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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Oliver Wendell Holmes
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CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER,
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'* Thou toert the morning star among the living,
Ere th^ fair light had fled:
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendor to the dead.*'
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RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
BT
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AKD COMPANY.
New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street.
1885.
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KD ^'J.'^Ul
HARVARO
[university
LIBRARY .,
Copyright, 1884,
Bt OLTVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Ml rights reserved.
The Rivenide Frtss^ Cambridge:
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Qo.
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NOTE.
My thanks are due to the members of Mr. Emer-
son's family, and the other friends who kindly as-
sisted me by lending interesting letters and furnish-
ing valuable information.
The Index, carefully made by Mr. J. H. Wiggin,
was revised and somewhat abridged by myself.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Boston, November 25, 1884.
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CONTENTS.
Introduction 1
CHAPTER I.
1803-1823. To JET. 20.
Birthplace. — Boyhood. — College Life 37
CHAPTER n.
1823-1828. JEt. 20-25.
Extract from a Letter to a Classmate. — School-Teach-
iDg. — Study of Divinity. — "Approbated " to Preach.
— Visit to the South. — Preaching in Various PlacM 48
CHAPTER nL
1828-1833. Mt. 25-30.
Settled as Colleague of Rev. Henry Ware. — Married to
Ellen Louisa Tucker. — Sermon at the Ordination of
Rev. H. B. Goodwin. — His Pastoral and Other Ia-
bors. — Emerson and Father Taylor. — Death of
Mrs. Emerson. — Difference of Opinion with some of
his Parishioners. — Sermon Explaining his Views. —
Resignation of his Pastorate 55
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IV CONTENTS,
CHAPTER IV.
1833-1838. JEt. 30-35.
§ 1. Visit to Europe. — On his Return preaches in Diflfer-
ent Places. — Emerson in the Pulpit. — At Newton.
— Fixes his Residence at Concord. — The Old Manse.
— Lectures in Boston. — Lectures on Michael An-
gelo and on Milton published in the *' North Ameri-
can Review." — Beginning of the Correspondence
with Carlyle. — Letters to the Rev. James Freeman
Clarke. — Republication of " Sartor Resartus.'*
§ 2. Emerson's Second Marriage. — His New Residence
in Concord. — Historical Address. — Course of Ten
Lectures on English Literature delivered in Boston.
— The Concord Battle Hymn. — Preaching in Con-
cord and East Lexington. — Accounts of his Preach-
ing by Several Hearers. — A Course of Lectures on
the Nature and Ends of History. — Address on War.
— Death of Edward Bliss Emerson. — Death of
Charles Chauncy Emerson.
§ 3. Publication of " Nature." — Outline of this Essay. —
Its Reception. — Address before the Phi Beta Kappa
Society 62
CHAPTER V.
1838-1843. ^T. 35-40.
§ 1. Divinity School Address. — Correspondence. — Lec-
tures on Human Life. — Letters to James Freeman
Clarke. — Dartmouth College Address : Literary Eth-
ics. — Waterville College Address : The Method of
Nature. — Other Addresses: Man the Reformer. —
Lecture on the Times. — The Conservative. — The
Transcendentalist. — Boston " Transcendentalism."
— " The Dial." — Brook Farm.
§ 2. First Series of Essays published. — Contents : His-
tory, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws,
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CONTENTS. V
Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul,
Circles, Intellect, Art. — Emerson's Account of his
Mode of Life in a Letter to Carlyle. — Death of
Emerson's Son. — Threnody U6
CHAPTER VI.
1843-1848. -^T. 40-45.
" The Young American." — Address on the Anniversary
of the Emancipation of the Negroes in the British
West Indies. — Publication of the Second Series of
Essays. — Contents : The Poet. — Experience. —
Character. — Manners. — Gifts. — Nature. — Politics.
— Nominalist and Realist. — New England Reform-
ers. — Publication of Poems. — Second Visit to Eng-
land 179
CHAPTER VIL
1848-1853. JEt. 45-50.
The " Massachusetts Quarterly Review." — Visit to Eu-
rope. — England. — Scotland. — France. — " Repre-
sentative Men " published. I. Lives of Great Men.
II. Plato ; or, the Philosopher ; Plato ; New Read-
ings. III. Swedenborg ; or, the Mystic. IV. Mon-
taigne; or, the Skeptic. V. Shakespeare; or, the
Poet. VI. Napoleon ; or, the Man of the World.
VIL Gk>ethe ; or, the Writer. — Contribution to the
" Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli " 193
CHAPTER Vm.
1853-1858. JEt. 50-55.
Lectures in various Places. — Anti-Slavery Addresses. —
Woman. A Lecture read before the Woman's Rights
Convention. — Samuel Hoar. Speech at Concord. —
Publication of "English Traits." — The "Atlantic
Monthly." — The "Saturday Qub" 210
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VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
1858-1863. ^T. 55-60.
Essay on Persian Poetry. — Speech at the Bums Centen-
nial Festival. — Letter from Emerson to a Lady. —
Tributes to Theodore Parker and to Thoreau. — Ad-
dress on the Emancipation Proclamation. — Publica-
tion of " The Conduct of Life." Contents : Fate ;
Power; Wealth ; Culture ; Behavior ; Considerations
by the Way ; Beauty ; Illusions 224
CHAPTER X.
1863-1868. ^T. 60-65.
" Boston Hymn." — " Voluntaries." — Other Poems. —
"May-Day and other Pieces." — "Remarkjs at the
Funeral Services of President Lincoln." — Essay on
Persian Poetry. — Address at a Meeting of the Free
Religious Association. — " Progress of Culture." Ad-
dress before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard
University. — Course of Lectures in Philadelphia. —
The Degree of LL. D. conferred upon Emerson by
Harvard University. — " Terminus " 240
CHAPTER XL
1868-1873. JEt. 65-70.
Lectures on the Natural History of the Intellect. — Publi-
cation of " Society and Solitude." Contents : Soci-
ety and Solitude. — Civilization. — Art. — Eloquence.
— Domestic Life. — Farming. — Works and Days. —
Books. — Clubs. — Courage. — Success. — Old Age.
— Other Literary Labors. — Visit to California. —
Burning of his House, and the Story of its Rebuild-
ing. — Third Visit to Europe. — His Reception at
Concord on his Return 249
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CONTENTS, vii
CHAPTER XII.
1873-1878. -^T. 70-75.
Publication of "Parnassus." — Emerson Nominated as
Candidate for the Office of Lord Rector of Glasgow
University. — Publication of " Letters and Social
Aims." Contents : Poetry and Imagination. — Social
Aims. — Eloquence. — Resources. — The Comic. —
Quotation and Originality. — Progress of Culture. —
Persian Poetry. — Inspiration. — Greatness. — Im-
mortality. — Address at the Unveiling of the Statue
of " The Minute-Man " at Concord.— Publication of
Collected Poems 280
CHAPTER Xni.
1878-1882. JEt. 75-79.
Last Literary Labors. — Addresses and Essays. — " Lec-
tures and Biographical Sketches." — " Miscellanies " 294
CHAPTER XIV.
Emerson's Poems ^, . , 310
CHAPTER XV.
Recollections of Emerson's Last Years. — Mr. Conway's
Visits. — Extracts from Mr. Whitman's Journal. —
Dr. Le Baron Russell's Visit. — Dr. Edward Emer-
son's Account. — Illness and Death. — Funeral Ser-
vices 343
CHAPTER XVI.
EMERSON. — A RETROSPECT.
Personality and Habits of Life. — His Commission and
Errand. — As a Lecturer. — His Use of Authorities.
— Resemblance to Other Writers. — As influenced
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Vin CONTENTS.
by Others. — His Place as a Thinker. — Idealism and
Intuition. — Mysticism. — His Attitude respecting
Science. — As an American. — His Fondness for Sol-
itary Study. — His Patience and Amiability. — Feel-
ing with which he was regarded. — Emerson and
Bums. — His Religious Belief. — His Relations with
Clergymen. — Future of his Reputation. — His Life
judged by the Ideal Standard 357
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INTRODUCTION.
" I HAVE the feeling that every man's biog-
raphy is at his own expense. He furnishes not
only the facts, but the report. I mean that all
biography is autobiography. It is only what he
tells of himself that comes to be known and
believed."
So writes the man whose life we are to pass
in review, and it is certainly as true of him as
of any author we could name. He delineates
himself so perfectly in his various writings that
the careful reader sees his nature just as it was
in all its essentials, and has little more to learn
than those human accidents which individualize
him in space and time. About all these acci-
dents we have a natural and pardonabk curios-
ity. We wish to know of what race he came,
what were the conditions into which he was
bom, what educational and social influences
helped to mould his character, and what new
elements Nature added to make him Ralph
Waldo Emerson.
He himself bfelieves in the hereditary trans-
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2 INTRODUCTION.
mission of certain characteristics. Though Na-
ture appears capricious, he says, " Some quali-
ties she carefully fixes and transmits, but some,
and those the finer, she exhales with the breath
of the individual, as too costly to perpetuate.
But I notice also that they may become fixed
and permanent in any stock, by painting and
repainting them on every individual, until at
last Nature adopts them and bakes them in her
porcelain."
We have in New England a certain number
of families who constitute what may be called
the Academic Races. Their names have been
on college catalogues for generation after gener-
ation. They have filled the learned professions,
more especially the ministry, from the old colo-
nial days to our own time. If aptitudes for the
acquisition of knowledge can be bred into a
family as the qualities the sportsman wants in
his dog are developed in pointers and setters, we
know what we may expect of a descendant of
one of the Academic Kaces. Other things be-
ing equal, he will take more naturally, more
easily, to his books. His features will be more
pliable, his voice will be more flexible, his whole
nature more plastic than those of the youth vdth
less favoring antecedents. The gift of genius is
never to be reckoned upon beforehand, any more
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INTRODUCTION, 3
than a choice new variety of pear or peach in a
seedling ; it is always a surprise, but it is bom
with great advantages when the stock from
which it springs has been long under cultivar
tion.
THiese thoughts suggest themselves in looking
back at the striking record of the family made
historic by the birth of Ealph Waldo Emerson.
It was remarkable for the long succession of
clergymen in its genealogy, and for the large
number of college graduates it counted on its
rolls.
A genealogical table is very apt to illustrate
the " survival of the fittest," — in the estimate
of the descendants. It is inclined to remember
and record those ancestors who do most honor
to the living heirs of the family name and tra-
ditions. As every man may count two grand-
fathers, four great-grandfathers, eight great-
great-grandfathers, and so on, a few generations
give him a good chance for selection. If he
adds his distinguished grandmothers, he may
double the number of personages to choose from.
The great-grandfathers of Mr. Emerson at the
sixth remove were thirty-two in number, unless
the list was shortened by intermarriage of rela-
tions. One of these, from whom the name de-
scended, was Thomas Emerson of Ipswich, who
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4 INTRODUCTION.
fumislied the staff of life to the people of that
wonderfully interesting old town and its neigh-
borhood.
His son, the Reverend Joseph Emerson, min-
ister of the town of Mendon, Massachusetts,
married Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend
Edward Bulkeley, who succeeded his father, the
Reverend Peter Bulkeley, as Minister of Con-
cord, Massachusetts.
Peter Bulkeley was therefore one of Emer-
son's sixty-two grandfathers at the seventh re-
move. We know the tenacity of certain family
characteristics through long lines of descent, and
it is not impossible that any one of a hundred
and twenty-four grandparents, if indeed the full
number existed • in spite of family admixtures,
may have transmitted his or her distinguishing
traits through a series of lives that cover more
than two centuries, to our own contemporary.
Inherited qualities move along their several
paths not unlike the pieces in the game of chess.
Sometimes the character of the son can be
traced directly to that of the father or of the
mother, as the pawn's move carries him from
one square to the next. Sometimes a series of
distinguished fathers follows in a line, or a suc-
cession of superior . mothers, as the black or
white bishop sweeps the board on his own color.
Sometimes the distinguishing characters pass
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INTRODUCTION, 6
from one sex to the other indifferently, as the
castle strides over the black and white squares.
Sometimes an uncle or aunt lives over again in
a nephew or niece, as if the knight's move were
repeated on the squares of human individuality.
It is not impossible, then, that some of the qual-
ities we mark in Emerson may have come from
the remote ancestor whose name figures with
distinction in the early history of New Eng-
land.
The Reverend Peter Bulkeley is honorably
commemorated among the worthies consigned to
immortality in that precious and entertaining
medley of fact and fancy, enlivened by a wilder-
ness of quotations at first or second hand, the
Magnalia Christi Americana^ of the Reverend
Cotton Mather. The old chronicler tells his story
so much better than any one can tell it for him
that he must be allowed to speak for himself in
a few extracts, transferred with all their typo-
graphical idiosyncrasies from the London-printed
folio of 1702.
" He was descended of an Honourable Family in
Bedfordshire, — He was born at Woodhil (or Odd)
in Bedfordshire^ January 31st, 1582.
" His JSditcation was answerable unto his Origi-
nal ; it was Learned, it was Genteel, and, which was
the top of all, it was very Pious : At length it made
him a BatcheUor of Divinity, and a Fellow of Saint
JohrCs CoUedge in Cambridge.
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6 INTRODUCTION,
" When he came ahroad into the World, a good
henefice hefel him, added unto the estate of a Gen-
tleman, left him by his Father ; whom he succeeded
in his Ministry, at the place of his Nativity : Which
one would imagine Temptations enough to keep him
out of a Wilderness"
But he could not conscientiously conform to
the ceremonies of the English Church, and so, —
"When Sir Nathaniel Brent was Arch-Bishop
Land's General, as Arch-Bishop Land was another's,
Complaints were made against Mr. Bulkly, for his
Non-Conformity, and he was therefore Silenced.
" To New-England he therefore came, in the Year
1635 ; and there having been for a while, at Cam-
bridge, he carried a good Number of Planters with
him, up further into the Woods^ where they gathered
the Twelfth Church, then formed in the Colony, and
call'd the Town by the Name of Concord,
" Here he buried a great Estate, while he raised
one stiU, for almost every Person whom he employed
in the Affairs of his Husbandry. —
"He was a most excellent Scholar, a Yery-well
read Person, and one, who in his advice to young
Students, gave Demonstrations, that he knew what
would go to make a Scholar, But it being essential
unto a Scholar to love a Scholar, so did he ; and in
Token thereof, endowed the Library of Harvard-
Colledge with no small part of his own.
" And he was therewithal a most exalted Chris-
tian — " In his Ministry he was another Fard, Quo
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INTRODUCTION. 7
neTTVO tonuit fortius — And the observance which his
own People had for him, was also paid him irom. all
sorts of People throughout the Land ; but especially
from the Ministers of the Country, who would still
address him as a Father, a Prophet, a Counsellor, on
all occasions."
These extracts may not quite satisfy the ex-
acting reader, who must be referred to the old
folio from which they were taken, where he will
receive the following counsel : —
" If then any Person would know what Mr.
Peter Bulkly was, let him read his Judicious
and Savory Treatise of the Gospel Covenant^
which has passed through several Editions, with
much Acceptance among the People of God." It
must be added that " he had a competently good
Stroke at Latin Poetry ; and even in his Old
Age, affected sometimes to improve it. Many
of his Composure are yet in our Hands."
It is pleasant 1;o believe that some of the qual-
ities of this distinguished scholar and Christian
were reproduced in the descendant whose life we
are studying. At his death in 1659 he was suc-
ceeded, as was mentioned, by his son Edward,
whose daughter became the wife of the Reverend
Joseph Emerson, the minister of Mendon who,
when that village was destroyed by the Indians,
removed to Concord, where he died in the year
1680. This is the first connection of the name
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8 INTRODUCTION.
of Emerson with Concord, with which it has
since been so long associated.
Edward Emerson, son of the first and father
of the second Reverend Joseph Emerson, though
not a minister, was the next thing to being one,
for on his gravestone he is thus recorded : " Mr.
Edward Emerson, sometime Deacon of the first
church in Newbury." He was noted for the
virtue of patience, and it is a family tradition
that he never complained but once, when he
said mildly to his daughter that her dumplings
were somewhat harder than needful, — " hut not
often^ This same Edward was the only break
in the line of ministers who descended from
Thomas of Ipswich. He is remembered in the
family as having been " a merchant in ^harles-
town."
Their son, the second Reverend Joseph Emer-
son, Minister of Maiden for nearly half a cen-
tury, married Mary, the daughter of the Rev-
erend Samuel Moody, — Father Moody, — of
York, Maine. Three of his sons were ministers,
and one of these, William, was pastor of the
church at Concord at the period of the outbreak
of the Revolutionary War.
As the successive generations narrow down
towards the individual whose life we are recall-
ing, the character of his progenitors becomes
more and more important and interesting to the
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INTRODUCTION, 9
biographer. The Reverend William Emerson,
grandfather of Ralph Waldo, was an excellent
and popular preacher and an ardent and devoted
patriot. He preached resistance to tyrants from
the pulpit, he encouraged his townsmen and
their allies to make a stand against the soldiers
who had marched upon their peaceful village,
and would have taken a part in the Fight at the
Bridge, which he saw from his own house, had
not the friends around him prevented his quit-
ting his doorstep. He left Concord in 1776 to'
join the army at Ticonderoga, was taken with
fever, was advised to return to Concord and set
out on the journey, but died on his way. His
wife was the daughter of the Reverend Daniel
Bliss, his predecessor in the pulpit at Concord.
This was another very noticeable personage in
the line of Emerson's ancestors. His merits and
abilities are described at great length on his
tombstone in the Concord burial-ground. There
is no reason to doubt that his epitaph was com-
posed by one who knew him well. But the
slabs which record the excellences of our New
England clergymen of the past generations are
so crowded with virtues that the reader can
hardly help inquiring whether a sharp bargain
was not driven with the stonecutter, like that
which the good Vicar of Wakefield arranged
with the portrait-painter. He was to represent
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10 INTRODUCTION.
Sophia as a shepterdess, it will be remembered,
with as many sheep as he could afford to put in
for nothing.
William Emerson left four children, a son
bearing the same name, and three daughters, one
of whom, Mary Moody Emerson, is well remem-
bered as pictured for us by her nephew, Kalph
Waldo. His widow became the wife of the
Reverend Ezra Ripley, Doctor of Divinity, and
his successor as Minister at Concord.
^ * The Reverend William Emerson, the second
of that name and profession, and the father of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, was bom in the year
1769, and graduated at Harvard College in
1789. He was settled as Minister in the town
of Harvard in the year 1792, and in 1799 be-
came Minister of the First Church in Boston.
In 1796 he married Ruth Haskins of Boston.
He died in 1811, leaving five sons, of whom
Ralph Waldo was the second.
The interest which attaches itself to the im-
mediate parentage of a man like Emerson leads
us to inquire particularly about the characteris-
tics of the Reverend William Emerson so far as
we can learn them from his own writings and
from the record of his contemporaries.
The Reverend Dr. Sprague's valuable and
well-known work, "Annals of the American
Pulpit," contains three letters from which we
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INTRODUCTION. 11
leam some of his leading characteristics. Dr.
Pierce of Brookline, the faithful chronicler of
his time, speaks of his pulpit talents as extra-
ordinary, but thinks there was not a perfect
sympathy between him and the people of the
quiet little town of Harvard, while he was
highly acceptable in the pulpits of the metrop-
olis. In personal appearance he was attractive ;
his voice was melodious, his utterance distinct,
his manner agreeable. " He was a faithful and
generous friend and knew how to forgive an
enemy. — In his theological views perhaps he
went farther on the liberal side than most of his
brethren with whom he was associated. — He
was, however, perfectly tolerant towards those
who differed from him most widely."
Dr. Charles Lowell, another brother minister,
says of him, " Mr. Emerson was a handsome man,
rather tall, with a fair complexion, his cheeks
slightly tinted, his motions easy, graceful, and
gentlemanlike, his manners bland and pleasant.
He was an honest man, and expressed himself
decidedly and emphatically, but never bluntly or
vulgarly. — Mr. Emerson was a man of good
sense. His conversation was edifying and use-
ful ; never foolish or undignified. — In his the-
ological opinions he was, to say the least, far
from having any sympathy with Calvinism. I
have not supposed that he was, like Dr, Free-
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12 INTRODUCTION,
man, a Humanitarian, though he may have been
so.
There was no honester chronicler than our
1 clerical Pepys, good, hearty, sweet-souled, fact-
loving Dr. John Pierce of Brookline, who knew
the dates of birth and death of the graduates of
Harvard, starred and unstarred, better, one is
tempted to say (^Hihernice)^ than they did them-
selves. There was not a nobler gentleman in
. charge of any Boston parish than Dr. Charles
Lowell. But after the pulpit has said what it
thinks of the pulpit, it is well to listen to what
the pews have to say about it.
This is what the late Mr. George Ticknor said
in an article in the " €3iristian Examiner " for
September, 1849.
/ " Mr. Emerson, transplanted to the First
Church in Boston six years before Mr. Buck-
minster's settlement, possessed, on the contrary,
a graceful and dignified style of speaking, which
was by no means without its attraction, but he
lacked the fervor that could rouse the masses,
and the original resources that could command
the few."
As to his religious beliefs, Emerson writes to
Dr. Sprague as follows : " I did not find in any
manuscript or printed sermons that I looked at,
any very explicit statement of opinion on the
question between Calvinists and Socinians. He
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INTRODUCTION, 13
inclines obviously to what is ethical and uni-
versal in Christianity ; very little to the personal
and historical. — I think I observe in his writ-
ings, as in the writings of Unitarians down to a
recent date, a studied reserve on the subject of
the nature and offices of Jesus. They had not
made up their own minds on it. It was a mys-
tery to them, and they let it remain so."
Mr. William Emerson left, published, fifteen
Sermons and Discourses, an Oration pronounced
at Boston on the Fourth of July, 1802, a Col-
lection of Psalms and Hymns, an Historical
Sketch of the First Church in Boston, besides
his contributions to the " Monthly Anthology,"
of which he was the Editor.
Euth Haskins, the wife of William and the
mother of Ralph Waldo Emerson, is spoken of
by the late Dr. Frothingham, in an article in the
" Christian Examiner," as a woman " of great
patience and fortitude, of the serenest trust in
God, of a discerning spirit, and a most courte-
ous bearing, one who knew how to guide the
affairs of her own house, as long as she was re-
sponsible for that, with the sweetest authority,
and knew how to give the least trouble and the
greatest happiness after that authority was re-
signed. Both her mind and her character were
of a superior order, and they set their stamp
upon manners of peculiar softness and natural
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14 INTRODUCTION,
grace and quiet dignity. Her sensible and
kindly speech was always as good as the best
instruction ; her smile, though it was ever ready,
was a reward."
The Keverend Dr. Fumess of Philadelphia,
who grew up with her son, says, " Waldo bore a
strong resemblance to his father ; the other chil-
dren resembled their mother.'^
Such was the descent of Ralph Waldo Emer-
son. If the ideas of parents survive as impres-
sions or tendencies in their descendants, no man
had a better right to an inheritance of theologi-
cal instincts than this representative of a long
line of ministers. The same trains of thought
and feeling might naturally gain in force from
another association of near family relationship,
though not of blood. After the death of the
first William Emerson, the Concord minister,
his widow, Mr. Emerson's grandmother, mar-
ried, as has been mentioned, his successor. Dr.
Ezra Ripley. The grandson spent much time in
the family of Dr. Ripley, whose character he
has drawn with exquisite felicity in a sketch
read before The Social Club of Concord, and
published in the " Atlantic Monthly " for No-
vember, 1883. Mr. Emerson says of him:
" He was identified with the ideas and forms of
the New England Church, which expired about
the same time with him, so that he and his
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INTRODUCTION. 15
coevals seemed the rear guard of the great camp
and army of the Puritans, which, however in
its last days declining into formalism, in the
heyday of its strength had planted and liber-
ated America. . . . The same faith made what
was strong and what was weak in Dr. Ripley."
It would be hard to find a more perfect sketch
of character than Mr. Emerson's living picture
of Dr. Ripley. I myself remember him as a
comely little old gentleman, but he was not so
communicative in a strange household as his
clerical brethren, smiling John Foster of Brigh-
ton and chatty Jonathan Homer of Newton.
Mr. Emerson says, " He was a natural gentle-
man ; no dandy, but com^tly, hospitable, manly,
and public-spirited ; his nature social, his house
open to all men. — His brow was serene and
open to his visitor, for he loved men, and he had
no studies, no occupations, which company could
interrupt. His friends were his study, and to
see them loosened his talents and his tongue.
In his house dwelt order and prudence and
plenty. There was no waste and no stint. He
was open-handed and just and generous. In-
gratitude and meanness in his beneficiaries did
not wear out his compassion ; he bore the insult,
and the next day his basket for the beggar, his
horse and chaise for the cripple, were at their
door." How like Goldsmith's good Dr. Prim-
us
/
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16 INTRODUCTION.
rose ! I do not know any writing of Mr. Emer-
son which brings out more fully his sense of
humor, — of the picturesque in character, —
and as a piece of composition, continuous, fluid,
transparent, with a playful ripple here and
there, it is admirable and delightful.
Another of his early companionships must
have exercised a still more powerful influence on
his character, — that of his aunt, Mary Moody
Emerson. He gave an account of her in a paper
read before the Woman's Club several years ago,
and published in the " Atlantic Monthly " for
December, 1883. Far more of Mr. Emerson is
to be found in this aunt of his than in any other
of his relations in the ascending series, with
whose history we are acquainted. Her story is
an interesting one, but for that I must refer the
reader to the article mentioned. Her character
and intellectual traits are what we are most con-
cerned with. " Her early reading was Milton,
Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, Jonathan
Edwards, and always the Bible. Later, Plato,
Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, Cole-
ridge, Herder, Locke, Madam De Stael, Chan-
ning, Mackintosh, Byron. Nobody can read in
her manuscript, or recall the conversation of
old-school people, without seeing that Milton
and Young had a religious authority in their
minds, and nowise the slight merely entertain-
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INTRODUCTION, 17
ing quality of modem bards. And Plato, Aris-
totle, Plotinus, — how venerable and organic as
Nature they are in her mind ! "
There are many sentences cited by Mr. Emer-
son which remind us very strongly of his own
writings. Such a passage as the following might
have come from his Essay, " Nature," but it was
written when her nephew was only four years
old.
" Maiden, 1807, September. — The rapture of feel-
ing I would part from for days devoted to higher
discipline. But when Nature beams with such excess
of beauty, when the heart thrills with hope in its Au-
thor, — feels it is related to Him more than by any
ties of creation, — it exults, too fondly, perhaps, for
a state of trial. But in dead of night, nearer morn-
ing, when the eastern stars glow, or appear to glow,
with more indescribable lustre, a lustre which pene-
trates the spirits with wonder and curiosity, — then,
however awed, who can fear ? " — "A few pulsa-
tions of created beings, a few successions of acts, a
few lamps held out in the firmament, enable us to talk
of Time, make epochs, write histories, — to do more,
— to date the revelations of Grod to man. But these
lamps are held to measure out some of the moments
of eternity, to divide the history of God's operations
in the birth and death of nations, of worlds. It is a
goodly name for our notions of breathing, suffering,
enjoying, acting. We personify it. We call it by
every name of fleeting, dreaming, vaporing imagery.
2
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18 INTRODUCTION.
Yet it is nothing. We exist in eternity. Dissolve
the body and the night is gone ; the stars are extin-
guished, and we measure duration by the number of
our thoughts, by the activity of reason, the discovery
of truths, the acquirement of virtue, the approval of
God."
Miss Mary Emerson showed something of the
same feeling towards natural science which may
be noted in her nephews Waldo and Charles.
After speaking of " the poor old earth's chaotic
state, brought so near in its long and gloomy
transmutings by the geologist," she says : —
"Yet its youthful charms, as decked by the hand
of Moses' Cosmogony, will linger about the heart,
while Poetry succumbs to science." — " And the bare
bones of this poor embryo earth may give the idea
of the Infinite, far, far better than when dignified
with arts and industry ; its oceans, when beating the
symbols of countless ages, than when covered with
cargoes of war and oppression. How grand its prep-
aration for souls, souls who were to feel the Divinity,
before Science had dissected the emotions and ap-
plied its steely analysis to that state of being which
recognizes neither psychology nor element." — Use-
fulness, if it requires action, seems less like existence
than the desire of being absorbed in God, retaining
consciousness. . . . Scorn trifles, lift your aims ; do
what you are afraid to do. Sublimity of character
must come from sublimity of motive."
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INTRODUCTION. 19
So far as hereditary and family influences can
account for the character and intellect of Balph
Waldo Emerson, we could hardly ask for a bet-
ter inborn inheritance, or better counsels and
examples.
Having traced some of the distinguishing traits
which belong by descent to Mr. Emerson to those
who were before him, it is interesting to note how
far they showed themselves in those of his own
generation, his brothers. Of these I will men-
tion two, one of whom I knew personally.
Edward Bliss Emerson, who graduated at
Harvard College in 1824, three years after
' Ealph Waldo, held the first place in his class.
He began the study of the law with Daniel
Webster, but overworked himself and suffered
a temporary disturbance of his reason. After
this he made another attempt, but found his
health unequal to the task and exiled himself to
Porto Rico, where, in 1834, he died. Two
poems preserve his memory, one that of Ralph
Waldo, in which he addresses his memory, —
" Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star,"
the other his own " Last Farewell," written in
1832, whilst sailing out of Boston Harbor. The
lines are imaffected and very touching, full of
that deep affection which united the brothers in
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20 INTRODUCTION,
the closest intimacy, and of the tenderest love for
the mother whom he was leaving to see no more.
I had in my early youth a key furnished me
to some of the leading traits which were in due
time to develop themselves in Emerson's charac-
ter and intelligence. As on the wall of some
great artist's studio one may find unfinished
sketches which he recognizes as the first growing
conceptions of pictures painted in after years, so
we see that Nature often sketches, as it were, a
living portrait, which she leaves in its rudiment-
ary condition, perhaps for the reason that earth
has no colors which can worthily fill in an outline
too perfect for humanity. The sketch is left
in its consummate incompleteness because this
mortal life is not rich enough to carry out the
Divine idea.
Such an unfinished but unmatched outline is
that which I find in the long portrait - gallery
5c V?^ y ^^ memory, recalled by the name of Charles
i^W« Chauncy Emerson. Save for a few brief
glimpses of another, almost lost among my life's
early shadows, this youth was the most angelic
adolescent my eyes ever beheld. Remembering
what well-filtered blood it was that ran in the
veins of the race from which he was descended,
those who knew him in life might weU say with
Dryden, —
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INTRODUCTION. 21
^ If by traduction came thy mind
Our wonder is the less to find
A soul so charming from a stock so gfood."
His image is with me in its immortal youth as
when, ahnost fifty years ago, I spoke of him in
these lines, which I may venture to quote from
myself, since others have quoted them before me.
Thou calm, chaste scholar 1 1 can see thee now,
The first young laurels on thy pallid brow,
O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down
In graceful folds the academic gown,
On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught
How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought,
And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye.
Too bright to live, — but O, too fair to die.
Being about seven years yoimger than Waldo, he
must have received much of his intellectual and
moral guidance at his elder brother's hands. I
told the story at a meeting of our Historical
Society of Charles Emerson's coming into my
study, — this was probably in 1826 or 1827, —
taking up Hazlitt's " British Poets " and turning
at once to a poem of MarveU's, which he read
with his entrancing voice and manner. The
influence of this poet is plain to every reader in
some of Emerson's poems, and Charles' liking
for him was very probably caught from Waldo.
When Charles was nearly through college, a
periodical called "The Harvard Register" was
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22 INTRODUCTION.
published by students and recent graduates.
Three articles were contributed by him to this
periodical. Two of them have the titles " Con-
versation," "Friendship." His quotations are
from Horace and Juvenal, Plato, Plutarch, Ba-
con, Jeremy Taylor, Shakespeare, and Scott.
There are passages in these Essays which remind
one strongly of his brother, the Lecturer of
twenty-five or thirty years later. Take this as
an example : —
'^ Men and mind are my studies. I need no ob-
servatory high in air to aid my perceptions or enlarge
my prospect. I do not want a costly apparatus to
give pomp to my pursuit or to disguise its inutility. I
do not desire to travel and see foreign lands and learn
all knowledge and speak with all tongues, before I
am prepared for my employment. I have merely to
go out of my door ; nay, I may stay at home at my
chambers, and I shall have enough to do and enjoy."
The feeling of this sentence shows itself con-
stantly in Emerson's poems. He finds his in-
spiration in the objects about him, the forest in
which he walks ; the sheet of water which the
hermit of a couple of seasons made famous ; the
lazy Musketaquid ; the titmouse that mocked his
weakness in the bitter cold winter's day ; the
mountain that rose in the horizon ; the lofty
pines ; the lowly flowers. All talked with him
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INTRODUCTION. 23
as brothers and sisters, and he with them as of
his own household.
The same lofty idea of friendship which we
find in the man in his maturity, we recognize in
one of the Essays of the youth.
" AU men of gifted intellect and fine genius," says
Charles Emerson, "must entertain a noble idea of
friendship. Our reverence we are constrained to
yield where it is due, — to rank, merit, talents. But
our affections we give not thus easily.
* The hand of Douglas is his own.' "
— "I am willing to lose an hour in gossip with per-
sons whom good men hold cheap. All this I will do
out of regard to the decent conventions of polite life.
But my friends I must know, and, knowing, I must
love. There must be a daily beauty in their life that
shall secure my constant attachment. I cannot stand
upon the footing of ordinary acquaintance. Friend-
ship is aristocratical — the affections which are pros-
tituted to every suitor I will not accept."
Here are glimpses of what the youth was
to be, of what the man who long outlived him
became. Here is the. dignity which commands
reverence, — a dignity which, with all Ralph
Waldo Emerson's sweetness of manner and ex-
pression, rose almost to majesty in his serene
presence. There was something about Charles ^J
Emerson which lifted those he was with into
a lofty and pure region of thought and feeling.
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24 INTRODUCTION.
A vulgar soul stood abashed in his presence. I
could never think of him in the presence of such,
listening to a paltry sentiment or witnessing a
mean action without recalling Milton's line,
" Back stepped those two fair angels half amazed,"
and thinking how he might well have been
taken for a celestial messenger.
