon
merely for its economic uses. At bottom, analysis
takes place in obedience to the higher instincts:
we do not wish to be mastered by things ; we wish
things to obey us. But it first runs to excess, sep-
arates utilities from the labor they should repre-
sent, appropriates and monopolizes them. The end
to be rich infects the whole world, and shoves by
the State and the Church. Government and Edu-
cation are only for the protection of property, and
Religion even is a lever out of the spiritual world
to work for this. The decay of piety begets the
decay of learning ; the fine geniuses of the day de-
cry books, and ostentatiously disdain the knowl-
edge of languages, antiquity, and art. The " self-
made'* men, of whom we have so large a crop,
like to explain how little they owe to colleges and
394 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
schools. Of course this is most evident and most
deplorable in the highest sentiment, that is, the
religious : —
" Who can read the fiery ejaculations of St.
Augustine, a man of as clear a sight as almost any-
other, of Thomas a Kempis, of Milton, of Jeremy
Taylor, without feeling how rich and expansive a
culture — not so much a culture as a higher life —
they owed to the ceaseless and grand promptings
of this sentiment ; or without contrasting their im-
mortal heat with the cold complexion of our recent
wits ? Side by side with this analysis remains
the surviving tradition, the old state of things in
Church, State, College, and social forms ; number-
ing in its train a multitude composed of those in
whom affection predominates over intellect, and
talent over character ; of those who are indisposed
to the exertion which novelty of position demands ;
and, lastly, of those who have found good eating
under the shadow of the old institutions, and there-
fore hate any change."
Having lost touch of the sentiment which in-
spired the tradition, this party has nothing to at-
tract the young mind eager for truth, and nothing
to oppose to the disintegrating activity of the un-
derstanding. On the other hand, the Movement
Party, though resting on ideas, are infected with
the vice of the age, — the propensity to exaggerate
the importance of visible and tangible facts. They
LECTURES. 395
magnify particular acts and avoidances ; they en-
deavor to vamp and abut principles, and to give a
mechanical strength to the laws of the soul. They
rely on new circumstances ; on votes, statutes, as-
sociations. They promise the establishment of the
kingdom of heaven, and end with champing un-
leavened bread or dedicating themselves to the
nourishment of a beard. But let us not distrust
our age. Man once for all is an exaggerator ; but
let us look at the tendencies. Analysis is the road
to power, and the understanding, with its busy ex-
perimenting, steadily tends to place power in the
right hands. The ray of light passes invisible
through space ; only when it falls on an object is
it seen. So is spiritual activity barren until it
is directed to something outward. It was Com-
merce as well as Religion that settled this country,
and it is constantly at work to correct its own
abuses. It matters not with what counters the
game is played, so it be played well. Men rely
upon contrivances and institutions, yet the heat of
the reformers and the resistance to reform make
the discipline and education of the public con-
science. On neither side is the cause defended
on its merits. Yet, on the whole, the Movement
Party gains steadily, and as by the movement of
the world itself. The great idea that gave hope to
men's hearts creeps on the world like the advance
of morning twilight, and they have no more part
396 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
in it than the watchman who announced the day-
break.
Our part in relation to the projects of reform is
to accept and use them, but not be used by them.
Keep yourself sacred and aloof from the vices of
the partisan, but do not hold yourself excused from
any sacrifice when you find a clear case on which
you are called to stand trial. And be in no haste
to decide. Patience and truth, patience with our
frosts and negations, and few words, must serve.
We find ourselves not expressed in the literature,
the science, the religion of our fathers, and cannot
be trained on their catechism. What has the ge-
neric life of Paris or New York to do with Judaea,
with Moses, or with Paul ? The real religion of
the day is reverence for character. This may seem
an abstraction, but there is no thought so delicate
and interior but it can and will get a realization.
One would have said the same of the lowliness of
the blessed soul that walked in Judaea and hal-
lowed that land forever. So will this new percep-
tion— which came by no man, but into which all
souls at this era are born — endue its own body
and form, and shine in institutions. See the fruit-
ful crop of social reforms, — Peace, Liberty, La-
bor, Wealth, Love, Churches of the Poor, Rights
of Women. The reformers, it may be, see not
what they point at. They go forward to ends
whereof they yet dream not, and which the zealots
LECTURES. 397
who work in these reforms would defy. But the
heart and the hand go forward to a better heaven
than they know.
Not always shall this hope be disappointed. The
life of man shall yet be clean and honest, his aims
unperplexed. Faith shall be possible and society
possible when once there shall be shown to him the
infinitude of himself.
Emerson had left the pulpit for the lecturer's
desk, because he wished to be entirely free to de-
clare the faith that was in him, without being ex-
pected to make it square with any presuppositions.
But this freedom had its drawback, since it was no
longer sufficient for him to suggest the truth he
wished to enforce, trusting that his suggestions
would be filled out from the common stock of be-
lief ; they were subversive of the common beliefs ;
and yet, since Emerson could never take the po-
lemical tone, and was not ready with a scheme for
reconstruction, he found himself condemned to a
way of speaking that seemed vague and ineffective,
and he felt for a time a disgust at lecturing. He
writes in his diary : —
" October 18, 1839. Lectures. For the last five
years I have read, each winter, a new course of lec-
tures in Boston, and each was my creed and confes-
sion of faith. Each told all I thought of the past,
the present, and the future. Once more I must
398 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
renew my work, and, I think, only once in the
same form ; though I see that he who thinks he
does something for the last time ought not to do it
at all. Yet my objection is not to the thing, but to
the form ; and the concatenation of errors called
Society, to which I still consent until my plumes
be grown, makes even a duty of this concession
also. So I submit to sell tickets again. But the
form is neither here nor there. What shall be the
substance of my shrift? Adam in the garden, I
am to new-name all the beasts in the field and all
the gods in the sky ; I am to invite men drenched
in Time to recover themselves and come out of
Time and taste their native immortal air. I am to
fire, with what skill I can, the artillery of sympathy
and emotion. I am to indicate constantly, though
all unworthy, the ideal and holy life, the life within
life, the forgotten Good, the unknown Cause in
which we sprawl and sin. I am to try the magic of
sincerity, that luxury permitted only to kings and
poets. I am to celebrate the spiritual powers, in
their infinite contrast to the mechanical powers and
the mechanical philosophy of this time. I am to
console the brave sufferers under evils whose end
they cannot see, by appeals to the great Optimism
self-affirmed in all bosoms."
When the lectures were over he felt that he had
come short of his mark.
LECTURES. 399
TO WILLIAM EMERSON.
Concord, February 25, 1840.
... I closed my lectures duly a week ago last
Wednesday. I cannot say much for them in any
respect. I pleased myself, before I began, with
saying I will try this thing once more, because I
have not yet done what I would with it. I will
agitate men, being agitated myself. I, who rail at
the decorum and the harness of society, why should
I not speak very truth, unlimited, overpowering ?
But now unhappily the lectures are ended. Ten
decorous speeches and not one ecstasy, not one
rapture, not one thunderbolt. Eloquence, there-
fore, there was none. As the audience, however,
were not parties to my intention and hope, they
did not complain at my failure. Still, my company
was less than the last two years.
(Journal.) " I seem to lack constitutional vigor
to attempt each topic as I ought. I ought to seek
to lay myself out utterly, large, enormous, prodi-
gal, upon the subject of the week. But a hateful
experience has taught me that I can only expend,
say twenty-one hours, on each lecture, if I would
also be ready and able for the next. Of course I
spend myself prudently ; I economize ; I cheapen ;
whereof nothing grand ever grew. Could I spend
sixty hours on each, or, what is better, had I such
789195 A
400 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
energy that I could rally the lights and mights of
sixty hours into twenty, I should hate myself less ;
I should help my friend."
But if the lectures seemed to Emerson tame and
decorous, literary essays rather than effective lay-
sermons, the following letter from Theodore Parker
to Dr. Con vers Francis (obligingly communicated
to me by Mr. F. B. Sanborn) shows that such
was not the impression they produced on his au-
dience : —
West Koxbury, December 6, 1839.
. . . Are you not to attend Emerson's lectures
this winter ? The first was splendid, — better
meditated and more coherent than anything I have
ever heard from him. Your eyes were not dazzled
by a stream of golden atoms of thought, such as he
sometimes shoots forth, — though there was no lack
of these sparklers. It was Democratic - locofoco
throughout, and very much in the spirit of Brown-
son's article on Democracy and Reform in the last
Quarterly [Brownson's Review]. . . . Bancroft
was in ecstasies, — he was rapt beyond vision at the
locqfocoism of the lecture, and said to me the next
evening, "It is a great thing to say such things
before any audience, however small, much more to
plant these doctrines in such minds : but let him
come with ws, before the ' Bay State,' and we will
give him three thousand listeners." . . . One grave,
LECTURES. 401
Whig-looking gentleman heard Emerson the other
night, and said he could only account for his de-
livering such a lecture on the supposition that he
wished to get a place in the Custom-House under
George Bancroft.1 . . .
Ever yours, Theodore Parker.
" I take it [adds Mr. Sanborn] that the ' Bay
State ' was a Democratic club. This was the year
(1839), when Marcus Morton was elected governor
over Edward Everett by one vote."
The next winter (1840-41) he seems to have
given no lectures except that on " Man the Re-
former." 2 He was busy with his book (the first
series of Essays), and the project of a periodical
as the organ of the new views was taking definite
shape. He writes to his brother William : —
Concord, September 26, 1839.
. . . George Ripley and others revive at this
time the old project of a new journal for the expo-
sition of absolute truth ; but I doubt a little if it
reach the day. I will never be editor, though I
am counted on as a contributor. My Henry Tho-
reau will be a great poet for such a company ; and,
one of these days, for all companies.
1 Mr. Bancroft was then Collector of the port of Boston.
2 Collected Writings, i. 215.
402 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
TO MARGARET FULLER.
Concord, December 12, 1839.
... I believe we all feel much alike in regard
to this journal. We all wish it to be, but do not
wish to be in any way personally responsible for it.
For the sake of the brilliant possibility I would
promise honest labor of some sort to each number
for a year, but I should wish to leave myself the
latitude of supreme indifference, nay abhorrence of
such modes of working forever after. But if your
labors shall introduce a new age, they will also
mould our opinions, and we shall think what you
think. But to-day is no writing day with me, so
farewell. R. W. Emerson.
The plan of the journal had somewhat changed
its shape since 1836. It was to have the character
of a magazine as well as of a review, and, first of
all, it was to furnish means of utterance to the
boundless aspirations of the time. Emerson's chief
interest in it perhaps lay in the prospect of intro-
ducing to the public his friends, Mr. Alcott, Mr.
Thoreau, Mr. William Ellery Channing, the un-
named author of " Dolon," and one or two others.
" Were I responsible [he writes to Miss Fuller
March 30, 1840], I would rather trust for its wit
and its verses to the eight or nine persons in whose
affections I have a sure place than to eighty or
ninety celebrated contributors."
THE DIAL. 403
After many conferences and much correspon-
dence, the first number of the Dial appeared in
July. Mr. George Ripley and Miss Margaret Ful-
ler were the most active promoters ; Mr. Ripley
undertaking the business management, and Miss
Fuller the literary editorship. It was a rash and
generous enterprise, for the subscribers were few
and the promised contributors for the most part
unpractised writers ; and it was sure to have the
dead weight of the reading community against it.
Miss Fuller herself was under no illusions as to
their prospects. " We cannot show high culture
[she writes], and I doubt about vigorous thought."
Her object, however, was not to make a successful
journal, but " to afford an avenue for what of lib-
eral and calm thought might be originated among
us by the wants of individual minds." 1
It was an experiment worth trying, and even
if it succeeded only in bringing these wants into
clearer consciousness, this of itself ought to give to
the Dial a place of honor in our literary annals.
It is much to have uniformly taken the high-
est tone upon all subjects ; and whatever may be
said of the Dial, this praise abundantly belongs
to it.
Success, in the ordinary sense of the word, was
out of the question, — if from no other reason, from
1 In a letter quoted by Mr. Cooke, in his Life of Emerson,
p. 78.
404 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the lack of complete unity of purpose in the pro-
jectors. No two of them precisely agreed as to
what they would have. Some of its oldest friends
had been alienated by the want, or rather the avoid-
ance, of any definite aim. Others soon began to
complain that it still savored of the old order of
things. The practical reformers sniffed at the
superfine idealism of many of its pages. Emer-
son, for his part, was in favor of the largest liberty
and the most extravagant aspirations, but he winced
in spite of himself at the violations of literary
form, and he confessed, in strict confidence, that he
found some of the numbers unreadable. Miss Ful-
ler, writing to him two years afterwards, when he
relieved her of her charge, says that the change of
editors cannot but change the aim as well as the
character of the journal : —
" You will sometimes reject pieces that I should
not. For you have always had in view to make a
good periodical and represent your own tastes ;
while I have had in view to let all kinds of people
have freedom to say their say, for better, for
worse."
Emerson cared only for the poetry, or for the
poetical point of view ; that everything should be
looked upon, as he said, " at large angles ; " and
to this he was extremely tolerant. His criticism
on the first number (in a letter to Miss Fuller)
was that the verse was not sufficiently conspicuous ;
THE DIAL. 405
were he the compositor, he would set it in larger
type than the prose. But he did not find that the
public shared his tastes.
" Nowhere [he complains in a letter to Miss
Fuller, July 8, 1840] do I find readers of the Dial
poetry, which is my one thing needful in the en-
terprise. I ask in vain after Z., or H. T., or ' new
contributor,' — of many a one. They wait till I
have done, and then inquire concerning Mr. Parker.
I think Alcott's paper of great importance to the
journal, inasmuch as otherwise, as far as I have
read, there is little that might not appear in any
other journal."
Afterwards, he writes to Miss Fuller, August 4,
1840, he began " to wish to see a different Dial
from that which I first imagined. I would not have
it too purely literary. I wish we might make a jour-
nal so broad and great in the survey that it should
lead the opinion of this generation on every great
interest, and read the law on property, government,
education, as well as on art, letters, and religion.
... It does not seem worth our while to work
with any other than sovereign aims. So I wish we
might court some of the good fanatics, and publish
chapters on every head in the whole art of living.
I am just now turning my pen to scribble and copy
on the subjects of Labor, Farm, Reform, Do-
mestic life, etc., and I asked myself, Why should
not the Dial present this homely and grave sub-
406 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ject to the men and women of the land ? . . . I
know the dangers of such latitude of plan in any
but the best conducted journal. It becomes friendly
to special modes of reform ; partisan, bigoted, per-
haps whimsical ; not universal and poetic. But
our round-table is not, I fancy, in imminent peril
of party and bigotry, and we shall not bruise each
the others' whims by the collision."
And in his diary of the same date : —
" I think our Dial ought not to be a mere lit-
erary journal, but that the times demand of us all
a more earnest aim. It ought to contain the best
advice on the topics of Government, Temperance,
Abolition, Trade, and Domestic Life. It might
well add such poetry and sentiment as will now
constitute its best merit. Yet it ought to go
straight into life, with the devoted wisdom of the
best men and women in the land. It should —
should it not ? — be a degree nearer to the hodi-
ernal facts than my writings are. I wish to write
pure mathematics, and not a culinary almanac or
application of science to the arts."
But he was not easy to suit with any applica-
tions that offered themselves, — for instance, Theo-
dore Parker's, though he acknowledged Parker's
earnestness and his power of reaching the ear of
the public with his vigorous rhetoric. Afterwards,
when Emerson had assumed the editorship and the
Dial was in pecuniary straits, Mr. Parker sent a
THE DIAL. 407
long article concerning the Reverend John Pier-
pont's differences with his parish on the subject of
Temperance ; which Emerson wished to reject, but
admitted at last, as he said, pro honoris causa.
When that number of the journal appeared, Miss
Elizabeth Peabody, who was then the publisher,
wrote to Emerson that Parker's article had sold
the whole of the issue, and that more copies were
wanted.
Miss Fuller struggled bravely on, with much
labor and no pay, for about two years, and then
Emerson felt obliged to take it up, though very
unwilling.
" The Dial [he writes in his diary] is to be sus-
tained or ended ; and I must settle the question, it
seems, of its life or death. I wish it to live, but I
do not wish to be its life. Neither do I like to put
it into the hands of the Humanity and Reform men,
because they trample on letters and poetry ; nor in
the hands of the scholars, for they are dead and
dry. I do not like the Plain Speaker so well as
the Edinburgh Review. The spirit of the last
may be conventional and artificial, but that of the
first is coarse, sour, indigent ; dwells in a cellar-
kitchen and goes to make suicides."
" Poor Dial! [he writes Dr. Hedge] — it has not
pleased any mortal. No man cried, God save it !
And yet, though it contains a deal of matter I
could gladly spare, I yet value it as a portfolio
408 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
which preserves and conveys to distant persons
precisely what I should borrow and transcribe to
send them if I could. It wants mainly and only
some devotion on the part of its conductor to it,
that it may not be the herbarium that it is of dried
flowers, but the vehicle of some living and advanc-
ing mind. But nobody has yet conceived himself
born for this end only."
The Dial " enjoyed its obscurity," as Emerson
says, two years longer under his charge, and then
expired, in April, 1844,1 to his great relief ; hav-
ing cost him, I conjecture, some money as well as
perpetual worry.
Emerson had done what he could to forward the
birth of a new spirit in our literature, and Miss
Fuller had done her part ; but the child refused to
be born. The genius of the new era had not as
yet got on speaking terms with its day and genera-
tion.
About the same time with the Dial, another
scheme, foreshadowing the later Concord School
of Philosophy, appears in a letter from Emerson
to Miss Fuller : —
1 Rev. George William Cooke has given, in the Journal of Spec-
ulative Philosophy (July, 1885), a careful account of the Dial and
its writers. For a list of Emerson's contributions see Appen-
dix C.
THE DIAL. 409
Concord, August 16, 1840.
. . . Alcott and I projected the other day a whole
university out of our straws. Do you not wish that I
should advertise it in the Dial ? Mr. Ripley, Mr.
Hedge, Mr. Parker, Mr. Alcott and I shall, in some
country town, — say Concord or Hyannis, — an-
nounce that we will hold a semester for the instruc-
tion of young men, say from October to April.
Each shall announce his own subject and topics,
with what detail he pleases, and shall hold, say two
lectures or conversations thereon each week; the
hours being so arranged that any pupil may attend
all, if he please. We may, on certain evenings,
combine our total force for conversations, and on
Sunday we may meet for worship, and make the
Sabbath beautiful to ourselves. The terms shall
be left to the settlement of the scholar himself.
He shall understand that the teachers will accept a
fee, and he shall proportion it to his sense of ben-
efit received and his means. Suppose, then, that
Mr. Ripley should teach the History of Opinion,
Theology, Modern Literature, or what else;
Hedge, Poetry, Metaphysics, Philosophy of His-
tory ; Parker, History of Paganism, of the Catho-
lic Church, the Modern Crisis, — in short, Ecclesias-
tical History ; Alcott, Psychology, Ethics, the Ideal
life; and I, Beaumont and Fletcher, Percy's Re-
liques, Rhetoric, Belles-Lettres. Do you not see that
410 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
by addition of one or two chosen persons we might
make a puissant faculty, and front the world with-
out charter, diploma, corporation, or steward ? Do
you not see that if such a thing were well and hap-
pily done for twenty or thirty students only at first,
it would anticipate by years the education of New
England ? Now do you not wish to come here and
join in such a work? What society shall we not
have ! What Sundays shall we not have ! We
shall sleep no more, and we shall concert better
houses, economics, and social modes than any we
have seen.
What the New England leaders of opinion, even
such as were the least averse to thinking for them-
selves, thought of their would-be teachers was ex-
pressed, though in rather shrill tones, by John
Quincy Adams in his diary at this time : —
" The sentiment of religion is at this time, per-
haps, more potent and prevailing in New England
than in any other portion of the Christian world.
For many years since the establishment of the the-
ological school at Andover, the Calvinists and Uni-
tarians have been battling with each other upon the
Atonement, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and the
Trinity. This has very much subsided, but this
wandering of minds takes the place of that, and
equally lets the wolf into the fold. A young man
named Ralph Waldo Emerson, a son of my once-
EMERSON'S TRANSCENDENTALISM. 411
loved friend William Emerson, and a classmate of
my lamented George, after failing in the every-day
avocations of a Unitarian preacher and schoolmas-
ter, starts a new doctrine of Transcendentalism,
declares all the old revelations superannuated and
worn out, and announces the approach of new rev-
elations and prophecies. Garrison and the non-
resistant abolitionists, Brownson and the Marat
democrats, phrenology and animal magnetism, —
all come in, furnishing each some plausible rascal-
ity as an ingredient for the bubbling caldron of
religion and politics. Pearse Cranch, ex ephebis,
preached here last week, and gave out quite a
stream of Transcendentalism, most unexpectedly." *
Emerson for his part did not feel that there had
been any essential change in his position of mind
towards religion since the days when he was a Uni-
tarian preacher. In an address to his old friends
of the Second Church (Sunday, March 10, 1844),
when they were rebuilding their meeting-house in
Hanover Street, he says : —
" I do not think that violent changes of opinion
very often occur in men. As far as I know they
do not see new lights and turn sharp corners, but
commonly, after twenty or after fifty years you
shall find the individual true to his early tenden-
cies. The change is commonly in this, that each
1 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, x. 345.
412 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
becomes a more pronounced character ; that he has
thrown off those timidities and excessive regard to
the minds of others which masked his own. I have
not the least disposition to prove any consistency in
myself ; a great enlargement, a discovery of gross
errors corrected, would please me much more ; but
as a matter of fact I do not find in the years that
have elapsed since I stood here to teach any new
varieties of thought, but rather an accumulation
of particular experiences to establish, or, I should
rather say, illustrate, the leading belief of my
youth."
He was looked upon, by John Quincy Adams and
by everybody, as the representative Transcenden-
talist ; yet, in a lecture in 1841, when he was at
his farthest in this direction, he defines Transcen-
dentalism as " the Saturnalia or excess of faith." 1
Not as if faith, the vision of the absolute, the look
to the ideal as our reinforcement against the ty-
ranny of mere use and wont tending to shut us up
in petty cares and enjoyments, — not as if this
could ever too much abound ; but that it may want
"the restraining grace of common sense, . . .
which does not meddle with the absolute, but takes
things at their word, things as they appear." 2 This
restraint was never wanting to Emerson ; he felt safe
against the dangers of " divine discontent," and
this feeling made him the more charitable towards
i Collected Writings, i. 320. 2 Ibid., viii. 9.
EMERSON'S TRANSCENDENTALISM. 413
its extreme manifestations. He was as much alive
to the extravagances as anybody, having frequent
occasion to observe them ; but our danger he
thought did not He on that side.
"Buddhism, Transcendentalism [he writes in
his journal], life delights in reducing ad absurdum.
The child, the infant, is a transcendentalist, and
charms us all ; we try to be, and instantly run
in debt, lie, steal, commit adultery, go mad, and
die."
" The trick of every man's conversation we soon
learn. In one this remorseless Buddhism lies all
around, threatening with death and night. We
make a little fire in our cabin, but we dare not go
abroad one furlong into the murderous cold. Every
thought, every enterprise, every sentiment, has its
ruin in this horrid Infinite which encircles us and
awaits our dropping into it. If killing all Bud-
dhists would do the least good, we would have a
slaughter of the innocents directly."
" It must be admitted that civilization is onerous
and expensive, — hideous expense to keep it up : let
it go, and be Indians again. But why Indians ?
That is costly, too. The mudturtle-and-trout life is
easier and cheaper, and oyster cheaper still. ' Play
out the game ; act well your part ; if the gods have
blundered, we will not.' "
" 'T is necessary that you honor the people's
facts. If you have no place for them, the people
414 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
absolutely have no place for you. A person, what-
ever he may have to say or do, to whom politics
is nothing, navigation nothing, railroads nothing,
money nothing, books nothing, men and women
nothing, may have his seat or sphere in another
planet, but once for all has nothing to do here.
The earth and sea and air, the constitution of
things, and all that we call Fate, is on the people's
side ; and that is a reasoner not liable to a fal-
lacy."
" does not do justice to the merits of la-
bor. The whole human race spend their lives in
hard work, for simple and necessary motives, and
feel the approbation of their conscience ; and they
meet this talker at the gate, who, as far as they
see, does not labor himself, and takes up this grat-
ing tone of authority and accusation against them.
His unpopularity is not all wonderful. There must
be, not a few fine words, but very many hard
strokes, every day, to get what even an ascetic
wants."
" Let a man hate eddies, hate the sides of the
river, and keep the middle of the stream. The
hero did nothing apart and odd, but travelled on
the highway and went to the same tavern with the
whole people, and was very heartily and naturally
there ; no dainty, protected person."
" I speak [he says] as an idealist," — but his
idealism never made him blind to facts, nor did it
EMERSON'S TRANSCENDENTALISM. 415
make him wish to ignore them. Money, for in-
stance, might be, as was then much urged, a very-
rude certificate of a man's worth and of his claims
upon his fellow-men; in a better state of society
the " cash-nexus " would be superseded by the
bonds of justice and love. Meantime let us not
pretend to be better than we are : —
" The cant about money and the railing at mean-
souled people who have a little yellow dirt only to
recommend them, accuses the railer. Money is a
truly admirable invention, and the delicacy and
perfection with which this mercury measures our
good sense in every transaction in a shop or in a
farm ; the Egyptian verdict which it gives : thou
hast done well : thou hast overdone : thou hast un-
done, — I cannot have a better voice of nature.
" Do not gloze and prate and mystify. Here is
our dear, grand says, You shall dig in my
field for a day, and I will give you a dollar when it
is done, and it shall not be a business transaction.
It makes me sick. Whilst money is the measure
really adopted by us all as the most convenient
measure of all material values, let us not affectedly
disuse the name and mystify ourselves and others ;
let us not ' say no and take it.' We may very
well and honestly have theoretical and practical
objections to it ; if they are fatal to the use of
money and barter, let us disuse them ; if they are
less grave than the inconvenience of abolishing
416 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
traffic, let us not pretend to have done with it
whilst we eat and drink and wear and breathe it.
" However, I incline to think that among angels
the money or certificate system might have some
important convenience, — not for thy satisfaction
of whom I borrow, but for my satisfaction that I
have not exceeded carelessly my proper wants,
have not overdrawn."
A sound, sincere, and catholic man, he says, is
one who is able to honor at the same time the ideal,
or laws of the mind, and Fate, or the order of Na-
ture. " For wisdom does not seek a literal recti-
tude, but a useful, that is a conditional one, — such
a one as the faculties of man and the constitution
of things will warrant." l With all his idealism
Emerson is free from the pedantry of ignoring the
actual conditions, or the existing motives by which
the ideal must be realized. It is one thing to do
what we can to elevate these motives ; it is quite
another to call upon men to act as if they were
different from what they really are. Thus, for in-
stance, in speaking of Education as it ought to be,
he describes the prevailing system of emulation
and display as " the calomel of culture ; " easy to
use and prompt in its effect, but a " quack prac-
tice." 2 But once when he found this view too
rashly acted on by one of the smaller New Eng-
land colleges, he calls it an " old granny system,
l Collected Writings, iv. 47 j i. 286. 2 Ibid., x. 151.
EMERSON'S TRANSCENDENTALISM. 417
President has an aversion to emulation, as in-
jurious to the character of the pupils. He there-
fore forbids the election of members into the two
literary societies by merit, but arranges that the
first scholar alphabetically on the list shall be as-
signed to the X and the second to the Y, the third
to the X and the fourth to the Y, and so on.
' Well, but there is a first scholar in the class, is
there not, and he has the first oration at Com-
mencement ? ' ' Oh no, the parts are assigned by
lot.' The amiable student who explained it added
that it tended to remove disagreeable excitement
from the societies. I answered, Certainly, and it
would remove more if there were no colleges at all.
I recommended morphine in liberal doses at the
college Commons. I learn, since my return, that
the President has resigned ; the first good trait I
have heard of in the man."
And when a youthful admirer of his, having in
mind the description * of the spiritual life as that
of a man who eats angels' food ; " who, trusting
to his sentiments, found life made of miracles ;
who, working for universal aims, found himself
fed, he knew not how ; clothed, sheltered, and weap-
oned, he knew not how," etc., — sent him the auto-
biography of George Muller, an Englishman, who
found himself and a large number of persons under
his charge supported entirely by miraculous meth-
1 Collected Writings, i. 319.
418 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ods, Emerson expressed surprise that the book
should be sent to him, and, when he returned it,
says : —
" I send back the book with thanks, and, as I
said, with some wonder at your interest in it. I
sometimes think that you and your coevals missed
much that I and mine found ; for Calvinism was
still robust and effective on life and character in
all the people who surrounded my childhood, and
gave a deep religious tinge to manners and con-
versation. I doubt the race is now extinct, and
certainly no sentiment has taken its place on the
new generation, — none as pervasive and control-
ling. But they were a high tragic school, and found
much of their own belief in the grander traits of
the Greek mythology, Nemesis, the Fates, and the
Eumenides ; and, I am sure, would have raised an
eyebrow at this pistareen Providence of Robert
Huntington and now of George Muller. There is
piety here, but 't is pulled down steadily into the
pantry and the shoe-closet, till we are distressed for
a breath of fresh air. Who would dare to be shut
up with such as these from year to year? Cer-
tainly there is a philosophic interest and question
here that well deserves attention, — the success,
namely, to which he challenges scrutiny, through
all these years ; God coming precisely in the mode
he is called for, and to the hour and minute. But
this narrative would not quite stand cross-exam-
ination."
EMERSON'S TRANSCENDENTALISM. 419
" There is illusion that shall deceive even the
elect ; " and idealism may be one form of it.
Yet the desire for perfection, the discontent with
present attainment, is the spring of all human pro-
gress ; there cannot be too much of it, there may
easily be too little. Indeed, what seems excess is
rather defect ; an infirm faith that cannot recog-
nize its ideals in the masquerade of every-day life.
Care will be taken that the trees do not grow up
into the sky ; if only sap and vigor be not wanting,
the checks will supply themselves when they are
needed.
" It is a sort of maxim with me never to harp
on the omnipotence of limitations. Least of all do
we need any suggestion of checks and measures ;
as if New England were anything else."
The one thing he feared was an insufficient sup-
pJy: —
" Of so many fine people it is true that, being so
much, they ought to be a little more, and, missing
that, are naught. It is a sort of King Rene period ;
there is no doing, but rare thrilling prophecy from
bands of competing minstrels.
" We are wasted with our versatility ; with the
eagerness to grasp on every possible side. The
American genius runs to leaves, to suckers, to ten-
drils, to miscellany. The air is loaded with poppy,
with imbecility, with dispersion, with sloth.
"Allston's pictures are Elysian, fair, serene, but
420 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
unreal. I extend the remark to all the American
geniuses : Irving, Bryant, Greenough, Everett,
Channing, — even Webster, in his recorded elo-
quence, — all lack nerve and dagger.
"Our virtue runs in a narrow rill : we have never
a freshet. One would like to see Boston and
Massachusetts agitated like a wave with some gen-
erosity ; mad for learning, for music, for philan-
thropy, for association, for freedom, for art. We
have sensibility and insight enough, if only we
had constitution enough. But, as the doctor said
in my boyhood, ' You have no stamina.' What
a company of brilliant young persons I have seen,
with so much expectation ! The sort is very good,
but none is good enough of his sort.
" Yet the poorness or recentness of our experi-
ence must not deter us from affirming the law of
the soul. Nay, although there never was any life
which in any just manner represented it, yet we are
bound to say what would be if man kept the divine
law, — nay, what already is, and is explained and
demonstrated by every right and wrong of ours ;
though we are far enough from that inward health
which would make this true order appear to be the
order of our lives." (Journal, 1839-43.)
CHAPTER XII.
reform. first speech on slavery. — ad-
dress on west indian emancipation. let-
ter to president van buren on the chero-
kee outrage. brook farm and fruitlands.
— emerson's own experiments : domestic
service, manual labor, vegetarianism. —
his position with regard to reform. wo-
men's rights.
When Emerson said in his letter to Margaret
Fuller that he wished the Dial might lead the opin-
ion of the day and declare the law on every great
interest, he was unconsciously borrowing a tone
that did not belong to him. He had no disposition
to play the oracle, or to declare the law upon any
subject. Transcendentalism was to him not a par-
ticular set of doctrines, but a state of mind; the
healthy and normal state, in which we resist the
sleep of routine, and think and act for ourselves in-
stead of allowing circumstances to decide for us.
" I told Mr. [Emerson writes in his jour-
nal] that he need not consult the Germans, but, if
he wished at any time to know what the Transcen-
dentalists believe, he might simply omit what in
422 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
his own mind he added from the tradition, and the
rest would be Transcendentalism."
Emerson's sympathies, in that age of renovation,
of confident outlook to the speedy removal of the
ills that beset man's condition, were of course with
the renovators, the temperance men, the abolition-
ists, the seekers after improved forms of society.
But " abolition, or abstinence from rum, or any
other far-off external virtue should not divert at-
tention from the all-containing virtue which we
vainly dodge and postpone, but which must be met
and obeyed at last, if we wish to be substance, and
not accidents." The stress that was laid on the
importance of improved conditions, of associations
to help men to escape from bodily or mental bon-
dage, made him think the more strongly of the
prime necessity that the man himself should be re-
newed, before any alterations of his condition can
be of much help to him.
" If [he writes to a friend] the man were de-
mocratized and made kind and faithful in his heart,
the whole sequel would flow easily out and instruct
us in what should be the new world ; nor should
we need to be always laying the axe at the root of
this or that vicious institution."
In Emerson's philosophy " all that we call Fate,"
or external condition, has to be reckoned with, since
it is the counterpart of our internal condition, and
holds its own so long as that remains unchanged.
Here are some extracts from his journal in 1840 : —
REFORM. 423
" I told that I thought he must be a very
young man, or his time hang very heavy on his
hands, who can afford to think much and talk much
about the foibles of his neighbor, or ' denounce,'
and play the ' son of thunder,' as he called it. I
am one who believe all times pretty much alike,
and yet I sympathize so keenly with this. We
want to be expressed ; yet you take from us War,
that great opportunity which allowed the accumu-
lations of electricity to stream off from both poles,
the positive and the negative. Well, now you
take from us our cup of alcohol, as before you took
our cup of wrath. We had become canting moths
of peace, our helmet was a skillet, and now we
must become temperance milksops. You take
away, but what do you give ? Mr. Jefts has been
preached into tipping up his barrel of rum into the
brook ; but day after to-morrow, when he wakes up
cold and poor, will he feel that he has somewhat
for somewhat ? If I could lift him up by happy
violence into a religious beatitude, or imparadise
him in ideas, then should I have greatly more than
indemnified him for what I have taken. I should
not take away ; he would put away, — or rather,
ascend out of this litter and sty in which he had
rotted, to go up clothed and in his right mind into
the assembly and conversation of men.
" We frigidly talk of Reform until the walls
mock us. It is that of which a man should never
424 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
speak, but, if he have cherished it in his bosom, he
should steal to it in darkness, as an Indian to his
bride, or as a monk should go privily to another
monk and say, Lo, we two are of one opinion ; a
new light has shined in our hearts ; let us dare to
obey it.
" I have not yet conquered my own house ; it irks
and repents me. Shall I raise the siege of this
hen-coop, and march baffled away to a pretended
siege of Babylon ? It seems to me that so to do
were to dodge the problem I am set to solve, and
to hide my impotency in the thick of a crowd.
" Does he not do more to abolish slavery who
works all day steadily in his own garden than he
who goes to the abolition-meeting and makes a
speech ? He who does his own work frees a slave.
He who does not his own work is a slave-holder.
Whilst we sit here talking and smiling, some per-
son is out there in field and shop and kitchen, do-
ing what we need, without talk or smiles. The
world asks, Do the abolitionists eat sugar? Do
they wear cotton ? Do they smoke tobacco ? Are
they their own servants ? Have they managed to
put that dubious institution of servile labor on an
agreeable and thoroughly intelligible and trans-
parent foundation ? Two tables in every house !
Abolitionists at one and servants at the other ! It
is a calumny you utter. There never was, I am
persuaded, an asceticism so austere as theirs, from
FIRST SPEECH ON SLAVERY. 425
the peculiar emphasis of their testimony. The
planter does not want slaves ; no, he wants his lux-
ury, and he will pay even this price for it. It is
not possible, then, that the abolitionist will begin
the assault on his luxury by any other means than
the abating of his own."
In November, 1837, Emerson was requested to
deliver an address at Concord on the subject of
Slavery. There was some difficulty in getting a
room for the purpose, all agitation of the question
of Slavery being at that time generally deprecated ;
at length the Second Church agreed to allow the
use of their vestry. In his speech he dwelt espe-
cially on the duty of resisting all attempts to stifle
discussion. It is, he says, the eminent prerogative
of New England, and her sacred duty, to open her
churches and halls to the free discussion of every
question involving the rights of man.
" If the motto on all palace-gates is ' Hush,' the
honorable ensign to our town-halls should be ' Pro-
claim.' I account this a matter of grave impor-
tance, because symptoms of an overprudence are
showing themselves around us. I regret to hear
that all the churches but one, and almost all the
public halls in Boston, are closed against the dis-
cussion of this question. Even the platform of the
lyceum, hitherto the freest of all organs, is so ban-
daged and muffled that it threatens to be silent.
426 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
But, when we have distinctly settled for ourselves
the right and wrong of this question, and have cov-
enanted with ourselves to keep the channels of
opinion open, each man for himself, I think we
have done all that is incumbent on most of us to
do. Sorely as we may feel the wrongs of the poor
slave in Carolina or in Cuba, we have each of us
our hands full of much nearer duties. . . . Let
him not exaggerate by his pity and his blame the
outrage of the Georgian or Virginian, forgetful of
the vices of his own town and neighborhood, of
himself. Let our own evils check the bitterness of
our condemnation of our brother, and, whilst we
insist on calling things by their right names, let us
not reproach the planter, but own that his misfor-
tune is at least as great as his sin."
To the abolitionists this tone appeared rather
cool and philosophical, and some of his friends tried
to rouse him to a fuller sense of the occasion. He
was insufficiently alive, they told him, to the inter-
ests of humanity, and apt to allow his disgust at
the methods or the manDers of the philanthropists
to blind him to the substantial importance of their
work. He was ready to admit that there might be
some foundation for the charge : —
" I had occasion to say the other day to Eliza-
beth Hoar that I like best the strong and worthy
persons, like her father, who support the social or-
der without hesitation or misgiving. I like these ;
FIRST SPEECH ON SLAVERY. 427
they never incommode us by exciting grief, pity,
or perturbation of any sort. But the professed
philanthropists, it is strange and horrible to say,
are an altogether odious set of people, whom one
would shun as the worst of bores and canters. I
have the same objection to dogmatism in Reform
as to dogmatism in Conservatism. The impatience
of discipline, the haste to rule before we have
served, to prescribe laws for nations and humanity
before we have said our own prayers or yet heard
the benediction which love and peace sing in our
own bosom, — these all dwarf and degrade ; the
great names are profaned ; our virtue is a fuss and
sometimes a fit. But my conscience, my unhappy
conscience, respects that hapless class who see the
faults and stains of our social order, and who pray
and strive incessantly to right the wrong; this
annoying class of men and women, though they
commonly find the work altogether beyond their
faculty, and their results are, for the present, dis-
tressing. They are partial, and apt to magnify
their own. Yes, and the prostrate penitent also, —
he is not comprehensive, he is not philosophical in
those tears and groans. Yet I feel that under him
and his partiality and exclusiveness is the earth
and the sea and all that in them is, and the axis
around which the universe revolves passes through
his body there where he stands."
It was not fastidiousness nor inertia that made
428 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Emerson averse to active participation in the phi-
lanthropic schemes, so much as a necessity of his
nature, which inclined him always to look for a
relative justification of the offending party or in-
stitution ; at any rate, disinclined him, as he said,
from coveting the office of constable. In judging
ourselves we rightly apply an absolute standard ;
but in judging others we ought to consider the
circumstances, and take care not to attribute to the
individual what belongs to his position : —
" Hostility, bitterness to persons or to the age,
indicate infirm sense, unacquaintance with men;
who are really at top selfish, and really at bottom
fraternal, alike, identical."
For us to keep slaves would be the sum of wick-
edness, but in the planter it may indicate only a
degree of self-indulgence which we may parallel
readily enough nearer home ; in attacking him we
are demanding of him a superiority to his condi-
tions which we do not demand of ourselves. He is
to blame, of course, but in the same sense the slave
is to blame for allowing himself to be held as a
slave : —
" The degradation of that black race, though
now lost in the starless spaces of the past, did not
come without sin. The condition is inevitable to
the men they are, and nobody can redeem them
but themselves. The exertions of all the aboli-
tionists are nugatory except for themselves. As
FIRST SPEECH ON SLAVERY. 429
far as they can emancipate the North from slavery,
well.
" The secret, the esoteric of abolition — a secret
too from the abolitionists — is that the negro and
the negro-holders are really of one party, and that
when the apostle of freedom has gained his first
point, of repealing the negro laws, he will find the
free negro is the type and exponent of that very
animal law ; standing as he does in nature below
the series of thought, and in the plane of vegetable
and animal existence, whose law is to prey on one
another, and the strongest has it.
" The abolitionist (theoretical) wishes to abolish
slavery, but because he wishes to abolish the black
man. He considers that it is violence, brute force,
which, counter to intellectual rule, holds property
in man; but he thinks the negro himself the very
representative and exponent of that brute, base
force ; that it is the negro in the white man which
holds slaves. He attacks Legree, Mac Duffie, and
slave-holders, North and South, generally, but be-
cause they are the foremost negroes of the world,
and fight the negro fight. When they are ex-
tinguished, and law, intellectual law, prevails, it
will then appear quickly enough that the brute in-
stinct rallies and centres in the black man. He is
created on a lower plane than the white, and eats
men, and kidnaps and tortures if he can. The negro
is imitative, secondary ; in short, reactionary merely
430 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
in his successes ; and there is no organization with
him in mental and moral spheres.
" It is becoming in the scholar to insist on cen-
tral soundness rather than on superficial applica-
tions. I am to demand the absolute right, affirm
that, do that ; but not to push Boston into a false,
showy, theatrical attitude, endeavoring to persuade
her she is more virtuous than she is."
Meantime he was heartily glad that men were
found willing and able to throw themselves un-
hesitatingly into the contest. They might be
wrong-headed, he said, but they were wrong-headed
in the right direction : —
" The haters of Garrison have lived to rejoice in
that grand world-movement which, every age or
two, casts out so masterly an agent for good. I
cannot speak of that gentleman without respect. I
found him the other day in his dingy office."
(Journal, 1844.)
He went to Garrison's office, perhaps, to concert
for a meeting which the abolitionists held in the
Concord Court - House * on the 1st of August in
this year (1844), to celebrate the anniversary of
the liberation of the slaves in the British West
Indies. Emerson delivered the address, which is
1 None of the churches would open their doors to the conven-
tion. At length Thoreau got leave to use the old court-house,
and himself rang the bell.
WEST INDIAN EMANCIPATION. 431
printed in the last edition of his works ; 1 a most
satisfactory performance (the Liberator says) to
the abolitionists who were present. In this speech
and in one a year later, Emerson went farther than
ever before in maintaining the negro's capability of
civilization. He esteemed the occasion of the ju-
bilee, he said, to be " the proud discovery that the
black race can contend with the white ; that in the
great anthem which we call History, — a piece of
many parts and vast compass, — after playing a
long time a very low and subdued accompaniment,
they perceive the time arrived when they can
strike in with effect and take a master's part in
the music. The civility of the world has reached
that pitch that their more moral genius is becom-
ing indispensable, and the quality of this race is to
be honored for itself."
And in a speech which I know only from the
report in the New York Tribune2 (for he never
printed it, and seems not even to have preserved
the manuscript), on the same anniversary in the
next year, at Waltham, he says the defence of
slavery in the popular mind is not a doubt of the
equity of the negro's cause, nor a stringent self-
interest, but the objection of an inferiority of race;
a fate, pronouncing against the abolitionist and the
philanthropist ; so that the good-will of amiable en-
thusiasts in the negro's behalf will avail him no
1 Collected Writings, xi. 129. 2 August 7, 1845.
432 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
more than a pair of oars against the falling ocean
at Niagara.
" And what is the amount of the conclusion in
which the men of New England acquiesce ? It is
that the Creator of the negro has given him up to
stand as a victim, a caricature of the white man
beside him ; to stoop under his pack, to bleed under
his whip. If that be the doctrine, then I say, if
He has given up his cause, He has also given up
mine, who feel his wrong. But it is not so ; the
universe is not bankrupt ; still stands the old heart
firm in its seat, and knows that, come what will, the
right is and shall be ; justice is forever and ever.
And what is the reply to this fatal allegation ? I
believe there is a sound argument derived from
facts collected in the United States and in the
West Indies in reply to this alleged hopeless infe-
riority of the colored race. But I shall not touch
it. I concern myself now with the morals of the
system, which seem to scorn a tedious catalogue of
particulars on a question so simple as this. The
sentiment of right, which is the principle of civili-
zation and the reason of reason, fights against this
damnable atheism. The Persians have a proverb:
Beware of the orphan ; for, when the orphan is
set a-crying, the throne of the Almighty is shaken
from side to side. Whatever may appear at the
moment, however contrasted the fortunes of the
black and the white, yet is the planter's an unsafe
WEST INDIAN EMANCIPATION 433
and an unblest condition. Nature fights on the
other side, and as power is ever stealing from the
idle to the busy hand, it seems inevitable that a
revolution is preparing, at no distant day, to set
these disjointed matters right."
He liked the sun's way of making civilization
cast off its disguises better than the storm's. It was
always a painful struggle with him when he felt
himself constrained to undertake the office of cen-
sor : as when, some years earlier than this, another
national crime, the violent removal of the Chero-
kee Indians by the State of Georgia, backed by the
army of the United States, forced from him a cry
of indignation in a letter to President Van Buren,1
which that sleek patriot probably never read.
" April 19, 1838. This disaster of the Chero-
kees, brought to me by a sad friend to blacken my
days and nights : I can do nothing why shriek ?
Why strike ineffectual blows ? I stir in it for the
sad reason that no other mortal will move, and if I
do not, why it is left undone. The amount of it, to
be sure, is merely a scream ; but sometimes a scream
is better than a thesis."
" Yesterday went the letter to Van Buren, — a
letter hated of me ; a deliverance that does not de-
liver the soid. I write my journal, I read my lec-
ture with joy ; but this stirring in the philanthropic
1 Appendix D.
434 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
mud gives me no peace. I will let the republic
alone until the republic comes to me. I fully sym-
pathize, be sure, with the sentiment I write ; but I
accept it rather from my friends than dictate it. It
is not my impulse to say it, and therefore my ge-
nius deserts me ; no muse befriends ; no music of
thought or word accompanies."
The same feeling, that sympathy with the aims
of the reformers must not tempt him beyond his
proper bounds, made him, after some hesitation,
draw back when he was urged to join in the Brook
Farm experiment in 1840.
" What a brave thing Mr. Ripley has done ! [he
writes to Miss Fuller ;] he stands now at the head
of the Church Militant, and his step cannot be
without an important sequel. For the ' commu-
nity,' I have given it some earnest attention and
much talk, and have not quite decided not to go.
But I hate that the least weight should hang on
my decision, — of me, who am so unpromising a
candidate for any society. At the name of a soci-
ety all my repulsions play, all my quills rise and
sharpen. I shall very shortly go, or send to George
Ripley my thoughts on the subject."
(Journal.) " October 17, 1840. Yesterday George
and Sophia Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and Alcott
discussed here the new social plans. I wished to
be convinced, to be thawed, to be made nobly mad
BROOK FARM. 435
by the kindlings before my eye of a new dawn of
human piety. But this scheme was arithmetic and
comfort ; a hint borrowed from the Tremont House
and United States Hotel ; a rage in our poverty
and politics to live rich and gentlemanlike ; an an-
chor to leeward against a change of weather. And
not once could I be inflamed, but sat aloof and
thoughtless ; my voice faltered and fell. It was
not the cave of persecution, which is the palace
of spiritual power, but only a room in the Astor
House hired for the Transcendentalists. I do not
wish to remove from my present prison to a prison
a little larger. I wish to break all prisons."
He wrote to Mr. Ripley, towards the end of the
year, that he had decided, " yet very slowly and,
I may almost say, with penitence," not to join
them ; giving his reasons for thinking himself
unfit, and adding some advice from Mr. Edmund
Hosmer, "a very intelligent farmer and a very
upright man in my neighborhood," concerning the
details of the farming.
" I approve every wild action of the experiment-
ers [he writes in his journal] ; I say what they say,
and my only apology for not doing their work is
preoccupation of mind. I have a work of my own,
which I know I can do with some success. It
would leave that undone if I should undertake with
them, and I do not see in myself any vigor equal
436 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
to such an enterprise. So I stay where I am, even
with the degradation of owning bank-stock and
seeing poor men suffer whilst the universal genius
apprises me of this disgrace, and beckons me to
the martyr's and redeemer's office. This debility
of practice, this staying by our work, is belief too ;
for obedience to a man's genius is the particular
of faith; by and by shall come the universal of
faith."
The following passage, endorsed " December 12,
1840," was sent to me by the late Reverend
William Henry Channing, as copied by Miss Fuller
from some letter or journal of Emerson's : —
" I have the habitual feeling that the whole of
our social structure — State, School, Religion, Mar-
riage, Trade, Science — has been cut off from its
root in the soul, and has only a superficial life, a
' name to live.' It would please me then to restore
for myself these fruits to their stock, or to accept
no church, school, state, or society which did not
found itself in my own nature. I should like, if I
cannot at once abolish, at least to tend to abolish
for myself all goods which are not a part of this
good ; to stand in the world the fool of ideas ; to
demonstrate all the parts of faith ; to renounce a
property which is an accident to me, has no rela-
tion to my character or culture, is holden and ex-
pended by no sweet and sublime laws, and my
dependence on which is an infirmity and a hurt to
BROOK FARM. 437
me. I should like to make my estate a document
of my faith, and not an anomalous fact which was
common to me, a believer, with a thousand unbe-
lievers. I know there must be a possible property
which flows directly from the nature of man, and
which may be earned and expended in perfect con-
sent with the growth of plants, the ebb and flow of
tides, and the orbit of planets. But now, as you
see, instead of being the hero of ideas and explor-
ing by a great act of trust those diviner modes
which the spirit will not fail to show to those who
dare to ask, I allow the old circumstance of mother,
wife, children, and brother to overpower my wish
to right myself with absolute Nature ; and I also
consent to hang, a parasite, with all the parasites
on this rotten system of property. This is but one
example. Diet, medicine, traffic, books, social in-
tercourse, and all the rest of our practices and
usages are equally divorced from ideas, are empir-
ical and false. I should like to put all my prac-
tices back on their first thoughts, and do nothing
for which I had not the whole world for my reason.
If there are inconveniences and what is called ruin
in the way, because we have so enervated and
maimed ourselves, yet it would be like dying of
perfumes to sink in the effort to reattach the deeds
of every day to the holy and mysterious recesses of
life.
" But how will Mr. R.'s project help me in all
438 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
this ? It is a pretty circuitous route, is it not, to
the few, simple conditions which I require ? I
want my own labor, instead of that which is hired,
— or, at least, that the hired shall be honorable
and honored. Mr. R.'s plan offers me this, and
with another great good for me, namely, direction
of my labor. But so would a farm which I should
buy, associating to me two or three friends and a
hired farmer, secure the same advantages. To
Mr. R.'s proposed school I attach no special inter-
est. I am sure that I should contribute my aid as
effectually to the education of the country on my
own lonely acres as I can in this formal institution.
Where a few conditions suffice, is it wise to enter
into a complex system ? I only wish to make my
house as simple as my vocation. I have not the
least faith in the enlargement of influence through
an external largeness of your plan. Merely the
thought in which you work makes the impression,
and never the circumstance. I have the dream that
a small family of ascetics, working together on a
secluded spot, would keep each other's benevolence
and invention awake, so that we should every day
fall on good hints and more beautiful methods.
Then there is no secluding of influences. It is the
nature of light to shine."
Nor did he see his way to joining the little com-
munity of Fruitlands, established a year or so later
than Brook Farm, by Mr. Alcott and some English
FRUITLANDS. 439
friends, Messrs. Lane and Wright, in the town of
Harvard, not far from Concord : —
" I begged A. to paint out his project, and he
proceeded to say that there should be found a farm
of a hundred acres, in excellent condition, with
good buildings, a good orchard, and grounds which
admitted of being laid out with great beauty ; and
this should be purchased and given to them in the
first place. I replied, You ask too much. This
is not solving the problem ; there are hundreds of
innocent young persons who, if you will thus estab-
lish and endow and protect them, will find it no
hard matter to keep their innocency. And to see
their tranquil household after all this has been done
for them will in no wise instruct or strengthen me.
But he will instruct and strengthen me who, there
where he is, unaided, in the midst of poverty, toil,
and traffic, extricates himself from the corruptions
of the same, and builds on his land a house of
peace and benefit, good customs and free thoughts.
But, replies A., how is this to be done ? How can
I do it, who have wife and family to maintain ? I
answered that he was not the person to do it, or he
would not ask the question. When he that shall
come is born, he will not only see the thing to be
done, but invent the life ; invent the ways and
means of doing it. The way you would show me
does not commend itself to me as the way of great-
ness. The spirit does not stipulate for land and
440 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
exemption from taxes, but in great straits and
want, or even on no land, with nowhere to lay its
head, it manages, without asking for land, to oc-
cupy and enjoy all land ; for it is the law by which
land exists ; it classifies and distributes the whole
creation anew. If you ask for application to par-
ticulars of this way of the spirit, I shall say that
the cooperation you look for is such cooperation as
colleges and all secular institutions look for, —
money. True cooperation comes in another man-
ner. A man quite unexpectedly shows me that
which I and all souls looked for ; and I cry, ' That
is it. Take me and mine. I count it my chief
good to do in my way that very thing.' That is
real cooperation, unlimited, uncalculating, infinite
cooperation. The spirit is not half so slow, or
mediate, or needful of conditions or organs as you
suppose. A few persons in the course of my life
have at certain moments appeared to me not meas-
ured men of five feet five or ten inches, but large,
enormous, indefinite ; but these were not great pro-
prietors nor heads of communities, but, on the con-
trary, nothing could be more private. They were
in some want or affliction or other relation which
called out the emanation of the spirit, which digni-
fied and transfigured them to my eyes. And the
good spirit will burn and blaze in the cinders of
our condition, in the drudgeries of our endeavors,
in the very process of extricating us from the evils
FRUITLANDS. 441
of a bad society. But this fatal fault in the logic
of your friends still appears ; their whole doctrine
is spiritual, but they always end with saying, Give
us much land and money. If I should give them
anything, it would be from facility and not from
beneficence. Unless one should say, after the max-
ims of the world, Let them drink their own error
to saturation, and this will be the best hellebore.
" Not this, but something like this I said ; and
then, as the discourse, as so often, touched char-
acter, I added that they were both intellectual:
they assumed to be substantial and central, to
be the very thing they said, but were not, but
only intellectual; or the scholars, the learned of
the spirit or central life. If they were that, —
if the centres of their life were coincident with
the centre of life, — I should bow the knee ; I
should accept without gainsaying all that they said,
as if I had said it, — just as our saint (though
morbid) Jones Very had affected us with what was
best in him, — but that I felt in them the slight
dislocation of these centres, which allowed them to
stand aside and speak of these facts knowingly.
Therefore I was at liberty to look at them, not as
the commanding fact, but as one of the whole circle
of facts. They did not like pictures, marbles, wood-
lands, and poetry ; I liked all these, and Lane and
Alcott too, as one figure more in the various land-
scape.
442 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" And now, I said, will you not please to pound
me a little before I go, just by way of squaring the
account, that I may not remember that I alone was
saucy ? Alcott contented himself with quarrelling
with the injury done to greater qualities in my
company by the tyranny of my taste, which cer-
tainly was very soft pounding. And so I parted
from the divine lotos-eaters." (Journal, Novem-
ber 19, 1842.)
Yet Emerson had so much at heart the results
aimed at by these communistic schemes that he
had already proposed to Mr. Alcott to join him in
the attempt to secure them in a simpler fashion.
The inequalities of condition which he saw about
him, even in New England, were painful to him,
— as indeed they never ceased to be. Later in life
he consoled himself, at the sight of great posses-
sions in the hands of men whom he loved and re-
spected, with the thought that these men stood in a
just relation to their wealth, having the faculty to
use it for the best advantage. None should be rich,
he says, but those who understand it ; but there
may be such. For himself, he felt at this time a
strong desire to clear himself of superfluities and
unnatural relations. In a paper on Labor, after-
wards rewritten for the lecture on " Man the Re-
former," 1 in 1841, he says : —
1 Collected Writings, i. 27.
EMERSON'S OWN EXPERIMENTS. 443
" Living has got to be too ponderous than that
the poor spirit can drag any longer this baggage-
train. Let us cut the traces. The bird and the
fox can get their food and house without degrada-
tion, without domestic servants, and without ties,
and why cannot we ? I much prefer going with-
out these things to the annoyance of having them
at too great cost. I am very uneasy when one
waits on me at table. I had rather stretch my arm
or rise from my chair than be served by one who
does it not from love. Why should not the phi-
losopher realize in his daily labor his high doctrine
of self -trust ? Let him till the fruitful earth under
the glad sun, and write his thought on the face of
the ground with hoe and spade. Let him put him-
self face to face with the facts of dire need, and
know how to triumph by his own warlike hands
and head over the grim spectres. Let him thus be-
come the fellow of the poor, and show them by
experiment that poverty need not be. Let him
show that labor need not enslave a man more
than luxury ; that labor may dwell with thought.
This is the heroic life possible in this age of Lon-
don, Paris, and New York. It is not easy ; if it
were it would not be heroic. But he who can solve
the problem for himself has solved the problem
not of a clique or corporation, but of entire human-
ity. He has shown every young man for a thou-
sand years to come how life may be led indepen-
444 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
dently, gracefully, justly. Religion does not seem
to me to tend now to a cidtus, as heretofore, but to a
heroic life. We find extreme difficulty in conceiv-
ing any church, any liturgy, any rite, that would be
quite genuine. But all things point at the house
and the hearth. Let us learn to lead a man's life.
I have no hope of any good in this piece of reform
from such as only wish to reform one thing ; which
is the misfortune of almost all projectors. A par-
tial reform in diet, or property, or war, or the
praise of the country-life, is always an extrava-
gance. A farm is a poor place to get a living
by, in the common expectation. But he who goes
thither in a generous spirit, with the intent to lead
a man's life, will find the farm a proper place. He
must join with it simple diet and the annihilation
by one stroke of his will of the whole nonsense of
living for show. He must take ideas instead of
customs. He must make the life more than meat,
and see, as has been greatly said, that the intel-
lectual world meets man everywhere ; in his dwell-
ing, in his mode of living. What a mountain of
chagrins, inconveniences, diseases, and sins would
sink into the sea with the uprise of this doctrine !
Domestic hired service would go over the dam.
Slavery would fall into the pit. Shoals of maladies
would be exterminated, and the Saturnian Age re-
vive.
He writes to his brother William : —
EMERSON'S OWN EXPERIMENTS. 445
Concord, December 2, 1840.
... I am quite intent on trying the experiment
of manual labor to some considerable extent, and
of abolishing or ameliorating the domestic service
in my household. Then I am grown a little im-
patient of seeing the inequalities all around me;
am a little of an agrarian at heart, and wish some-
times that I had a smaller house, or else that it
sheltered more persons. So I think that next
April we shall make an attempt to find house-room
for Mr. Alcott and his family under our roof ; for
the wants of the man are extreme as his merits are
extraordinary. But these last very few persons
perceive ; and it becomes the more imperative on
those few, of whom I am in some respects nearest,
to relieve them. He is a man who should be main-
tained at the public cost in the Prytaneum ; per-
haps one of these days he will be. ... At all
events, Lidian and I have given him an invitation
to establish his household with us for one year, and
have explained to him and Mrs. Alcott our views
or dreams respecting labor and plain living ; and
they have our proposal under consideration.
Mrs. Emerson loyally consented, though the
scheme appeared to her a wild one ; fortunately
Mrs. Alcott declined to come into it.
Meantime an experiment towards putting the do-
mestic service upon a more ideal footing was tried.
446 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
TO WILLIAM EMERSON".
Concokd, March 30, 1841.
. . . You know Lidian and I had dreamed that
we would adopt the country practice of having but
one table in the house. Well, Lidian went out the
other evening and had an explanation on the sub-
ject with the two girls. Louisa accepted the plan
with great kindness and readiness ; but Lydia, the
cook, firmly refused. A cook was never fit to come
to table, etc. The next morning, Waldo was sent
to announce to Louisa that breakfast was ready ;
but she had eaten already with Lydia, and refused
to leave her alone. With our other project we are
like to have the same fortune, as Mrs. Alcott is as
much decided not to come as her husband is ready
to come.
Napoleon's saying, " Respect the burden," was
a favorite maxim of Emerson's, and often incul-
cated upon his children. He was very considerate
in his treatment of servants ; winced visibly when
they were reproved, and was relieved when they
left the room, from fear lest something might
chance in conversation to make them feel dispar-
agement. He always respected their holidays,
even to the inconvenience of their employers, and
scrupulously avoided all occasions of unnecessary
increase of their work. At a birthday party at his
EMERSON'S OWN EXPERIMENTS. 447
house, the little guests in their play tumbled over
the hay-cocks, to the vexation of the hired man,
at whose complaint Emerson came out with long
strides : " Lads and lasses ! You must n't undo
hard work. The man has worked in the heat all
day ; now all go to work and put up the cocks : "
and stayed and saw it done, working himself.
Another part of the scheme, manual labor, was
no novelty to Emerson : he had been in the habit
of working in his garden, and speaks in his letters
to Miss Fuller of hoeing his corn and tomatoes ;
though he confesses that " this day-labor of mine
has hitherto a certain emblematic air, like the
ploughing of the Emperor of China," and that
his son Waldo begs him not to hoe his leg. But
now he wished that he " might make it an honest
sweat, and that these ornamental austerities might
become natural and dear." Accordingly, in the
spring (1841) he invited Thoreau to come and live
with him a year and teach him. " He is to have
his board, etc., for what labor he chooses to do
[Emerson writes to his brother William], and he
is thus far a great benefactor and physician to me,
for he is an indefatigable and a very skilful la-
borer, and I work with him as I should not with-
out him, and expect to be suddenly well and
strong ; though I have been a skeleton all the
spring, until I am ashamed. Thoreau is a scholar
and a poet, and as full of buds of promise as a
young apple-tree."
448 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Concord, April 22, 1841.
Dear Margaret, — Thanks for your kind so-
licitude, but though feeble, and of late feebler than
ever, I have no dangerous complaints, — nothing
but ridiculously narrow limits, which if I overpass
I must pay for it. As soon as my old friend the
south wind returns, the woods and fields and my
garden will heal me. Henry Thoreau is coming to
live with me, and work with me in the garden, and
teach me to graft apples. Do you know the issue
of my earlier plans, — of Mr. Alcott, liberty, equal-
ity, and a common table, etc. ? I will not write
out that pastoral here, but save it for the bucolical
chapter in my Memoirs. ... I am sorry we come
so quickly to the kernel and through the kernel of
Cambridge society ; but I think I do not know any
part of our American life which is so superficial.