No doubt there is something of idealization
in all these reminiscences, and of that exaggera-
/tion which belongs to the laudator temporis acti.
But Charles Emerson was idolized in his own
time by many in college and out of coUege.
George Stillman Hillard was his rival. Neck
and neck they ran the race for the enviable posi-
tion of first scholar in the class of 1828, and
when Hillard was announced as having the first
part assigned to him, the excitement within the
coUege walls, and to some extent outside of
them, was like that when the telegraph proclaims
the result of a Presidential election, — or the
Winner of the Derby. But HiUard honestly
y admired his brilliant rival. "Who has a part
with * * * * at this next exhibition ? " I asked
him one day, as I met him in the college yard.
"***** the Post," answered HiUard. " Why
call him the Post ? " said I. " He is a wooden
creature," said HiUard. " Hear him and Charles
Emerson translating from the Latin Domus
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INTRODUCTION. 25
tota inflammata erat. The Post will render the
words, ' The whole house was on fire.' Charles
Emerson will translate the sentence ^The en-
tire edifice was wrapped in flames.' " It was
natural enough that a young admirer should
prefer the Bernini drapery of Charles Emerson's
version to the simple nudity of "the Post's"
rendering.
The nest is made ready long beforehand for
the bird which is to be bred in it and to fly
from it. The intellectual atmosphere into which
a scholar is born, and from which he draws the
breath of his early mental life, must be stud-
ied if we would hope to imderstand him thor-
oughly.
When the present century began, the ele-
ments, thrown into confusion by the long strug-
gle for Independence, had not had time to
arrange themselves in new combinations. The
active intellects of the country had found enough
to keep them busy in creating and organizing a
new order of political and social life. What-
ever purely literary talent existed was as yet in
the nebular condition, a diffused luminous spot
here and there, waiting to form centres of con-
densation.
Such a nebular spot had been brightening in
and about Boston for a number of years, when,
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26 INTRODUCTION.
in the year 1804, a small cluster of names be-
came visible as representing a modest constella-
tion of literary luminaries : John Thornton
Kirkland, afterwards President of Harvard Uni-
versity ; Joseph Stevens Buchminster ; John
Sylvester John Gardiner; William Tudor; Sam-
uel Cooper Thacher ; William Emerson. These
were the chief stars of the new cluster, and their
light reached the world, or a small part of it,
as reflected from the pages of "The Monthly
Anthology," which very soon came under the
editorship of the Eeverend William Emerson.
The father of Ealph Waldo Emerson may
be judged of in good measure by the associates
with whom he was thus connected. A brief
sketch of these friends and fellow-workers of his
may not be out of place, for these men made the
local sphere of thought into which Ealph Waldo
Emerson was bom.
John Thornton Kirkland should have been
seen and heard as he is remembered by old grad-
uates of Harvard, sitting in the ancient Presi-
dential Chair, on Commencement Day, and call-
ing in his penetrating but musical accents : " Exr
pectatur Oratio in Lingua Latina " or " Ver-
nacula^^^ if the "First Scholar" was about
to deliver the English oration. It was a pres-
ence not to be forgotten. His " shining morn-
ing face " was roimd as a baby's, and talked as
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INTRODUCTION. 27
pleasantly as his voice did, with smiles for ac-
cents and dimples for punctuation. Mr. Tick-
nor speaks of his sermons as ^^ full of intellectual
wealth and practical wisdom, with sometimes a
quaintness that bordered on humor." It was
of him that the story was always told, — it may
be as old as the invention of printing, — that he
threw his sermons into a barrel, where they went
to pieces and got mixed up, and that when he^
was going to preach he fished out what he
thought would be about enough for a sermon, and
patched the leaves together as he best might.
The Reverend Dr. Lowell says: "He always
found the right piece, and that was better than
almost any of his brethren could have found in
what they had written with twice the labor." Mr.
Cabot, who knew all Emerson's literary habits,
says he used to fish out the number of leaves he
wanted for a lecture in somewhat the same way.
Emerson's father, however, was very methodical,
according to Dr. LoweU, and had " a place for
everything, and everything in its place." Dr.
Kirkland left little to be remembered by, and
like many of the most interesting personalities
we have met with, has become a very thin ghost
to the grandchildren of his contemporaries.
Joseph Stevens Buckminster was the pulpit y
darling of his day, in Boston. The beauty of
his person, the perfection of his oratory, the
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28 INTRODUCTION.
finish of his style, added to the sweetness of his
character, made him one of those living idols
which seem to be as necessary to Protestantism
as images and pictures are to Eomanism.
^ John Sylvester John Grardiner, once a pupil
of the famous Dr. Parr, was then the leading
Episcopal clergyman of Boston. Him I recon-
struct from scattered hints I have met with as a
scholarly, social man, with a sanguine tempera-
ment and the cheerful ways of a wholesome
English parson, blest vrith a good constitution
and a comfortable benefice. Mild Orthodoxy,
ripened in Unitarian sunshine, is a very agree-
able aspect of Christianity, and none was read-
ier than Dr. Gardiner, if the voice of tradition
may be trusted, to fraternize with his brothers
of the liberal persuasion, and to make common
cause with them in all that related to the inter-
ests of learning.
William Tudor was a chief connecting link
between the period of the "Monthly Anthol-
ogy," and that of the "North American Re-
view," for he was a frequent contributor to the
first of these periodicals, and he was the founder
of the second. Edward Everett characterizes
him, in speaking of his " Letters on the Eastern
States," as a scholar and a gentleman, an impar-
tial observer, a temperate champion, a liberal
opponent, and a correct writer. Daniel Web-
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INTRODUCTION, 29
ster bore similar testimony to his talents and
character.
Samuel Cooper Thacher was hardly twenty
years old when the " Anthology " was founded,
and died when he was only a little more than
thirty. He contributed largely to that period-
ical, besides publishing various controversial ser-
mcms, and writing the " Memoir of Buckmin-
ster."
There was no more brilliant circle than this in
any of our cities. There was none where so
much freedom of thought was united to so much
scholarship. The " Anthology " was the liter-
ary precursor of the " North American Review,"
and the theological herald of the "Christian
Examiner." Like all first beginnings it showed
many marks of immaturity. It mingled extracts
and original contributions, theology and medi-
cine, with all manner of literary chips and shav-
ings. It had Magazine ways that smacked of
Sylvanus Urban ; leading articles with balanced
paragraphs which recalled the marching tramp
of Johnson ; translations that might have been
signed with the name of Creech, and Odes to
Sensibility, and the like, which recalled the
syrupy sweetness and languid trickle of Laura
Matilda's sentimentalities. It talked about " the
London Reviewers " with a kind of provincial
deference. It printed articles with quite too
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80 IN TROD UCTION,
much of the license of Swift and Prior for
the Magazines of to-day. But it had opinions
of its own, and would compare \^eU enough with
the " Gentleman's Magazine," to say nothing
of " My Grandmother's Review, the British."
A writer in the third volume (1806) says : " A.
taste for the belles lettres is rapidly spreading
in our country. I believe that, fifty years ago,
England had never seen a Miscellany or a
Review so well conducted as our * Anthology,'
however superior such publications may now be
in that kingdom."
It is weU worth one's while to look over the
volumes of the " Anthology " to see what our
fathers and grandfathers were thinking about,
and how they expressed themselves. The stiff-
ness of Puritanism was pretty well relaxed when
a Magazine conducted by clergymen could say
that " The child," — meaning the new periodical,
— " shall not be destitute of the manners of a
gentleman, nor a stranger to genteel amusements.
He shall attend Theatres, Museums, Balls, and
whatever polite diversions the town shall fur-
nish." The reader of the "Anthology" will
find for his reward an improving discourse on
"Ambition," and a commendable schoolboy's
"theme" on "Inebriation." He will learn
something which may be for his advantage about
the "Anjou Cabbage," and may profit by a
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INTRODUCTION. 81
" Remedy for Asthma." A controversy respect-
ing the merits of Sir Richard Blackmore may
prove too little exciting at the present time, and
he can turn for relief to the epistle " Studiosus '*
addresses to " Alcander." If the lines of " The
Minstrel" who hails, like Longfellow in later
years, from "The District of Main," fail to
satisfy him, he cannot accuse " R. T. Paine, Jr.,
Esq.," of tameness when he exclaims : —
'< Rise Columbia, brave and free,
Poise the globe and bound the sea ! ''
But the writers did not confine themselves to
native or even to English literature, for there is
a distinct mention of " Mr. Goethe's new novel,"
and an explicit reference to " Dante Aligheri, an
Italian bard." But let the smiling reader go a
little farther and he will find Mr. Buckminster's
most interesting account of the destruction of
Goldau. And in one of these same volumes
he will find the article, by Dr. Jacob Bigelow,
doubtless, which was the first hint of our rural
cemeteries, and foreshadowed that new era in
our underground civilization which is sweeten-
ing our atmospheric existence.
The late President Josiah Quincy, in his
"History of the Boston Athenaeum," pays a
high tribute of respect to the memory and the
labors of the gentlemen who founded that insti-
tution and conducted the "Anthology." A lit-
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82 INTRODUCTION.
erary journal had already been published in Bos-
ton, but very soon failed for want of patronage.
An enterprising firm of publishers, ^^ being desir-
ous that the work should be continued, applied
to the Reverend William Emerson, a clergy-
man of the place, distinguished for energy and
literary taste ; and by his exertions several gen-
tlemen of Boston and its vicinity, conspicuous
for talent and zealous for literature, were in-
duced to engage in conducting the work, and for
this purpose they formed themselves into a Soci-
ety. This Society was not completely organized
until the year 1805, when Dr. Gardiner was
elected President, and William Emerson Vice-
President. The Society thus formed maintained
its existence with reputation for about six years,
and issued ten octavo volumes from the press,
constituting one of the most lasting and honor-
able monuments of the literature of the period,
and may be considered as a true revival of po-
lite learning in this country after that decay and
neglect which resulted from the distractions of
the Revolutionary War, and as forming an epoch
in the intellectual history of the United States.
Its records yet remain, an evidence that it was a
pleasant, active, high-principled association of
literary men, laboring harmoniously to elevate
the literary standard of the time, and with a
success which may well be regarded as remark-
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INTRODUCTION. 83
able, considering the little sympathy they re-
ceived from the community, and the many diffi-
culties with which they had to struggle."
The publication of the " Anthology " began
in 1804, when Mr. William Emerson was thirty-
four years of age, and it ceased to be published
in the year of his death, 1811. fialph Waldo
Emerson was eight years old at that time. His
intellectual life began, we may say, while the
somewhat obscure afterglow of the "Anthol-
ogy" was in the western horizon of the New
England sky.
The nebula which was to form a cluster about
the "North American Review" did not take
definite shape until 1815. There is no such
memorial of the growth of American literature
as is to be found in the first half century of that
periodical. It is easy to find fault with it for
uniform respectability and occasional dulness.
But take the names of its contributors during its
first fifty years from the literary record of that
period, and we should have but a meagre list of
mediocrities, saved from absolute poverty by the
genius of two or three writers like Irving and
Cooper. Strike out the names of Webster, Ev-
erett, Story, Sumner, and Gushing ; of Bryant,
Dana, Longfellow, and Lowell ; of Prescott,
Ticknor, Motley, Sparks, and Bancroft ; of Ver-
planck, Hillard, and Whipple; of Stuart and
a
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34 INTRODUCTION.
Eobinson ; of Norton, Palfrey, Peabody, and
Bowen; and, lastly, that of Emerson himself,
and how much American classic literature would
be left for a new edition of "Miller's Retro-
spect"?
These were the writers who helped to make
the "North American Review" what it was
during the period of Emerson's youth and early
manhood. These, and men like them, gave Bos-
ton its intellectual character. We may count
as symbols the three hills of " this darling town
of ours," as Emerson called it, and say that each
had its beacon. Civil liberty lighted the torch
on one summit, religious freedom caught the
flame and shone from the second, and the lamp
of the scholar has burned steadily on the third
from the days when John Cotton preached his
first sermon to those in which we are living.
The social religious influences of the first part
of the century must not be forgotten. The two
high -caste religions of that day were white-
handed Unitarianism and ruffled-shirt Episco-
palianism. What called itself "society" was
chiefly distributed between them. Within less
than fifty years a social revolution has taken
place which has somewhat changed the relation
between these and other worshipping bodies.
This movement is the general withdrawal of
the native New Englanders of both sexes from
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INTRODUCTION. 85
domestic service. A large part of the "hired
help," — for the word servant was commonly re-
pudiated, — worshipped, not with their employers,
but at churches where few or no well-appointed
carriages stood at the doors. The congregations
that went chiefly from the drawing-room and
those which were largely made up of dwellers in
the culinary studio were naturally separated by
a very distinct line of social cleavage. A cer-
tain exclusiveness and fastidiousness, not remind-
ing us exactly of primitive Christianity, was the
inevitable result. This must always be remem-
bered in judging the men and women of that
day and their inmiediate descendants, as much
as the surviving prejudices of those whose par-
ents were born subjects of King George in the
days when loyalty to the crown was a virtue.
The line of social separation was more marked,
probably, in Boston, the headquarters of Unita-
rianism, than in the other large cities ; and even
at the present day our Jerusalem and Samaria,
though they by no means refuse dealing with
each other, do not exchange so many cards as
they do checks and dollars. The exodus of those
children of Israel from the house of bondage, as
.they chose to consider it, and their fusion with
the mass of independent citizens, got rid of a
class distinction- which was felt even in the sanc-
tuary. True religious equality is harder to es-
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86 INTRODUCTION.
tablish than civil liberty. No man has done
more for spiritual republicanism than Emerson,
though he came from the daintiest sectarian cir-
cle of the time in the whole country.
Rueh were Emerson's intellectual and moral
age, nurture, and environment ; such was
Qosphere in which he grew up from youth
ihood.
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CHAPTER I.
Birthplace. — Boyhood. — College Life.
1803-1823. To^T. 20.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Bos-
ton, Massachusetts, on the 25th of May, 1803.
He was the second of five sons ; William, R.
W., Edward Bliss, Peter Bulkeley, and Charles
Chauncy.
His birthplace and that of our other illustri-
ous Bostonian, Benjamin Franklin, were within
a kite-string's distance of each other. When the
baby philosopher of the last century was carried
from Milk Street through the narrow passage
long known as Bishop's Alley, now Hawley
Street, he came out in Summer Street, very
nearly opposite the spot where, at the beginning
of this century, stood the parsonage of the First
Church, the home of the Reverend William Em-
erson, its pastor, and the birthplace of his son,
Ralph Waldo. The oblong quadrangle between
Newbury, now Washington Street, Pond, now
Bedford Street, Summer Street, and the open
space called Church Green, where the New
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4
88 RALFE WALDO EMERSON.
South Church was afterwards erected, is repre-
sented on Bonner's maps of 1722 and 1769 as
an ahnost blank area, not crossed or penetrated
by a single passageway.
Even so late as less than half a century ago
this region was still a most attractive little rus
in urbe. The sunny gardens of the late Judge
Charles Jackson and the late Mr. S. P. Grard-
ner opened their flowers and ripened their fruits
in the places now occupied by great warehouses
and other massive edifices. The most aristo-
cratic pears, the " Saint Michael," the '' Brown
Bury," found their natural homes in these shel-
tered enclosures. The fine old mansion of Judge
William Prescott looked out upon these gardens.
Some of us can well remember the window of
his son's, the historian's, study, the light from
which used every evening to glimmer through
the leaves of the pear-trees while "The Con-
quest of Mexico" was achieving" itself under
difiGlculties hardly less formidable than those en-
countered by Cortes. It was a charmed region
in which Emerson first drew his breath, and I
am fortunate in having a communication from
one who knew it and him longer than almost
any other living person.
Mr. John Lowell Gardner, a college classmate
and life-long friend of Mr» Emerson, has favored
me with a letter which contains matters of inter-
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BOYHOOD. 39
est concerning him never before given to the
public. With his kind permission I have made
some extracts and borrowed such facts as seemed
especially worthy of note from his letter.
" I may be said to have known Emerson from the
very beginning. A very low fence divided my fa-
ther's estate in Summer Street from the field in which
I remember the old wooden parsonage to have ex-
isted, — but this field, when we were very young, was
to be covered by Chauncy Place Church and by the
brick houses on Summer Street. Where the family
removed to I do not remember, but I always knew
the boys, William, Ralph, and perhaps Edward, and
I again associated with Ralph at the Latin School,
where we were instructed by Master Gould from
1815 to 1817, entering College in the latter year.
... I have no recollection of his relative rank as
a scholar, but it was undoubtedly high, though not the
highest. He never was idle or a lounger, nor did he
ever engage in frivolous pursuits. I should say that
his conduct was absolutely faultless. It was impos-
sible that there should be any feeling about him but
of regard and affection. He had then the same man-
ner and courtly hesitation in addressing you that you
have known in him since. Still, he was not prom-
inent in the class, and, but for what all the world has
since known of him, his would not have been a con-
spicuous figure to his classmates in recalling College
days.
" The fact that we were almost the only Latin
y
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40 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
School fellows in the cl&ss, and the circumstance that
he was slow during the Freshman year to form new
acquaintances, hrought us much together, and an
intimacy arose which continued through our College
life. We were in the habit of taking long strolls to-
gether, often stopping for repose at distant points, as
at Mount Auburn, etc. . . . Emerson was not talk-
ative ; he never spoke for effect ; his utterances were
well weighed and very deliberately made, but there
was, a certain flash when he uttered anything that
was more than usually worthy to be remembered.
He was so universally amiable and complying that
my evil spirit would sometimes instigate me to take
advantage of his gentleness and forbearance, but
nothing could disturb his equanimity. All that was
wanting to render him an almost perfect character
was a few harsher traits and perhaps more masculine
vigor.
" On leaving College our paths in life were so re-
mote from each other that we met very infrequently.
He soon became, as it were, public property, and I was
engrossed for many years in my commercial under-
takings. All his course of life is known to many sur-
vivors. I am inclined to believe he had a most liberal
spirit I remember that some years since, when it was
known that our classmate was reduced almost
to absolute want by the war, in which he lost his two
sons, Emerson exerted himself to raise a fund among
his classmates for his relief, and, there being very few
possible subscribers, made what I considered a noble
contribution, and this you may be sore was not from
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BOYHOOD, 41
any Southern sentiment on the part of Emerson. I
send you herewith the two youthful productions of
Emerson of which I spoke to you some time since."
The first of these is a prose Essay of four
pages, written for a discussion in which the Pro-
fessions of Divinity, Medicine, and Law were to
be weighed against each other. Emerson had
the Lawyer's side to advocate. It is a fair and
sensible paper, not of special originality or bril-
liancy. His opening paragraph is worth citing,
as showing the same instinct for truth which dis-
played itself in all his after writings and the
conduct of his life.
^^ It is usual in advocating a favorite subject to
appropriate all possible excellence, and endeavor to
concentrate every doubtful auxiliary, that we may
fortify to the utmost the theme of our attention.
Such a design should be utterly disdained, except as
far as is consistent with fairness ; and the sophistry
of weak arguments being abandoned, a bold appeal
should be made to the heart, for the tribute of honest
conviction, with regard to the merits of the subject."
From many boys this might sound like well-
meaning commonplace, but in the history of Mr.
Emerson's life that "bold appeal to the heart,"
that " tribute of honest conviction," were made
eloquent and real. The boy meant it when he
said it. To carry out his law of sincerity and
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42 RALFE WALDO EMERSON.
self-trust the man liad to sacrifice much that was
dear to him, but he did not flinch from his early
principles.
It must not be supposed that the blameless
youth was an ascetic in his CoUege days. The
' ^ "^ ' ' other old manuscript Mr. Gardner sends me is
' .' i/" marked "' Song for Knights of Square Table,'
E. W. E."
There are twelve verses of this song, with a
; chorus of two lines. The Muses and all the
deities, not forgetting Bacchus, were didy invited
to the festival.
" Let the doors of Olympus be open for all
i To descend and make merry in Chivalry's hall."
Mr. Sanborn has kindly related to me several
circumstances told him by Emerson about his
early years.
The parsonage was situated at the comer of
Summer and what is now Chauncy streets. It
had a yard, and an orchard which Emerson said
was as large as Dr. Kipl^'s, which might have
been some two or three acres. Afterwards there
was a brick house looking on Summer Street, in
which Emerson the father lived. It was sep-
arated, Emerson said, by a brick wall from a
garden in which pears grew (a fact a boy is
likely to remember). Master Ealph Waldo used
U> sit on this wcdl, — but we cannot believe he
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BOYHOOD, 48
ever got off it on the wrong side, unless poKtely
asked to do so. On the occasion of some alarm
the little boy was carried in his nightgown to a
neighboring house.
After Reverend William Emerson's death
Mrs. Emerson removed to a house in Beacon
Street, where the Athenaeum Building now
stands. She kept some boarders, — among them
Lemuel Shaw, afterwards Chief Justice of the
State of Massachusetts. It was but a short dis-
tance to the Common, and Waldo and Charles
used to drive their mother's cow there to pasture.
The Eeverend Doctor Euf us Ellis, the much
respected living successor of William Emerson
as Minister of the First Church, says that R. W.
Emerson must have been bom in the old par-
sonage, as his father (who died when he was
eight y^ars old) lived But a very short time in
" the new parsonage," which was, doubtless, the
" brick house " above referred to.
We get a few glimpses of the boy from other
sources. Mr. Cooke tells us that he entered the
public grammar school at the age of eight years,
and soon afterwards the Latin SchooL At the
age of eleven he was turning Virgil into very
readable English heroics. He loved the study of
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44 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Greek ; was fond of reading history and given
to the frequent writing of verses. But he thinks
*' the idle books under the bench at the Latin
School " were as profitable to him as his reg^ular
studies.
Another glimpse of him is that given us by
Mr. Ireland from the " Boyhood Memories " of
Eufus Dawes. His old schoolmate speaks of
him as **a spiritual-looking boy in blue nankeen,
who seems to be about ten years old, — whose
image more than any other is still deeply stamped
upon my mind, as I then saw him and loved
him, I knew not why, and thought him so an-
gelic and remarkable." That ** blue nankeen "
sounds strangely, it may be, to the readers of this
later generation, but in the first quarter of the
century blue and yellow or buff-colored cotton
from China were a common summer clothing of
children. The places where the factqpies and
streets of the cities of Lowell and Lawrence
were to rise were then open fields and farms.
My recollection is that we did not think very
highly of ourselves when we were in blue nan-
keen, — a dull-colored fabric, too nearly of the
complexion of the slates on which we did our
ciphering.
Emerson was not particularly distinguished
in College. Having a near connection in the
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COLLEGE LIFE. 45
same class as be, and being, as a Cambridge boy,
generally familiar with the names of the more
noted young men in College from the year when
George Bancroft, Caleb Cashing, and Francis
William Winthrop graduated until after I my-
self left College, I might have expected to hear
something of a young man who afterwards be-
came one of the great writers of his time. I do
not recollect hearing of him except as keeping
school for a short time in Cambridge, before he
settled as a minister. His classmate, Mr. Josiah
Quincy, writes thus of his college days : —
^^ Two only of my classmates can be fairly said to
have got into history, although one of them, Charles
W. Upham [the connection of mine referred to above]
has written history very acceptably. Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Robert W. Barnwell, for widely different
reasons, have caused their names to be known to well-
informed Americans. Of Emerson, I regret to say,
there are few notices in my jovirnals. Here is the
sort of way in which I speak of the man who was to
make so profoond an impression upon the thought of
his time. ^ I went to the chapel to hear Emerson's
dissertation : a very good one, but rather too long to
give much pleasure to the hearers.* The fault, I sus-
pect, was in the hearers ; and another fact which I
have mentioned goes to confirm this belief. It seems
that Emerson accepted the duty of delivering the
Poem on Glass Day, after seven others had been
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46 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
asked who positively refused. So it appears that, in
the opinion of this critical class, the author of the
* Woodnotes * and the ' Humble Bee ' ranked about
eighth in poetical ability. It can only be because the
works of the other five [seven] have been * heroically
unwritten ' that a different impression has come to
prevail in the outside world. But if, according to the
measurement of undergraduates, Emerson's ability as
a poet was not conspicuous, it must also be admitted
that, in the judgment of persons old enough to know
better, he was not credited with that mastery of
weighty prose which the world has since accorded
him. In our senior year the higher classes competed
for the Boylston prizes for English composition. Em-
erson and I sent in our essays with the rest and were
fortunate enough to take the two prizes ; but — Alas
for the infallibility of academic decisions ! Emerson
received the second prize. I was of course much
pleased with the award of this intelligent committee,
and should have been still more gratified had they
mentioned that the man who was to be the most orig-
inal and influential writer bom in America was my un-
successful competitor. But Emerson, incubating over
deeper matters than were dreamt of in the established
philosophy of elegant letters, seems to have given no
sign of the power that was fashioning itself for lead-
ership in a new time. He was quiet, unobtrusive, and
only a fair scholar according to the standard of the
College authorities. And this is really all I have to
say about my most distinguished classmate.'^
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COLLEGE LIFE. 47
Barnwell, the first scholar in the class, deliv-
ered the Valedictory Oration, and Emerson the
Poem. Neither of these performances was highly
spoken of by Mr. Quincy.
I was surprised to find by one of the old Cata-
logues that Emerson roomed during a part of his
College course with a young man whom I well
remember, J. G. K. Gourdin. The two Gour-
dins, Robert and John Gaillard Keith, were
dashing young fellows as I recollect them, be-
longing to Charleston, South Carolina. The
** Southerners " were the reigning College ele-
gans of that time, the merveilleuxy the mirlir
flores^ of their day. Their swallow-tail coats
tapered to an arrow-point angle, and the prints
of their little delicate calfskin boots in the snow
were objects of great admiration to the village
boys of the period. I cannot help wondering
what brought Emerson and the showy, fascinat-
ing John Gourdin together as room-mates.
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CHAPTER IL
1823-1828. ^T. 20-25.
Extract from a Letter to a Classmate. — School-Teaching. ^
Study of Divinity. — " Approbated " to Preach. — Visit to
the South. — Preaching in Various Places.
"We get a few brief glimpses a^ Emerson
during the years following his graduation. He
writes in 1823 to a classmate who had gone from
Harvard to Andover : —
"lam delighted to hear there is such a profound
studying of German and Hebrew, Farkhurst and
Jahn, and such other names as the memory aches to
think of, on foot at Andover. Meantime, Unitarian-
ism will not hide her honors ; as many hard names
are taken, and as much theological mischief is planned,
at Cambridge as at Andover. By the time this gen-
eration gets upon the stage, if the controversy will
not have ceased, it will run such a tide that we shall
hardly be able to speak to one another, and there
will be a Guelf and Ghibelline quarrel, which cannot
tell where the differences lie."
" You can form no conception how much one grov-
elling in the city needs the excitement and impulse of
literary example. The sight of broad vellum-bonnd
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SCHOOL KEEPING. 49.
quartos, the very mention of Greek and German
names, the glimpse of a dusty, tugging scholar, will
wake you up to emulation for a month."
After leaving College, and while studying
Divinity, Emerson employed a part of his time
in giving instruction in several places succes-
sively.
Emerson's older brother William was teaching
in Boston, and Ralph Waldo, after graduating,
joined him in that occupation. In the year 1825
or 1826, he taught school also in Chelmsford,
a town of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, a
part of which helped to constitute the city of
Lowell. One of his pupils in that school, the
Honorable Josiah Gardiner Abbott, has favored
me with the following account of his recollec-
tions : —
The school of which Mr. Emerson had the
charge was an old-fashioned country "Acad-
emy." Mr. Emerson was probably studying for
the ministry while teaching there. Judge Ab-
bott remembers the impression he made on the
boys. He was very grave, quiet, and very im-
pressive in his appearance. There was some-
thing engaging, almost fascinating, about him ;
he was never harsh or severe, always perfectly
self-controlled, never punished except with words,
but exercised complete command over the boys.
His old pupil recalls the stately, measured way
4 .
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*60 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
in which, for some ofEence the little boy had
committed, he turned on him, saying only these
two words : " Oh, sad ! " That was enough, for
he had the faculty of making the boys love him.
One of his modes of instruction was to give the
boys a piece of reading to carry home with them,
— from some book like Plutarch's* Lives, — and
the nexjt day to examine them and find out how
much they retained from their reading. Judge
Abbott remembers a peculiar look in his eyes.
as if he saw something beyond what seemed to
be in the field of vision. The whole impression
left on this pupil's mind was such as no other
teacher had ever produced upon him.
Mr. Emerson also kept a school for a short
time at Cambridge, and among his pupils was
Mr. John Holmes. His impressions seem to be
very much like those of Judge Abbott.
My brother speaks of Mr. Emerson thus : —
" Calm, as not doubting the virtue residing in his
sceptre. Rather stem in his very infrequent rebukes.
Not inclined to win boys by a surface amiability, but
kindly in explanation or advice. Every inch a king
in his dominion. Looking back, he seems to me
rather like a captive philosopher set to tending flocks ;
resigned to his destiny, but not amused with its incon-
gruities. He once reconmiended the use of rhyme as
a cohesive for historical items."
In 1823, two years after graduating, Emerson
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"^ OLD-FASHIONED UNITARIANISMr 61
began studying for the ministry. He studied
under the direction of Dr. Channing, attending
some of the lectures in the Divinity School at
Cambridge, though not enrolled as one of its
regular students.
The teachings of that day were such as would
now be called "old-fashioned Unitarianism."
But no creed can be held to be a finality. From
Edwards to Mayhew, from Mayhew to Channing,
from Channing to Emerson, the passage is like
that which leads from the highest lock of a canal
to the ocean level. It is impossible for human
nature to remain permanently shut up in the
highest lock of Calvinism. If the gates are not
opened, the mere leakage of belief or unbelief
wiU before long fill the next compartment, and
the freight of doctrine finds itself on the lower
level of Arminianism, or Pelagianism, or even
subsides to Arianism. From this level to that
of Unitarianism the outlet is freer, and the sub-
sidence more rapid. And from Unitarianism to
Christian Theism, the passage is largely open
for such as cannot accept the evidence of the
supernatural in the history of the church.
There were many shades of belief in the lib-
eral churches. If De Tocqueville's account of
Unitarian preaching in Boston at the time of
his visit is true, the Savoyard Vicar of Rousseau
would have preached acceptably in some of our
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62 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
piilpits. In fact, the good Vicar might have
been thought too conservative by some of our
imhamessed theologians.
At the period when Emerson reached man-
hood, Unitarianism was the dominating form of
belief in the more highly educated classes of both
of the two great New England centres, the town
of Boston and the University at Cambridge.
President Kirkland was at the head of the Col-
lege, Henry Ware was Professor of Theology,
Andrews Norton of Sacred Literature, followed
in 1830 by John Gorham Palfrey in the same
office. James Freeman, Charles Lowell, and
William EUery Channing were preaching in
Boston. I have mentioned already as a simple
fact of local history, that the more exclusive
social circles of Boston and Cambridge were
chiefly connected with the Unitarian or Episco-
palian churches. A Cambridge graduate of am-
bition and ability found an opening far from
undesirable in a worldly point of view, in a pro-
fession which he was led to choose by higher
motives. It was in the Unitarian pulpit that
the brilliant talents of Buckminster and Everett
had found a noble eminence from which their
light could shine before men.
Descended from a long line of ministers, a
man of spiritual nature, a reader of Plato, of
Augustine, of Jeremy Taylor, full of hope for
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''APPROBATED TO PREACH:' 68
his fellow-men, and longing to be of use to them,
conscious, imdoubtedly, of a growing power of
thought, it was natural that Emerson shoidd
turn from the task of a school-master to the
higher office of a preacher. It is hard to con-
ceive of Emerson in either of the other so-called
learned professions. His devotion to truth for
its own sake and his feeling about science woidd
have kept him out of both those dusty high-
ways. His brother William had previously be-
gun the study of Divinity, but found his mind
beset with doubts and difficulties, and had taken
to the profession of Law. It is not unlikely that
Mr. Emerson was more or less exercised with
the same questionings. He has said, speaking
of his instructors : " If they had examined me,
they probably woidd not have let me preach at
alL" His eyes had given him trouble, so that
he had not taken notes of the lectures which he
heard in the Divinity School, which accounted for
his being excused from examination. In 1826,
after three years' study, he was " approbated to
preach " by the Middlesex Association of Min-
isters. His health obliging him to seek a south-
em climate, he went in the following winter to
South Carolina and Florida. During this ab-
sence he preached several times in Charleston
and other places. On his return from the South
he preached in New Bedford, in Northampton,
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54 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
in Concord, and in Boston. His attractiveness
as a preacher, of which we shall have sufficient
evidence in a following chapter, led to his being
invited to share the duties of a much esteemed
and honored city clergyman, and the next posi-
tion in which we find him is that of a settled
minister in Boston.
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J
CHAPTER in.
1828-1833. ^T. 25-30.
Settled as Colleague of Rev. Henry Ware. — Married to Ellen
Louisa Tucker. — Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. H. B.
Goodwin. — His Pastoral and Other Labors. — Emerson
and Father Taylor. — Death of Mrs. Emerson. — Differ-
ence of Opinion with some of his Parishioners. — Sermon
Explaining his Views. — Resignation of his Pastorate.
On the 11th of March, 1829, Emerson was
ordained as colleague with the Reverend Henry
Ware, Minister of the Second Church in Boston.
In September of the same year he was married
to Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker. The resignation
of his colleague soon after his settlement threw
all the pastoral duties upon the young minister,
who seems to have performed them diligently
and acceptably. Mr. Conway gives the follow-
ing brief accoimt of his labors, and tells in the
same connection a story of Father Taylor too
good not to be repeated : —
"Emerson took an active interest in the public
affairs of Boston. He was on its School Board, and
was chosen chaplain of the State Senate. He invited
the anti-slavery 4ecturers into his church, and helped
philanthropists of other denominations in their work.