The Hoosiers, the speculators, the custom-house
officers, — to say nothing of the fanatics, — interest
us much more. If I had a pocketful of money, I
think I should go down the Ohio and up and down
the Mississippi by way of antidote to what small
remains of the Orientalism (so endemic in these
parts) there may still be in me, — to cast out, I
mean, the passion for Europe by the passion for
America ; and our reverence for Cambridge, which
is only a part of our reverence for London, must
be transferred across the Alleghany ridge. Yet I,
perverse, take an extreme pleasure in reading Au-
EMERSON'S OWN EXPERIMENTS. 449
brey's Anecdotes, letters, etc., of English scholars,
Oxonian and other ; for, next to the culture of
man, the demonstration of a talent is the most at-
tractive thing, and English literary life has been,
if it is no longer, a most agreeable and complete
circle of means and ends. . . . We ought to have
good verses in the next number [of the Dial], for
we must have levity sufficient to compensate the
morgue of Unitarianism and Shelley and Ideal
Life and Reform in the last number. Lidian
sends her love to you. She is not well, but thinks
you shall make her well when you come. We read
Porphyry and Due de St. Simon and Napier's Pe-
ninsular War and Carlyle's lectures, to pass away
the cold and rainy season, and wish for letters
every day from Margaret Fuller. Do you know
that in August I am to go to Waterville, a Baptist
college, and deliver a literary oration to some
young men ? For which of my sins ? Why should
we read many books, when the best books do not
now avail us to yield that excitement and solid joy
which fifteen years ago an article in the Edinburgh,
or almost a college poem or oration, would give ?
. . . And yet — and yet — towards evening and
on rainy days I wish to go to Berlin and to Dres-
den before I quite amputate that nonsense called
Europe.
Yours affectionately, Waldo E.
450 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
As to the garden, it did not take him long to
find out that he had another garden where he could
labor to more advantage. In his journal, before
the end of the year, he says : —
" If I judge from my own experience, I should
unsay all my fine things, I fear, concerning the
manual labor of literary men. If you would be a
scholar you must come into the conditions of the
scholar. Tell children what you say about writing
and laboring with the hands ! Can the glass-worker
make glass by minding it at odd times ? Or the
chemist analyze soils? Or the pilot sail a ship
through the Narrows ? And the greatest of arts,
the subtilest and of most miraculous effect, you
fancy is to be practised with a pen in one hand and
a crow-bar in the other ? The writer shall not dig.
To be sure, he may work in the garden, but his
stay there must be measured, not by the needs of
the garden, but of the study." " When the terres-
trial corn, beets, onions, and tomatoes flourish [he
writes to Miss Fuller] the celestial archetypes do
not."
Another small reform he tried about this time, —
partly induced, perhaps, by the example of Mr. Al-
cott, — namely, vegetarianism ; but soon gave it up,
finding it of no particular advantage.
In any effort he might feel called upon to make
towards better modes of living, Emerson was with-
EMERSON'S OWN EXPERIMENTS. 451
out help from the love of innovation. There was, to
be sure, a certain presumption in his mind in favor
of opinions which he had not been accustomed to
hold, but, when it came to practice, he was slow to
quit the accustomed ways and glad to return to
them. Of the tendency to variation, which plays
so important a part in civil as in natural history,
he had a very small share. He liked to hear of
new projects, because they showed activity of mind ;
adoption of them was another matter ; it must come
from a distinct call in the individual, and not from
a persuasion that such and such a course is advi-
sable for people in general. Still less sympathy
had he with chiding, or with the people (though
some of them were his friends) who made a duty
of refusing to vote or to pay taxes.
" Don't run amuck against the world. Have a
good case to try the question on. As long as the
State means you well, do not refuse your pistareen.
You have a tottering cause ; ninety parts of the
pistareen it will spend for what you also think
good, ten parts for mischief : you cannot fight
heartily for a fraction. Wait till you have a good
difference to join issue upon."
" The non-resistants go about and persuade good
men not to vote, and so paralyze the virtue that is
in the conservative party, and thus the patriotic
vote in the country is swamped. But, though the
non-voting is right in the non-resistants, it is a
452 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
patch and pedantry in their converts ; not in their
system, not a just expression of their state of
mind."
" A thought he could find as good a ground
for quarrel in the State tax as Socrates did in the
edict of the Judges. Then, I say, be consistent,
and never more put an apple or a kernel of corn
into your mouth. Would you feed the devil?
Say boldly, There is a sword sharp enough to cut
sheer between flesh and spirit, and I will use it,
and not any longer belong to this double-faced,
equivocating, mixed Jesuitical universe. The abo-
litionists should resist, because they are literalists ;
they know exactly what they object to, and there
is a government possible which will content them.
Remove a few specified grievances, and this present
commonwealth will suit them. They are the new
Puritans, and as easily satisfied. But you nothing
will content. No government short of a monarchy
consisting of one king and one subject will appease
you. Your objection, then, to the State of Massa-
chusetts is deceptive. Your true quarrel is with
the state of Man."
(Journal.) " Jock could not eat rice, because it
came west ; nor molasses, because it came north ;
nor put on leathern shoes, because of the methods
by which leather was procured ; nor indeed wear a
woolen coat. But Dick gave him a gold eagle,
that he might buy wheat and rye, maple sugar and
POSITION WITH REGARD TO REFORM. 453
an oaken chest, and said : This gold piece, unhappy
Jock, is molasses, and rice, and horse-hide, and
sheep-skin."
" The philosophers of Fruitlands have such an
image of virtue before their eyes that the poetry of
man and nature they never see ; the poetry that is
in a man's life, the poorest pastoral, clownish life,
the light that shines on a man's hat, in a child's
spoon, the sparkle on every wave and on every
mote of dust, they see not."
His position with regard to reform is summed
up in the following fragment of a letter, without
address or date, but written, I conjecture, about
1840 : —
My dear Friend, — My silence is a very poor
account of the pleasure your letter and your book
gave me, and I feel that it is very likely to be mis-
interpreted. . . . Your letter was very grateful to
me, and spoke the language of a pure region. That
language let us always speak. I would willingly
never hear any other. It blended in my ear with
whatever of best and highest I have heard among
my companions, and fortifies my good hope of what
society may yet realize for us. A few persons with
whom I am acquainted do indeed stand in strong
contrast with the general tone of social life. They
think society faithless and base : society in its turn
reckons them dreamers and fanatics. And they
454 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
must pass for such until they can make their fine
words good, by adding to their criticism on the
pretension and sensuality of men a brave dem-
onstration to the senses of their own problems.
Certainly virtue has its arithmetic, as well as vice,
and the pure must not eat the bread of the im-
pure, but must live by the sweat of their own face,
and in all points make their philosophy affirmative.
Otherwise it tends so fast downward to mere rail-
ing and a greater falseness than that which it rep-
robates. The first impulse of the newly stricken
mind, stricken by light from heaven, is to lament
the death with which it is surrounded. As far as
the horizon it can scarcely see anything else than
tombs and ghosts and a sort of dead-alive popula-
tion. War, war without end seems then to be its
lot ; how can it testify to the truth, to life, but by
affirming in all places that death is here and death
is there, and all which has a name to live is dead ?
Yet God has higher and better methods. Come
out, he saith, from this death, once and forever.
Not by hate of death, but by new and larger life
is death to be vanquished. In thy heart is life.
Obey that ; it is inventive, creative, prodigal of
life and beauty. Thence heroism, virtue, redemp-
tion, succor, opportunity, come to thee and to all.
... If thou wouldst have the sense of poverty,
squalid poverty, bestir thyself in endless procla-
mation of war against the sins of society, thyself
WOMAN'S RIGHTS. 455
appearing to thyself the only exception. If thou
wouldst inherit boundless joyful wealth, leave the
war to such as like it.
His opinion of the later agitation for according
political functions to women is indicated in the
following letter to a lady who had asked him to
take part in calling a convention for that pur-
pose : —
Concord, September 18, 1850.
Dear Madam, — I have waited a very long
time since I had your letter, because I had no clear
answer to give. . . . The fact of the political and
civil wrongs of woman I deny not. If women
feel wronged, then they are wronged. But the
mode of obtaining a redress, namely, a public con-
vention called by women, is not very agreeable to
me, and the things to be agitated for do not seem
to me the best. Perhaps I am superstitious and
traditional, but, whilst I should vote for every
franchise for women, ... if women asked or if
men denied it, I should not wish women to wish
political functions, nor, if granted, assume them.
I imaarine that a woman whom all men would feel
to be the best would decline such privileges if
offered, and feel them to be rather obstacles to her
legitimate influence. Yet I confess I lay no great
stress on my opinion; ... at all events, that I
may not stand in the way of any right, you are at
456 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
liberty, if you wish it, to use my name as one of
the inviters of the convention, though I shall not
attend it, and shall regret that it is not rather a
private meeting of thoughtful persons sincerely in-
terested, instead of what a public meeting is pretty
sure to be, — a heartless noise, which we are all
ashamed of when it is over.
Yours respectfully, R. W. Emerson.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BUSINESS OP LECTURING. PECUNIARY CIR-
CUMSTANCES. POEMS. DEATH OP HIS FIRST
CHILD. HIS WAYS WITH HIS CHILDREN.
The period from 1835 to 1845, — the thirty-
second to the forty-second year of Emerson's life,
— the heyday of the Boston Transcendentalism,
was also the period of his greatest productivity.
That it took the shape of lectures was due very
much to circumstances, and not to his will. There
was something questionable, if not repugnant, to
him in thus bringing his thoughts to market. " I
feel [he writes in his journal] that my life is friv-
olous and public ; I am as one turned out-of-doors ;
I live in a balcony or on the street ; " and he is
constantly resolving to withdraw. But there was
really no help ; his family expenses were increas-
ing ; other children, two daughters and another son,
were born to him ; other persons besides those of
his household were partly dependent on him ; he
kept open house ; and, with the strictest economy,
his outlay outran his income. He published dur-
ing this period two books (the first and second
series of Essays), which afterwards sold well, but
458 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
they brought him at first very little money. Em-
erson was always careful about his expenditures,
and he had nothing of the contempt for money
which many persons at that time thought becom-
ing, but he had no skill to earn it. " It is an essen-
tial element to our knowledge of the man [he says
in his lecture on Wealth] what, was his opinion,
practice, and success in regard to the institution of
property ; " and in this regard Emerson's position
has not always been understood. The pains he
gave himself with bargaining and with bookseller's
accounts for Carlyle, and the common sense he al-
ways showed in practical affairs, have sometimes
given the impression that he was a shrewd man of
business. But in bargaining for himself he was
easily led to undervalue his own claims and to take
an exaggerated view of those of the other party,
and so usually bought dear and sold cheap. Amus-
ing instances could be given, were it on the whole
worth while. He had, it is true, from the first, the
help of his friend Mr. Abel Adams in his money
matters, and afterwards that of other efficient
helpers ; but he thought it the duty of every man
to attend to these things for himself : —
" The gods deal very strictly with us, make out
quarter-bills and exact specie payment, allow no
partnerships, no stock companies, no arrangements,
but hold us personally liable to the last cent and
mill. The youth, charmed with his intellectual
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 459
dream, can neither do this nor that : ' My father
lived in the care of land and improvements, valued
his meadow, his mill-dam ; why must I be worried
with hay and grass, my cranberry-field, my burned
wood-lot, my broken mill, the rubbish lumber, my
crop, my trees ? Can I not have a partner ? Why
not organize our new society of poets and lovers,
and have somebody with talent for business to look
after these things, — some deacons of trees and
grass and buckwheat and cranberries, — and leave
me to letters and philosophy ? ' But the nettled
gods say, Go to ruin with your arrangements ; you
alone are to answer for your things. Leases and
covenants shall be punctually signed and sealed.
Arithmetic and the practical study of cause and
effect in the laws of Indian corn and rye-meal are
as useful as betting is in second-class society to
teach accuracy of statement, or duelling, in coun-
tries where the perceptions are obtuse, to hold men
to courteous behavior. To a certain extent every
individual is holden to the study and management
of his domestic affairs. It is a peremptory point
of virtue that his independence be secured, and
there is no more decisive training for all manly
habits than the household. Take from me the feel-
ing that I must depend on myself, give me the
least hint that I have good friends and backers
there in reserve who will gladly help me, and in-
stantly I relax my diligence. I obey the first im-
460 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
pulse of generosity that is to cost me nothing, and
a certain slackness will creep over all my conduct
of my affairs."
Emerson's management, however, did not tend
to the positive increase of his worldly goods. " My
prudence [he says] consists in avoiding and go-
ing without ; not in the inventing of means and
methods ; not in adroit steering ; not in gentle re-
pairing." For the filling of his purse the only
means he could invent was lecturing. As his name
grew more widely known to the managers of the
country lyceums in New England and then at the
West, he could, with much travelling, collect fees
enough to fill the ever-yawning gap betwixt income
and outgo, though never much more than fill it.
His fees in those days were small; not so large,
perhaps, as more skilful management might have
made them. He writes to Mr. Alexander Ireland
in 1847 that the most he ever received was $570
for ten lectures ; in Boston, fifty dollars ; in the
country lyceums, ten dollars and travelling ex-
penses. Then, from the liberal style of his house
and his housekeeping, he passed with his neighbors
for a well-to-do man, and paid, his friends thought,
more than a fair proportion of the town taxes. So
it came about that all these years in the forties
were years of unremitted watchfulness and some-
times anxiety to keep out of debt. This appears
from time to time in his letters to his brother Wil-
liam in New York : —
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 461
" August 3, 1839. Carlyle's accounts have re-
quired what were for me very considerable ad-
vances, and so have impoverished me in the cur-
rent months very much. I shall learn one day, if
I live much longer, to keep square with the world,
which is essential to my freedom of mind.
" August 17. I see plainly I shall have no
choice about lecturing again next winter. I must
do it. Here in Concord they send me my tax-bill
for the current year, $161.73.
" April 4, 1840. I got home yesterday morning.
I crowed unto myself on the way home on the
strength of my three hundred dollars earned in
New York and Providence. So should I pay my
debts. But pride must have a fall : the Atlas
Bank declared no dividend ; so I find myself pretty
nearly where I was before. At Providence I might
have enlarged my receipts by undertaking a course
of lectures on my own account, after my six were
ended ; but I preferred not.
"April 20, 1840. I suppose that I am now at the
bottom of my wheel of debt and, shall not hastily
venture lower. But how could I help printing
' Chartism,' 103 pages, sent to me for that express
purpose, and with the encouragement of the book-
sellers? They will give T. C. fifteen cents per
copy.
" May 11, 1840. J. Munroe & Co., in making
out the account of T. C. [find] he was in my debt
462 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
between six and seven hundred dollars, although
some important amounts paid by me were not
entered in the account.
" October 7, 1841. This winter I must hang
out my bush again, and try to sell good wine of
Castaly at the Masonic Temple. Failing there, I
will try the west end of New York, or of Philadel-
phia, or, as I have lately been challenged to do, of
Baltimore.
" October 16, 1843. I think not to lecture by
courses this winter ; only by scattering guerillas,
and see if I can make a new book [the second
series of Essays], of which the materials collect
themselves day by day. Yet I am poor enough to
need to lecture."
And lecture he did, every winter but one, from
the time he came to Concord, so long as he was
able ; gradually extending his field from year to
year towards the West.
Some of the lectures of the course on the " Pres-
ent Age," in 1839-40, were repeated in Provi-
dence, R. I., and in New York, as well as near
Boston. The next winter, 1840-41, he seems to
have turned away from lecturing to the preparation
of a volume of essays, which came out in the spring
of 1841. In the summer, being asked to deliver an
address at Waterville College, Maine, he went down
to Nantasket for a breath of sea-air. Emerson,
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 463
though he was born on the edge of the salt water,
was a stranger to the sea, and this visit made a
strong impression on him.
Worrick's Hotel,
Nantasket Beach, July 13, 1841.
Dear Lidian : . . . I find this place very good
for me on many accounts, perhaps as good as any
public place or house full of strangers could be.
I read and write, and have a scheme of my speech
in my head. I read Plato, I swim, and be it known
unto you I did verily catch with hook and line yes-
terday morning two haddocks, a cod, a flounder,
and a pollock, and a perch. . . . The sea is great,
but reminds me all the time of Malta, Sicily, and
my Mediterranean experiences, which are the most
that I know of the ocean ; for the sea is the same
in summer all the world over. Nothing can be so
bland and delicious as it is. I had fancied some-
thing austere and savage, a touch of iron in it,
which it hardly makes good. I love the dear chil-
dren, and miss their prattle. . . . Take great care
of yourself, and send me immediate word that you
are well and hope everything good. That hope
shall the Infinite Benevolence always justify.
Your affectionate husband,
Waldo E.
464 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
TO MISS FULLER.
My dear Margaret : . . . I am here making
a sort of peace-offering to the god of waters,
against whom, ever since my childhood, imprisoned
in streets and hindered from fields and woods, I
have kept a sort of grudge. Until lately every
landscape that had in it the smallest piece of the
sea seemed to me a little vulgarized (shall I say?)
and not quite festal. Now a surfeit of acorns and
whortleberry-pastures has restored the equilibrium
of my eyes and ears, and this beach and grand sea-
line receive me with a sort of paternal love. . . .
I gaze and listen by day, I gaze and listen by
night, and the sea and I shall be good friends all
the rest of my life. I quite comprehend how
Greece should be Greece, lying in the arms of that
sunny sea. Cut off its backwoods from New Eng-
land, and it would be more likely to repeat that
history of happy genius. Is it these few foolish
degrees of the thermometer that make England
(Old and New) so tough and mighty instead of so
graceful and keen ? Really this summer bay glistens
before my eyes so azure and spiritual that I won-
der to think that the only question it suggests to
the tall and tanned denizens along these sounding
shores is, "How's fish?" And inland, the same
question, a little magnified and superficially varied,
makes Wall Street and State Street. But Attica
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 465
and Peloponnesus were not so easily pleased. I
have come down here with by-ends, else I should not
be of the true New England blood I celebrate. I
hope to find an oration under some of the boulders,
or, more probably, within some of the spouting-
horns of this shore.
To another friend : —
" I like the sea. What an ancient, pleasant sound
is this of the rubbing of the sea against the land :
this satiating expanse, too, — the only thing on
earth that compares with the sky in contenting the
eye, which it more contents beheld from the shore
than on the ocean. And then these pretty gliding
columnar sail which so enliven and adorn the field."
July 21.
Dear Lidian : . . . I am very glad you get on
so happily and hopefully at home, though I do not
like what you say of mother's fasting and languor
in the heats. It is time her son should come home.
I wish he was a better son ; but Elizabeth will
come back again soon, whose refreshing influences
none of us can quite resist. I have read Henry's
verses thrice over, with increasing pleasure ; they
are very good. I wish I had any to return, but
the beach has not yielded me any. If I did not
remember that all my life long I had thought To-
day always unprofitable and the muses of the Pres-
466 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ent Hour always unkind, I should think myself on
this present 21st of July under some ban, that
nothing tuneful and nothing wise should visit my
heart or be spoken by my lips. But the saying
of the stream is the motto also of men : " And,
the more falls I get, move faster on." We fat on
our failures and by our dumbness we speak. . . .
Thanks again for the news from the nursery. All
angels dwell with the boy and the girl, and with all
who speak and behave to them worthily ! In the
pocket of the coat I will put a pebble from the
beach for Waldo. . . .
To his brother William, after his return home : —
Concord, July 27, 1841.
At Nantasket I found delicious and bracing airs
and sunniest waters, which reminded me of nothing
but my Mediterranean experiences ; for I have
never seen so much of the sea before at home. I
hoped there to write an oration, but only my out-
line grew larger and larger, until it seemed to defy
all possibility of completion. Desperate of success
abroad, I rushed home again ; having before found
that I could write out of no inkstand but my own.
Perhaps not out of that.
Yet, in the Waterville address, delivered on the
11th of August, we seem to find a touch of the
sea, " inexact and boundless," yet distinct in its tone
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 467
of suggestion ; and Emerson himself, when Mr.
Whipple long afterwards praised it to him, con-
fessed that it was " the heat and happiness of what I
thought a real inspiration " that was extinguished
by the cold reception which the discourse met, and
the warning of the presiding minister in his clos-
ing prayer against its heresies and wild notions.1
TO MISS FULLER.
Concord, September 8, 1841.
Dear Margaret : ... At Waltham I promised
to consider and ascertain whether I could supply
you with some prose pages in a fortnight from Phi
Beta Kappa night. After turning over many top-
ics, I fancied that I might possibly furnish you
with a short article on Landor, and I am now try-
ing to dissolve that pearl or opal in a crucible that
is perhaps too small ; the fire may be too low, or
the menstruum too weak. But something I will
send you on Friday or Saturday at farthest. . . .
I have nothing to say ; not a mouse stirring in all
the horizon. Not a letter comes to me from any
1 Recollections of Eminent Men, etc. By Edwin Percy Whip-
ple. Boston, 1887 : p. 145. The same story is told of the Middle-
bury (Vt. ) address, four years later. Possibly, in his account to
Mr. Whipple, Emerson confounded them together. The minis-
ter's prayer was that they might be delivered from ever again
hearing such transcendental nonsense from the sacred desk. Em-
erson, the story goes, asked the name of the clergyman, and said,
' ' He seems a very conscientious, plain-spoken man. ' '
468 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
quarter ; not a new book ; not a vision out of the
sky of night or noon. And yet I remember that
the autumn has arrived, and already I have felt his
infusions in the air, — wisest and preciousest of
seasons. Presently it will be — will it not ? — the
rage to die. After so much precocity, apathy, and
spiritual bankruptcy, the age of suicide may be
shortly expected. We shall die with all manner of
enthusiasm. Nothing at the book-shops but Wer-
ther, and Cato by Plutarch. Buddhism cometh in
like a flood. Sleep is better than waking, death
than life. The serpent of the pyramids has begun
to swallow himself. The scorpion-stung scorpion
is the only cipher and motto. . . .
November 9. ... I read little, I write little. I
seek, but with only my usual gypsy diligence, to
drive my loitering troops metaphysical into pha-
lanx, into line, into section ; but the principle of
infinite repulsion and every one for himself, and
the hatred of society which animates their master,
animates them to the most beautiful defiance.
These are the asserters of immortality ; these are
they who by implication prove the length of the
day in which such agents as we shall work ; for in
less than millenniums what towers could be built,
what brick could be laid, if every straw was enemy
to every straw ! Gray clouds, short days, moon-
less nights, a drowsy sense of being dragged easily
somewhere by that locomotive Destiny, which, never
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 469
seen, we yet know must be hitched on to the cars
wherein we sit, — that is all that appears in these
November weeks. Let us hope that, as often as
we have defamed days which turned out to be ben-
efactors, and were whispering oracles in the very
droning nurses' lullabies which soothed us to sleep,
so this may prove a profitable time. . . .
This was the time of Emerson's Transcendental
apogee, the extreme of his impulse to withdraw
from lecturing and betake himself to solitary con-
templation. Henceforth he lectured diligently.
In the course on " The Times," in the winter 1841-
42, his impatience of the "universal whiggery,"
that is, of decent, self-complacent routine, is bal-
anced by a more explicit recognition of the claims
of the actual order of things, not merely as inev-
itable, but as the germ of a better. Three of these
lectures, " The Times," " The Conservative," and
"The Transcendentalist," were published in the
Dial, and afterwards in the first volume of his
collected writings. The course was repeated in
Providence, in New York, and elsewhere. In 1843
he read five lectures on " New England " in New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places,
spending the whole winter away from home.
470 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Baltimore, January 7, 1843.
Deae Margaret, — I received in Boston your
packet for William Channing, and the next morn-
ing I left it with my brother in New York. I
spent one night at Staten Island [with William]
and two nights in Philadelphia, and am here ready
to attend high mass in the Cathedral to-morrow
morning. In Philadelphia I had great pleasure in
chatting with Furness, for we had ten or a dozen
years to go over and compare notes upon. . . . And
he is the happiest companion. Those are good
companions to whom we have the keys. How true
and touching in the romance is the saying, " But
you can never be to them Vich Ian Vohr" ! and
each of us is an unsuppliable Vich Ian Vohr to
somebody. Furness is my dear gossip, almost a
gossip for the gods, there is such a repose of worth
and honor in the man. He is a hero-worshipper,
and so collects the finest anecdotes, and told very
good stories of Mrs. Butler, Dr. Channing, etc. I
meant to add, a few lines above, that the tie of
school-fellow and playmate from the nursery on-
ward is the true clanship and key that cannot be
given to another. At Mrs. Morrison's, last night, I
heard Knoop and the Sefiora de Goni ; which was
very good exercise, — " me satis exercuisti" said
the honest professor to the young Sam. Clarke when
he wrangled, — and we are all glad to be turned
into strings and finely and thoroughly played upon.
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 471
But the guitar is a mean, small-voiced instrument,
and but for the dignity that attaches to every na-
tional instrument, and its fine form, would not be
tolerated, would it? Very hard work and very
small cry, Senora.
Sunday, p. m. This morning I went to the
Cathedral to hear mass, with much content. It is
so dignified to come where the priest is nothing
and the people nothing, and an idea for once ex-
cludes these impertinences. The chanting priest,
the pictured walls, the lighted altar, the surpliced
boys, the swinging censer, every whiff of which I
inhaled, brought all Rome again to mind. And
Rome can smell so far ! It is a dear old church,
— the Roman, I mean, — and to-day I detest the
Unitarians and Martin Luther and all the parlia-
ment of Barebones. We understand so well the
joyful adhesion of the Winckelmanns and Tiecks
and Schlegels, — just as we seize with joy the fine
romance and toss the learned Heeren out of the
window ; unhappily with the same sigh as belongs
to the romance, — " Ah, that one word of it were
true ! " One small element of new views has, how-
ever, got into the American cathedral, namely,
pews ; and after service I detected another, a rail-
road which runs from one angle of the altar down
into the broad aisle, for the occasional transporta-
tion of a pulpit. We are as good for that as the
French, who pared apples at dinner with little guil-
472 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
lotines. ... In Baltimore, though I have enquired
as diligently as Herod the king after holy chil-
dren, I have not yet heard of any in whom the
spirit of the great gods dwelleth. And yet, with-
out doubt, such are in every street. Travelling I
always find instructive, but its lessons are of no
sudden application. I cannot use them all in less
than seven transmigrations of Indur, hardly one of
them in this present mortal and visible. . . .
Your friend, Waldo.
TO HIS WIFE.
January 8, 1843.
To-day I heard high mass in the Cathedral
here, and with great pleasure. It is well for my
Protestantism that we have no cathedral in Con-
cord ; E. H. and I should be confirmed in a fort-
night. The Unitarian church forgets that men are
poets. Even Mr. himself does not bear it in
mind.
(Journal.) "The Catholic religion respects
masses of men and ages. It is in harmony with
nature, which loves the race and ruins the individ-
ual. The Protestant has his pew, which, of course,
is the first step to a church for every individual
citizen, a church apiece."
In 1844-45 he lectured in many places, and still
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 473
more widely in 1845-46, giving, this winter, the
course on " Representative Men." He complains
in his journal of " the long, weary absences at New
York and Philadelphia. I am a bad traveller;
the hotels are mortifications to all sense of well-
being in me. The people who fill them oppress
me with their excessive virility, and it would soon
become intolerable but for a few friends, who, like
women, temper the arid mass. Henry James was
true comfort ; wise, gentle, polished, with heroic
manners, and a serenity like the sun.
" I was born to stay at home, not to ramble. I
was not made for an absentee. I have no thoughts,
no aims, and seem never to have had any. I must
cower down into my own fens presently, and con-
sult the gods again."
He writes to a friend from one of these lectur-
ing-tours : —
" It is strange how people act on me. I am not
a pith-ball nor raw silk, yet to human electricity is
no piece of humanity so sensible. I am forced to
live in the country, if it were only that the streets
make me desolate. Yet if I talk with a man of
sense and kindness I am imparadised at once.
Pity that the light of the heart should resemble
the light of the eyes in being so external, and not
to be retained when the shutters are closed. Now
that I am in the mood for confession, you must
even hear the whole. It is because I am so ill a.
474 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
member of society ; because men turn me, by their
mere presence, to wood and to stone ; because I do
not get the lesson of the world where it is set be-
fore me, that I need more than others to run out
into new places and multiply my chances for obser-
vation and communion. Therefore, whenever I
get into debt, which usually happens once a year,
I must make the plunge into this great odious river
of travellers, into these wild eddies of hotels and
boarding-houses, — farther, into these dangerous
precincts of charlatanism, namely, lectures ; that
out of all the evil I may draw a little good, in the
correction which every journey makes to my exag-
geration, in the plain facts I get, and in the rich
amends I draw for many listless days in the dear
society of here and there a wise and great heart.
I hate the details, but the whole foray into a city
teaches me much."
Philadklphia, January 20, 1843.
Dear Lidian : . . . I find that advantage as
before in wandering so far from home, that I be-
come acquainted with " the Indians who have the
Spirit." ... I have seen no winter since I left New
York, but the finest October weather prevails. The
bland speech and courtly manners of these people,
too, is as kindly a contrast to our more selfish man-
ners. If I ask my way in the street, there is sure
to be some gracefulness in conveying the informa-
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 475
tion. And the service of the negroes in the hotels
is always courteous. It looks as if it would be a
long time before I get home, and I am getting tired
of my picnic. I learn something all the time, but
I write nothing, and, as usual, vow each week that
I will not play Signor Blitz again. So you must
find out, dear wife, how to starve gracefully, —
you and I and all of us, another year. Very re-
freshing is it to me to know that I have a good
home. ... So peace be with you, and joy !
Yours, Waldo.
TO WILLIAM EMERSON.
Philadelphia, January 8, 1843.
I had a very comfortable ride hither from the
cabin of the Jersey ferry-boat, and soon got snugly
ensconced in the warm entrails of an argument on
the divine decrees with a thoroughbred Presby-
terian clergyman. B was here, but I had
tasted him, and preferred the bear's meat which
we can never get at home. I can very well afford
to set up this lottery. I can never draw quite a
blank ; for though I wish money to-day, I wish ex-
perience always, and a good failure is always a good
experience, which is mother of much poetry and
prose for me.
476 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
TO MISS FULLER.
Poktland, December 21, 1842.
. . . Many and many a mile, nothing but snow
and pine-trees ; and in travelling it is possible
sometimes to have a superfluity of these fine ob-
jects ; the villages few and cold as the Tobolsk and
Irkutsk of Siberia, and I bethought myself, as I
stared into the white night, whether I had not com-
mitted some misdemeanor against some Czar, and,
while I dreamed of Maine, was bound a thousand
versts into Arctic Asia. . . . Here have I seen,
besides others, Judge , who was lately a com-
missioner on the part of Maine on the Ashburton
negotiations ; a very sensible person, but, what is
remarkable, called a good Democrat here, whilst
his discourse is full of despondency on the entire
failure of republican institutions in this country :
they have neither cherished talent nor virtue ; they
have never had large nor even prudent aims, — none
but low personal ones, and the lowest ; and the offi-
cers of government are taken every year from a lower
and lower class. And the root of the whole evil
is universal suffrage. . . . Every man deserves an
answer, but few get one. Words are a pretty game,
but Experience is the only mathematician who can
solve problems ; and yet I amused the man with
my thrum that anarchy is the form and theocracy
the fact to which we and all people are tending,
THE BUSINESS OF LECTURING. 477
which seemed to him a pretty soap-bubble. I
never see people without observing that strength or
weakness is a kind of atmospheric fact : if a man is
so related to the topic and the by-standers that
he happily expresses himself, well ; if not, he is a
fool, — quite independently of the relations of both
to reason and truth. Plainly we are cackling
geese when we do not feel relations, let the Abso-
lute be as grand as he will. Therefore let time
and space stand, and man and meeting-house, and
Washington and Paris, and phrenology and mes-
merism, and the old Beelzebub himself ; for rela-
tions shall rule, and realities shall strike sail.
It was not merely the incidental annoyances or
the disturbance to his habits that made it repug-
nant to Emerson " to go peddling with my literary
pack of notions ; " but there was also a recoil from
what seemed like a profanation of things dear and
sacred. " Are not lectures a kind of Peter Parley's
story of Uncle Plato, and a puppet show of the El-
eusinian mysteries ? "
He felt this sometimes even in the select conver-
sations : —
TO MISS FULLER.
Concord, March 14, 1841.
The young people wished to know what possessed
me to tease you with so much prose, and becloud
the fine conversation. I could only answer that it
478 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
was not an acute fit of Monday evening, but was
chronic and constitutional with me. I asked them
in my turn when they had heard me talk anything
else. So I silenced them. But how to reply to
your fine Eastern pearls with chuckstones of gran-
ite and slate ? There is nothing for it but to pay
you the grand compliment, which you deserve if we
can pay it, of speaking the truth. Even prose I
honor in myself and others very often as an awk-
ward worship of truth ; it is the plashing and strug-
gling in the water of one who would learn to swim.
I know but one solution to my nature and relations,
which I find in remembering the joy with which in
my boyhood I caught the first hint of the Berke-
leyan philosophy, and which I certainly never lost
sight of afterwards. There is a foolish man who
goes up and down the country giving lectures on
electricity : this one secret he has, to draw a spark
out of every object, from desk and lamp and wooden
log and the farmer's blue frock ; and by this he
gets his living. Well, I was not an electrician, but
an idealist. I could see that there was a Cause be-
hind every stump and clod, and, by the help of some
fine words, could make every old wagon and wood-
pile and stone-wall oscillate a little and threaten
to dance ; nay, give me fair field, and the select-
men of Concord and the Reverend Pound-me-down
himself began to look unstable and vaporous. You
saw me do my feat, it fell in with your own studies,
poems. 479
and you would give me gold and pearls. Now
there is this difference between the electrician —
Mr. Quimby is his name ? I never saw him — and
the idealist, namely, that the spark is to that phi-
losopher a toy, but the dance is to the idealist terror
and beauty, life and light. It is and it ought to
be, and yet sometimes there is a sinful empiric who
loves exhibition too much. This insight is so pre-
cious to society that where the least glimmer of it
appears, all men should befriend and protect it for
its own sake. You, instead of wondering at my
cloistered and unfriendly manners, should defend
me. You and those others who are dear to me
should be so rightly my friends as never to suffer
me for a moment to attempt the game of wits and
fashionists, — no, nor even that of those you call
friends ; but, by expecting of me a song of laws
and causes only, should make me noble and the
encoiirager of your nobility. . . .
To lecturing he could reconcile himself, and even
find in it a good side ; but it was after all a pis
alter, an expedient, not the mode of utterance to
which he aspired. That was verse ; not so much,
I think, from a direct impulse towards rhythmical
expression as for the sake of freer speech ; because,
he says, we may speak ideal truth in verse, but we
may not in prose. It was " the harmony of laws
and causes," not the music of words and images,
480 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
that primarily attracted him ; the purely poetical
impulse was so heavily weighted with thought
that it seemed to him feeble, and he lamented his
hard fate in being only "half a bard," or, as
he wrote to Carlyle,1 " not a poet, but a lover of
poetry and poets, and merely serving as writer, etc.,
in this empty America, before the arrival of the
poets."
Nevertheless, poems of his had been handed
about amongst intimate friends, and there were
already those who found in them a supreme attrac-
tion. James Freeman Clarke had got leave to
publish three of them in the Western Messenger
(Louisville, Kentucky), of which he was then
the editor, and now applications came from the
Boston publishers.
" Yesterday [Emerson writes to his brother Wil-
liam, December 3, 1843], for the second time, I
had an application from the bookseller to print a
volume of poems ; on which proposition — which
it seems he makes at the instance of others — I
might sit a little, — I, uncertain always whether I
have one true spark of that fire which burns in
verse. When such a request comes to me I am in-
clined to cut my customary cords, and run to woods
and deserts, into Berkshire, into Maine, and dwell
alone, to know whether I might not yield myself
up to some higher, better influences than any I am
1 Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, Supplementary Letters, 64.
DEATH OF HIS FIRST CHILD. 481
wont to share in this pewter world. But months
and years pass, and the aspirant is found in his old
place, unchanged." And two years afterwards he
writes to his brother : —
" As for the poems about which you ask once
more, a critical friend of mine has discovered so
many corrigible and reparable places in them, re-
quiring too the freest leisure and the most favor-
able poetic mood, that I have laid them aside for
two months." It was yet nearly two years before
they were published.
One of the last pieces in the volume was the
" Threnody " on his eldest child, a beautiful boy,
little more than five years old, who died at the be-
ginning of this period (January 27, 1842), after
four days' illness of scarlet fever. " A domesti-
cated sunbeam," says a friend of the house, " with
his father's voice, but softened, and beautiful dark
blue eyes with long lashes. He was his father's
constant companion, and would stay for hours to-
gether in the study, never interrupting him."
After the first outburst of passionate grief, Em-
erson was as if stunned, and incapable of expres-
sion until long afterwards.
" The innocent and beautiful [he writes to a
friend] should not be sourly and gloomily la-
mented, but with music and fragrant thoughts and
sportive recollections. Alas ! I chiefly grieve that
I cannot grieve. Dear boy, too precious and unique
482 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
a creation to be huddled aside into the waste and
prodigality of things ; yet his image, so gentle, so
rich in hopes, blends easily with every happy mo-
ment, every fair remembrance, every cherished
friendship, of my life. Calm and wise, calmly and
wisely happy, the beautiful Creative Power looked
out from him, and spoke of anything but chaos and
interruption. What was the moral of sun and
moon, of roses and acorns, that was the moral of
the sweet boy's life ; softened only and humanized
by blue eyes and infant eloquence."
Some months later, in his answer to the letter of
a lady who had been Waldo's teacher, he says : —
"Meantime life wears on, and ministers to
you, no doubt, as to me its un delaying and grand
lessons, its uncontainable endless poetry, its short
dry prose of scepticism, — like veins of cold air in
the evening woods, quickly swallowed by the wide
warmth of June, — its steady correction of the rash-
ness and short sight of youthful judgments, and its
pure repairs of all the rents and seeming ruin it
operates in what it gave ; although we love the
first gift so well that we cling long to the ruin, and
think we will be cold to the new if new shall come.
But the new steals on us like a star which rises be-
hind our back as we walk, and we are borrowing
gladly its light before we know the benefactor. So
be it with you, with me, and with all."
To Miss Fuller two years later : —
DEATH OF HIS FIRST CHILD. 483
Concord, January 30, 1844.
When, last Saturday night, Lidian said, " It is
two years to-day," I only heard the bell-stroke
again. I have had no experience, no progress, to
put me into better intelligence with my calamity
than when it was new. I read lately, in Drum-
mond of Hawthornden, Ben Jonson's narrative to
him of the death of his son, who died of the plague
in London. Ben Jonson was at the time in the
country, and saw the boy in a vision ; " of a manly
shape, and of that growth, he thinks, he shall be at
the resurrection." That same preternatural ma-
turity did my beautiful statue assume the day after
death ; and so it often comes to me, to tax the
world with frivolity. But the inarticulateness of
the Supreme Power how can we insatiate hearers,
perceivers, and thinkers ever reconcile ourselves
unto ? It deals all too lightly with us low-levelled
and weaponed men. Does the Power labor as men
do with the impossibility of perfect application,
that always the hurt is of one kind and the com-
pensation of another? My divine temple, which
all angels seemed to love to build, and which was
shattered in a night, I can never rebuild : and is
the facility of entertainment from thought, or
friendship, or affairs an amends ? Rather it seems
like a cup of Somnus or of Momus. Yet the na-
ture of things, against all appearances and special-
ities whatever, assures us of eternal benefit. But
484 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
these affirmations are tacit and secular; if spoken,
they have a hollow and canting sound. And thus
all our being, dear friend, is evermore adjourned.
Patience, and patience, and patience ! I will try,
since you ask it, to copy my rude dirges to my dar-
ling, and send them to you.
Emerson gave much more of his time and
thought to his children, from their infancy, than
was usual with busy fathers in New England forty
years ago, or is, perhaps, now. " There is nothing
[he writes in his journal] that is not of the great-
est interest in the nursery. Every tear and every
smile deserves a history, to say nothing of the
stamping and screaming ; " and he kept a record
of their childish doings and sayings, in which these
" pretty oracles " are chronicled like the anecdotes
of Plutarch. Their play and their work, their
companions and their lessons, their out-of-door
rambles and their home occupations, were objects
of his constant care. The home discipline was
never neglected, though it was enforced by the
gentlest methods. The beginning of a childish
quarrel, outbursts of petulance and silliness, were
averted by requests to run into the study and see
if the stove-door was shut, or to go to the front
gate and look at the clouds for a minute. " His
interest and sympathy about every detail of school
affairs, school politics and school pleasures [says
HIS WAYS WITH HIS CHILDREN. 485
one of his children] were unbounded. We told him
every word as we should have told our mates, and
I think he had as much enjoyment out of it as we.
He considered it as our duty to look after all the
strangers that came to the school; at his desire
we had large tea-parties every year, to be sure to
have all the out-of-town boys and girls come to the
house. He used to ask me, when I told him of a
new scholar, ' Did you speak to her ? ' ' No, I
had n't anything to say.' ' Speak, speak, if you
haven't anything to say. Ask her, Don't you
admire my shoe-strings ? ' And he was always
kind and friendly to them when they came to tea ;
made them talk and entered into what they said.
On Sunday afternoons he came into the front
entry at four o'clock, and whistled or said, ' Four
o'clock,' and we all walked with him, from four
to eight miles, according to the walking and the
flowers we went to see ; as, when a rare flower was
in bloom, we went to find it, in Becky Stow's Hole,
or Ledum Swamp, or Copan, Columbine Rock or
Conantum. Mr. Channing often gave the names
to the spots, and showed them to father in their
glory ; then he would conduct us to see the show,
or take us to places he had found beautiful in the
course of the week ; full of pretty speeches about
what we were to see, making it a great mystery.
Once I expressed my fear that he would cut down
his Walden grove or sell it : he answered, ' No, it
486 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
is my camel's hump. When the camel is starving
in the desert and can find nothing else, he eats his
own hump. I shall keep these woods till every-
thing else is gone.' One day when he saw smoke
in the direction of the grove, he cried out with such
love and fear in his voice, ' My woods, my beauti-
ful woods ! ' and hurried off to the rescue. A baby
could not be too young or small for him to hold
out his hands instantly to take it into his arms.
As long as he was strong enough to bear it, the
[grand] children were constantly in his study."
The following extract from a letter to his wife
shows that even at the time when he most jealously
guarded the retirement of his study the babies
were not excluded : —
" February 19, 1838. . . . Here sits Waldo be-
side me on the cricket, with mamma's best crimson
decanter-stand in his hand, experimenting on the
powers of a cracked pitcher-handle to scratch and
remove crimson pigment. News comes from the
nursery that Hillman has taught him A and E on
his cards, and that once he has called T. All
roasted with the hot fire, he at present gives little
sign of so much literature, but seems to be in good
health, and has just now been singing, much in the
admired style of his papa, as heard by you only
on several occasions."
At New Year's time he planned with them about
their little presents to the cousins in New York.
He writes to his brother William : —
HIS WAYS WITH HIS CHILDREN. 487
Concord, February 3, 1845.
The precious gifts of the cousins to the cousins
arrived as safely as such auspicious parcels should ;
which doubtless have all angels that love children
to convoy them to their destination. A happy
childhood have these babes of yours and mine ; no
cruel interferences, and what store of happy days !
We cannot look forward far, but these little feli-
cities, so natural and suitable to them, should be
introductory to better, and not leading into any
dark penumbra. We must arm them with as much
good sense as we can, and throw them habitually
on themselves for a moral verdict.
I do not wonder that you and Susan should de-
light in the boys. I spend a great deal of time on
my own little trinity, — for my own pleasure, too,
— if we could divide it from theirs. But these
interests are luckily inseparable, and all our cordial
study of the bewitching manners and character of
the children is a more agreeable kind of self-knowl-
edge, and a repairing of the defects of our memory
of those earliest experiences.
On the birth of his first grandchild he writes : —
My dear : Happy wife and mother that
you are, and not the less, surely, that the birth of
your babe touches this old house and its people
and neighbors with unusual joy. I hope the best
488 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
gifts and graces of his father and mother will com-
bine for this blossom, and highest influences hallow
and ripen the firm and perfect fruit. There is
nothing in this world so serious as the advent of
a child, with all his possibilities, to parents with
good minds and hearts. Fair fall the little boy !
he has come among good people. I do not grudge
to and you the overflow of fondness and won-
der ; and to the boy it is the soft pillow prepared
for him. It is long before he will come to himself,
but I please myself already that his fortunes will
be worthy of these great days of his country ; that
he will not be frivolous ; that he will be noble and
true, and will know what is sacred.
Emerson was playful and winning in his ways
with his children, but he did not often romp with
them, and he discouraged their devoting the early
hours, even of a holiday, to amusement. " He
taught us that at breakfast all must be calm and
sweet, nothing must jar ; we must not begin the day
with light reading or games ; our first and best
hours should be occupied in a way to match the
sweet and serious morning."
From the age of thirteen or fourteen he thought
they should be encouraged as much as possible to
regulate their own conduct. He would put the
case, and leave them to think and act for them-
selves ; and he did not fear to inculcate, even at this
HIS WAYS WITH HIS CHILDREN. 489
age, the whole of his own doctrine of self-reliance.
To one of his daughters who was away from home,
at school, he writes : —
" Finish every day and be done with it. For
manners and for wise living it is a vice to remem-
ber. You have done what you could ; some blun-
ders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget
them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day ;
you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too
high a spirit to be cumbered with your old non-
sense. This day for all that is good and fair. It is
too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a
moment on the rotten yesterdays."
Soon after his son's death Emerson went upon a
lecturing-tour to Providence and New York, and
paid a visit to his brother William.
Staten Island, March 1, 1842.
Dear Lidian : . . . Yesterday I dined with Mr.
Horace Greeley and Mr. Brisbane, the socialist, at
a Graham boarding-house. Mr. Brisbane promised
me a full exposition of the principles of Fourier-
ism and Association as soon as I am once lodged at
the Globe Hotel. One must submit, yet I foresaw,
in the moment when I encountered these two new
friends here, that I cannot content them. They
are bent on popular actions. I am, in all my the-
ory, ethics, and politics, a poet ; and of no more
490 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
use in their New York than a rainbow or a firefly.
Meantime they fasten me in their thought to " Tran-
scendentalism," whereof you know I am wholly
guiltless, and which is spoken of as a known and
fixed element, like salt or meal. So that I have
to begin by endless disclaimers and explanations :
" I am not the man you take me for." One of
these days shall we not have new laws forbidding
solitude, and severe penalties on all separatists and
unsocial thinkers? . . . Those poor little girls
whose crown of glory is taken from them interest
me still, if it were only for pity, and I would
gladly know how they fare. Tell mother that Su-
san and William had greatly hoped to see her in the
winter, but now that they learn how formidable
the journey looked to her they are content that she
did not come. They say she shall come when you
and I make a summer visit here. They are the
same faultless, affectionate people here that they
ever were. In their temple of love and veneration
Elizabeth [Hoar] holds undisputed possession of
the highest niche. William is not the isolated
man I used to find or fancy him, but, under the
name of "the judge," seems to be an important
part of the web of life here in his island. . . .
Write to me all the particulars of home, including
Elizabeth, you can ; that you are yourself very
peaceful and still beneficent to me and to all. Give
my love to Henry and a kiss to each of the babes.
Yours affectionately, W.
HIS WAYS WITH HIS CHILDREN. 491
New York, March, 1842.
Thanks, dear Lidian, for this morning's welcome
letter, which informed me of what I most wished
to know. . . . We had a pretty good company in
the lecture-room, although the hall is small, and I
see not how it will hold people enough to answer
any of my profane and worldly purposes, which
you and I at this moment have so much at heart.
And for the sacred purposes of influence and pro-
vocation, — why, we know that a room which will
hold two persons holds audience enough; is not
that thy doctrine, O unambitious wife ? . . . This
p. M. Mr. Brisbane indoctrinated me in the high
mysteries of Attractive Industry, in a conversa-
tion which I wish you all might have heard. He
wishes me, " with all my party," to come in di-
rectly and join him. What palaces ! what con-
certs ! what pictures, lectures, poetry, and flowers !
Constantinople, it seems, Fourier showed was the
natural capital of the world, and when the earth is
planted, and gardened, and templed all over with
"groups" and "communities," each of 2000 men
and 6000 acres, Constantinople is to be the me-
tropolis ; and we poets and miscellaneous tran-
scendental persons who are too great for your Con-
cords and New Yorks will gravitate to that point
for music and architecture and society such as wit
cannot paint nowadays. Well, to-morrow p. m. I
am to hear the rest of the story, so you shall have
492 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
no more of it. I doubt, I doubt if I find anything
here in New York of gain, outward or inward,
that it is at all worth while to break up my dull rou-
tine for. I should have invented a better expedi-
ent at home, and stayed there, and come hither later,
in another or a following year. However, my Ides
of March are not quite gone yet. Thanks for all
the tidings, of Elizabeth too. Perhaps she will
yet want to write to me, though I really might not
care, in this empty, listless, homeless mood, to write
her in reply ! Chat away, little Ellen ; might all
her words countervail one the Boy should speak.
. . . William and Susan are the best of husband
and wife, brother and sister, host and friend, that
can be to sad, estranged, misad ventured, estrayed
Waldo Emerson.
These years, as I have said, were years of strait-
ened circumstances to the Concord family; strait-
ened in part by extraordinary expenses, some
unavoidable, others such as, on the whole, Emer-
son did not choose to avoid : for instance, in the
purchase of land to preserve a bit of his favorite
woodlands from the otherwise inevitable axe.
TO WILLIAM EMERSON.
Concord, October 4, 1844.
I have lately added an absurdity or two to my
HIS WALDEN WOOD-LOT. 493
usual ones, which I am impatient to tell you of.
In one of my solitary wood-walks by Walclen Pond
I met two or three men who told me they had come
thither to sell and to buy a field, on which they
wished me to bid as purchaser. As it was on the
shore of the pond, and now for years I had a sort
of daily occupancy in it, I bid on it and bought it,
eleven acres, for $8.10 per acre. The next day
I carried some of my well-beloved gossips to the
place, and they deciding that the field was not good
for anything if Heartwell Bigelow should cut down
his pine-grove, I bought, for $125 more, his pretty
wood-lot of three or four acres, and am now land-
lord and water-lord of fourteen acres, more or less,
on the shore of Walden, and can raise my own
blackberries.
Emerson found great satisfaction in his wood-
lot. " My spirits," he says, " rise whenever I en-
ter it. I can spend the entire day there with
hatchet and pruning-shears, making paths, without
the remorse of wasting time. I fancy the birds
know me, and even the trees make little speeches,
or hint them."
He had more misgivings over the purchase of a
piece of land adjoining his homestead on the east.
It was needful in order to prevent a threatened in-
terruption of his only free outlook ; but it was ar-
able land, and had to be " improved " with orchard
494 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and kitchen-garden. The orchard was a pure de-
light to him, but the addition to his agriculture in-
volved additional responsibilities and worries, and
it involved expenses which had to be met by lec-
turing. The passage in " Wealth " x about the
scholar who pulls down his wall and adds a field to
his homestead was a reflection on this piece of his
own experience.
Perhaps the need of replenishing his stock of
materials for lectures may have weighed with him
in deciding upon an offer which came to him at
this time from England.
"I had lately an irregular application from dif-
ferent quarters in England [he writes to his brother
William, December 29, 1846], proposing to me to
come thither to lecture, and promising me engage-
ments to that end in the great towns if I would.
And I understand the Queenie (not Victoria, but
Lidian) to say that I must go."
The invitation came at a good time, for he was
in need of recreation, and this he could find only
in some fresh task. Emerson's method of work
left him without the momentum which in general
serves the man of letters to carry him over the
dead-points of life. Wanting the fly-wheel of a
regular, continuous occupation, the impulse had to
be supplied wholly from within.
1 Collected Writings, vi. 113.
INVITATION TO ENGLAND. 495
Now he had come to one of those dead-points,
those " solstices when the stars stand still in our in-
ward firmament, and when there is required some
foreign force, some diversion or alterative, to pre-
vent stagnation." 1 " As I manage it now [he
writes to Miss Fuller] , I who have never done any-
thing never shall do anything." And to another
friend who was in Europe : —
" No news or word from abroad, no lion roars,
no mouse cheeps ; we have discovered no new
book ; but the old atrophy, inanition, and drying-
up proceeds at an accelerated rate, and you must
hasten hither before any high wind shall sweep us
into past and pluperfect tenses."
" Here am I [he writes in his journal] with so
much all ready to be revealed to me as to others,
if only I could be set aglow. I have wished for a
professorship ; much as I hate the Church I have
wished the pulpit, that I might have the stimulus
of a stated task. R. spoke more truly than he
knew, perchance, when he recommended an aboli-
tion-campaign to me. I doubt not a course of
mobs would do me much good."
An English audience, he fancied, might furnish
"that stimulation which my capricious, languid,
and languescent study needs. The Americans are
too easily pleased. We get our education ended
a little too quick in this country. As soon as we
1 Collected Writings, vi. 142.
496 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
have learned to read and write and cipher we are
dismissed from school and set up for ourselves ; we
are writers and leaders of opinion, and we write
away without check of any kind, play what prank,
indulge what spleen or oddity or obstinacy, comes
into our dear head, and even feel our complacency
therein ; and thus fine wits come to nothing. We
are wits of the provinces, Caesars in Arden, who
easily fill all measures, and lie on our oars with the
fame of the villages. We see none who calls us to
account, and so consult our ease ; no Douglas cast
of the bar, no pale Cassius, reminds us of inferior-
ity. In the acceptance that my papers find among
my thoughtful countrymen in these days, I cannot
help seeing how limited is their reading. If they
read only the books that I do, they would not ex-
aggerate so wildly."
He wished to find those powerful workers, those
well-equipped scholars, whom he admired from a
distance ; to see them close at hand and feel him-
self among them. He did not mean to thrust him-
self upon them ; he might accept a challenge, but
he would offer none. He said nothing to Carlyle,
not wishing that the smallest pains should be taken
to collect an audience for him. But in the course
of the winter he received, through the friendly of-
fices of Mr. Alexander Ireland, regular invitations
to lecture before various Mechanics' Institutes in
Lancashire and Yorkshire, which he accepted for
MASSACHUSETTS QUARTERLY REVIEW. 497
the following autumn (1847). Carlyle, too, hear-
ing of his intentions, wrote to promise him " an
audience of British aristocracy " in London.
In the spring before he sailed there were meet-
ings at his house looking to a new quarterly review
which should be more alive than was the North
American to the questions of the day. Theodore
Parker and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, I think,
were the persons most forward in the matter. Mr.
Sumner came up and spoke approvingly of the un-
dertaking, but doubted whether the time was quite
ripe for it. Thoreau was there, but contented him-
self with asking whether any one present found
difficulty in publishing in the existing journals
anything that he might have occasion to say. On
the whole, but little zeal was manifested, nor would
anybody promise definite contributions. But it
was taken for granted that the new review was to
be ; the main discussion was about the editor. Mr.
Parker wished to put Emerson forward, but Em-
erson declined ; other persons were talked of, but
nothing was distinctly agreed upon, that I remem-
ber, except a committee, consisting of Emerson,
Parker, and Howe, for the drafting of a manifesto
to the public. This Emerson wrote, and he seems
to have supposed his office thereby discharged.
But when the first number of the Massachusetts
Quarterly Revieio reached him in England, he
found himself set down, with Mr. Parker and me,
498 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" assisted by several other gentlemen," as the edi-
tors. He did not like this, but suffered his name
to stand upon the covers until, after his return
home, the fourth number appeared with the an-
nouncement that he would now " of course " con-
tribute regularly. Then he insisted upon with-
drawing, and Mr. Parker became, what in fact he
had always been, sole editor. Emerson had no
part in it beyond writing the Editor's Address.
This spring, also, he went to Nantucket to lec-
ture, and while there, at the request of the minister
of the place, he read (I suppose for the last time)
a Sunday discourse from the pulpit. The sub-
ject was Worship. He said he was not a clergy-
man ; he had long ceased to take any active part
in churches, and perhaps also had private objection
that withheld him from the pulpit. But he was
unwilling to refuse to speak on a topic which con-
cerns not only every churchman, but every man, —
the cardinal topic of the moral nature.
Somewhat earlier in the year he had lectured in
New Bedford, and no doubt met there some of his
Quaker friends, one of whom (probably Miss Mary
Rotch) wrote him a letter, to which he made the
following reply : —
Concord, March 28, 1847.
My dear Friend, — It was a great pleasure to
hear from you, if only by a question in philosophy.
LETTER ON THEOLOGY. 499
And the terrors of treading that difficult and quak-
ing ground shall not hinder me from writing to
you. I am quite sure, however, that I never said
any of those fine things which you seem to have
learned about me from Mr. Griswold, and I think
it would be but fair, as he deduces them, that he
should explain them, and, if he can, show that they
hold. No, I never say any of these scholastic
things, and when I hear them I can never tell on
which side I belong. I never willingly say any-
thing concerning " God " in cold blood, though I
think we all have very just insights when we are
" in the mount," as our fathers used to say. In
conversation sometimes, or to humility and temper-
ance, the cloud will break away to show at least
the direction of the rays of Absolute Being, and we
see the truth that lies in every affirmation men
have made concerning it, and, at the same time,
the cramping partiality of their speech. For the
science of God our language is unexpressive and
merely prattle : we need simpler and universal
signs, as algebra compared with arithmetic. Thus
I should affirm easily hoth those propositions, which
our Mr. Griswold balances against one another ;
that, I mean, of Pantheism and the other ism.
Personality, too, and impersonality, might each
be affirmed of Absolute Being ; and what may not
be affirmed of it, in our own mind ? And when we
have heaped a mountain of speeches, we have still
500 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
to begin again, having nowise expressed the simple
unalterable fact.
So I will not turn schoolman to-day, but prefer
to wait a thousand years before I undertake that
definition which literature has waited for so long
already. Do not imagine that the old venerable
thought has lost any of its awful attraction for me.
I should very heartily — shall I say, tremulously,
— think and speak with you on our experiences or
gleams of what is so grand and absorbing ; and I
never forget the statements, so interesting to me,
you gave me many years ago of your faith and that
of your friends. Are we not wonderful creatures
to whom such entertainments and passions and
hopes are afforded ?
Yours with respect and affection,
R. W. Emerson.
CHAPTER XIV.
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. — PAKIS.
1847-1848.
Emerson sailed from Boston in the packet-ship
Washington Irving, on the 5th of October, reached
Liverpool on the 22d, and soon afterwards pro-
ceeded to London.
Chelsea, London, October 27, 1847.
Dear Lidian : . . . I found at Liverpool after
a couple of days a letter which had been once there
seeking me (and once returned to Manchester be-
fore it reached my hands) from Carlyle, addressed
to " R. W. E., on the instant he lands in Eng-
land," conveying so hearty a welcome and so urgent
an invitation to house and hearth that I could no
more resist than I could gravitation ; and finding
that I should not be wanted for a week in the lec-
ture-rooms, I came hither on Monday, and, at ten
at night, the door was opened to me by Jane Car-
lyle, and the man himself was behind her with a
lamp in the entry. They were very little changed
from their old selves of fourteen years ago (in
August), when I left them at Craigenputtock.
502 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" Well," said Carlyle, " here we are, shovelled to-
gether again." The floodgates of his talk are
quickly opened, and the river is a great and con-
stant stream. We had large communication that
night until nearly one o'clock, and at breakfast
next morning it began again. At noon or later we
went together, Carlyle and I, to Hyde Park and
the palaces (about two miles from here), to the
National Gallery, and to the Strand, — Carlyle
melting all Westminster and London down into
his talk and laughter as he walked. We came
back to dinner at five or later ; then Dr. Carlyle
came in and spent the evening, which again was
long by the clock, but had no other measures.
Here in this house we breakfast about nine ; Car-
lyle is very apt, his wife says, to sleep till ten or
eleven, if he has no company. An immense talker
he is, and altogether as extraordinary in his con-
versation as in his writing, — I think even more so.
You will never discover his real vigor and range,
or how much more he might do than he has ever
done, without seeing him. I find my few hours'
discourse with him in Scotland, long since, gave me
not enough knowledge of him, and I have now at
last been taken by surprise. . . . Carlyle and his
wife live on beautiful terms. Nothing can be more
engaging than their ways, and in her bookcase all
his books are inscribed to her, as they came, from
year to year, each with some significant lines.
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 503
But you will wish to hear more of my adven-
tures, which I must hasten to record. On Wednes-
day, at the National Gallery, Mrs. Bancroft greeted
me with the greatest kindness, and insisted on pre-
senting me to Mr. Rogers, who chanced to come
into the gallery with ladies. Mr. Rogers invited
me to breakfast, with Mrs. B., at his house on
Friday. . . . The smoke of London, through which
the sun rarely penetrates, gives a dusky magnifi-
cence to these immense piles of building in the
west part of the city, which makes my walking
rather dream-like. Martin's pictures of Babylon,
etc., are faithful copies of the west part of Lon-
don ; light, darkness, architecture, and all. Friday
morning at half past nine I presented myself at Mr.
Bancroft's door, 90 Eaton Square, which was opened
by Mr. Bancroft himself ! in the midst of servants
whom that man of eager manners thrust aside,
saying that he would open his own door for me.
He was full of goodness and of talk. . . . Mrs. Ban-
croft appeared, and we rode in her carriage to Mr.
Rogers' house. . . . Mr. Rogers received us with
cold, quiet, indiscriminate politeness, and enter-
tained us with abundance of anecdote, which Mrs.
Bancroft very skilfully drew out of him, about peo-
ple more or less interesting to me. Scott, Words-
worth, Byron, Wellington, Talleyrand, Mme. de
Stael, Lafayette, Fox, Burke, and crowds of high
men and women had talked and feasted in these
504 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
rooms in which we sat, and which are decorated
with every precious work. ... I think it must be
the chief private show of London, this man's collec-
tion. But I will not bore you with any more particu-
lars. From this house Mrs. Bancroft carried me to
the cloister of Westminster Abbey and to the Ab-
bey itself, and then insisted on completing her boun-
ties by carrying me in her coach to Carlyle's door
at Chelsea, a very long way. ... At five P. M. yes-
terday, after spending four complete days with my
friends, I took the fast train for Liverpool, and
came hither, 212 miles, in six hours; which is
nearly twice our railway speed. In Liverpool I
drank tea last Saturday night with James Marti-
neau, and heard him preach on Sunday night last.
He is a sincere, sensible, good man, and though
greatly valued as a preacher, yet I thought him su-
perior to his books and his preaching. I have seen
Mr. Ireland, also, at Manchester on my way to
London, and his friends. It seems I am to read
six lectures in this town in three weeks, and at the
same time three lectures in each week in Manches-
ter, on other evenings. When this service is ended
I may have as many new engagements as I like,
they tell me. I am to begin at Manchester next
Tuesday evening.
November 1, Tuesday evening. I am heartily
tired of Liverpool. I am oppressed by the seeing
of such multitudes : there is a fierce strength here
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 505
in all the streets ; the men are bigger and solider
far than our people, more stocky, both men and
women, and with a certain fixedness and determi-
nation in each person's air, that discriminates them
from the sauntering gait and roving eyes of Amer-
icans. In America you catch the eye of every one
you meet; here you catch no eye, almost. The
axes of an Englishman's eyes are united to his
backbone. . . . Yesterday morning I got your wel-
come letter (by Mr. Ireland). I am greatly con-
tented to know that all is so well with you. . . .