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66 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Father Taylor [the Methodist preacher to the sail-
ors], to whom Dickens gave an English fame, found
in him his most important supporter when estahlish-
ing the Seaman's Mission in Boston. This was told
me hy Father Taylor himseK in his old age. I hap-
pened to he in his company once, when he spoke
rather sternly ahout my leaving the Methodist Church ;
hut when I spoke of the part Emerson had in it, he
softened at once, and spoke with emotion of his great
friend. I have no douht that if the good Father of
Boston Seamen was proud of any personal thing, it
was of the excellent answer he is said to have given
to some Methodists who ohjected to his friendship for
Emerson. Being a Unitarian, they insisted that he
must go to " — [the place which a divine of Charles the
Second's day said it was not good manners to mention
in church]. — " * It d6es look so,' said Father Taylor,
' hut I am sure of one thing : if Emerson goes to ' "
— [that place] — " *he will change the climate there,
and emigration will set that way.' "
In 1830, Emerson took part in the services at
the ordination of the Eeverend H. B. Goodwin
as Dr. Eipley's colleague. His address on giving
the right hand of fellowship was printed, but
is not included among his collected works.
The fair prospects with which Emerson began
his life as a settled minister were too soon dark-
ened. In February, 1832, the wife of his youth,
who had been for some time iii failing health,
died of consumption.
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8ERM0N ON THE COMMUNION. 57
He had become troubled with doubts respect-
ing a portion of his duties, and it was not in his
nature to conceal these doubts from his people.
On the 9th of September, 1832, he preached a
sermon on the Lord's Supper, in which he an-
nounced unreservedly his conscientious scruples
against administering that ordinance, and the
grounds upon which those scruples were founded.
This discourse, as his only printed sermon, and
as one which heralded a movement in New Eng-
land theology which has never stopped from
that day to this, deserves some special notice.
The sermon is in no sense "Emersonian" except
in its directness, its sweet temper, and outspoken
honesty. He argues from his comparison of
texts in a perfectly sober, old-fashioned way, as
his ancestor Peter Bulkeley might have done.
It happened to that worthy forefather of Emer-
son that upon his " pressing a piece of Charity
disagreeable to the will of the Ruling Elder ^
there was occasioned an unhappy Discord in the
Church of Concord; which yet was at last healed,
by their calling in the help of a C(yuncil and the
Ruling Elder^a Abdication." So says Cotton
Mather. Whether zeal had grown cooler or
charity grown warmer in Emerson's days we need
not try to determine. The sermon was only a
more formal declaration of views respecting the
Lord's Suppor, which he had previously made
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58 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
known in a conference with some of tlie most
active members of his church. As a commit-
tee of the parish reported resolutions radically
differing from his opinion on the subject, he
preached this sermon and at the same time re-
signed his office. There was no "discord," there
was no need of a " council." Nothing could be
more friendly, more truly Christian, than the
manner in which Mr. Emerson expressed himself
in this parting discourse. All the kindness of
his nature warms it throughout. He details the
differences of opinion which have existed in the
church with regard to the ordinance. He then
argues from the language of the Evangelists that
it was not intended to be a permanent institu-
tion. He takes up the statement of Paul in the
Epistle to the Corinthians, which he thinks, all
things considered, ought not to alter our opinion
derived from the Evangelists. He does not
think that we are to rely upon the opinions and
practices of the primitive church. If that church
believed the institution to be permanent, their
belief does not settle the question for us. On
every other subject, succeeding times have
learned to form a judgment more in accordance
with the spirit of Christianity than was the prac-
tice of the early ages.
^^ Bat, it is said, ^ Admit that the rite was not d^
signed to be perpetual' What harm doth it ? "
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SEBM&N ON THE COMMUNION, 59
He proceeds to give reasons which show it to
be inexpedient to continue the observance of the
rite. It was treating that as authoritative which,
as he believed that he had shown from Scrip-
ture, was not so. It confused the idea of God
by transferring the worship of Him to Christ.
Christ is the Mediator only as the instructor of
man. In the least petition to God " the soul
stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more
present to your mind than your brother or child."
Again : —
" The use of the elements, however suitable to the
people and the modes of thought in the East, *where
it originated, is foreign and unsuited to affect us.
The day of formal religion is past, and we are to seek
our weU-being in the formation of the soul. The
Jewish was a religion of forms ; it was all body, it
had no life, and the Almighty Grod was pleased to
qualify and send forth a man to teach men that they
must serve him with the heart ; that only that life
was religious which was thoroughly good ; that sacri-
fice was snaoke and forms were shadows. This man
lived and died true to that purpose ; and with his
blessed word and life before us, Christians must con-
tend that it is a matter of vital importance, — re-
ally a duty to commemorate him by a certain form,
whether that form be acceptable to their understand-
ing or not. Is not this to make vain the gift of Grod ?
Is not this to turn back the hand on the dial? "
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60 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
To these objections he adds the practical con*
sideration that it brings those who do not par-
take of the communion service into an unfavor-
able relation with those who do.
The beautiful spirit of the man shows itself in
all its noble sincerity in these words at the close
of his argument : —
^^ Haying said this, I have said all. I have no hos-
tility to this institation ; I am only stating my want
of sympathy with it. Neither should I ever have
obtruded this opinion upon other people, had I not
been called by my office to administer it. That is
the end of my opposition, that I am not interested
in it. I am content that it stand to the end of the
world ii it please men and please Heaven, and I
shall rejoice in all the good it produces."
He then announces that, as it is the prevailing
opinion and feeling in our religious community
that it is a part of a pastor's duties to administer
this rite, he is about to resign the office which
had been confided to him.
This is the only sermon of Mr. Emerson's
ever published. It was impossible to hear or to
read it without honoring the preacher for his
truthfulness, and recognizing the force of his
statement and reasoning. It was equally impos-
sible that he could continue his ministrations
over a congregation which held to the ordinance
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RESIGNATION OF PASTORATE, 61
he wished to give up entirely. And thus it was,
that with the most friendly feelings on both
sides, Mr. Emerson left the pulpit of the Second
Church and found himself obliged to make a be-
ginning in a new career.
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CHAPTER IV.
1833-1838. ^T. 30-^.
§ 1. Visit to Europe. — On his Retam preaches in Different
Places. — Emerson in the Pulpit. — At Newton. — Fixes
his Residence at Concord. — The Old Manse. — Lectures
in Boston. — Lectures on Michael Angelo and on Milton
published in the " North American Review." — Beginning
of the Correspondence with Carlyle. — Letters to the Rev.
James Freeman Clarke. — Republication of "Sartor Re-
sartus."
§ 2. Emerson's Second Marriage. — His New Residence in
Concord. — Historical Address. — Course of Ten Lectures
on English Literature delivered in Boston. — The Concord
Battle Hymn. — Preaching in Concord and East Lexington.
— Accounts of his Preaching by Several Hearers. — A
Course of Lectures on the Nature and Ends of History. —
Address on War. — Death of Edward Bliss Emerson. -^
Death of Charles Chauncy Emerson.
§3. Publication of "Nature." — Outline of this Essay. — Its
Reception. — Address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
§ 1. In the year 1833 Mr. Emerson visited
Europe for the first time. A great change had
come over his life, and he needed the reKef
which a corresponding change of outward cir-
cumstances might afford him. A brief account
of this visit is prefixed to the volume entitled
" English Traits." He took a short tour, in
which he visited Sicily, Italy, and France, and,
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FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE, 63
crossing from lioulogne, landed at the Tower
Stairs in London. He finds nothing in his Diary
to publish concerning visits to places. But he
saw a number of distinguished persons, of whom
he gives pleasant accounts, so singularly differ-
ent in tone from the rough caricatures in which
Carlyle vented his spleen and caprice, that one
marvels how the two men could have talked ten
minutes together, or would wonder, had not one
been as imperturbable as the other was explosive.
Horatio Greenough and Walter Savage Landor
are the chief persons he speaks of as having met
upon the Continent. Of these he reports vari-
ous opinions as delivered in conversation. He
mentions incidentally that he visited Professor
Amici, who showed him his microscopes " mag-
nifying (it was said) two thousand diameters."
Emerson hardly knew his privilege ; he may
have been the first American to look through
an immersion lens with the famous Modena pro-
fessor. Mr. Emerson says that his narrow and
desultory reading had inspired him with the
wish to see the faces of three or four writers,
Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, De Quincey,
Carlyle. His accounts of his interviews with
these distinguished persons are too condensed to
admit of further abbreviation. Goethe and
Scott, whom he would have liked to look upon,
were dead ; Wellington he saw at Westminster
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64 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Abbey, at the funeral of Wilberf orce. His im-
pressions of each of the distinguished persons
whom he visited should be looked at in the light
of the general remark which follows : —
^^ The young scholar fancies it happiness enough to
live with people who can give an inside to the world ;
without reflecting that they are prisoners, too, of
their own thought, and cannot apply themselves to
yours. The conditions of literary success are almost
destructive of the best social power, as they do not
have that frolic liberty which only can encounter a
companion on the best terms. It is probable you left
some obscure comrade at a tavern, or in the farms,
with right mother-wit, and equality to life, when you
crossed sea and land to play bo-peep with celebrated
scribes. I have, however, found writers superior to
their books, and I cling to my first belief that a
strong head will dispose fast enough of these impedi-
ments, and give one the satisfaction of reality, the
sense of having been met, and a larger horizon."
Emerson carried a letter of introduction to a
gentleman in Edinburgh, who, being unable to
pay him all the desired attention, handed him
over to Mr. Alexander Ireland, who has given a
most interesting account of him as he appeared
during that first visit to Europe. Mr. Ireland's
presentation of Emerson as he heard him in the
Scotch pulpit shows that he was not less im-
pressive and attractive before an audience of
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EMERSON IN THE PULPIT. 65
strangers than among his own countrymen and
countrywomen : —
"On Sunday, the 18th of August, 1833, I heard
him deliver a discourse in the Unitarian Chapel, Young
Street, Edinburgh, and I remember distinctly the
effect which it produced on his hearers. It is almost
needless to say that nothing like it had ever been
heard by them before, and many of them did not
know what to make of it. The originality of his
thoughts, the consummate beauty of the language in
which they were clothed, the calm dignity of his bear-
ing, the absence of all oratorical effort, and the singu-
lar directness and simplicity of his manner, free from
the least shadow of dogmatic assumption, made a
deep impression on me. Not long before this I had
listened to a wonderful sermon by Dr. Chalmers,
whose force, and energy, and vehement, but rather
turgid eloquence carried, for the moment, all before
them, — his audience becoming like clay in the hands
of the potter. But I must confess that the pregnant
thoughts and serene self-possession of the young Bos-
ton minister had a greater charm for me than all the
rhetorical splendors of Chalmers. His voice was the
sweetest, the most winning and penetrating of any
I ever heard ; nothing like it have I listened to since.
' That music in our hearts we bore
Long after it was heard no more.' "
Mr. George Gilfillan speaks of " the solenmiiy
of his manner, and the earnest thought pervad-
ing his discourse."
5
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66 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
As to the effect of his preaching on his Amer-
ican audiences, I find the following evidence
in Mr. Cooke's diligently gathered collections.
Mr. Sanborn says : —
"His pulpit eloquence was singularly attractive,
though by no means equally so to all persons* In
1829, before the two friends had met, Bronson Alcott
heard him preach in Dr. Channing's church on ^ The
Universality of the Moral Sentiment,' and was struck,
as he said, with the youth of the preacher, the beauty
of his elocution and the direct and sincere manner
in which he addressed his hearers."
Mr. Charles Congdon, of New Bedford, well
known as a popular writer, gives the following
account of Emerson's preaching in his " Eem-
iniscences." I borrow the quotation from Mr.
Conway : —
^ " One day there came into our pulpit the most
gracious of mortals, with a face all benignity, who
gave out the first hymn and made the first prayer as
an angel might have read and prayed. Our choir
was a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and
discordant after Emerson's voice. I remember of
the sermon only that^ it had an indefinite charm of
simplicity and wisdom, with occasional illustrations
from nature, which were about the most delicate and
dainty things of the kind which I had ever heard. I
could understand them, if not the fresh philosophical
novelties of the discourse."
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EMERSON IN THE PULPIT.— AT NEWTON 67
Everywhere Emerson seems to have pleased
his audiences. The Keverend Dr. Morison,
formerly the much respected Unitarian minister
of New Bedford, writes to me as follows : —
"After Dr. Dewey left New Bedford, Mr. Emer-
son preached there several months, greatly to the sat-
isfaction and delight of those who heard him. The
Society would have been glad to settle him as their
minister, and he would have accepted a call, had it
not been for some difference of opinion, I think, in
regard to the communion service. Judge Warren,
who was particularly his friend, and had at that time
a leading inflaence in the parish, with all his admira-
tion for Mr. Emerson, did not think he could well be
the pastor of a Christian church, and so the matter
was settled between him and his friend, without any
action by the Society."
All this shows well enough that his preaching
was eminently acceptable. But every one who
has heard him lecture can form an idea of what
he must have been as a preacher. In fact, we
have all listened, probably, to many a passage
from old sermons of his, — for he teUs us he
borrowed from those old sermons for his lec-
tures, — without ever thinking of the pulpit
from which they were first heard.
Among the stray glimpses we get of Emerson
between the time when he quitted the pulpit of his
church and that when he came before the public
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68 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
as a lecturer is this, which I owe to the kindness
of Hon. Alexander H. Rice. In 1832 or 1833,
probably the latter year, he, then a boy, with
another boy, Thomas R. Gould, afterwards well
known as a sculptor, being at the Episcopal
church in Newton, found that Mr. Emerson was
sitting in the pew behind them. Gould knew
Mr. Emerson, and introduced yoimg Rice to him,
and they walked down the street together. As
they went along, Emerson burst into a rhapsody
over the Psalms of David, the sublimity of
thought, and the poetic beauty of expression of
which they are full, and spoke also with enthu-
siasm of the Te Deum as that grand old hymn
which had come down through the ages, voicing
the praises of generation after generation.
When they parted at the house of young
Rice's father, Emerson invited the boys to come
and see him at the Allen farm, in the afternoon.
They came to a piece of woods, and, as they en-
tered it, took their hats off. " Boys," said Em-
erson, "here we recognize the presence of the
Universal Spirit. The breeze says to us in its
own language. How d' ye do ? How d' ye do ?
and we have already taken our hats off and are
answering it with our own How d' ye do ? How
d' ye do ? And all the waving branches of the
trees, and all the flowers, and the field of com
yonder, and the singing brook, and the insect
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BEMOVAL TO CONCORD. 69
and the bird, — every living thing and things
we call inanimate feel the same divine imiversal
impulse while they join with us, and we with
them, in the greeting which is the salutation of
the Universal Spirit."
We perceive the same feeling which pervades
many of Emerson's earlier Essays and much of
his verse, in these long-treasured reminiscences
of the poetical improvisation with which the two
boys were thus unexpectedly favored. Governor
Rice continues : —
" You know what a captivating charm there always
was in Emerson's presence, but I can never tell you
how this line of thought then impressed a country
boy. I do not remember anything about the remain-
der of that walk, nor of the after-incidents of that
day, — I only remember that I went home wondering
about that mystical dream of the Universal Spirit,
and about what manner of man he was under whose
influence I had for the first time come. . • .
" The interview left impressions that led me into
new channels of thought which have been a life-long
pleasure to me, and, I doubt not, taught me somewhat
how to distinguish between mere theological dogma
and genuine religion in the soul."
In the summer of 1834 Emerson became a
resident of Concord, Massachusetts, the town of
his forefathers, and the place destined to be his
home for life. He first lived with his venerable
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70 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
connection, Dr. Ripley, in the dwelling made
famous by Hawthorne as the " Old Manse." It
is an old-fashioned gambrel-roofed house, stand-
ing close to the scene of the Fight on the banks
of the river. It was built for the Reverend Wil-
liam Emerson, his grandfather. In one of tte
rooms of this house Emerson wrote " Nature,"
and in the same room, some years later, Haw-
thorne wrote " Mosses from an Old Manse."
The place in which Emerson passed the
greater part of his life well deserves a special
notice. Concord might sit for its portrait as an
ideal New England town. If wanting in the
variety of surface which many other towns can
boast of, it has at least a vision of the distant
sommits of Monadnock and Wachusett. It has
fine old woods, and noble elms to give dignity
to its open spaces. Beautiful ponds, as they
modestly call themselves, — one of which, Wal-
den, is as well known in our literature as Win-
dermere in that of Old England, — lie quietly
in their clean basins. And through the green
meadows runs, or rather lounges, a gentle, un-
salted stream, like an English river, licking its
grassy margin with a sort of bovine placidity
and contentment. This is the Musketaquid, or
Meadow River, which, after being joined by the
more restless Assabet, still keeps its temper and
flows peacefully along by and through other
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CONCORD, 71
towns, to lose itself in the broad Merrimac. The
names of these rivers tell us that Concord has an
Indian history, and there is evidence that it was
a favorite residence of the race which preceded
our own. The native tribes knew as well as the
white settlers where were pleasant streams and
sweet springs, where com grew taU in the mead-
ows and fish bred fast in the unpolluted waters.
The place thus favored by nature can show a
record worthy of its physical attractions. Its •
settlement under the lead of Emerson's ancestor,
Peter Bulkeley, was effected in the midst of
many difficulties, which the enterprise and self-
sacrifice of that noble leader were successful in
overcoming. On the banks of the Musketaquid
was fired the first fatal shot of the "rebel"
farmers. Emerson appeals to the Records of the
town for two hundred years as illustrating the
working of our American institutions and the
character of the men of Concord : —
" If the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking coun-
sel did not fail to be suggested ; freedom and virtue,
if they triumphed, triumphed in a fair field. And
so be it an everlasting testimony for them, and so
much ground of assurance of man's capacity for self-
government."
What names that plain New England town
, reckons in the roll of its inhabitants! Stout
Major Buttrick and his fellow-soldiers in the war
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72 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
of Independence, and their worthy successors in
the wax of Freedom ; lawyers and statesmen like
Samuel Hoar and his descendants; ministers
like Peter Bulkeley, Daniel Bliss, and William
Emerson ; and men of genius such as the ideal-
ist and poet whose inspiration has kindled so
many souls ; as the romancer who has given an
atmosphere to the hard outlines of our stem
New England; as that unique individual, half
college-graduate and half Algonquin, the Bobin-
son Crusoe of Walden Pond, who carried out a
school-boy whim to its full proportions, and told
the story of Nature in undress as only one who
had hidden in her bedroom could have told it.
I need not lengthen the catalogue by speaking
of the living, or mentioning the women whose
names have added to its distinction. It has long
been an intellectual centre such as no other
country town of our own land, if of any other,
could boast. Its groves, its streams, its houses,
are haunted by imdying memories, and its hill-
sides and hollows are made holy by the dust that
is covered by their turf.
Such was the place which the advent of Em-
erson made the Delphi of New England and the
resort of many pilgrims from far-off regions.
On his return from Europe in the winter
of 1833-4, Mr. Emerson began to appear be-
fore the public as a lecturer. His first sub-
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EMERSON A8 A LECTURER. 78
jects, " "Water," and the " Eelation of Man to
the Globe," were hardly such as we should have
expected from a scholar who had but a limited
acquaintance with physical and physiological
science. They were probably chosen as of a
popular character, easily treated in such a way
as to be intelligible and entertaining, and thus
answering the purpose of introducing him pleas-
antly to the new career he was contemplating.
These lectures are not included in his published
works, nor were they ever published, so far as I
know. He gave three lectures during the same
winter, relating the experiences of his recent tour
in Europe. Having made himself at home on the
platform, he ventured upon subjects more congen-
ial to his taste and habits of thought than some
of those earlier topics. In 1834 he lectured on
Michael Angelo, Milton, Luther, George Fox,
and Edmund Burke. The first two of these lec-
tures, though not included in his collected works,
may be found in the " North American Review "
for 1837 and 1838. The germ of many of the
thoughts which he has expanded in prose and
verse may be found in these Essays.
The Cosmos of the Ancient Greeks, the piu
neC uno^ " The Many in One," appear in the
Essay on Michael Angelo as they also appear in
his " Nature." The last thought takes wings to
itself and rises in the little poem entitled '^ Each
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74 RALPH WALDO EMEBSON.
and All." The " Ehodora," another brief poem,
finds itself foreshadowed in the inquiry, " What
is Beauty ? " and its answer, " This great Whole
the understanding cannot embrace. Beauty
may be felt. It may be produced. But it can-
not be defined." And throughout this Essay
the feeling that truth and beauty and virtue are
one, and that Nature is the symbol which typi-
fies it to the soul, is the inspiring sentiment.
Noscitur a sodis apjdies as well to a man's
dead as to his living companions. A young
friend of mine in his college days wrote an es-
say on Plato. When he mentioned his subject
to Mr. Emerson, he got the caution, long remem-
bered, " When you strike at a £ing^ you must
kill him." He himself knew well with what
kings of thought to measure his own intelligence.
What was grandest, loftiest, purest, in human
character chiefly interested him. He rarely
meddles with what is petty or ignoble. Like his
"Humble Bee," the " yellow -breeched philoso-
pher," whom he speaks of as
<* Wiser far than human seer,"
and says of him,
** Aught unsavory or unclean
Hath my insect never seen,"
he goes through the world where coarser minds
Bud so much that is repulsive to dweU upon.
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EARLY LECTURES. 75
" Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet."
Why Emerson selected Michael Angelo as the
subject of one of his earliest lectures is shown
clearly enough by the last sentence as printed in
the Essay.
''He was not a citizen of any country; he be-
longed to the human race ; he was a brother and a
friend to all who acknowledged the beauty that beams
in universal nature, and who seek by labor and self-
denial to approach its source in perfect goodness."
Consciously or unconsciously men describe
themselves in the characters they draw. One
must have the mordant in his own personality
or he will not take the color of his subject. He
may force himself to picture that which he dis-
likes or even detests; but when he loves the
character he delineates, it is his own, in some
measure, at least, or one of which he feels that
its pos^bUities and tendencies beTong to himself.
Let us try Emerson by this test in his " Essay
on Milton : " —
" It is the prerogative of this great man to stand v
at this hour foremost of all men in literary history,
and so (shall we not say ?) of all men, in the power
to inspire. Virtue goes out of him into others." . . .
^' He is identified in the mind with all select and holy
images, with the supreme interests of the human
raee." — " Better than any other he haa diseharged
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76 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the office of every great man, namely, to raise the
idea of Man in the minds of his contemporaries and
of posterity, — to draw after nature a life of man,
exhibiting such a composition of grace, of strength,
and of virtue as poet had not described nor hero
lived. Human nature in these ages is indebted to him
for its best portrait Many philosophers in England,
France, and Germany, have formally dedicated their
study to this problem ; and we think it impossible to
recall one in those countries who communicates the
same vibration of hope, of self-reverence, of piety, of
delight in beauty, which the name of Milton awakes."
Emerson had the same lofty aim as Milton,
" To raise the idea of man ; " he had " the power
to inspire " in a preeminent degree. If ever a
man communicated those vibrations he speaks of
as characteristic of Milton, it was Emerson. In
elevation, purity, nobility of nature, he is worthy
to stand with the great poet and patriot, who
began like him* as a school-master, and ended as
the teacher in a school-house which had for its
walls the horizons of every region where English
is spoken. The similarity of their characters
might be followed by the curious into their for-
tunes. Both were turned away from the clerical
office by a revolt of conscience against the be-
liefs required of them ; both lost very dear ob-
jects of affection in early manhood, and mourned
for them in tender and mellifluous threnodies.
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EMERSON'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 77
It would be easy to trace many parallelisms in
their prose and poetry, but to have dared to
name any man whom we have known in our
common life with the seraphic singer of the Na-
tivity and of Paradise is a tribute which seems
to savor of audacity. It is hard to conceive of
Emerson as "an expert swordsman" like Mil-
ton. It is impossible to think of him as an
abusive controversialist as Milton was in his
controversy with Salmasius. But though Emer-
son never betrayed it to the offence of others, he
must have been conscious, like Milton, of "a
certain niceness of nature, an honest haughti-
ness," which was as a shield about his inner na-
ture. Charles Emerson, the younger brother,
who was of the same type, expresses the feeling
in his college essay on Friendship, where it is
all summed up in the line he quotes : —
" The hand of Douglas is his own."
It must be that in writing this Essay on Milton
Emerson felt that he was listening in his own
soul to whispers that seemed like echoes from
that of the divine singer.
My friend, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke,
a life-long friend of Emerson, who understood
him from the first, and was himself a great part
in the movement of which Emerson, more than
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78 HALPH WALDO EMERSON,
any other man, was the leader, has kindly al-
lowed me to make use of the following letters : —
TO REV. JAMES F. CLABKE, LOUISVILLE, EY.
pLYMouTHf Mass., March 12, 1884.
My deab Sib, — As the day approaches when
Mr. Lewis should leave Boston, I seize a few mo-
ments in a friendly house in the first of towns, to
thank you heartily for your kindness in lending me
the valued manuscripts which I return. The transla-
tions excited me much, and who can estimate the value
of a good thought ? I trust I am to learn much more
from you hereafter of your German studies, and
much I hope of your own. You asked in your note
concerning Carlyle. My recollections of him are
most pleasant, and I feel great confidence in his chai>
acter. He understands and recognizes his mission.
He is perfectly simple and affectionate in his manner,
and frank, as he can well afford to he, in his com-
munications. He expressed some impatience of his
total solitude, and talked of Paris as a residence.
I told him I hoped not ; for I should always remem-
her him with respect, meditating in the mountains
of Nithsdale. He was cheered, as he ought to he, by
learning that his papers were read with interest by
young men unknown to him in this continent ; and
when I specified a piece which had attracted warm
commendation from the New Jerusalem people here,
his wife said that is always the way ; whatever he has
writ that he thinks has fallen dead, he hears of two
or three years afterward. — He has many, many to-
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EMERSON TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 79
kens of Goethe's regard, miniatures, medab, and many
letters. If you should go to Scotland one day, you
would gratify him, yourself, and me, by your visit to
Craigenputtock, in the parish of Dunscore, near Dum-
fries. He told me he had a book which he thought
to publish, but was in the purpose of dividing into a
series of articles for " Fraser's Magazine." I there-
fore subscribed for that book, which he calls the
" Mud Magazine," but have seen nothing of his work-
manship in the two last numbers. The mail is going,
so I shall finish my letter another time.
Your obliged friend and servant,
R. Waldo Emersoit.
Concord, Mass., November 25, 1834.
My bear Seb, — Miss Peabody has kindly sent
me your manuscript piece on Groethe and Carlyle. I
have read it with great pleasure and a feeling of
gratitude, at the same time with a serious regret that
it was not published. I have forgotten what reason
you assigned for not printing it ; I cannot think of
any sufficient one. Is it too late now? Why not
change its form a little and annex to it some account
of Carlyle's later pieces, to wit : " Diderot," and
"Sartor Resartus." The last is complete, and he
has sent it to me in a stitched pamphlet. Whilst
I see its vices (relatively to the reading public) of
style, I cannot but esteem it a noble philosophical
poem, reflecting the ideas, institutions, men of this
very hour. And it seems to me that it has so much
wit and other secondaiy graces as must strike a class
who would not care for its primary merit, that of
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80 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
being a sincere exhortation to seekers of truth. If
you still retain your interest in his genius (as I see
not how you can avoid, having understood it and co-
operated with it so truly), you will be glad to know
that he values his American readers very highly ; that
he does not defend this offensive style of his, but
calls it questionable tentative ; that he is trying other
modes, and is about publishing a historical piece called
" The Diamond Necklace," as a part of a great work
which he meditates on the subject of the French Rev-
olution. He says it is part of his creed that history
is poetry, could we tell it right. He adds, moreover,
in a letter I have recently received from him, that
it has been an odd dream that he might end in the
western woods. Shall we not bid him come, and be
Poet and Teacher of a most scattered flock wanting
a shepherd ? Or, as I sometimes think, would it not
be a new and worse chagrin to become acquainted
with the extreme deadness of our community to
spiritual influences of the higher kind ? Have you
read Sampson Reed's " Growth of the Mind " ? I
rejoice to be contemporary with that man, and can-
not wholly despair of the society in which he lives ;
there must be some oxygen yet, and La Fayette is
only just dead.
Your friend, R. Waldo Emerson.
It occurs to me that 't is unfit to send any white
paper so far as to your hoiTse, so you shall have a
sentence from Carlyle's letter.
[This may be found in Carlyle's first letter, dated 12th
August, 1834.]
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''SARTOR RESARTU8.'' 81
Dr. Le Baxon Eussell, an Intimate friend of
Emerson for the greater part of his life, gives
me some particulars with reference to the pub-
lication of " Sartor Resartus," which I will re-
peat in his own words : —
" It was just before the time of which I am speak-
ing [that of Emerson's marriage] that the ^ Sartor
Resartus ' appeared in ^ Fraser.' Emerson lent the
numbers, or the collected sheets of * Eraser,' to Miss
Jackson, and we all had the reading of them. The
excitement which the book caused among young per-
sons interested in the literature of the day at that
time you probably remember. I was quite carried
away by it, and so anxious to own a copy, that I de-
termined to publish an American edition. I con-
sulted James Munroe & Co. on the subject. Munroe
advised me to obtain a subscription to a sufficient
number of copies to secure the cost of the publication.
This, with the aid of some friends, particularly of
my classmate, William Silsbee, I readily succeeded in
doing. When this was accomplished, I wrote to Em-
erson, who up to this time had taken no part in the
enterprise, asking him to write a preface. (This is
the Preface which appears in the American edition,
James Munroe & Co., 1836. It was omitted in the
third American from the second London edition, by
the same pubUshers, 1840.) Before the first edi-
tion appeared, and after the subscription had been
secured, Munroe & Co. offered to assume the whole
responsibility of the publication, and to this I assented*
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82 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
" This American edition of 1836 was the first ap-
pearance of the ' Sart(H* ' in either country, as a dis-
tinct edition. Some copies of the sheets from ^ Frar
ser/ it appears, were stitched together and sent to a
few persons, but Carlyle could find no EngHsh pub-
lisher willing to take the responsibility of printing the
book. This shows, I think, how much more interest
was taken in Carlyle's writings in this country than
in England."
On the 14th of May, 1834, £merson wrote to
Carlyle the first letter of that correspondence
which has since been given to the world under
the careful editorship of Mr. Charles Norton.
This correspondence lasted from the date men-
tioned to the 2d of April, 1872, when Carlyle
wrote his last letter to Emerson. The two writ-
ers reveal themselves as being in strong sympa-
thy with each other, in spite of a radical diflFer-
ence of temperament and entirely opposite views
of life. The hatred of imreality was uppermost
with Carlyle ; the love of what is real and gen-
uine with Emerson. Those old moralists, the
weeping and the laughing philosophers, find their
counterparts in every thinking community. Car-
lyle did not weep, but he scolded ; Emerson did
not laugh, but in his gravest moments there was
a smile waiting for the cloud to pass from his
forehead. The Duet they chanted was a Mise-
rere with a Te Deum for its Ajitiphon ; a De
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EMERBOIPa SECOND MARRIAGE, 88
Profundis answered by a Sursum Corda, " The
ground of my existence is black as death," says
Carlyle. " Come and live with me a year," says
Emerson, " and if you do not like New Eng-
land well enough to stay, one of these years
(when the ' History ' has passed its ten editions,
and been translated into as many languages) I
will come and dwell with you."
§ 2. In September, 1836, Emerson was mar-
ried to Miss Lydia Jackson, of Plymouth, Mas-
sachusetts. The wedding took place in the fine
old mansion known as the Winslow House, Dr.
Le Baron Russell and his sister standing up with
the bridegroom and his bride. After their mar-
riage, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson went to reside in
the house in which he passed the rest of his life,
and in which Mrs. Emerson and their daughter
still reside. This is the " plain, square, wooden
house," with horse-chestnut trees in the front
yard, and evergreens around it, which has been
so often described and figured. It is without
pretensions, but not without an air of quiet dig-
nity. A full and well-illustrated account of it
and its arrangements and surroundings is given
in "Poets' Homes," by Arthur Gilman and
others, published by D. Lothrop & Company in
1879.
On the 12th of September, 1835, Emerson
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84 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
delivered an " Historical Discourse, at Concord,
on the Second Centennial Anniversary of the In-
corporation of the Town." There is no " mys-
ticism," no ^'transcendentalism" in this plain,
straightforward Address. The facts are collected
and related with the patience and sobriety which
became the writer as one of the Dryasdusts of
our very diligent, very useful, very matter-of-fact,
and for the most part judiciously unimaginative
Massachusetts Historical Society. It looks un-
like anything else Emerson ever wrote, in being
provided with abundant foot-notes and an appen-
dix. One would almost as soon have expected
to see Emerson equipped with a musket and a
knapsack as to find a discourse of his clogged
with annotations, and trailing a supplement after
it. Oracles are brief and final in their utter-
ances. Delphi and Cumae are not expected to
explain what they say.
It is the habit of our New England towns to
celebrate their own worthies and their own deeds
on occasions like this, with more or less of rhe-
torical gratitude and self-felicitation. The dis-
courses delivered on these occasions are com-
monly worth reading, for there was never a
clearing made in the forest that did not let in
the light on heroes and heroines. Concord is on
the whole the most interesting of all the inland
towns of New England. Emerson has told its
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CONCORD ''HISTORICAL ADDRESS.'' 85
story in as painstaking, faithful a way as if he
had been by nature an annalist. But with this
fidelity, we find also those bold generalizations
and sharp picturesque touches which reveal the
poetic philosopher.
" I have read with care," he says, " the town rec-
ords themselves. They exhibit a pleasing picture of
a community almost exclusively agricultural, where
no man has much time for words, in his search after
things ; of a community of great simplicity of man-
ners, and of a manifest love of justice. I find our
annals marked with a uniform good sense. — The
tone of the record rises with the dignity of the event.
These soiled and musty books are luminous and elec-
tric within. The old town clerks did not spell very
correctly, but they contrive to make intelligible the
will of a free and just conununity." ..." The mat-
ters there debated (in town meetings) are such as to
invite very small consideration. The ill-spelled pages
of the town records contain the result. I shall be
excused for confessing that I have set a value upon
any symptom of meanness and private pique which I
have met with in these antique books, as proof that
justice was done ; that if the results of our history
are approved as wise and good, it was yet a free
strife; if the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking
counsel did not fail to be suggested; freedom and
virtue, if they triumphed, triumphed in a fair field.