Ever affectionately yours, Waldo E.
In a fragment, apparently a rough draft of some
letter at this time, he says : —
" I had good talk with Carlyle last night. He
says over and over for months, for years, the same
thing. Yet his guiding genius is his moral sense,
his perception of the sole importance of truth and
justice, and he too says that there is properly no
religion in England. He is quite contemptuous
about Kunst also, in Germans, or English, or
Americans. . . . His sneers and scoffs are thrown
in every direction. He breaks every sentence with
a scoffing laugh, — ' windbag,' ' monkey,' ' donkey,'
' bladder ; ' and let him describe whom he will, it is
always ' poor fellow.' I said : « What a fine fellow
are you, to bespatter the whole world with this oil
of vitriol ! ' 'No man,' he replied, ' speaks truth to
506 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
me.' I said : ' See what a crowd of friends listen
to and admire you.' ' Yes, they come to hear me,
and they read what I write ; but not one of them
has the smallest intention of doing these things."
Manchester, December 1, 1847.
Dear Lidian, — What can be the reason that I
have no letter by this Caledonia which has arrived ?
It is just possible that letters have gone to London
and back to Liverpool, and will reach me to-night.
Care of Alexander Ireland, Esq., Examiner Office,
Manchester, is still for the present the best ad-
dress. You cannot write too often or too largely.
After January 1, I believe there is a steamer once
a week, and if you will enclose anything to Abel
Adams, he will find the right mail-bag. I trust
you and the children are well, — that you are well,
and the children are well, — two facts, and not one;
two facts highly important to an exile, you will be-
lieve. Ah ! perhaps you should see the tragic spec-
tacles which these streets show, — these Manchester
and those Liverpool streets, by day and by night,
— to know how much of happiest circumstance,
how much of safety, of dignity, and of opportunity,
belongs to us so easily, that is ravished from this
population. Woman is cheap and vile in England,
it is tragical to see ; childhood, too, I see oftenest
in the state of absolute beggary. My dearest little
Edie, to tell you the truth, costs me many a penny,
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 507
day by day. I cannot go up the street but I shall
see some woman in rags, with a little creature just
of Edie's size and age, but in coarsest ragged
clothes and barefooted, stepping beside her : and I
look curiously into her Edie's face, with some ter-
ror lest it should resemble mine, and the far-off
Edie wins from me the halfpence for this near one.
Bid Ellen and Edie thank God they were born in
New England, and bid them speak the truth, and
do the right forever and ever, and I hope they and
theirs will not stand barefooted in the mud on a
bridge in the rain all day to beg of passengers.
But beggary is only the beginning and the sign of
sorrow and evil here.
You are to know in general that I am doing well
enough in health and in my work. I have, which
is a principal thing, read two new lectures in the
last two weeks : one on Books, or a course of
reading ; and the other on the Superlative, which
was my lecture on Hafiz and my Persian readings.
The next new one I get out will be the Natural
Aristocracy, or some such thing.
I have had the finest visit to Mrs. Paulet, at
Seaforth House, near Liverpool, where I was lodged
in Canning's chamber in a grand chateau ; also a
visit to be thankful for to Mr. Kathbone at Green-
bank.
Birmingham, December 16, 1847.
Dear Lidian : . . . I find very kind friends
508 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
here, and many such. I have even given up my
caprice of not going to private houses, and now
scarcely go to any other. At Nottingham I was
the guest on four nights of four different friends.
At Derby I spent two nights with Mr. Birch, Mr.
Alcott's friend. Here also I am hospitably re-
ceived ; and at towns which I have promised to visit
1 have accepted invitations from unknown hosts.
. . . The newspapers here report my lectures
(and London papers reprint) so fully that they
are no longer repeatable, and I must dive deeper
into the bag and bring up older ones, or write new
ones, or cease to read. Yet there is great advan-
tage to me in this journeying about in this fashion.
I see houses, manufactories, halls, churches, land-
scape, and men. There is also great vexation. At
any moment I may turn my back on it and go to
London ; and, if it were not winter, might embark
and come home. So give my love to mother, — to
whom you must send all my letters, for I do not
write to her, — and say I much doubt whether I go
to France. Love to all the darlings at home, whom
I daily and nightly behold. I am much disap-
pointed that no steamer yet arrives from you; it
is overdue by a day, or two, or three. I dare not
begin to name the friends near and nearest in these
lines, they are so many and so loved, but I have
yet no letter from Elizabeth H., and none from
George Bradford. Tell George that I respect the
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 509
English always the more, the sensible, handsome,
powerful race ; they are a population of lords, and
if one king should die, there are a thousand in the
street quite fit to succeed him. But I shall have
letters from you, I trust, to-morrow, so good-night.
W.
Alexander Ireland approves himself the king of
all friends and helpful agents ; the most active, un-
weariable, imperturbable. ... A wonderful place
is England ; the mechanical might and organiza-
tions it is oppressive to behold. I ride everywhere
as on a cannon-ball (though cushioned and com-
forted in every manner), high and low, over rivers
and towns, through mountains in tunnels of three
miles and more, at twice the speed and with half
the motion of our cars, and read quietly the Times
newspaper, which seems to have mechanized the
world for my occasions.
Manchester, December 25, 1847.
Dear Lidian, — I did not receive your letters
by the last steamer until the moment when my own
must be forwarded, so that I could not write the
shortest note to Mrs. Ripley, nor to you. I shall
write to her a letter to accompany this.1 Sudden
and premature and shattering so many happy plans
1 Reverend Samuel Ripley died very suddenly soon after his re-
moval to Concord.
510 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
as his death does, yet there was so much health and
sunshine and will and power to come at good ends
in him that nothing painful or mournful will at-
tach to his name. He will be sure to be remem-
bered as living and serving, and not as suffering.
I am very sorry that I should not have been at
home, for he, who was so faithful to all the claims
of kindred, should have had troops of blood-rela-
tions to honor him around his grave. I think
often how serious is his loss to mother. I remem-
ber him almost as long as I can remember her, and,
from my father's death in my early boyhood, he
has always been an important friend to her and her
children. You know how generous he was to me
and to my brothers in our youth, at college and
afterwards. He never ceased to be so, and he was
the same friend to many others that he was to us.
I am afraid we hardly thanked him ; it was so
natural to him to interest himself for other people
that he could not help it. And whenever or wher-
ever we shall now think of him, we shall see him
engaged in that way. . . . You must see Mrs. Rip-
ley as much as you can. We cannot afford to live
as far from her (in habits, I mean) as we have
done. ... I am a wanderer on the face of this
island, and am so harried by this necessity of read-
ing lectures — which, if accepted, must be accepted
in manner and quantity not desirable — that I shall
not now for a fortnight or three weeks have time
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 511
to write any good gossip, you may be sure. What
reconciles me to the clatter and routine is the very
excellent opportunity it gives me to see England.
I see men and things in each town in a close and
domestic way. I see the best of the people (hith-
erto never the proper aristocracy, which is a stra-
tum of society quite out of sight and out of mind
here on all ordinary occasions) — the merchants,
the manufacturers, the scholars, the thinkers, men
and women — in a very sincere and satisfactory
conversation. I am everywhere a guest. Never
call me solitary or Ishmaelite again. I began here
by refusing invitations to stay at private houses,
but now I find an invitation in every town, and
accept it, to be at home. I have now visited Pres-
ton, Leicester, Chesterfield, Birmingham, since I
returned from Nottingham and Derby, of which I
wrote you, and have found the same profuse
kindness in all. My admiration and my love of
the English rise day by day. I receive, too, a
great many private letters, offering me house and
home in places yet unvisited. You must not think
that any change has come over me, and that my
awkward and porcupine manners are ameliorated
by English air ; but these civilities are all offered
to that deceiving Writer who, it seems, has really
beguiled many young people here, as he did at
home, into some better hope than he could realize
for them. . . . To-day is Christmas, and being
512 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
just returned yesterday p. m. from a long circuit, I
am bent on spending it quite domestically, and
Mr. Ireland and Mr. Cameron are coming pres-
ently to dine with me. On Wednesday I go spin-
ning again to Worcester, and then presently to
those Yorkshire engagements which at home were
first heard of. Parliament is now in holidays
again until February, and of course London empty.
But it looks as if I should not arrive there for any
residence until March. I am often tempted to slip
out of my trade here, by some shortest method,
and go to London for peace. . . . At Leicester I
just missed seeing Gardiner, author of the " Music
of Nature." At Chesterfield I dined in company
with Stephenson, the old engineer who built the
first locomotive, and who is, in every way, one of
the most reniai'kable men I have seen in England.
I do not know but I shall accept some day his reit-
erated invitations " to go to his house and stay a
few days, and see Chatsworth and other things."
. . . Every word you send me from the dear chil-
dren is excellent. Our Spartan-Buddhist Henry is
pere or bonhomme malgre lui, and it is a great
comfort daily to think of him there with you. . . .
You ask for newspapers, but you do not want re-
ports of my lectures, which they give too abundant-
ly ; nor the attacks of the clergymen upon them ;
nor the pale though brave defences of my friends :
there are such things, but I do not read them.
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 513
When there is, if there should be, anything really
good, I will send it. But first there must be some-
thing really good of mine to build it upon. Ah
me ! Elizabeth has written the best and fullest of
letters, and I dare not say that I shall write to her
by the going steamer. Tell Ellen that I fear I
shall not see Tennyson, for, though Dr. John Car-
ry le writes me yesterday that he has just met him at
his brother's, he is going to Rome, and I hardly
think I shall follow him there. He has not three
children who say all these things which my wife
records. . . . Elizabeth says that aunt Mary thinks
to come to Concord ; by all means, seduce her into
the house, and make her forget, if it be possible,
her absurd resolutions and jealousies. . . . Here
is no winter thus far, but such days as we have at
the beginning of November. I am as well in body
as ever, and not worse in spirit than when I am
spinning to winter lectures at home. But mortal
man must always spin somewhere, and I bow to my
destiny.
TO MISS ELIZABETH HOAR.
Manchester, December 28, 1847.
Dear Elizabeth, — You are the best of sis-
ters, and good by yourself and without provocation.
. . . How generously you give me trust for indefi-
nite periods ! You must believe, too, that I appre-
ciate this magnanimity, though too dull and heavy
514 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
to make a sign. The hour will come and the world,
wherein we shall quite easily render that account
of ourselves which now we never render, and shall
be very real brothers and sisters. . . . When I
see my muscular neighbors day by day I say, Had
I been born in England, with but one chip of Eng-
lish oak in my willowy constitution ! . . . I have
seen many good, some bright, and some powerful
people here, but none yet to fall in love with, nei-
ther man nor woman. I have, however, some
youthful correspondence — you know my failing —
with some friendly young gentlemen in different
parts of Britain. I keep all their letters, and you
shall see. At Edinburgh I have affectionate invi-
tations from Dr. Samuel Brown, of whom I believe
you know something. He saw Margaret F. At
Newcastle, from Mr. Crawshay, who refused the
tests at Cambridge after reading my essays ! as he
writes me. And so with small wisdom the world
is moved, as of old. In the press of my trifles I
have ceased to write to Carlyle, and I hear nothing
from him. You have read his paper in Fraser ? 1
He told me the same story at his house, but it
reads incredible, and everybody suspects some
mystification, — some people fancying that Carlyle
himself is trying his hand that way ! But Carlyle
takes Cromwell sadly to heart. When I told him
1 December, 1847. Thirty-Jive Unpublished Letters of Oliver
Cromwell. Communicated by Thomas Carlyle.
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 515
that he must not expect that people as old as I
could look at Cromwell as he did, he turned quite
fiercely upon me. ... If I do not find time for
another note, am I the less your constant brother ?
Waldo.
Manchester, January 8, 1848.
Dear Lidian : . . . There is opportunity enough
to read over again a hundred times yet these musty
old lectures, and when I go to a new audience I
say, It is a grossness to read these things which
you have, fully reported, in so many newspapers.
Let me read a new manuscript never yet published
in England. But no, the directors invariably
refuse. " We have heard of these, advertised
these ; there can be no other." It really seems
like China and Japan. But the great profession
and mystery of Bards and Trouveurs does hereby
suffer damage in my person, and I fear no decent
man in London will speak to me when I come
thither ; to say nothing of the absolute suspension
and eclipse which all my faculties suffer in this
routine, so that, at whatever perils, I must end it.
I have had a letter from George Bradford, very
good to read ; never one from Parker or any of the
3fassachusetts Quarterly men. Their journal is
of a good spirit, and has much good of Agassiz,
but no intellectual tone such as is imperatively
wanted ; no literary skill, even, and, without a lof-
516 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
tier note than any in this number, it will sink into
a North American at once. In a day or two I
shall have good news again from you, and news
from the nursery and school, ever heartily wel-
come. ... I hope you keep — you must keep — a
guest-chamber with a fire this winter and every
winter, as last winter we had none. I may send
you a young Mr. Stansfield, a Leeds merchant,
who offers to carry letters for me, and the nephew
of Mr. Stansfield, of Halifax, who showed me
great hospitality ; and it would chill my bones to
believe that he passed a New England winter night
without fire, so unprepared by the habits of Eng-
lish at home. I shall perhaps say to Mr. S., if he
wishes to go into the country and look, you will
gladly give him a night's lodging. And if he
comes, — or any Englishman, — give him bread
and wine before he goes to bed, for these people
universally eat supper at nine or ten P. M., and there-
fore must be hungry in Concord ; which would
make me hungry all my life, they have been so
careful of me. Farewell. Yours, W.
Manchester, January 26, 1848.
Dear Lidian : . . . I have been at York and
at Flaraborough Head since I wrote you last. I
have no special notes to write of these places —
and persons ; persons are like stars, which always
keep afar. No angel alights on my orb, — such
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 517
presences being always reserved for angels. But I
was proceeding to tell you that I am now spend-
ing a few peaceful days at Manchester, after rack-
eting about Yorkshire in the last weeks. I was
disgusted with reading lectures, and wrote to all
parties that I would read no more ; but in vain.
Secretaries had misunderstood, had promised and
pledged me. I myself had not forbidden it. Did
not Mr. E. remember ? etc., etc. And at last I
have consented to drudge on a little longer after
this peaceful fortnight is ended, and shall go to
Edinburgh on the 7th February, and end all my
northern journeys on the 25th. Then I return
hither and proceed to London to spend March and
April, and (unless I go to Paris) May also. I am
writing in these very days a lecture which I will
try at Edinburgh, on Aristocracy. The other night
at Sheffield I made shift, with some old papers and
some pages suggested lately by the Agassiz reports,
to muster a discourse on Science. Last night I
heard a lecture from Mr. Cameron, whom I have
heretofore mentioned, on some poetic and literary
matters. He talked, without note or card or com-
pass, for his hour, on Headers and Reading ; very
manly, very gaily ; not quite deeply enough, — it
did not cost him enough, — yet what would I not
do or suffer to buy that ability ? " To each his
own." A manly ability, a general sufficiency, is
the genius of the English. They have not, I think,
518 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the special and acute fitness to their employment
that Americans have, but a man is a man here ; a
quite costly and respectable production, in his own
and in all other eyes. To-morrow evening I am
to attend what is called the " Free-Trade Banquet,"
when Cobden, Bright, Fox, and the free-traders
are to speak. . . . Peace be with all your house-
hold ; with the little and with the larger members !
Many kisses, many blessings, to the little and the
least. I am glad the children had their good visit
to Boston and Roxbury ; but I would keep them
at home in winter. You speak of Ellen's letter ;
surely I wrote one to Edith also, and if Eddie will
wait, or will only learn to read his own name, he
shall have one too, at least a picture. So with
love to all, Yours, W.
Gateshead Ikon Works, February 10, 1848.
... I have written a lecture on Natural Aris-
tocracy, which I am to read in Edinburgh to-mor-
row, and interpolated besides some old webs with
patches of new tapestry, contrary to old law. The
day before leaving Manchester we had a company
of friends assembled at Dr. Hodgson's house and
mine : two from Nottingham, Neuberg and Sutton ;
Mr. Gill from Birmingham ; one from Hudders-
fielcl : and Ireland, Cameron, Espinasse, and Bal-
lantyne from Manchester. I gave them all a din-
ner on Sunday. These are all men of merit, and
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 519
of various virtues and ingenuities. I have been
once more at Mr. Stansfield's in Halifax ; and yes-
terday, at Barnard Castle, I found myself in the
scene of Scott's Rokeby. ... I find here at New-
castle a most accomplished gentleman in Mr. Craw-
shay, at whose counting-room in his iron works I
am now sitting, after much conference on many
fine and useful arts. . . . My reception here is
really a premium often on authorship ; and if
Henry [Thoreau] means one day to come to Eng-
land, let him not delay another day to print his
book. Or if he do not, let him print it.
Perth, February 21, 1848.
Dear Lidian : . . . All these touching anec-
dotes and now drawings and letters of my darlings
duly come, and to my great joy, and ought to draw
answers to every letter and almost to every piece
of information. I cannot answer but with most
ungrateful brevity, but you shall have a short
chronicle of my late journeys. Well, then, I came
from Newcastle to Edinburgh [and after some
mischance, delaying him on the way, reached the
lecture-room a quarter of an hour late]. It was
really a brilliant assembly, and contained many re-
markable men and women, as 1 afterwards found.
After lecture I went home with my friend, Dr.
[Samuel] Brown, to his lodgings, and have been
his guest all the time I was in Edinburgh. There
520 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
I found David Scott, the painter, a sort of Bronson
Alcott with easel and brushes, a sincere great man,
grave, silent, contemplative, and plain. . . . The
next day I was presented to Wilson (Christopher
North), to Mrs. Jeffrey, and especially to Mrs.
Crowe, a very distinguished good person here.
... I looked all around this most picturesque of
cities, and in the evening met Mr. Robert Cham-
bers (author of the " Vestiges of Creation ") by
appointment at Mr. Ireland's (father of Alexan-
der), at supper. The next day at twelve, I visited
by appointment Lord Jeffrey, . . . and then to
Mrs. Crowe's at 5.30 to dine with De Quincey and
David Scott and Dr. Brown. De Quincey is a small
old man of seventy years, with a very handsome
face, and a face, too, expressing the highest refine-
ment ; a very gentle old man, speaking with the
greatest deliberation and softness, and so refined in
speech and manners as to make quite indifferent
his extremely plain and poor dress. For the old
man, summoned by message on Saturday by Mrs.
Crowe to this dinner, had walked on this stormy,
muddy Sunday ten miles, from Lass Wade, where
his cottage is, and was not yet dry ; and though
Mrs. Crowe's hospitality is comprehensive and mi-
nute, yet she had no pantaloons in her house.
Here De Quincey is very serene and happy among
just these friends where I found him ; for he has
suffered in all ways, and lived the life of a wretch
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 521
for many years, but Samuel Brown and Mrs. C.
and one or two more have saved him from himself,
and defended him from bailiffs and a certain Fury
of a Mrs. Macbold (I think it is), whom he yet
shudders to remember, and from opium ; and he is
now clean, clothed, and in his right mind. . . . He
talked of many matters, all easily and well, but
chiefly social and literary; and did not venture
into any voluminous music. When they first
agreed, at my request, to invite him to dine, I fan-
cied some figure like the organ of York Minster
would appear. In tete-a-tete, I am told, he some-
times soars and indulges himself, but not often in
company. He invited me to dine with him on the
following Saturday at Lass Wade, where he lives
with his three daughters, and I accepted. The
next day I breakfasted with David Scott, who in-
sists on sittings for a portrait ; and sat to him for
an hour or two. . . . This man is a noble stoic,
sitting apart here among his rainbow allegories,
very much respected by all superior persons. Of
him I shall have much more to say. At one o'clock
I went to Glasgow, and read my story there to an
assembly of two or three thousand people, in a vast
lighted cavern called the City Hall. . . . Next day
I dined at Edinburgh with Robert Chambers, and
found also his brother William. . . . This day I
went to the University to see Professor Wilson,
and hear him lecture (on Moral Philosophy) to his
522 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
class. We, that is always Dr. B. and I, went first
into his private retiring-room and had a pretty long
talk with him. He is a big man, gross almost as
S , and tall, with long hair and much beard,
dressed large and slouching. His lecture had
really no merit. It was on the association of ideas,
and was a very dull sermon, without a text, but
pronounced with great bodily energy, sometimes
his mouth all foam ; he reading, the class writing,
and I at last waiting a little impatiently for it to be
over. No trait was there of Christopher North ; not
a ray. Afterwards we went to Sir William Ham-
ilton's lecture on Logic. He is the great man of
the college, master of his science, and in every way
truly respected here. ... In the evening, at Mr.
Stoddart's, I saw George Combe, who had called
on me and had invited me to breakfast. . . . Next
morning I breakfasted with Mr. Combe. Mrs.
Combe is the daughter of Mrs. Siddons, whom she
more and more resembles, they all say, in these
days. Combe talked well and sensibly about
America. But, for the most part, there is no elas-
ticity about Scotch sense ; it is calculating and
precise, but has no future. Then to Glasgow, and
spent the night at Professor Nichol's observatory,
well appointed and rarely placed, but a cloudy
night and no moon or star. I saw, next day, the
Saut Market and oh ! plenty of women (fishwives
and others) and children, barefooted, barelegged,
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 523
on this cold 18th of February, in the streets. . . .
At Edinburgh again I dined with Mr. Nichol,
brother of the Professor, and in the evening, by
invitation, visited Lord Jeffrey, with Mrs. Crowe.
. . . Jeffrey, as always, very talkative, very dis-
putatious, very French ; every sentence interlarded
with French phrases ; speaking a dialect of his
own, neither English nor Scotch, marked with a
certain petitesse, as one might well say, and an af-
fected elegance. I should like to see him put on
his merits by being taxed by some of his old peers,
as Wilson, or Hallam, or Macaulay ; but here he
is the chief man, and has it all his own way. . . .
The next day I dined with De Quincey and his
pleasing daughters. A good deal of talk, which I
see there is no time to relate. We carried our
host back with us to Edinburgh, to Mrs. Crowe's,
and to my lecture ! De Quincey at lecture ! And
thereat I was presented to Helen Faucit, the ac-
tress, who is a beauty ; and to Sir William Allan,
the painter, Walter Scott's friend ; and to Profes-
sor Simpson, a great physician here ; and to others.
Next day I sat to Scott again, and dined again with
Mrs. Crowe, and De Quincey and Helen Faucit
came to tea, and we could see Antigone at our ease.
One thing I was obliged to lose at Edinburgh, with
much regret. Robert Chambers is the local anti-
quary, knows more of the " Old Town," etc., than
any other man, and he had fixed an hour to go and
524 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
show me some of the historical points and crypts
of the town ; but I was obliged to write and excuse
myself for want of time. . . . What I chiefly re-
gret is that I cannot begin on the long chronicle
of our new Paracelsus here, Dr. Samuel Brown,
who is a head and heart of chiefest interest to me
and to others, and a person from whom everything
is yet to be expected.1 . . . On Saturday I leave
Scotland, and shall stop a day, I think, at Amble-
side, with Harriet Martineau, and visit Words-
worth, if it is practicable, on my way to Manches-
ter. There I shall pack up my trunk again (for it
is always there) and go to London. . . . Excuse
me to everybody for not writing ; I simply cannot.
Ah! and excuse me to my dear little correspon-
dents. . . . Papa never forgets them, never ceases
to wish to see them, and is often tempted to run
ignominiously away from Britain and France for
that purpose. . . . Love to all who love — the
truth ! and continue you to be merciful and good
to me. Your affectionate W.
On his way to London he stayed, he writes to
Miss Fuller, " two days with Harriet Martineau,
and spent an hour and a half with Wordsworth,
who was full of talk on French news, bitter old
1 Dr. Brown was expecting to reduce several chemical ele-
ments (perhaps all matter) to one substance, a line of specula-
tion always fascinating to Emerson.
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 525
Englishman he is ; on Scotchmen, whom he con-
temns ; on Gibbon, who cannot write English ; on
Carlyle, who is a pest to the English tongue ; on
Tennyson, whom he thinks a right poetic genius,
though with some affectation ; on Thomas Taylor,
an English national character ; and on poetry and
so forth. But, though he often says something, I
think I could easily undertake to write table-talk
for him to any extent, for the newspapers ; and it
should cost me nothing and be quite as good as any
one is likely to hear from his own lips. But he is
a fine, healthy old man, with a weather-beaten face,
and I think it is a high compliment we pay to the
cultivation of the English generally that we find
him not distinguished. . . . To-morrow, through
all these wondrous French news which all tongues
and telegraphs discuss, I go to London."
At London and on the way he received many in-
vitations to lecture there, but apparently of a kind
that seemed to pledge him to subjects which did
not suit him ; at all events, none that he wished to
accept, though his home-letters told him of claims
that made it desirable for him to earn money if he
could. Six weeks after he reached London he was
still undecided about lecturing. Meantime he was
making good use of his social opportunities. A
day or two after his arrival he writes : —
526 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
London, 142 Strand, March 8, 1848.
Dear Lidian : . . . Ah, you still ask nie for
that unwritten letter, always due, it seems, always
unwritten from year to year by me to you, dear
Lidian ; I fear, too, more widely true than you
mean, — always due and unwritten by me to every
sister and brother of the human race. I have only
to say that I also bemoan myself daily for the same
cause ; that I cannot write this letter, that I have
not stamina and constitution enough to mind the
two functions of seraph and cherub, — oh, no ! let
me not use such great words ; rather say that a
photometer cannot be a stove. . . . Well, I will
come home again shortly, and behave the best I
can. Only I foresee plainly that the trick of soli-
tariness never, never can leave me. My own pur-
suits and calling often appear to me like those of
an Astronomer Royal, whose whole duty is to make
faithful minutes which have only value when kept
for ages, and in one life are insignificant.
I have dined once with Carlyle, and have found
the Bancrofts again very kind and thoughtful for
me. Mr. B. has supplied me with means of access
to both Houses of Parliament, and Mrs. Bancroft
sends me a card to Lady Morgan's soirees, where
she assures me I shall see good people. Bancroft
shares, of course, to the highest point, in the enthu-
siasm for the French. So does Carlyle in his way,
and now for the first time in his life takes in the
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 527
Times newspaper daily. ... I also read the Times
every day. I have been to the House of Lords one
evening, and attended during the whole sitting ;
saw Wellington. Once also to the Commons ; to
the British Museum, long an object of great desire
to me. . . . Last night, by Carlyle's advice, I at-
tended a meeting of Chartists, assembled to receive
the report of the deputation they had sent to con-
gratulate the French Republic. It was crowded,
and the people very much in earnest. The Mar-
seillaise was sung as songs are in our abolition
meetings. London is disturbed in these days by a
mob which meets every day this week, and creates
great anxiety among shopkeepers in the districts
where it wanders, breaking windows and stealing.
London has too many glass doors to afford riots.
. . . Yet, though there is a vast population of
hungry operatives all over the kingdom, the peace
will probably not be disturbed by them ; they will
only, in the coming months, give body and terror
to the demands made by the Cobdens and Brights
who agitate for the middle class. When these are
satisfied, universal suffrage and the republic will
come in. But it is not this which you will wish to
hear now. The most wonderful thing I see is this
London, at once seen to be the centre of the world ;
the immense masses of life, of power, of wealth,
and the effect upon the men of running in and out
amidst the play of this vast machinery ; the effect
528 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
to keep them tense and silent, and to mind every
man his own. It is all very entertaining, I assure
you. I think sometimes that it would well become
me to sit here a good while and study London
mainly, and the wide variety of classes that, like
so many nations, are dwelling here together. . . .
March 23. ... I have seen a great many peo-
ple, some very good ones. Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft,
and Carlyle, and Milnes have taken kind care to
introduce me. At Mr. Bancroft's I dined with
Macaulay, Bunsen, Lord Morpeth, Milman, Milnes,
and others. Carlyle, Mr. and Mrs. Lyell, Mrs.
Butler, and others came in the evening. At Mr.
Milman's I breakfasted with Macaulay, Hallam,
Lord Morpeth, and a certain brilliant Mr. Charles
Austin. ... At Mr. Procter's (Barry Cornwall)
I dined with Forster of the Examiner, Kinglake
(Eothen), and others. . . . Carlyle carried me to
Lady Harriet Baring, who is a very distinguished
person, and the next day to Lady Ashburton, her
mother, and I am to dine with them both. . . .
Mrs. Jameson I have seen a good deal. Then
there is a scientific circle of great importance. Mr.
Owen, who is in England what Agassiz is in
America, has given me a card to his lectures at
the College of Surgeons, and shown me the Hun-
terian Museum. His lecture gratified me the more,
or entirely, I may say, because, like Agassiz, he is
an idealist in physiology. Then Mr. Hutton, to
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 629
whom Harriet Martineau introduced me, carried
me to the Geological Society, where I heard the
best debate I have heard in England, the House of
Commons and the Manchester banquet not ex-
cepted ; Buckland (of the Bridge water treatise),
a man of great wit and sense and science, and Car-
penter, and Forbes, and Lyell, and Daubeny being
among the speakers. I was then presented to the
Marquis of Northampton, who invited me to his
soiree. These people were all discoverers in their
new science, and loaded to the lips, so that what
might easily seem in a newspaper report a dull
affair was full of character and eloquence. Some
of these above-named good friends exerted them-
selves for me to the best effect in another way,
so that I was honored with an election into the
Athenaeum Club during my temporary residence in
England, a privilege one must prize. . . . Milnes
and other good men are always to be found there.
Milnes is the most good-natured man in England,
made of sugar ; he is everywhere and knows every-
thing. He told of Landor that one day, in a tower-
ing passion, he threw his cook out of the window,
and then presently exclaimed, " Good God, I never
thought of those poor violets ! " The last time he
saw Landor he found him expatiating on our cus-
tom of eating in company, which he esteems very
barbarous. He eats alone, with half-closed win-
dows, because the light interferes with the taste.
530 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
He has lately heard of some tribe in Crim Tartary
who have the practice of eating alone, and these
he extols as much superior to the English. . . .
Macaulay is the king of diners-out. I do not know
when I have seen such wonderful vivacity. He
has the strength of ten men, immense memory, fun,
fire, learning, politics, manners, and pride, and
talks all the time in a steady torrent. You would
say he was the best type of England. . . .
March 24. Yesterday, or rather last night, I
dined at Mr. Baring's (at eight o'clock). The
company was, Lord and Lady Ashburton, Lord
Auckland, Carlyle, Milnes, Thackeray, Lord and
Lady Castlereagh, the Bishop of Oxford (Wilber-
force), and in the evening came Charles Buller ;
who, they say in introducing me to him, " was the
cleverest man in England until he attempted also
to be a man of business." . . . French politics are
incessantly discussed in all companies, and so here.
Besides the intrinsic interest of the spectacle, and
the intimate acquaintance which all these people
have with all the eminent persons in France, there
is evidently a certain anxiety to know whether our
days also are not numbered. . . . Carlyle de-
claimed a little in the style of that raven prophet
who cried, " Woe to Jerusalem," just before its fall.
But Carlyle finds little reception even in this com-
pany, where some were his warm friends. All his
methods included a good deal of killing, and he
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 531
does not see his way very clearly or far. The
aristocrats say, " Put that man in the House of
Commons, and you will hear no more of him." It
is a favorite tactics here, and silences the most
turbulent. There he will be permitted to declaim
once, only once ; then, if he have a measure to pro-
pose, it will be tested ; if not, he must sit still.
One thing is certain : that if the peace of England
should be broken up, the aristocracy here — or, I
should say, the rich — are stout-hearted, and as
ready to fight for their own as the poor ; are not
very likely to run away. . . . You will wish to
know my plans. Alas, I have none. As long as
I have these fine opportunities opening to me here,
I prefer to use them and stay where I am. France
may presently shut its doors to me and to all peace-
ful men ; so that I may not go there at all. But I
shall soon spend all my money if I sit here, and I
have not yet taken any step in London towards
filling my pocket. How can I ? I must soon de-
cide on something. I have declined such lecturing
as was offered me ; you do not wish me to read
lectures to the Early-closing Institution? I saw
Macready the other night as Lear, and Mrs. But-
ler as Cordelia. Mrs. Bancroft is very happy and
a universal favorite. She sees the best people of
all the best circles, and she has virtues and graces
which I see to greater advantage in London than
in Boston : for her true love of her old friends and
532 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
her home is very obvious. Her friend Miss Murray
and Mrs. Jameson were concocting a plot for in-
troducing me to Lady Byron, who lives retired and
reads ! . . . But I shall, no doubt, remember
many traits and hues of this Babylonish dream
when I come home to the woods.
April 2. Yesterday night I went to the soiree
of the Marquis of Northampton, where may be
found all the savants who are in London. There
I saw Prince Albert, to whom Dr. Buckland was
showing some microscopic phenomena. The prince
is handsome and courteous, and I watched him for
some minutes across the table, as a personage of
much historical interest. Here I saw Mantell,
Captain Sabine, Brown the great botanist, Crabb
Robinson (who knew all men, Lamb, Southey,
Wordsworth, Madame de Stael, and Goethe), Sir
Charles Fellowes, who brought home the Lycian
marbles ; and many more. Then I went, by an in-
vitation sent me through Milnes, to Lady Palmer-
ston's, and saw quite an illustrious collection, such
as only London and Lord Palmerston could collect :
princes and high foreigners ; Bunsen ; Rothschild
(that London proverb) in flesh and blood ; Dis-
raeli, to whom I was presented, and had with him
a little talk ; Macaulay ; Mr. Cowper, a very cour-
teous gentleman, son of Lady Palmerston, with
whom I talked much ; and many distinguished
dames, some very handsome. . . . Lord Palmer-
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 533
ston is frank and affable, of a strong but cheerful
and ringing speech. But I ought to have told you
that on the morning of this day when I saw all these
fine figures I had come from Oxford, where I spent
something more than two days, very happily. I
had an old invitation from Mr. Clough, a Fellow of
Oriel, and last week I had a new one from Dr.
Daubeny, the botanical professor. I went on
Thursday. I was housed close upon Oriel, though
not within it, but I lived altogether on college hos-
pitalities, dining at Exeter College with Palgrave,
Froude, and other Fellows, and breakfasting next
morning at Oriel with Clough, Dr. Daubeny, etc.
They all showed me the kindest attentions, . . .
but, much more, they showed me themselves ; who
are many of them very earnest, faithful, affection-
ate, some of them highly gifted men ; some of
them, too, prepared and decided to make great sac-
rifices for conscience' sake. Froude is a noble
youth, to whom my heart warms ; I shall soon see
him again. Truly I became fond of these monks of
Oxford. Last Suuday I dined at Mr. Bancroft's
with Lady Morgan and Mrs. Jameson, and ac-
cepted Lady Morgan's invitation for the next even-
ing to tea. At her house I found, beside herself
(who is a sort of fashionable or London edition of
aunt Mary; the vivacity, the wit, the admirable
preservation of social powers, being retained, but
the high moral genius being left out), Mrs. Gore,
534 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
of the fashionable novels, a handsome Lady Moles-
worth, a handsome, sensible Lady Louisa Tenny-
son, Mr. Kinglake, Mr. Conyngham, a friend of
John Sterling's, and others.
Pray, after this ostentation of my fashionable ac-
quaintance, do you believe that my rusticities are
smoothed down, and my bad manners mended ?
Not in the smallest degree. I have not acquired
the least facility, nor can hope to. But I do not
decline these opportunities, as they are all valuable
to me, who would, at least, know how that " other
half of the world " lives, though I cannot and
would not live with them. I find the greatest sim-
plicity of speech and manners among these people ;
great directness, but, I think, the same (or even
greater) want of high thought as you would notice
in a fashionable circle in Boston. Yes, greater.
But then I know these people very superficially.
I have not yet told you, I believe, of my dinner at
Lord Ashburton's, where I sat between Mr. Hallam
and Lord Northampton, and saw Lockhart, Buck-
land, Croker, Lady Davy (of Sir Humphrey D.),
Lord Monteagle, and more. Another day I went
to the house, and Lord Ashburton showed me all
his pictures, which are most precious and re-
nowned. Hallam was very courteous and com-
municative, and has since called on me. To-mor-
row I am to dine with Mr. Lyell, and the next
day with the Geological Club at the invitation
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 535
of — oh, tell not Dr. C. T. J. [Dr. Charles T.
Jackson, his brother-in-law, geologist and man of
science] — Sir Henry Delabeche, the president. . . .
I spend the first hours of the day usually in my
chamber, and have got a new chapter quite for-
ward, if it have rather a musty title. Whether to
go to France or not, I have not quite determined :
I suppose I must, in all prudence ; though I have
no money, nor any plain way of obtaining any.
London, April 20, 1848.
Dear Lidian, — The steamer is in : everybody
has letters, and I have none, none from you or the
dear little Ellen who writes me short, pert, good
notes, — all blessings fall on the child ! It must be
that you too have decided that boats run a little
too often for mere human pens moved by hands
that have many more things to drive. ... I have
been busy during the last fortnight, but have added
no very noticeable persons to my list of acquaint-
ances. A good deal of time is lost here in their
politics, as I read the newspaper daily, and the
revolution, fixed for the 10th instant, occupied all
men's thought until the Chartist petition was ac-
tually carried to the Commons. And the rain, too,
which falls at any time almost every day, — these
things, and the many miles of street you must
afoot or by 'bus or cab achieve to make any visit,
put me, who am, as you know, always faint-hearted
536 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
at the name of visiting, much out of the humor of
prosecuting my social advantages. I have dined with
Mr. and Mrs. Lyell one day, and one with a good
Dr. Forbes, who carried me to the Royal Institu-
tion to hear Faraday, who is reckoned the best lec-
turer in London. It seems very doubtful whether
I shall read lectures here even now. Chapman
makes himself very busy about it, and a few people,
and I shall, no doubt, have a good opportunity, but
I am not ready, and it is a lottery business, and I
do much incline to decline it, — on grounds that I
can only tell you of at home, — and go to Paris for
a few weeks, get my long-promised French lesson,
and come home to be poor and pay for my learning.
I have really been at work every day here with my
old tools of book and pen, and shall at last have
something to show for it all.
The best sights I have seen lately are, the British
Museum, whose chambers of antiquities I visited
with the Bancrofts on a private day, under the gui-
dance of Sir Charles Fellowes, who brought home
the Xanthian marbles, and really gave us the most
instructive chapter on the subject of Greek remains
that I have ever heard or read of . . . . Then the
King's Library, which I saw under the guidance of
Panizzi, the librarian, and afterwards of Coventry
Patmore, a poet, who is a sub-librarian. Then I
heard Grisi the other night sing at Covent Garden,
— Grisi and Alboni, the rivals of the opera. Being
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 537
admitted an honorary member of the Reform Club,
I went over all that magnificent house with Mr.
Field, through its kitchen, reckoned the best in
Europe, which was shown to me by Soyer, renowned
in the literature of saucepan and soup. Another
day through, over, and under the new Houses of Par-
liament, . . . among the chiefest samples of the
delight which Englishmen find in spending a great
deal of money. Carlyle has been quite ill lately
with inflamed sore throat, and as he is a very in-
tractable patient, his wife and brother have no small
trouble to keep him in bed or even in the house. I
certainly obtained a fairer share of the conversation
when I visited him. He is very grim lately on
these ominous times, which have been and are
deeply alarming to all England.
I find Chapman very anxious to establish a jour-
nal common to Old and New England, as was long
ago proposed. Froude and Clough and other Ox-
onians and others would gladly conspire. Let the
Massachusetts Quarterly give place to this, and
we should have two legs and bestride the sea. But
what do I, or what does any friend of mine in
America, care for a journal ? Not enough, I fear, to
secure any energetic work on that side. ... 'T is
certain the Mass. Q. B. will fail unless Henry
Thoreau and Alcott and Channing and Charles
Newcomb — the f ourf old-visaged four — fly to the
rescue. I am sorry that Alcott's editor, the Du-
538 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
mont of our Bentham, Baruch of our Jeremiah, is so
slow to be born. . . . Young Palgrave at Oxford
gave me a letter to Sir William Hooker, who pre-
sides over Kew Gardens, and Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft
having a good will to go there, and being already
acquainted with him, we went thither yesterday in
their carriage, and had the benefit of this eminent
guide through these eminent gardens. The day was
the finest of the year, and the garden is the richest
on the face of the earth. Adam would find all his
old acquaintances of Eden here. Since I have been
in London I have not earned a single pound. The
universal anxiety of people on political and social
dangers makes no favorable theatre for letters and
lectures. The poor booksellers sell no book for the
last month. Neither have I yet had any new chap-
ters quite ripe to offer for reading to a private class.
But all this question must very shortly decide it-
self. Either I shall undertake something in Lon-
don, or go to Liverpool or to Bristol, as has been
proposed, or renounce all such thought, and deter-
mine to pay for my pleasures by publishing my
new papers when I get home. My newest writing
(except always an English journal which grows a
little day by day) is a kind of " Natural History of
Intellect ; " very unpromising title, is it not ? and,
you will say, the better it is, the worse. I dined with
the Geological Club yesterday, and in the evening
attended the meeting of the Society, and had a very
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 539
good opportunity of hearing Sedgwick, who is their
best man, Ramsay, Jukes, Forbes, Buckland, and
others. To-day I have heard Dr. Carpenter lecture
at the Royal Institution. . . . Dear love to all the
children three, and to dear friends whom I do not
besrin to name for fear to choose. I never name
any without a sense of crying injustice, so multitu-
dinous are my debts, happy, unhappy man that I
am ! Fare you well. Waldo.
May 4. I am going on Saturday to Paris. I
mean to read six lectures in London, which will be
forthwith advertised, to begin three weeks from next
Tuesday. And I shall spend the interim in France.
I had all but decided not to read in London, but was
much pressed, and came at last to have a feeling
that not to do it was a kind of skulking. I cannot
suit myself yet with a name for the course. I am
leading the same miscellaneous London life as
when I have written before : dining out in a great
variety of companies, seeing shilling shows, attend-
ing scientific and other societies, seeing picture-
galleries, operas, and theatres. One day I met
Dickens at Mr. Forster's, and liked him very well.
Carlyle dined there also, and it seemed the habit of
the set to pet Carlyle a good deal, and draw out
the mountainous mirth. The pictures which such
people together give one of what is really going
forward in private and in public life are inesti-
540 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
mable. Day before yesterday I dined with the
Society of Antiquaries, sat beside the veritable
Collier (of Shakspeare criticism) and discussed the
Sonnets. Among the toasts my health was actually
proposed to the company by the president, Lord
Mahon, and I made a speech in reply ; all which
was surprising enough. To-morrow I am to dine
with Tennyson, whom I have not yet seen, at Cov-
entry Patmore's. . . . Miss Martineau is here, not,
as I supposed, for a frolic after so much labor,
but to begin, with Knight, hard work for a twelve-
month in writing a penny journal called Voice of
the People ; which the government have procured
these two to emit in these wild times, and which
seems to foolish me like a sugar-plum thrown to a
mad bull. . . .
(Journal.) " I saw Tennyson first at the house
of Coventry Patmore, where we dined together.
I was contented with him at once. He is tall and
scholastic-looking, no dandy, but a great deal of
plain strength about him, and, though cultivated,
quite unaffected. Quiet, sluggish sense and thought ;
refined, as all English are, and good-humored.
There is in him an air of general superiority that
is very satisfactory. He lives with his college set,
. . . and has the air of one who is accustomed to
be petted and indulged by those he lives with.
Take away Hawthorne's bashfulness, and let him
PARIS IN 1848. 541
talk easily and fast, and yon would have a pretty
good Tennyson. I told him that his friends and
I were persuaded that it was important to his
health an instant visit to Paris, and that I was to
go on Monday if he was ready. He was very good-
humored, and affected to think that I should never
come back alive from France ; it was death to go.
But he had been looking for two years for some-
body to go to Italy with, and was ready to set out
at once, if I would go there. . . . He gave me a
cordial invitation to his lodgings (in Buckingham
Place), where I promised to visit him before I went
away. ... I found him at home in his lodgings,
but with him was a clergyman whose name I did
not know, and there was no conversation. He
was sure again that he was taking a final farewell
of me, as I was going among the French bullets,
but promised to be in the same lodgings if I should
escape alive. . . . Carlyle thinks him the best man
in England to smoke a pipe with, and used to see
him much ; had a place in his little garden, on the
wall, where Tennyson's pipe was laid up.
Pabis, May 17, 1848.
Dear Lidian, — I came to Paris by Boulogne
Saturday night, May 6. I have been at lodgings
ever since, in the Rue des Petits Augustins, where
I manage to live very comfortably. On Monday
(day before yesterday), as you will read in the
542 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
papers, there was a revolution defeated which came
within an ace of succeeding. We were all assured
for an hour or two that the new government was
proclaimed and the old routed, and Paris, in terror,
seemed to acquiesce ; but the National Guards, who
are all but the entire male population of Paris, at
last found somebody to rally and lead them, and
they swept away the conspirators in a moment.
Blanqui and Barbes, the two principal ringleaders,
I knew well, as I had attended Blanqui's club on
the evenings of Saturday and Sunday, and heard
his instructions to his Montagnards, and Barbes'
club I had visited last week, and I am heartily
glad of the shopkeepers' victory. I saw the sudden
and immense display of arms when the rappel was
beaten, on Monday afternoon ; the streets full of
bayonets, and the furious driving of the horses
dragging cannon towards the National Assembly ;
the rapid succession of proclamations proceeding
from the government and pasted on the walls at
the corners of all streets, eagerly read by crowds
of people ; and, not waiting for this, the rapid pas-
sage of messengers with proclamations in their
hands, which they read to knots of people and then
ran on to another knot, and so on down a street.
The moon shone as the sun went down ; the river
rolled under the crowded bridges, along the swarm-
ing quays ; the tricolor waved on the great mass of
the Tuileries, which seemed too noble a palace to
PARIS IN 1848. 543
doubt of the owner ; but before night all was safe,
and our new government, who had held the seats for
a quarter of an hour, were fast in jail. ... I have
seen Rachel in Phedre, and heard her chant the
Marseillaise. She deserves all her fame, and is
the only good actress I have ever seen. I went to
the Sorbonne, and heard a lecture from Leverrier
on mathematics. It consisted chiefly of algebraic
formulas which he worked out on the blackboard ;
but I saw the man. I heard Michelet on Indian
philosophy. But, though I have been to many
places, I find the clubs the most interesting; the
men are in terrible earnest. The fire and fury of
the people, when they are interrupted and thwarted,
are inconceivable to New England. The costumes
are foi'midable. All France is bearded like goats
and lions; then most of Paris is in some kind
of uniform, — red cap, red sash, blouse perhaps
bound by red sash, brass helmet, and sword, and
everybody supposed to have a pistol in his pocket.
But the deep sincerity of the speakers, who are
agitating social, not political questions, and who are
studying how to secure a fair share of bread to
every man, and to get God's justice done through
the land, is very good to hear. . . . Clough, my
Oxford friend, is here, and we usually dine together.
... I have just sent my programme of lectures
to London, but am not to begin until the 6th of
June ; thence count three long weeks for the
544 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
course to fill, and I do not set out for Boston until
almost the 1st of July. By that time you must
make up your minds to let me come home. And
I am losing all these weeks and months of my
children ; which I daily regret. I shall bring
home, with a good many experiences that are well
enough, a contentedness with home, I think, for
the rest of my days. Indeed, I did not come
here to get that, for I had no great good-will to
come away, but it is confirmed after seeing so many
of the " contemporaries."
I think we are fallen on shallow agencies. Is
there not one of your doctors who treats all disease
as diseases of the skin? All these orators in blouse
or broadcloth seem to me to treat the matter quite
literarily, and with the ends of the fingers. They
are earnest and furious, but about patent methods
and ingenious machines.
May 24. I find Paris a place of the largest liberty
that is, I suppose, in the civilized world ; and I am
thankful for it, just as I am for etherization, as a
resource when the accident of any hideous surgery
threatens me ; so Paris in the contingency of my ever
needing a place of diversion and independence ; this
shall be my best-bower anchor. All winter I have
been admiring the English and disparaging the
French. Now in these weeks I have been correct-
ing my prejudice, and the French rise many entire
degrees. Their universal good-breeding is a great
PARIS IN 1848. 545
convenience ; and the English and American
superstition in regard to broadcloth seems really
diminished, if not abolished, here. Knots of people
converse everywhere in the street, and the blouse,
or shirt-sleeves without blouse, becomes as readily
the centre of discourse as any other ; and Super-
fine and Shirt, who never saw each other before,
converse in the most earnest yet deferential way.
Nothing like it could happen in England. They
are the most joyous race, and put the best face on
everything. Paris, to be sure, is their main perfor-
mance ; but one can excuse their vanity and pride,
it is so admirable a city. The Seine adorns Paris ;
the Thames is out of sight in London. The Seine
is quayed all the way, so that broad streets on both
sides the river, as well as gay bridges, have all the
good of it, and the sun and moon and stars look
into it and are reflected. At London I cannot re-
member seeing the river. Here are magnificent
gardens, neither too large nor too small for the
convenience of the whole people, who spend every
evening in them. Here are palaces tridy royal. If
they have cost a great deal of treasure at some
time, they have at least got a palace to show for it,
and a church too, in Notre Dame ; whilst in Eng-
land there is no palace, with all their floods of mil-
lions of guineas that have been spent. I witnessed
the great national fete on Sunday last, when over
120,000 people stood in the Champ de Mars, and
546 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
it was like an immense family; the perfect good-
humor and fellowship is so habitual to them all.
. . . You will like to know that I heard Lamartine
speak to-day in the Chamber ; his great speech, the
journals say, on Poland. Mr. Rush lent me his
own ticket for the day. He did not speak, however,
with much energy, but is a manly, handsome, gray-
haired gentleman, with nothing of the rust of the
man of letters, and delivers himself with great
ease and superiority. . . . Clough is still here, and
is my chief dependence at the dining hour and after-
wards. I am to go to a soiree at De Tocqueville's
to-night. My French is far from being as good as
Madame de Stael's.
London, June 8, 1848.
I came from Paris last Saturday hither, after
spending twenty-five days there, and seeing little of
the inside of the houses. I had one very pleasant
hour with Madame d'Agout. . . . An artist of the
name of Lehmann offered me also good introduc-
tions, and I was to see Quinet, Lamennais, and
others, but I turned my back and came to London.
Still, Paris is much the more attractive to me of the
two ; in great part, no doubt, because it yields itself
up entirely to serve us. I wholly forget what I have
already written you concerning Paris, and must not
venture on repeating my opinions, which are stereo-
typed as usual, and will surely come in the same
words. Besides, I have no right to be writing you
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 547
at all, dear wife, as I have been writing all day,
have read my second lecture to-day, and must
write all to-morrow on my third for Saturday. We
have a very moderate audience, and I was right, of
course, in not wishing to undertake it ; for I spoil
my work by giving it this too rapid casting. . . .
It is a regret to me to lose this summer ; for in
London all days and all seasons are alike, and I
have not realized one natural day. . . . Carlyle
talks of editing a newspaper, he has so much to
say about the evil times. You have probably al-
ready seen his articles. I send you two of them
in the Spectator. ... It grieves me that I cannot
write to the children : to Edie for her printed let-
ter, which is a treasure ; to Ellen, who must be my
own secretary directly. I cannot hear that the
railroad bridge is built, and you would not have
me come home till I can go clean from Boston to
Concord? Will this idle scrawling tell you the
sad secret that I cannot with heavy head make the
smallest way in my inevitable morrow's work?
June 16. My last lecture is to-morrow, and is
far from ready. Then do not expect me to leave
England for a fortnight yet, for I must make
amends for my aristocratic lecturing in Edwards
Street, at prices which exclude all my public, by
reading three of my old chapters in Exeter Hall
to a city association. Our little company at
Marylebone has grown larger on each day, and is
548 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
truly a dignified company, in which several notable
men and women are patiently found. . . . Carlyle
takes a lively interest in our lectures, especially in
the third of the course [on the " Tendencies and
Duties of Men of Thought"], and he is a very
observed auditor, 't is very plain. The Duchess of
Sutherland, a magnificent lady, comes, and Lady
Ashburton, and Lord Lovelace, who is the husband
of " Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart, "
and Mrs. Jameson, and Spence (of Kirby and
Spence), and Barry Cornwall, and Lyell, and a
great many more curiosities ; but none better than
Jane Carlyle and Mrs. Bancroft, who honestly
come. Love to the little saints of the nursery. . . .
London, June 21.
We finished the Marylebone course last Saturday
afternoon, to the great joy, doubt not, of all par-
ties. It was a curious company that came to hear
the Massachusetts Indian, and partly new, Carlyle
says, at every lecture. Some of the company pro-
bably came to see others ; for, besides our high
Duchess of Sutherland and her sister, Lord Mor-
peth and the Duke of Argyle came, and other
aristocratic people ; and as there could be no pre-
diction what might be said, and therefore what
must be heard by them, and in the presence of
Carlyle and Monckton Milnes, etc., there might be
fun ; who knew ? Carlyle, too, makes loud Scot-
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 549
tish-Covenanter gruntings of laudation, or at least
of consideration, when anything strikes him, to
the edifying of the attentive vicinity. As it befell,
no harm was done ; no knives were concealed in
the words, more 's the pity ! Many things — sup-
posed by some to be important, but on which the
better part suspended their judgment — were pro-
pounded, and the assembly at last escaped without
a revolution. Lord Morpeth sent me a compliment
in a note, and I am to dine with him on the 28th.
The Duchess of Sutherland sent for me to come to
lunch on Monday, and she would show me her
house. Lord Lovelace called on me on Saturday,
and I am to dine with him to-morrow, and see By-
ron's daughter. I met Lady Byron at Mrs. Jame-
son's, last week, one evening. She is a quiet, sen-
sible woman, with this merit among others, that
she never mentions Lord Byron or her connection
with him, and lets the world discuss her supposed
griefs or joys in silence. Last night I visited
Leigh Hunt, who is a very agreeable talker, and
lays himself out to please ; gentle, and full of an-
ecdote. And there is no end of the Londoners.
Did I tell you that Carlyle talks seriously about
writing a newspaper, or at least short off-hand
tracts, to follow each other rapidly, on the political
questions of the day ? I had a long talk with him
on Sunday evening, to much more purpose than we
commonly attain. He is solitary and impatient of
550 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
people ; lie has no weakness of respect, poor man,
such as is granted to other scholars I wot of, and I
see no help for him. ... I have been taxed with
neglecting the middle class by these West-End lec-
tures, and now am to read expiatory ones in Exeter
Hall ; only three, — three dull old songs.
TO MISS HOAR.
London, June 21, 1848.
Deak Elizabeth, — I have been sorry to let
two, or it may be three, steamers go without a word
to you since your last letter. But there was no
choice. Now my literary duties in London and
England are for this present ended, and one has
leisure not only to be glad that one's sister is alive,
but to say so. I believe you are very impatient of
my impatience to come home, but my pleasure, like
everybody's, is in my work, and I get many more
good hours in a Concord week than in a London
one. Then my atelier in all these years has grad-
ually gathered a little sufficiency of tools and con-
veniences for me, and I have missed its apparatus
continually in England. The rich Athenaeum
(Club) library, yes, and the dismaying library of the
British Museum could not vie with mine in con-
venience. And if my journeying has furnished
me new materials, I only wanted my atelier the
more. To be sure, it is our vice — mine, I mean
— never to be well ; and to make all our gains by
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 551
this indisposition. So you will not take my wish-
ings for any more serious calamity than the com-
mon lot. And yet you must be willing that I
should desire to come home and see you and the
rest. Dear thanks for all the true kindness your
letter brings. How gladly I would bring you such
pictures of my experiences here as you would bring
me, if you had them ! Sometimes I have the
strongest wish for your daguerreotyping eyes and
narrative eloquence, but I think never more than
the day before yesterday. The Duchess of Suth-
erland sent for me to come to lunch with her at
two o'clock, and she would show me Stafford House.
Now you must know this eminent lady lives in the
best house in the kingdom, the Queen's not excepted.
I went, and was received with great courtesy by
the Duchess, who is a fair, large woman, of good
figure, with much dignity and sweetness, and the
kindest manners. She was surrounded by company,
and she presented me to the Duke of Argyle, her
son-in-law, and to her sisters, the Ladies Howard.
After we left the table we went through this magnif-
icent palace, this young and friendly Duke of Argyle
being my guide. He told me he had never seen so
fine a banquet hall as the one we were entering ;
and galleries, saloons, and anterooms were all in
the same regal proportions and richness, full every-
where with sculpture and painting. We found the
Duchess in the gallery, and she showed me her
552 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
most valued pictures. ... I asked her if she did
not come on fine mornings to walk alone amidst
these beautiful forms ; which she professed she
liked well to do. She took care to have every best
thing pointed out to me, and invited me to come
and see the gallery alone whenever I liked. I as-
sure you in this little visit the two parts of Duchess
and of palace were well and truly played. ... I
have seen nothing so sumptuous as was all this.
One would so gladly forget that there was anything
else in England than these golden chambers and
the high and gentle people who walk in them !
May the grim Revolution with his iron hand — if
come he must — come slowly and late to Stafford
House, and deal softly with its inmates! . . .
Your affectionate brother, Waldo.
TO HIS WIFE.
London, June 28.
. . . All my duties will be quite at an end on Friday
night at Exeter Hall, and I have then to determine
which to choose of all the unseen spectacles of Eng-
land. I have not seen Stonehenge, nor Chatsworth,
nor Canterbury, nor Cambridge, — nor even Eton
and Windsor, which lie so near London. I have
good friends who send for me, but I do not mean
to engage myself to new people or places. As Mr.
Burke said, " I have had my day ; I can shut the
book." I am really very willing to see no new face
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 553
for a year to come, — unless only it were a face
that made all things new. There is very much to
be learned by coming to England and France.
The nations are so concentrated and so contrasted
that one learns to tabulate races and their manners
and traits as we do animals or chemical substances,
and look at them as through the old Swedish eye-
glass, each as one proper man. Also, it must be
owned, one meets now and then here with wonder-
fully witty men, all-knowing, who have tried every-
thing and have everything, and are quite superior
to letters and science. What could they not, if
they only would ? I saw such a one yesterday, with
the odd name, too, of Arthur Helps. On Sunday
I dined at Mr. Field's at Hampstead, and found the
Egyptian savant Mr. Sharpe, Rowland Hill (of
the Penny Post), Stanfield the painter, and other
good men. I breakfasted next morning with Stan-
field, and went with him to see a famous gallery of
Turner's pictures at Tottenham. That day I dined
with Spence, and found Richard Owen, who is the
anatomist. To-morrow he is to show me his mu-
seum. I esteem him one of the best heads in Eng-
land. Last evening I went to dine with Lord
Morpeth, and found my magnificent Duchess of
Sutherland, and the Duke and Duchess of Argyle,
and the Ladies Howard, and Lady Graham, and Mr.
Helps, so omniscient, as I said. . . . This morning
I breakfasted with him and Lady Lovelace, as Lord
554 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
L. wished to read me a certain paper he had been
writing on a book of Quetelet. We had quite a
scientific time, and I learned some good things. I
am to go there again to-morrow evening, to see Mrs.
Somerville. . . .
And so on, day after day while he is in London.
I have detailed at such length (though still far
from the whole) the breakfast, dinners, and recep-
tions, in order to show how much Emerson had at
heart to learn his London lesson. There was much
to learn, and he would not neglect his opportunities,
but the process was not altogether enjoyable to
him. " I find [he writes to Miss Fuller] that all
the old deoxygenation and asphyxia that have, in
town or in village, existed for me in that word ' a
party ' exist unchanged in London palaces." But
he liked to see everything at its best. " To see the
country of success [he writes in his journal] I, who
delighted in success, departed." He writes to a
friend : —
London, March 20, 1848.
. . . What shall I say to you of Babylon ? I see
and hear with the utmost diligence, and the lesson
lengthens as I go ; so that at some hours I incline
to take some drops or grains of lotus, forget my
home and selfish solitude, and step by step estab-
lish my acquaintance with English society. There
is nowhere so much wealth of talent and character
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 555
and social accomplishment ; every star outshone
by one more dazzling, and you cannot move with-
out coming into the light and fame of new ones.
I have seen, I suppose, some good specimens,
chiefly of the literary-fashionable and not of the
fashionable sort. . . . They have all carried the
art of agreeable sensations to a wonderful pitch ;
they know everything, have everything ; they are
rich, plain, polite, proud, and admirable. But,
though good for them, it ends in the using. I shall
or should soon have enough of this play for my
occasion. The seed-corn is oftener found in quite
other districts. . . . Perhaps it is no fault of Brit-
ain, — no doubt 't is because I grow old and cold,
— but no persons here appeal in any manner to
the imagination. I think even that there is no per-
son in England from whom I expect more than
talent and information. But I am wont to ask
very much more of my benefactors, — expansions,
that amount to new horizons.
"I leave England [he writes to Miss Fuller]
with an increased respect for the Englishman. His
stuff or substance seems to be the best of the world.
I forgive him all his pride. My respect is the
more generous that I have no sympathy with him,
only an admiration."
The Englishman, Emerson says in a lecture
after his return, stands in awe of a fact as some-
556 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
thing final and irreversible, and confines his
thoughts and his aspirations to the means of deal-
ing with it to advantage ; he does not seek to com-
prehend it, but only to utilize it for enjoyment or
display, at any rate to adapt himself to it ; and he
values only the faculties that enable him to do this.
He admires talent and is careless of ideas. " The
English have no higher heaven than Fate. Even
their ablest living writer, a man who has earned
his position by the sharpest insights, is politically
a fatalist. In his youth he announced himself as ' a
theoretical sans-cidotte, fast threatening to become
a practical one.' Now he is practically in the Eng-
lish system, a Venetian aristocracy, with only a pri-
vate stipulation in favor of men of genius. The
Norse heaven made the stern terms of admission
that a man could do something excellent with his
hands, his feet, or with his voice, eyes, ears, or with
his whole body ; and it was the heaven of the Eng-
lish ever since. Every Englishman is a House of
Commons, and expects you will not end your speech
without proposing a measure ; the scholars no less ;
a stanza of the ' Song of Nature ' they have no ear
for, and they do not value the expansive and medi-
cinal influence of intellectual activity, studious of
truth, without a rash generalization."
It was this feeling, perhaps, that made him hesi-
tate so long about lecturing in London, and made
his lecturing, when it was done, seem to him rather
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 557
ineffectual. The Marylebone course does not ap-
pear to have attracted much notice ; it was hardly
mentioned in the London literary newspapers. He
was careful in his letters to guard against the in-
ference that his friends were slack, or that they
had been too confident in their assurances, but it
comes out incidentally in a letter to his brother
William that instead of ,£200, which he had been
led to expect, he received but <£80 for the six lec-
tures, when all expenses were paid.
The lack of response, at which he hints in the
letter at the close of the course, would be the more
felt by him because on this occasion he had made a
new departure, in pursuance of a scheme he had
long cherished of reading a series of connected dis-
courses on the first principles of philosophy. In a
letter to Miss Fuller, he says : —
" I am working away in these mornings at some
papers which, if I do not, as I suppose I shall not,
get ready for lectures here, will serve me in a bet-
ter capacity as a kind of book of metaphysics, to
print at home. Does not James Walker [Profes-
sor of Moral Philosophy at Harvard College] want
relief, and to let me be his lieutenant for one
semester to his class in Locke ? "
For the ordinary metaphysics he felt something
as near contempt as was possible for so undogmatic
a nature as his. " Who [he asks in his introduc-
558 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
tory lecture] has not looked into a metaphysical
book ? And what sensible man ever looked twice ? "
Yet the repulsiveness lay, he thought, not in the
subject, but in the way in which it is treated.
" Why should it not be brought into connection
with life and nature ? Why cannot the laws and
powers of the mind be stated as simply and as at-
tractively as the physical laws are stated by Owen
and Faraday? Those too are facts, and suffer
themselves to be recorded, like stamens and verte-
brae. But they have a higher interest as being
nearer to the mysterious seat of creation. The
highest value of physical science is felt when it
goes beyond its special objects and translates their
rules into a universal cipher, in which we read the
rules of the intellect and the rules of moral prac-
tice. It is this exceeding and universal part that
interests us, because it opens the true history of
that kingdom where a thousand years is as one day.
The Natural History of the Intellect would be an
enumeration of the laws of the world, — laws com-
mon to chemistry, anatomy, geometry, moral and
social life. In the human brain the universe is
reproduced with all its opulence of relations ; it is
high time that it should be humanly and popularly
unfolded, that the Decalogue of the Intellect
should be written." He was not so hardy, he said,
as to think any single observer could accomplish
this, still less that he could ; but he would attempt
some studies or sketches for such a picture.
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 559
" If any man had something sure and certain to
tell on this matter, the entire population would
come out to him. Ask any grave man of wide ex-
perience what is best in his experience, he will say :
A few passages of plain dealing with wise people.
The question I would ask of my friend is : Do you
know what you worship ? What is the religion of
1848? What is the mythology of 1848? Yet
these questions which really interest men, how few
can answer ! Here are clergymen and presby-
teries, but would questions like these come into
mind when I see them ? Here are Academies, yet
they have not propounded these for any prize.
Seek the literary circles, the class of fame, the men
of splendor, of bon-mots, — will they yield me sat-
isfaction ? Bring the best wits together, and they
are so impatient of each other, so vulgar, there is
so much more than their wit, a plain man finds
them so heavy, dull, and oppressive with bad jokes
and conceit and stupefying individualism, that he
comes to write in his tablets, ' Avoid the great man
who is privileged to be an unprofitable companion.'
The course of things makes the scholars either
egotists, or worldly and jocose. O excellent Ther-
sites ! when you come to see me, if you would but
leave your dog at the door. And then, was there
ever prophet burdened with a message to his peo-
ple who did not cloud our gratitude by a strange
confusion of private folly with his public wisdom ?
560 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Others, though free of this besetting sin of seden-
tary men, escape from it by adopting the manners
and estimate of the world, and play the game of
conversation as they play billiards, for pastime and
credit. Who can resist the charm of talent? The
lover of truth loves power also. Among the men
of wit and learning he could not withhold his hom-
age from the gaiety, the power of memory, luck
and splendor ; such exploits of discourse, such feats
of society! These were new powers, new mines of
wealth. But when he came home his sequins were
dry leaves. What with egotism on one side and
levity on the other, we shall have no Olympus.
And then you English have hard eyes. The Eng-
lish mind, in its proud practicalness, excludes con-
templation. Yet the impression the stars and hea-
venly bodies make on us is surely more valuable
than our exact perception of a tub or a table on
the ground."
The English aristocracy, Emerson remarks in
" English Traits," have never been addicted to con-
templation ; and Emerson's idealism, thus abruptly
presented, was not calculated to win them to it.
In his " Natural History of the Intellect," meta-
physical notions are treated as if they were poetical
images, which it would be useless and impertinent
to explain. I shall return to this point on occasion
of his resumption of the same topic in later years ;
SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 561
meantime it is obvious that, so conceived, there is
little to be said about them to those who do not
see things as we do. We can only lament that
they are blind of their spiritual faculties, and use
only their senses and their understanding ; and
they on their side will think that we are dreaming.
Emerson's London audience, to be sure, would pro-
bably in any case have given themselves but little
concern with his ideas ; it was not the ideas, but
the man, that attracted them, so far as they were
attracted. Crabbe Robinson writes : 1 —
" It was with a feeling of pre-determined dislike
that I had the curiosity to look at Emerson at
Lord Northampton's a fortnight ago ; when in an
instant all my dislike vanished. He has one of
the most interesting countenances I ever beheld, —
a combination of intelligence and sweetness that
quite disarmed me. I can do no better than tell
you what Harriet Martineau says about him, which
I think admirably describes the character of his
mind : ' He is a man so sui generis that I don't
wonder at his not being apprehended till he is seen.
His influence is of an evasive sort. There is a
vague nobleness and thorough sweetness about him
which move people to their very depths without
their being able to explain why. The logicians have
an incessant triumph over him, but their triumph is
of no avail. He conquers minds as well as hearts
wherever he goes, and, without convincing any-
1 Diary of Henry Crabbe Robinson. Boston, 1869: p. 371.
562 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
body's reason of any one thing, exalts their reason
and makes their minds of more worth than they
ever were before.' "
Emerson seems to have felt no encouragement
to continue his " Song of Nature." Of the six lec-
tures, but three were concerned with the Natural
History of the Intellect ; the rest were miscellane-
ous papers which he had read in the North of Eng-
land. At Exeter Hall he repeated three more of
these, and he seems afterwards to have read another
at Marylebone.
" At Exeter Hall [he writes to his wife] Carlyle
came on Tuesday evening, and was seated, by the
joyful committee, directly behind me as I spoke ; a
thing odious to me. Perhaps he will go with me
to Stonehenge next week. We have talked of it."
Carlyle at this time was in a mood in which Em-
erson's optimism was apt to call forth " showers
of vitriol "upon all men and things. They did not
meet often nor with much pleasure on either side ;
but their regard and affection for each other were
unabated, and when the time of Emerson's depar-
ture drew near, it was agreed between them that
they should make an excursion together to some
place of interest which Emerson had not seen.
Stonehenge was selected, and they made the visit
which Emerson records in " English Traits."
He sailed from Liverpool on the 15th of July,
and reached home before the end of the month.
CHAPTER XV.
LECTURING AT THE WEST. — DEATH OF MARGARET
FULLER. — DEATH OF EMERSON'S MOTHER. —
THE ANTI- SLAVERY CONFLICT.
1848-1865.
After his return, Emerson lectured on " Eng-
land,"— keeping his notes by him, however, until
they were published, seven years later, as " English
Traits," — also on " France," and on various top-
ics, in many places, extending his range gradually
westward, until, in 1850, he went as far as St.
Louis and Galena. Thenceforth, for nearly twenty
years, a Western lecturing-tour was a regular em-
ployment of his winter ; sometimes taking up the
greater part of it. From one of these winter rounds
he writes : —
" This climate and people are a new test for the
wares of a man of letters. All his thin, watery
matter freezes ; 't is only the smallest portion of
alcohol that remains good. At the lyceum the
stout Illinoisian, after a short trial, walks out of
the hall. The committees tell you that the people
want a hearty laugh ; and Saxe and Park Benja-
min, who give this, are heard with joy. Well, I
564 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
think, with Governor Reynolds, the people are al-
ways right (in a sense), and that the man of letters
is to say, These are the new conditions to which I
must conform. The architect who is asked to build
a house to go upon the sea must not build a Par-
thenon, but a ship ; and Shakspeare, or Franklin,
or Esop, coming to Illinois, would say, I must
give my wisdom a comic form, and I well know how
to do it. And he is no master who cannot vary his
form and carry his own end triumphantly through
the most difficult conditions."
For his own part, he made no attempt to give his
wisdom a comic form, though he took some pains
with, anecdotes and illustrations to make it more
acceptable to a chance audience. But in the lec-
tures of this time, for instance, those on the " Con-
duct of Life," if we compare them with " Nature "
and the early lectures, we may observe a less abso-
lute tone ; the idealism of ten years before remains
as true as ever, but there is more explicit recogni-
tion of the actual conditions. In a lecture on the
" Spirit of the Age," in 1850, he says of the ideal-
ists, " I regard them as themselves the effects of
the age in which we live, and, in common with
many other good facts, the efflorescence of the pe-
riod, and predicting a good fruit that ripens, but
not the creators they believe themselves. Compacts
of brotherly love are an absurdity, inasmuch as they
imply a sentimental resistance to the gravities and
LECTURING AT THE WEST. 565
tendencies which will steadily, by little and little,
pull down your air-castle. I believe in a future of
great equalities, but our inexperience is of inequal-
ities. The hope is great, the day distant ; but as
island and continents are built up by corallines, so
this juster state will come from culture on culture,
and we must work in the assurance that no ray of
light, no pulse of good, is ever lost."
He found in the West, on the whole, abundant
acceptance and sometimes a fellowship of thought
and feeling that made bright places in the dull ex-
panse. The country and the people were interest-
ing, could he have seen them at leisure and on his
own terms. Here was the heroic age come again :
" Here is America in the making, America in the
raw. But it does not want much to go to lecture,
and 't is pity to drive it. Everywhere the young
committees are the most friendly people." He was
much invited, and he was glad to go ; at any rate
for the sake of the money, which was needful to
him, his books still bringing him little in that kind.
Like his friend Agassiz, he could not afford the
time to make money ; but he would not be ham-
pered by the want of it, if the want were removable
by any reasonable amount of exertion. Upon his
return from one of these winter excursions he writes
in his journal : —
" ?T was tedious, the obstructions and squalor of
566 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
travel. The advantage of these offers made it
needful to go. It was, in short, — this dragging a
decorous old gentleman out of home and out of
position, to this juvenile career, — tantamount to
this : ' I '11 bet you fifty dollars a day for three
weeks that you will not leave your library, and
wade, and freeze, and ride, and run, and suffer all
manner of indignities, and stand up for an hour
each night reading in a hall ; ' and I answer, 'I '11
bet I will.' I do it and win the nine hundred dol-
lars."
Pittsburgh, March 21, 1851.
Dear Lidian, — I arrived here last night after
a very tedious and disagreeable journey from Phil-
adelphia, by railway and canal, with little food and
less sleep ; two nights being spent in the rail-cars
and the third on the floor of a canal-boat, where the
cushion allowed me for a bed was crossed at the
knees by another tier of sleepers as long-limbed as
I, so that in the air was a wreath of legs ; and the
night, which was bad enough, would have been far
worse but that we were so thoroughly tired we
could have slept standing. The committee wished
me to lecture in the evening, if possible, and I, who
wanted to go to bed, answered that I had prelim-
inary statements to make in my first lecture, which
required a little time and faculty to make ready,
which now coidd not be had; but if they would
LECTURING AT THE WEST. 567
let me read an old lecture I would omit the bed
and set out for the hall. So it was settled that I
should read poor old " England " once more, which
was done ; for the committee wished nothing bet-
ter, and, like all committees, think me an erratic
gentleman, only safe with a safe subject. . . .
Springfield, Illinois, January 11, 1853.
Here am I in the deep mud of the prairies, mis-
led, I fear, into this bog, not by a will-o'-the-wisp,
such as shine in bogs, but by a young New Hamp-
shire editor, who overestimated the strength of both
of us, and fancied I should glitter in the prairie
and draw the prairie birds and waders. It rains
and thaws incessantly, and if we step off the short
street we go up to the shoulders, perhaps, in mud.
My chamber is a cabin ; my fellow-boarders are
legislators. . . . Two or three governors or ex-
governors live in the house. But in the prairie we
are all new men just come, and must not stand for
trifles. 'T is of no use, then, for me to magnify
mine. But I cannot command daylight and soli-
tude for study or for more than a scrawl, nor, I
fear, will my time here be paid for at any such
rate as was promised me. . . .
January 3, 1856. A cold, raw country this, and
plenty of night-travelling and arriving at four in
the morning to take the last and worst bed in the
tavern. Advancing day brings mercy and favor to
568 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
me, but not the sleep. . . . Mercury 15° below
zero. But I pick up some materials, as I go, for
my chapter of the Anglo-American, if I should
wish to finish that. I hope you are not so cold
and not so hard riders at home. I find well-dis-
posed, kindly people among these sinewy farmers
of the North, but in all that is called cultivation
they are only ten years old ; so that there is plenty
of non-adaptation and yawning gulfs never bridged
in this ambitious lyceum system they are trying to
import. Their real interest is in prices, in sections
and quarter-sections of swamp-land.
As late as 1860 he writes : " February 13. . . .
I had travelled all the day before through Wis-
consin, with horses, and we could not for long
distances find water for them ; the wells were dry,
and people said they had no water, but snow, for
the house. The cattle were driven a mile or more
to the lake.
" Marshall, 17. At Kalamazoo a good visit, and
made intimate acquaintance with a college, wherein
I found many personal friends, though unknown to
me, and one Emerson was an established authority.
Even a professor or two came along with me to
Marshall to hear another lecture. My chief ad-
venture was the necessity of riding in a buggy
forty-eight miles to Grand Rapids ; then, after lec-
ture, twenty more on the return ; and the next
LECTURING AT THE WEST. 569
morning getting back to Kalamazoo in time for
the train hither at twelve. So I saw Michigan and
its forests and the Wolverines pretty thoroughly."
And in 1867 : " Yesterday morning in bitter cold
weather I had the pleasure of crossing the Missis-
sippi in a skiff with Mr. , we the sole passen-
gers, and a man and a boy for oarsmen. I have
no doubt they did their work better than the Har-
vard six could have done it, as much of the rowing
was on the surface of fixed ice, in fault of running
water. But we arrived without other accident than
becoming almost fixed ice ourselves ; but the long
run to the Tepfer House, the volunteered rubbing
of our hands by the landlord and clerks, and good
fire restored us."
Among the new lectures of the early part of this
period were those on the " Conduct of Life," after-
wards elaborated in the first six essays of the vol-
ume of that title which appeared in 1860. The
elaboration consisted in striking out whatever could
be spared, especially anecdotes and quotations.
What was kept remained mostly as it was first
spoken ; but, in repeating his lectures, Emerson
was in the habit of using different papers together,
in a way that makes the particular title often an
uncertain indication of what was actually read upon
a given occasion. What was nominally the same
lecture was varied by the substitution of parts of
570 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
others, as one or another aspect of a group of sub-
jects was prominent to his mind. This practice,
together with his objection to reports in the news-
papers and his carelessness to preserve his manu-
scripts after they were printed, makes it difficult
to assign precise dates to his writings after his re-
turn home in 1848.
He begins already to complain of failing produc-
tivity. " I scribble always a little, — much less than
formerly," he writes to Carlyle.1 Yet he was then
writing the " chapter on Fate," and the other essays
of the " Conduct of Life " which Carlyle reckoned
the best of all his books. And he was at the height
of his fame as a lecturer. Even N. P. Willis, who
hitherto, he says, " had never taken the trouble to
go and behold him as a prophet, with the idea that
he was but an addition to the prevailing Boston
beverage of Channing-and-water," was attracted
to hear the lecture on " England," and gave a de-
scription 2 of Emerson's voice and appearance which
is worth reading, — with due allowance : —
" Emerson's voice is up to his reputation. It
has a curious contradiction in it which we tried in
vain to analyze satisfactorily. But it is noble, alto-
gether. And what seems strange is to hear such a
voice proceeding from such a body. It is a voice
1 Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, ii. 217.
2 Reproduced in Hurry graphs, New York, 1851.
DEATH OF MARGARET FULLER. 571
with shoulders in it, which he has not ; with lungs
in it far larger than his ; with a walk which the
public never see ; with a fist in it which his own
hand never gave him the model for ; and with a
gentleman in it which his parochial and 'bare-
necessaries-of-life ' sort of exterior gives no other
betrayal of. We can imagine nothing in nature
(which seems too to have a type for everything)
like the want of correspondence between the Em-
erson that goes in at the eye and the Emerson that
goes in at the ear. ... A heavy and vase-like blos-
som of a magnolia, with fragrance enough to per-
fume a whole wilderness, which should be lifted by
a whirlwind and dropped into a branch of an aspen,
would not seem more as if it could never have grown
there than Emerson's voice seems inspired and
foreign to his visible and natural body. Indeed
(to use one of his own similitudes), his body seems
' never to have broken the umbilical cord ' which
held it to Boston ; while his soul has sprung to the
adult stature of a child of the universe, and his
voice is the utterance of the soul only."
In 1849 Emerson collected his separate addresses
and " Nature " in one volume. In July, 1850,
" Representative Men " was published. In the
same month, Margaret Fuller, returning home from
Italy, was shipwrecked and drowned, with her hus-
band and child, on Eire Island beach.
572 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Whatever " fences " there may have been be-
tween them, she was perhaps the person most
closely associated with the boundless hope and the
happy activity of the Transcendental time, and he
readily joined her friends, William Henry Chan-
ning and James Freeman Clarke, in the Memoirs
that were published in 1852. As to his own con-
tribution he writes in his journal : —
" All that can be said is that she represents an
interesting hour and group in American cultiva-
tion ; then that she was herself a fine, generous,
inspiring, vinous talker, who did not outlive her
influence; and a kind of justice requires of us a
monument, because crowds of vulgar people taunt
her with want of position."
But he was glad that her nearer friends were
able to say much more.
In 1853 Emerson's mother died at his house,
here she had lived sin
to his brother William
where she had lived since his marriage. He writes
Concoed, November 19, 1853.
... It was an end so graduated and tranquil,
all pain so deadened, and the months and days of
it so adorned by her own happy temper and by so
many attentions of so many friends whom it drew
to her, that even in these last days almost all gloom
was removed from death. Only as we find there is
DEATH OF EMERSON'S MOTHER. 573
one less room to go to for sure society in the house,
one less sure home in the house. I would gladly
have asked, had it been anywise practicable, that
the English litui'gy should be read at her burial ;
for she was born a subject of King George, and
had been in her childhood so versed in that service
that, though she had lived through the whole exist-
ence of this nation, and was tied all round to later
things, it seemed still most natural to her, and the
Book of Common Prayer was on her bureau.
After the " Conduct of Life," Emerson's chief
occupation was " English Traits," which was pub-
lished in 1856. The essays that make up " Society
and Solitude " were all written before 1860 ; most
of them long before, though the book was not pub-
lished until 1870.
Emerson showed little appearance of old age
during the period of which I am writing, yet he
had long since begun to think and speak of himself
as an old man, because, he says, he did not so rea-
dily find a thought waiting for him when he went
to his study in the morning. In 1847 (when he
was forty-four) he writes to Carlyle : " In my old
age I am coming to see you." And, ten years be-
fore, he writes in his diary : " After thirty a man
is too sensible of the strait limitations which his
physical constitution sets to his activity. The
stream feels its banks, which it had forgotten in
574 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the run and overflow of the first meadows." In
1850 he writes : " Unless I task myself I have no
thoughts." Whether it would have been better for
him had he tasked himself by some regular occu-
pation may be a question. He seems at times to
have thought so. I suppose the visit to England
was undertaken partly with this feeling, and the
compiling of his notes served him to some extent
as a regular task during the next six or seven
years.
Meanwhile his tranquil meditations on his own
topics were more and more broken in upon by the
noise of external affairs. A matter which had
always been of grave moment, but hitherto had
not seemed to touch him specially, became of press-
ing instance, — the encroachments of slavery.
The thunder-clouds which had long been muttering
on the Southern horizon, certain to come up some
day, began to rise higher and to growl menace to
the peace and the honor of New England. The im-
minence of the crisis did not force itself upon him
all at once. In January, 1845, Emerson, as one
of the curators of the Concord Lyceum, had urged
upon his colleagues the acceptance of a lecture on
slavery, by Wendell Phillips, on two grounds : —
" First, because the Lyceum was poor, and should
add to the length and variety of the entertainment
by all innocent means, especially when a discourse
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 575
from one of the best speakers in the common-
wealth was volunteered. Second, because I thought,
in the present state of the country, the particular
subject of slavery had a commanding right to be
heard in all places in New England, in season and
out of season. The people must be content to be
plagued with it from time to time until something
was done and we had appeased the negro blood so."
In the same month a public meeting was held in
the Concord Court- House (January 26, 1845), to
take counsel about the case of Mr. Samuel Hoar,
of Concord, who had been sent to South Carolina
as the agent of Massachusetts to protect the rights
of her colored citizens, and was expelled by the
mob ; also upon the question of the annexation
of Texas. Emerson was one of the business com-
mittee (Dr. John Gorham Palfrey being the chair-
man), who reported, says a writer in the Liberator
(January 31), resolutions rather mild in character,
declining to countenance anything that looked to the
dissolution of the Union. On the 22d of Septem-
ber there was a convention at Concord of persons
opposed to the annexation. Emerson was present,
and, I suppose, made a speech ; at least I find
among his papers what seems to be the partial
draft of a speech of that time, though it is not
mentioned in the Liberator, being regarded, per-
haps, as of too mild a type for the occasion. It
was but lately that he had decided — moved, per-
576 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
haps by the eloquence of his friend William Henry
Channing — against annexation. In 1844 he writes
in his journal : —
" The question of the annexation of Texas is
one of those which look very differently to the cen-
turies and to the years. It is very certain that
the strong British race, which have now overrun
so much of this continent, must also overrun that
tract, and Mexico and Oregon also ; and it will, in
the course of ages, be of small import by what
particular occasions and methods it was done."
In the paper of 1845 he says : " The great majority
of Massachusetts people are essentially opposed to
the annexation, but they have allowed their voice to
be muffled by the persuasion that it would be of no
use. This makes the mischief of the present con-
juncture, — our timorous and imbecile behavior,
and not the circumstance of the public vote. The
event is of no importance ; the part taken by Mas-
sachusetts is of the last importance. The addition
of Texas to the Union is not material ; the same
population will possess her in either event, and
similar laws ; but the fact that an upright commu-
nity have held fast their integrity, — that is a great
and commanding event. I wish that the private
position of the men of this neighborhood, of this
county, of this State, should be erect in this mat-
ter. If the State of Massachusetts values the
treaties with Mexico, let it not violate them. If it
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 577
approves of annexation, but does not like the au-
thority by which it is made, let it say so. If it
approves the act and the authority, but does not
wish to join hands with a barbarous country in
which some men propose to eat men, or to steal
men, let it say that well. If on any or all of these
groimds it disapproves the annexation, let it utter a
cheerful and peremptory No, and not a confused,
timid, and despairing one."
In 1851 the mischief had come nearer; it was
in the streets, it was at the door. The Fugitive
Slave Law of 1850 made every man in Massachu-
setts liable to official summons in aid of the return
of escaped slaves. And it had been passed with
the aid of Massachusetts votes, and with the out-
spoken advocacy of the foremost Massachusetts
man. Mr. Webster had gone about upholding the
righteousness of the law, and declaring that he
found no serious opposition to it in the North.
And, in fact, instead of being execrated and re-
sisted, it appeared to be received with acquiescence,
if not with approval, by most men of standing and
influence in the State. Here, Emerson felt, was
an issue which he had not made and could not
avoid. On Sunday evening, May 3, 1851, he de-
livered an address to the citizens of Concord, " on
the great question of these days," in a tone which
must have been more satisfactory to his abolition-
ist friends. He accepted the invitation to speak,
he said, because there seemed to be no option : —
578 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
"The last year has forced us all into politics.
There is an infamy in the air. I wake in the
morning with a painful sensation which I carry
about all day, and which, when traced home, is the
odious remembrance of that ignominy which has
fallen on Massachusetts. I have lived all my life
in this State, and never had any experience of per-
sonal inconvenience from the laws until now. They
never came near me, to my discomfort, before.
But the Act of Congress of September 18, 1850,
is a law which every one of you will break on the
earliest occasion, — a law which no man can obey or
abet the obeying without loss of self-respect and
forfeiture of the name of a gentleman."
Such was his indignation against "this filthy
law " that it moved him for once in his life to per-
sonal denunciation, and this of a man who had
hithei'to been to him an object of admiration and
pride. From his boyhood he had been an eager
listener to Mr. Webster ; he exulted in the magnifi-
cent presence of the man, and in the very tones of
his voice. In 1843 Webster came to Concord to
argue an important case, and was a guest at Emer-
son's house, where there was a gathering of neigh-
bors to meet him.
" Webster [he writes in his journal] appeared
among these best lawyers of the Suffolk bar like
a schoolmaster among his boys. Understanding
language and the use of the positive degree, all his
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT 579
words tell. What is small lie shows as small ; and
makes the great, great. His splendid wrath, when
his eyes become fires, is good to see, so intellectual
it is, — the wrath of the fact and cause he espouses,
and not all personal to himself. One feels every
moment that he goes for the actual world, and
never for the ideal. Perhaps it was this, perhaps
it was a mark of having outlived some of my once
finest pleasures, that I found no appetite to return
to the court in the afternoon. He behaves admira-
bly well in society. These village parties must be
dish-water to him, yet he shows himself just good-
natured, just nonchalant enough ; and he has his
own way, without offending any one or losing any
ground. He quite fills our little town, and I doubt
if I shall get settled down to writing until he is
well gone from the county. He is a natural empe-
ror of men ; they remark in him the kingly talent
of remembering persons accurately, and knowing
at once to whom he has been introduced, and to
whom not. It seems to me the quixotism of criti-
cism to quarrel with Webster because he has not
this or that fine evangelical property. He is no
saint, but the wild olive-wood, ungrafted yet by
grace, but, according to his lights, a very true and
admirable man. His expensiveness seems neces-
sary to him ; were he too prudent a Yankee it
would be a sad deduction from his magnificence.
I only wish he would not truckle ; I do not care
how much he spends."
580 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
In 1851 the truckling had gone too far, and Mr.
Webster's example seemed to have debauched the
public conscience of Emerson's native town. His
beloved Boston, " spoiled by prosperity, must bow
its ancient honor in the dust. The tameness is in-
deed complete ; all are involved in one hot haste
of terror, — presidents of colleges and professors,
saints and brokers, lawyers and manufacturers ;
not a liberal recollection, not so much as a snatch
of an old song for freedom, dares intrude on
their passive obedience. I met the smoothest of
Episcopal clergymen the other day, and, allusion
being made to Mr. Webster's treachery, he blandly
replied, ' Why, do you know, I think that the great
action of his life.' I have as much charity for Mr.
Webster, I think, as any one has. Who has not
helped to praise him ? Simply he was the one em-
inent American of our time whom we could pro-
duce as a finished work of nature. We delighted
in his form and face, in his voice, in his eloquence,
in his daylight statement. But now he, our best
and proudest, the first man of the North, in the very
moment of mounting the throne, has harnessed
himself to the chariot of the planters. Mr. Web-
ster tells the President that he has been in the
North, and has found no man whose opinion is of
any weight who is opposed to the law. Ah ! Mr.
President, trust not to the information. This ' final
settlement,' this ' measure of pacification and union,'
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 581
has turned every dinner-table into a debating-club
and made one sole subject for conversation and
painful thought throughout the continent, namely,
slavery. Mr. Webster must learn that those to
whom his name was once dear and honored dis-
own him ; that he who was their pride in the woods
and mountains of New England is now their mor-
tification. Mr. Webster, perhaps, is only following
the laws of his blood and constitution. I suppose
his pledges were not quite natural to him. He is
a man who lives by his memory ; a man of the
past, not a man of faith and of hope. All the
drops of his blood have eyes that look downward,
and his finely developed understanding only works
truly and with all its force when it stands for ani-
mal good ; that is, for property. He looks at the
Union as an estate, a large farm, and is excellent
in the completeness of his defence of it so far.
What he finds already written he will defend.
Lucky that so much had got well written when he
came, for he has no faith in the power of self-gov-
ernment. Not the smallest municipal provision, if
it were new, would receive his sanction. In Mas-
sachusetts in 1776, he would, beyond all question,
have been a refugee. He praises Adams and Jef-
ferson, but it is a past Adams and Jefferson. A
present Adams or Jefferson he would denounce.
The destiny of this country is great and liberal,
and is to be greatly administered ; according to
582 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
what is and is to be, and not according to what is
dead and gone. In Mr. Webster's imagination the
American Union was a huge Prince Rupert's drop,
which, if so much as the smallest end be shivered
off, the whole will snap into atoms. Now the fact is
quite different from this. The people are loyal, law-
abiding. The union of this people is a real thing ;
an alliance of men of one stock, one language, one
religion, one system of manners and ideas. It
can be left to take care of itself. As much union
as there is the statutes will be sure to express. As
much disunion as there is, no statutes can long con-
ceal. The North and the South, — I am willing to
leave them to the facts. If they continue to have
a binding interest, they will be pretty sure to find
it out ; if not, they will consult their peace in part-
ing. But one thing appears certain to me, that the
Union is at an end as soon as an immoral law is
enacted. He who writes a crime into the statute-
book digs under the foundations of the Capitol.
One intellectual benefit we owe to the late disgraces.
The crisis had the illuminating power of a sheet of
lightning at midnight. It showed truth. It ended
a good deal of nonsense we had been wont to hear
and to repeat, on the 19th April, the 17th June,
and the 4th July. It showed the slightness and
unreliableness of our social fabric. . . . What is
the use of admirable law forms and political forms
if a hurricane of party feeling and a combination
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 583
of moneyed interests can beat them to the ground ?
. . . The poor black boy, whom the fame of Bos-
ton had reached in the recesses of a rice-swamp or
in the alleys of Savannah, on arriving here finds all
this force employed to catch him. The famous
town of Boston is his master's hound. . . . The
words of John Randolph, wiser than he knew, have
been ringing ominously in all echoes for thirty
years : ' We do not govern the people of the North
by our black slaves, but by their own white slaves.'
. . . They come down now like the cry of fate, in
the moment when they are fulfilled.
" What shall we do ? First, abrogate this law ;
then proceed to confine slavery to slave States, and
help them effectually to make an end of it. Since
it is agreed by all sane men of both parties (or
was yesterday) that slavery is mischievous, why
does the South itself never offer the smallest coun-
sel of her own ? I have never heard in twenty
years any project except Mr. Clay's. Let us hear
any project with candor and respect. It is really
the project for this country to entertain and accom-
plish. It is said it will cost a thousand millions of
dollars to buy the slaves, which sounds like a fab-
ulous price. But if a price were named in good
faith, I do not think any amount that figures could
tell would be quite unmanageable. Nothing is im-
practicable to this nation which it shall set itself
to do. Were ever men so endowed, so placed, so
584 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
weaponed ? their power of territory seconded by a
genius equal to every work. By new arts the earth
is subdued, and we are on the brink of new won-
ders. The sun paints ; presently we shall organize
the echo, as now we do the shadow. These thirty
nations are equal to any work, and are every mo-
ment stronger. In twenty-five years they will be
fifty millions ; is it not time to do something be-
sides ditching and draining ? Let them confront
this mountain of poison, and shovel it once for all
down into the bottomless pit. A thousand millions
were cheap.
" But grant that the heart of financiers shrinks
within them at these colossal amounts and the em-
barrassments which complicate the problem, and
that these evils are to be relieved only by the wis-
dom of God working in ages, and by what instru-
ments none can tell ; — one thing is plain. We
cannot answer for the Union, but we must keep
Massachusetts true. Let the attitude of the State
be firm. Massachusetts is a little State. Coun-
tries have been great by ideas. Europe is little,
compared with Asia and Africa. Greece was the
least part of Europe ; Attica a little part of that,
one tenth of the size of Massachusetts, yet that
district still rules the intellect of men. Judaea
was a petty country. Yet these two, Greece and
Judaea, furnish the mind and the heart by which
the rest of the world is sustained. And Massa-
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 585
chusetts is little, but we must make it great by-
making every man in it true. Let us respect the
Union to all honest ends, but let us also respect an
older and wider union ; the laws of nature and rec-
titude. Massachusetts is as strong as the universe
when it does that. We will never intermeddle
with your slavery, but you can in no wise be suf-
fered to bring it to Cape Cod or Berkshire. This
law must be made inoperative. It must be abro-
gated and wiped out of the statute-book; but,
whilst it stands there, it must be disobeyed. Let
us not lie nor steal, nor help to steal, and let us not
call stealing by any fine names, such as union or
patriotism."
Dr. Palfrey was then candidate for Congress
from Emerson's district, and Emerson repeated his
speech at several places in Middlesex County, hop-
ing, he said, to gain some votes for his friend ;
among other places, Cambridge, where he was in-
terrupted by clamors from some of "the young
gentlemen from the college," Southern gentlemen,
the newspaper said ; but this was denied by a South-
ern student, who wrote to say that Southern gentle-
men had too much respect for themselves and re-
gard for the rights of others to condescend to any
such petty demonstrations of dissent, and that the
disturbers were Northern men who were eager to
keep up a show of fidelity to the interests of the
South. Mr. Whipple, in his reminiscences of Em-
586 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
erson,1 says that Emerson was not disturbed by the
hissing, but seemed absolutely to enjoy it. This
would argue a temperament more alive than Emer-
son's to the joys of conflict. He would not be dis-
turbed, but he must have been profoundly grieved
to see men of his own order — young men, too,
whom above all others he would have wished to
influence — so utterly wrong - headed. Professor
James B. Thayer, who was present, says in a note
to me : —
" The hisses, shouts, and cat-calls made it impos-
sible for Mr. Emerson to go on. Through all this
there never was a finer spectacle of dignity and com-
posure than he presented. He stood with perfect
quietness until the hubbub was over, and then went
on with the next word. It was as if nothing had
happened : there was no repetition, no allusion to
what had been going on, no sign that he was
moved, and I cannot describe with what added
weight the next words fell."
The college authorities were supposed to be on
the side of the South, and upon another occasion
Mr. Horace Mann, speaking in Cambridge, was in-
terrupted by shouts of applause for " Professor
and Mr. Potter, of Georgia," a collocation
not distinctly understood, but felt to convey a gen-
eral Southern sentiment. In fact, all the " author-
1 Recollections of Eminent Men. By Edwin Percy Whipple.
Boston, 1887 : p. 140.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 587
ities," nearly all the leading men among the schol-
ars and the clergy, as well as the merchants, were
upon that side or but feebly against it. This, to
Emerson, was a most depressing experience ; it
seemed, he said, to show that our civilization was
rotten before it was ripe. He could not take a very
active share in the agitation of the question, but
he made no secret of his opinion, and the Boston
Daily Advertiser remarked, more in sorrow than
in anger, that Mr. Emerson attended the anti-
slavery meetings, and might be fairly looked on as
a decided abolitionist.
On the 7th of March, 1854, the anniversary of
Webster's famous speech in 1850, Emerson read
in New York the address on the Fugitive Slave Law
which has been published in his writings.1 In
January of the following year he delivered one of
the lectures in a course on slavery, at the Tremont
Temple in Boston, in which men of different sen-
timents, from all parts of the country, were invited
to take part. He writes to his brother William : —
Concord, January 17, 1855.
... I am trying hard in these days to see some
light in the dark slavery question, to which I am
to speak next week in Boston. But to me as to so
many 't is like Hamlet's task imposed on so unfit
an agent as Hamlet. And the mountains of cot-
i Collected Writings, xi. 203.
588 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ton and sugar seem unpersuadable by any words as
Sebastopol to a herald's oration. Howbeit, if we
only drum, we must drum well.
" The subject [he said in his speech] seems ex-
hausted, and it would perhaps have been well to
leave the discussion of slavery entirely to its pa-
trons and natural fathers. But they, with one or
two honorable exceptions, have refused to come ;
feeling, perhaps, that there is nothing to be said.
Nor for us is there anything further to say of sla-
very itself. An honest man is soon weary of cry-
ing ' thief ; ' it is for us to treat it, not as a thing
by itself, but as it stands in our system. A high
state of general health cannot coexist with mortal
disease in any part. Slavery is an evil, as cholera
or typhus is, that will be purged out by the health
of the system. Being unnatural and violent, we
know that it will yield at last, and go with canni-
balism and burking ; and as we cannot refuse to
ride in the same planet with the New Zealander, so
we must be content to go with the Southern plan-
ter, and say, You are you and I am I, and God
send you an early conversion. But to find it here
in our own sunlight, here in the heart of Puritan
traditions, under the eye of the most ingenious, in-
dustrious, and self-helping men in the world, stag-
gers our faith in progress ; for it betrays a stupen-
dous frivolity in the heart and head of a society
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 589
without faith, without aims, dying of inanition.
An impoverishing scepticism scatters poverty, dis-
ease, and cunning through our opinions, then
through our practice. Young men want object,
want foundation. They would gladly have some-
what to do adequate to the powers they feel, some
love that would make them greater than they are ;
which not finding, they take up some second-best,
some counting-room or railroad or whatever credit-
able employment, — not the least of whose uses is
the covert it affords. Among intellectual men you
will find a waiting for, an impatient quest for, more
satisfying knowledge. It is believed that ordina-
rily the mind grows with the body ; that the mo-
ment of thought comes with the power of action ;
and that, in nations, it is in the time of great ex-
ternal power that their best minds have appeared.
But, in America, a great imaginative soul, a broad
cosmopolitan mind, has not accompanied the im-
mense industrial energy. Among men of thought,
the readers of books, the unbelief is found as it is
in the laymen. A dreary superficiality ; critics
instead of thinkers, punsters instead of poets.
Yes, and serious men are found who think our
Christianity and religion itself effete ; forms and
sentiments that belonged to the infancy of mankind.
" I say intellectual men ; but are there such? Go
into the festooned and tempered brilliancy of the
drawing-rooms, and see the fortunate youth of both
590 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
sexes, the flower of our society, for whom every fa-
vor, every accomplishment, every facility, has been
secured. Will you find genius and courage expand-
ing those fair and manly forms ? Or is their beauty
only a mask for an aged cunning ? No illusions for
them. A few cherished their early dreams and re-
sisted to contumacy the soft appliances of fashion.
But they tired of resistance and ridicule, they fell
into file, and great is the congratulation of the re-
fined companions that these self-willed protestants
have settled down into sensible opinions and prac-
tices. God instructs men through the imagination.
The ebb of thought drains the law, the religion, the
education of the land. Look at our politics, — the
great parties coeval with the origin of the govern-
ment, — do they inspire us with any exalted hope ?
Does the Democracy stand really for the good of
the many ? Of the poor ? For the elevation of
entire humanity? The party of property, of edu-
cation, has resisted every progressive step. They
would nail the stars to the sky. With their eyes
over their shoulders they adore their ancestors, the
framers of the Constitution. What means this
desperate grasp on the past, except that they have
no law in their own mind, no principle, no hope, no
future of their own? Some foundation we must
have, and if we can see nothing, we cling desper-
ately to those who we believe can see.
" There are periods of occultation, when the light
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 591
of mind seems partially withdrawn from nations as
well as from individuals. In the French Revolu-
tion there was a day when the Parisians took a
strumpet from the street, seated her in a chariot,
and led her in procession, saying, ' This is the God-
dess of Reason.' And in 1850 the American Con-
gress passed a statute which ordained that justice
and mercy should be subject to fine and imprison-
ment, and that there existed no higher law in the
universe than the Constitution and this paper stat-
ute which uprooted the foundations of rectitude
and denied the existence of God. This was the
hiding of the light. But the light shone, if it was
intercepted from us. What is the effect of this
evil government ? To discredit government. When
the public fails in its duty, private men take its
place. And we have a great debt to the brave and
faithful men who, in the hour and place of the evil
act, made their protest for themselves and their
countrymen by word and deed. When the Amer-
ican government and courts are false to their trust,
men disobey the government and put it in the
wrong.
" Yet patriotism, public opinion, have a real
meaning, though there is so much counterfeit, rag-
money abroad under the name. It is delicious to
act with great masses to great aims. The State is
a reality ; Society has a real function, that of our
race being to evolve liberty. It is a noble office ;
592 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
for liberty is the severest test by which, a govern-
ment can be tried. . All history goes to show that
it is the measure of all national success. Most un-
happily, this universally accepted duty and feeling
has been antagonized by the calamity of Southern
slavery ; and that institution, through the stronger
personality, shall I say, of the Southern people, and
through their systematic devotion to politics, has
had the art so to league itself with the government
as to check and pervert the natural sentiment of
the people by their respect for law and statute.
But we shall one day bring the States shoulder to
shoulder and the citizens man to man to extermi-
nate slavery. Why in the name of common sense
and the peace of mankind is not this made the sub-
ject of instant negotiation and settlement ? Why
not end this dangerous dispute on some ground of
fair compensation on one side, and of satisfaction
on the other to the conscience of the Free States?
It is really the great task fit for this country to
accomplish, to buy that property of the planters,
as the British nation bought the West Indian
slaves. I say buy, — never conceding the right of
the planter to own, but that we may acknowledge
the calamity of his position, and bear a country-
man's share in relieving him ; and because it is the
only practicable course, and is innocent. Here is
a right social or public function, which one man
cannot do, which all men must do. 'T is said it
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 593
will cost two thousand millions of dollars. Was
there ever any contribution that was so enthusiasti-
cally paid as this will be ? We will have a chimney-
tax. We will give up our coaches, and wine, and
watches. The churches will melt their plate. The
father of his country shall wait, well pleased, a lit-
tle longer for his monument ; Franklin for his ; the
Pilgrim Fathers for theirs ; and the patient Colum-
bus for his. The mechanics will give ; the needle-
women will give ; the children will have cent-so-
cieties. Every man in the land will give a week's
work to dig away this accursed mountain of sorrow
once and forever out of the world."
In all these years from the passage of the Fugi-
tive Slave Bill in 1850 to its natural fruit in 1861,
the politics of the day occupy an unusual space in
Emerson's journals, and intrude themselves upon
all his speculations. A lecture on Art has an ex-
ordium on the state of the country ; in Morals, his
impatience of the lukewarm good-nature of the
North gives value even to malignity : —
" I like to hear of any strength ; as soon as they
speak of the malignity of Swift, we prick up our
ears. I fear there is not strength enough in Amer-
ica that anything can be qualified as malignant.
I fancy the Americans have no passions ; alas ! only
appetites."
He did not doubt that the right would win ; but
he did not believe that it would win easily : —
594 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" Our success is sure ; its roots are in our pov-
erty, our Calvinism, our schools, our thrifty habitual
industry ; in our snow and east wind and farm-life.
But it is of no use to tell me, as Brown and others
do, that the Southerner is not a better fighter than
the Northerner, when I see that uniformly a South-
ern minority prevails and gives the law. Why,
but because the Southerner is a fighting man, and
the Northerner is not ? "
He had been much impressed in his college-days
by the forceful personality of the Southern boys ;
he says he always fell a prey to their easy assu-
rance, and he had seen the same effect on others
ever since. In a lecture on "New England" in
1843, he says : —
" The Southerner lives for the moment ; relies
on himself and conquers by personal address. He
is wholly there in that thing which is now to be
done. The Northerner lives for the year, and does
not rely on himself, but on the whole apparatus of
means he is wont to employ ; he is only half present
when he comes in person ; he has a great reserved
force which is coming up. The result corre-
sponds. The Southerner is haughty, wilful, gen-
erous, unscrupulous ; will have his way and has it.
The Northerner must think the thing over, and his
conscience and his common sense throw a thousand
obstacles between himself and his wishes, which
perplex his decision and unsettle his behavior. The
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 595
Northerner always has the advantage at the end of
ten years, and the Southerner always has the ad-
vantage to-day."
The disadvantage of the reflective temperament
and the habit of thinking what may be said for the
other side, in comparison with the impulsive habit
that needs no self -justification but acts at once, was
illustrated at large in the behavior of the North
twenty years later. Emerson himself was an ex-
ample of it. He had not the happiness of being
able to look upon slaveholding simply as an out-
rage, to be resisted and put down without parley,- he
could not help feeling some relative justification for
the slaveholder ; and this feeling debarred him from
complete sympathy with the abolitionists. He ad-
mired their courage and persistence, but he coidd
not act with them, — any more than they could
entertain his scheme for buying the slaves, or re-
press their scorn when he spoke of the " calamity "
of the planter's position. He says (in his journal)
of one of the foremost abolitionists : —
" is venerable in his place, like the tart
Luther ; but he cannot understand anything you
say, and neighs like a horse when you suggest a
new consideration, as when I told him that the fate
element in the negro question he had never con-
sidered."
But, as events thickened towards the crisis, he
was forced to see that the encroachments of slavery
596 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
must be resisted by force. In May, 1856, in bis
speech at Concord, on occasion of the assault upon
Mr. Sumner in the Senate-Chamber of the United
States, he says : "I think we must get rid of slavery
or we must get rid of freedom." And at the Kan-
sas-Relief meeting at Cambridge, in September of
that year, he warmly advocated the sending of arms
to the settlers in Kansas, for resistance to the pro-
slavery raids from Missouri, and thought that aid
should be contributed by the legislature of Massa-
chusetts. In 1857 John Brown came to Concord,
and gave, Emerson says, " a good account of him-
self in the Town Hall last night to a meeting of
citizens. One of his good points was the folly of
the peace party in Kansas, who believed that their
strength lay in the greatness of their wrongs,
and so discountenanced resistance. He wished to
know if their wrong was greater than the negro's,
and what kind of strength that gave to the
negro."
In a lecture on " Courage," in Boston (Novem-
ber, 1859), Emerson quoted Brown's words about
" the unctuous cant of peace parties in Kansas,"
and called upon the citizens of Massachusetts to say,
" We are abolitionists of the most absolute aboli-
tion, as every man must be. Only the Hottentots,
only the barbarous or semi-barbarous societies, are
not. We do not try to alter your laws in Alabama,
nor yours in Japan or the Feejee Islands, but we
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 597
do not admit them or permit a trace of them here.
Nor shall we suffer you to carry your Thuggism
north, south, east, or west, into a single rod of ter-
ritory which we control. We intend to set and
keep a cordon sanitaire all round the infected
district, and by no means suffer the pestilence to
spread." Speaking of the different kinds of cour-
age corresponding to different levels of civilization,
he says : " With the shooting complexion, like the
cobra capello and scorpion, that abounds mostly in
warm climates, war is the safest terms. That marks
them, and if they cross the line they can be dealt
with as all fanged animals must be."
It does not appear that Emerson was acquainted
in advance with Brown's Virginia project, but in
this lecture, which was delivered while Brown was
lying in prison under sentence of death, he spoke
of him as " that new saint, than whom none purer
or more brave was ever led by love of men into
conflict and death, — the new saint awaiting his
martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make
the gallows glorious like the cross." In the essay
as published ten years later, these passages were
omitted ; distance of time having brought the case
into a juster perspective.
But the strongest mark of the disturbance of
Emerson's native equilibrium is to be found in his
condemnation of the judges and the state officials
for not taking the law into their own hands. Law,
598 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
he said, is the expression of the universal will ; an
immoral law is void, because it contravenes the
will of humanity. And he passed at once to the
conclusion, not merely that the Fugitive Slave Law
was to be disobeyed by those who felt it to be im-
moral, but that the official interpreters and the ex-
ecutive were bound to make and enforce righteous
laws of their own ; than which nothing could well
be more opposed to his own principles. " Justice
was poisoned at the fountain. In our Northern
States no judge appeared of sufficient character
and intellect to ask, not whether the slave law was
constitutional, but whether it was right. The first
duty of a judge was to read the law in accordance
with equity, and, if it jarred with equity, to disown
the law." (Speech of January 26, 1855.) Yet
no one could be more prompt than he to repudiate
the claim of any one to decide for other people what
is right, or what is the will of humanity. He had
been protesting against such assumptions all his
life.
The speech about John Brown spoiled his wel-
come in Philadelphia, and an invitation to lecture
there was withdrawn ; apparently also to some ex-
tent in Boston, though he lectured in other parts of
New England and at the West. He made no more
anti-slavery speeches at this time, but being invited
by Mr. Wendell Phillips to speak at the annual
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 599
meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society
in 1861 (Tremont Temple, January 24), he took
a place on the platform, and, when he was called
upon, tried to make himself heard, but in vain.1
" Esteeming such invitation a command [he writes
in his journal], though sorely against my incli-
nation and habit, I went, and, though I had noth-
ing to say, showed myself. If I were dumb, yet I
would have gone, and mowed and muttered, or
made signs. The mob roared whenever I at-
tempted to speak, and after several beginnings I
withdrew."
The outbreak of the war relieved Emerson from
his worst apprehension, that some show of peace
and union would be patched up when no real union
existed. For two winters (1859-61) he had given
no course of lectures in Boston, though he had
frequently addressed Theodore Parker's congrega-
tion in the absence and after the death of their
pastor. But in April, 1861, he was in the midst of
a course on "Life and Literature," when the news
came of the attack on Fort Sumter; not unex-
pected, yet with an effect on the public temper that
took Emerson as well as others by surprise. In
place of the lecture which had been announced, on
the "Doctrine of Leasts," he gave one entitled
1 There is an account of the meeting in the Liberator, Febru-
ary 1, 1861.
600 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" Civilization at a Pinch," in which he confessed
his relief that now, at length, the dragon that had
been coiled round us and from which we could not
escape, had uncoiled himself and was thrust out-
side the door. " How does Heaven help us when
civilization is at a hard pinch ? Why, by a whirl-
wind of patriotism, not believed to exist, but now
magnetizing all discordant masses under its terrific
unity. It is an affair of instincts ; we did not
know we had them ; we valued ourselves as cool
calculators ; we were very fine with our learning
and culture, with our science that was of no coun-
try, and our religion of peace ; — and now a senti-
ment mightier than logic, wide as light, strong as
gravity, reaches into the college, the bank, the
farm-house, and the church. It is the day of the
populace ; they are wiser than their teachers.
Every parish-steeple marks a recruiting - station ;
every bell is a tocsin. Go into the swarming town-
halls, and let yourself be played upon by the stormy
winds that blow there. The interlocutions from
quiet-looking citizens are of an energy of which I
had no knowledge. How long men can keep a se-
cret ! I will never again speak lightly of a crowd.
We are wafted into a revolution which, though at
first sight a calamity of the human race, finds all
men in good heart, in courage, in a generosity of
mutual and patriotic support. We have been very
homeless, some of us, for some years past, — say
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 601
since 1850 ; but now we have a country again. Up
to March 4, 1861, in the very place of law we
found, instead of it, war. Now we have forced
the conspiracy out-of-doors. Law is on this side
and War on that. It was war then, and it is war
now ; but declared war is vastly safer than war un-
declared. This affronting of the common sense of
mankind, this defiance and cursing of friends as
well as foes, has hurled us, willing or unwilling,
into opposition ; and the nation which the Seces-
sionists hoped to shatter has to thank them for a
more sudden and hearty union than the history of
parties ever showed."
War, upon such an issue, was to be welcomed.
He asked a friend to show him the Charlestown
Navy- Yard, and looking round upon the warlike
preparations he said, " Ah ! sometimes gunpowder
smells good." On the 19th of April, the anniver-
sary of Concord Fight, a company of his townsmen
left home to join the army. He writes the next
day: —
Dear : You have heard that our village
was all alive yesterday with the departure of our
braves. Judge Hoar made a speech to them at
the depot ; Mr. Reynolds made a prayer in the
ring; the cannon, which was close by us, making
musical beats every minute to his prayer. And
when the whistle of the train was heard, and George
602 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Prescott (the commander) — who was an image of
manly beauty — ordered his men to march, his wife
stopped him and put down his sword to kiss him,
and grief and pride ruled the hour. All the fam-
ilies were there. They left Concord forty -five men,
but, on the way, recruits implored to join them,
and when they reached Boston they were sixty-
four.
He was slow to believe (as indeed who was not ?)
that the disrupted fragments of the country could,
within any assignable time, come together with mu-
tual good-will in a political union. It was " a war
of manners," the conflict of two incompatible states
of civilization ; and, for the present, could only
end in a separation in which the incompatibilities
should be acknowledged and somehow provided
for. "No treaties, no peace, no constitution, can
paper over the red lips of that crater. Only when
at last the parts of the country can combine on an
equal and moral contract to protect each other
in humane and honest activities, — only such can
combine firmly." For the time it was enough that
the United States had become the country of free
institutions, of which hitherto we had bragged
most falsely. To the Southern States also the war
had been of signal benefit : " I think they have
never, since their first planting, appeared to such
advantage. They have waked to energy, to self-
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 603
help, to economy, to valor, to self-knowledge and
progress. They have put forth for the first time
their sleepy, half-palsied limbs, and as soon as the
blood begins to tingle and flow, it will creep with
new life into the moribund extremes of the sys-
tem, and the ' white trash ' will say, ' We, too, are
men.' "
In the first lecture of the course, delivered on
the 9th of April, three days before the bombard-
ment of Fort Sumter, he had spoken with equanim-
ity of " the downfall of our character-destroying civ-
ilization ; " and in the next, a few days later, even
speculates on the advantages of its downfall : —
" The facility with which a great political fabric
can be broken, the want of tension in all ties which
had been supposed adamantine, is instructive, and
perhaps opens a new page in civil history. These
frivolous persons with their fanaticism perhaps are
wiser than they know, or indicate that the hour is
struck, so long predicted by philosophy, when the
civil machinery that has been the religion of the
world decomposes to dust and smoke before the
now adult individualism ; and the private man feels
that he is the State, and that a community in like
external conditions of climate, race, sentiment, em-
ployment, can drop with impunity much of the
machinery of government, as operose and clumsy,
and get on cheaper and simpler by leaving to every
604 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
man all his rights and powers, checked by no law
but his love or fear of the rights and powers of his
neighbor.
" Property has proved too much for the man ;
and now the men of science, art, intellect, are pretty
sure to degenerate into selfish housekeepers, de-
pendent on wine, coffee, furnace, gaslight, and
furniture. We find that civilization crowed too
soon, that our triumphs were treacheries ; we had
opened the wrong door and let the enemy into the
castle. Civilization was a mistake, and, in the
circumstances, the best wisdom was an auction or
a fire ; since the foxes and birds have the right of
it, with a warm nest or covert to fend the weather,
and no more."
The echoes of Sumter put an end to these fan-
cies. The war, as he said afterwards, was " an
eye-opener, and showed men of all parties and
opinions the values of those primary forces that
lie beneath all political action. Every one was
taken by surprise, and the more he knew probably
the greater was his surprise. We had plotted
against slavery, compromised, made state laws,
colonization societies, underground railroads ; and
we had not done much ; the counteraction kept pace
with the action ; the man- way did not succeed. But
there was another way. Another element did not
prove so favorable to slavery and the great politi-
cal and social parties that were roused in its de-
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 605
fence ; namely, friction, an unexpected hitch in the
working of the thing'. With everything for it, it
did not get on ; California and Kansas would have
nothing of it, even Texas was doubtful ; and at last
the slaveholders, blinded with wrath, destroyed
their idol with their own hands. It was God's do-
ing, and is marvellous in our eyes.
" The country is cheerful and jocund in the be-
lief that it has a government at last. What an
amount of power released from doing harm is now
ready to do good ! At the darkest moment in the
history of the republic, when it looked as if the
nation would be dismembered, pulverized into its
original elements, the attack on Fort Sumter crys-
tallized the North into a unit, and the hope of man-
kind was saved. If Mr. Lincoln appear slow and
timid in proclaiming emancipation, and, like a bash-
ful suitor, shows the way to deny him, it is to be
remembered that he is not free as a poet to state
what he thinks ideal or desirable, but must take a
considered step, which he can keep. Otherwise his
proclamation would be a weak bravado, without
value or respect."
Still, Emerson himself was not without his fears.
The hold of slavery upon the national capital
seemed not yet entirely broken. In January, 1862,
being at Washington, he took occasion to bear his
testimony at the seat of government to the senti-
ment of the North. " A nation [he said in a lee-
606 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ture at the Smithsonian Institution 1 on " Amer-
ican Civilization " is not a conglomeration of
voters, to be represented by hungry politicians em-
powered to partition the spoils of office, but a peo-
ple animated by a common impulse and seeking to
work out a common destiny. The destiny of Amer-
ica is mutual service ; labor is the corner-stone of
our nationality, — the labor of each for all. In the
measure in which a man becomes civilized he is
conscious of this, and finds his well-being in the
work to which his faculties call him. He coins
himself into his labor ; turns his day, his strength,
his thought, his affection, into some product which
remains as the visible sign of his power ; to protect
that, to secure his past self to his future self, is the
object of all government. But there is on this sub-
ject a confusion in the mind of the Southern peo-
ple, which leads them to pronounce labor disgrace-
ful, and the well-being of a man to consist in sitting
idle and eating the fruit of other men's labor. We
have endeavored to hold together these two states
of civilization under one law, but in vain ; one or
the other must give way. America now means
opportunity, the widest career to human activities.
Shall we allow her existence to be menaced through
the literal following of precedents ? Why cannot
1 In the presence, Mr. Conway says {Emerson at Home and
Abroad. By Moncure Daniel Conway. Boston, 1882: p. 313),
of the President and his Cabinet. But this seems doubtful.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 607
the higher civilization be allowed to extend over
the whole country? The Union party has never
been strong enough to kill slavery, but the wish
that never had legs long enough to cross the Poto-
mac can do so now. Emancipation is the demand
of civilization, the inevitable conclusion reached
by the logic of events. The war will have its own
way ; one army will stand for slavery pure and one
for freedom pure, and victory will fall at last where
it ought to fall. The march of ideas will be found
irresistible, and this mountainous nonsense insult-
ing the daylight will be swept away, though ages
may pass in the attempt. But ideas must work
through the brains and arms of good and brave
men, or they are no better than dreams. There
can be no safety until this step is taken."
On the 22d of September, Mr. Lincoln, who up
to the last moment had been anxiously pondering
the matter under pressure of " the most opposite
opinions and advice," at length issued his procla-
mation that slavery would be abolished on the 1st
of January, 1863, in those States which should then
be in rebellion against the United States. At a
meeting in Boston soon afterwards, Emerson ex-
pressed his hearty satisfaction with the President's
action (which was violently condemned by some of
the Boston newspapers and rather pooh-poohed, as
ineffectual, by others), his appreciation of the diffi-
culties of the President's decision, and his confi-
dence that the step thus taken was irrevocable.
608 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
On the day when the Emancipation went into
effect a " Jubilee Concert " was given at the Music
Hall, and Emerson read there his "Boston Hymn "
by way of prologue.
If the geographical position of Washington and
the traditions of Southern rule made the politicians
there less alive than they should be to the Amer-
ican idea, the patriotism of New England was
affected with a like apathy from a different cause,
the colonial spirit that still lingered in the well-
to-do class of persons, the mimicking of English
aristocratic ideas. In a lecture in Boston in 1863,
the darkest period of the struggle, on the " For-
tune of the Republic, " Emerson said that with all
the immense sympathy which at first and again had
upheld the war, he feared that we did not yet ap-
prehend the salvation that was offered us, and that
we might yet be punished to rouse the egotists, the
sceptics, the fashionist, the pursuers of ease and
pleasure. These persons take their tone from Eng-
land, or from certain classes of the English : —
" To say the truth, England is never out of mind.
Nobody says it, but all think and feel it. England
is the model in which they find their wishes ex-
pressed, — not, of course, middle-class England, but
rich, powerful, and titled England. Our politics
threaten her. Her manners threaten us. A man
is coming, here as there, to value himself upon
what he can buy."
TEE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 609
In this class of Englishmen we had found, in-
stead of sympathy, only an open or ill-concealed
satisfaction at the prospect of our downfall. They
are worshippers of Fate, of material prosperity
and privilege ; blind to all interests higher than
commercial advantage or class prejudice. Never a
lofty sentiment, never a duty to civilization, never
a generosity, is suffered to stand in the way of
these ; and we are infected with this materialism.
But, thanks to the war, we were coming, he hoped,
to a nationality and an opinion of our own. " Na-
ture says to the American, I give you the land and
the sea, the forest and the mine, the elemental
forces, nervous energy. Where I add difficulty I
add brain. See to it that you hold and administer
the continent for mankind. Let the passion for
America cast out the passion for Europe. Learn
to peril your life and fortune for a principle, and
carry out your work to the end."
A year later, in November, 1864, on the second
election of Mr. Lincoln, Emerson says in a letter
to a friend who was in Europe : —
" I give you joy of the election. Seldom in his-
tory was so much staked on a popular vote. I
suppose never in history. One hears everywhere
anecdotes of late, very late remorse overtaking the
hardened sinners, and just saving them from final
reprobation."
610 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
And in beginning a course of lectures in Boston
he congratulated his countrymen "that a great
portion of mankind dwelling in the United States
have given their decision in unmistakable terms in
favor of social and statute order ; that a nation
shall be a nation, and refuses to hold its existence
on the tenure of a casual gathering of passengers
at a railroad station or a picnic, held by no bond,
but meeting and parting at pleasure ; that a nation
cannot be trifled with, but involves interests so
dear and so vast that its unity shall be held by
force against the forcible attempt to break it.
What gives commanding weight to this decision is
that it has been made by the people sobered by the
calamity of the war, the sacrifice of life, the waste
of property, the burden of taxes, and the uncer-
tainty of the result. They protest in arms against
the levity of any small or any numerous minority
of citizens or States to proceed by stealth or by
violence to dispart a country. They do not decide
that if a part of the nation, from geographical
necessities or from irreconcilable interests of pro-
duction and trade, desires a separation, no such
separation can be. Doubtless it may, because the
permanent interest of one part to separate will
come to be the interest and good-will of the other
part. But at all events it shall not be done in a
corner, not by stealth, not by violence, but as a
solemn act, with all the forms, on the declared
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT. 611
opinions of the entire population concerned, and
with mutual guarantees and compensations."
The Union, whatever its extent, should be the
expression of a real unity, and not a contrivance
to make up for the want of it.
The subject of the lecture to which this was the
exordium was Education. What chapters of in-
struction, he said, has not the war opened to us !
It has cost many valuable lives, but it has made
many lives valuable that were not so before,
through the start and expansion it has given. It
has added a vast enlargement to every house, to
every heart. Every one of these millions was a
petty shopkeeper, farmer, mechanic, or scholar,
driving his separate affair, letting all the rest alone
if they would let him alone, abstaining from read-
ing the newspapers because their mean tidings dis-
graced him or froze him into selfishness. But in
every one of these houses now an American map
hangs unrolled : the symbol that the whole country
is added to his thought. " I often think, when we
are reproached with brag by the people of a small
home-territory like the English, that ours is only
the gait and bearing of a tall boy by the side of
small boys. They are jealous and quick-sighted
about their inches. Everything this side the water
inspires large prospective action. America means
freedom, power, and, very naturally, when these
instincts are not supported by moral and mental
612 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
training they run into the grandiose, into exagge-
ration and vaporing. This is odious ; and yet let
us call bad manners by the right name.
" I think the genius of this country has marked
out her true policy, — hospitality ; a fair field and
equal laws to all ; a piece of land for every son of
Adam who will sit down upon it; then, on easy
conditions, the right of citizenship, and education
for his children."
In the early part of the war the drying-up of all
sources of income threatened Emerson with pecu-
niary straits. He writes to his brother William in
1862: —
" The 1st of January has found me in quite as
poor a plight as the rest of the Americans. Not a
penny from my books since last June, which usually
yield five or six hundred a year ; no dividends
from the banks or from Lidian's Plymouth pro-
perty. Then almost all income from lectures has
quite ceased ; so that your letter found me in a
study how to pay three or four hundred dollars
with fifty. ... I have been trying to sell a wood-
lot at or near its appraisal, which would give me
something more than three hundred, but the pur-
chaser does not appear. Meantime we are trying
to be as unconsuming as candles under an extin-
guisher, and 't is frightful to think how many rivals
we have in distress and in economy. But far better
that this grinding should go on bad and worse than
AT WEST POINT. 613
we be driven by any impatience into a hasty peace
or any peace restoring the old rottenness."