And so be it an everlasting testimony for them, and
so much ground of assurance of man*s capacity for
self-government."
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86 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
There was nothing in this Address which the
plainest of Concord's citizens could not read un-
derstandingly and with pleasure. In fact Mr.
Emerson himself, besides being a poet and a phi-
losopher, was also a plain Concord citizen. His
son tells me that he was a faithful attendant upon
town meetings, and, though he never spoke, was
an interested and careful listener to the debates
on town matters. That respect for "mother-
wit" and all the wholesome hiunan qualities
which reveals itself aU through his writings was
bred from this kind of intercourse with men of
sense who had no pretensions to learning, and in
whom, for that very reason, the native qualities
came out with less disguise in their expression.
He was surrounded by men who ran to extremes
in their idiosyncrasies : Alcott in speculations,
which often led him into the fourth dimension
of mental space ; Hawthorne, who brooded him-
self into a dream -peopled solitude; Thoreau,
the nullifier of civilization, who insisted on nib-
bling his asparagus at the wrong end, to say
nothing of idolaters and echoes. He kept his
balance among them alL It would be hard to
find a more candid and sober record of the result
of self-government in a small commimity than
is contained in this simple discourse, patient in
detail, large in treatment, more effective than
any unsupported generalities about the natural
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THE CONCORD HYMN. 87
rights of man, which amount to very Kttle unless
men earn the right of asserting them by attend-
ing fairly to their natural duties. So admirably
is the working of a town government, as it goes
on in a well-disposed c(Mnmunity, displayed in
the history of Concord's two himdred years of
village life, that one of its wisest citizens had
portions of the address printed for distribution,
as an illustration of the American principle of
self-government.
After settling in Concord, Emerson delivered
courses of Lectures in Boston during several suc-
cessive winters ; in 1835, ten Lectures on Eng-
lish Literature ; in 1836, twelve Lectures on the
Philosophy of History; in 1837, ten Lectures
on Human Culture. Some of these lectures may
have appeared in print under their original
titles ; all of them probably contributed to the
Essays and Discourses which we find in his
published volumes.
On the 19th of April, 1836, a meeting was
held to celebrate the completion of the monu-
ment raised in commemoration of the Concord
Fight. For this occasion Emerson wrote the
hymn made ever memorable by the lines : —
Here once the embattled fanners stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The last line of this hymn quickens the heart-
beats of every American, and the whole hymn
is admirable in thought and expression.
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88 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Until the autumn of 1838, Emerson preached
twice on Sundays to the chui'ch at East Lexing-
ton, which desired him to become its pastor.
Mr. Cooke says that when a lady of the society
was asked why they did not settle a friend of
Emerson's whom he had urged them to invite
to their pulpit, she replied: "We are a very
simple people, and can understand no one but
Mr. Emerson." He said of himself : " My pul-
pit is the Lyceum platform." Knowing that he
made his Sermons contribute to his Lectures,
we need not mourn over their not being re-
ported.
In March, 1837, Emerson delivered in Boston
a Lecture on War, afterwards published in Miss
Peabody's "-Esthetic Papers." He recognizes
war as one of the temporary necessities of a de-
veloping civilization, to disappear with the ad-
vance of mankind: —
^^ At a certain stage of his progress the man fights,
if he be of a sound body and mind. At a certain
high stage he makes no offensive demonstration, but
is alert to repel injury, and of an unconquerable
heart. At a still higher stage he comes into the re-
gion of holiness ; passion has passed away from him ;
his warlike nature is all converted into an active me-
dicinal principle ; he sacrifices himself, and accepts
with alacrity wearisome tasks of denial and charity;
but being attacked, he bears it, and turns the other
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DEATH OF EMERSON'S BROTHERS, 89
cheek, as one engaged, throughout his heing, no longer
to the service of an individual, bat to the common
good of all men.**
In 1834 Emerson's brother Edward died, as
already mentioned, in the West India island
where he had gone for his health. In his letter
to Carlyle, of November 12th of the same year,
Emerson says : " Your letter, which I received
last week, made a bright light in a solitary and
saddened place. I had quite recently received
the news of the death of a brother in the island
of Porto Eico, whose loss to me will be a life-
long sorrow." It was of him that Emerson
wrote the lines " In Memoriam," in which he
says,—
^ " There is no record left on earth
Save on tablets of the heart,
Of the rich, inherent worth,
Of the grace that on him shone
Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit ;
He could not frame a word unfit,
An act unworthy to be done.'*
Another bereavement was too soon to be re-
corded. On the 7th of October, 1835, he says
in a letter to Carlyle : —
" I was very glad to hear of the brother you describe,
for I have one too, and know what it is to have pres-
ence in two places. Charles Chauncy Emerson is a
lawyer now settled in this town, and, as I believe, no
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90 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
better Lord Hamlet was ever. He is our Doctor on
all questions of taste, manners, or action. And one
of the pure pleasures I promise myself in the months
to come is to make you two gentlemen know each
other."
Alas for hranan hopes and prospects f In
less than a year from the date of that letter, on
the 17th of September, 1836, he writes to Car-
lyle: —
"Your last letter, dated in April, found me a
mourner, as did your first. I have lost out of this
world my brother Charles, of whom I have spoken to
you, — the friend and companion of many years, the
inmate of my house, a man of a beautiful genius, bom
to speak well, and whose conversation for these last
years has treated every grave question of humanity,
and has been my daily bread. I have put so much
dependence on his gifts, that we made but one man
together ; for I needed never to do what he could do
by noble nature, much better than I. He was to have
been married in this month, and at the time of his
sickness and sudden death, I was adding apartments
to my house for his permanent accommodation. I
wish that you could have known him. At twenty-
seven years the best life is only preparation. He
built his foundation so large that it needed the full
age of man to make evident the plan and proportions
of his character. He postponed always a particular
to a final and absolute success, so that his life was a
silent appeal to the great and generous. But some
time I shall see you and speak of him."
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''NATURE:* 91
§ 3. In the year 1836 there was published in
Boston a little book of less than a hundred very
small pages, entitled "Nature." It bore no
name on its title-page, but was at once attrib-
uted to its real author, Salph Waldo Emerson.
The Emersonian adept will pardon me for bur-
dening this beautiful Essay with a commentary
which is worse than superfluous for him. For
it has proved for many, — I will not S2ijB,pons
asinorum^ — but a very narrow bridge, which it
made their heads swim to attempt crossing, and
yet they must cross it, or one domain of Emer-
son's intellect will not be reached.
It differed in some respects from anything he
had hitherto written. It talked a strange sort of
philosophy in the language of poetry. Begin-
ning simply enough, it took more and more the
character of a rhapsody, until, as if lifted off his
feet by the deepened and stronger undercurrent
of his thought, the writer dropped his personality
and repeated the words which " a certain poet
sang" to him.
This little book met with a very unemotional
reception. Its style was peculiar, — almost as
tmlike that of his Essays as that of Carlyle's
" Sartor Kesartus " was unlike the style of his
" Life of Schiller." It was vague, mystic, incom-
prehensible, to most of those who call themselves
common-sense people. Some of its expressions
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92 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
lent themselves easily to travesty and ridicule.
But the laugh could not be very loud or very
long, since it took twelve years, as Mr. Higgin-
son tells us, to sell five hundred copies. It was
a good deal like Keats's
" doubtful tale from f airj-land
Hard for the non-elect to understand.**
The same experience had been gone through by
Wordsworth.
" Whatever is too original," says De Quincey,
" will be hated at the first. It most slowly mould
a public for itself ; and the resistance of the early
thoughtless judgments must be overcome by a coun-
ter-resistance to itself, in a better audience slowly
mustering against the first Forty and seven years
it is since William Wordsworth first appeared as
an author. Twenty of these years he was the scoff
of the world, and his poetry a by-word of scorn.
Since then, and more than once, senates have rung
with acclamations to the echo of his name."
No writer is more deeply imbued with the
spirit of Wordsworth than Emerson, as we can-
not fail to see in turning the pages of " Nature,"
his first thoroughly characteristic Essay. There
is the same thought in the Preface to " The Ex-
cursion" that we find in the Introduction to
" Nature."
" The foregoing generations beheld Grod and nature
face to face; we through their eyes. Why should
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''NATURE:' 93
not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe ?
Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of
insight and not of tradition, and a religion hy reve-
lation to us, and not the history of theirs ? "
" Paradise and groves
Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old
Sought in the Atlantic Main, why should they he
A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was ? "
"Nature" is a reflective prose poem. It is
divided into eight chapters, which might almost
as well have been called cantos.
Never before had Mr. Emerson given free ut-
terance to the passion with which the aspects of
nature inspired him. He had recently for the
first time been at once master of himself and in
free communion with all the planetary influences
above, beneath, around him. The air of the
country intoxicated him. There are sentences in
" Nature " which are as exalted as the language
of one who is just coming to himself after being
etherized. Some of these expressions sounded
to a considerable part of his early readers like
the vagaries of delirium. Yet underlying these
excited outbursts there was a general tone of
serenity which reassured the anxious. The gust
passed over, the ripples smoothed themselves,
and the stars shone again in quiet reflection.
After a passionate outbreak, in which he sees
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94 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
all, is nothing, loses himself in nature, in Uni-
versal Being, becomes " part or particle of God,"
he considers briefly, in the chapter entitled
Commodity^ the ministry of nature to the senses.
A few picturesque glimpses in pleasing and poet-
ical phrases, with a touch of archaism, and remi-
niscences of Hamlet and Jeremy Taylor, " the
Shakspeare of divines," as he has called him,
are what we find in this chapter on Commodity,
or natural conveniences.
But " a nobler want of man is served by Na-
ture, namely, the love of Beauty^'* which is his
next subject. There are some touches of de-
scription here, vivid, high-colored, not so much
pictures as hints and impressions for pictures.
Many of the thoughts which run through all
his prose and poetry may be found here. Anal-
ogy is seen everywhere in the works of Nature.
" What is common to them all, — that perf ect-
ness and harmony, is beauty." — "Nothing is
quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful
in the whole." — " No reason can be asked or
given why the soul seeks beauty." How easily
these same ideas took on the robe of verse may
be seen in the Poems, "Each and All," and
" The Rhodora." A good deal of his philoso-
phy comes out in these concluding sentences of
the chapter : —
" Beauty in its largest and profoundest sense is
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''NATURE,'' 96
one espression for the universe ; Grod in the all-fair.
Tmth and goodness and beauty are but different
faces of the same AIL But beauty in Nature is
not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eter-
nal beauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory
good. It must therefore stand as a part and not as
yet the highest expression of the final cause of Na-
ture."
ii the " Bhodora " the flower is made to an-
swer lliat
*' Beauty is its own excuse for being."
In this Essay the beauty of the flower is not
enough, but it must excuse itself for being,
mainly as the symbol of something higher and
deeper than itself.
He passes next to a consideration oi Language,
Words are signs of natural facts, particular ma-
terial facts are symbols of particular spiritual
facts, and Nature is the symbol of spirit. With-
out going very profoundly into the subject, he
gives some hints as to the mode in which lan-
guages are formed, — whence words are derived,
how they become transformed and worn out.
But they come at first fresh from Nature.
^^ A. man conversing in earnest, if he watch his
intellectual processes^ will find that always a mate-
rial image, more or less luminoufif, arises in his mind,
cont^mpor^eoos with every thought, which famishes
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96 RALPH WALDO EMEB80N.
the vestment of the thought Hence good writing
and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories."
From this he argues that country life is a
great advantage to a powerful mind, inasmuch as
it furnishes a greater number of these material
images. They cannot be summoned at will, but
they present themselves when great exigencies
call for them.
" The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose
senses have been nourished by their fair and appeas-
ing changes, year after year, without design and with-
out heed, — shall not lose their lesson altogether, in
the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long here-
after, amidst agitations and terror in national coun-
cils, — in the hour of revolution, — these solemn
images shall reappear in their morning lustre, as fit
S3rmbols and words of the thought which the passing
events shall awaken. At the call of a noble senti-
ment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the
river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the
mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy.
And with these forms the spells of persuasion, the
keys of power, are put into his hands."
It is doing no wrong to this very eloquent and
beautiful passage to say that it reminds us of
certain lines in one of the best known poems of
Wordsworth : —
" These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
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''NATURE:* 97
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye ;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I haye owed to them
In hours of weariness sensations sweet
Felt in the blood and felt along the heart."
It is needless to quote the whole passage. The
poetry of Wordsworth may have suggested the
prose of Emerson, but the prose loses nothing
by the comparison.
In Discipline^ which is his next subject, he
treats of the influence of Nature in educating the
intellect, the moral sense, and the will. Man is
enlarged and the universe lessened and brought
within his grasp, because
<^Time and space relations vanish as laws are
known." — " The moral law lies at the centre of Na-
ture and radiates to the circumference." — '^ All things
with which we deal preach to us. What is a farm
bat a mute gospel ? " — " Prom the child's successive
possession of his several senses up to the hour when
he sayeth, * Thy will be done ! ' he is learning the
secret that he can reduce under his will, not only par-
ticular events, but great classes, nay, the whole series
of events, and so conform all facts to his character."
The tuiity in variety which meets us every-
where is again referred to. He alludes to the
ministry of our friendships to our education.
When a friend has done for our education in
the way of filling our minds with sweet and solid
7
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98 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
wisdom ^' it is a sign to us that his office is
dosing, and he is commonly withdrawn from
our sight in a short time." This thought was
probably suggested by the death of his brother
Charles, which occurred a few months before
"Nature" was published. He had already
spoken in the first chapter of this little book as
if from some recent experience of his own, doubt-
less the same bereavement. " To a man labor-
ing under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath
sadness in it. Then there is a kind of contempt
of the landscape felt by him who has just lost
by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand
as it shuts down over less worth in the popula-
tion." This was the first effect of the loss ; but
after a time he recognizes a superintending
power which orders events for us in wisdom
which we could not see at first.
The chapter on Idealism must be read by
all who believe themselves capable of abstract
thought, if they would not fall under the judg-
ment of Turgot, which Emerson quotes: "He
that has never doubted the existence of matter
may be assured he has no aptitude for meta-
physical inquiries." The most essential state-
ment is this : —
" It is a sufficient account of that Appearance we
call the World, that God will teach a human mind,
and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of
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''NATURE:' 99
congruent sensations, which we call son and moon,
man and woman, house and trade. In my utter im-
potence to test the authenticity of the report of my
senses, to know whether the impressions they make
on me correspond with outlying objects, what dif-
ference does it make, whether Orion is up there in
Heaven, or some god paints the image in the firma-
ment of the Soul ? "
We need not follow the thought through the
argument from illusions, like that when we look
at the shore from a moving ship, and others
which cheat the senses by false appearances.
The poet animates Nature with his own
thoughts, perceives the affinities between Nature
and the soul, with Beauty as his main end. The
philosopher pursues Truth, but, " not less than
the poet, postpones the apparent order and rela-
tion of things to the empire of thought." Re-
ligion and ethics agree with all lower culture in
degrading Nature and suggesting its dependence
on Spirit. " The devotee flouts Nature." —
" Plotinus was ashamed of his body." — " Michael
Angelo said of external beauty, ' it is the frail
and weary weed, in which God dresses the soul,
which He has called into time.' " Emerson would
not undervalue Nature as looked at through the
senses and " the unrenewed understanding." " I
have no hostility to Nature," he says, "but a
child's love of it. I expand and live in the warm
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100 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
day like com and melons." — But, " seen in the
light of thought, the world always is phenom-
enal ; and virtue subordinates it to the mind.
Idealism sees the world in God," — as one vast
picture, which God paints on the instant eternity,
for the contemplation of the soul.
The imimaginative reader is likely to find
himself off soundings in the next chapter, which
has for its title Spirit.
Idealism only denies the existence of matter ;
it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit.
"It leaves God out of me." — Of these three
questions. What is matter ? Whence is it ?
Where to ? The ideal theory answers the first
only. The reply is that matter is a pl^nome-
non, not a substance.
" But when we come to inquire Whence is matter ?
and Whereto ? many tmths arise to us out of the re-
cesses of consciousness. We learn that the highest
is present to the soul of man, that the dread universal
essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or
power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for
which all things exist, and that by which they are ;
that spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout
nature, spirit is present ; that spirit is one and not
compound; that spirit does not act upon us from
without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or
through ourselves." — "As a plant upon the earth,
so a man rests upon tibe bosom of God ; he is nour-
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''NATURES 101
ished hj uof aUing f oontaiiis, and draws, at his need,
inexhaustible power."
Man may have access to the entire mind of the
Creator, himself become a " creator in the fin-
ite."
''As we degenerate, the contrast between us and
our house is more evident. We are as much stran-
gers in nature as we are aliens from God. We do not
understand the notes of birds. The fox and the deer
, run away from us; the bear and the tiger rend us."
All this has an Old Testament sound as of a
lost Paradise. In the next chapter he dreams
of Paradise regained.
This next and last chapter is entitled Pros-
pects. He begins with a bold claim for the prov-
ince of intuition as against induction, underval-
uing the '' half sight of science " as against the
''untaught sallies of the spirit," the surmises
and vaticinations of the mind, — the " imperfect
theories, and sentences which contain glimpses
of truth." In a word, he would have us leave
the laboratory and its crucibles for the sibyl's
cave and its tripod. We can all — or most of
us, certainly — recognize something of truth,
much of imagination, and more of danger in
speculations of this sort. They belong to vis-
ionaries and to poets. Emerson feels distinctly
enough that be is getting into the realm of
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102 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
poetry. He quotes five beautiful verses from
George Herbert's " Poem on Man." Presently
he is himself taken off his feet into the air of
song, and finishes his Essay with " some tradi-
tions of man and nature which a certain poet
sang to me." — "A man is a god in ruins." —
" Man is the dwarf of himself. Once he was
permeated and dissolved by spirit. He filled
nature with his overflowing currents. Out from
him sprang the sun and moon ; from man the
sun, from woman the moon." — But he no longer
fills the mere shell he had made for himself ;
" he is shnmk to a drop." Still something of ele-
mental power remains to him. " It is instinct."
Such teachings he got from his " poet." It is
a kind of New England Genesis in place of the
Old Testament one. We read in the Sermon
on the Mount : " Be ye therefore perfect as your
Father in Heaven is perfect." The discourse
which comes to us from the Trimount oracle
commands us, " Build, therefore, your own world.
As fast as you conform your life to the pure
idea in your mind, that will unfold its great pro-
portions." The seer of Patmos foretells a heav-
enly Jerusalem, of which he says, " There shall
in no wise enter into it anything which defileth."
The sage of Concord foresees a new heaven on
earth. " A correspondent revolution in things
will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast will
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''NATURE.'' 108
disagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes,
pests, mad-houses, prisons, enemies, vanish ; they
are temporary and shall be no more seen."
It may be remembered that Calvin, in his
Commentary on the New Testament, stopped
when he came to the book of the " Kevelation."
He found it full of difficulties which he did not
care to encounter. Yet, considered only as a
poem, the vision of St. John is full of noble im-
agery and wonderful beauty. " Nature " is the
Book of Revelation of our Saint Badulphus. It
has its obscurities, its extravagances, but as a
poem it is noble and inspiring. It was objected
to on the score of its pantheistic character, as
Wordsworth's "Lines composed near Tintem
Abbey " had been long before. But here and
there it found devout readers who were capti-
vated by its spiritual elevation and great poet-
ical beauty, among them one who wrote of it in
the " Democratic Review " in terms of enthusi-
astic admiration.
Mr. Bowen, the Professor of Natural Theol-
ogy and Moral Philosophy in Harvard Univer-
sity, treated this singular semi - philosophical,
semi-poetical little book in a long article in the
"Christian Examiner," headed "Transcenden-
talism," and published in the January number
for 1837. The acute and learned Professor
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104 RALPH WALDO EMERBON.
meant to deal fairly with his subject. But if
one has ever seen a sagacious pointer making the
acquaintance of a box-tortoise, he will have an
idea of the relations between the reviewer and
the reviewed as they appear in this article. The
professor turns the book over and over, — in-
spects it from plastron to carapace, so to speak,
and looks for openings everywhere, sometimes
successfully, sometimes in vain. He finds good
writing and sound philosophy, passages of great
force and beauty of expression, marred by ob-
scurity, under assumptions and faults of style.
He was not, any more than the rest of us, accli-
mated to the Emersonian atmosphere, and after
some not unjust or unkind comments with which
many readers will heartily agree, confesses his
bewilderment, saying: —
" On reviewing what we have already said of this
singular work, the criticism seems to be coached in
contradictory terms ; we can ODly allege in excuse the
fact that the book is a contradiction in itself."
Carlyle says in his letter of February 13,
1837: —
" Your little azure-colored * Nature * gave me true
satisfaction. I read it, and then lent it about to all
my acquaintances that had a sense for such things ;
from whom a similar verdict always came back. You
say it is the first chapter of something greater. I
call it rather the Foundation and Ground-plan on
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^'NATURE*' 106
which yoa may buUd whatsoever of great and true has
been given you to build. It is the true Apocalypse,
this when the ' Open Secret ' becomes revealed to a
man. I rejoice much in the glad serenity of soul
with which you look out on this wondrous Dwelling-
place of yours and mine, — with an ear for the
Evngen Melodien, which pipe in the winds round us,
and utter themselves forth in all sounds and sights
and things ; not to be written down by gamut-ma-
chinery ; but which all right writing is a kind of at-
tempt to write down."
The first edition of "Nature" had prefixed
to it the following words from Plotinus : " Na-
ture is but an image or imitation of wisdom, the
last thing of the soul; Nature being a thing
which doth only do, but not know." This is
omitted in after editions, and in its place we
read: —
" A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings ;
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose ;
And striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form."
The copy of " Natore " from which I take these
lines, his own, of course, like so many others
which he prefixed to his different Essays, was
printed in the year 1849, ten years before the
publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species,"
twenty years and more before the publication of
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106 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" The Descent of Man." But the " Vestiges of
Creation," published in 1844, had already pop-
ularized the resuscitated theories of Lamarck.
It seems as if Emerson had a warning from the
poetic instinct which, when it does not precede
the movelfnent of the scientific intellect, is the
first to catch the hint of its discoveries. There
is nothing more audacious in the poet's concep-
tion of the worm looking up towards humanity,
than the naturalist's theory that the progenitor
of the human race was an acephalous moUusk.
"I will not be sworn," says Benedick, "but
love may transform me to an oyster." For
"love" read science.
Unity in variety, " il piu nell uno^'* symbolism
of Nature and its teachings, generation of phe-
nomena, — appearances, — from spirit, to which
they correspond and which they obey ; evolution
of the best and elimination of the worst as the
law of being ; all this and much more may be
found in the poetic uttei*ances of this slender
Essay. It fell like an aerolite, unasked for, un-
accounted for, unexpected, almost unwelcome, —
a stumbling-block to be got out of the well-trod-
den highway of New England scholastic intelli-
gence. But here and there it found a reader to
whom it was, to borrow, with slight changes, its
own quotation, —
" The golden key
Which opes the palace of eternity,"
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*'THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR:* 107
inasmuch as it carried upon its face the highest
certificate of truth, because it animated them
to create a new world for themselves through
the purification of their own souls.
Next to "Nature" in the series of his collected
publications comes " The American Scholar. An
Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa
Society at Cambridge, August 31, 1837."
The Society known by these three letters, long
a mystery to the uninitiated, but which, filled out
and interpreted, signify that philosophy is the
guide of life, is one of long standing, the annual
meetings of which have called forth the best ef-
forts of many distinguished scholars and think-
ers. Rarely has any one of the annual addresses
been listened to with such profound attention
and interest. Mr. Lowell says of it, that its de-
livery " was an event without any former par-
allel in our literary annals, a scene to be always
treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness
and its inspiration. What crowded and breath-
less aisles, what windows clustering with eager
heads, what enthusiasm of approval, what grim
silence of foregone dissent ! "
Mr. Cooke says truly of this oration, that
nearly all his leading ideas found expression in it.
This was to be expected in an address delivered
before such an audience. Every real thinker's
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108 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
world of thought has its centre in a few for-
mulae, about which they revolve as the planets
circle round the sun which cast them off. But
those who lost themselves now and then in the
pages of " Nature " will find their way clearly
enough through those of " The American Schol-
ar." It is a plea for generous culture; for the
development of all the faculties, many of which
tend to become atrophied by the exclusive pur-
suit of single objects of thought. It begins with
a note like a trumpet call.
'^ Thus far," he says, ^^ our holiday has been simply
a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters
amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more.
As such it is precious as the sign of an indfestructible
instinct. Perhaps the time is already come when it
ought to be, and will be, something else ; when the
sluggard intellect of this continent will look from un-
der its iron lids and fill the postponed expectations of
the world with something better than the exertions of
mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long
apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws
to a close. The millions that around us are roshing
into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of
foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be
sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt that
poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star
in the constellation Harp, which now flames in our
zenith, astronomers announce shall one day be the
pole-star for a thousand years ? "
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" THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.'* 109
Emerson finds his text in the old fable which
tells that Man, as he was in the beginning, was
divided into men, as the hand was divided into
fingers, the better to answer the end of his being.
The fable covers the doctrine that there is One
Man; present to individuals only in a partial
manner ; and that we must take the whole of so-
ciety to find the whole man. Unfortunately the
unit has been too minutely subdivided, and many
faculties are practically lost for want of use.
" The state of society is one in which the mem-
bers have suffered amputation from the trunk,
and strut about so many walking monsters, —
a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but
never a man. . . . Man is thus metamorphosed
into a thing, into many things. . . . The priest
becomes a form ; the attorney a statute book ;
the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of
the ship."
This complaint is by no means a new one.
Scaliger says, as quoted by omnivorous old Bur-
ton: " Nequaquam no8 homines sumus sed par-
tes hominis.^* The old iQustration of this used
to be found in pin-making. It took twepty dif-
ferent workmen to make a pin, beginning with
drawing the wire and ending with sticking in the
paper. Each expert, skilled in one small per-
formance only, was reduced to a minute fraction
of a fraction of humanity. If the complaint
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110 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
was legitimate in Scaliger's time, it was better
founded half a century ago when Mr. Emerson
found cause for it. It has still more serious
significance to-day, when in every profession, in
every branch of human knowledge, special ac-
quirements, special skill have greatly tended to
limit the range of men's thoughts and working
faculties.
" In this distribution of functions the scholar is the
delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man
thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim
of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still
worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. In this
view of him, as Man thinking, the theory of his office
is continued. Him Nature solicits with all her placid,
all her monitory pictures; him the past instructs;
him the future invites."
Emerson proceeds to describe and illustrate
the influences of nature upon the mind, return-
ing to the strain of thought with which his pre-
vious Essay has made us familiar. He next con-
siders the influence of the past, and especially of
books as the best type of that influence. " Books
are the best of things well used ; abused among
the worst." It is hard to distil what is already
a quintessence without loss of what is just as
good as the product of our labor. A sentence
or two may serve to give an impression of the
epigrammatic wisdom of his counsel.
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" THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.'' Ill
" Each age most write its own books, or, rather,
each generation for the next succeeding. The books
of an older period will not fit this."
When a book has gained a certain hold on
the mind, it is liable to become an object of idol-
atrous regard.
" Instantly the book becomes noxious : the guide is
a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the
multitude, slow to open to the incursions of reason,
having once so opened, having received this book,
stands upon it and makes an outcry if it is dispar-
aged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written
on it by thinkers, not by Man thinking ; by men of
talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from ac-
cepted dogmas, not from their own sight of princi-
ple. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing
it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which
Locke, which Bacon have given ; forgetful that Cicero,
Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries
when they wrote these books. — One must be an in-
ventor to read well. As the proverb says, * He that
would bring home the wealth of the Indies must
carry out the wealth of the Indies.* — When the mind
is braced by labor and invention, the page of what-
ever book we read becomes luminous with manifold
allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and
the sense of our author is as broad as the world."
It is not enough that the scholar should be a
student of nature and of books. He must take
a part in the affairs of the world about him.
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112 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
^^ Action is with the scholar subordinate, bat it is
essential Without it he is not yet man. Without
it thought can never ripen into truth. — The true
scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by,
as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of
which the intellect moulds her splendid j^oducts. A
strange process, too, this by which experience is con-
vei*ted into thought as a mulberry leaf is converted
into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all
hours."
Emerson does not use the words ^^ unconscious
cerebration," but these last words describe the
process in an unmistakable way. The beautiful
paragraph in which he pictures the transforma-
tion, the transfiguration of experience, closes
with a sentence so thoroughly characteristic, so
Emersonially Emersonian, that I fear some read-
ers who thought they were his disciples when
they came to it went back and walked no more
with him, at least through the pages of this dis-
course. The reader shall have the preceding
sentence to prepare him for the one referred to.
" There is no fact, no event in our private history,
which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert
form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into
the empyrean.
^' Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the
fear of boys, and dogs, and ferules, the love of little
maids and berries, and many another fact that once
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" TEE AMERICAN SCHOLARS' 113
filled the whole sky, are gone already ; friend and
relative, professions and party, town and country,
nation and world must also soar and sing."
Having spoken of the education of the scholar
by nature, by books, by action, he speaks of the
scholar's duties. " They may all," he says, " be
comprised in self-trust." We have to remember
that the self be means is the highest self, that
consciousness which he looks upon as open to
the influx of the divine essence from which it
came, and towards which all its upward tenden-
cies lead, always aspiring, never resting ; as he
sings in " The Sphinx " : —
'' The heavens that now draw him
With sweetness untold,
Once found, — for new heavens
He spumeth the old."
'^ First one, then another, we drain all cisterns, and
waxing greater by all these supplies, we crave a bet-
ter and more abundant food. The man has never
lived that can feed us ever. The human mind can-
not be enshrined in a person who shall set a barrier
on any one side of this unbounded, unboundable em-
pire. It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of
the lips of Etna, lightens the Capes of Sicily, and now
out of the throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers
and vineyards of Naples. It is one light which beams
out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which ani-
mates all men."
8
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114 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
And so he comes to the special application of
the principles he has laid down to the American
scholar of to-day. He does not spare his cen-
sure ; he is full of noble trust and manly cour-
age. Very refreshing it is to remember in this
day of specialists, when the walking fraction of
humanity he speaks of would hardly include a
whole finger, but rather confine itself to the sin-
gle joint of the finger, such words as these : —
" The scholar is that man who must take up into
himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions
of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be
a university of knowledges. . • . We have listened too
long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of
the American freeman is already suspected to be timid,
imitative, tame. — The scholar is decent, indolent, com-
plaisant. — The mind of this country, taught to aim at
low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for
any but the decorous and the complaisant."
The young men of promise are discouraged
and disgusted.
" What is the remedy ? They did not yet see, and
thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to
the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if the
single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts,
and there abide, the huge world will come round to
him."
Each man must be a unit, — must jrield that
peculiar fruit which he was created to bear.
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^'THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR:' 115
" We will walk on our own feet ; we will work with
our own hands ; we will speak our own minds. — A
nation of men will for the first time exist, because
each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul
which abo inspires all men."
This grand Oration was our intellectual Dec-
laration of Independence. Nothing like it had
been heard in the halls of Harvard since Sam-
uel Adams supported the affirmative of the ques-
tion, " Whether it be lawful to trust the chief
magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot other-
wise be preserved." It was easy to find fault with
an expression here and there. The dignity, not
to say the formality of an Academic assembly
was startled by the realism that looked for the
infinite in " the meal in the firkin ; the milk
in the pan." They could understand the deep
thoughts suggested by " the meanest flower that
blows," but these domestic illustrations had a
kind of nursery homeliness about them which
the grave professors and sedate clergymen were
unused to expect on so stately an occasion. But
the young men went out from it as if a prophet
had been proclaiming to them " Thus saiih the
Lord." No listener ever forgot that Address,
and among aU the noble utterances of the speaker
it may be questioned if one ever contained more
truth in language more like that of immediate
inspiration.
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CHAPTER V.
1838-1843. ^T. 36-40.
§ 1. Divinity School Address. — ConespondeDoe. — Lectures
on Human Life. — Letters to James Freeman Clarke. —
Dartmonth College Address : Literaiy Ethics. — WaterviUe
College Address: The Method of Nature. — Other Ad-
dresses: Man the Beformer. — Lecture on the Times.—
The Conservative. — The Transcendentalist. — Boston
" Transcendentalism.** — " The Dial." — Brook Farm.
§ 2. First Series of Essays published. — Contents : History,
Self-Bellance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friend-
ship, Prudence, Heroism, The Oversoul^ Circles, Intellect,
Art. — Emerson's Account of his Mode of Life in a Letter
to Carlyle. — Death of Emerson's Son. — Threnody.
§ 1. On Sunday evening, July 15, 1838, Em-
erson delivered an Address before the Senior
Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, which
caused a profound sensation in religious circles,
and led to a controversy, in which Emerson had
little more than ihe part of Patroclus when the
Greeks and Trojans fought over his body. In its
simplest and broadest statement this discourse
was a plea for the individual consciousness as
against all historical creeds, bibles, churches;
for the soul as the supreme judge in spiritual
matters.
He begins with a beautiful picture which must
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DIVINITY SCHOOL ADDRESS. 117
be transferred without the change of an expresr
sion : —
" In this refulgent Summer, it has been a luxury
to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds
burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the
tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet
with the breath of the pine, the balm of Gilead, and
the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart
with its welcome shade. Through the transparent
darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays.
Man under them seems a young child, and his huge
globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with
a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson
dawn."
How softly tie phrases of the gentle icono-
clast steal upon the ear, and how they must have
hushed the questioning audience into pleased air
tention I The " Song of Songs, which is Solo-
mon's," could not have wooed the listener more
sweetly. "Thy Hps drop as the honeycomb:
honey and milk are under thy tongue, and the
smell of thy garments is like the smell of Leb-
anon." And this was the prelude of a discourse
which, when it came to be printed, fared at the
hands of many a theologian, who did not think
himself a bigot, as the roU which Baruch wrote
with ink from the words of Jeremiah fared at
the hands of Jehoiakim, the King of Judah. Ho
listened while Jehudi read ike opening passages.
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118 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
But " when Jehudi had read three or four leaves
he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the
fire that was on the hearth, until all the roU was
consumed in the fire that was on the hearth."