In 1863 he was lecturing again. This year he
was appointed by the President (probably at Charles
Sumner's suggestion) one of the visitors to the Mil-
itary Academy at West Point. Mr. John Bur-
roughs, who saw him there in June, writes to me :
" My attention was attracted to this eager, alert,
inquisitive farmer, as I took him to be. Evidently,
I thought, this is a new thing to him ; he feels the
honor that has been conferred upon him, and he
means to do his duty and let no fact or word or
thing escape him. When the rest of the Board
looked dull or fatigued or perfunctory, he was all
eagerness and attention. He certainly showed a
kind of rustic curiosity and simplicity. When, on
going home at night, I learned that Emerson was
on that Board of Visitors at the Academy, I knew
at once that I had seen him, and the thought kept
me from sleep. The next day I was early on
the ground with a friend of mine who had met
Emerson, and through him made his acquaintance
and had a chat with him. In the afternoon, seeing
us two hanging about, he left his associates and
came over and talked with us and beamed upon us
in that inimitable wav. I shall never forget his
serene, unflinching look. Just the way his upper
lip shut into his lower, imbedded itself there,
showed to me the metal of which he was made."
CHAPTEK XVI.
VIEWS OF COLLEGE EDUCATION. — AGASSIZ AND
THE SATURDAY CLUB. RECOGNITION BY HIS
CONTEMPORARIES. — EMERSON OVERSEER OF
HARVARD COLLEGE. — UNIVERSITY LECTURES. —
TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. — THE BURNING OF HIS
HOUSE.
1864-1872.
In his review of the institutions for public edu-
cation, the common school and the college, in his
lecture in 1864, Emerson dotted out, with a re-
markable prevision, the new departure upon which
his own college soon afterwards entered. The col-
lege, he said, is essentially the most radiating and
public of agencies ; it deals with a force which it
cannot monopolize or confine, cannot give to those
who come to it and refuse to those outside. " I
have no doubt of the force, and, for me, the only
question is whether the force is inside. If the col-
leges were better, if they really had it, you would
need to set the police at the gates to keep order in
the in-rushing multitude. Do the boat-builders in
Long Island Sound forget George Steers and his
yacht America, or the naval men omit to visit a
VIEWS OF COLLEGE EDUCATION. 615
new Monitor of Ericsson? But see in colleges
how we thwart this natural love of learning by
leaving the natural method of teaching what each
wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn
what you have no taste or capacity for. It is right
that you should begin at the beginning, to teach the
elements, but you shall not drive to the study of
music the youth who has no ear, or insist on mak-
ing a painter of him if he have no perception of
form. The college, which should be a place of
delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and
the young men are tempted to frivolous amuse-
ments to rally their jaded spirits. External order,
verbal correctness, the keeping of hours, the ab-
sence of any eccentricity or individualism disturb-
ing the routine, is all that is asked. Then, in the
absence of its natural check, the city invades the
college ; the habits and spirit of wealth suppress
enthusiasm. Money and vulgar respectability have
the ascendant. The college and the church, which
should be counterbalancing influences to the
spirit of trade and material prosperity, do now con-
form and take their tone from it. I wish the dem-
ocratic genius of the country might breathe some-
thing of new life into these institutions. I would
have it make the college really literary and scien-
tific; and not worldly and political ; drive out cox-
combs as with a broom, and leave only scholars.
I would have the studies elective, and I would hand
616 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
over the police of the college to the ordinary civil
government. The student shall, by his merits,
make good his claim to scholarships ; to access to
still higher instruction in such departments as he
prefers. The class shall have a certain share in
the election of the professor ; if only this, of mak-
ing their attendance voluntary. Then, the imagi-
nation must be addressed. Why always coast on
the surface, and never open the interior of Nature?
— not by science, which is surface still, but by
poetry. Shakspeare should be a study in the uni-
versity, as Boccaccio was appointed in Florence to
lecture on Dante. The students should be edu-
cated not only in the intelligence of, but in sympa-
thy with, the thought of great poets. Let us have
these warblings as well as logarithms."
The mistake of confining higher education to a
rigid system of studies prescribed for all, without
regard to individual aptitudes, was illustrated, as
was natural, from his own experience with mathe-
matics. " Great," he said, " is drill. It is better
to teach the child arithmetic and Latin grammar
than rhetoric or moral philosophy, because they
require exactitude of performance, and that power
of performance is worth more than the knowledge.
Then, too, it is indispensable that the elements of
numbers be taught, since they are the base oi! all
exact science. But there are many students, and
good heads, too, of whom it is infatuation to re-
VIEWS OF COLLEGE EDUCATION. 617
quire more than a grounding in these. Yet they
find this learning, which they do not wish to ac-
quire, absorbing one third of every day in the two
first academic years, — often two thirds, — a dead
weight on mind and heart, to be utterly cast out
the moment the youth is left to the election of his
studies. The European universities once gave a
like emphasis to logic and to theology. Until re-
cently, natural science was almost excluded ; now
natural science threatens to take in its turn the
same ascendant. A man of genius, with a good
deal of general power, will for a long period give a
bias in his own direction to a university. That is
a public mischief, which the guardians of a college
are there to watch and counterpoise. In the elec-
tion of a president, it is not only the students who
are to be controlled, but the professors ; each of
whom, in proportion to his talent, is a usurper who
needs to be resisted."
Some of these utterances reached the watchful
ear of Agassiz, whose persuasive eloquence, in spite
of the distractions of the time, was drawing grant
after grant from the legislature of Massachusetts
in behalf of natural history and the Museum, as
well as large sums from private contributors. He,
not unnaturally, took these remarks to himself, and
wrote to Emerson 1 in a tone of good-humored re-
1 See their letters in the Life and Correspondence of Louis Ag-
assiz. Edited by E. C. Agassiz. Boston, 1885 : ii. 619.
618 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
monstrance at being thus wounded, as lie thought,
in the house of his friend.
Emerson had no difficulty in assuring him that
they were not so meant, and that he wished him
and the Museum Godspeed. It was true he had
no predilection for systematic science, but natural
history had a more attractive sound. Above all,
he had no intention of making invidious compari-
sons between the different departments of learn-
ing: he only wished to protest against exclusive-
ness, wherever it was found ; and of this no one
could accuse Agassiz.
The cordial relation between them, begun, I sup-
pose, some years before, at the Saturday Club, was
not for a moment interrupted, and it was an un-
failing source of refreshment to Emerson at their
monthly meetings. The abundant nature of the
other, his overflowing spirits, his equal readiness
for any company and any and every subject, and a
simplicity of manner which was the outcome of
quick and wide sympathies, gave Emerson a sense
of social enjoyment such as he rarely found.
Never, he said of Agassiz, could his manners be
separated from himself ; and never was any sepa-
ration felt to be desirable.
They met, also, together with Judge Hoar, Mr.
Lowell, Jeffries Wyman, and other peers of the
Saturday table, in the excursions of the Adirondack
Club (an offshoot of the Saturday), among the
AT THE SATURDAY CLUB. 619
wilds of northern New York, in 1858 and after-
wards ; of which Emerson has given a poetical
sketch.1 Emerson bought a rifle for the occasion,
and learned to use it, but never used it, I believe,
upon any living thing. He had himself paddled
out one night to see a deer by the light of the jack-
lantern, and saw "a square mist," but did not
shoot. He liked above all to talk with the guides,
and to please his imagination with their marvellous
exploits.
Emerson was one of the original members of the
Saturday Club, — indeed, Dr. Holmes tells us, the
nucleus around which the club formed itself ; and
we might expect, as Dr. Holmes says, to find in
his diaries some interesting references to it. I find
only the following sentence : —
" February 28, 1862. Cramped for time at the
club, by late dinner and early hour of the return
train ; a cramp which spoils a club. For you shall
not, if you wish good fortune, even take the pains
to secure your right-and-left-hand men. The least
design instantly makes an obligation to make their
time agreeable, — which I can never assume."
He enjoyed the meetings, and went regularly un-
til the time came when loss of power to recall the
right word made talking painful to him. I have
often heard him extol the conversational powers of
some of his distinguished associates, but his own
1 Collected Writings, ix. 159.
620 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
attitude there was that of a listener, eager to hear
what the clever men about him were saying, rather
than forward to take part himself. Dr. Holmes
describes him as sitting " generally near the Long-
fellow end of the table, talking in low tones and
carefully measured utterances to his neighbor, or
listening, and recording any stray word worth re-
membering on his mental phonograph." And in
the delicately touched portrait at the Massachusetts
Historical Society he says : " Emerson was spar-
ing of words, but used them with great precision
and nicety. If he had been followed about by a
short-hand-writing Boswell, every sentence he ever
uttered might have been preserved. To hear him
talk was like watching one crossing a brook on
stepping-stones. His noun had to wait for its verb
or its adjective until he was ready ; then his speech
would come down upon the word he wanted, and
not Worcester or Webster could better it from all
the wealth of their huge vocabularies. . . . He was
always courteous and bland to a remarkable de-
gree ; his smile was the well-remembered line of
Terence written out in living features. But when
anything said specially interested him, he would
lean towards the speaker with a look never to be
forgotten, his head stretched forward, his shoulders
raised like the wings of an eagle, and his eye
watching the flight of the thought which had at-
tracted his attention, as if it were his prey, to be
AT THE SATURDAY CLUB. 621
seized in mid-air and carried up to his eyry." This
last touch is important. Emerson could join rea-
dily enough in the talk about a piece of literary his-
tory or a commonplace of criticism, but a striking
thought or expression was apt to send him home
to his own meditations, and prevent reply. He
seemed on such occasions to come, as Carlyle said,1
with the rake to gather in, and not with the shovel
to scatter abroad. This reticence was not, I think,
the mere effect of a solitary habit, or a dislike to
discussion, but in part also of that nicety in the use
of language which Dr. Holmes remarks. This
made him hesitate, where the matter interested
him, to commit himself to the first words that came
to mind. In one of his early journals he says : " I
had observed, long since, that, to give the thought
a just and full expression, I must not prematurely
utter it. It is as if you let the spring snap too
soon." The consequence was that the spring, too
constantly bent, lost the power of acting on a sud-
den. Though he was a public speaker all his life,
he rarely attempted the smallest speech impromptu,
and never, I believe, with success. I remember
his getting up at a dinner of the Saturday Club on
the Shakspeare anniversary in 1864, to which some
guests had been invited, looking about him tran-
quilly for a minute or two, and then sitting down ;
serene and unabashed, but unable to say a word
1 Carlyle s life in London. By J. A. Fronde. New York,
1884: i. 355.
622 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
upon a subject so familiar to his thoughts from
boyhood. The few instances that may be cited of
his speaking' in public without preparation may
usually be explained, I imagine, as Mr. Lowell ex-
plains the ready flow of the Burns speech, by a
manuscript in the background. He rarely wrote a
letter of any importance without a rough draft;
and even in conversation, though no one could be
more free from any purpose of display, his pains in
the choice of words helped, I think, to produce the
" paralysis " of which he complains.
The most serious consequence (if I am not fan-
ciful in ascribing it to this cause) was that after-
wards, in his old age, as exertion grew more difficult,
this painstaking habit left him more and more at a
loss for the commonest words of every-day life.
He readily found compensations for his want of
fluency. The American genius, he says, is too
demonstrative ; most persons are over-expressed,
beaten out thin, all surface without depth or sub-
stance.
" The thoughts that wander through our minds
we do not absorb and make flesh of, but we report
them as thoughts; we retail them as stimulating
news to our lovers and to all Athenians. At a
dreadful loss we play this game."
Yet it would be giving a false impression of Em-
erson to represent him as taciturn or inclined to
hold himself apart, or even as afflicted with the shy-
EMERSON'S MANNER. 623
ness which may coexist, as in Hawthorne, with en-
tire openness towards intimate friends. No one
could be more affable and encouraging in his ad-
dress, or more ready to take his part in any com-
pany ; and this not of set purpose, but from a
spontaneous hospitality of mind which no one who
met him could help feeling. No one who knew
him, however slightly, but must have been struck
with the ever-ready welcome that shone in his eyes
upon a casual meeting in the street, and with the
almost reverential way in which he received a
stranger. It is true he sometimes resisted intro-
ductions. " Oh, Elizabeth [he said to Miss Hoar,
when some one applied for an introduction], whom
God hath put asunder why should man join to-
gether ? " And there was no doubt an inner circle
of thought and feeling in him which it was always
hard to penetrate, hard for him to open. But the
man of his aspirations was not the moralist, sitting
aloof on the heights of philosophy and overlooking
the affairs of men from a distance, but the man of
the world, in the true sense of the phrase ; the man
of both worlds, the public soul, with all his doors
open, with equal facility of reception and of com-
munication, — such as Plato, such as Montaigne.
" With what security and common sense [he
writes to Miss Hoar] this Plato treads the cliffs
and pinnacles of Parnassus, as if he walked in a
street, and comes down again into the street as if
624 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
he lived there ! My dazzling friends the New Pla-
tonists have none of this air of facts and society
about them."
In himself he felt a " want of stomach and stout-
ness," a quasi-physical sensitiveness that made it
uncomfortable for him to be in the street. " The
advantage of the Napoleon temperament [he writes
in one of his early diaries], impassive, unimpressi-
ble by others, is a signal convenience over this other
tender one, which every aunt and every gossiping
girl can daunt and tether. This weakness, be sure,
is merely cutaneous, and the sufferer gets his re-
venge by the sharpened observation that belongs to
such sympathetic fibre."
On the whole, he doubtless exaggerated his social
defects ; and I expect to hear that I have exagge-
rated them in my account of him.
Another trait, touched upon by Mr. Lowell in
his sketch of Emerson at the Saturday symposium,
in his poem on Agassiz, was the dislike of being
made to laugh : —
" Listening with eyes averse I see him sit
Pricked with the cider of the judge's wit,
( Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again, )
While the wise nose's firm-built aquiline
Curves sharper to restrain
The merriment whose most unruly moods
Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listening woods
Of silence-shedding pine."
RECOGNITION BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 625
Several of Emerson's friends were good laughers,
notably Carlyle and Agassiz, and he never found
their mirth intemperate ; but, for himself, " the
pleasant spasms we call laughter," when he was
surprised into them, seemed almost painful.
" The hour will come, and the world [Emerson
writes to Miss Hoar from England], wherein we
shall quite easily render that account of ourselves
which now we never render." But by this time,
without effort and in spite of some occasions for un-
favorable impressions, he had rendered account of
himself, and found acceptance and, we may say,
reverence for what he was, even from those who
took but little account of his writings and sayings,
or perhaps would have counted them folly or worse.
" The main thing about him [says Mr. James J]
was that he unconsciously brought you face to face
with the infinite in humanity ; " and this made
its own way without help or hindrance. His lec-
tures had not attracted a great variety of persons ;
it was always the same set, and not a large or an
influential set. In certain quarters something of
the odium of the Divinity Hall address still lin-
gered, and yet more widely everything connected
with Transcendentalism presented itself in rather a
ludicrous aspect. One can hardly say that his
doctrines had gained many converts ; he had never
identified himself with his precepts, but was always
1 Literary Remains, 201.
626 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ready to reverse them, however categorical they
might be, with equal emphasis and as coolly as if
he had never heard of them. He was not compil-
ing a code ; he was only noting single aspects of
truth as they struck him, trusting that every one
would do the like for himself.
" I have been writing and speaking [he writes in
his journal in 1859] what were once called novel-
ties, for twenty-five or thirty years, and have not
now one disciple. Why ? Not that what I said
was not true ; not that it has not found intelligent
receivers ; but because it did not go from any wish
in me to bring men to me, but to themselves.
What could I do if they came to me ? They would
interrupt and encumber me. This is my boast,
that I have no school and no followers. I should
account it a measure of the impurity of insight if
it did not create independence."
" I would have my book read as I have read my
favorite books, — not with explosion and astonish-
ment, a marvel and a rocket, but a friendly and
agreeable influence, stealing like the scent of a
flower or the sight of a new landscape on a tra-
veller. I neither wish to be hated and defied by
such as I startle, nor to be kissed and hugged by
the young whose thoughts I stimulate."
He wished to stand aside and leave what he had
written or said to rest on its own merits. He writes
to a distant correspondent on occasion of some cri-
ticism in the newspapers : —
RECOGNITION BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 627
" Sorry I am that it is still doubtful whether
books or words of mine are of doubtful health and
safety; but, so long as it seems so, so long you
must think so, and beware. I too am only a spec-
tator, of your impressions as well as of my own
things, and cannot set aside that fact any more than
this. So we will not affirm or deny my sanity at
present, but leave that hanging between heaven
and earth for probation."
The increased sale of his books in this period
shows that he was more widely read, but the effect
he produced is not entirely accounted for by his
writings. What gave Emerson his position among
those who influence thought was not so much what
he said, or how he said it, as what made him say
it, — the open vision of things spiritual across the
disfigurements and contradictions of the actual:
this shone from him, unmistakable as the sunlight,
and now, when his time of production was past,
more and more widely, as the glow of the winter
sky widens after the sun has set.
After 1866 he wrote but little that was new ; in-
deed, for some time already he had been working
up metal brought to the surface long before. He
still lectured as much as ever, mostly away from
home, at the West, where he often read a lecture
nearly every day (sometimes twice a day) for weeks
together in the winter ; travelling all the time.
In July, 1865, he was asked to speak at the
628 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
commemoration by Harvard College of the close
of the war and the return of her contingent. " To
him more than to all other causes together did the
young martyrs of our civil war [says Mr. Lowell,
thinking of the Harvard boys] owe the sustaining
strength of thoughtful heroism that is so touching
in every record of their lives : " it was fitting that
he should be there to welcome the survivors. He
made the short address to them which has been
printed in his collected writings.1
The close of the war was marked also by a joy-
ful event in Emerson's family circle, — the mar-
riage of his younger daughter to Colonel William
H. Forbes. He writes to his old friend, Mr. Abel
Adams : —
Concord, October 1, 1865.
Edith's note will have given you the day and
the hour of the wedding, but I add this line to say
that I rely on the presence of you and your family
as on my own, . . . and I entreat you not to let
any superable obstacle stand in your way hither.
My own family connection has become so small
that I necessarily cling to you, who have stood by
me like a strong elder brother through nearly or
quite forty years. You know all my chances in
that time, and Edward's 2 career has depended on
1 Collected Writings, xi. 317.
2 Emerson's son, the cost of whose college course Mr. Adams
had paid.
OVERSEER OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 629
you. Tuesday will not be the day I look for unless
you are here. . . .
Yours affectionately, R. W. Emerson.
In 1867 he was chosen orator on Phi Beta Kappa
day at Cambridge, as he had been thirty years be-
fore ; but not now as a promising young beginner,
from whom a fair poetical speech might be ex-
pected, but as the foremost man of letters of New
England. In 1866 he received the honorary de-
gree of LL. D. from Harvard, and was elected
overseer by the Alumni.
He had not grown more orthodox, but opinion
had been advancing in his direction. In the mat-
ter of religion, although his speech at the meeting
for organizing the Free Religious Association (May
30, 1867), the speech at the Horticultural Hall in
1871, and his Sunday discourses to the Parker
Fraternity in these years would have been regarded
at the time of the Divinity Hall address as being
still more outspoken in dissent, yet it was noised
about that he had begun to see the error of his
ways, and to return from them. When these re-
ports came to Emerson he authorized his son to
contradict them ; he had not retracted, he said, any
views expressed in his writings after his withdrawal
from the ministry. What was true, I think, was
that when his mind was quiescent, and nothing
happened to stir up reflection, his feelings went
630 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
back with complacency to the sentiments and the
observances of his youth. He liked that every-
body should go to church but himself, as aunt
Mary Emerson liked that other people should be
Calvinists ; and a special motive — the appeal of
some unpopular body like the Free Religious Asso-
ciation — was needed to bring him out on the side
of innovation. A good instance of this unconscious
drift transpired from the Board of Harvard Over-
seers, on occasion of a motion to dispense with the
compulsory attendance at morning prayers in the
college ; which, it was understood, would have pre-
vailed but for Emerson's vote. He should be loath,
he is reported to have said, that the young men
should not have the opportunity afforded them,
each day, of assuming the noblest attitude man is
capable of, — that of prayer. That he should de-
cide, upon the whole, against the change, would not
perhaps have been surprising; but it naturally
excited surprise that the objections that were urged
did not present themselves with special force to
his mind. The truth was, he was simply dwelling
in his early associations.
He served two terms as overseer, from 1867 to
1879, though it was with some difficulty that he
was withheld from resigning before the close of the
second. He felt himself to be unfit and now grow-
ing more unfit for the business. He attended the
meetings regularly, however, sitting intent and as
OVERSEER OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 631
one astonished at the wisdom of those about him ;
now and again stooping forward with knit brows
and lips slightly parted, as if eager to seize upon
some specially important remark, but rarely taking
part in the debates. He visited some of the courses
in the college, and was chairman, from time to time,
of committees, of whose reports I find fragmentary
drafts among his papers, mostly of a general char-
acter ; insisting that the aim of the college being to
make scholars, the degrees, honors, and stipends
should be awarded for scholarship, and not for de-
portment ; and that scholarship is to be created not
by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in
knowledge. " The wise instructor accomplishes
this by opening to his pupils precisely the attrac-
tions the study has for himself. He is there to
show them what delights and instructs himself in
Homer, or Horace, or Dante, and not to weigh the
young man's rendering, whether it entitles to four
or five or six marks. The marking is a system for
schools, not for the college ; for boys, not for men ;
and it is an ungracious work to put on a profes-
sor."
I find also the recommendation of greater atten-
tion to elocution, which was a favorite matter with
him in the Concord schools ; and the suggestion in
a report on the library that a library counsellor,
to guide the gazing youth amidst the multitude of
books to the volume he wants, is greatly needed.
632 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
It was not Emerson's way to follow up his general
views into their detailed application, nor to insist on
them in debate. So he sat, as I have said, mostly
in silence, but always interested in what was going
on, and pleased at feeling himself within the atmos-
phere of the college. For, in spite of some un-
pleasant recollections, and of the " whiggery " of
which he had sometimes accused it, Emerson kept
always a feeling of loyalty towards his college,
came regularly to the Phi Beta Kappa festivals
and often to Commencement, and, when the build-
ing of a Memorial Hall was proposed, busied him-
self in collecting contributions from his class ; giv-
ing, in his proportion, more largely towards it, I
suppose, than any of them.
I find in his journal this record of the proceed-
ings on the day when the corner-stone was laid : —
" October 6, 1870. To-day at the laying of the
corner-stone of the Memorial Hall, at Cambridge.
All was well and wisely done. The storm ceased
for us ; the company was large ; the best men and
the best women were there, or all but a few ; the
arrangements simple and excellent, and every
speaker successful. Henry Lee, with his uniform
sense and courage, the manager. The chaplain,
Reverend Phillips Brooks, offered a prayer in which
not a word was superfluous and every right thing
was said. Henry Rogers, William Gray, and Dr.
Palfrey made each his proper report. Luther's
UNIVERSITY LECTURES. 633
hymn in Dr. Hedge's translation was sung by a
great choir, the corner-stone was laid, and then
Rockwood Hoar read a discourse of perfect sense,
taste, and feeling, full of virtue and of tenderness.
After this, an original song by Wendell Holmes
was given by the choir. Every part in all these
performances was in such true feeling that people
praised them with broken voices, and we all proudly
wept. Our Harvard soldiers of the war were in
their uniforms, and heard their own praises and the
tender allusions to their dead comrades. General
Meade was present and ' adopted by the college,'
as Judge Hoar said, and Governor Claflin sat by
President Eliot. Our English guests, Hughes,
Rawlins, Dicey, and Bryce, sat and listened."
He was much gratified when he was invited, in
1870 (in pursuance of a scheme, soon abandoned,
of lectures to advanced students by persons not
members of the Faculties), to give a course of uni-
versity lectures in Cambridge. Emerson welcomed
the proposal as an opportunity for taking up and
completing his sketches of the "Natural History
of the Intellect," which he appears to have re-
garded as the chief task of his life. As early as
1837 he had proposed to himself " to write the
natural history of reason," and he had returned to
the project again and again ; in the London lec-
tures in 1848, repeated in the two succeeding years
at Boston and New York ; in 1858, in a course on
634 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the " Natural Method of Mental Philosophy ; " in
1866, in lectures on " Philosophy for the People : "
but had never got beyond the general announce-
ment of his principle. Now he would make a su-
preme effort and bring together what he wished to
say. He worked hard over his papers for some
months before the course began, and in the inter-
vals between the lectures ; but the result, as his
letter to Carlyle 1 shows, was still far from satis-
factory to himself.
No one would expect from Emerson a system
of philosophy ; he had always declared his small
esteem of metaphysical systems, charts of the uni-
verse or of the mind, and he could not have in-
tended now to attempt one. But he had long
cherished the thought of a more fruitful method
for the study of the mind, founded on the paral-
lelism of the mental laws with the laws of external
nature, and proceeding by simple observation of
the metaphysical facts and their analogies with the
physical, in place of the method of introspection
and analysis : —
" We have an invincible repugnance to introver-
sion, study of the eyes instead of that which the
eyes see. The attempt is unnatural, and is pun-
ished by loss of faculty. 'T is the wrong path. For
fruit, for wisdom, for power, the intellect is to be
used, not spied. I want not the logic, but the power,
1 June 17, 1870. Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, ii. 327.
UNIVERSITY LECTURES. 635
if any, which it brings into science and literature.
The adepts value only the pure geometry, the aerial
bridge asceDding from earth to heaven, with arches
and abutments of pure reason. I am fully con-
tented if you tell me where are the two termini.
My metaphysics is purely expectant ; it is not even
tentative. Much less am I ingenious in instituting
experimenta cruris to extort the secret and lay
bare the reluctant lurking law. No, I confine my
ambition to true reporting. My contribution will
be simply historical. I write anecdotes of the in-
tellect, a sort of Farmers' Almanac of mental
moods."
He tries to speak graciously, as always, of the
system-makers, the pretenders to universal know-
ledge, who draw their circle and define every fact
by its relations in a general scheme of experience,
but he cannot conceal his disgust at their preten-
sions. " 'T is the gnat grasping the world. We
have not got on far enough for this. We have
just begun and are always just beginning to know."
Yet the metaphysicians on their side might ask :
Does not knowledge consist in the perception of
universal relations ? Or what is a fact but the in-
stance of a law of nature, a way in which every one
will be affected under the given circumstances?
This is the paradox of knowledge, that this gnat
we call John or Peter can grasp a law of the uni-
verse ; and it is involved already in the very be-
636 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ginnings of our experience, in every distinction of
facts from vain imaginations and dreams. What
is truth but system, order seen through the chance
medley of events ? Emerson says the same thing
himself : —
" If one can say so without arrogance, I might
suggest that he who contents himself with dotting
only a fragmentary curve, recording only what
facts he has observed, without attempting to ar-
range them within one outline, follows a system
also, a system as grand as any other, though he
does not interfere with its vast curves by prema-
turely forcing them into a circle or ellipse, but
only draws that arc which he clearly sees, and
waits for new opportunity, well assured that these
observed arcs consist with each other."
What he resists is not metaphysics, nor the idea
of system, but dogmatism ; the haste to realize the
idea in a final statement, to call a halt and exclude
all further implications in our facts beyond what
is contained in our definitions. In beginning his
first lecture, he says : —
" My belief in the use of a course on philosophy
is that the student shall learn to appreciate the mi-
racle of the mind ; . . . shall see in it the source of
all traditions, and shall see each of them as better
or worse statement of its revelations ; shall come to
trust to it entirely, to cleave to God against the
name of God. And, if he finds at first with some
UNIVERSITY LECTURES. 637
alarm how impossible it is to accept many things
which the hot or the mild sectarian will insist on
his believing, he will be armed by his insight and
brave to meet all inconvenience and all resistance
it may cost him."
In particular, perhaps, the recollection how the
authorities of the Divinity School and the Liberal
Christians, many of them just and acute men and
well-equipped reasoners, had concluded that be-
cause they were right he must be wrong, and that
there could be no reality in his religious percep-
tions, because, from the nature of the case, no such
perceptions could be, made him distrust all at-
tempts to verify our beliefs by systematic reason-
ing. But this feeling carries him so far that, as
the Germans say, he empties out the child with
the bath ; he throws overboard not merely the
claim to prescribe the conclusions to which our data
must lead us, but every attempt to distinguish the
grounds of belief from the momentary impres-
sion : —
" My measure for all the subjects of science, as
of events, is the impression on the soul. Every
thought ranks itself, on its first emergence from
the creative night wears its rank stamped upon it.
This endless silent procession of the makers of the
world, — wonderful is their way and their se-
quence ! They have a life of their own and their
own proper motion, independent of the will. They
638 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
are not to be tampered with or spied upon, but
obeyed. Do not force your thoughts into an ar-
rangement, and you shall find they will take their
own order, and that the order is divine.
" The ethics of thought is reverence for the
source, and the source lies in that unknown coun-
try which, in the despair of language, we call In-
stinct ; a sheathed omniscience to which implicit
obedience is due. Instinct compares with the
understanding as the loadstone compares with a
guide-post.
" 'Tis certain that a man's whole possibility lies
in that habitual first look which he casts on all ob-
jects. What impresses me ought to impress me."
On this showing there would seem to be small
place for philosophy ; its first word will be its last,
for if we have only to obey our impressions, no fur-
ther counsels will be needed. Nor would there,
in Emerson's view, be any place for philosophy,
were our sensibilities always alive to the informa-
tions of experience. Every impression is a fact in
nature, as much as the freezing of water or the fall
of an apple, and carries the law with it. In the
healthy or obedient soul the creative thought real-
izes itself in the image in which it is expressed,
without any interval or any need of reasons for
connecting them. The inspired man, the poet,
the seer, and not the reasoner, is the right philoso-
pher : —
UNIVERSITY LECTURES. 639
" Philosophy is still rude and elementary. It
will one day be taught by poets. The poet sees
wholes and avoids analysis ; the metaphysician,
dealing as it were with the mathematics of the
mind, puts himself out of the way of the inspira-
tion, loses that which is the miracle and creates
the worship. The poet believes ; the philosopher,
after some struggle, has only reasons for believ-
ing."
But in our colder moods, in default of clear vi-
sion, we may assure ourselves of the reality of our
thoughts and the justness of their connections by
seeing them reflected back to us from the face of
nature. Things tally with thoughts because they
are at bottom the same ; knowledge is the percep-
tion of this identity. We first are the things we
know, and then we come to speak and to write
them, — translate them into the new sky-language
we call thought. And it is this natural logic, and
not syllogisms, that can help us to understand and
to verify our experience.
In the second lecture, on the " Transcendency of
Physics," he says : —
" The world may be reeled off from any one of
its laws like a ball of yarn. The chemist can ex-
plain by his analogies the processes of intellect ;
the zoologist from his ; the geometer, the mechani-
cian, respectively from theirs. And in the impen-
etrable mystery which hides (and hides through
640 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
absolute transparency) the mental nature, I await
the insight which our advancing knowledge of nat-
ural laws shall furnish."
And in one of the London lectures : —
" If we go through the British Museum, or the
Jardin des Plantes, or any cabinet where is some
representation of all the kingdoms of nature, we
are surprised with occult sympathies. Is it not a
little startling with what genius some people take
to hunting, to fishing, — what knowledge they still
have of the creature they hunt ? I see the same
fact everywhere. The chemist has a frightful in-
timacy with the secret architecture of bodies. As
the fisherman follows the fish because he was fish,
so the chemist divines the way of alkali because he
was alkali."
Emerson was not constructing a system of phi-
losophy ; he was not even formulating a method ;
he was only indicating after his own fashion the
problem of philosophy, and the direction in which
a solution is to be sought. The problem is the
coming together of thought and thing in our assent
to a fact. A fact is a thought, an impression in
our mind ; yet it is also a part of nature, outside
and independent of us and of our thinking : the
business of philosophy is to explain and to justify
the connection, and thereby distinguish knowledge
from the mere association of ideas. Now if we
were sure that everything impresses us just as it
UNIVERSITY LECTURES. 641
ought to impress us, there would be no need to
look beyond the image in the mind in order to be
certain that things are just what they appear to us.
Unhappily, as Emerson remarks in the essay " Ex-
perience," * we have discovered that we do not see
directly, but mediately, and that we have no means
of correcting these colored and distorting lenses
which we are. The real world, we learn, is not
the world we think. But if we get rid of the dis-
crepancy, as he seems to propose, by striking out
the difference of thought and object, on the ground
of their ultimate identity, — this is not solving the
problem, but ignoring it. The question how we
can know anything is answered to the effect that
there is nothing to know ; that knowledge is sim-
ply the mind's consciousness of itself and of the
unreality of everything outward. Emerson had
said such things in his essays, throwing them out
as poetical images to illustrate the power of intel-
lect to dissolve nature "in its resistless men-
struum ; " but they could not be stated as a doc-
trine, since the statement falls at once into a tau-
tology. In this view nothing can be said of any
impression except that it exists, or is felt ; and in
this respect all impressions are the same. In Em-
erson's psychology, Instinct, Perception, Imagina-
tion, Reason, even Memory, all come back to re-
cipiency and " the dissolving of the fact in the laws
1 Collected Writings, iii. 77, 85.
642 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
of the mind," or in the one law of identity with it-
self. The one operation of thought is to set aside
all diversity as merely apparent, — a diversity of
names for one fact. The Natural History of the
Intellect will resolve itself, then, into a progressive
discovery of illusions, a perpetual coming up with
our facts, and finding them to be old acquaintances
masquerading in novel disguises.
The lectures appear to have been well received
by a little audience of some thirty students, one of
whom, in an account of the course in the Atlantic
Monthly (June, 1883, p. 818), says they were
" poetry and music." But Emerson, on this occa-
sion, was intending something more. It could not
have been his intention to unfold the poetical par-
adox of his " Xenophanes " J in a series of univer-
sity lectures, or to inculcate, as a doctrine, that the
mind, like nature,
. . . " an infinite paroquet,
Repeats one note."
What he wished to impress on the young men,
if I understand him, was not the identity but the
infinity of truth; the residuum of reality in all
our facts, beyond what is formulated in our defini-
tions. So that no definition is to be regarded as
final, as if it described an ultimate essence whereby
the thing is utterly discriminated from all other
1 Collected Writings, ix. 121.
UNIVERSITY LECTURES. 643
things, but only as the recognition of certain of its
relations ; to which, of course, no limit can be set.
In this view Nature is the counterpart of the mind
beholding it, and opens new meanings as fast as
the capacity is there to receive them. This, at
any rate, was Emerson's characteristic doctrine, but,
in his exposition, he sets forth the ideal unity, on
which the perception of relation is founded, so
strongly and exclusively that no room is left for the
diversity in which it is to be realized, or for any re-
lation save that of identity.
He must have felt the difficulty, I think, from
the outset. Any way, upon his return home after
the first lecture, he seemed disheartened. " I have
joined [he said, quoting Scott's " Dinas Emlinn "]
the dim choir of the bards who have been." It
was but a momentary feeling; he soon recovered
his spirits, supplemented the lectures by readings
from the Oriental Mystics and the Platonists, con-
tented himself with " anecdotes of the intellect,"
without much attempt to deduce any conclusions,
and finished the course (which he made shorter by
two lectures than he had intended) in good heart,
trusting for better things the next year. At the
close of the last lecture, he thanked the class for their
punctual and sympathetic attention, and said that
although the discourses had been " quite too rapid
and imperfect to be just to questions of such high
644 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and enduring import," yet the act of reading them
had given much assistance to his own views, and
would, he hoped, enable him to give a greater com-
pleteness to the leading statements.
He repeated the course (with slight changes) the
next year, but with no greater feeling of success.
It was, he wrote Carlyle,1 " a doleful ordeal," and
when it was over he was much in need of the
refreshment that was offered him by his friend and
connection, Mr. John Forbes, in a six weeks' trip
to California, of which an account is preserved in
Professor Thayer's little volume.2
There was much in the circumstances to make
travelling, for once, enjoyable to Emerson, — a
company of near friends, entire absence of respon-
sibility, a private Pullman car, well stored with all
that was needful ; and he seems to have thoroughly
enjoyed it. He talked more freely than was his
wont, was in excellent spirits, and impressed Mr.
Thayer with the sense he seemed to have of "a
certain great amplitude of time and leisure." He
put all cares behind him and enjoyed the pass-
ing hour, astonishing his young companions by
being " so agreeable all the time without getting
tired."
1 Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, Supplementary Letters, 78.
2 A Western Journey with Mr. Emerson. By James Bradley
Thayer. Boston, 1884.
TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 645
Calistoga, Cal., April 27, 1871.
Dear Lidian, — We live to-day and every day
in the loveliest climate. Hither to-day from San
Francisco, by water and by rail, to this village of
sulphur springs, with baths to swim in, and heal-
ing waters to drink, for all such as need such medi-
caments ; you may judge how religiously I use such
privilege, — as that word wont has two meanings.
Last night I read a lecture in San Francisco, and
day after to-morrow should read a second, and
perhaps still another later; for even in these vales
of Enna and Olympian ranges every creature sticks
to his habit. Our company is, as you know, New
England's best, the climate delightful, and we fare
sumptuously every day. The city opens to us its
Mercantile Library and its City Exchange, one
rich with books, the other with newspapers ; and
the roads and the points of attraction are Na-
ture's chief est brags. If we were all young — as
some of us are not — we might each of us claim
his quarter-section of the government, and plant
grapes and oranges, and never come back to your
east winds and cold summers ; only remembering
to send home a few tickets of the Pacific Railroad
to one or two or three pale natives of the Massa-
chusetts Bay, or half-tickets to as many minors.
... Of course, in our climate and condition the
leanest of us grows red and heavier. At the first
Dearborn's balance that we saw, Mr. Thayer and I
646 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
were weighed with the rest, and each of us counted
the same pounds, 140i. I have not tried my luck
again, but shall dare to by and by. ... I stay
mainly by San F. until the whole party shall go
to the Yo Semite, which it were a little premature
to seek at once, and the mammoth groves are in its
neighborhood. . . . But I have not said what was
in my mind when I began, that we three went to
San Rafael on Tuesday, to Mr. Barber's, and spent
the day and night there. It is a charming home,
one of the beauties of this beautiful land. All
shone with hospitality and health. They showed
us every kindness. The house is new and perfectly
well built and appointed. His place has seventy-
one acres of plain and wood and mountain, and he
is a man of taste and knows and uses its values.
Three or four wild deer still feed on his land, and
now and then come near the house. The trees of
his wood were almost all new to us — live - oak,
madrona, redwood, and other pines than ours ; and
our garden flowers wild in all the fields.
Truckee, May 20, 1871.
254 miles east from San Francisco.
We began our homeward journey yesterday
morning from San Francisco, and reviewed our
landscapes of four weeks before. The forest has
lost much of its pretension by our acquaintance
with grander woods, but the country is everywhere
TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 647
rich in trees and endless flowers, and New England
starved in comparison. Another main advantage
is that every day here is fair, if sometimes a wind
a little raw or colder blows in the afternoon.
The soil wants nothing but water, which the land
calls aloud for. The immense herds of horses,
sheep, and cattle are driven to the mountains as
the earth dries. Steps begin to be taken to meet
this want of the plains and the cities, which the Sier-
ras that keep their snow-tops all summer stand ever
ready to supply. 'Tis a delightful and a cheap
country to live in, for a New Englander, though
costly enough to the uproarious, unthrifty popula-
tion that drift into it. One of my acquaintances,
Mr. Pierce, a large owner and very intelligent,
much-travelled man, thinks California needs noth-
ing but hard times and punishment to drive it to
prudence and prosperity ; the careless ways in which
money is given and taken being a ruinous educa-
tion to the young.
Its immense prospective advantages, which only
now begin to be opened to men's eyes by the new
railroad, are its nearness to Asia and South Amer-
ica ; and that with a port such as Constantinople,
plainly a new centre like London, with immense
advantages over that, is here. There is an awe
and terror lying over this new garden, all empty as
yet of any adequate people, yet with this assured
future in American hands ; unequalled in climate
648 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and production. Chicago and St. Louis are toys to
it in its assured felicity. I should think no young
man would come back from it.
Lake Talioe. We have driven through twelve
miles of forest to this fine lake, twenty or more
miles in diameter, with sulphur hot springs on its
margin and mountains for its guardians ; yet silver
trout, I suspect, were the magnet in the mind of
our commanders. ... It would have an additional
charm for me if it were not a detour, instead of an
advance to the blue northeast, which can only be
reached by retracing our way to Truckee. Friday
night I went to Oaklands (the Brooklyn of San
Francisco) to read a lecture, . . . and returned at
eleven o'clock p. m. by rail and boat to San Fran-
cisco. Edith had packed my trunk in the mean
time, and we departed for these places at eight in
the morning.
He came home refreshed, stopping on his way at
Niagara Falls, and in the autumn went again to
the West, lecturing. But the effort of the Cam-
bridge course had left a strain from which he never
recovered ; or perhaps it only betrayed the decline
which had already begun. At all events, the de-
scent was steady from this time. In 1868 he had
given the course of lectures in Boston of which Mr.
Lowell says that Emerson's older hearers could per-
ceive in it no f alling-off in anything that ever was es-
READINGS IN BOSTON. 649
sential to the charm of his peculiar style of thought
or phrase. And in 1869 he gave ten readings in
English Poetry and Prose at Chickering's Hall in
Boston ; the second address to the Free Religious
Association, and several lectures : in none of which,
so far as I know, were any signs of failing powers
observed. But the same thing could not often be
said after 1870.
Emerson never grew old ; at heart he was to the
last as young as ever, his feelings as unworn, his
faith as assured as in the days of his youth. Many
visions he had seen pass away, but the import of
them remained, only confirmed and enlarged in
scope. Nor were bodily infirmities swift to come
upon him. His hair remained thick and its brown
color unchanged up to rather a late period, when
suddenly it began to come off in large patches.
His eyesight, which sometimes failed him in his
youth and early manhood, was remarkably strong
in the latter part of his life. He used no glasses
in reading his lectures until he was sixty-four, when
he found the need of them in his Phi Beta Kappa
speech in 1867, and was thrown into some confu-
sion, attributed by the audience to the usual dis-
array of his manuscript.
Dr. Hedge, in his recollections of Emerson in
1828, notes the slowness of his movements; but I
think most persons who saw him first in more ad-
vanced years will have been struck with the rapid
650 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
step with which he moved through the Boston
streets, his eye fixed on the distance. I count my-
self a good walker, but I used to find myself kept
at a stretch when I walked with him in the Con-
cord woods, when he was past seventy. Miss Eliza-
beth Hoar and one or two other persons who re-
membered him from his youth have told me that he
seemed to them more erect in carriage, better " set
up," in later years. A life so much in the open
air no doubt had gradually strengthened an origi-
nally feeble habit of body. Emerson was never
quite willing to acknowledge the fact of sickness
or debilitv.
" You are bound [he writes to one of his chil-
dren] to be healthy and happy. I expect so much
of you, of course, and neither allow for nor believe
any rumors to the contrary. Please not to give
the least countenance to any hobgoblin of the sick
sort, but live out-of-doors, and in the sea-bath and
the sail-boat and the saddle and the wagon, and,
best of all, in your shoes, so soon as they will
obey you for a mile. For the great mother Nature
will not quite tell her secret to the coach or the
steamboat, but says, One to one, my dear, is my
rule also, and I keep my enchantments and oracles
for the religious soul coming alone, or as good as
alone, in true-love."
Yet there are traces from time to time, growing
less frequent latterly, of precarious health.
LOSS OF MEMORY. 651
He loved warm weather : the Concord summer
was never too hot for him ; he revelled in the
" rivers of heat ; " but he seemed also impassive to
cold, and would go without an overcoat when an-
other man would have felt the need of one.
Though here allowance must be made for his un-
willingness to acknowledge bodily inconveniences.
But, from this time, the decay of some of the
vital machinery began to make itself felt in ways
that would not be denied. He began to find ex-
traordinary difficulty in recalling names, or the
right word in conversation. By degrees the obstruc-
tion increased, until he was forced at times to para-
phrase his meaning, and to indicate common things
— a fork or an umbrella — by a pantomimic repre-
sentation, or by a figure of speech ; often uninten-
tionally, as one day, when he had taken refuge
from the noontide glare under the shade of a tree,
he said, in a casual way to his companion, who was
sitting in the sun, " Is n't there too much heaven
on you there?" Meeting him one day in the
street in Boston, seemingly at a loss for something,
I asked him where he was going. " To dine [he
said] with an old and very dear friend. I know
where she lives, but I hope she won't ask me her
name ; " and then went on to describe her as " the
mother of the wife of the young man — the tall
man — who speaks so well ; " and so on until I
guessed whom he meant. For himself, he took a
652 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
humorous view of his case. Once, when he wanted
an umbrella, he said, " I can't tell its name, but I
can tell its history. Strangers take it away." But
the disability led him at last to avoid occasions of
conversation with persons with whom he was not
intimate, thinking it unfair to them. He spoke of
himself as a man who had lost his wits, and was
thereby absolved for anything he might do or omit,
only he must learn to confine himself to his study,
" where I can still read with intelligence." How
clear his intelligence still was in spite of these su-
perficial obstructions is manifest in the introduc-
tion which he wrote in the summer of 1870 for
Professor Goodwin's revision of the translation,
" by several hands," of Plutarch's Morals. This
little essay,1 at which he worked diligently for a
month or more, buying a Greek Plutarch to com-
pare with the old version (always even to its idiom
a prime favorite of his), was, I suppose, his last
effort at composition ; old affection for the book
bringing the needed stimulus.
The anthology of English poetry, published in
1874 under the title " Parnassus," received some
additions at this time and afterwards, and some
pieces were admitted which at an earlier time he
would probably have passed over. He had begun
as early as 1855 to have his favorites copied out
for printing, and the selection was mostly complete
1 Collected Writings, x. 275.
THE BURNING OF HIS HOUSE. 653
before 1865; but in the years after 1870 some
pieces were inserted, rather (in the opinion of those
who stood nearest to him) on the strength of a skil-
ful reading or some other accidental circumstance
than upon a critical consideration of their merits.
The preface belongs substantially to the earlier time.
In the spring of 1872 he gave a course of six
lectures in Boston, and in July had just returned
from reading an address at Amherst College when
a cruel calamity fell upon him in the burning of
his house. About half past five in the morning of
July 24 he was waked by the crackling of fire, and
saw a light in the closet, which was next the chim-
ney. He sprang up, and, not being able to reach
the part that was in flames, ran down partly dressed
to the front gate and called out for help. He was
heard at a considerable distance, and answered in-
stantly. The neighbors came running in from all
sides, and, finding it too late to save the house, ap-
plied themselves to removing the books and manu-
scripts and then the furniture, which was done with
so much promptitude and skill and by such a con-
course of persons eager to help that, of the mova-
bles, but little of value was destroyed or even injured ;
hardly anything except some papers in the garret
where the fire began. One of his kind townsmen
was in the chambers, and barely escaped when the
roof fell. By half past eight the fire was out ; the
four walls yet standing, but the roof gone and the
654 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
upper parts much injured. It had been raining
in the night and everything was soaked ; a circum-
stance which saved the trees Emerson had planted
close about the house, but also was the cause of
many colds and rheumatisms. Emerson himself
had a feverish attack, from walking about in the
rain, partially clad, in his solicitude about the let-
ters and papers from the garret, which were car-
ried about far and wide by the wind.
Many houses were at once offered for their re-
ception, and Mr. Francis Cabot Lowell, Emerson's
classmate and friend, soon arrived from Waltham
with provision for removing the family to his own
house. They decided, however, to accept Miss
Ripley's invitation to the Manse. A day or two
afterwards, Mr. Lowell came again, and left with
Emerson a letter which was found to contain a
check for five thousand dollars, as the contribution
of a few friends for present needs. He did it,
Emerson said, " like the great gentleman he is,
and let us have his visit without a word of this."
Another of Emerson's old friends, Dr. Le Baron
Russell, had long been thinking it was time he
should be relieved from his lecturing and induced
to take a vacation, and with this additional reason
the suggestion was at once taken up by those within
reach, and between eleven and twelve thousand
dollars sent in, and felicitously conveyed to Mr.
Emerson by Judge Hoar.1
1 See Appendix D.
SIGNS OF DISABILITY. 655
Emerson at first resisted ; he had been allowed,
he said, so far in life, to stand on his own feet.
He felt the great kindness of his friends, but he
could not so far yield to their wishes. But on re-
flection he saw that there was no reason for declin-
ing, and he would not cast about for any.
His books and papers, meanwhile, had been care-
fully removed to the Court House (then out of use),
and a temporary study fitted up for him there.
It was to be expected that such a blow would
have serious consequences. Apart from the phy-
sical exposure, the shock of finding himself thus
violently turned out of his home, his library, and
all his accustomed surroundings, the apprehension
for the moment that it might be forever, — this, for
a man whose life was so much in his study, was
most severe. It was natural that the loss of mem-
ory and of mental grasp which was afterwards
noticed should be dated from this time. But the
disability had begun earlier, and already showed
itself to watchful eyes in his lectures in the spring
and at Amherst in July ; and the proof-sheets of a
new volume of essays (" Letters and Social Aims "),
which he had undertaken to select and arrange for
a London publisher, showed that before the fire he
had begun to find insuperable difficulty in a con-
tinuous effort of attention. I have spoken, in a
prefatory note to that volume in the collected edi-
656 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
tion, of the circumstances under which it was un-
dertaken and of the small progress he had made at
this time. The thought of it was a serious addition
to the burden that was pressing upon him.
On the whole, he was less disturbed than had been
expected, "though [one of his children writes] he
is so faithfully careful never to mention himself
that it is hard to know ; but he looks happy." He
took cold at the time of the fire and had an attack
of low fever, but soon recovered, and went to the
seashore for a change of air and scene. Meantime
another visit to Europe was urged upon him ; this
time to include Greece and the Nile, which had
been a day-dream of his. At first he thought it
impossible, on account of the book which he was
bound to get ready. But it was obvious that the
book could not be proceeded with at present, and
this being represented to the publishers, they ac-
ceded to a year's delay. He then consented to
the foreign tour, and sailed, October 28, from
New York for England, accompanied by his eldest
daughter.
CHAPTER XVII.
third visit to europe. — egypt. — paris. —
london. — oxford. — return home. can-
didate for rectorship of glasgow. — anni-
versary of concord fight. — compilation
of a new volume of essays.— the virginia
address. — visit to concord, n. h. — mr.
French's bust. — last readings. — declining
years. illness and death.
1872-1882.
The air of the sea, as in his younger days,
proved a tonic to Emerson. A few days before
sailing, he had found some difficulty in making a
little speech at a dinner of welcome to Mr. Froude
in New York ; but, on the day he reached England,
being invited to a meeting of the Archaeological
Society at Chester, and his presence noticed with a
request that he would second a motion of thanks
to the speakers of the evening, he did so with such
readiness and force that his son, who had come to
meet him there, was much relieved from anxiety
concerning him.
He greatly enjoyed the enforced rest and free-
dom from care, and in London gladly yielded him-
658 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
self to the attentions of the friends who welcomed
him. He saw Carlyle again. He writes to his
wife : —
London, November 8, 1872.
. . . Yesterday I found my way to Chelsea, and
spent two or three hours with Carlyle in his study.
He opened his arms and embraced me, after seri-
ously gazing for a time : " I am glad to see you
once more in the flesh," — and we sat down and
had a steady outpouring for two hours and more, on
persons, events, and opinions. . . . As I was curi-
ous to know his estimate of my men and authors,
of course I got them all again in Scottish speech
and wit, with large deduction of size. He is strong
in person and manners as ever, — though so aged-
looking, — and his memory as good.
He spent ten days in England, quite content
to sit still and do nothing. " When I cast about
for some amusement or business [his daughter
writes], he says, 'Old age loves leisure. I like to
lie in the morning. And one gets such good sleep
in this country, — good strong sleep.' " Next, to
Paris, where Emerson was rejoiced to find Mr.
Lowell and Mr. John Holmes. Thence to Mar-
seilles, Nice, Italy, and the Nile before the end of
December, stopping for a while in Rome.
He admired the beautiful scenery that came in
his way, but would go nowhere to see anything,
THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE. 659
and was always happy in the prospect of a halt.
Persons, as always, were the chief objects of inter-
est to him : the dead, as at the tombs of Santa
Croce in Florence ; and the living friends at Rome
and Naples.
The entrance of the Nile was not promising :
" Nothing could argue wilder insanity than our
leaving a country like America, and coming all this
way to see bareness of mud, with not even an in-
habitant. Yes ! there are some inhabitants ; they
have come to drown themselves."
At Cairo he was affectionately received by Mr.
George Bancroft, — "a chivalrous angel to Ellen
and me," — who took him to breakfast with the
Khedive and showed him the sights. Early in
January they joined a party in taking a boat up
the river, and went as far as Philse " and the tem-
ple-tomb of him who sleeps there." But he did
not find the Nile of his imagination. He was often
gay when riding about on shore on his donkey ;
rejoiced at seeing the lotus, and the date-palm, and
" a huge banian tree " in the hotel yard at Cairo ;
admired the groups of country people, " looking
like the ancient philosophers going to the School of
Athens ; " praised the mandarin oranges : " They
even go ahead of pears, I 'm afraid. They charm
by their tractability, their lovely anticipation of
your wishes. One may call them Christianity in
apples ; an Arabian revenge for the fall of man."
660 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Yet, his daughter writes, " he makes homesick
speeches, and, if he should follow his inclination,
would doubtless take a bee-line for home. He says
he shall cheerfully spend a fortnight in Paris with
Mr. Lowell, and in England desires to find Tenny-
son, Ruskin, and Browning. He never speaks of
the beauty of the views here, only of the trees ; but
he prospers in health."
Here is one of the few entries in his diary : —
" All this journey is a perpetual humiliation, sa-
tirizing and whipping our ignorance. The people
despise us because we are helpless babies, who
cannot speak or understand a word they say ; the
sphinxes scorn dunces ; the obelisks, the temple-
walls, defy us with their histories which we cannot
spell. The people, whether in the boat or out of
it, are a perpetual study for the excellence and
grace of their forms and motions."
He was improving in bodily health, his hair
growing thick again in places and quite brown, but
he was disinclined to mental exertion ; " absolutely
cannot write."
Away from his library his resource for mental
stimulus was enlivening conversation, and for this
there were few opportunities on the Nile. One or
two lively young Englishmen whom he met were
a godsend to him, and at Cairo, upon his return,
Professor Richard Owen and General Stone. He
writes to his son-in-law from Alexandria : —
EGYPT. 661
Alexandria, February 19, 1873.
Dear Will, — I ought to have long since ac-
knowledged your letters, one and two, so kindly
ventured to an old scribe who for the first time in
his life recoils from all writing. Ellen sits daily
by me, vainly trying to electrify my torpid con-
science and mend my pen ; but the air of Egypt
is full of lotus, and I resent any breaking of the
dream. But to-day we are actually on board of
the Rubattino Line steamer for Messina and Na-
ples, and though to this moment of writing she re-
fuses to lift her anchor, — the sea being too rough
outside for the pilot to return in his boat, — I can
believe that the dream is passing, and I shall re-
turn to honester habits. Egypt has been good and
gentle to us, if a little soporific. Nothing in our
life, habit, company, atmosphere, that did not suf-
fer change. . . .
But I am not so blind or dependent but that I
could wake to the wonders of this strange old land,
alone, or with such friends as we brought with us
or found here. These colossal temples scattered
over hundreds of miles say, like the Greek and like
the Gothic piles, O ye men of the nineteenth cen-
tury, here is something you cannot do, and must
respect. And 't is all the more wonderful because
no creature is left in the land who gives any hint
of the men who made them. One of the wonders
is the profusion of these giant buildings and sculp-
662 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
tures ; sphinxes and statues by fifties and hun-
dreds at Thebes. The country, too, so small and
limitary, no breadth, nothing but the two banks of
the long Nile. Forgive me for teasing you with
this old tale. But I believe I have written nothing
about it, and 'tis all we have had to think of.
Continue to be a good angel to me. With dear
love to Edith and the children,
Yours, R. W. Emerson.
In Rome, his friends thought him greatly im-
proved in appearance, and Hermann Grimm, in
Florence, said he looked as if he were made of
steel. He began at this time to work with some
heart upon the selection and revision of his poems
for a new edition.
He had his fortnight with Mr. and Mrs. Lowell
at Paris in March, "to our great satisfaction.
There also I received one evening a long and happy
visit from Mr. James Cotter Morison. At the
house of M. Laurel I was introduced to Ernest
Renan, to Henri Taine, to Elie de Beaumont, to
M. Tourgennef, and to some other noted gentle-
men. M. Taine sent me the next day his ' Lite-
rature Anglaise.' "
In England, upon his return, he declined all
public speaking, except once at the Workingmen's
College, at the request of his friend Mr. Thomas
Hughes. Two of the workingmen sent him two
LONDON. — OXFORD. 663
sovereigns towards the rebuilding of his house. He
declined all lecturing and formal speaking, but he
accepted many of the daily invitations to break-
fasts, lunches, and dinners, and was glad to go.
He breakfasted twice with Mr. Gladstone, and he
saw many people whom he had wished to see,
among them Mr. Browning. He saw Carlyle
again, but, from various mischances, they met but
seldom. After about three weeks' stay in London
he went northward on his way to Liverpool.
"At Oxford I was the guest of Professor Max
Muller, and was introduced to Jowett, and to Rus-
kin, and to Mr. Dodson, author of " Alice in Won-
derland," and to many of the university dignita-
ries. Prince Leopold was a student, and came
home from Max Muller's lecture to lunch with us,
and then invited Ellen and me to go to his house,
and there showed us his pictures and his album,
and there we drank tea. The next day I heard
Ruskin lecture, and then we went home with Rus-
kin to his chambers ; where he showed us his pic-
tures, and told us his doleful opinions of modern
society. In the evening we dined with Vice-Chan-
cellor Liddell and a large company."
Mr. Ruskin's lecture he thought the model, both
in manner and in matter, of what a lecture should
be. His gloomy view of modern civilization Emer-
son could not away with. It was as bad, he said,
as Carlyle's, and worse ; for Carlyle always ended
664 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
with a laugh which cleared the air again, but with
Ruskin it was steady gloom.
He had a happy visit to Oxford, except that he
did not find Dr. Acland, nor Dr. Pusey, who had
lately sent him a book with a poetical inscription
which pleased him. From Oxford they went to
Mr. Flower at Stratford-on-Avon for three days,
and thence to Durham, which Dean Lake made
very interesting and delightful to him ; thence to
Edinburgh, where he dined with Professor Eraser
and with Dr. William Smith, and saw Dr. Hutch-
ison Stirling and other friends ; from Edinburgh
(where there was a gathering of persons to see him
off, one of whom asked to kiss his hand) by way of
the Lakes to Mr. Alexander Ireland, who hospita-
bly received him for the two days before he sailed,
and brought together to meet him many of his
friends and hearers of 1847-48.
He reached home in May, and was received at
the station in Concord by a general gathering of
his townspeople, who had arranged that the ap-
proach of the steamer should be notified by a peal
of the church-bells, which tolled out the hour when
he woirid come. The whole town assembled, down
to the babies in their wagons, and as the train
emerged from the Walden woods the engine sent
forth a note of triumph, which was echoed by the
cheers of the assemblage. Emerson appeared, sur-
RETURN HOME. 665
prised and touched, on the platform, and was es-
corted with music between two rows of smiling
school-children to his house, where a triumphal
arch of leaves and flowers had been erected. Em-
erson went out to the gate and spoke his thanks to
the crowd, and then returned to make a delighted
progress through the house, which had been re-
stored, with some improvements, under the careful
supervision of Mr. Keyes and Mr. "W. K. Emer-
son, the architect, — the study unchanged, with its
books and manuscripts and his pictures and keep-
sakes in their wonted array.
He appeared greatly refreshed and restored in
spirits by his vacation. " He is very well [Mrs.
Emerson writes], and if there is a lighter-hearted
man in the world I don't know where he lives."
On the 1st of October he read an address at the
opening of the public library given to the town by
Mr. William Munroe ; and though his notes, after
the beginning, were fragmentary, flying leaves
from former discourses, he connected them neatly
together into a whole in the delivery. On the 16th
of December, the anniversary of the emptying of
the tea into Boston Harbor, he read at the celebra-
tion in Faneuil Hall his poem " Boston," x written
many years before in the anti-slavery excitement,
but now remodelled, with the omission of some of
the stanzas, and the addition of those relating to
the seizure of the tea.
1 Collected Writings, ix. 182.
666 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
During the next year (1874), " Parnassus " was
finished, and was published in December.
In the early part of this year, much to his sur-
prise, he was asked by the Independent Club of
Glasgow University to be one of the candidates
for the Lord Rectorship, and letters came to him
from the young men in Glasgow and from gradu-
ates in New York, urging him to accept the nomi-
nation, which he did, receiving five hundred votes
against seven hundred for the successful candidate,
Mr. Benjamin Disraeli.
In February, 1875, he was asked to lecture in
Philadelphia, and also received an affectionate in-
vitation from his old friend Dr. Furness ; to which
he replied in the following letter : —
Concobd, February 10, 1875.
My deak Friend, — Oldest friend of all, old as
Mrs. Whitwell's school, and remembered still with
that red-and-white handkerchief which charmed me
with its cats and dogs of prehistoric art ; and later,
with your own native genius with pencil and pen,
up and upwards from Latin school and Mr. Webb's
noonday's writing, to Harvard, — you my only
Maecenas, and I your adoring critic ; and so on and
onward, but always the same, a small mutual-ad-
miration society of two, which we seem to have
founded in Summer Street, and never quite for-
gotten, despite the three hundred miles — tyran-
ANNIVERSARY OF CONCORD FIGHT. 667
nical miles — between Philadelphia and Concord.
Well, what shall I say in defence of my stolid
silence at which you hint ? Why, only this : that
while you have, I believe, some months in advance
of me in age, the gods have given you some draught
of their perennial cup, and withheld the same from
me. I have for the last two years, I believe, writ-
ten nothing in my once-diurnal manuscripts, and
never a letter that I could omit (inclusive too of
some I ought not to omit), and this applies to none
more than yours. Now comes your new letter, with
all your affectionate memories and preference fresh
as roses. ... I must obey it. My daughter Ellen,
who goes always with my antiquity, insists that we
shall. ... So you and Mrs. Furness receive our
affectionate thanks for the welcome you have sent
us. My love to Sam Bradford, if you meet him.
Your affectionate R. W. Emerson.
My wife — too much an invalid — sends you her
kindest regards.
He went in March, accordingly, and " the three
of us," including Mr. Samuel Bradford, spent day
after day together, to Emerson's great enjoyment,
celebrating their reunion by going to be photo-
graphed in a group.
On the 19th of April, the centennial anniversary
of Concord Fight was commemorated at the bridge
by an oration from Mr. George William Curtis
668 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and a poem from Mr. Lowell, and there was a
great concourse of persons from far and near. Mr.
Daniel French's spirited statue of the Minute-Man,
which had been put in position on the spot where
the militia stood to defend the North Bridge, was
unveiled. Ebenezer Hubbard, a Concord farmer
who inherited land in the village on which the
British troops had committed depredation, and who
never neglected to hoist the stars and stripes there
on the 19th of April and the 4th of July, had been
deeply grieved that the monument erected by the
town in 1836 should mark the position occupied
by the enemy instead of that of the defenders in
the skirmish, and he bequeathed a sum of money to
the town on the condition that a monument should
be placed on the very spot where the minute-men
and militia had stood, and another sum to build a
foot-bridge across the river where the old bridge
was in 1775. Mr. Stedman Buttrick, a descendant
of Major Buttrick, who gave the command to re-
turn the fire, provided the site ; the sculptor was
a Concord youth ; and Emerson made the address.
It was a raw day, with a bitter wind, and the wait-
ing crowd suffered from the cold as the visitors in
1775 had suffered from the heat. Emerson ad-
verted to the contrast in his little speech, which
was the last piece written out with his own hand.
Soon after this, the dead weight of the book he
COMPILATION OF A VOLUME OF ESSAYS. 669
had undertaken for the London publisher, Mr.
Hotten, which had been staved off, Emerson fondly
supposed, by Mr. Hotten's death, fell back upon
him. He learned that Messrs. Chatto & Windus
had taken Mr. Hotten's place, and that they were
inquiring when the volume would be ready. The
thought of it worried him ; he felt that he could
not go on to make the selections and see the book
through the press without assistance. He needed
the help of some one who was familiar with his
published writings and could devote the time that
was necessary, and he at length allowed his daugh-
ter to invite me to undertake it. I went to Con-
cord accordingly in September, and thereafter from
time to time until the book (" Letters and Social
Aims ") was finished and came out in December.
I have given in a note to that volume, in the River-
side edition, an account of the way in which it was
compiled. Only one or two of the pieces had been
fixed upon ; the rest were added with Mr. Emer-
son's approval, but without much active coopera-
tion on his part, except where it was necessary to
supply a word or part of a sentence.
After this, I used to go up at intervals for five
or six years, — so long as he continued to read lec-
tures,— for the purpose of getting ready new
selections from his manuscripts, excerpting and
compounding them as he had been in the habit of
doing for himself. There was no danger of dis-
670 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
turbing the original order, for this was already
gone beyond recovery. In using separate lectures
together at different times, as he was wont to do,
he had mixed them up so thoroughly, with various
pagings and headings, or without any, and with no
obvious means of connection, that my efforts ever
since to get them back into their first shape have
met with but partial success. The difficulty is in-
creased by his persistent objection to full reports
of his lectures, and even, it was understood, to the
taking of private notes.
He still liked to read a paper occasionally, when
he was asked to do so, and would often read with
much of his old skill and power when he retained
but a slight recollection of what he had written,
and would comment on it as if it were another per-
son's. " A queer occasion it will be [he said, when
he was to read a lecture at the Concord Lyceum
in 1878], — a lecturer who has no idea what he is
lecturing about, and an audience who don't know
what he can mean."
It was thus that the essays published for the
first time in the last two volumes of the Riverside
edition received their final arrangement. Every-
thing in them, except a few passages taken directly
from his journals, was in some earlier lecture ; but
the title of the essay does not always indicate the
lecture to which the sentences originally belonged.
He was always pleased at my coming upon this
COMPILATION OF A VOLUME OF ESSAYS. 671
errand, and would often intimate the feeling of an
immense and unspeakable service I was doing him,
and his uneasiness at trespassing so much upon my
time, without its ever occurring to him that I, and
not he, was the party obliged. When I was at his
house thus employed, he would come in from his
study in the early afternoon and take me off for a
walk, saying that I had worked long enough ; and
would go on a stroll in the Walden woods, or over
Sleepy Hollow and Peter's field, or sometimes on a
drive to the other side of the river. And in the
evening he would come again about ten o'clock,
and take me to his study for a cigar before bed-
time.
To me there was nothing sad in his condition ; it
was obvious enough that he was but the shadow of
himself, but the substance was there, only a little
removed. The old alertness and incisiveness were
gone, but there was no confusion of ideas, and the
objects of interest were what they always had been.
He was often at a loss for a word, but no conscious-
ness of this or of any other disability seemed to
trouble him. Nor was there any appearance of
effort to keep up the conversation. He liked per-
haps to listen rather than to talk ; he " listened and
smiled " as a man might who was recovering from
illness, and felt himself removed for a time from
his ordinary activities, but he often talked freely.
I never could get him to talk about himself, his
672 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
early days, or even much of Boston as he first
remembered it; he did not seem averse, but he
glided away to other topics. His usual topics were
the splendors of the age and the miracles it has
wrought in the relation of nations to each other,
— the steamboat, railroad, electric telegraph, the
application of the spectroscope to astronomy, the
photograph; the remarkable and admirable per-
sons he had known, — Dr. Channing, Mr. Everett,
and living friends ; then European politics, — Mr.
Gladstone, and how superior in hind he was to the
common run of statesmen; the college, and what
a godsend President Eliot was, what an all-accom-
plished man ; then the manifold virtues of his
Concord townsmen of all degrees. In general, his
memory of persons was good, even though they
might be recent acquaintances. Sometimes there
was a strange lapse, as once when I asked him
about John Sterling, with whom he had been
in correspondence up to the time of Sterling's
death. He could not remember to have heard the
name.
He did not often touch upon literary matters,
unless to inquire about some new book. His read-
ing seemed to lie mostly in the books of all sorts
which had been sent to him and lay at his hand
upon the table. I found him reading Dr. Stir-
ling's " Secret of Hegel," and he spoke in praise
of Professor Caird's book on Kant, but it was the
THE VIRGINIA ADDRESS. 673
tone of the writing rather than the subject that
attracted him. He liked to feel himself in the
atmosphere of letters, and continued to feel and
enjoy literary ability in a passive way after his
mind had ceased to occupy itself much with the
substance of what he read. But what was chiefly
remarkable in his conversation, and always new and
striking, although it belonged to the stuff of which
his whole life was made, was its uniform and un-
forced cheerfulness. He did not need to turn away
from gloomy things, from uncomfortable presages
in society about him, or from the ever-narrowing
line that bound in his own activities on earth ; for
he saw beyond them, and as clearly now as when,
forty years before, he had sounded the notes that
told that the lofty soul of Puritanism was not
dead in the decay of its body.
To go back a little. In the spring of 1876, be-
ing invited by the Washington and Jefferson lit-
erary societies of the University of Virginia to
deliver the address at their joint celebration on
the 28th of June, he readily acceded, thinking it
of happy omen that they should send to Massachu-
setts for their orator. In his reply he said he had
given up speaking, but could not refuse an invita-
tion from Virginia. He went, accordingly, with
his daughter Ellen. After a fatiguing journey, in
which they suffered much from the heat and dust,
674 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
they were kindly received and lodged in the house
of one of the professors. It speedily appeared,
however (what perhaps a less confiding disposition
might have allowed him to foresee), that no mir-
acle had been wrought in the temper of the com-
munity, and that the predominant feeling was still
one of bitter indignation at Northern aggression.
The visitors were treated with every attention in
the society of the place, there was no intentional
discourtesy, but the Southern self-respect appeared
to demand that they should be constantly reminded
that they were in an oppressed and abused country.
And the next day, at Emerson's address, the audi-
ence in general — mostly young women with their
admirers, but also children, as well as older per-
sons — seemed to regard the occasion chiefly as one
for social entertainment, and there was so much
noise that he could not make himself heard. Some
of the students (probably his inviters) came to the
front and listened with attention, but most of them,
finding that they could not hear, gave up the at-
tempt, and turned to whispering and even talking
and laughing aloud ; until Emerson, after contend-
ing with the din for half an hour, sought out a
suitable passage and swiftly came to a close.
It was not in flesh and blood not to feel indig-
nant, but whatever Emerson felt he kept to him-
self. No one heard of it, and when I afterwards
THE VIRGINIA ADDRESS. 675
asked him about his reception all he said was,
" They are very brave people down there, and say
just what they think." What was more remark-
able, perhaps, than this free-and-easy treatment of
the Boston idealist was his meeting there several
persons who had read his books and expressed their
pleasure at seeing him. And the next day, in the
train going North, he was an object of attention to
many of his fellow-travellers, some of whom asked
to be introduced to him or introduced themselves,
saying they were from Arkansas, Louisiana, Ala-
bama, going to the Philadelphia Exhibition.
All over the country, indeed, there were by this
time here and there readers for whom he had a
special charm, and letters came to him with trib-
utes of thankfulness from distant States. In his
own neighborhood he received silent greetings
wherever he went. Here is an incident that mi^ht
be matched any day in these years : —
A writer (Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson ?) in the
Atlantic Monthly, September, 1882, p. 424, says :
" Many years ago, I was one day journeying from
Brattle boro to Boston, alone. As the train went
on from station to station, it gradually filled, until
there was no seat left unoccupied in the car except-
ing the one by my side. At Concord the door of
the car opened, and Mr. Emerson entered. He
advanced a few steps into the car, looked down the
aisle, turned, and was about to go out, believing
676 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the car to be entirely full. With one of those
sudden impulses which are acted upon almost be-
fore they are consciously realized, I sprang up,
and said, ' Oh, Mr. Emerson, here is a seat ! ' As
he came towards me, with his serene smile slowly
spreading over his face, my courage faltered. I
saw that he expected to meet in me an acquaint-
ance ; and, as he looked inquiringly and hesitat-
ingly in my face, I made haste to say, ' You do
not know me, Mr. Emerson. I never had the
pleasure of seeing you before. But I know your
face, and I could not resist the temptation of the
opportunity to speak with you. You know that so
many people who are strangers to you know you
very well.' ' Perhaps there should not be the word
stranger in any language,' he answered slowly, in
a tone and with a kindly look which at once set
my timidity at ease. I do not know any good
reason for it.' "
Everywhere in his own part of the country he
was silently watched over by an unknown body-
guard, some one of whom could usually be reck-
oned on to provide a seat, a carriage, or to render
any needed service.
In the autumn of this year, at the commemora-
tion by the Latin School Association in Boston
(November 8, 1876) of the centennial anniver-
sary 2 of the reopening of the school after the
1 Reported in the Boston Evening Transcript, November 9.
VISIT TO NEW YORK STATE. 677
evacuation of the town by the British, he read the
notes from which I have quoted in the account of
his school-boy days. " I dare not attempt to say
anything to you [he said in beginning], because
in my old age I am forgetting the word I should
speak. I cannot remember anybody's name ; not
even my recollections of the Latin School. I have
therefore guarded against absolute silence by bring-
ing you a few reminiscences which I have written."
In 1878, being asked to give a summing-up of
the position of the country after the war, and its
spiritual needs and prospects for the new genera-
tion, he read at the Old South Church in Boston
(March 8) the " Fortune of the Republic," a paper
of the war-time, with additions from his journals.
In September he accompanied his daughter to the
Unitarian Convention at Saratoga, visited Niagara
Falls, and afterwards went off alone upon a fruit-
less search of several days, beyond the reach of the
railroads, in the western part of the State of New
York, for a young mechanic who, some years before,
had written him a letter of thankfulness, but also
sharp questioning of his complacent optimism. He
did not relinquish his efforts until he had found an
acquaintance of the young man, and learned that
he had left the State. Emerson did not love dis-
cussion, but he liked to see the other side, when it
was presented by one who showed that he had the
right to speak ; and a fresh view of his facts, as they
678 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
were seen by a man of the world or by a struggling
young artisan, bad a stronger attraction for him
than any agreement with himself.
In May, 1879, at the request of the students of
the Cambridge Divinity School, he read there the
lecture which has been published under the title of
" The Preacher," 1 a fitting second part, it seemed
to some who heard it, to the address he had de-
livered in that place forty years before. But his
friends saw that it was time his reading in public
should come to a close.
It was in the spring of this year that the bust of
Emerson, by Mr. French, the sculptor of the Min-
ute-Man, was made ; the best likeness of him, I
think, by any artist (except the sun), though un-
happily so late in his life. Mr. French writes to
me : "I think it is very seldom that a face com-
bines such vigor and strength in the general form
and plan with such exceeding delicacy and sensi-
tiveness in the details. Henry James somewhere
speaks of ' the over-modelled American face.' No
face was ever more modelled than was Mr. Emer-
son's ; there was nothing slurred, nothing acciden-
tal ; but it was like the perfection of detail in great
sculpture ; it did not interfere with the grand
scheme. Neither did it interfere with an almost
child-like mobility that admitted of an infinite
variety of expression, and made possible that won-
1 Collected Writings, x. 207.
MR. FRENCH'S BUST. 679
derf ul ' lighting-up ' of the face, so often spoken
of by those who knew him. It was the attempt to
catch that glorifying expression that made me de-
spair of my bust. At the time I made it, as you
know, Mr. Emerson had failed somewhat, and it
was only now and then that I could see, even for
an instant, the expression I sought. As is not un-
common, there was more movement in one side of
Mr. Emerson's face than in the other (the left
side), arid there was a great difference in the for-
mation of the two sides ; more, probably, at the
time I made the bust than earlier. When the
bust was approaching completion he looked at it
after one of the sittings, and said, ' The trouble is,
the more it resembles me, the worse it looks.' :
In September, he was invited by the Unitarian
Church of Concord, New Hampshire, to attend the
celebration of their fiftieth anniversary ; he having
been one of the first preachers. The day appointed
was the 30th ; he arrived on the afternoon of the
29th. It was here that he was married to Ellen
Tucker, and he went at once to see the house in
which she and her mother had lived at the time, but
was unable to identify it. The next morning he
remembered that the evening before was the fiftieth
anniversary of his wedding, and that he had unwit-
tingly returned to the place just half a century
afterwards at the same hour. He then learned
from Colonel Kent, the step-brother of Ellen
680 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Tucker, that the house had been moved, and under
his guidance went and saw the still familiar-look-
ing rooms. He was asked to take part in the com-
memorative services of the church, and read the
hymn with much feeling, and without being dis-
turbed by the difficulty he found in making out all
the words.
His last public readings, if they may be called
public, were those of the paper on Carlyle, before
the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 10,
1881, and the lecture on " Aristocracy " at the
Concord School of Philosophy in July of that year.
Constant assistance was now needed to make sure
of his recognizing all the words and preserving the
order of his pages. There was no very marked
change in his appearance ; the gracious presence
was still there, though it did not retain a very firm
hold on the things of the earth.
These last years of Emerson's life were tranquil
and happy. His pecuniary circumstances were
easy ; all solicitudes of that kind had been removed
from him by the skilful management of his son-in-
law ; and there were no others. The port was near,
but to all appearance the last waves retained their
charm. When I saw him in Concord in 1881, I
noticed that he was disinclined to a long walk,
and thought the half-mile or so to the post-office a
sufficient stint for the afternoon. But at Naushon,
DECLINING YEARS. 681
at his daughter's house, in the summer, he enjoyed
the walk of a mile or two to the bathing-place and
back again after a plunge in the sea, and did not
object to extending it into the beautiful woods be-
yond. His chief enjoyment, however, was in sitting
on the piazza, watching his grandchildren at their
sports, and pleased in the thought how " children
nowadays are encouraged to do things, and are
taught to do them."
Calmly as he looked forward to the end, the pros-
pect of prolonged illness would have been dreadful
to him. This he was spared. Early in the spring
of 1882, a cold, rapidly settling into pneumonia,
carried him off a few weeks before his seventy-ninth
birthday. On Sunday, April 16, he went to church,
both morning and evening, as had latterly been his
wont, and took a walk in the afternoon. The next
day he was hoarse, and the hoarseness and a feel-
ing of heaviness increased during the week, with-
out causing serious alarm to his son, Dr. Emerson,
until Saturday, when the fatal symptoms appeared.
It was not a severe attack, part only of one lung
was affected ; but the power of resistance was gone,
and he died on Thursday, April 27th ; without any
suffering until the very last. During the first days
of his illness, he made light of it, declared that he
had no cold, came downstairs and went to walk,
only taking more and longer walks than usual, be-
682 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
cause, he said, he did not feel well in his chair.
But, on the fourth day, as he was coming down to
breakfast, he stopped, with an exclamation of pain
or distress, and said, " I hoped it would not come
in this way : I would rather — fall down cellar."
Still he persevered two days longer in dressing and
coming down to his study, and listened with full
enjoyment to the accounts of an address which his
son had been delivering before the district medical
society. In these last days in his study, his
thoughts often lost their connection, and he puzzled
over familiar objects. But when his eyes fell on
a portrait of Carry le that was hanging on the wall,
he said, with a smile of affection, " That is that
man, my man." On Saturday, the last day he spent
there, he insisted at bedtime on taking apart the
brands in the fireplace and making the accustomed
arrangements for the night, and declined assistance
*&
to go upstairs.
For the day or two before his death he was
troubled by the thought that he was away from
home, detained by illness at some friend's house,
and that he ought to make the effort to get away
and relieve him of the inconvenience. But to the
last there was no delirium ; in general he recog-
nized every one and understood what was said to
him, though he was sometimes unable to make in-
telligible reply. He took affectionate leave of his
family and the friends who came to see him for the
ILLNESS AND DEATH. 683
last time, and desired to see all who came. To his
wife he spoke tenderly of their life together and
her loving care of him ; they must now part, to
meet again and part no more. Then he smiled and
said, " Oh, that beautiful boy ! "
A friend who watched by him one of the last
nights says : —
" He kept (when awake) repeating in his sono-
rous voice, not yet weakened, fragments of sen-
tences, almost as if reciting. It seemed strange
and solemn in the night, alone with him, to hear
these efforts to deliver something evidently with a
thread of fine recollection in it ; his voice as deep
and musical almost as ever."
I was permitted to see him on the day of his
death. He knew me at once, greeted me with the
familiar smile, and tried to rise and to say some-
thing, but I could not catch the words.
He was buried on Sunday, April 30, in Sleepy
Hollow, a beautiful grove on the edge of the vil-
lage, consecrated as a burial-place in 1855, Emer-
son delivering the address.1 Here, at the foot of a
tall pine-tree upon the top of the ridge in the high-
est part of the grounds, his body was laid, not far
from the graves of Hawthorne and of Thoreau,
and surrounded by those of his kindred.
Ten years before, in the illness and depression
1 Used afterwards in the essay on Immortality. Collected Writ-
ings, viii. 307.
684 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
which followed upon the burning of his house, Em-
erson wrote in his journal : —
" If I should live another year, I think I shall
cite still the last stanza of niy own poem, ' The
World-Soul.' "
This is the stanza ; and it expresses, I think, the
feeling with which the crowd of friends followed
him to his rest : —
'" Spring still makes spring in the mind
When sixty years are told ;
Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
And we are never old.
Over the winter glaciers
I see the summer glow,
And through the wild-piled snow-drift
The warm rosebuds below."
APPENDIX.
Reverend Mr. Emerson's Letter to the Second
Church in Boston.
to the second church and society.
Boston, December 22, 1832.
Christian Friends, — Since the formal resignation
of my official relation to you, in my communication to
the proprietors in September, I had waited anxiously for
an opportunity of addressing you once more from the pul-
pit, though it were only to say, Let us part in peace and
in the love of God. The state of my health has pre-
vented and continues to prevent me from so doing. I
am now advised to seek the benefit of a sea voyage. I
cannot go away without a brief parting word to friends
who have shown me so much kindness, and to whom I
have felt myself so dearly bound.
Our connection has been very short ; I had only be-
gun my work. It is now brought to a sudden close ;
and I look back, I own, with a painful sense of weak-
ness, to the little service I have been able to render, af-
ter so much expectation on my part ; to the checkered
space of time, which domestic affliction and personal in-
firmities have made yet shorter and more unprofitable.
686 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
As long as he remains in the same place, every man
flatters himself, however keen may he his sense of his
failures and unworthiness, that he shall yet accomplish
much ; that the future shall make amends for the past ;
that his very errors shall prove his instructors, — and
what limit is there to hope ? But a separation from our
place, the close of a particular career of duty, shuts the
hook, bereaves us of this hope, and leaves us only to
lament how little has been done.
Yet, my friends, our faith in the great truths of the
New Testament makes the change of places and circum-
stances of less account to us, by fixing our attention upon
that which is unalterable. I find great consolation hi
the thought that the resignation of my present relations
makes so little change to myself. I am no longer your
minister, but am not the less engaged, I hope, to the
love and service of the same eternal cause, the advance-
ment, namely, of the kingdom of God in the hearts of
men. The tie that binds each of us to that cause is not
created by our connection, and cannot be hurt by our
separation. To me, as one disciple, is the ministry of
truth, as far as I can discern and declare it, committed ;
and I desire to live nowhere and no longer than that
grace of God is imparted to me, — the liberty to seek
and the liberty to utter it.
And, more than this, I rejoice to believe that my ceas-
ing to exercise the pastoral office among you does not
make any real change in our spiritual relation to each
other. Whatever is most desirable and excellent therein
remains to us. For, truly speaking, whoever provokes
me to a good act or thought has given me a pledge of
APPENDIX A. 687
his fidelity to virtue ; he has come under bonds to ad-
here to that cause to which we are jointly attached.
And so I say to all you who have been my counsellors
and co-operators in our Christian walk, that I am wont
to see in your faces the seals and certificates of our mu-
tual obligations. If we have conspired from week to
week in the sympathy and expression of devout senti-
ments ; if we have received together the unspeakable
gift of God's truth; if we have studied together the
sense of any divine word, or striven together in any
charity, or conferred together for the relief or instruc-
tion of any brother ; if together we have laid down the
dead in a pious hope, or held up the babe into the bap-
tism of Christianity ; above all, if we have shared in any
habitual acknowledgment of that benignant God, whose
omnipresence raises and glorifies the meanest offices and
the lowest ability, and opens heaven in every heart that
worships Him, — then indeed are we united ; we are
mutually debtors to each other of faith and hope, en-
gaged to persist and confirm each other's hearts in obe-
dience to the gospel. We shall not feel that the nomi-
nal changes and little separations of this world can re-
lease us from the strong cordage of this spiritual bond.
And I entreat you to consider how truly blessed will
have been our connection, if, in this manner, the memory
of it shall serve to bind each one of us more strictly to
the practice of our several duties.
It remains to thank you for the goodness you have
uniformly extended towards me, for your forgiveness of
many defects, and your patient and even partial accep-
tance of every endeavor to serve you; for the liberal
688 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
provision you have ever made for my maintenance ; and
for a thousand acts of kindness which have comforted
and assisted me.
To the proprietors I owe a particular acknowledg-
ment, for their recent generous vote for the continuance
of my salary, and hereby ask their leave to relinquish
this emolument at the end of the present month.
And now, brethren and friends, having returned into
your hands the trust you have honored me with, — the
charge of public and private instruction in this religious
society, — I pray God that whatever seed of truth and
virtue we have sown and watered together may bear
fruit unto eternal life. I commend you to the Divine
Providence. May He grant you, in your ancient sanc-
tuary, the service of able and faithful teachers. May
He multiply to your families and to your persons every
genuine blessing ; and whatever discipline may be ap-
pointed to you in this world, may the blessed hope of
the resurrection, which He has planted in the constitu-
tion of the human soul, and confirmed and manifested
by Jesus Christ, be made good to you beyond the grave.
In this faith and hope I bid you farewell.
Your affectionate servant,
Ralph Waldo Emerson. '
APPENDIX B. 689
B.
Correspondence with Reverend Henry Ware, Jr.,
concerning the dlvinity hall address.
I. Ware to Emerson.
Cambbidge, July 16, 1838.
My dear Sir, — I do not know how it escaped me
to thank you for the volumes of Carlyle ; to make up
for which neglect, I do it now. I am glad to have so
strong a motive as this gives me for reading him care-
fully and thoroughly. I believe that I am not so far
prejudiced by the affectations and peculiarities of his
later manner as to be unwilling to perceive and en-
joy what he has of manly and good ; and I would will-
ingly work myself, if possible, beyond the annoyance of
that poor outside. Indeed, I have always seen enough
of his real merits to wish I could see more, and I hear-
tily thank you for giving me the opportunity.
It has occurred to me that, since I said to you last
night I should probably assent to your unqualified state-
ments if I could take your qualifications with them, I
am bound in fairness to add that this applies only to a
portion, and not to all. With regard to some, I must
confess that they appear to me more than doubtful, and
that their prevalence would tend to overthrow the au-
thority and influence of Christianity. On this account
I look with anxiety and no little sorrow to the course
which your mind has been taking. You will excuse my
saying this, which I probably never should have troubled
690 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
you with, if, as I said, a proper frankness did not seem
at this moment to require it. That I appreciate and re-
joice in the lofty ideas and beautiful images of spiritual
life which you throw out, and which stir so many souls,
is what gives me a great deal more pleasure to say. I
do not believe that any one has had more enjoyment
from them. If I could have helped it, I would not have
let you know how much I feel the abatement, from the
cause I have referred to.
II. Emerson to Ware.
Concord, July 28, 1838.
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 stock
or a stone," as one said in the old time, and could not but
feel pain in saying some tilings in that place and pres-
ence which I supposed might meet dissent, and the dis-
sent, I may say, of dear friends and benefactors of mine.
Yet, as my conviction is perfect in the substantial truth
of the doctrine of the discourse, and is not very new,
you will see at once that it must appear to me very im-
portant that it be spoken ; and I thought I would 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
out our uttermost word, and be the all-pervading truth,
as it surely will, judge between us. Either of us would,
I doubt not, be equally glad to be apprised of his error.
Meantime I shall be admonished, by this expression of
APPENDIX B. 691
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 renewed expression of your
tried toleration and love.
Respectfully and affectionately yours,
R. W. E.
III. Ware to Emerson.
Cambridge, October 3, 1838.
My dear Sir, — By the present mail you will pro-
bably receive a copy of a Sermon which I have just
printed, and which I am unwilling should fall into your
hands without a word from myself accompanying it.
It has been regarded as controverting some positions
taken by you at various times, and was indeed written
partly with a view to them. But I am anxious to have
it understood that, as I am not perfectly aware of the
precise nature of your opinions on the subject of the
discourse, nor upon exactly what speculations they are
grounded, I do not therefore pretend especially to enter
the lists with them, but rather to give my own views of
an important subject, and of the evils which seem to be
attendant on a rejection of the established opinions. I
hope I have not argued unfairly ; and if I assail posi-
tions, or reply to arguments, which are none of yours, I
am solicitous that nobody should persuade you that I
suppose them to be yours ; since I do not know by what
arguments the doctrine that " the soul knows no persons "
is justified to your mind.
To say this is the chief purpose of my writing ; and I
wish to add that it is a long time since I have been ear-
692 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
nestly persuaded that men are suffering from want of suf-
ficiently realizing the fact of the Divine Person. I used
to perceive it, as I thought, when I was a minister in Bos-
ton, in talking with my people, and to refer to this cause
much of the lifelessness of the religious character. I
have seen evils from the same cause among young men
since I have been where I am ; and have been prompted
to think much of the question how they should be re-
moved. When, therefore, I was called to discourse at
length on the Divine Being, in a series of college ser-
mons, it naturally occurred to me to give prominence to
this point, the rather as it was one of those to which
attention had been recently drawn, and about which a
strong interest was felt.
I confess that I esteem it particularly unhappy to be
thus brought into a sort of public opposition to you, for I
have a thousand feelings which draw me toward you, but
my situation and the circumstances of the times render it
unavoidable, and both you and I understand that we are
to act on the maxim, " Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates,
sed magis arnica Veritas." (I believe I quote right.)
We would gladly agree with all our friends ; but that
being impossible, and it being impossible also to choose
which of them we will differ from, we must submit to
the common lot of thinkers, and make up in love of
heart what we want in unity of judgment. But I am
growing prosy ; so I break off.
Yours very truly, H. Ware, Jr.
APPENDIX B. 693
IV. Emerson to Ware.
Concord, October 8, 1838.
My dear Sir, — I ought sooner to have acknowl-
edged 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 doctrines 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 char-
tered libertine," free to worship and free to rail ; lucky
when I could make myself understood, but never es-
teemed 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 advantage
of my position ; for I well know that there is no scholar
less willing or less able to be a polemic. I could not
give account of myself, if challenged. I could not pos-
sibly give you one of the " arguments " you cruelly hint
at, on which any doctrine of mine stands. For I do not
know what arguments mean in reference to any expres-
sion of a thought. I delight in telling what I think, but
if you ask how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the
most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that
694 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
either of these questions admits of an answer. So that,
in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see
myself suddenly raised into the importance of a heretic,
I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties
of such a personage, who is expected 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 thought, 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 at-
tended 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
perceptions, and find my nonsense is only their own
thought in motley. And so I am
Your affectionate servant, R. W. Emerson.
APPENDIX C. 695
C.
List of Mr. Emerson's Contributions to the Dial.
Those marked with an asterisk (*) seem to be his,
though I have no very clear evidence. Those marked
with a dagger (f ) appear to me doubtful. A few more
pieces are attributed to him by Mr. Cooke {Journal of
Speculative Philosophy, July, 1885, page 261), upon
grounds which do not seem to me sufficient.
Vol. I. Page 1, The Editors to the Reader ; 84, To
*** [To Eva, Collected Writings ix. 87]; 122, The
Problem; 139, Thoughts on Modern Literature; 158,
Silence [Eros, ix. 300] ; 220, New Poetry ; 242, Wood-
Notes ; 264, Dana's Two Years before the Mast * ;
265, Fourier's Social Destiny of Man f ; 339, The Snow-
Storm; 347, Suum Cuique; 348, The Sphinx; 367,
Thoughts on Art ; 401, Michelangelo f ; 402, Robbins's
Worship of the Soul f ; 523, Man the Reformer.
Vol. II. Page 130, Jones Very's Essays and Poems ;
205, Painting and Sculpture ; Fate ; 207, Wood-Notes,
II. ; 262, W. S. Landor ; 373, The Park ; Forbearance ;
Grace ; 374, The Senses and the Soul ; 382, Transcen-
dentalism * ; 408, the Ideal Man f •
Vol. III. Page 1, Lecture on the Times ; 72, Tact ;
73, Holidays ; The Amulet ; 77, Prayers ; 82, Veeshnoo
Sarma ; 86, Fourierism and the Socialists ; 100, Char-
don Street and Bible Conversions ; 123, Agriculture of
Massachusetts ; 127, Borrow's Zincali * ; 128, Lock-
hart's Spanish Ballads * ; 129, Colton's Tecumseh * ;
696 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
132, Exploring Expedition * ; 133, Association of Ge-
ologists * ; Harvard University * ; 135, Wordsworth's
New Poems ; Tennyson and H. Taylor * ; 136, Schel-
ling in Berlin * ; 181, The Conservative ; 227, English
Reformers ; 265, Saadi ; 276, Brownson's Letter to Dr.
Channing * ; 297, The Transcendentalist ; 327, To Eva
[Ellen] at the South ; 387, Death of Dr. Channing * ;
414, Confessions of St. Augustine * ; 511, Europe and
European Books ; 534, Borrow's Bible in Spain * ;
Browning's Paracelsus f.
Vol. IV. Page 93, Gifts ; 96, Past and Present ;
104, To Rhea ; 134, Pierpont's Anti-Slavery Poems * ;
Garrison's Poems * ; Coffin's America * ; Channing's
Poems * ; 136, To Correspondents * ; 247, The Comic ;
257, Ode to Beauty ; 262, A Letter ; 270, Longf eUow's
Spanish Student f ; 271, Percival's Poems f ; 357, Tanta-
lus (reprinted in Nature, iii. 176-186) ; 401, Eros ; 405,
The Times [Blight, ix. 122] ; 484, The Young Amer-
ican ; 515, The Tragic ; 528, The Visit.
APPENDIX D. 697
D.
Letter to Martin Van Buren, President of the
United States.
Concord, Mass., April 23, 1838.
Sir, — The seat you fill places you in a relation of
credit and nearness to every citizen. By right and nat-
ural position, every citizen is your friend. Before any
acts contrary to his own judgment or interest have re-
pelled the affections of any man, each may look with
trust and living anticipation to your government. Each
has the highest right to call your attention to such sub-
jects as are of a public nature and properly belong to
the chief magistrate ; and the good magistrate will feel
a joy in meeting such confidence. In this belief and at
the instance of a few of my friends and neighbors, I
crave of your patience a short hearing for their senti-
ments and my own : and the circumstance that my name
will be utterly unknown to you will only give the fairer
chance to your equitable construction of what I have to
say.
Sir, my communication respects the sinister rumors
that fill this part of the country concerning the Cherokee
people. The interest always felt in the aboriginal popu-
lation — an interest naturally growing as that decays —
has been heightened in regard to this tribe. Even in our
distant State some good rumor of their worth and civility
has arrived. We have learned with joy their improve-
ment in the social arts. We have read their newspapers.
698 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
We have seen some of them in our schools and colleges.
In common with the great body of the American peo-
ple, we have witnessed with sympathy the painful labors
of these red men to redeem their own race from the
doom of eternal inferiority, and to borrow and domesti-
cate in the tribe the arts and customs of the Caucasian
race. And notwithstanding the unaccountable apathy
with which of late years the Indians have been some-
times abandoned to their enemies, it is not to be doubted
that it is the good pleasure and the understanding of all
humane persons in the republic, of the men and the ma-
trons sitting in the thriving independent families all over
the land, that they shall be duly cared for ; that they
shall taste justice and love from all to whom we have
delegated the office of dealing with them.
The newspapers now inform us that, in December,
1835, a treaty contracting for the exchange of all the
Cherokee territory was pretended to be made by an
agent on the part of the United States with some per-
sons appearing on the part of the Cherokees ; that the
fact afterwards transpired that these deputies did by no
means represent the will of the nation ; and that, out
of eighteen thousand souls composing the nation, fifteen
thousand six hundred and sixty - eight have protested
against the so-called treaty. It now appears that the
government of the United States choose to hold the
Cherokees to this sham treaty, and are proceeding to
execute the same. Almost the entire Cherokee nation
stand up and say, " This is not our act. Behold us.
Here are we. Do not mistake that handful of deserters
for us ; " and the American President and the Cabinet,
APPENDIX D. 699
the Senate and the House of Representatives, neither
hear these men nor see them, and are contracting to put
this active nation into carts and boats, and to dratr them
over mountains and rivers to a wilderness at a vast dis-
tance beyond the Mississippi. And a paper purporting
to be an army-order fixes a month from this day as the
hour for this doleful removal.
In the name of God, sir, we ask you if this be so.
Do the newspapers rightly inform us ? Men and women
with pale and perplexed faces meet one another in the
streets and churches here, and ask if this be so. We
have inquired if this be a gross misrepresentation from
the party opposed to the government and anxious to
blacken it with the people. We have looked in the
newspapers of different parties, and find a horrid con-
firmation of the tale. We are slow to believe it. We
hoped the Indians were misinformed, and that their re-
monstrance was premature, and will turn out to be a
needless act of terror.
The piety, the principle that is left in the United
States, — if only in its coarsest form, a regard to the
speech of men, — forbid us to entertain it as a fact. Such
a dereliction of all faith and virtue, such a denial of jus-
tice, and such deafness to screams for mercy were never
heard of in times of peace and in the dealing of a nation
with its own allies and wards, since the earth was made.
Sir, does this government think that the people of the
United States are become savage and mad ? From their
mind are the sentiments of love and a good nature
wiped clean out ? The soul of man, the justice, the
mercy that is the heart's heart in all men, from Maine
to Georgia, does abhor this business.
700 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
In speaking thus the sentiments of my neighbors and
my own, perhaps I overstep the bounds of decorum. But
would it not be a higher indecorum coldly to argue a
matter like this ? We only state the fact that a crime
is projected that confounds our understandings by its
magnitude, — a crime that really deprives us as well as
the Cherokees of a country ; for how could we call the
conspiracy that should crush these poor Indians our
government, or the land that was cursed by their parting
and dying imprecations our country, any more ? You,
sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you
sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of
perfidy ; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet
omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world.
You will not do us the injustice of connecting this re-
monstrance with any sectional and party feeling. It is
in our hearts the simplest commandment of brotherly
love. "We will not have this great and solemn claim
upon national and human justice huddled aside under
the flimsy plea of its being a party-act. Sir, to us the
questions upon which the government and the people
have been agitated during the past year, touching the
prostration of the currency and of trade, seem but motes
in comparison. These hard times, it is true, have
brought the discussion home to every farm-house and
poor man's house in this town ; but it is the chirping of
grasshoppers beside the immortal question whether jus-
tice shall be done by the race of civilized to the race of
savage man, — whether all the attributes of reason, of
civility, of justice, and even of mercy, shall be put off
by the American people, and so vast an outrage upon
APPENDIX D. 701
the Cherokee nation and upon human nature shall be
consummated.
One circumstance lessens the reluctance with which
I intrude at this time on your attention my conviction
that the government ought to be admonished of a new
historical fact, which the discussion of this question has
disclosed, namely, that there exists in a great part of the
Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral char-
acter of the government.
On the broaching of this question, a general expres-
sion of despondency, of disbelief that any good will
accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and
robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally
turn for aid and counsel. Will the American govern-
ment steal ? Will it lie ? Will it kill ? — we ask tri-
umphantly. Our counsellors and old statesmen here say
that ten years ago they would have staked their fife on
the affirmation that the proposed Indian measures could
not be executed ; that the unanimous country would put
them down. And now the steps of this crime follow
each other so fast, at such fatally quick time, that the
millions of virtuous citizens, whose agents the govern-
ment are, have no place to interpose, and must shut their
eyes until the last howl and wailing of these tormented
villages and tribes shall afflict the ear of the world.
I will not hide from you, as an indication of the
alarming distrust, that a letter addressed as mine is, and
suggesting to the mind of the executive the plain obliga-
tions of man, has a burlesque character in the apprehen-
sions of some of my friends. I, sir, will not beforehand
treat you with the contumely of this distrust. I will at
702 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
least state to you this fact, and show you how plain and
humane people, whose love would he honor, regard the
policy of the government, and what injurious inferences
they draw as to the minds of the governors. A man
with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to
appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral senti-
ment. However feeble the sufferer and however great
the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow
should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the
sentiment, and it cannot be withstood. The potentate
and the people perish before it ; but with it, and as its
executor, they are omnipotent.
I write thus, sir, to inform you of the state of mind
these Indian tidings have awakened here, and to pray
with one voice more that you, whose hands are strong
with the delegated power of fifteen millions of men, will
avert with that might the terrific injury which threatens
the Cherokee tribe.
With great respect, sir, I am your fellow citizen,
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
APPENDIX E. 703
E.
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 let-
ters 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, let-
ters began to come in, with checks 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, increas-
ing the amount on my book to eleven thousand six hun-
704 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
dred 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 re-
building 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,
APPENDIX E. 705
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 gratefid
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 enclosed, 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 apply them to a house which the
association was formed to restore in this neighborhood.
When he understood the thing and had read your let-
ter, 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
706 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
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 men-
tioned Hillard, as you desired, and also Mrs. Tappan,
who, it seems, had written to him and offered any as-
sistance 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 woidd 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 thou-
sand 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,
APPENDIX E. 707
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 as-
tonished 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 deserv-
ing. 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 check, 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 re-
build 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 ex-
perience 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 con-
spired in this kindness to me (some of whom I have
708 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
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, 't is 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 acknowledg-
ments to them and you. Yours and theirs affectionately,
R. W. Emerson.
Dr. Le Baron Russell.
[I add Mr. Emerson's note of reply to Judge Hoar.]
August 20, 1872.
My dear Judge, — I have carried for days a note
in my pocket written in Concord to you, but not finished,
being myself an imbecile most of the time, and distracted
with the multiplicity of nothings I am pretending to do.
The note was not finished, and has hid itself, but its
main end was answered by your note containing the list,
so precious and so surprising, of my benefactors. It
cannot be read with dry eyes or pronounced with articu-
late voice. Names of dear and noble friends ; names
also of high respect with me, but on which I had no
known claims ; names, too, that carried me back many
years, as they were of friends of friends of mine more
APPENDIX E. 709
than of me, and thus I seemed to be drawing on the
virtues of the departed. Indeed, I ought to be in high
health to meet such a call on heart and mind, and not
the thoughtless invalid I happen to be at present. So
you must try to believe that I am not insensible to this
extraordinary deed of you and the other angels in behalf
of Yours affectionately, R. W. Emerson.
710 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
F.
Chronological List of Lectures and Addresses.
In the following list I have endeavored to set down
all Mr. Emerson's public discourses (except unpublished
sermons) in the order in which they were first delivered,
omitting repetitions and rearrangements. If published
in his Collected "Writings, I have indicated at the end of
each note the volume and page where they may be
found. Of the unpublished papers I have generally
given short abstracts, as far as possible in his own words,
with references to passages which have been printed.
In courses of lectures the date is that of the first lec-
ture. They were usually continued weekly.
1830.
Feb. 17. Right Hand of Fellowship to Reverend H.
B. Goodwin, Concord, Mass. (separately printed 1830).
1832.
Sept. 9. Sermon on the Lord's Supper (xi. 7).
Nov. 4. Introductory Lecture before the Boston So-
ciety of Natural History. (At the Masonic Temple,
Boston.) Fitness of the study for man. The earth a
museum, and the five senses a philosophical apparatus of
such perfection that the pleasure they give is trifling in
comparison with the natural information they may af-
ford. The Jardin des Plantes, at Paris : the feeling it
gives of occult relation between animals and man. Spe-
APPENDIX F. 711
cific advantages of the pursuit: 1. To health. 2. In
the discovery of economic uses. 3. The generous en-
thusiasm it generates. 4. Improvement of mind and
character through habits of exact thought. 5. The high-
est office, to explain man to himself, — or, that corre-
spondence of the outward with the inward world, by
which it is fitted to represent what we think.
December. " On the Relation of Man to the Globe."
The preparation made for man in the slow and secular
changes and melioration of the surface of the planet:
his house built, the grounds laid out, the cellar stocked.
A most nicely adjusted proportion established betwixt
his powers and the forces with which he has to deal.
His necessities invite him out to activity, to exploration
and commerce. The nimble sailor can change the form
of his ship from a butterfly, all wings, to a log, impassive
to the storm. Man keeps the world in repair ; makes
climate and air to suit him. Then, not only a relation
of use, but a relation of beauty, subsists between himself
and nature, which leads him to science. Other creatures
reside in particular places, but the residence of man is
the world.
1834.
Jan. 17. " "Water." (At the Boston Athenaeum be-
fore the Mechanic's Institute.) The universal presence
of water, and its seen and unseen services to man :
plucks down Alps and Andes, and makes habitable land
for him ; the circulating medium that unites all parts of
the earth, equalizes temperature, supports vegetable
and animal life. Its external circulation through nature
makes the subject of meteorology. Laws of freezing ;
hydrostatic pressure ; capillary attraction ; steam.
712 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
. " Italy : " two lectures. Description of the
country and its wonders, natural and artificial. Uses of
travel : confirmation in unexpected quarters of our sim-
plest sentiments at home. " I was simply a spectator
and had no ulterior objects. I collected nothing that
could be touched or smelled or tasted, — neither cameo
nor painting nor medallion ; but we go there to see the
utmost that social man can effect, and I valued much,
as I went on, the growing picture which the ages had
painted and which I reverently surveyed."
May 7. " Naturalist." (At the fourth annual meet-
ing of the Boston Natural History Society.) The place
of natural history in a scheme of general education.
We cannot all be naturalists, but we may gain from it ac-
curacy of perception, — to be citizens of our own time,
which is the era of science. The preeminent claim of
natural science is that it seeks directly that which all
sciences, arts, and trades seek indirectly, — knowledge of
the universe we live in. It shows man in the centre,
with a ray of relation passing from him to every created
thing. But to gain this advantage we must not lose our-
selves in nomenclature. The student must be a poet in
his severest analysis ; rather, he must make the natural-
ist subordinate to the mau.
1835.
Jan. 29. Six lectures on Biography. (Before the
Society for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, at Masonic
Temple, Boston.) I. " Tests of great men." The first
question concerning a man : Has he any aim which with
all his soul he pursues ? 2. Does he work for show ?
APPENDIX F. 713
Luther, Washington, Lafayette, believed in their ends ;
Napoleon was no more a believer than the grocer who
displays his shop-window invitingly. 3. The health of
the mind is to work in good-humor. 4. Ability to set
in motion the minds of others. 5. Belief in superhu-
man influence. Attila, esteeming himself the Scourge of
God, opened into himself supernal powers. 6. Unsel-
fish aims. 7. Breadth of vision ; to be absolved from
prejudice and to treat trifles as trifles. II. " Michelan-
gelo " (published in North American Revieiv, Jan.,
1837). III. "Martin Luther." Great results, with tal-
ents and means that are common to all men. His ab-
stract speculations are worthless ; he had no appreciation
of scientific truth ; his theology is Jewish ; if he can
attain the Christianity of the first ages he is content ;
the ethical law he states as a Scripture doctrine, not as
a philosophical truth. But he believed deepest what all
believed, and, at the same time, his unsophisticated hu-
manity saved him from fanaticism. He is great because
his head and his heart were sound, and in an extraordi-
nary crisis he obeyed his genius. IV. " Milton " (pub-
lished in North American Review, July, 1838). V.
" George Fox. " Religious enthusiasm opens his mind
like liberal discipline ; and he was by nature a realist,
even putting a thing for a name. The inward light can-
not be confined or transmitted ; so the stricken soul
wanders away from churches, and finds himself at first
alone, and afterwards to be in a degree of union with the
good of each name. He and his disciples did magnify
some trifles ; their deviations from usage, being sharply
resented, made them exaggerate their importance. The
714 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
persecution of the Quakers entitles our town to the name
of " that hloocly town of Boston." The severities they
suffered only gave them an invincible appetite to come
hither, and when the master of the ship refused them
they sailed for Virginia, for Barbadoes, or some port
whence through forests, bogs, and Indian camps they
might arrive at the prison, the whipping-post, and the
gallows. VI. "Edmund Burke." M. Aurelius and
Bacon are examples of philosophers in action, but M. A.
is only a moralist, and Bacon left his philosophy when
he came to affairs. Burke's intellect was more compre-
hensive ; he was a man of science, and he uses science to
harmonize particular aims with the whole constitution
of society. He did not take his theory as a basis, but
started from facts, and sought to reduce them to the best
order which they themselves admitted. His taste, his
social disposition, and his affectionate temper prevented
his love of liberty from making him a radical reformer.
His eloquence was not of the kind of which we have
seen eminent examples, in which the heart, not the mind,
is addressed, and from which the hearer comes home in-
toxicated and venting himself in superlatives, but cannot
recall a reason, a statement, scarce a sentiment, for the
curiosity of inquirers ; nor was it that of the man who
takes the " practical view," awakens no emotion, but
only extorts votes. His was the manly view, such as
the reason of nations might consider.
Augfust. Address before the American Institute of
Education, " On the Best Mode of Inspiring a Correct
Taste in English Literature." Society divides itself into
two classes in reference to any influences of learning :
APPENDIX F. 715
(1) natural scholars ; (2) persons of leisure who read.
By being born to the inheritance of the English speech
we receive from Nature the key to the noblest treasures
of the world. Idle complaint of the number of good
books. Books are like the stars in the sky ; there are
scarce a dozen of the first magnitude. If we should lose
all but Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon, the concentrated
attention given to these authors might atone for the loss.
Yet if you should read the same number of lines that
you read in a day on the newspapers in Hooker or
Hume, Clarendon, Harrington, Burke, a short time
would suffice to the examination of all the great British
authors. And the study of a subject is better than wide
reading. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton,
and Taylor are a class by themselves ; for the second
class of the same age, Ben Jonson, Herbert, Herrick,
Marvell, Cowley, Cudworth, Dryden ; and, for the third,
Pope, Addison, Swift, Hume, Butler, Johnson, Gibbon,
Smith. There is no need that all should be scholars,
any more than that all should hold the helm, or weave,
or sing ; yet I think every man capable of some inter-
est in literature, and that it is the most wholesome and
most honorable of recreations. But reading must not
be passive ; the pupil must conspire with the teacher.
Of inventions and contrivances to aid us, I have no hope
from them. The only mechanical means of importance
is cheap editions, in good type, of the best authors. Let
them go out as magnets to find the atoms of steel that
are in the mountains and prairies. (Further passages in
Collected Writings, vii. 186; ii. 146.)
Sept. 12. " Historical Discourse at Concord, on the
716 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Second Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of
the Town." (xi. 33.)
Nov. 5. Ten lectures on " English Literature." (Be-
fore the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
at the Masonic Temple in Boston.) I. " Introduction."
The word literature has in many ears a hollow sound.
It is thought to be the harmless entertainment of a few
fanciful persons, but it has its deep foundations in the
nature and condition of man. The ideas in a man's
mind make him what he is. His whole action and en-
deavor in the world is to utter and give an external
shape to his thoughts, to create outside of him a state of
things conformed to them. Of the various ways of utter-
ance, the most perfect is language. It is the nature of
universal man to think, but human history and our own
lives are too close to us : the poet, the philosopher, takes
us aside and shows the passage of events as a spectacle,
aids us to discern their spiritual meaning, breaks the
chains of custom, and lets us see everything as it abso-
lutely exists. The utterance of his thoughts to men
proves the poet's faith that all men can receive them,
and that all men are poets, though in a less degree.
Man stands on the point betwixt spirit and matter, and
the native of both elements ; the true thinker sees that
one represents the other, that the world is the mirror of
the soul, and that it is his office to show this beautiful re-
lation. And this is literature. (" Nature," i. 31, 32,
34, 39, 55.) II. " Permanent Traits of English Na-
tional Genius." Great activity of mind united with a
strong will and a vigorous constitution of body charac-
terize the rugged stock from which the splendid flowers
APPENDIX F. 717
of English wit and humanity should bloom. The fea-
tures that reappear in this race from age to age, in
whatever country they are planted, are a certain gravity,
humor, love of home, love of utility, accuracy of per-
ception, and a fondness for truth ; a love of fair-play, a
respect for birth, a respect for women. The English
muse loves the field and the farmyard, the highway and
the hearthstone. And the love of gentle behavior, which
is at the bottom of the respect for birth and rank, is a
stable idea in the English and American mind, now
coming to be placed on its true foundation. Welsh and
Saxon poetry. III. "The Age of Fable." By the
channel of the Norman language, England became ac-
quainted with the metrical romances of the Southern
and Western nations in the age when war had reduced
the mind of Europe to a state of childishness. Nature
and common sense, geography, chronology, and chem-
istry were set at defiance, and wonder piled on wonder
for the delight of credulous nations. Contrast of the
beautiful creations of the Greek muse, in which every
fable conveys a wise and consistent sense, the stories of
Prometheus and of Orpheus with the stories of Merlin
and Arthur. Yet, with the progress of refinement, the
Romance poet or novelist, seeking to make his picture
agreeable, insensibly introduces a fine moral ; uttering,
as Plato said, great and wise things which he does not
himself understand. Writing only to stimulate and
please men, he was led to avail himself of all that fa-
miliar imagery which speaks to the common mind.
Poetry began to be the vehicle of strong sense, of satire,
and of images drawn from the face of nature and com-
718 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
mon life. The popular origin of English poetry favored
the unfolding of its peculiar genius, which may be al-
ready recognized in the earliest poems whose diction is
completely intelligible to us ; the smell of the breath of
cattle, and the household charm of low and ordinary
objects, in Robert of Gloucester and the Vision of Piers
Plowman. ("History," ii. 36-38.) IV. "Chaucer."
The reader of Chaucer is struck everywhere with fa-
miliar images and thoughts, for he is in the armory of
English literature. Chaucer is a man of strong and
kindly genius, possessing all his faculties in that balance
and symmetry which constitute an individual a sort of
universal man, and fit him to take up into himself all
the wit and character of his age. But he felt and main-
tained the dignity of the laurel, and restored it in Eng-
land to its honor. The ancients quote the poets as we
quote Scripture. But the English poets were forced to
quit the raised platform from which elder bards had
talked down to the people; they had to recur to the
primitive and permanent sources of excitement and de-
light, and thus laid the foundations of a new literature.
As good sense and increased knowledge resumed their
rights, the poet began to reclaim for himself the ancient
reverence ; as Dante, Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton
have preeminently done. But with the French school
came into English ground a frivolous style, which Scott,
Byron, and Moore have done nothing to dispel. No one
can read Chaucer without being struck with his sense of
the dignity of his art. Equally conspicuous is his humor,
his love of gentle behavior, and his exquisite apprecia-
tion of the female character. V. and VI. " Shaks-
APPENDIX F. 719
peare." Shakspeare stands alone among poets ; to ana-
lyze him is to analyze the powers of the human mind.
He possesses above all men the essential gift of imagina-
tion, the power of subordinating nature for the purposes
of expression ; and never so purely as in his sonnets, a
little volume whose wonderful merit has been thrown
into the shade by the splendor of his plays. They are
written with so much closeness of thought and such even
drowsy sweetness of rhytbm that they are not to be dis-
patched in a hasty paragraph, but deserve to be studied
in the critical manner in which the Italians explain the
verses of Dante and Petrarch. But, however gorgeous
is this power of creation, it leaves us without measure
or standard for comparing thought with thought. Each
passing emotion fills the whole sky of the poet's mind,
and, untempered by other elements, would be a disease.
The healthful mind keeps itself studiously open to all in-
fluences ; if its bold speculation carries one thought to
extravagance, presently in its return it carries another
as far. Shakspeare added to a towering imagination
this self-recovering, self-collecting force. His reflective
powers are very active. Questions are ever starting up
in his mind, as in that of the most resolute sceptic, con-
cerning life and death and man and nature. But he is
not merely a poet and a philosopher ; he possesses in at
least as remarkable a degree the clear perception of the
relations of the actual world. He delights in the earth
and earthly things. This drew Shakspeare to the drama.
The action of ordinary life in every sort yielded him the
element he longed for. The secret of his transcendent
superiority lies in the joint activity and constant pres-
720 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ence of all these faculties. He reaches through the three
kingdoms of man's life, the moral, the intellectual, and
the physical being. ("Nature," i. 32, 33, 38, 57.)
VII. " Lord Bacon." Bacon conceived more highly
than perhaps did any other man of the office of the
literary man ; to show, as a thought in the mind, every-
thing that takes place as event. Nothing so great, noth-
ing too small, but he would know its law. He seems to
have taken to heart the taunts against speculative men,
as unfit for business ; he would have the scholar out-
shoot the drudge with his own bow, and even prove his
practical talent by his ability for mischief also. He
surveys every region of human wit, and predicts depart-
ments of literature which did not then exist. He is to
be compared with Shakspeare for universality ; but his
work is fragmentary, wants unity. It lies along the
ground like the materials of an unfinished city. Each
of Shakspeare's dramas hath an immortal integrity. To
make Bacon's works complete he must five to the end of
the world. This want of integrity is shown in the im-
portance given to puerile speculations, and in the out-
breaks of a mean spirit ; like the hiss of a snake amid
the discourse of angels. VIII. " Ben Jonson, Herrick,
Herbert, Wotton." Ben Jonson is the president of that
brilliant circle of literary men which illuminated Eng-
land in Elizabeth's and James's reign. It is the gen-
eral vigor of his mind, and not the dramatic merit of his
pieces, that has preserved the credit of his name. His
diction is pure, the sentences perfect and strong, but the
plays are dull. Yet it is no vulgar dulness, but the dul-
ness of learning and sense, and presupposes great intel-
APPENDIX F. 721
lectual activity in the audience ; an Elizabethan age.
And, heavy and prosaic as his drama is, he has written
some of the most delicate verses in the language. Her-
rick's merit lies in his power of glorifying common and
base objects in his perfect verse. He pushes this privi-
lege of the poet very far, in the wantonness of his power.
He delights to show the Muse not nice or squeamish,
but treacling with firm and elastic step in sordid places,
taking no more pollution than the sunbeam, which shines
alike on the carrion and the violet. George Herbert is
apt to repel the reader, on his first acquaintance, by the
quaint epigrammatic style, then in vogue in England.
But the reader is struck with the inimitable felicity of
the diction. The thought has so much heat as to fuse the
words, so that language is wholly flexible in his hands,
and his rhyme never stops the progress of the sense.
He most excels in exciting that feeling which we call the
moral sublime. His poems are the breathings of a
devout soul reading the riddle of the world with a poet's
eye, but with a saint's affections. Sir Henry "Wotton
deserves attention here more for his fortune than his
merit. It would be hard to find another man who stood
in personal relations with so great a number of extraor-
dinary men. He has left a few essays and some of his
correspondence with his gifted contemporaries ; but he is
better known by a few wise maxims and witty sayings.
The most copious department of English literature in
the age of Elizabeth and James is the drama. I can-
not help thinking that there is a good deal of tradition
and custom in the praise that is bestowed upon it. If
these plays really exhibit the tone of fashionable society,
722 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
we may thank God that he has permitted the English
race in both hemispheres to make a prodigious advance-
ment in purity of conversation and honesty of life. IX.
" Ethical Writers." There is a class of writers who
escape oblivion, not through their learning or their skill,
or from satisfying some demand of the day, but in the
very direction of their thought ; because they address
feelings which are alike in all men and all times. The
moral muse is eternal, and speaks a universal language.
Bacon, Spenser, Sidney, Hooker, John Smith, Henry
More, Leighton, Harrington, Milton, Donne, Sir Thomas
Brown, John Bunyan, Clarendon, Addison, Johnson,
Burke, are men from whose writings a selection might
be made of immortal sentences that should vie with that
which any language has to offer, and inspire men with
the feeling of perpetual youth. X. " Byron, Scott,
Stewart, Mackintosh, Coleridge : Modern Aspects of Let-
ters." Byron has a marvellous power of language, but,
from pride and selfishness, which made him an incurious
observer, it lacked food. Our interest dies from famine
of meaning. Cursing will soon be sufficient, in the most
skilful variety of diction. Of Scott it would be un-
grateful to speak but with cheerful respect, and we owe
to him some passages of genuine pathos. But, in gen-
eral, what he contributes is not brought from the deep
places of the mind, and of course cannot reach thither.
The conventions of society are sufficient for him. His
taste and humor happened to be taken with the ringing
of old ballads, with old armor and the turrets of ancient
castles frowning among Scottish hills, and he said, I will
make these tricks of my fancy so great and gay that
APPENDIX F. 723
they shall take attention like truths and things. By
force of talent he accomplished his purpose, hut the
design was not natural and true, and loses its interest as
swarms of new writers appear. Dugald Stewart is an
excellent scholar and a lively and elegant essayist rather
than an original thinker. Those who remember the
brilliant promise of the Introduction to his philosophy,
what visions floated before the imagination of the stu-
dent and how heavily they are disappointed, will be
reminded of a description of the entrance of Moscow,
which at a distance showed a splendid collection of
domes and minarets, but, when the gates were passed,
nothing appeared but narrow streets and plain tene-
ments. Sir James Mackintosh is not a writer of that
elevation and power of thought to justify a belief that
his works shall never be superseded, but his " History of
Ethical Philosophy " is valuable for its discrimination,
for its suggestions, and for several definitions of much
worth. His " English History " is chiefly valuable as it
shows how history ought to be written, — not as a narra-
tive of the court, but a treatment of all the topics that
interest humanity. Coleridge's true merit is not that of
a philosopher or of a poet, but a critic. He possessed
extreme subtlety of discrimination, surpassing all men
in the fineness of his distinctions, and he has taken the
widest survey of the moral, intellectual, and social
world. His " Biographia Literaria " is the best book of
criticism in the English language ; nay, I do not know
any to which a modern scholar can be so much indebted.
His works are of very unequal interest; in his own judg-
ment half the " Biographia " and part of the third vol-
724 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ume of the " Friend," with a few of his poems, were all
that he would preserve, and if you add the inestimable
little book called " Church and State," I suppose all
good judges would concur.
There remain at least two English authors now alive
[Wordsworth and Carlyle ] — and may they live long !
— who deserve particular attention as men of genius
who obey their genius. In general it must be felt that
a torpidity has crept over the greater faculties, a dispo-
sition to put forms for things, the plausible for the good,
the appearance for the reality. A degree of humiliation
must be felt by the American scholar when he reviews
the great names of those who in England, from Chaucer
down, have enlarged the limits of wisdom, and then
reckons how little this country, which has enjoyed the
culture of science in the freedom of the wild, has
added to the stock. (" Nature," i. 25, 26.)
1836.
Dec. 8. "The Philosophy of History." (Twelve
lectures at the Masonic Temple, Boston.) I. " Intro-
ductory." History dull because badly written. True
history will be commensurate with man's nature : it will
traverse the whole scale of his faculties, and describe
the contrast between his wishes and his position, which
constitutes Tragedy ; his sympathy with the low and his
desire to hide it, which makes Comedy. It will present
other of his social relations besides his conspiracies to
stab and steal ; it will show him in his house, the head
of a little state, served by all and serving all. II.
" Humanity of Science." The first process of the mind
APPENDIX F. 725
is classification. A tyrannical instinct impels it to re-
duce all facts to a few laws, to one law. Newton sees
an apple fall, and cries, " The motion of the moon is but
a larger apple-fall." Goethe reduces the plant to a leaf,
the animal to a vertebra. Chladni demonstrates the re-
lation between harmonic sound and proportioned forms.
Lamarck finds a monad of organic life common to every
animal, and becoming a worm, a mastiff, or a man,
according to circumstances. He says to the caterpillar,
How dost thou, brother ? Please God, you shall yet be
a philosopher. And the instinct finds no obstacle in the
objects. The blocks fit. All agents, the most diverse,
are pervaded by radical analogies ; and in deviations
and degradations we learn that the law is not only firm
and eternal, but also alive ; that the creature can turn
itself, not, indeed, into something else, but, within its
own limits, into deformity. Step by step we are ap-
prised of another fact, namely, the humanity of that
spirit in which Nature works ; that all proceeds from a
mind congenial with ours. III. and IV. "Art" and
" Literature." Art is man's attempt to rival in new crea-
tions that which charms him in external nature. In its
most comprehensive sense, literature is one of its forms,
but in the popular sense they are coordinate and present
a contrast of effects. Art delights in carrying thought
into action ; literature is the conversion of action into
thought. The architect executes his dream in stone;
the poet enchants you by idealizing your life and for-
tunes. In both the highest charm comes from that
which is inevitable in the work ; a divine necessity over-
powering individual effort, and expressing the thought
726 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
of mankind in the time and place. Homer, Shakspeare,
Phidias, write or carve as a man ploughs or fights. The
poet or the orator speaks that which his countrymen
recognize as their own thoughts, but which they were
not ready to say. He occupies the whole space between
pure mind and the understandings of men. A defect on
either side vitiates his success. (" Art," ii. 327-329,
334, 337, 339 ; " Intellect," ii. 304, 305.) V. " Politics."
Another expression of the identical mind of man is the
state, the common conscience enveloping the whole pop-
ulation like an invisible net, and bringing the force of the
whole against any offender. Government is possible be-
cause all men have but one mind, and, in consequence,
but one interest. This demands Democracy as the form
of government ; but it encounters an obstacle in the ine-
quality of property. From the confusion of personal
rights and the rights of property have arisen, on the
one hand, the sophism of slavery and of despotic gov-
ernment, and, on the other, agrarianism. Sooner or
later these forces come into equilibrium. The code
at any time is only the high-water mark, showing how
high the tide rose the last time. But, with the cultiva-
tion of the individuals, forms of government become of
less importance ; every addition of good sense brings
power on the side of justice. (" Politics," hi. 193, 196.)
VI. " Religion." The sense of duty first acquaints
us with the great fact of the unity of the mind in all
individual men. I seek my own satisfaction at my
neighbor's cost, and I find that he has an advocate in
my own breast, interfering with my private action and
persuading me to act, not for his advantage or that of
APPENDIX F. 727
of all others, for it has no reference to persons, but in
obedience to the dictate of the general mind. Virtue
is this obedience, and religion is the accompanying
emotion, the thrill at the presence of the universal
soul. Right action has a uniform sign in profitable-
ness. All right actions are useful and all wrong ac-
tions injurious. But usefulness is only the sign, never
the motive. If the lofty friends of virtue had listened
to prudent counsellors, and not held themselves stiffly to
their own sense, taking counsel of their bosom alone,
the race of mankind would have been impoverished.