Such was probably the fate of many a copy of
this famous discourse.
It is reverential, but it is also revolutionary.
The file-leaders of Unitarianism drew back in
dismay, and the ill names which had often been
applied to them were now heard from their own
lips as befitting this new heresy ; if so mild a re-
proach as that of heresy belonged to this alarm-
ing manifesto. And yet, so changed is the whole
aspect of the theological world since the time
when that discourse was delivered that it is read
as calmly to-day as a common " Election Ser-
mon," if such are ever read at all. A few ex-
tracts, abstracts, and comments may give the
reader who has not the Address before him some
idea of its contents and its tendencies.
The material universe, which he has just pic-
tured in its summer beauty, deserves our admi-
ration. But when the mind opens and reveals
the laws which govern the world of phenomena,
it shrinks into a mere fable and illustration of
this mind. What am I ? What is ? — are ques-
tions always asked, never fully answered. We
would study and admire forever.
But above intellectual curiosity, there is the
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DIVINITY SCHOOL ADDRESS. 119
sentiment of virtue. Man is bom for the good,
for the perfect, low as he now lies in evil and
weakness. " The sentiment of virtue is a rever-
ence and delight in the presence of certain di-
vine laws. — These laws refuse to be adequately
stated. — They elude our persevering thought;
yet we read them hourly in each other's faces,
in each other's actions, in our own remorse. —
The intuition of the moral sentiment is an in-
sight of the perfection of the laws of the soul.
These laws execute themselves. — As we are, so
we associate. The good, by affinity, seek the
good; the vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus, of
their own volition, souls proceed into heaven,
into heU."
These facts, Emerson says, have always sug-
gested to man that the world is the product not
of manifold power, but of one will, of one mind,
— that one mind is everywhere active. — "All
things proceed out of the same spirit, and aU
things conspire with it." While a man seeks
good ends, nature helps him ; when he seeks
other ends, his being shrinks, " he becomes less
and less, a mote, a point, until absolute badness
is absolute death." — " When he says ' I ought ; *
when love warms him ; when he chooses, warned
from on high, the good and great deed ; then
deep melodies wander through his soul from Su-
preme Wisdom."
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120 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
" This sentiment lies at the foundation of society
and successively creates all forms o(f worship. — This
thought dwelled always deepest in the minds of men
in the devout and contemplative East ; not alone in
Palestine, where it reached its purest expression,
but in Egypt, in Persia, in India, in China. Europe
has always owed to Oriental genius its divine im-
pulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men
found agreeable and true. And the unique impres-
sion of Jesus upon mankind, whose name is not so
much written as ploughed into the history of this
world, is proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion."
But this truth cannot be received at second
hand; it is an intuition. What another an-
nounces, I must find true in myself, or I mus^
reject it. If the word of another is taken in-
stead of this primary faith, the church, the state,
art, letters, Hfe, all suffer degradation, — "the
doctrine of inspiration is lost ; the base doctrine
of the majority of voices usurps the place of the
doctrine of the soid."
The following extract will show the view that
he takes of Christianity and its Founder, and
sufficiently explain the antagonism called forth
by the discourse : —
"Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of proph-
ets. He saw with open eye the m3r8tery of the souL
Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its
beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone
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DIVINITY SCHOOL ADDRESS. 121
in all history he estimated the greatness of man. One
man was true to what is in you and me. He saw
that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore
goes forth anew to take possession of his World. He
said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, 'I am Di-
vine. Through me God acts; through me, speaks.
Would you see Grod, see me ; or see thee, when thou
also thinkest as I now think.' But what a distortion
did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the
next, and the following ages ! There is no doctrine
of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the
Understanding. The understanding caught this high
chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age,
* This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will
kill you if you say he was a man.' The idioms of
his language and the figures of his rhetoric have
usurped the place of his truth ; and churches are not
built on his principles, but on his tropes. Christianity
became a Mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece
and of Egypt, before. He spoke of Miracles ; for he
felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man
doth, and he knew that this miracle shines as the
character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pro-
nounced by Christian churches, gives a false impres-
sion ; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing
clover and the falling rain."
He proceeds to point out what he considers the
great defects of historical Christianity. It has
exaggerated the personal, the positive, the rit-
ual. It has wronged mankind by monopolizing
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122 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
all virtues for the Christian name. It is only
by his holy thoughts that Jesus serves us. " To
aim to convert a man by miracles is a profana-
tion of the souL" The preachers do a wrong to
Jesus by removing him from our human sympa-
thies; they should not degrade his life and dia-
logues by insulation and peculiarity.
Another defect of the traditional and limited
way of using the mind of Christ is that the
Moral Nature — the Law of Laws — is not ex-
plored as the fountain of the established teach-
ing in society. "Men have come to speak of
the revelation as somewhat long ago given and
done, as if God were dead." — "The soul is
not preached. The church seems to totter to
its fall, almost aU life extinct. — The stationari-
ness of religion; the assumption that the age
of inspiration is past ; that the Bible is closed ;
the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by
representing him as a man ; indicate with suffi-
cient clearness the falsehood of our theology. It
is the office «of a true teacher to show us that
God is, not was ; that he speaketh, not spake.
The true Christianity — a faith like Christ's in
the infinitude of Man — is lost."
When Emerson came to what his earlier an-
cestors would have called the " practical appli-
cation," some of his young hearers must have
been startled at the style of his address.
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DIVINITY SCHOOL ADDRESS, 123
"Yourself a new -bom bard of the Holy-
Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and ac-
quaint men at first hand with Deity. Look to
it first and only, that fashion, custom, authority,
pleasure, and money are nothing to you, — are
not bandages over your eyes, that you cannot
see, — but live with the privilege of the immeas-
urable mind."
Emerson recognizes two inestimable advan-
tages as the gift of Christianity ; first the Sab-
bath, — hardly a Christian institution, — and
secondly the institution of preaching. He spoke
not only eloquently, but with every evidence of
deep sincerity and conviction. He had sacrificed
an enviable position to that inner voice of duty
which he now proclaimed as the sovereign law
over all written or spoken words. But he was as-
sailing the cherished beliefs of those before him,
and of Christendom generally ; not with hard or
bitter words, not with sarcasm or levity, rather
as one who felt himself charged with a message
from the same divinity who had inspired the
prophets and evangelists of old with whatever
truth was in their messages. He might be
wrong, but his words carried the evidence of his
own serene, unshaken confidence that the spirit
of all truth was with him. Some of his audi-
ence, at least, must have felt the contrast be-
tween his utterances and the formal discourses
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124 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
they had so long listened to, and said to them-
selves, " he speaks * as one having authority, and
not as the Scribes.' "
Such teaching, however, could not be suffered
to go unchallenged. Its doctrines were repu-
diated in the '^ Christian Examiner," the lead-
ing organ of the Unitarian denomination. The
Kev. Henry Ware, greatly esteemed and hon-
ored, whose colleague he had been, addressed a
letter to him, in which he expressed the feeling
that some of the statements of Emerson's dis-
course would tend to overthrow the authority
and influence of Christianity. To this note Em-
erson returned the following answer : —
" What you say about the discourse at Divinity
College is just what I might expect from your truth
and charity, combined with yom* known opinions. I
am not a stick or a stone, as one said in the old time,
and could not but feel pain in saying some things in
that place and presence which I supposed would meet
with dissent, I may say, of dear friends and benefac-
tors of mine. Yet, as my conviction is perfect in the
substantial truth of the doctrines of this discourse,
and is not very new, you will see at once that it must
appear very important that it be spoken; and I
thought I could not pay the nobleness of my friends
so mean a compliment as to suppress my opposition
to their supposed views, out of fear of offence. I
would rather say to them, these things look thus to
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CORRESPONDENCE. 126
me, to you otherwise. Let us say our uttermost
word, and let the all-peryadiiig truth, as it surely will,
judge between us. Either of us would, I doubt not,
be* willingly apprised of his error. Meantime, I shall
be admonished by this expression of your thought,
to revise with greater care the * address,' before it
is printed (for the use of the class) : and I heartily
Hiank you for this expression of your tried toleration
and love."
Dr. "Ware followed up his note with a sermon,
preaebed on the 23d of September, in which he
dwells especially on the necessity of adding the
idea of personality to the abstractions of Emer-
son's philosophy, and sent it to him with a letter,
the kindness and true Christian spirit of which
were only what were inseparable from all the
thoughts and feelings of that most excellent and
truly apostolic man.
To Ais letter Emerson sent the following re-
ply:—
CSoNCORD, October 8, 1838.
My deab Sib, — I ought sooner to have acknowl-
edged your kind letter of last week, and the ser-
mon it accompanied. The letter was right manly
and noble. The sermon, too, I have read with atten-
tion. If it assails any doctrine of mine, — perhaps
I am not so quick to see it as writers generally, —
certainly I did not feel any disposition to depart
from my habitual contentment, that you should say
your thought, whilst I say mine. I believe I must
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126 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
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 ob-
ject 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 esteemed near enough to the institutions and
mind of society to deserve the notice of the masters
of literature and religion. I have appreciated fully
the advantages of my position, for I well know there
is no scholar less willing or less able than myself to
be a polemic. I could not give an account of myself,
if challenged. I could not possibly give you one of
the * arguments ' you cruelly hint at, on which any
doctrine of mine stands; for I do not know what
arguments are in reference to any expression of a
thought. I delight in telling what I think ; but if
you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am
the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see
that either of these questions admits of an answer.
So that in the present droll posture of my affairs,
when I see myself suddenly raised to the importance
of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the
supposed duties of such a personage, who is to make
good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall
do no such thing. I shall read what you and other
good men write, as I have always done, glad when
you speak my thoughts, and skipping the page that
has nothing for me. I shall go on just as before,
seeing whatever I can, and telling what I see ; and,
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LECTURES ON HUMAN LIFE. 127
I suppose, with the same fortune that has hitherto
attended me, — the joy of finding that my abler and
better brothers, who work with the sympathy of so-
ciety, loving and beloved, do now and then unex-
pectedly confirm my conceptions, and find my non-
sense is only their own thought in motley, — and so
I am your affectionate servant," etc.
The controversy which followed is a thing of
the past ; Emerson took no part in it, and we
need not return to the discussion. He knew his
office and has defined it in the clearest manner
in the letter just given, — " Seeing whatever I
can, and telling what I see." But among his
listeners and readers was a man of very dif-
ferent mental constitution, not more indepen-
dent or fearless, but louder and more combat-
ive, whose voice soon became heard and whose
strength soon began to be felt in the long battle
between the traditional and immanent inspira-
tion, — Theodore Parker. If Emerson was the
moving spirit, he was the right arm in the con-
flict, which in one form or another has been
waged up to the present day.
In the winter of 1838-39 Emerson delivered
his usual winter course of Lectures. He names
them in a letter to Carlyle as follows: "Ten
Lectures : I. The Doctrine of the Soul ; 11.
Home ; III. The School ; IV. Love ; V. Gen-
ius ; VI. The Protest ; VEI. Tragedy ; VIII.
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128 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Comedy; IX. Duty; X. Demonology. I de-
signed to add two more, but my lungs played
me false with unseasonable inflammation, so I
discoursed no more on Human Life." Two or
three of these titles only are prefixed to his pub-
lished Lectures or Essayfe; Love, in the first
volume of Essays ; Demonology in " Lectures
and Biographical Sketches ; " and " The Comic "
in " Letters and Social Aims."
I owe the privilege of making use of the two
following letters to my kind and honored friend,
James Freeman Clarke.
The first letter was accompanied by the Poem
"The Humble-bee," which was first published
by Mr. Clarke in the "Western Messenger,"
fi'om the autograph copy, which begins "Fine
humble-bee ! fine humble-bee ! " and has a num-
ber of other variations from the poem as printed
in his collected works.
Concord, December 7, 1838.
Mt dear Sm, — Here are the verses. They
have pleased some of my friends, and so may please
some of your readers, and you asked me in the spring
if I had n't somewhat to contribute to your journal.
I remember in your letter you mentioned the remark
of some friend of yours that the verses, " Take, O
take those lips away," were not Shakspeare's ; I think
they are. Beaumont, nor Fletcher, nor both together
were ever, I think, visited by such a starry gleam as
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LETTERS TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, 129
that "stanza. I know it is in '< Rollo," but it is in
" Measure for Measure " also ; and I remember no-
ticing that the Malones, and Stevens, and critical
gentry were about evenly divided, these for Shak-
speare, and those for Beaumont and Fletcher. But
the internal evidence is all for one, none for the
other. If he did not write it, they did not, and we
shall have some fourth unknown singer. What care
we wJio sung this or that. It is we at last who sing.
Yoiir friend and servant, B. W. Emebson.
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
Concord, February 27, 1839.
My deab Sm, — I am very sorry to have made
you wait so long for an answer to your flattering re-
quest for two such little poems. You are quite wel-
come to the lines " To the Rhodora ; " but I think
they need the superscription [" Lines on being asked
* Whence is the Flower ? * "]. Of the other verses
["Good-by proud world," etc.] I send you a cor-
rected copy, but I wonder so much at your wishing
to print them that I think you must read them once
again with your critical spectacles before they go fur-
ther. They were written sixteen years ago, when I
kept school in Boston, and lived in a comer of Rox-
bury called Canterbury. They have a slight misan-
thropy, a shade deeper than belongs to me ; and as it
seems nowadays I am a philosopher and am grown
to have opinions, I think they must have an apolo-
getic date, though I well know that poetry that needs
a date is no poetry, and so you will wiselier suppress
9
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130 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
them. I heartily wish I had any verses which with
a clear mind I could send you in lieu of these juve-
nilities. It is strange, seeing the delight we take in
verses, that we can so seldom write them, and so are
not ashamed to lay up old ones, say sixteen years, in-
stead of improvising them as freely as the wind
blows, whenever we and our brothers are attuned to
music. I have heard of a citizen who made an an-
nual joke. I believe I have in April or May an an-
nual poetic cowatiiS rather than afflatus, experiment-
ing to the length of thirty lines or so, if I may judge
from the dates of the rhythmical scraps I detect
among my MSS. I look upon this incontinence as
merely the redundancy of a susceptibility to poetry
which makes all the bards my daily treasures, and I
can well run the risk of being ridiculous once a year
for the benefit of happy reading all the other days.
In regard to the Providence Discourse, I have no
copy of it ; and as far as I remember its contents, I
have since used whatever is striking in it ; but I will
get the MS., if Margaret Fuller has it, and you shall
have it if it will pass muster. I shall certainly avail
myself of the good order you gave me for twelve
copies of the ^' Carlyle Miscellanies," so soon as they
appear. He, T. C, writes in excellent spirits of his
American friends and readers. ... A new book, he
writes, is growing in him, though not to begin until
his spring lectures are over (which begin in May).
Your sister Sarah was kind enough to carry me the
other day to see some pencil sketches done by Stuart
Newton when in the Insane HospitaL They seemed
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DARTMOUTH COLLEGE ADDRESS, 131
to me to betray the richest invention, so rich as al-
most to say, why draw any line since you can draw
all ? Grenius has given you the freedom of the uni-
verse, why then come within any walls ? And this
seems to be the old moral which we draw from our
fable, read it how or where you will, that we cannot
make one good stroke until we can make every pos-
sible stroke ; and when we can one, Bvery one seems
superfluous. I heartily thank you for the good
wishes you send me to open the year, and I say them
back again to you. Your field is a world, and all
men are your spectators, and all men respect the
true and great-hearted service you render. And yet
it is not spectator nor spectacle that concerns either
you or me. The whole world is sick of that very ail,
of being seen, and of seemliness. It belongs to the
brave now to trust themselves infinitely, and to sit
and hearken alone. I am glad to see William Chan-
ning is one of your coadjutors. Mrs. Jameson's new
book, I should think, would bring a caravan of trav-
ellers, aesthetic, artistic, and what not, up your mighty
stream, or along the lakes to Mackinaw. As I read
I almost vowed an exploration, but I doubt if I ever
get beyond the Hudson.
Your affectionate servant, R. W. Emebson.
On the ISth of July, 1838, a little more than
a week after the delivery of the Address before
the Divinity School, Mr. Emerson delivered an
Oration before the Literary Societies of Dart-
mouth College. If any rumor of the former
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132 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
discourse had reached Dartmouth, the audience
must have been prepared for a much more start-
ling performance than that to which they lis-
tened. The bold avowal which fluttered the
dovecotes of Cambridge would have sounded
like the crash of doom to the cautious old ten-
ants of the Hanover aviary. If there were any
drops of false or questionable doctrine in the
silver shower of eloquence under which they had
been sitting, the plumage of orthodoxy glistened
with unctuous repellents, and a shake or two on
coming out of church left the sturdy old dog-
matists as dry as ever.
Those who remember the Dartmouth College
of that day cannot help smiling at the thought
of the contrast in the way of thinking between
the speaker and the larger part, or at least the
older part, of his audience. President Lord was
well known as the scriptural defender of the in-
stitution of slavery. Not long before a contro-
versy had arisen, provoked by the setting up of
the Episcopal form of worship by one of the
Professors, the most estimable and scholarly Dr.
Daniel Oliver. Perhaps, however, the extreme
difference between the fundamental conceptions
of Mr. Emerson and the endemic orthodoxy of
that place and time was too great for any hostile
feeling to be awakened by the sweet-voiced and
peaceful-mannered speaker. There is a kind of
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LITERARY ETHICS. 138
harmony between boldly contrasted beliefs like
that between complementary colors. It, is when
two shades of the same color are brought side
by side that comparison makes them odious to
each other. Mr. Emerson could go anywhere
and find willing listeners among those farthest
in their belief from the views he held. Such
was his simplicity of speech and manner, such
his transparent sincerity, that it was next to im-
possible to quarrel with the gentle image-breaker.
The subject of Mr. Emerson's Address is Lit-
erary Ethics. It is on the. same lofty plane of
sentiment and in the same exalted tone of elo-
quence as the Phi Beta Kappa Address. The
word impassioned would seem misplaced, if ap-
plied to any of Mr. Emerson's orations. But
these discourses were both written and delivered
in the freshness of his complete manhood. They
were produced at a time when his mind had
learned its powers and the work to which it was
called, in the struggle which freed him from the
complaint of stereotyped confessions of faith
and all peremptory external authority. It is not
strange, therefore, to find some of his paragraphs
glowing with heat and sparkling with imagina-
tive illustration.
"Neither years nor books," he says, "have
yet availed to extirpate a prejudice rooted in
me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and
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134 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest
of men." And yet, he confesses that the schol-
ars of this country have not fulfilled the rea-
sonable expectation of mankind. "Men here,
as elsewhere, are indisposed to innovation and
prefer any antiquity, any usage, any livery pro-
ductive of ease or profit, to the unproductive
service of thought." For all this he offers those
correctives which in various forms underlie all
his teachings. "The resources of the scholar
are proportioned to his confidence in the attri-
butes of the Intellect." New lessons of spirit-
ual independence, fresh examples and illustra-
tions, are drawn from history and biography.
There is a passage here so true to nature that it
permits a half page of quotation and a line or
two of comment : —
" An intimation of these broad rights is familiar in
the sense of injury which men feel in the assumption
of any man to limit their possible progress. We re-
sent aU criticism which denies us anything that lies
in our line of advance. Say to the man of letters,
that he cannot paint a Transfiguration, or build a
steamboat, or be a grand-marshal, and he will not
seem to himself depreciated. But deny to him any
quality of literary or metaphysical power, and he is
piqued. Concede to him genius, which is a sort of
stoical plenum annulling the comparative, and he is
content ; but concede him talents never so rare, de-
nying him genius, and he is aggrieved."
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LITERARY ETHICS. 135
But it ought to be added that if the pleasure
of denying the genius of their betters were de-
nied to the mediocrities, their happiness would
be forever blighted.
From the resources of the American Scholar
Mr. Emerson passes to his tasks. Nature, as it
seems to him, has never yet been truly studied.
" Poetry has scarcely chanted its first song. The
perpetual admonition of Nature to us is, 'The
world is new, untried. Do not believe the past.
I give you the universe a virgin to-day.' " And
in the same way he would have the scholar look
at history, at philosophy. The world belongs to
the student, but he must put himself into har-
mony with the constitution of things. " He
must embrace solitude as a bride." Not super-
stitiously, but after having found out, as a little
experience will teach him, all that society can do
for him with its foolish routine. I have spoken
of the exalted strain into which Mr. Emerson
sometimeS/rises in the midst of his general se-
renity. Here is an instance of it : —
**You will hear every day the maxims of a low
prudence. You will hear that the first duty is to
get land and money, place and name. * What is this
truth you seek? What is this beauty?' men will
ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called
any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be
firm, be true. When you shall say, ^As others do, so
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136 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
will I : I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early vis-
ions : I most eat the good of the land, and let learn-
ing and romantic expectations go, ontil a more con-
venient season ; ' — then dies the man in you ; then
once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and sci-
ence, as they have died already in a thousand thou-
sand men. — Bend to the persuasion which is flowing
to you from every object in nature, to be its tongue
to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world
how passing fair is wisdom. Why should you re-
nounce your right to traverse the starlit deserts of
truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house,
and bam ? Truth also has its roof and house and
board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and
mankind will give you bread ; and if not store of it,
yet such as shall not take away your property in all
men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in
nature, and in hope."
The next Address Emerson delivered was
"The Method of Nature," before the Society
of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine,
August 11, 1841.
In writing to Carlyle on the 31st of July, he
says : ^' As usual at this season of the year, I,
incorrigible spouting Yankee, am writing an ora-
tion to deliver to the boys in one of our little
country colleges nine days hence. . . . My whole
philosophy — which is very real — teaches ac-
quiescence and optimism. Only when I see how
much work is to be done, what room for a poet
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^'THE METHOD OF NATURES 187
— for any spiritualist — in this great, intelli-
gent, sensual, and avaricious America, I lament
my fumbling fingers and stammering tongue."
It may be remembered that Mr. Matthew Ar-
nold quoted the expression about America, which
sounded more harshly as pronounced in a public
lecture than as read in a private letter.
The Oration shows the same vein of thought
as the letter. Its title is " The Method of Na-
ture." He begins with congratulations on the
enjoyments and promises of this literary Anni-
versary.
^^ The scholars are the priests of that thooght which
establishes the foundations of the castle." — "We
hear too much of the results of machinery, commerce,
and the useful arts. We are a puny and a fickle
folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our dis-
eases. The rapid wealth which hundreds in the com-
munity acquire in trade, or by the incessant expan-
sion of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of
all the rest ; this luck of one is the hope of thousands,
and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold
mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church,
the house, and the very body and feature of man." —
^^ While the multitude of men degrade each other,
and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar
must be a bringer of hope, and must reinforce man
against himself."
I think we may detect more of the manner of
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138 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Carlyle in this Address than in any of those
which preceded it.
" Why then goest thou as some Boswell or literary
worshipper to this saint or to that ? That is the only
lese-majesty. Here art thou with whom so long the
universe travailed in lahor ; darest thou think meanly
of thyself whom the stalwart Fate brought forth to
unite his ragged sides, to shoot the gulf, to reconcile
the irreconcilable?"
That there is an " intimate divinity " which is
the source of all true wisdom, that the duty of
man is to listen to its voice and to follow it, that
" the sanity of man needs the poise of this im-
manent force," that the rule is " Do what you
know, and perception is converted into char-
acter," — all this is strongly enforced and richly
illustrated in this Oration. Just how easily it
was followed by the audience, just how far they
were satisfied with its large principles wrought
into a few broad precepts, it would be easier at
this time to ask than to learn. We notice not so
much the novelty of the ideas to be found in this
discourse on " The Method of Nature," as the
pictorial beauty of their expression. The deep
reverence which underlies all Emerson's specu-
lations is well shown in this paragraph : —
" We ought to celebrate this hour by expressions
of manly joy. Not thanks nor prayer seem quite the
highest or truest name for our conununication with
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''THE METHOD OF NATURE," 139
the infinite, — but glad and conspiring reception, —
reception that becomes giving in its turn as the re-
ceiver is only the All-Giver in part and in infancy."
— "It is God in us which checks the language of
petition by grander thought. In the bottom of the
heart it is said : ' I am, and by me, O child ! this fair
body and world of thine stands and grows. I am,
all things are mine ; and all mine are thine.' ''
We must not quarrel with his peculiar ex-
pressions. He says, in this same paragraph, " I
cannot, — nor can any man, — speak precisely
of things so sublime; but it seems to me the
wit of man, his strength, his grace, his tendency,
his art, is the grace and the presence of God.
It is beyond explanation."
" We can point nowhere to anything final but ten-
dency ; but tendency appears on all hands ; planet,
system, constellation, total nature is growing like a
field of maize in July ; is becoming something else ;
is in rapid metamorphosis. The embryo does not
more strive to be man, than yonder burr of light we
call a nebula tends to be a ring, a comet, a globe, and
parent of new stars." " In short, the spirit and pecu-
liarity of that impression nature makes on us is this,
that it does not exist to any one, or to any number of
particular ends, but to numberless and endless benefit ;
that there is in it no private will, no rebel leaf or
limb, but the whole is oppressed by one superincum-
bent tendency, obeys that redundancy or excess of
life which in conscious beings we call ecstasy."
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140 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Here is another of those aknost lyrical pas-
sages which seem too Ibng for the music of
rhythm and the resonance of rhyme.
'^ The great Pan of old, who was clothed in a leop-
ard skin to signify the beautiful variety of things, and
the firmament, his coat of stars, was but the repre-
sentative of thee, O rich and various Man ! thou pair
ace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the
morning and the night and the unfathomable galaxy ;
in thy brain the geometry of the City of God ; in thy
heart the bower of love and the reahns of right and
wrong/'
His feeling about the soul, which has shown
itself in many of the extracts already given, is
summed up in the following sentence : -r
"We cannot describe the natural history of the
soul, but we know that it is divine. I cannot tell if
these wonderfcd qualities which house to-day in this
mental home shall ever reassemble in equal activity
in a similar frame, or whether they have before had a
natural history like that of this body you see before
you ; but this one thing I know, that these qualities
did not now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my
sickness, nor buried in any grave ; but that they cir-
culate through the Universe : before the world was,
they were."
*
It is hard to see the distinction between the
omnipresent Deity recognized in our formal con-
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OTHER ADDRESSES. 141
fessions of faith and the ^^ pantheism" which is
the object of dread to many of the faithful. But
there are many expressions in this Address
which must have sounded strangely and vaguely
to his Christian audience. " Are there not mo-
ments in the history of heaven when the human
race was not counted by individuals, but was
only the Influenced; was God in distribution,
God rushing into manifold benefit ? " It might
be feared that the practical philanthropists would
feel that they lost by his counsels.
" The reform whose fame now fiUs the land with
Temperance, Anti-Slavery, Non-Resistance, No GU)v-
emment, Equal Labor, fair and generous as each
appears, are poor bitter things when prosecuted for
themselves as an end." — "I say to you plainly there
is no end to which your practical faculty can aim so
sacred or so large, that if pursued for itself, will not
at last become carrion and an offence to the nostril.
The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with
objects immense and eternal. Your end should be
one inapprehensible to the senses ; then it will be a
god, always approached, — never touched; always
giving health."
Nothing is plainer than that it was Emer-
son's calling to supply impulses and not meth-
ods. He was not an organizer, but a power be-
hind many organizers, inspiring them with lofty
motive, giving breadth to their views, always
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142 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
tending to become narrow through concentration
on their special objects. The Oration we have
been examining was delivered in the interval be-
tween the delivery of two Addresses, one called
" Man the Reformer," and another called *' Lec-
ture on the Times." In the first he preaches
the dignity and virtue of manual labor; that
^^ a man should have a farm, or a mechanical
craft for his^ culture." — That he cannot give
up labor without suffering some loss of power.
" How can the man who has learned but one art
procure all the conveniences of life honestly?
Shall we say all we think ? — Perhaps with his
own hands. — Let us learn the meaning of econ-
omy. — Parched com eaten to-day that I may
have roast fowl to my dinner on Sunday is a
baseness; but parched com and a house with
one apartment, that I may be free of all pertur-
bation, that I may be serene and docile to what
the mind shall speak, and quit and road-ready
for the lowest mission of knowledge or good will,
is frugality for gods and heroes."
This was what Emerson \VTote in January,
1841. This " house with one apartment " was
what Thoreau built with his own hands in 1845.
In April of the former year, he went to live
with Mr. Emerson, but had been on intimate
terms with him previously to that time. Whether
it was from him that Thoreau got the hint of
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''LECTURE ON THE TIMES,'' 143
the Walden cabin and the parched com, or
whether this idea was working in Thoreau's mind
and was suggested to Emerson by him, is of no
great consequence. Emerson, to whom he owed
so much, may weD have adopted some of those
fancies which Thoreau entertained, and after-
wards worked out in practice. He was at the
philanthropic centre of a good many movements
which he watched others carrying out, as a calm
and kindly spectator, without losing his conmion
sense for a moment. It would never have oc-
curred to him to leave all the conveniences and
comforts of life to go and dwell in a shanty, so
as to prove to himself that he could live like
a savage, or like his friends " Teague and his
jade," as he called the man and brother and
sister, more commonly known nowadays as Pat,
or Patrick, and his old woman.
" The Americans have majiy virtues," he says
in this Address, " but they have not Faith and
Hope." Faith and Hope, Enthusiasm and Love,
are the burden of this Address. But he would
regulate these qualities by " a great prospec-
tive prudence," which shall mediate between the
spiritual and the actual world.
In the " Lecture on the Times " he shows very
clearly the effect which a nearer contact with
the class of men and women who called them-
selves Reformers had upon him.
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144 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
'^ The Reforms have their higher origin in an ideal
justice, but they do not retain the purify of an idea.
They are quickly organized in some low, inadequate
form, and present no more poetic image to the mind
than the evil tradition which they reprobated. They
mix the fire of the moral sentiment with personal
and party heats, with measureless exaggerations, and
the blindness that prefers some darling measure to
justice and truth. Those who are urging with most
ardor what are called the greatest benefit of mankind
are narrow, self-pleasing, conceited men, and affeet
us as the insane do. They bite us, and we run mad
also. I think the work of the reformer as innocent
as other work that is done around him; but when
I have seen it near ! — I do not like it better. It
is done in the same way ; it is done profanely, not
piously ; by management, by tactics and clamor."
All this, and much more like it, would hardly
have been listened to by the ardent advocates of
the various reforms, if anybody but Mr. Emer-
son had said it. He undervalued no sincere ac-
tion except to suggest a wiser and better one.
He attacked no motive which had a good aim,
except in view of some larger and loftier prin-
ciple. The charm of his imagination and the
music of his words took away all the sting from
the thoughts that penetrated to the very marrow
of the entranced listeners. Sometimes it was a
splendid hyperbole that illuminated a statement
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''THE transcendentalist:' 145
which by the dim light of common speech would
have offended or repelled those who sat before
him. He knew the force oi fdix audacia as
well as any rhetorician could have taught him.
He addresses the reformer with one of those
daring images which defy the critics.
" As the farmer casts into the ground the finest
ears of his grain, the time will come when we too
shall hold nothing back, but shall eagerly convert
more than we possess into means and pothers,
when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the
moon for seeds."
He said hard things to the reformer, espe-
cially to the Abolitionist, in his " Lecture on the
Times." It would have taken a long while to
get rid of slavery if some of Emerson's teach-
ings in this lecture had been accepted as the
true gospel of liberty. But how much its last
sentence covers with its soothing tribute I
"All the newspapers, all the tongues of to-
day will of course defame what is noble; but
you who bold not of to-day, not of the times, but
of the Everlasting, are to stand for it; and
the highest compliment man ever receives from
Heaven is the sending to him its disguised and
discredited angels."
The Lecture called " The Transcendentalist "
will naturally be looked at with peculiar inter-
est, inasmuch as this term has been very dOm-
10
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146 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
monly applied to Emerson, and to many who
were considered as his disciples. It has a proper
philosophical meaning, and it has also a local
and accidental application to the individuals of
a group which came together very much as any
literary club might collect about a teacher. All
this conies out clearly enough in the Lecture.
In the first place, Emerson explains that the
" new viewSy^^ as they are called, are the oldest
of thoughts cast in a new mould.
" What is popularly called Transcendentalism
among us is Idealism : Idealism as it appears in
1842. As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into
two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class
founding on experience, the second on consciousness ;
the first class beginning to think from the data of the
senses, the second class perceive that the senses are
not final, and say, the senses give us representations
of things, but what are the things themselves, they
cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on his-
tory, on the force of circumstances and the animal
wants of man ; the idealist on the power of Thought
and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on*individual
culture."
" The materialist takes his departure from the ex-
ternal world, and esteems a man as one product of
that. The idealist takes his departure from his con-
sciousness, and reckons the world an appearance. —
His thought, that is the Universe."
The association of scholars and thinkers to
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a THE TEANSCENDENTALIST" 147
which the name of " Transcendentalists " was
applied, and which made itself an organ in the
periodical known as " The Dial," has been writ-
ten about by many who were in the movement,
and others who looked on or got their knowl-
edge of it at second hand. Emerson was closely
associated with these '^ same Transcendental-
ists," and a leading contributor to "The Dial,"
which was their organ. The movement bor-
rowed its inspiration more from him than from
any other source, and the periodical owed more
to him than to any other writer. So far as his
own relation to the circle of illuminati and the
dial which they shone upon was concerned, he
himself is the best witness.
In his " Historic Notes of Life and Letters
in New England," he sketches in a rapid way
the series of intellectual movements which led
to the development of the '' new views " above
mentioned. "There are always two parties,"
he says, " the party of the Past and the party of
the Future; the Establishment and the Move-
ment."
About 1820, and in the twenty years which
followed, an era of activity manifested itself
in the churches, in politics, in philanthropy, in
literature. In our own community the influence
of Swedenborg and of the genius and character
of Dr. Channing were among the more immedi-
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148 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ate early causes of the mental agitation. Emer-
son attributes a great importance to the schol-
arship, the rhetoric, the eloquence, of Edward
Everett, who returned to Boston in 1820, after
five years of study in Europe. Edward Everett
is already to a great extent a tradition, some-
what as Euf us Choate is, a voice, a fading echo,
as must be the memory of every great orator.