Jesus Christ was a minister of the pure reason. The
beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount are nonsense to
the understanding ; the reason affirms their immutable
truth. This is the true Revelation, of which every na-
tion has some more or less perfect transcript. The
effort to embody it in an outward form makes the
church. But all attempts to confine and transmit the
religious feeling by means of formulas and rites have
proved abortive. The truest state of thought rested in
becomes false. Perpetually must we east ourselves, or
we fall into error, starting from the plainest truths and
keeping the straightest road of logic. Every church, the
purest, speedily becomes old and dead. The ages of
belief are succeeded by an age of unbelief and a con-
version of the best talents to the active pursuits of life.
A deep sleep creeps over the great functions of man ; a
timidity concerning rites and words, diffidence of man's
spiritual nature, whether it can take care of itself, takes
the place of worship. But unbelief never lasts long ;
the light rekindles in some obscure heart, who denounces
728 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the deadness of the church, and cries aloud for new and
appropriate forms. Only a new church is alive ; hut all,
while they were new, have taught the same things.
(" Character," x. 95, 96. « Over-Soul," ii. 255, 258, 263,
264, 271. " Spiritual Laws," ii. 150, 151. " Preacher,"
x. 210, 212.) VII. " Society." The man of genius is
he who has received a larger portion of the common
nature. He apprises us not so much of his wealth as of
the common wealth. Are his thoughts profound? So
much the less are they his, so much the more the prop-
erty of all. The attraction of society, of conversation,
friendship, love, is the delight of receiving from another
one's own thoughts and feelings, seeing them out of us
and judging of them as something foreign to us. (1.)
The first society of nature is that of marriage, which has
its own end in an integrity of human nature hy the union
of its two great parts, intellect and affection. This is
the rock-foundation of the nuptial bower, which begins
to appear when the air-castle that was built upon it has
faded. (2.) Friendship. A man should live among
those with whom he can act naturally, who permit and
provoke the expression of all his thoughts and emotions.
Yet the course of events does steadily thwart any at-
tempt at very dainty and select fellowship, and he who
would five as a man in the world must not wait too
proudly for the presence of the gifted and the good.
The unlike-minded can teach him much. (3.) The
state. Seldom a perfect society except at its beginning
or in its crises of peril. A great danger or a strong de-
sire, a war of defence or an enterprise of enthusiasm,
will at any time knit a whole population into one man.
APPENDIX F. 729
(4.) Philanthropic association, which aims to increase
the efficiency of individuals by organization. But the
gain of power is much less than it seems, since each
brings only a mechanical aid ; does not apply to the enter-
prise the infinite force of one man ; and in some propor-
tion to the material growth is the spiritual decay. (5.)
Sect or party, an institution which seems at first sight
one of selfishness and voluntary blindness. But the
necessity for it is presently seen. There would be no
sect if there had been no sect ; but each is needed to
correct the partiality of some other. The Orthodox Chris-
tian builds his system on the fear of sin, the Liberal
builds his on the love of goodness. Each, separate
from the other, is but a half truth. (6.) The disso-
lution of society is seen in the mob, the action of num-
bers without individual motives. (7.) A contrast is
seen in the effect of eloquence, the power which one
man in an age possesses of uniting men by addressing
the common soul of them all : if, ignorantly or wilfully,
he seeks to uphold a falsehood, his inspiration and ere-
long his weight with men is lost ; instead of leading the
whole man he leads only the appetites and passions. A
farther advance in civilization would drop our cumbrous
modes, and leave the social element to be its own law and
to obliterate all formal bonds. ("History," ii. 9. "Friend-
ship," ii. 184, 187. "Compensation," ii. 115.) VIII.
" Trades and Professions." A man's trade and tools are
a sort of Esop's fable, in which under many forms the
same lesson is read. Labor is the act of the individual
going out to take possession of the world. In the grat-
ification of his petty wants he is taught, he is armed, he
730 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
is exalted. The farmer stands on his acres a robust
student of nature, surrounded by his conquests from the
forest, the mountain, and the meadow ; prophet of the
seasons, and making, by his skill, rain, wind, and sun
serve him like hired men. The merchant is the media-
tor or broker of all the farmers of the earth to exchange
their products ; in his head a map of all seaports, a
centre of information concerning the world under the
aspect of production. Look into one of these solitary
fliers that go tilting over the January ocean, and see the
inmate and how he studies his lesson. He is the pensioner
of the wind ; his prosperity comes and goes with the fickle
air. He is the man of his hands, all eye, all finger,
muscle, skill, and endurance. He is a great saver of
orts and ends, and a great quiddle. No man well knows
how many fingers he has, nor what are the faculties of a
knife or a needle, or the capabilities of a pine board,
until he has seen the expedients and ambidexter inge-
nuity of Jack Tar. Less obviously but not less strictly
bound with nature is the manufacturer, the artificer in
any kind — nay, every man and woman doing right. Not
only the factory bell or the city clock, but the revolving
sun saith to whomsoever he shines upon, What doest
thou ? And every employment is the inlet of power.
All modes of act and thought are good and tolerable ;
only not to be dumb and useless, like the larva of the
ant-hill, to be lifted out when it is day, to be lifted in
when it is night, and to be fed. IX. "Manners."
The unconscious account that character gives of itself.
The circumstances of the poor and of the middle classes
in civilized countries, being unfavorable to independence
APPENDIX F. 731
of character, are unfavorable to manners. The habit of
power and authority, the manners of a strong will, are
always imposing. The idea to which they approximate
is that of the hero, or, in modern times, the gentleman or
man of honor; the self-reliant man, exempt from fear
and shame, with a power of beneficence, a power to
execute the conceptions of the soul ; the mean between
the life of the savage and the life of the saint. (" His-
tory," ii. 28. " Spiritual Laws," ii. 148.) X. " Ethics,"
or the nature of things, the virtue of the soul of the
world impregnating every atom. Rise to a certain
height, and you behold and predict what is true for men
in all times. The mind wants nothing but to be roused
from sleep, to be allowed to perceive reality, the mind
common to the universe disclosed to the individual
through his own nature. XL " The Present Age."
The age of trade : opens all doors ; makes peace and
keeps peace ; destroys patriotism and substitutes cosmo-
politanism. No man is in a passion, and no man acts
with self-forgetting greatness. You nowhere find a
churl, and nowhere the unkempt Isaiah, the tart tongue
of Milton, the plain integrity of Luther, the sloven
strength of Montaigne. Diffusion instead of concen-
tration. We have freedom from much nonsense and
superstition, but we pay a great price for it. The old
faith is gone, the new loiters. The world looks bare
and cold. We have lost reverence, yet are timid and
flattering. See the despondency of those who are putting
on the manly robe ; when they are to direct themselves,
all hope, wisdom, and power sink flat down. Tendency
to reflection, introversion, morbid views. It is the age
732 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
of second-thought. But there is always a presumption
against the truth of a gloomy view. This nakedness
and want of object are only the hesitation, while the
man sees the hollowness of the old, and does not yet
know the resources of the soul. In another age its good
fruits will appear. XII. " Individualism." The habit
of reflection which characterizes the age, when carried
to its height, emancipates the spirit from fear. The
ruin which the Copernican astronomy brought to our
carnal notions of man's importance is made good by the
perception which places reason at the centre. The indi-
vidual learns that his place is as good as any place ; his for-
tunes as good as any. When he looks at the rainbow
he is the centre of its arch ; everything out of him corre-
sponds to his states of mind, and becomes intelligible as
he arrives at the thought to which it belongs. He stands
on the top of the world, and with him, if he will, is the
Divinity. (« Self-Reliance," ii. 82, 84. " History," ii.
13, 30, 32.)
1837.
June 10. " Address on Education," at Green Street
School, Providence, R. I. The disease of which the
world lies sick is the inaction of the higher faculties of
man. Men are subject to things. A man is an appen-
dage to a fortune, to an institution. The object of edu-
cation is to emancipate us from this subjection, to inspire
the youthful man with an interest and a trust in himself,
and thus to conspire with the Divine Providence. If it
fall short of this, it only arms the senses to pursue their
low ends ; it makes only more skilful servants of Mam-
mon. ( " Education," x. 128, 129, 130-132, 134.)
APPENDIX F. 733
" The American Scholar." Phi Beta Kappa oration
at Cambridge, August 31. (i. 81.)
November. " Slavery : an address delivered in the
Second Church in Concord, Tuesday, November, 1837,
at the request of several gentlemen."
Dec. 6. Ten lectures on " Human Culture," at the
Masonic Temple, Boston. I. " Introduction." The aim
of former periods was a shining social prosperity : they
compromised the individuals to the nation. The mod-
ern mind teaches (in extremes) that the nation exists
for the individual. The church of Calvin and of the
Friends have ever preached this doctrine ; our democ-
racy is a stammering effort to declare it. The individ-
ual has ceased to be regarded as a part, and has come to
be regarded as a whole. He is the world. The new
view has for its basis the ideal, the comparison of every
action and object with the perfect. The office of cul-
ture is to domesticate man in his true place in nature, to
demonstrate that no part of a man was made in vain,
and to give everything a just measure of importance.
II. " Doctrine of the Hands." In the mechanical works
which occupy the majority of men, any falseness imme-
diately appears. Wheat will not grow nor iron bend
unless the lesson they teach is learned and obeyed,
though we should talk a year. This prospective working
of nature makes the din and smoke of the city, the in-
cessant drudgery, agreeable to the imagination. Nature
is immensely rich, and man is welcome to her store ;
but she speaks no word, will not beckon or laugh ; if he
blunders and starves she says nothing. She forces each
to his proper work, and makes him happy in it. I con-
734 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
fess I hear with more satisfaction the honest avowal of
here and there a man to his shuddering neighbors, that
he is quite content with this world and does not wish
any other, than the hope or the suggestion that heaven
will emancipate us from labor. The true rule for the
choice of pursuit is that you may do nothing to get
money that is not worth your doing on its own account.
III. " The Head." The animal has only a joint pos-
session of his nature ; nothing in severalty. He does
after his kind. The intellect emancipates the individ-
ual, for infinite good and also for infinite ill. Man drinks
of that nature whose property it is to be Cause. With
the first surge of that ocean he affirms, / am. Only
Cause can say I. But as soon as he has uttered this
word he transfers this me from that which it really is to
the frontier region of effects, to his body and its appur-
tenances, to place and time. Yet is he continually
wooed to abstract himself from effects and dwell with
causes ; to ascend into the region of law. Few men en-
ter it, but all men belong there. A man's progress is
measured by what he includes in his me: if only the
dining part, he has not got far. The main thing we
can do for the culture of the intellect is to stand out
of the way ; to trust to its divine power. Two expedi-
ents may be of service : (1.) Sit alone : in your arrange-
ments for residence see you have a chamber to yourself,
though you sell your coat and wear a blanket. (2.)
Keep a journal : pay so much honor to the visits of truth
to your mind as to record them. IV. " Eye and Ear."
They furnish the external elements of beauty. All
body is the effect of spirit, and all beauty the effect of
APPENDIX F. 735
truth. The work of art represents all nature within
its little circuit. The perception of beauty belongs to
the nature of every man, yet, from defective organiza-
tion, it is very unequal in different persons. Nothing
marks the distance of actual from ideal man more than
the want of it. To a true life beauty would be an hourly
neighbor. A man should be all eye, all ear, to the in-
timations of the soul reflected to him from the forms
of things ; he should purge his organs by purity and
self-denial. Then shall the name of the world be beauty,
at last as it was at first. (Mostly in " Poet," iii. 9,
19. « History," ii. 17. " Art," ii. 334. " Beauty," vi.
281, etc.) V. " The Heart." In strictness the soul
has nothing to do with persons : they are embodied
thoughts and affections on which, as upon diagrams, the
student reads his own nature and law. Meantime let
not this absolute condition be any moment confounded
with the relative and actual. This solitude of essence is
not to be mistaken for a view of our position in nature.
Our position in nature is the reverse of this. Let none
wrong the truth by too stiffly standing on the cold and
proud doctrine of self-sufficiency. We are partial and
social creatures. Our being is shared by thousands who
live in us and we in them. This impulse of affection is
not to be analyzed, but obeyed. Welcome each to his
part, and let relations to them form as they will. If we
believed in the existence of strict individuals, in an in-
finity of hostility in the enemy, we should never dare to
fight. The rule of conduct in respect to this part of our
nature seems to be implicit obedience. The heart in a
cultivated nature knows its own, knows that such and
736 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
such persons are constitutionally its friends, because they
are lovers of the same tilings. (" Love," ii. 177.
" Friendship," ii. 183, 185, 187, 197, 199, 202, 203 ; vi.
258.) VI. "Being and Seeming." We yield to the
promptings of natural affection, the divine leading which
relieves us of individual responsibility ; but the excess of
social tendency, of otherism in us, leads to affectation.
On the entrance of the second person hypocrisy begins :
the man breaks his being into shows. Yet it is shallow
to think the world full of vice because the conventions
of society, measured by an ideal standard, are little
worth. Adam and John, Edith and Mary, are generous
and tender-hearted and of scrupulous conduct, while yet
they are immersed in these poor forms. They may at-
tain much growth before they shall become impatient of
all but what is real. (" Spiritual Laws," ii. 148, 149.
"Experience," iii. 51.) VTI. "Prudence." Needful
that the soul come out to the external world and take
hands and feet. The man of genius may scorn worldly
matters in his devotion to his thought, but the scorned
world will have its revenge. Health : use the great
medicines of sleep, fasting, exercise, and diversion.
Sleep, though only for five minutes, is the indispensable
cordial, — this abdication of will and accepting super-
natural aid, introduction of the supernatural into the fa-
miliar day. Diversion : Sir H. Wotton says that souls
grow wiser by lounging. As dangerous a specific as
wine for the whole, but better than wine for the sick.
Good manners have high value for their convenience :
the cool equilibrium, the mild, exact decorum of the
English, saves from many annoyances. (" Prudence,"
APPENDIX F. 737
ii. 210-225. " Manners," iii. 124.) Vni. " Heroism."
(The manuscript wanting. Probably printed, ii. 231.)
IX. " Holiness." Heroism is the exaltation of the indi-
vidual, he regarding external evils and dangers as the
measure of his greatness. It is the life of souls of great
activity, who have never discriminated between their in-
dividual and their universal nature ; really resting on
the last, esteem it their private property. The saint, on
the other hand, discriminates too sharply : cuts it off and
puts it far from him ; calls it God and worships it, and
calls the other himself and flouts it. We miss in the
devotee the heroic, sprightly, intrepid motions of the
soul, and feel no beauty in his life. Two extremes, su-
perstition and atheism, between which our being oscil-
lates : the right religion must be found somewhere be-
tween. ("Preacher," x. 213. "Over-Soul," ii. 252,
276-278.) X. " General Views." (MS. wanting.)
1838.
March 12. " War." Seventh lecture in a course be-
fore the Am. Peace Soc. at the Odeon, Boston, (xi.
177.)
July 15. " Address delivered before the Senior Class
in Divinity College, Cambridge." (i. 117.)
July 24. " Literary Ethics : an oration delivered be-
fore the literary societies of Dartmouth College." (i.
149.)
Dec. 5. Ten lectures on " Human Life," at Masonic
Temple, Boston, beginning Dec. 5 and continued weekly.
I. " The Doctrine of the Soul." Man is related by his
form to the world about him ; by his soul to the uni-
738 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
verse, — passing through what a scale, from reptile
sympathies to enthusiasm and ecstasy. Modern history
has an ethical character. Even in its outbursts of fero-
cious passion it is the assertion of justice and freedom.
The universal relation manifests itself in the tendency to
inquire into the ulterior connection of all parts. Geology
opens the crust of the earth that, like a material con-
science, it may tell its own tale. In politics the demo-
cratic spirit : men are possessed with the belief that
man has not had justice done him by himself. Much of
the stir and activity exhibits but a half-consciousness of
the new thought, but in literature a higher melody has
made itself heard. The fame of Mr. Wordsworth is
one of the most instructive facts, when it is considered
how hostile his genius seemed to the reigning taste, and
with what feeble poetic talents it has been established.
(" Intellect," ii. 306. " Over-Soul," ii. 251, 254, 255, 260,
263, 267, 268, 270. " History," ii. 12.) II. " Home."
The instinct of the mind, its sense of stability, demands
some outward type, a home, and as fast as one and
another are seen to be impermanent transfers its re-
gard. To the infant, the mother, the bed, the house,
and furniture supply the object. Presently these pass
away ; the boy finds that he and they can part and he
remain whole. The old ties fade and are succeeded
by new, which prove equally fleeting. He is not yet a
man if he have not learned the household laws, the pre-
cepts of economy, and how to reconcile them with the
promptings of love, of humanity. A wise man can bet-
ter afford to spare all the marts and temples and galler-
ies and state-houses and libraries than this key that de-
APPENDIX F. 739
ciphers, them all. But the progress of culture is to a
deeper home in law, the perceived order .and perfection
beneath the surface of accident and change. Whilst he
is an individual he has in him no assurance of perma-
nence. What security in the affections of a few mortals
groping like him for an immovable foundation ? But
by happy inspiration or slow experience he learns that
wherever he goes he is attended by that which he seeks.
He no longer dies daily in the perishing of local and
temporary relations, but finds in the Divine soul the rest
which in so many types he had sought, and learns to
look on them as the movables and furniture of the City
of God. (« Education," x. 127, 128. Passage in « Do-
mestic Life.") III. " School." Man's teachers are
Instinct, Condition, Persons, Books, Facts. Instinct, in
the high sense, is so much our teacher as almost to ex-
clude all other teaching, but its means and weapons are
the secondary instincts, the wants and faculties that be-
long to our organization. Magnitude and duration make
a guide for beginners, as the Linnasan botany leads the
way to the natural classification. Next the incarnation
of the spirit in persons. Every man carries in him a
piece of me, which I cannot forego. And we learn as
much from the sick as from the well. To be sure, he 's
a poor creature, as bad as you or I. What of that ?
What have you to do with his nonsense ? He is not to
have any ray of light, any pulse of goodness, that I do
not make my own. Yet if a man suffer himself to de-
pend on persons, he will become deaf and blind. Per-
sons are for sympathy, not for guidance. Books : they
are not only the history, they are the uttermost achieve-
740 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
merits of the human intellect. My great brothers have
seen that which I have not seen. Whilst we read, the
drawbridge is down ; nothing hinders that we should pass
with the author. And somewhere, somehow, the passage
must be made ; books must make us creative, else they
are hurtful. Another tuition which follows us from the
dawn of consciousness is that of facts. Nature, one in
law, falls upon us in subdivision, in showers of facts,
blinding and overwhelming us unless we can dissolve
them by spiritual perception. (" The Times," i. 250.
"History," ii. 35. "Spiritual Laws," ii. 127, 136.
" Over-Soul," ii. 256, 259. « Education," x. 127, 130,
132. «Self-Reliance,"ii.64,65.) IV. "Love." (Printed
almost entire, ii. 159.) V. " Genius." The enchant-
ment of the intellect, as love is the enchantment of
the affections. The man of genius is the typical man,
the measure of all the possibilities of the soul. See the
effect of eloquence ; go into Faneuil Hall, and see how
the pinched, wedged, elbowed, sweltering assembly, when
the chosen man rises, hangs suspended on his lips. Each,
while he hears, thinks he too can speak ; life is commu-
nicated to our torpid powers, and an infinite hope. Such
is this essence as it is a sentiment. Within we feel
its inspirations ; out there in history we see its fatal
strength. It is in the world, and by it the world was
made. (" History," ii. 19. " Self-Reliance," ii. 47.
"Intellect," ii. 314. "Poet," hi. 27.) VI. "The
Protest." The man of genius is the representative man,
because he is the entirely sane man, through whom the
great intellect speaks unobstructed. The tragedy of life
is the presence of the same energy, but obstructed by
APPENDIX F. 741
unfavorable circumstances. The painful dissonance of
the actual. Each new-comer finds himself an unlooked-
for guest ; there is no place for him congenial to his as-
pirations. Few men feel that they are doing what is
commensurate with their powers. But the obstruction
comes in truth from himself, because he shares the in-
ertia of which he complains. If his warlike attitude is
made good by new impulse from within, his path is
made clear to him. The opposition has only the strength
that we give to it. Formidable in appearance, it is trac-
table to valor and self-trust. VII. "Tragedy."
(Printed in the Dial, iv. 515.) VIII. '-Comedy."
(Collected Writings, viii. 149.) IX. " Duty." "When
we look at life, and see the snatches of thought, the
gleams of goodness, amid the wide and wild madness,
does it not seem to be a god dreaming ? The actual
life and the intellectual intervals seem to lie in parallel
lines, and never meet. Virtue is the spontaneity of the
will bursting up into the world as a sunbeam out of the
aboriginal cause. The measure of its force is in the
temptations of sense, and character is the cumulative
force of the will acquired by the uniform resistance of
temptation. (" Self-Eeliance," ii. 67, 78, 87. " Com-
pensation," ii. 96, 97, 102, 108, 117. "Spiritual
Laws," ii. 132.) X. « Demonology." (x. 7 ; ii. 141.)
1839.
Dec. 4. Ten lectures on the " Present Age," at the
Masonic Temple in Boston. I. " Introduction." II.
and III. " Literature." There is no luck in literature ;
it proceeds by fate ; yet it is in some sort a creature of
742 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
time ; the occasion is administered by the low antago-
nisms of circumstances which break the perfect circula-
tion of thought and allow the spark to pass. The char-
acteristics of the age : (1.) That it has all books. (2.)
The multitude and variety of the writers : soldiers, sailors,
nobles, women, write books. There is determined real-
ism ; all facts are gathered and sifted by being subjected
to the criticism of common sense. Another trait is the
feeling of the Infinite. The child in the nursery doubts
and philosophizes. He who has most united in himself
the tendencies of the times is Goethe. He can use aD
the material. Yet the subjectiveness, the egotism, that is
the vice of the time, infested him also. I am provoked
with his Olympian self-complacency and his total want of
frankness. He works to astonish, (ii. 39, 40, 61. x.
307,308. Much in the Dial.) IV. "Politics." The
State and the Church guard their purlieus with a jealous
decorum. I sometimes wonder where their books find
readers among mere mortals, who must sometimes laugh
and are liable to the infirmity of sleep. Yet politics
rest on real foundations, and cannot be treated with
levity. But the foundation is not numbers or force, but
character. Men do not see that all force comes from
this, and that the disuse of force is the education of
men to do without it. Character is the true theocracy.
It will one day suffice for the government of the world.
Absolutely speaking, I can only work for myself. The
fight of Leonidas, the hemlock of Socrates, the cross
of Christ, is not a personal sacrifice for others, but
fulfils a high necessity of his proper character: the
benefit to others is merely contingent, (ii. 61 ; iii. 94,
APPENDIX F. 743
191, 192, 206, 254.) V. " Private Life." A fact full
of meaning, the infinite self-trust of men. No man
likes anybody's intemperance or scepticism but his own.
Yet nothing but God is self-dependent. Man is pow-
erful only by the multitude of his affinities. Our being
is a reproduction of all the past ; a congress of nations.
Men doubt a Divine Power because to our best medi-
tation the Divine Nature refuses to impersonate itself.
They think God is not ; when behold all around them
the great Cause is alive, is fife itself, and matter seems
but the soft wax in his hand. We are the planters of
various grains in the acre of time ; it is so pretty to
scatter this poisoned dust, and we don't believe we shall
hear of it again. But when it has rooted and grown
and ripened, we eat sickness and infamy and curses, like
bread. With a fidelity not less admirable, Time re-
ceives into its faithful bosom the brave and just deed,
the humble prayer, and it turns out that the universe
was all ear, that the solitude saw, and choirs of wit-
nesses shall testify the eternal approbation. A man's
conviction of the perfectness of Divine justice is the
best measure of his culture. VI. " Reforms." Every
reform shows me that there is somewhat I can spare ;
and thus how rich I am ! Let us catch a golden boon
of purity and temperance and mercy from these faithful
men of one idea. Other creatures eat without shame,
but our eating and drinking are not agreeable to the
imagination. All the objects of nature accuse our
manner of life ; we are touched with inferiority in the
presence of the pine and the hemlock. Meantime, the
reforms of diet are made odious to us by the foolish
744 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
detachment of temperance from the rest of life. It
should be the sign of virtue and health, but, sought of
itself, it is phlegm or conceit. Our institution for prop-
erty also involves many abuses. A man cannot get
his own bread, much less scatter bread to others, without
stooping himself to the petty system of monopoly, force,
and distrust. You will not take my word that I have
labored honestly and added to the amount of value in
the world, but demand a certificate in the shape of a
piece of silver. Then, the certificates of labor pass
without labor, to the undeserving. If it represented
character, money would be given and taken without
shame ; but now, in acknowledgment of the highest
services, of a priest or a friend, it seems unfit. Non-
resistance : doctrine of manual labor, etc. With regard
to all these criticisms of our social ways the individual
must resist the degradation of a man to a measure.
But, when his time comes, let him cheerfully insist on
playing his game out, without being scared by the re-
sistance he may find. People hold to you so long as
you treat the ideal life as a petty dream ; but if you
propose a mode of domestic life in which trifles shall
descend to their place and character shall rule, this is an
incredible proposition. And yet nature is in earnest.
Prayer and aspiration predict their answer in facts.
Let us not heed the awkwardness and half-apprehension
of its first attempts. "What is separate in them do
thou blend ; what is finite, exalt to an infinite aim.
VII. " Keligdon." The annals of the world are found
first in the mind. An impulse of sentiment in the
heart of some Oriental shepherd explodes all considera-
APPENDIX F. 745
tions of prudence, all ties of custom, and installs him
as the interpreter of nature to half mankind. There
seems no proportion between cause and effect. But who
can tell from what profound crater that spark shot up ?
The most wonderful fact in history is Christianity. A
knot of young, ardent men, probably of ingenuous and
bashful complexion, their simple devotion has resounded
farther than they dreamed. At the present day the
sacred tradition is fast losing its force. It is felt by all
the young that the entire catechism and creed on which
they were bred may be forgotten with impunity. It
stands now on the poor footing of respect. Religion
lurks in the philanthropic assemblies and private efforts
for reform. The mind of tbe age begins to see the
infinity shed abroad in the present moment, and cannot
quit this to go star-gazing after parish circumstances
or Jewish prodigies. Open my eyes by new virtue, and
I shall see miracles enough in the current moment. Re-
ligion does not seem to tend now to a cultus, but to a
heroic life. He who would undertake it is to front a
corrupt society and speak rude truth ; and he must be
ready to meet collision and suffering. VIII. " Pros-
pects. Duties." There is something low and imper-
tinent in the tone of sorrow and anxiety that charac-
terizes much of the speculation of the present time.
We are saturated with good ; our blunders lead to suc-
cess, and " the more falls we get, move faster on." Our
attitude should be reception and transmission of the
same. The men who evince the force of the moral
sentiment are not normal, canonical people, but enor-
mous, indefinite, hastening out of all limitation. The
746 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
age is rich and indefinable, far-retreating as the depths
of the horizon. Let us not be too early old. Our igno-
rance is as handsome as knowledge, whilst we are ad-
vancing. If we are not plumed like birds of paradise,
but like sparrows and plebeian birds, let that fact be
humbly and happily borne with. Perhaps all that is
not performance is preparation. The times, the men, —
what are we all but the instant manifestation of the Di-
vine energy ? The church, which should represent this
idea, is poor. What I hear there I never meet else-
where. It speaks in a dialect. It refers to a narrow
circle of experiences and of persons. IX. " Educa-
tion." What is called education fails because of its
low aim. It would make amends for the Fall of Man
by teaching him feats and games. It aims not to re-
trieve, but to conceal. Yet to be taught is the main
design hung out in the sky and earth. He that has no
ambition to be taught, let him creep into his grave : the
play is not worth the candle. The sun grudges his
light, the air his breath, to him who stands with his
hands folded in the great school of God. A man is not
a man who does not yet draw on the universal and eter-
nal soul. (x. 133, 135-137, 141, 142, 149, 151-155 ; iii.
254, 255 ; ii. 50, 129, 131.) X. " Tendencies." Society
is divided between two opinions : the assiduous endeavor
to govern, to manage, to repair, to supply buckles and
supports by which the world may be made to last our
day, and the resistance of the young, who throw away
first one, then another habitude, until the world fears
the loss of all regulated energy in the dreams of ide-
alism. All progress tends to a quiet yet sublime re-
APPENDIX F. 747
ligion, the hem of whose vesture we dare not touch,
whilst from afar we predict its coming ; whose temple
shall be the household hearth, and under whose light
each man shall do that work in which his genius de-
lights,— shall have property in entire nature through
renouncement of all selfish and sensual aim. (ii. 40,
52, 55-59, 128, 135, 258 ; x. 88.)
1840.
Jan. 15. " Address to the People of East Lexington
on the Dedication of their Church." The building of a
church may be as profane a business as the building of
a hotel. It may proceed from a love of liturgies, the
pleasure of partaking in a quiet social ceremony, a
tasteful and intellectual entertainment; but there yet
remains a whole paradise beyond, unattained, — the en-
thusiasm, the great ardor that catches men up from time
to time for a moment into its height. They may well
build churches to refresh their own memory and affec-
tion, to certify to their sons that such a thing can be.
Know, then, that your church is not builded when the
last clapboard is laid, but then first when the conscious-
ness of union with the Supreme Soul dawns on the lowly
heart of the worshipper.
1841.
Jan. 25. " Man the Reformer," before the Mercan-
tile Library Association, (i. 215.)
Aug. 11. "The Method of Nature." Address at
Waterville College, Me. (i. 181.)
Dec. 2. Eight lectures on " The Times," at Masonic
748 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Temple, in Boston. The MSS. mostly wanting. Largely-
printed in the Dial and in Collected Writings. I. " In-
troduction." (i. 245.) II. " The Conservative." (i. 277.)
III. " The Poet." (Seems not to have heen the " Poet "
of second " Essays," hut mostly " Poetry and Imag-
ination." viii. 7.) IV. « The Transcendentalism" (i.
309.) V. " Manners." (iii. 117.) VI. " Character."
(In part, iii. 87.) VII. " Relation to Nature." VIII.
" Prospects."
1843.
February. Five lectures on " New England," in the
city of New York, beginning Feb. 7. (Reported in New
York Weekly Tribune, Feb. 11.) L "Genius of the
Anglo-Saxon Race." II. "Trade." III. " Manners and
Customs of New England." IV. " Recent Literature
and Spiritual Influences." V. " Results." (The MSS.
only partially preserved.) The English race from the
oldest accounts were marked by a love of liberty, yield-
ing to settled authority more than direct command, and
by a respect for women. When the Puritans came to
America, the distinguishing traits were, conscience and
common sense ; or, in view of their objects, religion
and trade. (1.) The depth of the religious sentiment
as it may still be remembered was itself an education :
it raised every trivial incident to a colossal dignity.
Another result was the culture of the intellect. The
universality of elementary education in New England
is her praise and her power in the world. To the
school succeeds the lyceum, a college for the young
farmers throughout the country towns. New England
furnishes preachers and school - masters for the whole
APPENDIX F. 749
country, and, besides these, book-peddlers, who thus at
small cost see the world and supply the defects of their
training. (2.) The other element conspicuous in the
Anglo-Saxon mind is the determination of blood to the
hand. The favorite employment is trade, and agricul-
ture as the basis of trade. Farming in New England
a cold, surly business. Hard work ill-rewarded makes
the farmer a narrow and selfish drudge. The best part
of the class drained off to the city. Behold the result in
the cities that line the Atlantic coast, and the intellectual
circulation they nourish. Trade flagellates that melan-
choly temperament into health and contentment. The
good merchant is a very considerable person. He puts
more than labor, he puts character and ambition into his
business. This runs to excess and overpowers sentiment.
That repose which is the ornament and ripeness of man
is not in America. In our culture we are too easily
pleased. A hint like phrenology is exalted into a science,
to outwit the laws of nature and pierce to the courts of
power and light by this dull trick. In the scholars an
impatience to rush into the lists without enduring the
training. Our books are turning into newspapers ; our
reformers are wearisome talkers ; we put all on the first
die we cast. Our genius is tame : our poems are chaste,
faultless, but uncharacterized. So of art and eloquence.
We are receptive, not creative. We go to school to
Europe. The influence of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and
Carlyle found readier reception here than at home. It
is remarkable that we have our intellectual culture from
one country and our duties from another. A wide gulf
yawns for the young American between his education
750 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and his work. We are sent to a feudal school to learn
democracy". But there is an ethical element in the
mind of our people that will never let them long rest
without finding exercise for the deeper thoughts. It
very soon found both Wordsworth and Carlyle insuffi-
cient. The criticism which began to be felt upon our
church generally was that it was poor, that it did not
represent the deepest idea in man. Meantime, this un-
belief proceeds out of a deeper belief. We are in transi-
tion from that Jewish idea before which the ages were
driven like sifted snows, which all the literatures of
Europe have tingled with, to a more human and univer-
sal thought.
1843.
July 4. " Address to the Temperance Society at Har-
vard, Mass." A fitting celebration of the national anni-
versary. The drum is good only for boys and holidays ;
the militia is very innocent, and getting a little ridicu-
lous. War is over, but the elements of war remain ;
the antagonism has shifted to higher ground. A man's
foes are of his own household, within his own skin, a
war between the body and the soul. The topic not to
be disconnected from the whole subject of that beautiful
self-command by which alone a man's fife is worth keep-
ing and transmitting. Whatever we may think of par-
ticular rules we must rejoice in the general design that
every man be master of his organs. Cannot this blood,
which in all men rolls with such a burden of disease,
roll pure ? To be temperate is to be men ; and for
what shall we sell that birthright ? It seems to me
that the conscience in the coming age is to extend its
APPENDIX F. 751
jurisdiction over the intellectual as over the moral sensi-
bility, that men shall feel the crime of being stupid as
they now feel the crime of being fraudulent. Yet it is
not in bands nor by pledges to each other that the vic-
tory will be achieved, but in the isolated will and devo-
tion of each ; in the resolution to give himself no holi-
days, no indulgences, no hesitations in his clear election
of the right and rejection of the wrong.
1844.
Feb. 7. " The Young American : " a lecture read
before the Mercantile Library Association, at Amory
Hall, in Boston, (i. 341.)
March 10. " Address at Second Church."
Aug. 1. " Address on Emancipation in the British
West Indies." (xi. 129.)
Notes for speech on the expulsion of Mr. Samuel
Hoar. (I know not if delivered, nor the precise date of
writing.) Inevitable effect of the education of any peo-
ple to disunite and detach the individuals from that
mere animal association which is strongest in the most
barbarous societies. There is but one man in South
Carolina as far as I can see ; the rest are repeaters of
his mind : here there are so many that it is impossible to
combine them by any calculation. I hope when the
transgressor comes here, clothed with the earnings of the
slave, he shall find a new accuser and judge in every
man, and will feel that he is not helped by dealing with
the last man to deal with him who comes next. I am
far from wishing that we should retaliate. We cannot.
We cannot bring down the New England culture and
752 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
intellect to the South Carolina standard. Let the Caro-
linian who comes hither receive the grave rebuke of
your sanity, your freedom. Let him see that Massa-
chusetts is not a bloody prison, but open as the air, with
no guards, no secrets, no fears. We can do nothing,
only let us not do wrong. Let us call things by right
names. Let us not pretend a union where there is
none. Let us not treat with false politeness men who
have avowed themselves man-stealers. Let us now put
all persons on their guard. Then if a nation exclude
every gentleman, every free man from its territory,
whose loss is it ? Who is the worse ?
1845.
July 22. " Discourse at Middlebury College," Vt.
(Mostly in x. 249, and iv. 249.)
Aug. 1. Remarks at a meeting in Waltham on the
anniversary of the W. I. Emancipation. (Reported in
New York Tribune, Aug. 7.)
Sept. 22. " Politics." (Apparently remarks at a
meeting in Concord, concerning the annexation of
Texas.)
Dec. 11. Seven lectures on "Representative Men."
Before the Boston Lyceum, at the Odeon. (iv.)
1847.
Feb. 10. "Eloquence." Before the Mercantile Li-
brary Association, Tremont Temple, Boston. Reported
in Boston Journal, Feb. 12. (vii. 61.)
APPENDIX F. 753
May 8. Discourse at Nantucket. (See Memoir, p.
498.)
November. " Books or a Course of Reading; " " Su-
perlative." At Manchester, England.
1848.
Feb. — . " Natural Aristocracy." At Edinburgh (x.
33.)
June 7. " Mind and Manners of the XIX. Century."
(So reported in Douglas Jerrold's newspaper. The title
on the covers of the first three lectures is " The Natural
History of the Intellect.") At the Portman Square
Literary and Scientific Institution, London. I. " Powers
and Laws of Thought." II. " Relation of Intellect to
Natural Science." III. " Tendencies and Duties of
Men of Thought." (These three were new : their gen-
eral import has been given in the Memoir ; they were
repeated in the course in 1849 and 1850 in Boston and
New York, and were substantially the same with some
of the lectures on the " Natural Method of Mental Phi-
losophy," in 1858, and " Philosophy for the People," in
1866.) rV. " Politics and Socialism " (apparently
the fourth lecture of the course on the " Present Age,"
1839-40). V. "Poetry and Eloquence" (a Boston
lecture of 1847). VI. "Natural Aristocracy" (the Edin-
burgh lecture).
June — . (At Exeter Hall.) " Napoleon," " Shaks-
peare," " Domestic Life." (Tbe first two form " Rep-
resentative Men," 1845; the third perhaps "Home,"
1838.)
Dec. 27. " England." (Before the Mercantile Library
754 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Association at the Tremont Temple, Boston. Mostly in
" English Traits.")
1851.
Marcli 21. Six lectures on the " Conduct of Life,"
at Pittsburgh, Pa. (Repeated in Boston and elsewhere,
and printed in vol. vi. of Collected Writings.)
May 3. " Address to the Citizens of Concord," Sun-
day evening. (On the Fugitive Slave Law.)
1852.
May 11. Address to Kossuth, (xi. 357.)
1853.
Jan. 10. " Anglo-Saxon," at Springfield, HI. (Sub-
stantially in " English Traits.")
Feb. 27 ? " Anglo - American," at Philadelphia.
" American " (in Europe) means speedy, everything
new and slight. An irresistibility like Nature's, and,
like Nature, without conscience. The American's motto
is, " The country, right or wrong." He builds shingle
palaces, shingle cities, picnic universities, extemporizes
a state. An admirable fruit, but you shall not find one
good, sound, well-developed apple on the tree. Na-
ture was in a hurry with the race, and never finished
one. His leather is not tanned ; his white-lead, whiting ;
his sulphuric acid, half strength ; his stone, well-sanded
pumpkin pine. The engine is built in the boat, — which
does not commend it to the Englishman. The knees, in-
stead of grand old oak, are sawed out of refuse sapling.
At the Mississippi your Western romance fades into a
reality of some grimness. The men " follow the river ; "
APPENDIX F. 755
the people as well as the country are the work of the
river, and are tinged with its mud. The American is a
wilderness of capabilities, of a many-turning Ulyssean
culture. More chambers opened in his mind than in the
Englishman's. It is the country of opportunity, invit-
ing out all faculties. Every one tasked beyond his
strength, and grows early old. Careless in his voting,
because he never feels seriously threatened. Yet it is to
be remembered that the flowering time is the end : we
ought to be thankful that no hero or poet hastens to be
born. (Much in " Fortune of the Republic," xi. 393.)
1854.
Jan. 3. A course of six lectures in Philadelphia, of
which the following were new : —
I. " Norseman, and English Influence in Modern
Civilization." In all that is done or begun towards
right thinking and practice, we Americans are met by a
civilization already settled and overpowering, the influ-
ence of England. The culture of the day, the thoughts
of men, their aims, are English thoughts and aims. The
practical common sense of modern society is the natural
genius of the British mind. The American is only its
continuation into new conditions. (The MSS. frag-
mentary; probably in great part in " English Traits.")
III. " Poetry and English Poetry." (Substantially in
" Poetry and Imagination," viii. 7.) V. " France, or
Urbanity." France is aggressively cosmopolitan ; has
built Paris for the world ; the traveller eats lotus and
forgets his home. From every corner of the earth, men
who have made their fortunes come to spend their old
756 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
age in Paris. The endless facilities, the boundless good-
humor and politeness of the people, full of entertain-
ment, lively as lizards, make it easy to live with them.
It was said of Balzac that he did not need the freedom
of cities to be given to him, but was cheered and wel-
comed by bands of admirers wherever he presented him-
self. In their proverb, Le bon Dieu est Franqais, —
God belongs to their tribe. In what I have to say of
France I shall not begin by canting. I am born, I sup-
pose, to my full share of Saxon nationality, and I confess
I have observed that all people of Teutonic stock be-
lieve there are certain limits to the Frenchman, not so
quickly found in the neighboring race. They have good
heads, system, clearness, and correct taste. Heine said
the test of any philosophy was to translate it into French.
They are excellent in exact science. Everything is
geometrical. The French muse is Arithmetic. In lit-
erature, lucid and agreeable. If life were long enough,
we could spend agreeable years in libraries of French
Memoires. But they have few examples of a profounder
class, no single example of imagination, and never a
poet ; no jet of fire. The office of France is to popu-
larize ideas. Their purpose is to be amused, and they
turn everything to amusement : " wise in pleasures, fool-
ish in affairs." Everything bubbles up at the surface of
that enormous whirlpool, and gives place as fast to a
newer spectacle. They attitudinize ; they dramatize
their own deaths. They write and they act, for effect.
They have no homes, but live in public. I suppose
there was never anything more excellent in its way than
the play of talent, wit, science, and epicureanism in the
APPENDIX F. 757
French salons at the best period. A nation of talkers.
Late and early it will be found that they have reasoned
best and best discussed what other nations have best
done. Then I think that the sense which they give to the
word amour is the serious bar to their civilization. The
French ideas are subversive of what Saxon men under-
stand by society. Yet perhaps these things which dis-
parage the French are the salient points which must
strike the spectator, but not really the essential traits.
Here was born Fenelon the saint ; Montesquieu, who
" found the lost titles of the human race ; " Pascal ;
Mme. Guion ; Mme. de Stael. And, to all good readers
in French books, there is conclusive proof of modera-
tion, culture, practical judgment, love of the best, or
wisdom.
March 7. " The Seventh of March." Lecture read
in the Tabernacle, New York city. (xi. 203.)
Aug. 15. "Address to the Adelphi Union of Wil-
liamstown College." The scholars an organic caste or
class in the State. Men toil and sweat, earn money,
save, consent to servile compliance, all to raise them-
selves out of the necessity of being menial and over-
borne. For this they educate their children, to expi-
ate their own shortcomings. Art, libraries, colleges,
churches, attest the respect to what is ulterior, — to the-
ism, to thought, which superexist by the same elemen-
tal necessity as flame above fire. Our Anglo-Saxon so-
ciety is a great industrial corporation. It sees very well
the rules indispensable to success. You must make
trade eveiything. Trade is not to know friends, or wife,
or child, or country. But this walking ledger knows
758 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
that though he, poor fellow, has put off his royal robes,
somewhere the noble humanity survives, and this con-
soles him for the brevity and meanness of his street-life.
He has not been able to bide from himself that this de-
votion to means is an absurdity ; is, for a livelihood, to
defeat the ends of living. And it is out of the wish to
preserve sanity, to establish the minor propositions with-
out tin-owing overboard the major proposition, how not
to lose the troop in the care for the baggage, that he has
said, Let there be schools, a clergy, art, music, poetry,
the college. But if the youth, looking over the college-
wall at the houses and the lives of the founders, make
the mistake of imitating them, they may well say, " We
paid you that you might not be a merchant. We bought
and sold that you might not buy and sell, but reveal the
reason of trade. We did not want apes of us, but guides
and commanders." This atheism of the priest, this prose
in the poet, this cowardice and succumbing before ma-
terial greatness, is a treason one knows not how to ex-
cuse. Let the scholar stand by his order. I wish the
college not to make you rich or great, but to show you
that the material pomps and possessions, that all the
feats of our civility, were the thoughts of good heads.
The shopkeeper's yardstick is measured from a degree
of the meridian. All powers by which a man lays his
hand on those advantages are intellectual ; it is thoughts
that make men great and strong ; the material results are
bubbles, filled only and colored by this divine air. But
this great ocean which in itself is always equal and full,
in regard to men, ebbs and flows. Now, for us, it is in
ebb. It is the vulgarity of this country — it came to us,
APPENDIX F. 759
with commerce, out of England — to believe that naked
wealth, unrelieved by any use or design, is merit. Who
is accountable for this materialism ? Who but the schol-
ars ? When the poets do not believe in their own po-
etry, how should the bats and the swine ? The world is
always as bad as it dares to be, and if the majority are
evil it is because the minority are not good. If the
heathen rage, it is because the Christians doubt. People
wish to be amused, and they summon a lecturer or a
poet to read to them for an hour ; and so they do with
a priest. They want leaders : intellect is the thread on
which all their worldly prosperity is strung. Yet I
speak badly for the scholar if I seem to limit myself to
secular and outward benefit. All that is urged by the
saint for the superiority of faith over works is as truly
urged for the highest state of intellectual perception over
any performance. I too am an American and value
practical ability. I delight in people who can do things,
I prize talent, — perhaps no man more. But I think of
the wind, and not of the weathercocks.
1855.
Jan. 25. Lecture on Slavery, in the course, by vari-
ous persons, at the Tremont Temple, Boston. (Reported
in Boston Traveller, Jan. 26.)
March. " Beauty and Manners," at Concord (Mass.)
Lyceum. Life should not be prosaic. Life tends ever
to be picturesque, and the reason why life is prosaic is
that it is false, and violates the laws of the mind. The
life of man is environed by beauty. Strange that the
door to it should be through the prudent, the punctual,
760 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the frugal, the careful ; and that the adorers of beauty,
musicians, painters, Byrons, Shelleys, Keatses, should
turn themselves out of doors, out of sympathies, and out
of themselves !
Sept. 20. " Address at the Woman's Rights Conven-
tion," Boston, (xi. 335.)
Sept. 29. " Address to the Inhabitants of Concord at
the Consecration of Sleepy Hollow." We see the futil-
ity of the old arts of preserving the body ; we see the
defects of the old theology ; we learn that the race never
dies, the individual is never spared. We give our earth
to earth. We will not jealously guard a few atoms,
selfishly and impossibly sequestering them from the vast
circulations of nature ; but at the same time we fully
admit the divine hope and love winch belong to our na-
ture, and wish to make one spot tender to our children
who shall come hither in the next century to read the
dates of these lives. Our people, accepting the lesson of
science, yet touched by the tenderness which Christianity
breathes, have found a mean hi the consecration of gar-
dens, of pleasant woods and waters, in the midst of which
to lay the corpse. Shadows haunt these groves. All
that ever lived about them clings to them. You can al-
most see the Indian with bow and arrow lurking yet,
exploring the traces of the old trail. Our use will not
displace the old tenants. To this modest spot of God's
earth shall repair every sweet and friendly influence ;
the beautiful night and the beautiful day will come in
turn to sit upon the grass. The well-beloved birds will
not sing one song the less ; they will find out the hospi-
tality of this asylum. Sleepy Hollow, — in this quiet
APPENDIX F. 761
valley, as in the palm of Nature's hand, we shall sleep
well, when we have finished our day. And when these
acorns that are falling at our feet are oaks overshadow-
ing our children in a remote century, this mute green
bank will be full of history : the good, the wise, and
great will have left their names and virtues on the trees,
will have made the air tunable and articulate. I have
heard that death takes us away from ill things, not from
good. The being that can share thoughts and feelings
so sublime is no mushroom. Our dissatisfaction with
any other solution is the blazing evidence of immortality.
(Used in the essay on " Immortality," viii. 305.)
1856.
May 26. "The Assault upon Mr. Sumner." (xi.
231.)
Sept. 10. Speech at the Kansas Relief Meeting in
Cambridge, (xi. 239.)
1857.
Jan. — . " "Works and Days," at Cincinnati, (vii.
149.)
April — . " Memory," at Concord Lyceum.
July 4. " Ode," in the Town Hall, Concord, (ix.
173.)
December. "Country Life," at Concord Lyceum.
When I go into a good garden, I think, if it were mine,
I should never go out of it. It requires some geometry
in the head to lay it out rightly, and there are many
who can enjoy, to one that can create it. But the place
where a thoughtful man in the country feels the joy of
eminent domain is his wood-lot. If he suffer from
762 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
accident or low spirits, his spirits rise when he enters it.
I could not find it in my heart to chide the citizen who
should ruin himself to buy a patch of heavy oak-timber.
I approve the taste which makes the avenue to the
house — were the house never so small — through a
wood ; as it disposes the mind of the inhabitant and of
his guest to the deference due to each. I admire in
trees the creation of property so clean of tears, of
crime, even of care. They grow at nobody's cost and
for everybody's comfort. When Nero advertised for a
new luxury, a walk in the woods should have been
offered. 'T is the consolation of mortal men. I think
no pursuit has more breath of immortality in it. 'T is
one of the secrets for dodging old age ; for Nature
makes a like impression on age as on youth. It is the
best of humanity, I think, that goes out to walk. In
happy hours all affairs may be wisely postponed for this.
Dr. Johnson said, " Few men know how to take a
walk," and it is pretty certain that Dr. Johnson was not
one of those few. 'T is a fine art ; there are degrees of
proficiency, and we distinguish the professors from the
apprentices. The qualifications are endurance, plain
clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good-humor, vast
curiosity, good speech, good silence, and nothing too
much. Good observers have the manners of trees and
animals, and if they add words, 't is only when words
are better than silence. But a vain talker profanes the
river and the forest, and is nothing like so good com-
pany as a dog. We have the finest climate in the world
for this purpose. If we have coarse days and dogdays
and white days, we have also yellow days and crystal
APPENDIX F. 763
days, — days neither hot nor cold, but the perfection of
temperature. The world has nothing to offer more rich
than the days that October always brings us, when, after
the first frosts, a steady shower of gold falls in the
strong south wind from the maples and hickories. All the
trees are wind-harps, filling the air with music, and all
men are poets. And in summer we have scores of days
when the heat is so rich, yet so tempered, that it is de-
licious to live. For walking you must have a broken
country, neither flat like the prairie nor precipitous like
New Hampshire. The more reason we have to be con-
tent with the felicity of our slopes in Massachusetts,
rocky, broken, and surprising, but without this Alpine
inconveniency.
1858.
March 3. Six lectures on the " Natural Method of
Mental Philosophy," at Freeman Place Chapel, Boston.
I. " Country Life." (Abstract included in that of the
Concord lecture, 1857.) II. "Works and Days."
(Probably the Cincinnati lecture, January, 1857.) III.
" Powers of the Mind." Metaphysics owes little to
metaphysicians, but much to the incidental remarks of
deep men everywhere : Montaigne, Pascal, Montesquieu,
even Moliere ; not D'Alembert, Condillac, or Jouffroy.
Taking to pieces is the trade of those who cannot con-
struct. For it is incidental experiences that belong to
us ; not serial or systematic. We are confined in this
vertebrate body, convenient but ridiculously provincial.
There is affectation in assuming to give our chart or
orrery of the universe ; Nature flouts those who do so,
764 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
trips up their heels, and throws them on their hack.
But so long as each sticks to his private experience, each
may be interesting and irrefutable. Every man knows all
that Plato or Kant can teach him. He was already
that which they say, and more profoundly than they
can say it. We are conscious of an Intellect that arches
over us like a sky, and externizes itself in our percep-
tions. IV. " Natural Method of Mental Philosophy."
The game of intellect is the perception that whatever
befalls us is a universal proposition ; and contrariwise,
that every general statement is poetical again by being
particularized or impersonated. The mental faculties
are the transcendency of the physical, and thereby we
acquire a key to the sublimities which skulk and hide in
the caverns of human consciousness. Being fashioned
out of one and the same lump, all things have the same
taste and quality. It makes little difference what I
learn, I have the key to all existences. The laws of
each department of nature are duly found repeated
on a higher plane in the mind, — gravity, polarity, the
phenomena of chemistry, of vegetable and animal life.
The progress of science is the carrying out in the mind
of the perpetual metamorphosis in nature. Transition,
becoming somewhat else, is the whole game of nature,
and death is the penalty of standing still. 'T is not less
so in thought. Inspiration to carry on and complete
the metamorphosis which, in the imperfect kinds, is
arrested for ages. Every generalization shows the way
to a larger. The number of saltations the nimble
thought can make measures the difference between the
highest and lowest of mankind. The commonest re-
APPENDIX F. 765
mark, if the man could extend it a little, would make
him a genius. V. " Memory." The cement, the ma-
trix in which the other faculties lie embedded ; the
thread that holds experience together. The difference
in men is in the swiftness with which memory flies after
and re-collects the flying leaves ; or in power to grasp
so firmly at first that the fact does not escape. Memory
is as the affection : we remember the things which we
love and those which we hate. It depends on the car-
dinal fact of identity, and on a right adjustment to the
poles of nature. The reason of short memory is shal-
low thought. A deeper thought would hold in solution
more facts. We lose something for everything we gain.
Yet defect of memory is not always want of genius,
but sometimes excellence of genius ; presence of mind,
that does not need to rely on its stores. Newton could
remember the reasons involved in his discoveries, but
not the discoveries. VI. " Self -Possession." An in-
dividual soul is a momentary eddy, in which certain sci-
ences and powers are taken up and work and minister in
petty circles. Excellence is an inflamed personality.
Every man is right, or, to make him right, only needs a
larger dose. He is excellent in his own way by virtue
of not apprehending the gift of another. Men row
with one hand and back water with the other ; not giv-
ing to any manner of life the strength of their constitu-
tion. In excess, if not subordinated to the supreme
reason, it makes monotones, men of one idea, who must
be humored. The opposite temperament is the disper-
sive, people who are impatient of continued attention,
and must relieve themselves by new objects ; heaps of
766 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
beginnings, always beginners. The first rule is to obey
your genius ; the second, choose what is positive, what
is advancing, affirmative. But the affirmative of affirma-
tives is love. Good-will makes insight. All that we
aim at is reception ; self-possession and self-surrender.
Yet so inextricably is the thread of free-will interwoven
into this necessity that the will to receive avails much.
Will is always miraculous ; when it appears, metaphysics
is at fault, it being the presence of God to men. We
are embosomed in the spiritual world, yet none ever saw
angel or spirit. Whence does all our knowledge come ?
Where is the source of power? The soul of God is
poured into the world through the thoughts of men.
Thought resists the brute whirl of fate by higher laws,
and gives to nature a master.
Sept. 29. " The Man with the Hoe," at the exhibition
of the Middlesex Agricultural Society. ("Farming,"
vii. 131.)
Dec. 14. " Success," at Hartford, Conn. (vii. 265.)
1859.
Jan. 25. Speech at the celebration of the Burns
Centenary, (xi. 363.)
March 23. Six lectures at the Freeman Place Chapel,
Boston. I. " The Law of Success." (Probably a
repetition of lecture at Hartford, Dec. 14, 1858.) II.
"Originality." (viii. 167.) III. "Clubs." (vii. 211.)
IV. " Art and Criticism." The advance of the Third
Estate, the transformation of laborer into reader and
writer, has compelled the learned to import the petu-
lance of the street into correct discourse. The language
APPENDIX F. 767
of the street is always strong. I envy the hoys the
force of the double negative, and I confess to some titil-
lation of my ears from a rattling oath. What traveller
has not listened to the vigor of the French postilion's
sacre, the sia ammazato of the Italian, the deep stomach
of the English drayman's execration ? Montaigne must
have the credit of giving to literature that which we
listen for in bar-rooms ; words and phrases that no
scholar coined, that have neatness and necessity through,
use in the vocabulary of work and appetite. Herrick is
a remarkable example of the low style. Like Montaigne,
he took his level, where he did not write up to his sub-
ject, but wrote down, with the easiness of strength, and
from whence he can soar to a fine lyric delicacy. Luther
said, " I preach coarsely ; that giveth content to all."
Shakspeare might be studied for his dexterity in the use
of these weapons. His fun is as wise as his earnest ;
its foundations are below the frost. Dante is the master
that shall teach both the noble low style, the power of
working up all his experience into heaven and hell, and
also the sculpture of compression, the science of omit-
ting, which exalts every syllable he writes. A good
writer must convey the feeling of a flamboyant richness,
and at the same time of chemic selection ; in his densest
period no cramp, but room to turn a chariot and horses
between his valid words. I sometimes wish that the
Board of Education might carry out the project of a
college for graduates, to which editors and members of
Congress and writers of books might repair and learn
to sink what we could best spare of our words, and
to gazette those Americanisms which offend us in all
768 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
journals : the use of balance for remainder ; some as an
adverb ; graphic, considerable, and the like, and the
showy words that catch young writers. The best ser-
vice Carlyle has rendered is to rhetoric. In his books
the vicious conventions are dropped ; he has gone nigher
to the wind than any other craft. As soon as you read
aloud you will find what sentences drag. Blot them
out and read again, and you will find what words
drag. If you use a word for a fraction of its mean-
ing, it must drag. 'T is like a pebble inserted in a
mosaic. Blot out the superlatives, the negatives, the
dismals, the adjectives, and very. And, finally, see that
you have not omitted the word which the piece was writ-
ten to state. Have a good style, of course, but occupy
the reader's attention incessantly with new matter, so
that he shall not have an instant's leisure to think of the
style. Classic and romantic. Classic art is the art of
necessity ; organic. The romantic bears the stamp of
caprice. When I read Plutarch or look at a Greek vase,
I incline to the common opinion of scholars that the
Greeks had clearer wits than any other people. But
there is anything but time in my idea of the antique.
A clear and natural expression is what we mean when
we love and praise the antique. Dumas or Eugene
Sue, when he begins a story, does not know how it
is to end. But Scott, in " Bride of Lammermoor,"
knew, and Shakspeare in " Macbeth " had no choice.
V. " Manners." Not to be directly cultivated, but
recognized as the dial-hand that divulges our real rank.
We must look at the mark, not at the arrow. Common
sense is so far true that it demands in manners what
APPENDIX F. 769
belongs to a high state of nature. Manners are named
well the minor morals, and they call out the energy of
love and dislike which the major morals do. (Largely in
" Behavior," vi. 171.) VI. "Morals." ("Character"
and " Sovereignty of Ethics," x. 91 and 175.)
May 22. " The Superlative or Mental Temperance,"
at Music Hall, Boston, (x. 157.)
Oct. 2. " Beauty in Art," at Music Hall.
Nov. 8. " Courage." (vii. 237.)
Nov. 13. " Domestic Life," at Music Hall. (vii. 99.)
Nov. 18. Remarks at a meeting for the relief of the
family of John Brown, at Tremont Temple, Boston,
(xi. 249.)
Dec. 25. " Conversation," Music Hall, Boston.
1860.
Jan. 6. " John Brown." Speech at Salem, (xi. 257.)
March — . "Poetry and Criticism, at Montreal."
Modern criticism is coming to look on literature and
arts as history; that is, as growths. Those who were
in the fray could not guess the result ; those who come
after see it as an incident in the history of the race.
The Christian religion looked to us as a finality, as uni-
versal truth, and we looked down on the rest of mankind
as heathens. Now, spiritism shows us that we were scep-
tics, who can believe only by a grip or a whisper. The
amount of revelation from these new doctrines has not
been large, but as criticism they have been useful.
March 18. " Moral Sense," at the Music Hall, Bos-
ton. Everything in nature is so, nicely graduated and
linked together that the eye is led round the circle with
770 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
out finding a beginning or end, or ever coming to the
chasm where the Cause acted. The understanding
would run forever in the round of second causes, did
not somewhat higher startle us now and then with im-
patient questions : Why do we exist ? and what are we ?
There is somewhat droll in seeing such a creature as is
a man going in and out for seventy years amid the
shows of nature and humanity, making up his mouth
every day to express surprise at every impertinent trifle,
and never suspecting all the time that it is even singular
that he should exist. I take it to be a main end of edu-
cation to touch the springs of wonder in us. Look at
the house of nature, in which man is so magnificently
bestowed ! But the inventory of his wealth reminds us
of the unworthiness of the owner. These splendors and
pomps and the control of all that exists, all this he has
inherited. But does he dwell in this palace of power?
No, he skulks like a gypsy or a robber in the gates and
archways of his house. What a country muster, what
a Vanity Fair, is the fife of man ; full of noise and
squibs and whiskey ! Yet see where the final emphasis,
the consent of mankind, lies. Go into the theatre and
see what the audience applauds when it loves itself for
applauding. Go into the mass meeting and see the re-
ception which a noble sentiment awakens. Don't be
deceived by the mean and devilish complaisances. We
are the dwarfs of ourselves, but the good spirit is never
totally withdrawn from us, cheaply as we hold our-
selves.
June 17. " Theodore Parker." Address at the Me-
morial Meeting at the Music Hall, Boston, (xi. 265.)
APPENDIX F. 771
Nov. 3. "Reform," before Mr. Parker's congrega-
tion at the Music Hall, Boston. It is not an old im-
pulse by which we move, like a stone thrown into the
air, but an incessant impulse, like that of gravitation.
We are not potted and buried in our bodies, but every
body newly created from day to day and every moment.
Reformers are our benefactors and practical poets, hin-
dering us of absurdity and self-stultification. Yet the
emphasis that is laid on the popular reforms shows how
drowsy and atheistic men are. It is of small impor-
tance your activity in them, more or less. What is im-
perative is that you be on the right side ; on the side of
man and the Divine justice. The forward class, the in-
novators, interest us because they stand for thoughts.
The part of man is to advance, to stand always for the
Better, and not for his grandmother's spoons and his
shop-till. The rowdy eyes that glare on you from the
mob say plainly that they feel that you are doing them
to death ; your six per cent, is as deadly a weapon as
gun or tomahawk: there is a wrong somewhere, though
they know not where.
Nov. 20. " Classes of Men," at Music Hall, on Sun-
day. Man is a classifier. Love of method appears in
the child ; every man has his theory, his objects of in-
terest which appear to him the only interesting, and his
classification classifies him. Some people are born
public souls, with all their doors open ; others are so
much annoyed by publicity that they had rather go to
prison. The contrary temperament, stung to contradict
and assault and batter ; stiff-necked, with the nose of
the rhinoceros, as if remainders of the snapping-turtle
772 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
that bites fiercely before yet tbe eyes are open. National
men, who carry the idea or genius of their races, and
so naturally lead them. Men of the world, properly
so called. Archimedes, Columbus, Copernicus, Hum-
boldt, astronomic or mundane brains, adapted to the
world which they study. The two abiding and su-
preme classes, the executive and the intellectual men :
the head which is good for combining means to ends ;
and the demonstrative, who can illuminate the thing to
the eyes of the million. The class who begin by expect-
ing everything, and the other class, who expect nothing,
and thankfully receive every good fortune as pure gain.
The only men of any account in nature are the three
or five whom we have beheld who have a will. The
strength of a man is to be born with a strong polarity,
which, in excess, makes the monotones. But to have no
polarity, no serious interest, inspires the deepest pity.
I do not see any benefit derived to the universe from
this negative class.
1861.