These wondrous personalities have their truest
and warmest life in a few old men's memories.
It is therefore with delight that one who remem-
bers Everett in his robes of rhetorical splendor,
who recalls his full-blown, high-colored, double-
flowered periods, the rich, resonant, grave, far-
reaching music of his speech, with just enough
of nasal vibration to give the vocal sounding-
board its proper value in the harmonies of ut-
terance, — it is with delight that such a one
reads the glowing words of Emerson whenever
he refers to Edward Everett. It is enough if
he himself caught inspiration from those elo-
quent lips; but many a listener has had his
youthful enthusiasm fired by that great master
of academic oratory.
Emerson follows out the train of influences
which added themselves to the impulse given by
Mr, Everett. German scholarship, the growth
of science, the gen*eralizations of Goethe, the
idealism of Schelling, the influence of Words-
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''THE TRANSCENDENTALIST,'* 149
worth, of Coleridge, of Carlyle, and in our im-
mediate community, the writings of Channing,
— he left it to others to say of Emerson, — all
had their part in this intellectual, or if we may
call it so, spiritual revival. He describes with
that exquisite sense of the ridiculous which was
a part of his mental ballast, the first attempt at
organizing an association of cultivated, thought-
ful people. They came together, the cultivated,
thoughtful people, at Dr. John Collins War-
ren's, — Dr. Channing, the great Dr. Channing,
among the rest, full of the great thoughts he
wished to impart. The preliminaries went on
smoothly enough with the usual small talk, —
" When a side-door opened, the whole company
streamed in to an oyster supper, crowned by excel-
lent wines [this must have been before Dr. War-
ren's temperance epoch], and so ended the first at^
tempt to establish aesthetic society in Boston.
" Some time afterwards Dr. Channing opened his
mind to Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and with some care
they invited a limited party of ladies and gentlemen.
I had the honor to be present. — Margaret Fuller,
George Ripley, Dr. Convers Francis, Theodore
Parker, Dr. Hedge, Mr. Brownson, James Freeman
Clarke, William H. Channing, and many others grad-
ually drew together, and from time to time spent an
afternoon at each other's houses in a serious conver-
sation."
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150 RALFH WALDO EMERSON.
With them was another, " a pure Idealist, —
who read Plato as an equal, and inspired his
companions only in proportion as they were in-
tellectual." He refers, of course to Mr. Alcott.
Emerson goes on to say : —
<< I think there prevailed at that time a general be-
lief in Boston that there was some concert of doctri-
naires to establish certain opinions, and inaugurate
some movement id literature, philosophy, and relig-
ion, of which design the supposed conspirators were
quite innocent ; for there was no concert, and only
here and there two or three men and women who read
and wrote, each alone, with unusual vivacity. Per-
haps they only agreed in having fallen upon Coleridge
and Wordsworth and Goethe, then on Carlyle, with
pleasure and sympathy. Otherwise their education
and reading were not marked, but had the Ameri-
can superficialness, and their studies were solitary.
I suppose all of them were surprised at this rumor of
a school or sect, and certainly at the name of Tranr
scendentalism, given, nobody knows by whom, or
when it was applied."
Emerson's picture of some of these friends of
his is so peculiar as to suggest certain obvious
and not too flattering comments.
"In like manner, if there is anything grand and
daring in human thought or virtue ; any reHance on
the vast, the unknown ; any presentiment, any ex-
travagance of faith, the Spiritualist adopts it as most
in nature. The Oriental mind has always tended to
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i*THE transcendentalist:' 151
this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. The
Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says, * Do not
flatter your benefactors,' but who in his conviction
that every good deed can by no possibility escape its
reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending
that he has done more than he should, is a Tran-
scendentalist.
" These exacting children advertise us of our wants.
There is no compliment, no smooth speech with them ;
they pay you only this one compliment, of insatia-
ble expectation ; they aspire, they severely exact, and
if they only stand fast in this watch-tower, and per-
sist in demanding unto the end, and without end,
then are they terrible friends, whereof poet and priest
cannot choose but stand in awe ; and what if they
eat clouds, and drink wind, they have not been with-
out service to the race of man."
The person who adopts "any presentiment,
any extravagance as most in nature," is not com-
monly called a Transcendentalist, but is known
colloquially as a. " crank." The person who does
not thank, by word or look, the friend or stran-
ger who has pulled him out of the fire or water,
is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name
than that of a churl.
Nothing was farther from Emerson himself
than whimsical eccentricity or churlish austerity.
But there was occasionally an air of bravado in
some of his followers as if they had taken out a
patent for some knowing machine which was to
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152 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
give them a monopoly of its products. They
claimed more for each other than was reason-
able, — so much occasionally that their preten-
sions became ridiculous. One was tempted to
ask : " What forlorn hope have you led ? What
immortal book have you written ? What great
discovery have you made ? What heroic task of
any kind have you performed?" There was
too much talk about earnestness and too little
real work done. Aspiration too frequently got
as far as the alpenstock and the brandy flask,
but crossed no dangerous crevasse, and scaled
no arduous siunmit. In short, there was a kind
of " Transcendentalist " dilettanteism, which be-
trayed itself by a phraseology as distinctive aai
that of the Delia Cruscans of an earlier time.
In reading the following description of the
"intelligent and religious persons" who be-
longed to the " Transcendentalist " communion,
the reader must remember that it is Emerson
who draws the portrait, — a friend and not a
scoffer : —
" They are not good citizens, not good members of
society : unwillingly they bear their part of the pub-
lic and private burdens ; they do not willingly share
in the public charities, in the public religious rites, in
the enterprise of education, of missions, foreign and
domestic, in the abolition of the slave-trade, or in the
temperance society. They do not even like to vote."
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*'THE TRANSCENDENTALI8T," 153
After arraigning the representatives of Tran-
scendental or spiritual beliefs in this way, he
summons them to plead for themselves, and this
is what they have to say : —
" * New, we confess, and by no means happy, is our
condition : if you want the aid of our labor, we our-
selves stand in greater want of the labor. We are
miserable with inaction. We perish of rest and rust :
but we do not hke your work.'
" ' Then,' says the world, ' show me your own.'
" ' We have none.'
" ' What will you do, then ? ' cries the world.
" « We wiQ wait.'
. "'How long?'
"* Until the Universe beckons and calls us to
work.'
" ' But whilst you wait you grow old and useless.'
" ' Be it so : I can sit in a corner and perish (as
you call it), but I will not move until I have the
highest command.' "
And so the dissatisfied tenant of this unhappy
creation goes on with his reasons for doing noth-
ing.
It is easy to stay away from church and from
town-meetings. It is easy to keep out of the
way of the contribution box and to let the sub-
scription paper go by us to the next door. The
common duties of life and the good offices so-
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154 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ciety asks of us may be left to take care of
themselves while we contemplate the infinite*
There is no safer fortress for indolence than
*'the Everlasting No." The chinmey-comer is
the true arena for this class of philosophers, and
the pipe and mug furnish their all-sufficient pan-
oply. Emerson undoubtedly met with some of
them among his disciples. His wise counsel did
not always find listeners in a fitting condition to
receive it. He was a sower who went forth to
sow. Some of the good seed fell among the
thorns of criticism. Some fell on the rocks of
hardened conservatism. Some fell by the way-
side and was picked up by the idlers who went
to the lecture-room to get rid of themselves.
But when it fell upon the right soil it bore a
growth of thought which ripened into a harvest
of large and noble lives,
Emerson shows up the weakness of his young
enthusiasts with that delicate wit which warns
its objects rather than wounds them. But he
makes it all up with ,the dreamers before he can
let them go.
^^ Society also has its duties in reference to this
class, and must behold them with what charity it can.
Possibly some benefit may yet accrue from them to
the state. Besides our coarse implements, there must
be some few finer instruments, — rain-gauges, ther-
mometers, and telescopes ; and in society, besides far-
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BOSTON ^'TRANSCENDENTALISM.'* 156
mers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons
of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of
character ; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who
note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in
the by-stander. Perhaps too there might be room for
the exciters and monitors ; collectors of the heavenly
spark, with power to convey the electricity to others.
Or, as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks the frigate
or " Hne-packet " to learn its longitude, so it may not
be without its advantage that we should now and
then encounter rare and gifted men, to compare the
points of our spiritual compass, and verify our bear-
ings from superior chronometers."
It must be confessed that it is not a very cap-
tivating picture which Emerson draws of some
of his transcendental friends. Their faults were
naturally still more obvious to those outside of
their charmed circle, and some prejudice, very
possibly, mingled with their critical judgments.
On the other hand we have the evidence of a
visitor who knew a good deal of the world as to
the impression they produced upon him : —
" There has sprung up in Boston," says Dickens,
in his '* American Notes," " a sect of philosophers
known as Transcendentalists. On inquiring what this
appellation might be supposed to signify, I was given
to understand that whatever was unintelligible would
be certainly Transcendental.. Not deriving much
comfort from this elucidation, I pursued the inquiry
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156 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
still further, and found that the Transcendentalists
are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or, I should
rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph Waldo
Emerson. This gentleman has written a volume of
Essays, in which, among much that is dreamy and
fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying so), there
is much more that is true and manly, honest and
hold. Transcendentalism has its occasional vaga-
ries (what school has not ?), hut it has good health-
ful qualities in spite of them ; not least among the
number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to
detect her in all the million varieties of her everlast-
ing wardrobe. And therefore, if I were a Boston-
ian, I think I would be a Transcendentalist"
In December, 1841, Emerson delivered a Lec-
ture entitled "The Conservative." It was a
time of great excitement among the members of
that circle of which he was the spiritual leader.
Never did Emerson show the perfect sanity
which characterized his practical judgment more
beautifully than in this Lecture and in his whole
course with reference to the intellectual agita-
tion of the period. He is as fair to the conser-
vative as to the reformer. He sees the fanati-
cism of the one as well as that of the other.
"Conservatism tends to universal seeming and
treachery ; believes in a negative fate ; believes
that men's tempers govern them ; that for me
it avails not to trust in principles, they will fail
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A JOURNAL PROPOSED. 157
me, I must bend a little ; it distrusts Nature ;
it thinks there is a general law without a par-
ticular application, — law for all that does not
include any one. Keform in its antagonism in-
clines to asinine resistance, to kick with hoofs ;
it runs to egotism and bloated self-conceit ; it
runs to a bodiless pretension, to unnatural refin-
ing and elevation, which ends in hypocrisy and
sensual reaction. And so, whilst we do not
go beyond general statements, it may be safely
affirmed of these two metaphysical antagonists
that each is a good half, but an impossible
whole."
He has his beliefs, and, if you will, his preju-
dices, but he loves fair play, and though he sides
with the party of the future, he will not be un-
just to the present or the past.
We read in a letter from Emerson to Carlyle,
dated March 12, 1835, Aat Dr. Channing "lay
awake all night, he told my friend last week,
because he had learned in the evening that some
young men proposed to issue a journal, to be
called ' The Transcendentalist,' as the organ of
a spiritual philosophy." Again on the 30th of
April of the same year, in a letter in which he
lays out a plan for a visit of Carlyle to this
coimtry, Emerson says : —
''It was suggested that if Mr. C. would undertake
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158 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
a journal of which we have talked much, bat which
we have never yet produced, he would do us great
service, and we feel some confidence that it could be
made to secure him a support. It is that project
which I mentioned to you in a letter by Mr. Bar-
nard, — a book to be called * The Transcendentalist ; *
or, *The Spiritual Inquirer,' or the Hke. . . . Those
who are most interested in it designed to make gra-
tuitous contribution to its pages, until its success
could be assured."
The idea of the grim Scotchman as editor of
what we came in due time to know as "The
Dial ! " A concert of singing mice with a sav-
age and hungry old grimalkin as leader of the
o/chestra! It was much safer to be content
with Carlyle's purring from his own side of the
water, as thus : —
"'The Boston Transcendentalist,' whatever
the fate or merit of it may prove to be, is surely
an interesting symptom. There must be things
not dreamt of over in that Transoceanic par-
ish! I shall certainly wish well to this thing;
and hail it as the sure forerunner of things
better."
There were two notable products of the intel-
lectual ferment of the Transcendental period
which deserve an incidental notice here, from
the close connection which Emerson had with
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" THE dial:' 159
one of them ^id the interest which he took in
die other, in which many of his friends were
more deeply concerned. These were the peri-
odical just spoken of as a possibility realized,
and the industrial community known as Brook
Farm. They were to a certain extent synchro-
nous, — the Magazine beginning in July, 1840,
and expiring in April, 1844 ; Brook Farm being
organized in 1841, and breaking up in 1847.
" The Dial " was edited at first by Margaret
Fuller, afterwards by Emerson, who contributed
more than thirty articles in prose and verse,
among them " The Conservative," " The Tran-
scendentalist," " Chardon Street and Bible Con-
vention," and some of his best and best known
poems, "The Problem," "Woodnotes," "The
Sphinx," " Fate." The other principal writers
were Margaret Fuller, A. Bronson Alcott,
Oeorge Ripley, James Freeman Clarke, Theo-
dore Parker, William H. Channing, Henry
Thoreau, Eliot Cabot, John S. Dwight, C. P.
Crandi, WiUiam Ellery Channing, Mrs. Ellen
Hooper, and her sister Mrs. Caroline Tappan.
Unequal as the contributions are in merit, the
periodical is of singular interest. It was con-
ceived and carried on in a spirit of boundless
l^ope and enthusiasm. Time and a narrowing
subscription list proved too hard a trial, and its
four volumes remain stranded, like some rare
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160 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
and curiously patterned shell whicli a storm of
yesterday has left beyond the reach of the reced-
ing waves. Thoreau wrote for nearly every num-
ber. Margaret Fuller, less attractive in print
than in conversation, did her part as a contribu-
tor as well as editor. Theodore Parker came
down with his "trip-hammer" in its pages.
Mrs. Ellen Hooper published a few poems in
its columns which remain, always beautifid, in
many memories. Others, whose literary lives
have fidfilled their earlier promise, and who are
still with us, helped forward the new enterprise
with their frequent contributions. It is a pleas-
ure to turn back to "The Dial," with all its.
crudities. It shoidd be looked through by the
side of the "Anthology." Both were April
buds, opening before the frosts were over, but
with the pledge of a better season.
We get various hints touching the new Mag-
azine in the correspondence between Emerson
and Carlyle. Emerson tells Carlyle, a few
months before the first number appeai'ed, that
it will give him a better knowledge of our young
people than any he has had. It is true that un-
fledged writers found a place to try their wings
in it, and that makes it more interesting. This
was the time above all others when out of the
mouth of babes and sucklings was to come forth
strength. The feeling that intuition was discov-
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'*THE dial:' 161
ering a new heaven and a new earth was the
inspiration of these "young people" to whom
Emerson refers. He has to apologize for the
first nimiber. " It is not yet much," he says ;
"indeed, though no copy has come to me, I
know it is far short of what it should be, for
they have suffered puffs and dulness to creep
in for the sake of the complement of pages, but
it is better than anything we had. — The Ad-
dress of the Editors to the Readers is aU the
prose that is mine, and whether they have
printed a few verses for me I do not know."
They did print " The Problem." There were
also some fragments of criticism from the writ-
ings of his brother Charles, and the poem called
" The Last Farewell," by his brother Edward,
which is to be found in Emerson's "May-day
and other Pieces."
On the 30th of August, after the periodical
had been published a couple of months, Emer-
son writes : —
" Our community begin to stand in some terror
of Transcendentalism ; and the Dial, poor little things
whose first number contains scarce an3rthing consider-
able or even visible, is just now honored by attacks
from almost every newspaper and magazine ; which
at least betrays the irritability and the instincts of the
good public."
Carlyle finds the second number of "The
11
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162 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Dial " better than the first, and tosses his chari-
table recognition, as if into an ahns-basket, with
his usual air of superiority. He distinguishes
what is Emerson's readily, — the rest he speaks
of as the work of ol iroWoC for the most part.
" But it is all good and very good as a soul ;
wants only a body, which want means a great
deal." And again, " ' The Dial,' too, it is all
spirit like, aeri-form, aurora-borealis like. Will
no Angel body himself out of that ; no stalwart
Yankee man^ with color in the cheeks of him
and a coat on his back ? "
Emerson, writing to Carlyle in March, 1842,
speaks of the " dubious approbation on the part
of you and other men," notwithstanding which
he found it with "a certain class of men and
women, though few, an object of tenderness and
religion." So, when Margaret Fuller gave it
up, at the end of the second volume, Emerson
consented to become its editor. " I cannot bid
you quit ' The Dial,' " says Carlyle, " though
it, too, alas, is Antinomian somewhat I Perge^
perge^ nevertheless."
In the next letter he says : —
" I love your ' Dial,' and yet it is with a kind of
shudder. You seem to me in danger of dividing
yourselves from the Fact of this present Universe, in
which alone, ugly as it is, can I find any anchorage,
and soaring away after Ideas, Beliefs, BevelationE^
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" THE dial:* 163
and such like, — into perilous altitudes, as I think ;
beyond the curve of perpetual frost, for one thing.
I know not how to utter what impression you give
me ; take the above as some stamping of the fore-
hoof."
A curious way of characterizing himself as a
critic, — but he was not always as well-mannered
as the Houyhnhnms.
To all Carlyle's complaints of "The Dial's"
short-comings Emerson did not pretend to give
any satisfactory answer, but his plea of guilty,
with extenuating circumstances, is very honest
and definite.
" For the DiaZ and its sins, I have no defence to
set up. We write as we can, and we know very
little about it. If the direction of these speculations
is to be deplored, it is yet a fact for literary history
that all the bright boys and girls in New England,
quite ignorant of each other, take the world so, and
come and make confession to fathers and mothers, —
the boys, that they do not wish to go into trade, the
girls, that they do not like morning calls and evening
parties. They are all religious, but hate the churches ;
they reject all the ways of living of other men, but
have none to offer in their stead. Perhaps one of*
these days a great Yankee shall come, who will easily
do the unknown deed."
" All the bright boys and girls in New Eng-
land," and " ' The Dial ' dying of inanition ! "
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164 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
In October, 1840, Emerson writes to Car-
lyle : —
" We are all a little wild here with numberless
projects of social reform. Not a reading man but
has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat
pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved
to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony
of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threat-
ens t6 take the field and the book. One man re-
nounces the use of animal food ; and another of coin ;
and another of domestic hired service ; and another
of the state ; and on the whole we have a conunend-
able share of reason and hope."
Mr. Ripley's project took shape in the West
Roxbury Association, better known under the
name of Brook Farm. Emerson was not in-
volved in this undertaking. He looked upon it
with curiosity and interest, as he would have
looked at a chemical experiment, but he seems
to have had only a moderate degree of faith in its
practical working. " It was a noble and gener-
ous movement in the projectors to try an exper-
iment of better living. One would say that im-
pulse was the rule in the society, without centri-
petal balance ; perhaps it would not be severe
to say, intellectual sans-culottism, an impatience
of the formal routinary character of our educsr
tional, religious, social, and economical life in
Massachusetts."
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BROOK FARM. 165
The reader will find a full detailed account
of the Brook Farm experiment in Mr. Frothing-
ham's "Life of George Ripley," its founder,
and the first President of the Association. Em-
erson had only tangential relations with the ex-
periment, and tells its story in his " Historic
Notes " very kindly and respectfully, but with
that sense of the ridiculous in the aspect of some
of its conditions which belongs to the sagacious
common-sense side of his nature. The married
women, he says, were against the conmiunity.
" It was to them like the brassy and lacquered
life in hotels. The common school was well
enough, but to the common nursery they had
grave objections. Eggs might be hatched in
ovens, but the hen on her own account much
preferred the old way. A hen without her*
chickens was but half a hen." Is not the in-
audible, inward laughter of Emerson more re-
freshing than the explosions of our noisiest
humorists ?
This is his benevolent summing up : —
"The founders of Brook Farm shotQd have this
praise, that they made what all people try to make,
an agreeable place to live in. All comers, even the
most fastidious, found it the pleasantest of residences.
It is certain, that freedom from household routine,
variety of character and talent, variety of work, vari-
ety of means of thought and instruction, art, music,
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166 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
poetry, reading, masquerade, did not permit slug-
gishness or despondency ; broke up routine. There
is agreement in the testimony that it was, to most of
the associates, education ; to many, the most impor-
tant period of their life, the birth of valued friend-
ships, their £rst acquaintance with the riches of con-
versation, their training in behavior. The art of let-
ter-writing, it is said, was immensely cultivated. Let-
ters were always flying, not only from house to house,
but from room to room. It was a perpetual picnic,
a French Revolution in small, an Age of Reason in a
patty-pan."
The public edifice called the " Phalanstery "
was destroyed by fire in 1846. The Association
never recovered from this blow, and soon after-
wards it was dissolved.
§ 2. Emerson's first volume of his collected
Essays was published in 1841. In the reprint
it contains the following Essays : History ;
Self-Reliance ; Compensation ; Spiritual Laws ;
Love ; Friendship ; Prudence ; Heroism ; The
Over -Soul; Circles; Intellect; Art. "The
Young American," which is now included in the
volume, was not delivered until 1844.
Once accustomed to Emerson's larger for-
midaB we can to a certain extent project fr6m
our own minds his treatment of special sub-
jects. But we cannot anticipate the daring im-
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'' HISTORY.*' 167
agination, the subtle wit, the curious illustra-
tions, the felicitous language, which make the
Lecture or the Essay captivating as read, and
almost entrancing as listened to by the teacha-
ble disciple. The reader must be prepared for
occasional extravagances. Take the Essay on
History, in the first series of Essays, for in-
stance. '^ Let it suffice that in the light of
these two facts, namely, that the mind is One,
and that nature is its correlative, history is to be
read and written." When we come to the ap-
plication, in the same Essay, almost on the same
page, what can we make of such discourse as
this ? The sentences I quote do not follow im-
mediately, one upon the other, but their sense
is continuous.
"I hold an actual knowledge very cheap.
Hear the rats in the wall, see the lizard on the
fence, the fungus under foot, the lichen on the
log. What do I know sympathetically, morally,
of either of these worlds of life ? — How many
times we must say Eome and Paris, and Con-
stantinople 1 What does Eome know of rat and
lizard ? What are Olympiads and Consulates
to these neighboring systems of being? Nay,
what food or experience or succor have they for
the Esquimau seal-hunter, for the Kamchatcan
in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore,
the porter?"
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168 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
The connection of ideas is not obvious. One
can hardly help being reminded of a certain
great man's Rochester speech as commonly re-
ported by the story-teller. " Eome in her proud-
est days never had a waterfall a hundred and
fifty feet high 1 Greece in her palmiest days
never had a waterfall a hundred and fifty feet
highl Men of Rochester, go on! No people
ever lost their liberty who had a waterfall a
hundred and fifty feet high 1 "
We cannot help smiling, perhaps laughing, at
the odd mixture of Rome and rats, of Olym-
piads and Esquimaux. But the underlying idea
of the interdependence of all that exists in na-
ture is far from ridiculous. Emerson says, not
absurdly or extravagantly, that " every history
should be written in a wisdom which divined
the range of our affinities and looked at facts as
symbols."
We have become familiar with his doctrine
of " Self -Reliance," which is the subject of the
second lecture of the series. We know that he
always and everywhere recognized that the di-
vine voice which speaks authoritatively in the
soul of man is the source of all our wisdom. It
is a man's true self, so that it foUows that abso-
lute, supreme self-reliance is the law of his being.
But see how he guards his proclamation of self-
reliance as the guide of mankind.
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*' compensation:' —'' SPIRITUAL LAWS." 169
" Truly it demands something god-like in him who
has cast off the common motives of humanity and has
ventured to trust himself for a task-master. High be
his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he
may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to him-
self, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong
as iron necessity is to others ! "
" Compensation " might be preached in a
synagogue, and the Rabbi woidd be praised for
his performance. Emerson had been listening
to a sermon from a preacher esteemed for his
orthodoxy, in which it was assumed that judg-
ment is not executed in this world, that the
wicked are successful, and the good are miserar
ble. This last proposition agrees with John
Bunyan's view : —
" A Christian man is never long at ease,
When one fright *s gone, another doth him seize."
Emerson shows up the " success " of the bad
man and tibe failures and trials of the good man
in their true spiritual characters, with a noble
scorn of the preacher's low standard of happi-
ness and misery, which would have made him
throw his sermon into the fire.
The Essay on " Spiritual Laws " is full of
pithy sayings : —
" As much virtue as there is, so much appears ; as
much goodness as there is, so much reverence it com-
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170 RALPH WALDO EMER80N.
s
mands. All the devils respect virtue. — A man
passes for that he is worth. — The ancestor of every
action is a thought. — To think is to act. — Let a
man believe in God, and not in names and places and
persons. Let the great soul incarnated in some wo-
man's form, poor and sad and single, in some Dolly
or Joan, go out to service and sweep chambers and
scour floors, and its effulgent day-beams cannot be
hid, but to sweep and scour will instantly appear su-
preme and beautiful actions, the top and radiance of
human life, and all people will get mops and brooms ;
until, lo ! suddenly the great soul has enshrined itself
in some other form and done some other deed, and
that is now the flower and head of all living nature."
This is not any the worse for being the flow-
ering out of a poetical bud of George Herbert's.
The Essay on " Love " is poetical, but the three
poems, "Initial," "Dasmonic," and "Celestial
Love " are more nearly equal to his subject than
his prose.
There is a passage in the Lecture on "Friend-
ship " which suggests some personal relation of
Emerson's about which we cannot help being
inquisitive : —
'^ It has seemed to me lately more possible than I
knew, to carry a friendship greatly, on one side,
without due correspondence on the other. Why
should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver
is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that
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''PRUDENCE,'' 171
some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful
space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet.
Let your greatness educate the crude and cold com-
panion. . . . Yet these things may hardly be said
without a sort of treachery to the relation. The
essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanim-
ity and trust It must not surmise or provide for in-
firmity. It treats its object as a god that it may
deify both."
Was he thinking of his relations with Car-
lyle? It is a curious subject of speculation
what would have been the issue if Carlyle had
come to Concord and taken up his abode under
Emerson's most hospitable roof. " You shall
not come nearer a man by getting into his
house." How could they have got on together ?
Emerson was well-bred, and Carlyle was wanting
in the social graces. " Come rest in this bo-
som " is a sweet air, heard in the distance, too
apt to be followed, after a protracted season of
close proximity, by that other strain, —
" No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole !
Rise Alps between us and whole oceans roll I "
But Emerson may have been thinking of
some very different person, perhaps some " crude
and cold companion" among his disciples, who
was not equal to the demands of friendly inter-
course.
He discourses wisely on " Prudence," a virtue
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172 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
which he does not claim for himself, and nobly
on " Heroism," which was a shining part of his
own moral and intellectual being.
The points which will be most likely to draw
the reader's attention are the remarks on the
literature of heroism; the claim for our own
America, for Massachusetts and Connecticut
River and Boston Bay, in spite of our love for
the names of foreign and classic topography;
and most of all one sentence which, coming from
an optimist like Emersoq, has a sound of sad
sincerity painful to recognize.
" Who that sees the meanness of our politics but
inly congratulates Washington that he is long already
wrapped in his shroud, and forever safe ; that he was
laid sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet
subjugated in him. Who does not sometimes envy
the good and brave who are no more to suffer from
the tumults of the natural world, and await with curi-
ous complacency the speedy term of his own conver-
sation with finite nature ? And yet the love that will
be annihilated sooner than treacherous has abready
made death impossible, and affirms itself no mortal,
but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguish-
able being."
In the following Essay, " The Over-Soul," Em-
erson has attempted the impossible. He is as
fully conscious of this fact as the reader of his
rhapsody, — nay, he is more profoundly pene-
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''THE OVER-SOUL.*' 178
trated with it than any of his readers. In
speaking of the exalted condition the soul is
capable of reaching, he says, —
" Every man's words, who speaks from that life,
must somid vain to those who do not dwell in the
same thought on their own part. I dare not speak
for it My words do not carry its august sense;
they fall short and cold. Only itself can inspire
whom it will, and behold ! their speech shall be lyrical
and sweet, and universal as the rising of the wind.
Yet I desire, even by profane words, if I may not
use sacred, to indicate the heaven of this deity, and to
report what hints I have collected of the transcendent
simpHcity and energy of the Highest Law."
" The Over-Soid " might almost be called the
Oyev'flow of a spiritual imagination. We can-
not help thinking of the " pious, virtuous, God-
intoxicated" Spinoza. When one talks of the
infinite in terms borrowed from the finite, when
one attempts to deal with the absolute in the
language of the relative, his words are not sym-
bols, like those applied to the objects of expe-
rience, but the shadows of sjonbols, varying with
the position and intensity of the light of the
individual inlielligence. It is a curious amuse-
ment to trace many of these thoughts and ex-
pressions to Plato, or Plotinus, or Proclus, or
Porphyry, to Spinoza or Schelling, but the same
tune is a different thing according to the instru-
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174 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ment on which it is played. There are songs
without words, and there are states in which, in
place of the trains of thought moving in endless
procession with ever-varying figures along the
highway of consciousness, the soul is possessed
by a single all-absorbing idea, which, in the
highest state of spiritual exaltation, becomes a
vision. Both Plotinus and Porphyry believed
they were privileged to look upon Him whom
" no man can see and live."
But Emerson states his own position so frankly
in his Essay entitled " Circles," that the reader
cannot take issue with him as against utterances
which he wiU not defend. There can be no doubt
that he would have confessed as much with ref-
erence to "The Over-Soul" as he has confessed
with regard to " Circles," the Essay which fol-
lows "The Over-Soul."
" I am not careful to justify myself. . . . But lest
I should mislead any when I have my own head and
obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am
only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on
what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as
if I pretended to settle anything as true or &lse. I
unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred ; none
are profane ; I simply experiment, an endless seeker,
with no Past at my back."
Perhaps, after reading these transcendental
essays of Emerson, we might borrow Goethe's
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" ciRCVEsy — " intellect:' — ** art:' 175
language about Spinoza, as expressing the feel-
ing with which we are left.
" I am reading Spinoza with Fran von Stein. I
feel myself very near to him, though his soul is much
deeper and purer than mine.
^^ I cannot say that I ever read Spinoza straight
through, that at any time the complete architecture
of his intellectual system has stood clear in view be-
fore me. But when I look into him I seem to under-
stand him, — that is, he always appears to me con-
sistent with himself, and I can always gather from
him very salutary influences for my own way of
feeling and acting."
Emerson would iiot have pretended that he
was always " consistent with himself," but these
" salutary influences," restoring, enkindling, vivi-
fying, are felt by many of his readers who would
have to confess, like Dr. Walter Channing, that
these thoughts, or thoughts like these, as he
listened to them in a lecture, ^^ made his head
ache."
The three essays which follow " The Over-
Soul," "Circles," "Intellect," " Art," would fur-
nish us a harvest of good sayings, some of which
we should recognize as parts of our own (bor-
rowed) axiomatic wisdom.
^' Beware when the great Grod lets loose a thinker
on this planet. Then all things are at risk."
"Grod enters by a private door into every indi-
viduaL"
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176 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
" God offers to eveiy mind its choice between truth
and repose. Take which you please, — you can never
have both."
"Though we travel the world over to find the
beautiEul, we must carry it with us, or we find it
not."
But we cannot reconstruct the Hanging Grar-
dens with a few bricks &om Babylon.
Emerson describes his mode of life in these
years in a letter to Carlyle, dated May 10,
1838.
." I occupy, or improve, as we Yankees say, two
acres only of God's earth ; on i^ch is my house, my
kitchen-garden, my orchard of thirty young trees,
my empty barn. My house is now a very good one
for comfort, and abounding in room. Besides my
house, I have, I believe, $22,000, whose income in
ordinary years is six per cent. I have no other tithe
or glebe except the income of my winter lectures,
which was last winter $800. Well, with this income,
here at home, I am a rich man. I stay at home and
go abroad at my own instance. I have food, warmth,
leisure, books, friends. Go away from home, I am
rich no longer. I never have a dollar to spend on a
fancy. As no wise man, I suppose, ever was rich in
the sense of freedom to spend, because of the inunr
dation of claims, so neither am I, who am not wise.
But at home, I am rich, — rich enough for ten
brothers. My wife Lidian is an incarnation of Chris-
tianity, — I call her Asia, — and keeps my philosophy
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DEATa OF EMERSON' 8 SON. 177
from AntinoiniaDism ; my mother, whitest, mildest,
most conservative of ladies, whose only exception to
her universal preference for old things is her son ;
my hoy, a piece of love and sunshine, well worth my
watching from morning to night ; — these, and three
domestic women, who cook, and sew and run for us,
make all my household. Here I sit and read and
write, with very little system, and, as far as re-
gards composition, with the most fragmentary result :
paragraphs incompressihle, each sentence an infinitely
repellent particle."
A great sorrow visited Emerson and his house-
hold at this period of his life. On the 30th
of October, 1841, he wrote to Carlyle : " My
little boy is five years old to-day, and almost old
enough to send you his love."
Three months later, on the 28th of February,
1842, he writes once more : —
" My dear friend, you should have had this letter
and these messages hy the last steamer ; but when it
sailed, my son, a perfect little boy of five years and
three months, had ended his earthly life. 'You can
never sympathize with me ; you can never know how
much of me such a young child can take away. A
few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man,
and now the poorest of all. What would it avail to
tell you anecdotes of a sweet and wonderful boy, such
as we solace and sadden ourselves with at home every
morning and evening? From a perfect health and
as happy a life and as happy influences as ever child
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178 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
enjoyed, he was hurried out of my arms in three short
days by scarlatina. We have two babes yet, one girl
of three yeai*s, and one girl of three months and
a week, but a promise like that Boy's I shall never
see. How often I have pleased myself that one day
I should send to you this Morning Star of mine, and
stay at home so gladly behind such a representative.
I dare not fathom the Invisible and Untold to inquire
what relations to my Departed ones I yet sustain."
This was the boy whose memory lives in the
f tenderest and most pathetic of Emerson's poems,
-J the "Threnody," — a lament not unworthy of
comparison with Lycidas for dignity, but full
of the simple pathos of Cowper's well-remem-
bered lines on the receipt of his mother's pic-
ture, in the place of Milton's sonorous academic
phrases.
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CHAPTER VI.
1843-1848. ^En 40-45.
"The Young American." — Address on the Anniversary of
the Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West In-
dies.^ — Publication of the Second Series of Essays. — Con-
tents : The Poet. — Experience. — Character. — Mannera.
— Gifts. — Nature. — Politics. — Nominalist and Realist. —
New England Reformers. — Publication of Poems. — Second
Visit to England.
Emerson was American in aspect, tempera-
ment, way of thinking, and feeling ; American,
with an atmosphere of Oriental idealism ; Amer-
ican, so far as he belonged to any limited part
of the universe. He believed in American insti-
tutions, he trusted the future of the American
race. In the address first mentioned in the
contents of this chapter, delivered February 7,
1844, he claims for this country all that the
most ardent patriot could ask. Not a few of his
fellow-countrymen will feel the significance of
the following contrast.
"The English have many virtues, many advan-
1 These two addresses are to be found in the first yolurae of
the last collective edition of Emerson's works, ** Nature, Ad-
dresses, and Lectures."
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180 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
tages, and the proudest history in the world ; but
they need all and more than all the resources of the
past to indemnify a heroic gentleman in that coun-
try for the mortifications prepared for him by the
system of society, and which seem to impose the al-
ternative to resist or to avoid it. ... It is for Eng-
lishmen to consider, not for us ; we only say, Let us
live in America, too thankful for our want of feudal
institutions. ... If only the men are employed in
conspiring with the designs of the Spirit who led us
hither, and is leading us still, we shall quickly enough
advance out of all hearing of others' censures, out of
all regrets of our own, into a new and more excel-
lent social state than history has recorded."
Thirty years have passed since the lecture
from which these passages are taken was de-
livered. The " Young American " of that day
is the more than middle-aged American of the
present. The intellectual independence of our
country is far more solidly established than
when this lecture was written. But the social
alliance between certain classes of Americans
and English is more and more closely cemented
from year to year, as the wealth of the new world
burrows its way among the privileged classes of
the old world. It is a poor ambition for the
possessor of suddenly acquired wealth to have it
appropriated as a feeder of the impaired for-
tunes of a deteriorated household, with a family
record of which its representatives are unworthy.
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''THE POET,'' 181
The plain and wholesome language of Emerson
is on the whole more needed now than it was
when spoken. His words have often been ex-
tolled for their stimulating quality; following
the same analogy, they are, as in this address, in
a high degree tonic, bracing, strengthening to
the American, who requires to be reminded of
his privileges that he may know and find him-
self equal to his duties.
On the first day of August, 1844, Emerson
delivered in Concord an address on the Anni-
versary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in
the British West India Islands. This discourse
would not have satisfied the Abolitionists. It
was too general in its propositions, full of humane
and generous sentiments, but not looking to their
extreme and immediate method of action.
Emerson's second series of Essays was pub-
lished in 1844. There are many sayings in the
Essay called " The Poet," which are meant for
the initiated, rather than for him who runs, to
read: —
'^ All that we call sacred history attests that the
birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology."
Does this sound wild and extravagant ? What
were the political ups and downs of the Hebrews,
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182 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
— what were the squabbles of the tribes with
each other, or with their neighbors, compared
to the bii*th of that poet to whom we owe the
Psalms, — the sweet singer whose voice is still
the dearest of all that ever sang to the heart
of mankind?
The poet finds his materials everywhere, as
Emerson tells him in this eloquent apostrophe : —
"Thou true land-bird ! sea-bird ! air-bird ! Wher-
ever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever
day and night meet in twihgbt, wherever the blue
heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wher-
ever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever
.are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger
and awe and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain,
shed for thee, and though thou should'st walk the
world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition
inopportune or ignoble."
*' Experience" is, as he says himself, but a
fragment. It bears marks of having been writ-
ten in a less tranquil state of mind than the
other essays. His most important confession is
this: —
"All writing comes by the grace of Grod, and aU
doing and having. I would gladly be moral and
keep due metes and bounds, which I dearly love,
and allow the most to the will of man ; but I have
set my heart on honesty in this chapter, and I can
see nothing at last, in success or failure, than more or
less of vital force supplied from the Eternal."
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" CHARACTER.'' — ''MANNERS:* 188
The Essay on " Character " requires no diffi-
cult study, but is well worth the trouble of read-
ing. A few sentences from it show the prevail-
ing tone and doctrine.
" Character is Nature in the highest form. It is
of no use to ape it, or to contend with it. Somewhat
is possible of resistance and of persistence and of
creation to this power, which will foil all emulation."
" There is a class of men, individuals of which ap-
pear at long intervals, so eminently endowed with in-
sight and virtue, that they have been unanimously
saluted as divine^ and who seem to be an accumula-
tion of that power we consider.
" The history of those gods and saints which the
world has written, and then worshipped, are doc-
uments of character. The ages have exulted in the
manners of a youth who owed nothing to fortune, and
who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who,
by the pure quality of his nature, shed an epic splen-
dor around the facts of his death which has trans-
figured every particular into an universal symbol for
the eyes of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto
our highest fact."
In his Essay on ^^ Manners," Emerson gives
us his ideas of a gentleman : —
" The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own
actions and expressing that lordship in his behavior,
not in any manner dependent and servile either on
persons or opinions or possessions. Beyond this fact
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184 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
of truth and real force, the word denotes good-nature
or benevolence : manhood first, and then gentleness.
— Power first, or no leading class. — Grod knows that
all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door : but when-
ever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the
name wiU be f oimd to point at original energy. —
The famous gentlemen of Europe have been of this
strong type : Saladin, Sapor, the Cid, Julius Caesar,
Scipio, Alexander, Pericles, and the lordliest person-
ages. They sat very carelessly in their chairs, and
were too excellent themselves to value any condition
at a high rate. — I could better eat with one who
did not respect the truth or the laws than with a
sloven and unpresentable person. — The person who
screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses
with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. — I
esteem it a chief feHcity of this country that it excels
in woman."
So writes Emerson, and proceeds to speak of
woman in language which seems almost to pant
for rhythm and rhyme.
This essay is plain enough for the least " tran-
scendental" reader. Franklin would have ap-
proved it, and was himself a happy illustration
of many of the qualities which go to the Emer-
sonian ideal of good manners, a typical Amer-
ican, equal to his position, always as much so in
the palaces and salons of Paris as in the Conti-
nental Congress, or the society of Philadelphia.
" Gifts " is a dainty little Essay with some nice
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" gifts:' — " nature:* 185
distinctions and some hints wliich may help to
give form to a generous impulse : —
" The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must
bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem ;
the shepherd, his lamb ; the farmer, corn ; the miner,
a gem ; the sailor, coral and shells ; the painter, his
pictm'e ; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing."
"Flowers and fruits are always- fit presents 5 flow-
ers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray
of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. —
Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they are the flower
of conmiodities, and admit of fantastic values being
attached to them."
" It is a great happiness to get off without injury
and heart-burning from one who has had the ill-luck
to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,
this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes
to give you a slap."
Emerson hates the superlative, but he does
unquestionably love the tingling effect of a witty
over-statement.
We have recognized most of the thoughts in
the Essay entitled "Nature," in the previous
Essay by the same name, and others which we
have passed in review. But there are poetical
passages which will give new pleasure.
Here is a variation of the formula with which
we are familiar : —
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186 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
<< Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns
to a thought again, as ice becomes water and gas.
The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile es-
sence is forever escaping again into the state of free
thought"
And here is a quaint sentence with which we
may take leave of this Essay : —
" They say that by electro-magnetism, your salad
shall be grown from the seed, wlulst your fowl is
roasting for dinner : it is a symbol of our modem
aims and endeavors, — of our condensation and ac-
celeration of objects ; but nothing is gained : nature
cannot be cheated : man's life is but seventy salads
long, grow they swift or grow they slow."
This is pretty and pleasant, but as to the literal
value of the prediction, M. Jules Verne would be
the best authority to consult. Poets are fond of
that branch of science which, if the imaginative
Frenchman gave it a name, he would probably
call Onditologie.
It is not to be supposed that the most sanguine
optimist could be satisfied with the condition of
the American political world at the present time,
or when the Essay on " Politics " was written,
some years before the great war which changed
the aspects of the country in so many respects, still
leaving the same party names, and many of the
characters of the old parties unchanged. This
is Emerson's view of them as they then were : —
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''POLITICS:' 187
" Of the two great parties, which, at this hour, al-
most share the nation hetween them, I should say
that one has the hest cause, and the other contains
the best men. The philosopher, the poet, or the
religious man, will, of course, wish to cast his vote
with the democrat, for free trade, for wide suffrage,
for the abolition of legal cruelties in the penal code,
and for facilitating in every manner the access of the
young and the poor to the sources of wealth and
power. But he can rarely accept the persons whom
the so-called popular party propose to him as rep-
resentatives of these liberties. They have not at
heart the ends which give to the name of democracy
what hope and virtue are in it. The spirit of our
American radicalism is destructive and aimless ; it is
not loving ; it has no ulterior and divine ends ; but
is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. On
the other side, the conservative party, composed of
the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the
population, is timid, and merely defensive of property.
It indicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it
brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy, it
does not build nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor
foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage
science, nor emancipate the slave, nor befriend the
poor, or the Indian, or the immigrant. From neither
party, when in power, has the world any benefit to
expec1> in science, art, or humanity, at all commen-
surate with the resources of the nation."
The metaphysician who looks for a closely
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188 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
reasoned argument on the famous old question
which so divided .the schoohnen of old will find
a very moderate satisfaction in the Essay enti-
tled ^^ Nominalism and Eealism.'' But there are
many discursive remarks in it ysrorth gathering
and considering. We have the complaint of the
Cambridge "Phi Beta Kappa Oration," reit-
erated, that there is no complete man, but only a
collection of fragmentary men.
As a Platonist and a poet there could not be
any doubt on which side were all his prejudices;
but he takes his ground cautiously.
" In the famous dispute with the Nominalists, the
Realists had a good deal of reason. General ideas are
essences. They are our gods : they round and enno-
ble the most practical and sordid way of living.
" Though the uninspired man certainly finds per-
sons a conveniency in household matters, the divine
man does not respect them : he sees them as a rack of
clouds, or a fleet of ripples which the wind drives over
the surface of the water. But this is flat rebeUion.
Nature will not be Buddhist : she resents general-
izing, and insults the philosopher in every moment
with a million of fresh particulars."
New England Reformers. — Would any one
venture to guess how Emerson would treat this
subject? With his unsparing, though amiable
radicalism, his excellent common sense, his deli-
cate appreciation of the ridiculous, too deep for
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NEW ENGLAND REFORMERB. 189
laughter, as Wordsworth's thoughts were too
deep for tears, in the midst of a band of en-
thusiasts and not very remote from a throng of
fanatics, what are we to look for from our philos-
opher who imites many characteristics of Berke-
ley and of Franklin ?
We must remember when this lecture was
written, for it was delivered on a Sunday in the
year 1844. The Brook Farm experiment was an
index of the state of mind among one section of
the Reformers of whom he was writing. To re-
model society and the world into a "happy
family " was the aim of these enthusiasts. Some
attacked one part of the old system, some an-
other ; some would build a new temple, some
would rebuild the old church, some would wor-
ship in the fields and woods, if at all ; one was
for a phalanstery, where all should live in com-
mon, and another was meditating the plan and
place of the wigwam where he was to dwell apart
in the proud independence of the woodchuck and
the musquash. Emerson had the largest and
kindliest sympathy with their ideals and aims,
but he was too clear-eyed not to see through
the whims and extravagances of the unpractical
experimenters who would construct a working
world ¥dth the lay figures they had put together,
instead of flesh and blood men and women and
children witii all their congenital and acquired
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190 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
perversities. He describes these Reformers in
his own good-naturedly half -satirical way : —
" They defied each other like a congress of kings,
each of whom had a reahn to rule, and a way of his
own that made concert unprofitable. What a fertility
of projects for the salvation of the world ! One
apostle thought all men should go to farming ; and
another that no man should buy or sell ; that the use
of money was the cardinal evil ; another that the
mischief was in our diet, that we eat and drink dam-
nation. These made unleavened bread, and were
foes to the death to fermentation. It was in vain
urged by the housewife that God made yeast as well
as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he
does vegetation; that fermentation develops the sac-
charine element in the grain, and makes it more pal-
atable and more digestible. No, they wish the pure
wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment. Stop,
dear nature, these innocent advances of thine ; let us
scotch these ever-rolling wheels ! Others attacked the
system of agriculture, the use of animal manures in
farming ; and the tyranny of man over brute nature;
these abuses poUuted his food. The ox must be
taken from the plough, and the horse from the cart,
the hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, and
the man must walk wherever boats and locomotives
will not carry him. Even the insect world was to be
defended, — that had been too long neglected, and a
society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and
mosquitoes was to be incorporated without delay. With
these appeared the adepts of homoeopathy, of hydrop-
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NEW ENGLAND REFORMERS, 191
athy, of mesmerism, of phrenology, and their wonder-
ful theories of the Christian miracles ! "
We have already seen the issue of the famous
Brook Farm experiment, which was a practical
outcome of the reforming agitation.
Emerson has had the name of being a leader
in many movements in which he had very limited
confidence, this among others to which the ideal-
izing impulse derived from him lent its force, but
for the organization of which he was in no sense
responsible.
He says in the lecture we are considering : —
" These new associations are composed of men and
women of superior talents and sentiments ; yet it may
easily be questioned whether such a community will
draw, except in its beginnings, the able and the good;
whether these who have energy will not prefer their
choice of superiority and power in the world to the
humble certainties of the association ; whether such a
retreat does not promise to become an asylum to those
who have tried and failed rather than a field to the
strong ; and whether the members will not necessarily
be fractions of men, because each finds that he cannot
enter into it without some compromise."
His sympathies were not allowed to mislead
him ; he knew human natiu'e too well to believe
in a Noah's ark full of idealists.
All this time he was lecturing for his support,
giving courses of lectures in Boston and other
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192 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
cities, and before the country lyoeums in and
out of New England.
His letters to Carlyle show how painstaking,
how methodical, how punctual he was in the busi-
ness which interested his distant friend. He was
not fond of figures, and it must have cost him a
great effort to play the part of an accountant.
He speaks also of receiving a good deal of
company in the simimer, and that some of this
company exacted much time and attention, —
more than he could spare, — is made evident by
his gentle complaints, especially in his poems,
which sometimes let out a truth he would hardly
have uttered in prose.
In 1846 Emerson's first volimae of poems was
published. Many of the poems had been long
before the public — some of the best, as we have
^een, having been printed in " The DiaL" It is
only their being brought together for the first
time which belongs especially to this period, and
we can leave them for the present, to be looked
over by and by in connection with a second
volume of poems published in 1867, xmder the
title, " May-Day and other Pieces."
In October, 1847, he left Concord on a second
visit to England, which wiU be spoken of in the
following chapter.
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CHAPTER Vn.
1848-1853. ^T. 45-^.
The "Massachusetts Quarterly Review;" Visit to Europe. —
England. — Scotland. — France. — " Representative Men *'
published. I. Lives of Great Men. 11. Plato ; or, the Phi-
losopher ; Plato ; New Readings. IIL Swedenborg ; or, the
Mystic. lY. Montaigne; or, the Skeptic. V. Shake-
speare ; or, the Poet. VI. Napoleon ; or, the Man of the
World, vn. Goethe ; or, the Writer. — Contribution to
the " Memoirs of Margaret Fuller OssolL"
A NEW periodical publication was begun in
Boston in 1847, under the name of the " Mas-
sachusetts Quarterly Review." Emerson wrote
the " Editor's Address," but took no further ac-
tive part in it, Theodore Parker being the real
editor. The last line of this address is charac-
teristic : " We rely on the truth for aid against
ourselves."
On the 6th of October, 1847, Emerson sailed
for Europe on his second visit, reaching Liver-
pool on the 22d of that month. Many of his
admirers were desirous that he should visit Eng-
land and deliver some courses of lectures. Mr.
Alexander Ireland, who had paid him friendly
attentions during his earlier visit, and whose im-
13
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194 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
pressions of him in the pulpit have been given
on a previous page, urged his coming. Mr.
Conway quotes passages from a letter of Emer-
son's which show that he had some hesitation
in accepting the invitation, not immingled with
a wish to be heard by the English audiences
favorably disposed towards him.
*' I feel no call," he said, '* to make a visit of
literary propagandism in England. All my im-
pulses to work of that kind would rather employ
me at home." He does not like the idea of
** coaxing " or advertising to get him an audience.
He would like to read lectures before institutions
or friendly persons who sympathize with his
studies. He has had a good many decisive tokens
of interest from British men and women, but he
doubts whether he is much and favorably known
in any one city, except perhaps in London. It
proved, however, that there was a very wide-
spread desire to hear him, and applications for
lectures flowed in from all parts of the king-
dom.
From Liverpool he proceeded immediately to
Manchester, where Mr. Ireland received him at
the Victoria station. After spending a few hours
with him, he went to Chelsea to visit Carlyle,
and at the end of a week returned to Manches-
ter to begin the series of lecturing engagements
which had been arranged for him. Mr. Lreland's
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ENGLAND. — SCOTLAND. 196
account of Emerson's visits and the interviews
between him and many distinguished persons is
full of interest, but the interest largely relates
to the persons visited by Emerson. He lectured
at Edinburgh, where his liberal way of thinking
and talking made a great sensation in orthodox
circles.' But he did not fail to find enthusiastic
listeners; A young student, Mr. George Cupples,
wrote an article on these lectures from which, as
quoted by Mr. Ireland, I borrow a single sen-
tence, — one only, but what could a critic say
more?
Speaking of his personal character, as revealed
through his writings, he says : " In this respect,
I take leave to think that Emerson is the most
mark-worthy, the loftiest, and most heroic mere
man that ever appeared." Emerson has a lec-
ture on the superlative, to which he himself was
never addicted. But what would youth be with-
out its eictravagances, — its preterpluperf ect in
the shape of adjectives, its unmeasured and un-
stinted admiration ?
I need not enumerate the celebrated literary
personages and other notabilities whom Emerson
met in England and Scotland. He thought "the
two finest mannered literary men he met in
England were Leigh Hunt and De Quincey."
His diary might tell us more of the impressions
made upon him by the distinguished people he
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196 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
met, but it is impossible to believe that he ever
passed such inhuman judgments on the least
desirable of his new acquaintances as his friend
Carlyle has left as a bitter legacy behind him.
Carlyle's merciless discourse about Coleridge
and Charles Lamb, and Swinburne's carnivorous
lines, which take a barbarous vengeance on him
for his offence, are on the level of political rhet-
oric rather than of scholarly criticism or charac-
terization. Emerson never forgot that he was
dealing with human beings. He could not have
long endured the asperities of Carlyle, and that
"loud shout of laughter," which Mr. Ireland
speaks of as one of his customary explosions,
would have been discordant to Emerson's ears,
which were offended by such noisy manifesta-
tions.
During this visit Emerson made an excursion
to Paris, which furnished him materials for a
lecture on France delivered in Boston, in 1856,
but never printed.
From the lectures delivered in England he se-
lected a certain number for publication. These
make up the voliune entitled " Eepresentative
Men," which was published in 1850. I will
give very briefly an account of its contents. The
title was a happy one, and has passed into liter-
ature and conversation as an accepted and con-
venient phrase. It would teach us a good deal
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PLATO. 197
merely to consider the names he has selected as
typical, and the gromid of their selection. We
get his classification of men considered as lead-
ers in thought and in action. He shows his own
affinities and repulsions, ^md, as everywhere,
writes his own biography, no matter about whom
or what he is talking. There is hardly any book
of his better worth study by those who wish to
understand, not Plato, not Plutarch, not Napo-
leon, but Emerson himself. All his great men
interest us for their own sake ; but we know a
good deal about most of them, and Emerson
holds the mirror up to them at just such an
angle that we see his own face as well as that
of his hero, unintentionally, unconsciously, no
doubt, but by a necessity which he would be the
first to recognize.
Emerson swears by no master. He admires,
but always with a reservation. Plato comes near-
est to being his idol, Shakespeare next. But he
says of all great men : " The power which they
communicate is not theirs. When we are exalted
by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the
idea, to which also Plato was debtor."
Emerson loves power as much as Carlyle
does; he likes "rough and smooth," "scourges
of God," and "darlings of the himian race."
He likes Julius Caesar, Charles the Fifth, of
Spain, Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden, Bichard
Plantagenet, and Bonaparte.
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198 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
'^ I applaud," he says, ^' a sufficient man, an officer
equal to his office ; captains, ministers, senators. I
like a master standing firm on legs of iron, well bom,
rich, handsome, eloquent, loaded with advantages,
drawing all men by fascination into tributaries and
supporters of his power. Sword and staff, or talents
sword-like or staff-like, carry on the work of the
world. But I find him greater when he can abolish
himself and all heroes by letting in this element of
reason, irrespective of persons, this subtilizer and
irresistible upward force, into our thoughts, destroy-
ing individualism ; the power is so great that the po-
tentate is nothing. —
" The genius of humanity is the right point of view
of history, llie qualities abide ; the men who exhibit
them have now more, now less, and pass away ; the
qualities remain on another brow. — All that respects
the individual is temporary and prospective, like the
individual himself, who is ascending out of his limits
into a catholic existence."
No man can be an idol for one who looks in
this way at all men. But Plato takes the first
place in Emerson's gallery of six great person-
ages whose portraits he "has sketched. And of
him he says : —
" Among . secular books Plato only is entitled to
Omar's fanatical compliment to the Koran, when he
said, ' Bum the libraries ; for their value is in this
book.' Out of Plato come all things that are still
written and debated among men of thought" —
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PLATO. 199
^^In proportion to the culture of men they become
his scholars." — " How many great men Nature is
incessantly sending up out of night to be Ais men/ —
His contemporaries tax him with plagiarism. — But
the inventor only knows how to borrow. When we
are praising Plato, it seems we are praising quotations
from Solon and Sophron and Philolaus. Be it so.
Every book is a quotation ; and every house is a quo-
tation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries ;
and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors."
The reader will, I hope, remember this last
general statement when he learns from what
wide fields of authorship Emerson filled his
storehouses.
A few sentences from Emerson will show
us the probable source of some of the deepest
thought of Plato and his disciples.
The conception of the fundamental Unity, he
says, finds its highest expression in the religious
writings of the East, especially in the Indian
Scriptures. "'The whole world is but a man-
ifestation of Vishnu, who is identical with all
things, and is to be regarded by the wise as not
differing from but as the same as themselves. I
neither am going nor coming ; nor is my dwell-
ing in any one place ; nor art thou, thou ; nor are
others, others ; nor am I, I.* As if he had said,
'All is for the soul, and the soul is Vishnu; and
animals and stars are transient paintings; and
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200 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
light is whitewash ; and durations are deceptive;
and form is imprisonment ; and heaven itself a
decoy.'" All of which we see reproduced in
Emerson's poem "Brahma." — "The country of
unity, of immovable institutions, the seat of a
philosophy delighting in abstractions, of men
faithful in doctrine and in practice to the idea
of a deaf, unimplorable, immense fate, is Asia ;
and it realizes this faith in the social institution
of caste. On the other side, the genius of Europe
is active and creative: it resists caste by culture ;
its philosophy was a discipline ; it is a land of
arts, inventions, trade, freedom." — " Plato came
to join, and by contact to enhance, the energy of
each."
But Emerson says, — and some will smile at
hearing him say it of another, — " The acutest
German, the lovingest disciple, could never tell
what Platonism was; indeed, admirable texts can
be quoted on both sides of every great question
from him."
The transcendent intellectual and moral supe-
riorities of this " Euclid of holiness," as Emerson
calls him, with his " solif orm eye and his boni-
form soul," — the two quaint adjectives being
from the mint of Cudworth, — are fully dilated
upon in the addition to the original article called
" Plato : New Eeadings."
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8WEDENB0RQ. 201
Few readers will be satisfied with the Essay
entitled "Swedenborg; or, the Mystic." The
believers in his special communion as a revealer
of divine truth will find him reduced to the level
of other seers. The believers of the different]
creeds of Christianity will take offence at the
statement that '^ Swedenborg and Behmen both
failed by attaching themselves to the Christian
symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment, which
carries innumerable Christianities, humanities, di-
vinities in its bosom." The men of science will
smile at the exorbitant claims put forward in
behalf of Swedenborg as a scientific discoverer.
"Philosophers" will not be pleased to be re-
minded that Swedenborg called them "cocka-
trices," " asps," or "flying serpents ; " "literary
men " will not agree that they are " conjurers
and charlatans," and will not listen with patience
to the praises of a man who so called them. As
for the poets, they can take their choice of
Emerson's poetical or prose estimate of the great
Mystic, but they cannot very well accept both.
In " The Test," the Muse says : —
" I hung my verses in the wind,
Time and tide their faults may find ;
All were winnowed through and through,
Fire lines lasted good and true . . .
Sunshine cannot bleach the snow.
Nor time unmake what poets know.
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202 RALPH WALDO EMEB80N.
Have yon eyes to find the five
Who five handled did sorvive ?"
In the verses which follow we learn that the
five immortal poets referred to are Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, Swedenborg^ and Goethe.
And now, in the Essay we have just been look-
ing at, I find that ^^ his books have no melody,
no emotion, no hmnor, no relief to the dead pro-
saic level. We wander forlorn in a lack-lustre
landscape. No bird ever sang in these gardens
of the dead. The entire want of poetry in so
transcendent a mind betokens the disease, and
like a hoarse voice in a beautiful person, is
a kind of warning." Yet Emerson says of him
that " He lived to purpose: he gave a verdict
He elected goodness as the clue to which the soul
must cUng in this labyrinth of nature."
Emerson seems to have admired Swedenborg
at a distance, but seen nearer, he liked Jacob
Behmen a great deal better.
^^ Montaigne ; or, the Skeptic," is easier read-
ing than the last-mentioned Essay. Emerson ac-
counts for the personal regard which he has for
Montaigne by the story of his first acquaintance
with him. But no other reason was needed
than that Montaigne was just what Emerson de-
scribes him as being.
*' There have been men with deeper insight ; bat,
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MOI^TAIGNE. 203
one wonld say? never a man with such abundance of
thought : he is never dull, never insincere, and has the
genius to make the reader care for all that he cares
for. ^
'^ The sincerity and marrow of the man reaches to
his sentences. I know not anywhere the book that
seems less written. It is the language of conversation
transferred to a book. Cut these words and they
would bleed ; they are vascular and alive. —
" Montaigne talks with shrewdness, knows the world
and books and himself, and uses the positive degree ;
never shrieks, or protests, or prays : no weakness, no
convulsion, no superlative : does not wish to jump out
of his skin, or play any antics, or annihilate space or
time, but is stout and solid ; -tastes every moment of
the day ; likes pain because it makes him feel himself
and realize things ; as we pinch ourselves to know
that we are awake. He keeps the plain ; he rarely
mounts or sinks ; likes to feel solid ground and the
stones underneath. His writing has no enthusiasms,
no aspiration ; contented, self-respecting, and keeping
the middle of the road. There is but one exception,
— in his love for Socrates. In speaking of him, for
once his cheek flushes and his style rises to passion.''
The writer who draws this portrait must have
many of the same characteristics. Much as Em-
erson loved his dreams and his dreamers, he
must have found a great relief in getting into
"the middle of the road " with Montaigne, after
wandering in difficult by-paths which too often
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204 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
led Um round to the point from whicli lie
started.
As to his exposition of the true relations of
skepticism to aJG&rmative and negative belief, the
philosophical reader must be referred to the
Essay itself.
In writing of ^'Shakespeare; or, the Poet,"
Emerson naturally gives expression to his lead-
ing ideas about the office of the poet and of
poetry.
'' Great men are more distinguished by range
and extent than by originaliiy." A poet has
'' a heart in unison with his time and country."
— ''There is nothing whimsical and fantastic
in his production, but sweet and sad earnest,
freighted with the weightiest convictions, and*
pointed with the most determined aim which
any man or class knows of in his times."
When Shakespeare was in his youth the drama
was the popular means of amusement. It was
*' ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture. Punch,
and library, at the same time. The best proof
of its vitality is the crowd of writers which sud-
denly broke into this field." Shakespeare found
a great mass of old plays existing in manuscript
and reproduced from time to time on the stage.
He borrowed in all directions : " A great poet
who appears in illiterate times absorbs into his
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aHAKESPEARE. 205
sphere all the light which is anywhere radiat-
ing." Homer, Chaucer, Saadi, felt that all wit
was their wit. " Chaucer is a huge borrower."
Emerson giVes a list of authors from whom he
drew. This list is in many particulars erroneous,
as I have learned from a letter of Professor
Lounsbury's which I have had the privilege of
reading, but this is a detail which need not de-
lay us.
The reason why Emerson has so much to say
on this subject of borrowing, especially when
treating of Plato and of Shakespeare, is obvious
enough. He was arguing in his own cause, —
not defending himself, as if there were some
charge of plagiarism to be met, but making the
proud claim of eminent domain in behalf of the
masters who knew how to use their acquisitions.
'^ Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shake-
speare ; and even he can tell nothing except to the
Shakespeare in us." — " Shakespeare is as much out
of the category of eminent authors as he is out of the
crowd. A good reader can in a sort nestle into
Plato's brain and think from thence; but not into
Shakespeare's. We are still out of doors."
After all the homage which Emerson pays to
the intellect of Shakespeare, he weighs him with
the rest of mankind, and finds that he shares
" the haUness and imperfection of humanity."
'' He converted the elements which waited on his
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206 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
command into entertainment. He was master of the
revels to mankind."
And so, after this solemn verdict on Shake-
speare, after looking at the forlorn conclusions of
our old and modem oracles, priest and prophet,
Israelite, German, and Swede, he says: ^'It must
be conceded that these are half views of half
men. The world still wants its poet-priest, who
shall not trifle with Shakespeare the player, nor
shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the
mourner ; but who shall see, speak, and act with
equal inspiration."
It is not to be expected that Emerson should
have much that is new to say about " Napoleon ;
or, the Man of the World."
The stepping-stones of this Essay are easy to
find: —
<< The instinct of brave, active, able men, through-
out the middle class everywhere, has pointed out
Napoleon as the incarnate democrat. —
" Napoleon is thoroughly modem, and at the high-
est point of his fortunes, has the very spirit of the
newspapers." As Plato borrowed, as Shakespeare bor^
rowed, as Mirabeau ^' plagiarized every good thought,
every good word that was spoken in Prance," so Napo-
leon is not merely '^ representative, but a monopolizer
and usurper of other minds."
He was " a man of stone and iron," — equipped
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NAPOLEON. 207
for his work by nature as Sallust describes Cati-
line as being. '' He had a directness of action
never before combined with such comprehension.
Here was a man who in each moment and emer-
gency knew what to do next. He saw only the
object ; the obstacle must give way."
" When a natural king becomes a titular king
everybody is pleased and satisfied." —
" I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the
middle class of modem society. — He was the
agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the in-
ternal improver, the liberal, the radical, the
inventor of means, the opener of doors and mar-
kets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse."
But he was without generous sentiments, '' a
boundless liar," and finishing in high colors the
outline of his moral deformities, Emerson gives
us a climax in two sentences which render fur-
ther condemnation superfluous : —
" In short, when you have penetrated through all
the circles of power and splendor, you were not deal-
ing with a gentleman, at last, but with an impostor
and rogue; and he fully deserves the epithet of
Jupiter Scapin, or a sort of Scamp Jupiter.
"So this exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished,
and absorbed the power and existence of those who
served him ; and the universal cry of France and of
Europe in 1814 was, Enough of him; ^Assez de
Boruvparte** "
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208 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
It was to this feeling that the French poet
Barbier, whose death we have but lately seen
announced, gave expression in the terrible satire
in which he pictured France as a fiery courser
bestridden by her spurred rider, who drove her
in a mad career over heaps of rocks and ruins.
But after all, Carlyle's " carriere ouverte aux
tcdens^^^ is the expression for Napoleon's great
message to mankind.
" Goethe ; or, the Writer," is the last of the
Bepresentative Men who are the subjects of this
book of Essays. Emerson says he had read the
fifty-five volumes of Goethe, but no other Ger-
man writers, at least in the original. It must
have been in fulfilment of some pious vow that
he did this. After all that Carlyle had written
about Goethe, he could hardly help studying
him. But this Essay looks to me as if he had
found the reading of Goethe hard work. It
flows rather languidly, toys with side issues as
a stream loiters round a nook in its margin, and
finds an excuse for play in every pebble. Still,
he has praise enough for his author. " He has
clothed our modern existence with poetry." —
^^ He has said the best things about nature that
ever were said. — He flung into literature in his
Mephistopheles the first organic figure that has
been added for some ages, and which will remain
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MEMOIRS OF MARGARET FULLER 0880LL 209
as long as the Prometheus. — He is the type of
cnlture, the amateur of all arts and sciences and
events; artistic, but not artist; spiritual, but not
spiritualist. — I join Napoleon with him, as be-
ing both representatives of the impatience and
reaction of nature against the morgue of conven-
tions, — two stem realists, who, with their schol-
ars, have severally set the axe at the root of the
tree of cant and seeming, for this time and for
all time."
This must serve as an eo; pede guide to recon-
struct the Essay which finishes the volume.
In 1852 there was published a Memoir of Mar-
garet FuUer Ossoli, in which Emerson, James ^ ^
Freeman Clarke, and William Henry Channing
each took a part. Emerson's account of her
conversation and extracts from her letters anJ
diaries, with his running commentaries and his
interpretation of her mind and character, are a
most faithful and vivid portraiture of a woman
who is likely to live longer by what is written
of her than by anything she ever wrote herself.
U
>
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CHAPTEB Vm.
1863-1858. ^t. 60-56.
Lectures in various Places. — Anti - Slavery Addresses. —
Woman. A Lecture read before the Woman's Bights Con-
vention. — Samuel Hoar. Speech at Concord. — Publica-
tion of "English Traits.'* — The "Atlantic Monthly." —
The " Saturday Qub."