Jan. 6. " Cause and Effect," at Music Hall, before
Theodore Parker's congregation. I think the South
quite right in the danger they ascribe to free speaking.
And if a gag-law could reach to whispers and winks and
discontented looks, why you might plant a very pretty des-
potism, and convert your boisterous cities into deaf-and-
dumb asylums. But no machine has yet been devised
to shut out gravitation, or space, or time, or thought.
War universal in nature, from the highest to the lowest
race. What does it signify? It covers a great and
beneficent principle, — self-help, struggle to be, to resist
APPENDIX F. 773
oppression, to attain the security of a permanent self-
defended being. War is a beastly game, but, when our
duty calls us, it is no impediment. Life a perpetual in-
structor in cause and effect. Every good man does in
all his nature point at the existence and well-being of
the state. Throughout his being he is loyal. See how
fast Trade changes its politics. Yesterday it was all for
concession : it said, Oh yes, slavery, if you like it ; so
long as you will buy goods of me, and pay your debts,
slavery shall be good and beneficent. Yes, but Reality
does not say the same thing ; Reality finds it a pestilent
mischief ; and at last Trade says, It must stop ; we
shall never have sound business until we settle it finally.
In short, to-day Trade goes for free speech, and is an
abolitionist. (Much in x. 207.)
Jan. 24. Attempted speech at the annual meeting of
the Mass. Anti-Slavery Society, Tremont Temple, Bos-
ton. (See report in Liberator, Feb. 1.)
Feb. 3. " Natural Religion : " Sunday discourse to
Mr. Parker's congregation at the Music Hall. There
is nothing arbitrary in creeds ; the most barbarous we
can translate into our own. They all taught the same
lesson : realism, to judge not after appearances, and self-
command, the gaining of power by serving that life for
which each was created. All indicate the presence of
sensible and worthy men who had a law and were a law
to themselves. "We should not contradict or censure
these well-meant, best-meant approximations, but point
out the identity of their summits. The distinctions of
sects are fast fading away. The old flags still wave on
our towers, but 't is a little ostentatiously, with a pride in
774 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
being the last to leave them. We measure religions by
their civilizing power. That which is contrary to equity
is doomed. We are not afraid that justice will not be
done, but that we shall not live to see it. So with the
institution of slavery ; it must come to an end, for all
things oppose it. We should be so pre-occupied with this
perpetual revelation from within that we cannot listen
to any creed, but only nod assent when they utter some-
what that agrees with our own.
April 9. Six lectures on " Life and Literature," at
the Meionaon, Boston. I. " Genius and Temperament."
Satisfaction at meeting again his accustomed audience,
who do not demand a formal method, but detect fast
enough what is important, without need to have it set in
perspective. Our topic is not excluded by the critical
times which shake and threaten our character-destroying
civilization. Genius is a consoler of our mortal condi-
tion, because not the skill of a man, but more than man,
worketh. Genius is the inside of things. Science keeps
us on the surface : talent is a knack to be applied ac-
cording to the demand ; but genius is sensibility to the
laws of the universe. II. " Art." The activity of nations
is periodic, ebbs and flows. Man is happy and creative ;
then he loses his temper, his arts disappear in the one
art of war. The cumulative onward movement of civil-
ization, the potency of experience, disappears, and the
uncouth, forked, nasty savage stands on the charred des-
ert, to begin anew his first fight with wolf and snake,
and build his dismal shanty on the sand. Perhaps our
America offers that calamitous spectacle to the universe
at this moment. The first aspect of the crisis is like
APPENDIX F. 775
that of the fool's paradise which Paris wore in 1789 ;
the insane vanity of little men, who, finding themselves
of no consequence, can make themselves of consequence
by mischief. But the facility with which a great politi-
cal fabric can be broken is instructive, and perhaps in-
dicates that these frivolous persons are wiser than they
know, and that the hour is struck, so long predicted by
philosophy, when the civil machinery that has been the
religion of the world decomposes before the now adult
individualism. Yet the height of man is to create. He
is the artist. Justice can be administered on a heath,
and God can be worshipped in a barn, — yet it is fit
that there should be halls and temples, and not merely
booths and warehouses ; that man should animate all
his surroundings, and impress upon them his character
and culture. In America the effect of beauty has been
superficial. Our art is nothing more than the national
taste for whittling ; the choice of subject is fantastic.
Art does not lie in making the subject prominent, but in
choosing one that is prominent. The genius of man is a
continuation of the power that made liim. The hints of
Nature tell on us, and when we see an intention of hers
we set at work to carry it out ; we feel the eloquence of
form and the sting of color. But original and indepen-
dent representation requires an artist charged in his sin-
gle head with a nation's force. This determination does
not exist in our nation, or but with feeble force : it
reaches to taste, not to creation. III. " Civilization at
a Pinch." IV. " Some Good Books." It is absurd to
rail at books : it is as certain there will always be books
as that there will be clothes. 'Tis a delicate matter,
776 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
this offering to stand deputy for the human race, and
writing all one's secret history colossally out as philos-
ophy or universal experience. We must not inquire too
curiously into the absolute value of literature, yet hooks
are to us angels of entertainment, sympathy, and provo-
cation. These silent wise, these tractable prophets and
singers, who now and then cast then* moonlight illumi-
nation over solitude, weariness, and fallen fortunes. The
power of a book. Every letter of our venerable Bible
has been a seed of revolution. What vitality has the
Platonic philosophy ! I remember I expected a revival
in the churches to be caused by the reading of Iambli-
chus. And Plutarch : if the world's library were burn-
ing, I should fly to save that, with our Bible and Shaks-
peare and Plato. Our debt to Thomas Taylor, the trans-
lator of the Platonists. A Greek born out of time, and
dropped on the ridicule of a blind and frivolous age.
V. " Poetry and Criticism in England and America."
Something, in every action, of doubt and fear. In the
picture or story this element is taken out ; you have the
purity or soul of the thing without any disturbance of
affection. Poetry is the only verity ; the speech of man
after the real, not after the apparent. Chaucer, Milton,
Shakspeare, have seen mountains ; the young writers
seem to have seen pictures of mountains. How sufficing
is mere melody ! What a youth we find in Collins' " Ode
to Evening," and in some lines of Gray's to Eton Col-
lege ! It is a pretty good test of poetry, the facility of
reading it aloud. We have enjoyed the full flowering
of the genius of Tennyson. His dirge on Wellington
combines his name inextricably not only to his hero, but
APPENDIX F. 777
to the annals of England. " In Memoriam " is the com-
monplace of condolence among good Unitarians in the
first week of mourning : all the merit is on the surface.
Recall the verses with which we prompt and prick our-
selves in dangerous moments, and you will see how few
such he supplies. Like Burke or Mirabeau he says bet-
ter than all what all think. Music is proper to poetry,
but within the high organic music are inferior harmo-
nies and melodies, which it avails itself of at pleasure.
Scott is the best example of the mastery of metrical
commonplaces. But " Dinas Emlinn " and " Helvel-
lyn " show how near a poet he was. Byron had decla-
mation, he had delicious music, but he knew not the
mania which gives creative power. — Criticism has its
right place as well as poetry. The virtue of criticism
is to correct mere talent by good sense. An ingenious
man is the victim of his rhetoric, when really there is no
such matter as he is depicting. When Anaximander
sang, the boys derided him, whereupon he said, "We
must learn to sing better for the boys." And I think
the journals, whose shallow criticism we affect to scorn,
are right. They miss the firm tone which commands
every good reader. The virtue of books is to be readable,
and if the book is dull 't is likely the writer is in fault.
VI. " Boston." The old physiologists watched the ef-
fect of climate. They believed the air was a good re-
publican ; that the air of mountains and the seashore
predispose to rebellion. What Vasari said three hun-
dred years ago of Florence might be said of Boston,
" that the desire for glory and honor is powerfully gen-
erated by the air of that place, in the man of every pro-
778 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
fession ; whereby all who possess talent are impelled to
struggle, that they may not remain in the same grade with
those whom they perceive to be only men like them-
selves, but all labor by every means to be foremost."
We find no less stimulus in our native air. This town
has a history. It is not an accident, a railroad station,
cross-roads, tavern, or army-barracks, grown up by time
and luck to a place of wealth, but a seat of men of
principle, obeying a sentiment. I do not speak with any
fondness, but the language of coldest history, when I say
that Boston commands attention as the town which was
appointed in the destiny of nations to lead the civiliza-
tion of North America. The leaders were well-edu-
cated, polite persons, of good estate and still more ele-
vated by devout lives. They were precisely the idealists
of England, the most religious in a religious era. And
they brought their government with them. They could
say to themselves, " "Well, at least this yoke of man, of
bishops and courtiers, is off my neck. We are a little
too close to the wolf and famine than that anybody
should give himself airs here in the swamp." The reli-
gious sentiment gave the iron purpose and arm. When
one thinks of the Zoars, New Harmonies and Brook
Farms, Oakdales and phalansteries, which end in a pro-
tracted picnic, we see with increased respect the solid,
well-calculated scheme of these emigrants, sitting down
hard and fast, and building their empire by due degrees.
Moral values became money values when men saw that
these people would stand by each other at all hazards.
A house in Boston was worth as much again as a house
just as good in a town of timorous people, or in a torpid
APPENDIX F. 779
place, where nothing is doing. In Boston they were
sure to see something going forward ; for here was the
moving principle itself always agitating the mass. From
Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson down to Abner
Kneeland and William Garrison there never was want-
ing some thorn of innovation and heresy. There is no
strong performance without a little fanaticism in the
performer. It is the men who are never contented who
carry their point. The American idea, emancipation,
has its sinister side, which appears in our bad politics ;
but, if followed, it leads to heavenly places. These peo-
ple did not gather where they had not sown. They did
not try to unlock the treasure of the world except by
honest keys of labor and skill. They accepted the di-
vine ordination that man is for use, and that it is ruin
to live for pleasure and for show. And when some flip-
pant senator wished to taunt them by calling them " the
mud-sills of society," he paid them ignorantly a true
praise. Nature is a frugal mother, and never gives
without measure. When she has work to do she quali-
fies men for that. In America she did not want epic
poems and di'amas yet, but, first, planters of towns and
farmers to till and harvest corn for the world. Yet the
literary ability our fathers brought with them was never
lost. Benjamin Franklin knew how to write, and Jon-
athan Edwards to think. There was a long period,
from 1790 to 1820, when, with rare exceptions, no fin-
ished writer appeared. But from the day when Buck-
minster read a discourse before the Phi Beta Kappa So-
ciety at Cambridge an impulse was given to polite liter-
ature which seems to date the renaissance in Boston.
780 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
It is almost a proverb that a great man has not a great
son. But, in Boston, nature is more indulgent and has
given good sons to good sires. I confess I do not find
in our educated people a fair share of originality, any
broad generalization, any equal power of imagination.
And I know that the history of this town contains many
black lines of cruel injustice. No doubt all manner of
vices can be found in this as in every city; infinite
meanness, scarlet crime. But there is yet in every city
a certain permanent tone, a tendency to audacity or
slowness, labor or luxury, giving or parsimony ; and I
hold that a community, as a man, is entitled to be judged
by his best. Here stands to-day as of yore our little
city of the rocks, and here let it stand forever on the
man-bearing granite of the North. Let her stand fast
by herself. She has grown great, but she can only pros-
per by adding to her faith. Let every child that is
born of her and every child of her adoption see to it to
keep the name of Boston as clean as the sun ! And in
distant ages her motto shall be the prayer of millions on
all the hills that gird the town : Sicut patribus sit Deus
nobis I
July 10. " Address at Tufts College " (Somerville,
Mass.). The brute noise of cannon has a most poetic
echo in these days, as instrument of the primal senti-
ments of humanity. But here in the college we are in
the presence of the principle itself. It is the ark in
which the law is deposited. If there be national failure,
it is because the college was not in its duty. Then
power oozes out of it ; it is a hospital for decayed tutors,
a musty shop of old books. Sanity consists in not being
APPENDIX F. 781
subdued by your means. If the intellectual interest be,
as I hold, no hypocrisy, but the only reality, it behooves
us to enthrone it and give it possession of us and ours.
You, gentlemen, are selected out of the great multitude
of your mates, and set apart, through some strong per-
suasion of your own or of your friends that you are
capable of the high privilege of thought. And need
enough there is of such. All superiority is this or re-
lated to this ; for I conceive morals and mind to be in
eternal bond. Men are as they think, as they believe.
A certain quantity of power belongs to a certain quantity
of truth. The exertions of this force are the eminent
experiences ; out of a long life all that is worth remem-
bering. And yet, with this divine oracle, the world is not
saved. Nay, in the class called intellectual, in the in-
stitutions of education, there is a want of faith in their
own cause. We have many revivals of religion. I wish
to see a revival of the human mind ; to see men's sense
of duty extend to the cherishing and use of their intel-
lectual powers. I wish the revival of thought in the
literary class. For greatness, we have ambition ; for
poetry, ingenuity ; for art, sensuality ; and the young,
coming up with innocent hope and looking around them
at education, at the professions and employments, at re-
ligious and literary teachers and teaching, are confused,
and become sceptical and forlorn. Talents and facilities
are excellent as long as subordinated, all wasted and
mischievous when they assume to lead and not obey.
Now the idea of a college is an assembly of men obedient
each to this pure light, and drawing from it illumina-
tion. A college should have no mean ambition, but
782 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
should aim at a reverent discipline and invitation of the
soul. Here if nowhere else genius should find its home ;
imagination should he greeted ; the noblest tasks pro-
posed, and the most cordial and honoring rewards. En-
thusiasm for liberty and wisdom should breed enthu-
siasm, and form heroes for the state.
Sept. 27. Address at Yarmouth, Mass., on Educa-
tion. The world is a system of mutual instruction.
Every man is, for his hour or minute, my tutor. Can
I teach him something ? As surely can he me. Deal
kindly and truly with every man, and you convert him
into an invaluable teacher of his science ; and every man
has a science. To set up my stove I want a piece of
iron thirty inches square, and that want entitles me to
call on all the professors of tin and iron in the village,
and to see all the beautiful contrivances for working with
them ; I only paying for the iron and labor. If I want
the underpinning or the frame of a barn, I call on the
professors of stone or of wood ; and for labor on my
garden, I pass by the college chairs, and go to the work-
ing botanists and the sweating geometers. The whole
art of education consists in habitual respect to wholes,
by an eye capable of all the particulars. "When I saw
Mr. Rarey's treatment of the horse, I could not help
suspecting that he must know what sarcastic lessons he
was reading to schools and universities. He has turned
a new leaf in civilization. What an extension and no-
bility in his maxim that " he who would deal with a
horse must know neither fear nor anger." And the
horses see that he is a solid good fellow, up to all their
ways, and a little better than they are in their own way.
APPENDIX F. 783
The school-master must stand in as real a relation to his
subjects. The boy must feel that he is not an old. pedant,
but has been a boy once. (Mostly in " Education," x.
123.)
Nov. 12. "American Nationality." In the Frater-
nity course, at the Music Hall, Boston. (Reported in
Boston Evening Transcript, Nov. 13.) It is a mortifi-
cation that because a nation had no enemy it should
become its own, and because it has an immense future
should commit suicide. But this mania has been met
by a resistance proportioned to the danger. We have
often fancied that our country was too large to permit
any strong nationality. But we reckoned without the in-
stincts. The waters held in solution substances the most
remote, but when the flagstaff of Sumter was shot down
and fell into the sea, fibres shot to it from every part.
All the evils that have yet ensued are inconsiderable,
compared with the relief it has operated to public and
private health. Do you suppose that we shall crawl into
that collar again ? I hope the war is to heal a deeper
wound than any it makes ; that it is to heal that scep-
ticism, that frivolous mind, which is the spoiled child of
a great material prosperity. The war for the Union is
broader than any state policy or sectional interest ; but,
at last, the Union is not broad enough, because of slavery ;
and we must come to emancipation, with compensation
to loyal States. This is a principle. Everything else is
an intrigue. Who would build a house on a solfatara,
or a quicksand ? The wise builder lets down his stone
foundations to rest on the strata of the planet. The re-
sult at which the government aims, and rightly, is repos-
784 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
session of all its territory. But, in the present aspect of
the war, separation is a contingency to be contemplated ;
and I say, in view of that, it is vastly better than what
we called the integrity of the republic, with slavery. Now
that we have learned that two railroads are as good as a
river, we begin to think we could spare the Mississippi,
until it has better people on its banks. The war searches
character, acquits those whom I acquit, whom life ac-
quits ; those whose reality and spontaneous honesty and
singleness appears. Force it requires. 'T is not so
much that you are moral as that you are genuine, sin-
cere, frank, and bold. I do not approve those who give
their money or their voices for liberty from long habit,
but the rough democrat, who hates abolition but detests
these Southern traitors. There is a word which I like
to hear, " the logic of events." We are in better keep-
ing than of our vacillating authorities, military or civil.
We are like Captain Parry's party of sledges on the
drifting ice, who travelled for weeks north, and then
found themselves further south tban when they started ;
the ice had moved.
. "Truth." (Before Mr. Parker's congrega-
tion at Music Hall ?) In the noise of war we come up
to the house of social worship to school our affections,
drenched in personal and patriotic hopes and fears, by
lifting them out of the blinding tumult into a region where
the air is pure and serene ; the region of eternal laws,
which hold on their beneficent way through all temporary
and partial suffering, and so assure, not only the gen-
eral good but the welfare of all the suffering individuals.
For evil times have their root in falsehood. At a mo-
APPENDIX F. 785
ment in our history the mind's eye opens, and we become
aware of spiritual facts, of rights, duties, thoughts, — a
thousand faces of one essence, Truth. Having seen them,
we are no longer brute lumps whirled by Fate, but come
into the council-chamber and government of nature. It
is rare to find a truth-speaker, in the common sense.
Few people have accurate perceptions, or see the im-
portance of exactness. A house-parrot, though not
reckoned by political economists a producer, has many
uses. She is a socialist, and knits a neighborhood to-
gether with her democratic discourse. And she is a
delicate test of truth. Hear what stories respectable
witnesses will tell of Poll ! This want of veracity does
not remain in speech ; it proceeds instantly to manners
and behavior. How any want of frankness on one part
destroys all sweetness of discourse ! But veracity is an
external virtue, compared with that inner and higher
truth we call honesty ; which is to act entirely, not par-
tially. You may attract by your talents and character
and the need others have of you ; but the attempt to at-
tract directly is the beginning of falsehood. You were
sent into the world to decorate and honor that poverty,
that singularity, that destitution, by your tranquil accept-
ance of it. If a man is capable of such steadfastness,
though he see no fruit to his labor, the seed will not die ;
his son or his son's son may yet thank his sublime faith,
and find, in the third generation, the slow, sure matu-
ration. Let us sit here contented with our poverty
and deaf-and-dumb estate from youth to age, rather
than adorn ourselves with any red rag of false church
or false association. It is our homage to truth, which
786 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
is honored by our abstaining, not by our superservice-
ableness.
Dec. 29. " Immortality." In the Parker Fraternity
course, at the Music Hall. (viii. 305.)
1862.
Jan. 31. "American Civilization." At the Smith-
sonian Institution, Washington. (vii. 21, and xi.
275.)
March 16. " Essential Principles of Religion." On
Sunday, before Mr. Parker's congregation at the Music
Hall. (Mostly in " Character " and " Sovereignty of
Ethics," x. 91 and 175.) The great physicists have
signified their belief that our analysis will reach at last
a sublime simplicity, and find two elements, or one ele-
ment with two polarities, at the base of things ; and in
morals we are struck with the steady return of a few
principles : we are always finding new applications of
the maxims and proverbs of the nursery.
April 13. " Moral Forces." At the Music Hall, be-
fore the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, on a
Fast Day appointed by the President of the United
States. In recommending to the country to take thank-
ful remembrance of the better aspect of our affairs, the
President echoes the general sentiment that we should
carry our relief thankfully to the Heart of hearts, to
Him whom none can name, who hideth himself, and is
only known to us by immense and eternal benefit. Let
us use these words, thanks and praise, cautiously, ten-
derly, discriminating in our mind as reason of gratitude
that which all men that breathe might join to be glad
APPENDIX F. 787
for. Let us rejoice in every success and in every over-
throw, which a wise and good soul, whether among our
enemies or in other nations, would see to be for the right,
for ideas, for the good of humanity. We are rightly
glad only in as far as we believe that the victories of
our cause are real grounds of joy for all mankind. Yet,
leaving this thin and difficult air of pure reason, and ac-
cepting our common and popular sympathies as right
and safe, there is certainly much which the patriot and
the philanthropist will regard with satisfaction. Things
point the right way. A position is taken by the Amer-
ican Executive, — that is much ; and it has been sup-
ported by the legislature. What an amount of power
released from doing harm and now ready to do good !
The world is nothing but a bundle of forces, and all the
rest is a clod which it uses. In all works of man there
is a constant resistance to be overcome, and constant
loss by friction. But the tree rises into the air without
any violence, by its own unfolding, which is as easy as
shining is to the sun, or warming to fire. It is the same
with the moral forces. People, in proportion to their in-
telligence and virtue, are friends to a good measure ;
whilst any wrong measure will find a hitch somewhere.
Inspiration and sympathy, — these are the cords that
draw power to the front, and not the harness of the
cannon. The power of victory is in the imagination.
The moral powers are thirsts for action. We are list-
less and apologizing and imitating ; we are straws and
nobodies, and then the mighty thought comes sailing on
a silent wind and fills us with its virtue.
June 29. " Thoreau," at the Music Hall, on Sunday.
788 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
(MSS. fragmentary ; probably used in the Biographical
Sketch prefixed to Thoreau's " Excursions," 1863.)
Oct. 12. "The Emancipation Proclamation." (xi.
291.)
Nov. 18. " Perpetual Forces." Fraternity lecture
at Tremont Temple, (x. 69.)
Dec. 14. " Health." Health is the obedience of all
the members to the genius or character. As soon as
any part makes itself felt, there is disease. Perfectness
of influx and efflux. There is a certain medicinal value
to every intellectual action. Thoughts refresh and dig-
nify us. The most powerful means are the cheapest :
pure water, fresh air, the stroke of the hand, a kind eye,
a gentle voice, a serene face.
1863.
Jan. 1. " Boston Hymn," at the Music Hall. (ix.
174.)
July 22. '"Discourse before the Literary Societies of
Dartmouth College." Repeated Aug. 11, at "Waterville
College, (x. 229.)
Dec. 1. "The Fortune of the Republic." In the
Parker Fraternity course, Boston, (xi. 393, with some
additions.)
1864.
Aug. 9. " Discourse before the Literary Societies of
Middlebury College, Vt."
Nov. 27. Course of six weekly lectures before the
Parker Fraternity at the Melodeon, in Boston. I.
"Education." II. "Social Aims." (viii. 77.) III.
"Resources." (viii. 131.) IV. « Table-Talk." The
APPENDIX F. 789
books that record conversation are incomparably better
than the formal biographies, — indeed, the real source of
these. The pain of loneliness is to be heeded, just as
the toothache is. It was not given for torment, but for
useful warning. It says to us, Seek society ; keep your
friendships in repair ; answer your letters ; meet good-
will half-way. Strict discourse with a friend is the mag-
azine out of which all good writing is drawn. Fine
conversation is a game of expansions ; like boys trying
who will take the longest leap. Many parties in dis-
course give you liberty, hint, and scope ; but a master
more purely. Americans have not cultivated conversa-
tion as an art, as other nations have done. Indeed, there
are some drawbacks in our institutions. A town in Eu-
rope is a place where you can go into a cafe at a cer-
tain hour of every day, buy a cup of coffee, and at that
price have the company of wits, artists, and philosophers.
Our clubbing is more costly and cumbersome. The cap-
ital advantage of our republic is that by the organic
hospitality of its institutions it is drawing the health and
strength of all nations into its territory, and promises
by perpetual intermixture to yield the most vigorous
qualities and accomplishments of all. What is Europe
but a larger chance of meeting a cultivated man ?
(Mostly in "Social Aims" and in "Clubs.") V.
" Books." We expect a great man to be a good reader.
In proportion to the spontaneous power should be the
assimilating power. 'T is easy to disparage literature,
to call it eavesdropping, a naming of things that does
not add anything ; to say that books draw the mind
from things to words ; but I find an asylum and a com-
790 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
forter in the library. There is no hour and no vexation,
in ordinary health, in which, on a little reflection, I can-
not think of the book that will operate an instant diver-
sion and relief. How we turn them to account ! It is
not the grammar and dictionary, it is French novels
that teach us French, and German novels that teach us
German. The passions rush through all resistance of
grammar and vocabulary. Provide always a good book
for a journey, as Horace, or Pascal, — some book which
lifts quite out of prosaic surroundings. The important
difference is whether they are written from life or from
a literary point of view. I read lately with delight a
casual notice of Wordsworth, in a London journal, in
which with perfect aplomb his highest merits were af-
firmed, and his unquestionable superiority to all English
poets since Milton. I thought how long I travelled and
talked in England, and found no person, or only one
(Clough), in sympathy with him and admiring him
aright, in face of Tennyson's culminating talent and ge-
nius in melodious verse. This rugged countryman walks
and sits alone for years, assured of his sanity and his in-
spiration, sneered at and disparaged, yet no more doubt-
ing the fine oracles that visited him than if Apollo had
visibly descended to him on Helvellyn. Now, so few
years after, it is lawful in that obese England to affirm,
unresisted, the superiority of his genius. Only the great
generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Decla-
ration of Independence, lampooned then and since as
" glittering generalities," have turned out blazing ubi-
quities, that will burn forever and ever. Our American
culture is a hasty fruit ; our scholars are hurried from
APPENDIX F. 791
the pupil's desk to the master's chair, and do not get
ripened ; they are like my Catawbas, that need a fort-
night more of sun. But it admits what expansion ! For
good reading, there must be some yielding to the book.
Some minds are incapable of any surrender. They
" carve at the meal in gloves of steel, and drink the red
wine through the helmet barred." Of course their din-
ing is unsatisfactory. VI. " Character." (x. 91.)
1865.
April 19. " Abraham Lincoln." Remarks at the
funeral services in Concord, (xi. 305.)
July 21. " Harvard Commemoration Speech." (xi.
317.)
July 31. " Address before the Adelphi Union, Wil-
liams College, Williamstown : compiled from my lec-
tures on Art and Criticism ; Books • Some Good Books ;
Success."
1866.
April 14. Six lectures on the " Philosophy of the
People," at Chickering's Hall, Boston. I. " Seven Me-
tres of Intellect." (1.) Perception of identity. (2.)
Power of generalizing. (3.) Advancing steps, or the
number of shocks the battery can communicate. (4.)
Pace. (5.) Organic unfolding, classic and romantic.
(6.) Nearness. (7.) Imaginative power. The highest
measure is such insight and faculty as can convert the
daily and hourly circumstance into universal symbols.
Nature is always working, in wholes and in details, af-
ter the laws of the human mind. Science adopts the
method of the universe, as fast as it appears, as its own.
792 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
The reality of things is thought. The first measure of
a mind is its centrality. We require a certain absolute-
ness in the orator, the leader, the statesman ; and if
they have it not, they simulate it. Right perception sees
nothing alone, but sees each particular object in the All.
The English think that if you add a hundred facts,
you will have made a right step towards a theory ; if a
thousand, so much the nearer. But a good mind infers
from two or three facts, or from one, as readily as from
a legion. Kepler and Newton are born with a taste for
the manners of Nature, and catch the whole tune from
a few bars, usually from one ; for they know that the
single fact indicates the universal law. Power of gen-
eralizing differences in men ; and the number of succes-
sive saltations this nimble thought can make. Habit-
ual speed of combination. Time is an inverse measure
of the amount of spirit. II. " Instinct, Perception,
Talent." None of the metaphysicians have prospered
in describing the power which constitutes sanity, the cor-
rector of private excesses and mistakes. This is in-
stinct ; and inspiration is only this power excited and
breaking its silence. Instinct is a shapeless giant in the
cave, without hands or articulating lips, not educated
or educable ; Behemoth, disdaining speech, disdaining
particulars, never condescending to explanation, but
pointing in the direction you should go ; makes no pro-
gress, but was wise in youth as in age. Perception is
generalization ; and every perception is a power. Dif-
fers from instinct by adding the will. Insight assimi-
lates the thing seen, sees nothing alone, but sees each
particular in just connection, sees all in God. In all
APPENDIX F. 793
good souls an inborn necessity of presupposing for each
particular fact a prior Being which compels it to a
harmony with all other natures. Talent is habitual
facility of execution. It formulates thought, and sets it
to work for something practical, which will pay. You
must formulate your thought, or it is all sky and no
stars. All men know the truth, but it is rare to find one
that knows how to speak it. The same thing happens
in power to do the right. Without talent his rectitude
is ridiculous, his organs do not play him true. The va-
rious talents are organic, each related to that part of
nature it is to explore and utilize. III. " Genius, Im-
agination, Taste." Talent grows out of the severalty of
the man, but genius out of his universality. It is the
levity of this country to forgive everything to talents.
We have a juvenile love of smartness. But it is higher
to prize the power, above the idea individualized or do-
mesticated. Power, new power, is the good which the
soul seeks. It cares not if it do not yet appear in a
talent ; likes it better if it have no talent. Genius is a
sensibility to all the impressions of the outer world. It
is the organic motion of the soul. It does not rest in
contemplation, but passes over into act. Thus it is al-
ways new and creative. Imagination uses an organic
classification, joins what God has joined. It is vision,
and knows the symbol and explores it for the sense.
IV. " Laws of mind." (1.) Individualism. An indi-
vidual mind is a momentary eddy, a fixation of certain
sciences and powers. The universe is traversed with
paths or bridges : to every soul is its path, invisible to
all but itself. Every man is a new method, and distrib-
794 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
utes things anew. Every persecution shows how dear
and sacred their thoughts are to men. The leaders were
perhaps rogues, but they could not have done their work
but for the sincere indignation of good people behind
them. (2.) Identity. What we see once we see again.
What is here, that is there, and it makes little difference
what we learn. In the mind, all the laws of each de-
partment of nature are repeated, and each faculty.
Memory, imagination, reason, are only modes of the
same power ; as lampblack and diamond are different
arrangements of the same chemical matter. (3.) Subjec-
tiveness. The sun borrows his beams from you. Joy
and sorrow are radiations from us. The material world
in strict science is illusory. Perception makes. All
our desires are procreant. Wbat we are, that we see,
love, and hate. A man externizes himself in his friends,
his enemies, and his gods. Good-will makes insight.
All is beautiful that beauty sees. (4.) Transition, flux :
the blunder of the savants is to fancy science to be a
finality. But the mind cares for a fact, not as a final-
ity, but only as a convertibility into every other fact and
system, and so indicative of the First Cause. Wisdom
consists in keeping the soul liquid ; in resisting the ten-
dency to rapid petrifaction. (5.) Detachment. A man
is intellectual in proportion as he can detach his thought
from himself, and has no engagement in it which can
hinder him from looking at it as somewhat foreign, see-
ing it not under a personal but a universal light. What
is vulgar but the laying the emphasis on persons and
facts, instead of on the quality of the fact ? Yet this
privilege is guarded with costly penalty. This detach-
APPENDIX F. 795
ment paralyzes the will. There is this vice about men
of thought, that you cannot quite trust them. They
have a hankering to play providence, and excuse them-
selves from the rules which they apply to the human race.
This interval even comes between the thinker and his
conversation, which he cannot inform with his genius.
V. " Conduct of the Intellect." The condition of san-
ity is to respect the order in the intellectual world ; to
keep down talent in its place ; to enthrone instinct.
The primary rule for the conduct of intellect is to have
control of the thoughts without losing their natural atti-
tudes and action. They are the oracles ; we are not to
poke and force, but to follow them. Yet the spirits of
the prophets are subject to the prophets. A master can
formulate his thought. There are men of great appre-
hension, who can easily entertain ideas, but are not
exact, severe with themselves. One wishes to lock them
up and compel them to perfect their work. Will is the
measure of power. He alone is strong and happy who
has a will. Genius certifies its possession of a thought by
translating it into a fact which perfectly represents it.
But the consolation of being the victim of noble agents
is at times all that appears. The ground position is
that the intellect grows by moral obedience. VI. " Re-
lation of the Intellect to Morals." The spiritual power
of man is twofold ; intellect and will, mind and heart.
Each is easily exalted in our thought until it seems to
fill the universe and become the synonym of God. Each
has its vices, obvious enough when the opposite element
is deficient. Intellect is sceptical, and runs down into
talent. On the other side, the affections are blind
796 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
guides. But all great minds and all great hearts have
mutually allowed the absolute necessity of the twain.
Action and idea are man and woman, both indispensa-
ble : why should they rail at and exclude each other ?
Dec. 11. " Man of the World," before the Parker
Fraternity. The earth shows age, and the benefits of
age. It is a very refined air that we breathe ; a re-
fined world. It attests the presence of man and how
long he has been here. He is a born collector, not of
coins or pictures, but of arts, manners, thoughts, achieve-
ments. My man of the world is no monotone or man
of one idea, but has the whole scale of speech to use as
occasion requires ; the scholastic with clerks, the polite
in the parlor, and the speech of the street. He has a
certain toleration, a letting-be and letting-do ; a consid-
eration for the faults of others, but a severity to his own.
But, with all his secular merits, he belongs to the other
world, too. He knows the joys of the imagination ; he
prefers a middle condition ; he is capable of humility, he
is capable of sacrifices. He is the man of the world
who can lift the sense of other men, since he knows the
real value of money, culture, languages, art, science, and
religion. The one evil of the world is blockheads, and
its salvation is the sensible men, of catholicity and of in-
dividual bias.
1867.
March 4. " Eloquence," at Chicago, (viii. 107.)
April 14. Remarks at the funeral of George L.
Stearns, at Medford, Mass. (Reported in Common-
wealth, April 27.)
APPENDIX F. 797
April 19. Address at the dedication of the Soldiers'
Monument, Concord, Mass. (xi. 99.)
May 12. " Rule of Life." At Horticultural Hall,
before the Radical Association. (Mostly in " Sover-
eignty of Ethics," x. 175, and "Preacher," x. 207.)
May 30. " Remarks at the Organization of the Free
Religious Association." At Horticultural Hall, Boston,
(xi. 379.)
Aug. 21. Speech at the dinner, in Boston, to the
Chinese Embassy. (Reported in Boston Daily Adver-
tiser, Aug. 27.)
Sept. 16. " The Preacher." At a meeting at Rev-
erend J. T. Sargent's, (x. 207.)
1868.
Oct 12. Six lectures at the Meionaon, Boston. IV.
" Leasts and Mosts." (The lecture for which " Civ-
ilization at a Pinch" was substituted, April, 1861.)
Aristotle said the nature of everything is best seen
in its smallest portions. Size is of no account; the
snow-flake is a small glacier, the glacier a large snow-
flake. See everywhere the simplicity of the means
by which great things are done. Earth-worms pre-
serve the ground in a state fit for vegetation. Coral-
lines build continents. And in daily life it is certain
that what is memorable to us is short passages of happy
experience. The essence of our lives is contained some-
times in a few days or hours. So in literature ; a few
anecdotes, a few poems, perhaps a few lines of a poem,
refuse to be forgotten ; the rest lies undisturbed in the
library. 'T is a narrow line that divides an awkward
act from the finish of gracefulness. England, France,
798 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
America, are proud nations, as Romans and Greeks were
before them. Volvox globator, the initial microscopic
mite from which man draws his pedigree, has got on so
far. He has rolled and rotated to some purpose. Power
resides in small things, and wisdom is always marked by
simplicity, temperance, and humility. Worship, indeed,
is the perception of the Power which constructs the
greatness of the centuries out of the paltriness of the
hours. V. " Hospitality, Homes." In Scott's poem,
the stranger, arriving at the mountaineer's camp and
asked what he requires, replies : " Rest, and a guide,
and food, and fire." That seems little, but each of these
four wants admits of large interpretation. " Rest "
means peace of mind ; " guide," a guardian angel ;
" food " means bread of life ; and " fire," love. The
household are put to their extremity of means even to
attempt such heavenly hospitality. I do not know that
any city is big enough to meet these demands. And as
God made the country and man made the town, I think
we must supplement the weakness of the entertainer by
leading the traveller thither where Nature bears the ex-
pense. A thoughtful man, if he has liberty to choose,
will easily prefer the country for his home, because here
no man is poor ; nature takes charge of furnishing the
beauty and magnificence, gratis. Hospitality is in de-
grees. Give the elements, be sure, and as good as you
can ; but there are higher hospitalities, — of thoroughly
simple and good manners ; hospitality to the thought of
the guest. See what he can do, and aid him to do that.
Let him feel that his aspirations are felt and honored by
you. In every family there is some one inmate or vis-
APPENDIX F. 799
itor who has taught the young people how to distinguish
truth from falsehood, and not to regard follies as merits ;
perhaps some grave senior, or some maiden aunt, lover of
solitude, has deserted her remote village and its church,
to refresh herself awhile with young faces, and defend
them from parental routine. She knows well the way
to the heart of children by speaking to their imagina-
tion, by rejoicing in theirs ; by feeding them with high
anecdotes, unforgettable, lifting them from book to book,
inspiring curiosity and even ambition prematurely in
young bosoms ; teasing, flattering, chiding, spoiling
them for the simple delight of her sympathy and pride.
Perhaps they will not find in all the colleges so real a
benefactor. VI. " Greatness." (viii. 283, in part.)
1869.
Jan. 2. " Readings of English Poetry and Prose."
At Chickering's Hall, Boston, on ten Saturday after-
noons. I. " Chivalry." Extracts from Robert Glouces-
ter's Chronicle, etc. II. " Chaucer." III. (Wanting.)
IV. " Shakspeare." V. " Ben Jonson and Lord Ba-
con." VI. " Herrick, Donne, Herbert, Vaughan,
Marvell." VII. " Milton." VIII. (Wanting.) IX.
" Johnson, Gibbon, Burke, Cowper, Wordsworth." X.
(Wanting.)
March 1. "Mary Moody Emerson." Before the
Woman's Club, in Boston, (x. 371.)
April 4. " Natural Religion." At Horticultural Hall,
Boston. (Mostly in " Sovereignty of Ethics," x. 175.)
May 17. A reading on " Religion," at Rev. J. T.
Sargent's.
800 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
May 28. Speech at the second annual meeting of the
Free Religious Association ; Tremont Temple, Boston,
(xi. 385.)
Sept. 14. Speech at the evening reception on the
centennial anniversary of Alexander von Humboldt's
birth. (In the publication of the proceedings by the Bos-
ton Society of Natural History, 1870, p. 71.)
1870.
April 26. Sixteen university lectures at Harvard
College, on " The Natural History of the Intellect." 1.
Introduction ; Praise of Knowledge. 2. Transcendency
of Physics. 3, 4. Perception. 5, 6. Memory. 7. Im-
agination. 8. Inspiration. 9. Genius. 10. Common
Sense. 11. Identity. 12, 13. Metres of Mind. 14.
Platonists. 15. Conduct of Intellect. 16. Relation of
Intellect to Morals. (Repeated in 1871, in a slightly
different order, omitting 11, 14, and adding Wit and
Humor, Demonology, and another lecture on the Con-
duct of Intellect. In substance, these lectures are mostly
the same with the first three in the course on " Mind and
Manners in the XIX. Century " (1848), and with some of
those on the " Natural Method of Mental Philosophy "
(1858), and " Philosophy for the People " (1866.) Most
of what was new is given in " Poetry and Imagination,"
Collected Writings, viii. 7.)
Dec. 22. Speech before the New England Society,
at Delmonico's, New York. (Printed in the Proceed"
ings of the Society.)
Dec. 23. " Discourse on the Anniversary of the Land-
ing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth." Before the New
APPENDIX F. 801
England Society, at Steinway Hall, New York. (Re-
ported in New York Tribune, Dec. 24, and Boston
Daily Advertiser, Dec. 26.)
1871.
Feb. 3. Speech at the meeting for organizing the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. (Reported in Boston
Daily Advertiser, Feb. 4.)
Aug. 15. "Walter Scott." At Massachusetts His-
torical Society, on the centennial anniversary of Scott's
birth, (xi. 370.)
1872.
Jan. 4. " Inspiration : " one of a course of four lec-
tures at Peabody Institute, Baltimore, (viii. 255.)
Jan. 7. " Books and Reading." At Howard Univer-
sity, Washington. (Reported in Boston Evening Tran-
scvipt, Jan. 22.)
April 15. Six readings at Mechanics Hall, Boston.
I. " Books. Read Thoreau's ' Inspiration,' H. Hunt's
' Thought.' II. Poetry and Imagination [as printed
in viii. 7], as far as through Creation, and read Words-
worth's ' Schill,' Byron's ' Soul,' lines from ' Island,' and
' Licoo,' ' Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer,' Lewis' ' Lines
to Pope,' Scott's ' Look not thou on Beauty,' B. Jonson,
' Ode to Himself.' III. Poetry and Imagination, con-
cluded, and read Taliessin, ' Dinas Emlinn ' Saadi, from
' Westostliche Divan,' Arab ballad from W. O. D.
IV. Criticism: Klephtic ballads, ' Lochinvar,' Timrod's
poem, ' Boy of Egremont.' V. Culture. Goethe, Pascal,
Pope, Bolingbroke, Lionardo da Vinci, Varnhagen v.
Ense. VI. Morals, Religion."
802 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Aug. 2. Speech at the dinner in Boston to the Japa-
nese envoys. (Reported in Commonwealth, Aug. 10.)
Oct. 15. Speech at dinner for Mr. J. A. Froude, at
New York. (Reported in New York Tribune, Oct. 16.)
1873.
Oct. 1. Address at the opening of the Monroe Pub-
lic Library, Concord, Mass.
Dec. 16. Read in Faneuil Hall the poem " Boston."
(ix. 182.)
1875.
April 19. Address at the unveiling of the statue of
the Minute-Man at Concord Bridge. (Reported in Com-
monivealth, April 24.)
1876.
June 28. Oration to the Senior Class of the Univer-
sity of Virginia, (x. 247.)
Nov. 8. Speech at the meeting of the Latin School
Association in Boston, on the centennial anniversary of
the reopening of the school after the evacuation of the
town by the British troops. (Reported in Boston Even-
ing Transcript, Nov. 9.)
1877.
April 20. " Boston." At Old South Church, Bos-
ton. (From the course on " Life and Literature," in
1861, with some additions.)
1878.
March 30. " The Fortune of the Republic." At Old
South Church, Boston. (A lecture of 1863, with addi-
tions. Published, xi. 393.)
APPENDIX F. 803
1879.
May 5. " The Preacher." At Divinity School Chapel,
Cambridge. (The lecture of Sept. 16, 1867. Pub-
lished, x. 207.)
1881.
Feb. 10. "Carlyle." At Massachusetts Historical
Society. (Published, x. 453.)
INDEX.
Adams, Abel, Emerson's friend, 175,
350, 628.
Adams, John Quincy, on Emerson,
410.
Addresses and lectures, list of, Appen-
dix F.
Adirondack Club, 618.
Agassiz, Louis, 617.
Alcott, A. Bronson, at Concord, 279 ;
Emerson's account of him, 281 ; his
remark about Emerson, 357.
" American Nationality," lecture, 783.
" American Scholar," Phi Beta Kappa
address, 321.
" Anglo-American," lecture, 754.
Anthology, The Monthly, 23.
Anti-slavery, 425.
Athenaeum, the Boston, 25.
Austin, Benjamin, epigram on the
First Church, 7.
Bacon, Lord, 718.
Bancroft, George, preaching, 81, 93 ;
at Emerson's lecture on the " Pres-
ent Age," 400 ; his reception of Emer-
son in England, 503 ; in Egypt, 659.
Bartol, Kev. C. A., 315.
Berkeley, Emerson a Berkeleyan, 478.
"Biography," lectures, 712.
Bliss," Rev. Daniel, 12.
Books, Emerson not a student of, 288 ;
lecture on, 776, 789.
Boston, city politics in Emerson's
youth, 87 ; lecture, 777.
Bradford, George P., 323.
Bradford, Samuel, 64.
Bromfield, Henry, 13.
Brook Farm, 434.
Brown, John, 596.
Brown, Dr. Samuel, 524.
Buckminster, Joseph Stevens, funeral
sermon on William Emerson, 20.
Bulkeley, Peter, 8.
Burke, Edmund, lecture on, 231.
Burns, Robert, Emerson's speech at
the Burns Centenary, 766.
Burroughs, John, Emerson as visitor
at West Point, 013.
Byron, Lady, 549.
California, trip to, 644.
Calvinism, 202.
Cambridge (Mass.), Emerson's school
there, 115.
Canterbury (Roxbury, Mass.), resi-
dence there, 83.
Carlyle, Thomas, his influence on Em-
erson, 193, 241 ; their first meeting,
195 ; " Sartor Resartus," 240 ; corre-
spondence, 241 ; their meeting in
1847, 501, 530, 562 ; in 1872, 658.
" Cause and Effect," lecture, 772.
Charming, Edward Tyrrel, Emerson's
instructor, 55.
Charming, Dr. William Ellery, 102,
105.
Channing, William Ellery (the poet),
372.
Channing, William Henry, 572, 576.
Charleston, S. C, Emerson at, 119.
Chaucer, 716.
Cherokees, letter on the Cherokee out-
rage, 433.
Children, Emerson's treatment of,
484.
Christ and Christianity, 303, 343.
Christian Examiner, The, "Nature,"
261 ; the Divinity Hall address, 337.
Church, Anglican and Roman forms,
318, 471.
Church, the First, 2.
Church, the Second, Emerson at, 146 ;
letter to, 685.
Clarke, James Freeman, Transcen-
dentalism, 249 ; prints poems of
Emerson's, 480.
"Classes of Men," lecture, 771.
Clough, Arthur Hugh, 533, 546.
Clubs, 371.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 58, 160, 723.
Concord (Mass.), Emerson at school
there, 49 ; residence, 228 ; historical
address, 235; his account of, 284;
School of Philosophy, 409 ; depar-
ture of soldiers to the war, 601.
Concord (N. H.), Emerson preaches
there, 142 ; engaged to Miss Tucker,
143 ; marriage, 146 ; revisits in 1879,
679.
806
INDEX.
" Conduct of Life," lectures, 754.
Congdon, C. T., description of Emer-
son in the pulpit, 154.
Conversation, Emerson's, 622.
Cooke, Rev. Geo. W., 408.
Country life, 761.
" Courage," lecture, 769.
Dana, R. H., Jr., Emerson's scholar,
115.
Dawes, Rufus, Emerson as a boy, 6.
De Quincey, Thomas, Emerson's ac-
count of him, 520.
Dial, The, projected, 246 ; Emerson
takes charge, 407 ; list of his con-
tributions, 695.
Divinity School (Cambridge), Emer-
son there, 131 ; address, 330.
Domestic service, his feeling about,
446.
Drama, the, 66.
Dwight, J. S., Emerson's successor at
East Lexington, 324.
East Lexington (Mass.), Emerson
preaches there, 237 ; gives up his
charge, 324 ; address, 747.
Edinburgh, visit (1833), 194 ; in 1873,
664.
Education, emulation in, 416 ; lec-
tures, 730, 732, 782.
Egypt, visit to, 659.
Emancipation, address on W. I. Eman-
cipation, 430 ; proclamation, 605.
Emerson, Charles Chauncy, brother
of R. W., 27; his death, 268; his
character, 271.
Emerson, Edward Bliss, brother of
R. W., 27, 112 ; his derangement,
140 ; death, 219.
Emerson, Mrs. Ellen Louisa (Tucker),
first wife of R. W., 142.
Emerson, George Barrell, description
of the Emerson household, 38.
Emerson, John, of Topsfield, 9.
Emerson, John Clarke, R. W.'s broth-
er, 26.
Emerson, Joseph, of Mendon, 8.
Emerson, Joseph, of Maiden, 9.
Emerson, Joseph, of Pepperell, 11.
Emerson, Mary Caroline, R. W.'s sis-
ter, 27.
Emerson, Mary Moody, aunt of R. W.,
30.
Emerson, Mrs. Lidian, Emerson's
wife, 229.
Emerson, Phebe Ripley, R. W.'s sis-
ter, 26.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, birth, 3, 27 ;
early seriousness, 6 ; schools, 36,
40 ; at school at Concord, 45 ; early
verses, 45 ; college days, 50 ; school-
keeping, 67 ; preparation for the
ministry, 74 ; at Canterbury, 83, 96 ;
letters to J. B. Hill, 86 ; at Divinity
School, 98 ; choice of profession,
100 ; doubts, 105 ; ill health, 111 ;
first sermon, 112 ; approbated to
preach, 118 ; trip to the South, 119 ;
return, 131 ; recovers his health,
140 ; his reflections on himself, 142 ;
engaged to Ellen Tucker, 142 ;
preaches at Second Church, 144 ;
marriage, 146; preaching, etc., 150,
165, 169 ; disagreement about com-
munion service, 154 ; the death of his
wife, 172 ; resigns his charge, 158 ;
project of a magazine, 171 ; visit to
Europe, 173 ; visits Carlyle, 194 ;
reflections on Europe, etc., 198 ; re-
turn home, 205 ; first lectures, 207 ;
thoughts on a reform of public wor-
ship, 209 ; death of his brother
Edward, 219 ; thinks of retiring to
solitude, 22S ; moves to Concord,
ib. ; marriage, 229, 236 ; lectures on
Biography, 231 ; historical address
at Concord, 235 ; lectures on English
Literature, 237 ; Transcendentalism,
244; "Nature" published, 248;
death of his brother Charles, 268 ;
makes acquaintance with Mr. Alcott
and Miss Fuller, 275 ; Thoreau, 282 ;
life in Concord, 284 ; birth of his
first child, 2S7 ; habits of work, 287 ;
lectures on "Philosophy of History,"
298; at Mr. Farley's church, 300;
thoughts on religion, 303 ; his first
Phi Beta Kappa speech, 321 ; lec-
tures on "Human Culture," 322 ; re-
signs his charge at East Lexington,
324; Divinity Hall address, 330;
lectures on " Human Life," 384 : ill
health, 387 ; outlay for Carlyle, 392 ;
disgust of lecturing, 391, 397 ; lec-
tures on the "Present Age," 393 ;
the Dial, 401 ; Emerson's Transcen-
dentalism, 412 ; American genius,
420, 495 ; position with regard to
reform, 421, 451, 453 ; first anti-
slavery speech, 425 ; address on West
India Emancipation, 430 ; letter to
Van Buren on the Cherokee outrage,
433 ; dislike of inequality, 442 ; do-
mestic service, 446 ; ill health, 448 ;
manual labor, 450 ; vegetarianism,
ib. ; women's rights, 455 ; objections
to the profession of lecturer, 457,
469, 477 ; money, 458 ; the seashore,
464 ; Waterville address, 466 ; Ro-
man Catholic worship, 471 ; dislike
of travelling, 473 ; his own poetry,
479 ; death of his eldest child, 481 ;
with his children, 484 ; New York,
489 ; Fourierism, 491 ; wood-lots, 493 ;
Massachusetts Quarterly Review,
497, 515; second visit to England,
501 ; London society, 526 ; Paris,
541 ; lectures, 547 ; Stafford House,
551 ; return home, 563 ; lecturing at
INDEX.
807
the West, ib. ; death of Margaret
Fuller, 571 ; of Mrs. Ruth Emerson,
572 ; slavery, 574 ; annexation of
Texas, 575 : Webster, 578 ; lecture
interrupted, 585 ; speeches against
the Fugitive Slave Law, 587 ; Amer-
ican want of faith, 5S9 ; project of
buying the slaves, 592 ; the North-
ern temperament, 594 ; John Brown,
596 ; an immoral law void, 598 ; " Civ-
ilization at a Pinch," 600 ; lecture in
Washington, 605 ; emancipation, ib.;
English feeling, 608 ; education, 611 ;
at West Point, 613 ; the college, 614 ;
Agassiz, 617 ; Saturday Club, 618 ;
conversation, 622 ; laughter, 624 ;
position in the community, 625 : mar-
riage of his daughter, 628 ; second
Phi Beta Kappa speech, 629; over-
seer, etc., ib. ; rumors of return to
orthodoxy, ib. ; Memorial Hall, 632 ;
university lectures, 633 ; trip to Cal-
ifornia, 644 ; declining strength, 648;
loss of memory, 651 ; Plutarch's
Morals, 652 ; Parnassus, ib. ; burn-
ing of his house, 653 ; third visit to
Europe, 656 ; Egypt, 659 ; England,
662 ; return home, 664 ; reception,
ib. ; candidate for Glasgow Rector-
ship, 666 ; letter to Dr. Furness,
ib. ; Minute-Man speech, 66S ; " Let-
ters and Social Aims," 669 ; Virginia
speech, 673 ; the bodyguard, 676 ;
French's bust of Emerson, 678 ; visit
to Concord, N. H., 679 ; last years,
671, 680 ; last illness and death, 681.
Emerson, Robert Bulkeley, R. W.'s
brother, 27, 99.
Emerson, Mrs. Ruth, R. W.'s mother,
37 ; her death, 572.
Emerson, William (of Concord), R.
W.'s grandfather, 10, 12, 14.
Emerson, William (of Harvard and
Boston), R. W.'s father, 13; letter
to Mrs. Grosvenor, 15 ; at Boston,
19 ; his death, 26.
England, first visit (1833), 193 ; sec-
ond visit (1847-48), 501 ; third visit
(1872), 656.
English, imitated by Americans, 226.
English literature, Lectures on, 238,
714, 716.
" English Traits," 563.
Everett, Edward, Emerson's early ad-
miration of him, 61, 95.
Examiner, The Christian, on "Na-
ture," 261 ; the Divinity Hall ad-
dress, 337.
Farley, Rev. F. A., anecdote of Em-
erson, 300.
Fate, or the order of Nature, to be
reckoned with, 422, 469.
First Philosophy, 199, 246.
Florida, trip to, 121.
France, visit to (1833), 190 ; in 1848,
541 ; in 1872, 660 ; lecture, 756.
Francis, Dr. Convers, the Divinity
Hall address, 337.
French, D. C, his bust of Emerson,
678.
Friendship, 359, 365.
Froude, J. A., 533.
Fruitlands, 438.
Fugitive Slave Law, speech on, 587.
Fuller, S. M., at Emerson's house,
275 ; her death, 571.
Furness, Rev. W. H., Emerson's boy-
hood, 5, 43.
Gardner, J. L., recollections of Emer-
son, 64.
Garrison, W. Lloyd, 430.
Glasgow Rectorship, the, 666.
God, 340, 498.
" Good-bye, proud world " (Emerson's
poem), 84.
Gould, B. A., Emerson's school-mas-
ter, 41.
Greeley, Horace, 489.
Hague, Rev. Dr., reminiscences of
Emerson, 169, 232.
Harvard College : Emerson at college,
55 ; commemoration speech, 627 ;
overseer, 629 ; university lectures,
633.
Harvard Community, 438.
Haskins, Ruth, Emerson's mother, 17,
37 ; her death, 572.
Haskins, Rev. David Green, reminis-
cences, 172, note.
Hawthorne, Nath., description of Em-
erson, 297 ; their walk, 373 ; Emer-
son's opinion of him, 376.
Health, Emerson's, 111, 173.
Hedge, Rev. F. H., Emerson at the
Divinity School, 138 ; sermons, 150 ;
Emerson's opinion of him, 216 ;
Transcendentalism, 244.
Herbert, George, 719.
Hill, J. B., recollections of Emerson,
59 ; correspondence with, 86.
History, lectures on Philosophy of,
298, 724.
Hoar, Judge E. R., 601.
Hoar, Miss Elizabeth. 3S0.
Hoar, Samuel, 575, 751.
Holmes, Dr. O. W., quoted, 262, 321.
Howe, L. G., editor of Massachusetts
Quarterly Review, 497.
"Human Culture," lectures on, 322,
733.
"Human Life," lectures on, 384, 738.
Hume, David, Emerson a student of,
104.
Idealist, Emerson an, 478.
Immortality, 130.
Infinite, the feeling of, 250.
808
INDEX.
Intellect, Natural History of, lectures,
753.
Ireland, Alexander, 496, 509.
Italy, lectures on, 227.
Jackson, Miss lydia. (See Emerson,
Mrs.)
James, Henry, sketch of Emerson,
353, 359, 364.
Jeffrey, Lord, 523.
Jesus, his character, 331, 343.
Jonson, Ben, 719.
Joy, Benjamin, 2.
Lamarck, 223.
Landor, W. S., 190, 529.
Latin School, 41.
Law, an immoral law void, 598.
Lecturing, 365 ; at the West, 563.
Lectures, list of, Appendix F.
Lexington, East, Emerson preaching
there, 237.
Liberal Christianity, 307.
"Life and Literature," lectures, 774.
Lincoln, Abraham, 605.
Literature, English, lectures on, 238.
Liverpool, impression of, 504.
London, first visit, 193 ; in 1848, 526 ;
in 1S72, G56 ; lectures, 547, 753.
Lord's Supper, sermon on, 154.
Loring, Judge Edward Greeley, recol-
lections of Emerson, 42.
Lothrop, Dr. S. K., recollections of
Emerson, 53.
Lovejoy, E. P., a martyr for free
speech, 323.
Lowell. Rev. Chas., account of Emer-
son's father, 22.
Lowell, Francis Cabot, 654.
Lowell, J. R., Emerson's $ B K speech,
321 ; aversion to laughter, 624 ; Em-
erson's influence, 628.
Luther. M., lecture on, 231 ; " Man of
the World," lecture, 796.
Manners, Emerson's, account of his,
142, 361.
Martineau. H., description of Emer-
son, 296.'
Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 497.
Memorial Hall, laying of the corner-
stone, 632.
Memory, loss of, 651.
Mental Philosophy, lectures on, 763.
Michelangelo, lecture on, 231.
Middlebury address, 467.
Milton, John, lecture on, 231.
Miracles, 305.
Money, Emerson's view of, 415.
Montaigne, 167, 325.
Monthly Anthology, the, 23.
Moody, Father, 10.
" Moral Forces," lecture,r786.
"Moral Sense," lecture. 770.
Morley, John, on Emerson, 355.
Murat, Achille, 126.
Muller, George, 417.
Nantasket, visit to, 464.
" Natural Religion," lecture, 773.
"Nature," 259.
Nature, the method of, address at
Waterville, 466.
Nature, early feeling about, 78, 96.
New Bedford, Emerson preaching
there, 154, 215.
New England, lectures on, 469.
Negro, capabilities, 431.
Newton (Mass.), residence. 205.
New York, 489.
Norton, Andrew, remarks on the Di-
vinity Hall address, 334.
Old Brick Church, 2.
Old North Church, 146.
Ossoli, Mme. (See Fuller, S. M.)
Palfrey, Dr. John Gorham, 575, 585.
Paris, visit to (1833), 190; in 1848,
541 ; in 1872, 662.
Parker, Theodore, Emerson's lecture
on the " Present Age," 400 ; in the
Dial, 406.
"Parnassus," 652.
Pea-body, Miss E. P., Emerson's Di-
vinity Hall address, 344.
Periodical, projects of a, 171, 216, 401.
Phi Beta Kappa poem, 228 ; first ad-
dress, 321 : second, 629.
Phillips. Wendell, 359, 598.
Philosophy, the first, 246.
" Philosophy of the People," lectures,
701.
Pierce, Rev. John, account of Emer-
son's father, 20.
Plutarch, Emerson's Introduction to
the Morals, 652.
Plymouth, 237.
Poems, Emerson's, quoted, 182.
Poet, Emerson a poet, 236, 294, 479.
Prayer, Emerson's feeling about, 1G5 ;
on compulsory attendance at, in
college, 630.
Preaching : Emerson's first sermon,
112 ; Dr. Hedge's opinion of Emer-
son's preaching, 150; last sermon,
498
" Present Age," lectures, 730, 742.
Professorship, Emerson desires a, 72.
Providence, R. I., Emerson's preach-
ing there, 301.
Pulpit, its importance, 324.
Pythologian Club, 65.
Quakers, Emerson's sympathy with,
500.
Quincy, Josiah, Jr., recollections of
Emerson, 64.
Reason and understanding, 218, 246.
INDEX.
809
Reed, Sampson, his " Growth of the
Mind," 162.
Reform, Emerson's attitude towards,
436 ; lecture on, 771.
Religion, 725.
" Representative Men," lectures on,
473 ; published, 571.
Ripley, Dr. Ezra, 46, 235.
Ripley, George, editor of the Dial,
403 ; at Brook Farm, 434.
Ripley, Rev. Samuel, kindness to
Emerson, 119 ; his death, 509.
Ripley, Mrs. Sarah Alden, 377.
Robinson, H. Crabb, account of Em-
erson, 561.
Rome, visit to, in 1833, 185, 187.
Roman Catholic worship, 188, 471.
Rotch, Miss Mary, 154, 498.
Russell, Dr. Le Baron, republishes
"Sartor Resartus," 240 ; collects a
fund for Emerson, 654, 703.
St. Augustine, Florida, 121.
Sampson, George, Emerson's letters
to him, 183, 205.
Sanborn, F. B. , account of Concord,
284.
" Sartor Resartus," republication of,
240.
Saturday Club, 618.
"Scholar, The American," Phi Beta
Kappa speech, 320.
School-keeping, 69, 75, 86.
Science, Emerson's position towards,
222.
Scotland, visit to, in 1833, 194.
Scott, David, 520.
Scott, Sir Walter, 239, 722.
Scripture, the quoting of, 316.
Sea, the, 463.
Second Church : Emerson preaches
there, 146 ; gives up his charge, 158 ;
subsequent addresses, 209.
Shakspeare, 719.
Sin, Emerson ignorant of, 354.
Slavery, 425.
Sleepy Hollow address, 760.
Social Circle, club in Concord, 287.
Sumner, Charles, 497.
Sumter, Fort, the attack on, 599.
Sutherland, the Duchess of, 551.
Swedenborg, 162.
"Table-Talk," lecture, 789.
Taylor, Rev. Edward, 327.
Tennyson, Alfred, Emerson's meeting
with, 540.
Texas, annexation of, 575.
Thayer, Professor J. B. : Emerson's
Fugitive Slave Law speech, 586 ;
Western journey with Mr. Emerson,
644.
Thoreau, H. D., 282.
Threnody, 481.
Ticknor, George, 55.
•• Times, The," lectures, 747.
Transcendentalism, 248 ; Emerson's
reserves, 412.
Travelling, Emerson's dislike of, 269.
"Truth," lecture, 784.
Tucker, Ellen Louisa, Emerson's first
wife, 142.
Tufts College address, 780.
Van Buren, letter to, 433, 697.
Vegetarianism, 450.
Very, Jones, 348.
Virginia, Univ. of, Emerson's address,
673.
Walden wood-lot, 493.
Waldo (Emerson's son), his death,
481.
Walker, Rev. James, 337.
Ware, Rev. Henry, Jr., Emerson his
colleague, 144 ; the Divinity Hall
address, 332 ; correspondence with,
689.
Washington, lecture at, 605.
Waterville address, 466.
Wealth, lecture, Emerson's views con-
cerning, 415, 442.
Webster, Daniel, 92, 228, 578.
West, the, 563.
West Point, Emerson a visitor at,
613.
Whipple, E. P., reminiscences of Em-
erson, 467, 585.
Williamstown address, 757.
Willis, N. P., description of Emerson,
570.
Wilson (Christopher North), 521.
Wood-lot, delight in, 493.
Wordsworth, 524, 790.
Writing, Emerson's method, 294.
AUG 2 6 195?