After Emerson's return from Europe he de-
livered lectures to different audiences, — one on
Poetry, afterwards published in "Letters and
Social Aims," a course of lectures in Freeman
Place Chapel, Boston, some of which have been
published, one on the Anglo-Saxon Race, and
many others. In January, 1855, he gave one
of the lectures in a course of Anti-Slavery Ad-
dresses delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston.
In the same year he delivered an address before
the Anti-Slavery party of New York. His plan
for the extirpation of slavery was to buy the
slaves from the planters, not conceding their
right to ownership, but because " it is the only
practical course, and is innocent." It would
cost two thousand millions, he says, according
to the present estimate, but " was tiiere ever any
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ANTI'SLAVERT ADDRESSES. 211
contribution that was so enthusiastically paid as
this would be ? "
His optimism flowers out in all its innocent
luxuriance in the paragraph from which this is
quoted. Of coiirse with notions like these he
could not be hand in hand with the Abolition-
ists. He was classed with the Free Soilers, but
he seems to have formed a party by himself in
his project for buying up the negroes. He
looked at the matter somewhat otherwise in
1863, when the settlement was taking place in a
different currency, — in steel and not in gold: —
** Pay ransom to the owner,
And fill the bag to the brim.
Who is the owner ? The slave is owner.
And ever was. Pay him."
His sympathies were all and always with free-
dom. He spoke with indignation of the out-
rage on Sumner; he took part in the meeting
at Concord expressive of sympathy with John
Brown. But he was never in the front rank of
the aggressive Anti-Slavery men. In his singu-
lar " Ode inscribed to W. H. Channing " there
is a hint of a possible solution of the slavery
problem which implies a doubt as to the per-
manence of the cause of all the trouble.
" The over-god
Who marries Right to Might,
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212 RALPH WALDO EMERBON.
Who peoples, unpeoples, —
He who exterminates
Races by stronger races.
Black by white faces, —
Knows to bring honey
Out of the lion."
Some doubts of this kind helped Emerson to
justify himself when he refused to leave his
" honeyed thought " for the busy world where
•* Things are of the snake."
The time came when he could no longer sit
quietly in his study, and, to borrow Mr. Cocie's
words, " As the agitation proceeded, and brave
men took part in it, and it rose to a spirit of
moral grandeur, he gave a heartier assent to the
outward methods adopted."
No woman could doubt the reverence of Em-
erson for womanhood. In a lecture read to the
"Woman's Rights Convention" in 1855, he
takes bold, and what would then have been con-
sidered somewhat advanced, ground in the con-
troversy then and since dividing the community.
This is the way in which he expresses himself :
" I do not think it yet appears that women wish
this equal share in public affairs. But it is they and
not we that are to determine it. Let the laws be
purged of every barbarous remainder, every barba-
rous impediment to women. Let the public dona-
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BAMUEl HOAR. 218
tions for education be equally shared by them, let
them enter a school as freely as a church, let them
have and hold and give their property as men do
theirs ; — and in a few years it will easily appear
whether they wish a voice in making the laws that
are to govern them. If you do refuse them a vote,
you will also refuse to tax them, — according to our
Teutonic principle, No representation, no tax. — The
new movement is only a tide shared by the spirits of
man and woman ; and you may proceed in the faith
that whatever the woman's heart is prompted to de-
sire, the man's mind is simultaneously prompted to
accomplish."
Emerson was fortunate enough to have had
for many years as a neighbor, that true New
England Eoman, Samuel Hoar. He spoke of
him in Concord before his fellow-citizens, shortly
after his death, in 1856. He afterwards pre-
pared a sketch of Mr. Hoar for "Putnam's Mag-
azine," from which I take one prose sentence and
the verse with which the sketch concluded : —
" He was a model of those formal but reverend
manners which make what is called a gentleman of
the old school, so called under an impression that the
style is passing away, but which, I suppose, is an op-
tical illusion, as there are always a few more of the
class remaining, and always a few young men to
whom these manners are native."
The single verse I quote is compendious enough
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214 RALPH WALDO EMEB80N.
and descriptive enough for an Elizabethan mon-
umental inscription.
^ With beams December planets daft
His cold eye truth and conduct scanned ;
July was in his sunny heart,
, October in his liberal hand."
Emerson's " English Traits," forming one vol-
xune of his works, was published in 1856. It is
a thoroughly fresh and original book. It is not
a tourist's guide, not a detailed description of
sights which tired the traveller in staring at
them, and tire the reader who attacks the weary-
ing pages in which they are recorded. Shrewd
observation there is indeed, but its strength is in
broad generalization and epigrammatic charac-
terizations. They are not to be received as in any
sense final ; they are not like the verifiable facts
of science ; they are more or less sagacious, more
or less well founded opinions formed by a f airr
minded, sharp-witted, kind-hearted, open-souled
philosopher, whose presence made every one
well-disposed towards him, and consequendy left
him well-disposed to aU the world.
A glance at the table of contents will give
an idea of the objects which Emerson proposed
to himself in his tour, and which take up the
principal portion of his record. Only one place
is given as the heading of a chapter, — Stone-
henge. The other eighteen chapters have gen-
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'' ENGLISH traits:' 215
eral titles, Land^ Sace^ Ability^ Manners^ and
others of similar character.
He uses plain English in introducing us to the
Pilgrim fathers of the British Aristocracy : —
*^ Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings.
These founders of the House of Lords were greedy
and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious
pupates. They were all alike, they took everything
they could carry ; they hurned, harried, violated,
tortured, and killed, until everything English was
brought to the verge of ruin. Such, however, is the
illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent and dig-
nified men now existing boast their descent from
these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster convic-
tion of their own merits by assuming for their types
the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake,
which they severally resembled."
The race preserves some of its better charac-
teristics.
'^ They have a vigorous health and last well into
middle and old age. The old men are as red as
roses, and stiU handsome. A clear skin, a peach-
bloom complexion, and good teeth are found all over
the island."
English " Manners " are characterized, accord-
ing to Emerson, by pluck, vigor, independence.
" Every one of these islanders is an island him-
self, safe, tranquil, incommunicable." They are
positive, methodical,, cleanly, and formal, loving
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216 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
routine and conventional ways ; loving truth and
religion, to be sure, but inexorable on points of
form.
'' They keep their old customs, costomes, and pomps,
their wig and mace, sceptre and crown. A severe
decoram rales the court and the cottage. Pretension
and vaporing are once for all distastefal. They hate
nonsense, sentimentalism, and high-flown expressions;
they use a studied plainness."
^'In an aristocratical country like England, not
the Trial by Jury, hut the dinner is the capital in-
stitution."
"They confide in each other, — English believes
in English." — "They require the same adherence,
thorough conviction, and reality in public men."
" As compared with the American, I think them
cheerful and contented. Young people in this coun-
try are much more prone to melancholy."
Emerson's observation is in accordance with
that of Cotton Mather nearly two hundred years
ago.
^^N&w England, a country where splenetic Mala-
dies are prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any
other, hath afforded numberless instances, of even
pious people, who have contracted those MelancJioly
Indispositions, which have unhinged them from all
service or comfort ; yea, not a few persons have been
hurried thereby to lay Violent Hands upon them-
selves at the last. These are among the unsearchr
able Jvdgments of God."
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*' ENGLISH TRAITS,'' 217
If there is a little exaggeration about the fol-
lowing portrait of the Englishman, it has truth
enough to excuse its high coloring, and the like-
ness will be smilingly recognized by every stout
Briton.
"They drink brandy like water, cannot expend
their quantities of waste strength on riding, hunting,
swimming, and fencing, and run into absurd follies
with the gravity of the Eumenides. They stoutly
carry into every nook and comer of the earth their
turbulent sense ; leaving no lie uncontradicted ; no
pretension unexamined. They chew hasheesh ; cut
themselves with poisoned creases, swing their ham-
mock in the boughs of the Bohon Upas, taste every
poison, buy every secret; at Naples, they put St.
Januarius's blood in an alembic ; they saw a hole into
the head of the * winking virgin ' to know why she
winks ; measure with an English foot-rule every ^ell
of the inquisition, every Turkish Caaba, every Holy of
Holies ; translate and send to Bentley the arcanum,
bribed and bullied away from shuddering Bramins ;
and measure their own strength by the terror they
This last audacious picture might be hung up
as a prose pendant to Marvell's poetical descrip-
tion of Holland and the Dutch.
" A saving stupidity marks and protects their per-
ception as the curtain of the eagle's eye. Our swifter
Americans, when they first deal with English, pro-
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218 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
nounce them stupid ; but later do them justice as
people who wear well, or hide their strength. High
or low, they are of an unctuous texture. Their daily
feats argue a savage vigor of body. Half their
strength they put not forth. The sterility of England
is the security of the modem world."
Perhaps nothing in any of his vigorous para-
graphs is more striking than the suggestion that
" if hereafter the war of races often predicted,
and making itself a war of opinions also (a
question of despotism and liberty coming from
Eastern Europe), should menace the English
civilization, these sea-kings may take once again
to their floating castles and find a newliome and
a second millennium of power in their colonies."
In reading some of Emerson's pages it seems
as if another Arcadia, or the new Atlantis, had
emerged as the fortunate island of Great Britain,
or that he had reached a heaven on earth where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal, — or if
they do, never think of denying that they have
done it. But this was a generation ago, when
the noun " shoddy," and the verb " to scamp,"
had not grown such familiar terms to English
ears as they are to-day. Emerson saw the
country on its best side. Each traveller makes
his own England. A Quaker sees chiefly broad
brims, and the island looks to him like a field of
mushrooms.
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''ENGLISH TRAITS.'' 219
The transplanted Church of England is rich
and prosperous and fashionable enough not to
be disturbed by Emerson's flashes of light that
have not come through its stained windows.
" The religion of England is part of good-breed-
ing. When you see on the continent the well-dressed
Englishman come into his ambassador's chapel, and
put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed
hat, one cannot help feeling how much national pride
prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.
" The church at this moment is much to be pitied.
She has nothing left but possession. If a bishop
meets an intelligent gentleman, and reads fatal inter-
rogation in his eyes, he has no resource but to take
wine with him."
Sydney Smith had a great reverence for a
bishop, — so great that he told a young lady that
he used to roll a crumb of bread in his hand,
from nervousness, when he sat next one at a
dinner-table, — and if next an archbishop, used
to roll crumbs with both hands, — but Sydney
Smith would have enjoyed the tingling felicity
of this last stinging touch of wit, left as lightly
and gracefully as a handerillero leaves his little
gayly ribboned dart in the shoulders of the bull
with whose unwieldy bulk he is playing.
Emerson handles the formalism and the half
belief of the Established Church very freely,
but he closes his chapter on Eeligion with soft-
spoken words.
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220 RALPH WALDO EMERSON, .
'^ Yet if religion be the doing of all good, and for
its sake the suffering of all evil, aouffrir de taut le
mondey et ne faire souffrir personne, that diyine se-
cret has existed in England from the day^ of Alfred
to those of Romilly, of Clarkson, and of Florence
Nightingale, and in thousands who have no fame."
" English Traits" closes with Emerson's speech
at Manchester, at the annual banquet of the
** Free Trade Athenaeum." This was merely an
occasional after-dinner reply to a toast which
called him up, but it had sentences in it which,
if we can imagine Milton to have been called up
in the same way, he might well have spoken and
done bimself credit in their utterance.
The total impression left by the book is that
Emerson was fascinated by the charm of English
society, filled with admiration of the people,
tempted to contrast his New Englanders in
many respects unfavorably with Old England-
ers, mainly in their material and vital stamina ;
but with all this not blinded for a moment to the
thoroughly insular limitations of the phlegmatic
islander. He alternates between a turn of gen-
uine admiration and a smile as at a people that
has not outgrown its playthings. This is in
truth the natural and genuine feeling of a self-
governing citizen of a commonwealth where
thrones and wigs and mitres seem like so many
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'*THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.'' 221
pieces of stage property. An American need
not be a philosopher to hold these things cheap.
He cannot help it. Madame Tussaud's exhibi-
tion, the Lord-Mayor's gilt coach, and a corona-
tion, if one happens to be in season, are all
sights to be seen by an American traveller, but
the reverence which is born with the British
subject went up with the smoke of the gun that
fired the long echoing sh5t at the little bridge
over the sleepy river which works its way along
through the wide-awake town of Concord.
In November, 1857, a new magazine was estab-
lished in Boston, bearing die name of ^^The
Atlantic Monthly." Professor James Russell
Lowell was editor-in-chief, and Messrs. Phillips
and Sampson, who were the originators of the
enterprise, were the publishers. Many of the old
contributors to " The Dial " wrote for the new
magazine, among them Emerson. He contrib-
uted twenty-eight articles in all, more than half
of them verse, to different numbers, from the first
to the thirty-seventh volume. Among them are
several of his best known poems, such as " The
Romany Girl," ''Days," "Brahma," "Waldein-
samkeit," "The Titmouse," "Boston Hymn,"
" Saadi," and " Terminus."
At about the same time there grew up in Bos-
ton a literary association, which became at last
well known as the " Saturday Club," the mem-
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222 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
bers dining together on the last Saturday of
every month.
The Magazine and the Club have existed and
flourished to the present day. They have often
been erroneously thought to have some organic
connection, and the " Atlantic Club " has been
spoken of as if there was or had been such an
/institution, but it never existed.
Emerson was a mefeiber of the Saturday Club
from the first ; in reality before it existed as an
empirical fact, and when it was only a Platonic
idea. The Club seems to have shaped itself
around him as a nucleus of crystallization, two or
three friends of his having first formed the habit
of meeting him at dinner at "Parker's," the
"WiU's Coflfee-House'' of Boston. This little
group gathered others to itself and grew into
a club as Rome grew into a city, almost with-
out knowing how. During its first decade the
Saturday Club brought together, as members
or as visitors, many distinguished persons. At
one end of the table sat Longfellow, florid,
quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a most agreeable
rather than a brilliant talker, but a man upon
whom it was always pleasant to look, — whose
silence was better than many another man's con-
versation. At the other end of the table sat
Agassiz, robust, sanguine, animated, full of talk,
boy-like in his laughter. The stranger who
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THE '' SATURDAY CLUB,'* 228
should have asked who were the men ranged
along the sides of the table would have heard in
answer the names of Hawthorne, Motley, Dana,
Lowell, Whipple, Peirce, the distinguished math-
ematician, Judge Hoar, eminent at the bar and
in the cabinet, Dwight, the leading musical critic
of Boston for a whole generation, Sumner, the
academic champion of freedom, Andrew, "the
great War Governor" of Massachusetts, Dr.
Howe, the philanthropist, William Hunt, the
painter, with others not unworthy of such com-
pany. And with these, generally near the Long-
fellow end of the table, sat Emerson, talking in
low tones and carefully measured utterances to
his neighbor, or listening, and recording any
stray word worth remembering on his mental
phonograph. Emerson was a very regular at-
tendant at the meetings of the Saturday Club,
and continued to dine at its table, until within
a year or two of his death.
Unfortunately the Club had no BosweU, and
its golden hours passed unrecorded.
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CHAPTER IX.
1858-1863. .Et. 66-60.
Essay on Persian Poetry. — Speech at the Burns Centennial
Festival. — Letter from Emerson to a Lady. — Tributes to
Theodore Parker and to Thoreau. — Address on the Eman-
cipation Proclamation. — Publication of " The Conduct of
Life." Contents: Fate; Power; Wealth; Culture; Be-
havior ; Considerations by the Way ; Beauty ; Illusions.
The Essay on Persian Poetry, published in the
" Atlantic Monthly " in 1858, should be studied
by all readers who are curious in tracing the* in-
fluence of Oriental poetry on Emerson's verse.
In many of the shorter poems and fragments
published since " May-Day," as well as in the
^^ Quatrains " and others of the later poems in
that volume, it is sometimes hard to teU what is
from the Persian from what is original.
On the 25th of January, 1859, Emerson at-
tended the Bums Festival, held at the Parker
House in Boston, on the Centennial Anniversary
of the poet's birth. He spoke after the- dinner
to the great audience with such beauty and
eloquence that all who listened to him have re-
membered it as one of the most delightful ad-
dresses they ever heard. Among his hearers was
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LETTER TO A LADY. 226
Mr. Lowell, who says of it that "every word
seemed to have just dropped down to him from
the clouds." Judge Hoar, who was another of
his hearers, says, that though he has heard many
of the chief orators of his time, he never wit-
nessed such an effect of speech upon men. I
was myself present on that occasion, and under-
went the same fascination that these gentlemen
and the varied audience before the speaker ex-
perienced. His words had a passion in them
not usual in the calm, pure flow most natural
to his uttered thoughts ; white-hot iron we are
familiar with, but white-hot silver is what we do
not often look upon, and his inspiring address
glowed like silver fresh from the cupel.
I am allowed the privilege of printing the
following letter addressed to a lady of high
intellectual gifts, who was one of the earliest,
most devoted, and most faithful of his intimate
friends : —
Concord, J/ay 13, 1859.
Please, dear C, not to embark for home imtil
I have despatched these lines, which I will hasten to
finish. Louis Napoleon will not bayonet you the
while, — keep him at the door. So long I have prom-
ised to write ! so long I have thanked your Ion
suffering ! I have let pass the unreturning opporti
nity your visit to Germany gave to acquaint you wit
GiseUt von At^^it" (Bettina's daughter), and Joachii
15
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226 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
the violinist, and Hermann Grimm the scholar, her
friends. Neither has E., — wandering in Europe
with hope of meeting you, — yet met. This con-
tumacy of mine I shall regret as long as I live. How
palsy creeps over us, with gossamer first, and ropes
afterwards! and the witch has the prisoner when
once she has put her eye on him, as securely as after
the bolts are drawn. — Yet I and all my little com-
pany watch every token from you, and coax Mrs. H.
to read us letters. I learned with satisfaction that
you did not like Germany. Where then did Groethe
find his lovers ? Do all the women have bad noses
and bad mouths ? And will you stop in England, and
bring home the author of " Counterparts " with you?
Or did write the novels and send them to Lonr
don, as I fancied when I read them? How strange
that you and I alone to this day should have his
secret ! I think our people will never allow genius,
without it is alloyed by talent. But is paralyzed
by his whims, that I have ceased to hope from him.
I could wish your experience of your friends were
more animating than mine, and that there were any
horoscope you could not cast from the first day. The
faults of youth are never shed, no, nor the merits,
and creeping time convinces ever the more of our im-
potence, and of the irresistibility of our bias. Still
this is only science, and must remain science. Our
praxis is never altered for that. We must forever
hold our companions responsible, or they are not
companions but stall-fed.
I think, as we grow older, we decrease as indi-
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LETTER TO A LADY. 227
vidnals, and as if in an immense audience who hear
stirring music, none essays to offer a new stave, but
we only join emphatically in the chorus. We volun-
teer no opinion, we despair of guiding people, but are
confirmed in our perception that Nature is all right,
and that we have a good understanding with it. We
must shine to a few brothers, as palms or pines or
roses among common weeds, not from greater absolute
value, but from a more convenient nature. But *t is
almost chemistry at last, though a meta-chemistry.
I remember you were such an impatient blasphemer,
however musically, against the adamantine identities,
in your youth, that you should take your turn of resig-
nation now, and be a preacher of peace. But there
is a little raising of the eyebrow, now and then, in
the most passive acceptance, — if of an intellectual
turn. Here comes out around me at this moment the
new June, — the leaves say June, though the calendar
says May, — and we must needs hail our young rela-
tives again, though with something of the gravity of
adult sons and daughters receiving a late-born brother
or sister. Nature herself seems a little ashamed of a
law so monstrous, billions of summers, and now the
old game again without a new bract or sepal. But
you will think me incorrigible with my generalities,
and you so near, and will be here again this sum-
mer ; perhaps with A. W. and the other travellers.
My children scan curiously your E.'s drawings, as
they have seen them. •
The happiest winds fiU the sails of you and yours !
R. W. Emebson.
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228 RALPH WALDO EMERBON.
In the year 1860, Theodore Parker died, and
Emerson spoke of his life and labors at the
meeting held at the Music Hall to do honor to
his memory. Emerson delivered discourses on
Sundays and week-days in the Music Hall to
Mr. Parker's society after his death. In 1862,
he lost his friend Thoreau, at whose funeral
he delivered an address which was published in
the "Atlantic Monthly " for August of the same
year. Thoreau had many rare and admirable
qualities, and Thoreau pictured by Emerson is a
more living personage than White of Selbome
would have been on the canvas of Sir Joshua
Reynolds.
The Address on the Emancipation Proclama-
tion was delivered in Boston in September, 1862.
The feeling that inspired it may be judged by
the following extract : —
"Happy are the young, who find the pestilence
cleansed out of the earth, leaving open to them an
honest career. Happy the old, who see Nature puri-
fied before they depart. Do not let the dying die ;
hold them back to this world, until you have charged
their ear and heart with this message to other spiritual
societies, announcing the melioration of our planet : —
" * Incertainties now crown themselves assured.
And Peace proclaims olives of endless age.' "
The "Conduct of Life" was published in
1860. The chapter on " Fate " might leave the
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''CONDUCT OF LIFE.*' 229
reader with a feeling that what he is to do, as
well as what he is to be and to suffer, is so
largely predetermined for him, that his will,
though formally asserted, has but a questionable
fraction in adjusting him to his conditions as a
portion of the universe. But let him hold fast
to this reassuring statement : —
"If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled
to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the
grandeur of duty, the power of character. — We are
sure, that, though we know not how, necessity does
comport with liberty, the individual with the world,
my polarity with the spirit of the times."
But the value of the Essay is not so much in
any light it throws on the mystery of volition, as
on the striking and brilliant way in which the
limitations of the individual and the inexplicable
rule of law are illustrated.
" Nature is no sentimentalist, — does not cosset or
pamper us. We must see that the world is rough
and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a
woman ; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.
— The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit
of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other
leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones
of his prey in the coil of the anaconda, — these are in
the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have
just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughter*
house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles,
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230 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
there is complicity, — expensive races, — race living
at the expense of race. — Let us not deny it up and
down. Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable
road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash
its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that
terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth
of a student in divinity."
Emerson cautions his reader against the dan-
ger of the doctrines which he believed in so
fully: —
" They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star,
etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and invite the
evils they fear."
But certainly no physiologist, no cattle-breeder,
no Calvinistic predestinarian could put his view
more vigorously than Emerson, who dearly loves
a picturesque statement, has given it in these
words, which have a dash of science, a flash of
imagination, and a hint of the delicate wit that
is one of his characteristics : —
"People are bom with the moral or with the
material bias ; — uterine brothers with this diverging
destination : and I suppose, with high magnifiers,
Mr. Fraunhof er or Dr. Carpenter might come to dis-
tinguish in the embryo at the fourth day, this is a
whig and that a free-soiler."
Let us see what Emerson has to say of
"Power:" —
" All successful men have agreed in one thing —
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''POWEB.'' 231
they were causationists. They helieved that things
went not by luck, but by law ; that there was not a
weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the
first and the last of things.
" The key to the age may be this, or that, or the
other, as the young orators describe ; — the key to all
ages is, — Imbecility ; imbecility in the vast major-
ity of men at all times, and, even in heroes, in all
but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity,
custom, and fear. This gives force to the strong, —
that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or
original action. —
"We say that success is constitutional; depends on
a plus condition of mind and body, on power of work,
on courage ; that is of main efficacy in carrying on
the world, and though rarely found in the right state
for an article of commerce, but oftener in the super-
natural or excess, which makes it dangerous and de-
structive, yet it cannot be spared, and must be had
in that form, and absorbents provided to take off its
The " two economies which are the best sue-
cedanea " for deficiency of temperament are con-
centration and drill. This he illustrates by ex-
ample, and he also lays down some good, plain,
practical rules which " Poor Richard " would
have cheerfully approved. He might have ac-
cepted also the Essay on " Wealth " as having
a good sense so like his own that he could
hardly tell the difference between them.
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232 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
<' Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain
and wind out ; in a good pump that yields you plenty
of sweet water; in two suits of clothes, so as to
change your dress when you are wet ; in dry sticks
to burn ; in a good double-wick lamp, and three
meals ; in a horse or locomotive to cross the land;
in a boat to cross the sea ; in tools to work with ; in
books to read ; and so, in giving, on all sides, by
tools and auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension
to our powers, as if it added feet, and hands, and
eyes, and blood, length to the day, and knowledge
and good will. Wealth begins with these articles of
necessity. —
^' To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the
masterworks and chief men of each race. —
" The pulpit and the press have many common-
places denouncing the thirst for wealth ; but if men
should take these moralists at their word, and leave
off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to re-
kindle at all hazards this love of power in the people,
lest civilization should be undone."
Who can give better counsels on " Culture "
than Emerson ? But we must only borrow a few
sentences from his essay on that subject. All
kinds of secrets come out as we read these
Essays of Emerson's. We know something of
his friends and disciples who gathered roimd
him and sat at his feet. It is not hard to be-
lieve that he was drawing one of those composite
portraits Mr. Gralton has given us specimens of
when he wrote as follows : —
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''CULTURE,'' 288
" The pest of society is egotism. This goitre of
egotism is so frequent among notable persons that we
must infer some strong necessity in nature which it
subserves ; such as we see in the sexual attraction.
The preservation of the species was a point of such
necessity that Nature has secured it at all hazards by
immensely overloading the passion, at the risk of per-
petual crime and disorder. So egotism has its root
in the cardinal necessity by which each individual
persists to be what he is.
"The antidotes against this organic egotism are,
the range and variety of attraction, as gained by ac-
quaintance with the world, with men of merit, with
classes of society, with travel, with eminent persons,
and with the high resources of philosophy, art, and
religion : books, travel, society, solitude."
" We can iU spare the commanding social benefits
of cities ; they must be used ; yet cautiously and
haughtily, — and will yield their best values to him
who can best do without them. Keep the town for
occasions, but the habits should be formed to retire-
ment. Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to
genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter,
where moult the wings which will bear it farther than
suns and stars."
We must remember, too, that " the calamities
are our friends. Try the rough water as well
as the smooth. Sough water can teach lessons
worth knowing. Don't be so tender at making
an enemy now and then. He who aims high,
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234 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
must dread an easy home and popular man-
ners."
Emerson eannot have had many enemies, if
any, in his calm and noble career. He can have
cherished no enmity, on personal grounds at
least. But he refused his hand to one who had
spoken ill of a friend whom he respected. It
was " the hand of Douglas " again, — the same
feeling that Charles Emerson expressed in the
youthful essay mentioned in the introduction to
this volume.
Here are a few good sayings about " Be-
havior."
" There is always a best way of doing everything,
if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways
of dojng things ; each once a stroke of genius or of
love, -T- now repeated and hardened into usage."
Thus it is that Mr. Emerson speaks of ^^ Man-
ners " in his Essay imder the above title.
" The basis of good manners is self-reliance. —
Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than
haste. —
" Men take each other's measure, when they meet
for the first time, — and every time they meet. —
" It is not what talents or genius a man has, but
how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship
and character. The man that stands by himself, the
universe stands by him also."
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''WORSHIP.*' 235
In his Essay on " Worship," Emerson ventures
the following prediction : —
"The religion which is to guide land fulfil the
present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be
intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith
which is science. — There will be a new church
founded on moral science, at first cold and naked, a
babe in a manger again, the algebra and mathematics
of ethical law, the church of men to come, without
shawms or psaltery or sackbut ; but it will have heaven
and earth for its beams and rafters ; science for sym-
bol and illustration ; it will fast enough gather beauty,
music, picture, poetry."
It is a bold prophecy, but who can doubt that
all improbable and unverifiable traditional knowl-
edge of all kinds will make way for the estab-
lished facts of science and history when these
last reach it in their onward movement ? It may
be remarked that he now speaks of science more
respectfully than of old. I suppose this Essay
was of later date than "Beauty," or "Illusions."
But accidental circumstances made such con-
fusion in the strata of Emerson's published
thought that one is often at a loss to know
whether a sentence came from the older or the
newer layer.
We come to " Considerations by the Way."
The common-sense side of Emerson's mind has
so much in common with the plain practical in-
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286 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
telligence of Franklin that it is a pleasure to find
the philosopher of the nineteenth century quoting
the philosopher of the eighteenth.
^* Franklin said, * Mankind are very superficial and
dastardly : they begin upon a thing, bat, meeting with
a difficulty, they fly from it disconraged: but they
have the means if they would employ them.' "
** Shall we judge a country by the majority, or
by the minority? By the minority, surely." Here
we have the doctrine of the " saving remnant,"
which we have since recognized in Mr. Matthew
Arnold's well-remembered lecture. Our repub-
lican philosopher is clearly enough outspoken on
this matter of the vox populi, " Leave this hypo-
critical prating about the masses. Masses are
rude, lame, immade, pernicious in their demands,
and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled.
I wish not to concede anything to them, but to
tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw
individuals out of them."
Pdre Bouhours asked a question about the
Germans which found its answer in due time.
After reading what Emerson says about "the
masses," one is tempted to ask whether a philos-
opher can ever have "a constituency" and be
elected to Congress? Certainly the essay just
quoted from would not make a very promising
campaign document.
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''BEAUTYr 237
Perhaps there wa43 no great necessity for Emer-
son's returning to the subject of " Beauty," to
which he had devoted a chapter of " Nature,"
and of which he had so often discoursed inciden-
tally. But he says so many things worth read-
ing in the Essay thus entitled in the " Conduct of
Life " that we need not trouble ourselves about
repetitions. The Essay is satirical and poetical
rather than philosophical. Satirical when he
speaks of science with something of that old feel-
ing betrayed by his brother Charles when he was
writing in 1828 ; poetical in the flight of imag-
ination with which he enlivens, entertains, stim-
ulates, inspires, — or as some may prefer to say,
— amuses his listeners and readers.
The reader must decide which of these effects
is produced by the following passage : —
"The feat of the imagination is in showing the
convertibility of everything into every other thing.
Facts which had never before left their stark com-
mon sense suddenly figure as Eleusinian mysteries.
My boots and chair and candlestick are fairies in
disguise, meteors, and constellations. All the facts in
Nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the
grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a
double, treble, or centuple use and meaning. What!
has my stove and pepper-pot a false bottom ? I cry
you mercy, good shoe-box ! I did not know you were
a jewel-case. Chaff and dust begin to sparkle, and
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238 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
are clothed about with immortality. And there is a
joy in perceiving the representative or symbolic char-
acter of a fact, which no base fact or event can ever
give. There are no days so memorable as those which
vibrated to some stroke of the imagination."
One is reminded of various things in reading
this sentence. An ounce of alcohol, or a few
whiffs from an opium-pipe, may easily make a
day memorable by bringing on this imaginative
delirium, which is apt, if often repeated, to run
into visions of rodents and reptiles. A coarser
satirist than Emerson indulged his fancy in
"Meditations on a Broomstick," which My Lady
Berkeley heard seriously and to edification.
Meditations on a " Shoe-box " are less promis-
ing, but no doubt something could be made of
it. A poet must select, and if he stoops too low
he cannot lift the object he would fain idealize.
The habitual readers of Emerson do not mind
an occasional over-statement, extravagance, par-
adox, eccentricity ; they find them amusing and
not misleading. But the accountants, for whom
two and two always make four, come upon one
of these passages and shut the book up as want-
ing in sanity. Without a certain sensibility to
the humorous, no one should venture upon Em-
erson. If he had seen the lecturer's smile as he
delivered one of his playful statements of a run-
away truth, fact unhorsed by imagination, some-
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*'ILLUBI0N8y
times by wit, or humor, he would ha^
meaning in his words which the
printed page could never show him.
The Essay on " Illusions " has littl
have not met with, or shall not fine
itself in the Poems.
During this period Emerson contril
articles in prose and verse to the
Monthly," and several to " The Dial
periodical of that name published in
Some of these have been, or will be
referred to.
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CHAPTER X.
1863-1868. ^T. 60-65.
Hymn." — " Voluntaries." — Other Poems. — " May-
od other Pieces." — "Remarks at the Funeral Ser-
)f Abraham Lincoln." — Essay on Persian Poetry. —
ss at a Meeting of the Free Religious Association,
rogress of Culture." Address before the Phi Beta
I Society of Harvard University. — Course of Lec-
In Philadelphia. — The Degree of LL. D. conferred
Smerson by Harvard University. — " Terminus."
" Boston Hymn " was read by Emerson
Music Hall, on the first day of January,
It IS a rough piece of verse, but noble
^ginning to end. One verse of it, begin-
Pay ransom to the owner," has been al-
[uoted ; these are the three that precede
" I cause from every creature
His proper good to flow:
As much as he is and doeth
So much shall he bestow.
** But laying hands on another
To coin his labor and sweat,
He goes in pawn to his victim
For eternal years in debt
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" VOL UNTARIE8:' 241
" To-day unbind the captive,
So only are ye unbound :
Lift up a people from the dust,
Trump of their rescue, sound I **
" Voluntaries," published in the same year in
the " Atlantic Monthly," is more dithyrambic in
its measure and of a more Pindaric elevation than
the plain song of the " Boston Hymn."
<< But best befriended of the God
He who, in evil times,
Warned by an inward voice,
Heeds not the darkness and the dread.
Biding by his rule and choice.
Feeling only the fiery thread
Leading over heroic ground,
Walled with niortal terror round,
To the aim which him allures,
And the sweet heaven his deed secures.
Peril around, all else appalling,
Cannon in front and leaden rain
Him duly through the clarion calling
To the van called not in vain."
It is in this poem that we find the lines which,
a moment after they were written, seemed as if
they had been carved on marble for a thousand
years: —
" So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man.
When Duty whispers low. Thou musty
The youth replies, / can,^^
16
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242 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
** Saadi " was published in the " Atlantic
Monthly " in 1864, " My Garden " in 1866,
" Terminus " in 1867. In the same year these
last poems with many others were collected in a
small volume, entitled "May-Day, and Other
Pieces." The general headings of these poems
are as follows : May-Day. — The Adirondacs. —
Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces. — Nature
and Life. — Elements. — Quatrains. — Transla-
tions. — Some of these poems, which were writ-
ten at long intervals, have been referred to in
previous pages. " The Adirondacs " is a pleas-
ant narrative, but not to be compared for its
poetical character with " May-Day," one passage
from which, beginning,
" I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth,"
is surpassingly imaginative and beautiful. In
this volume will be found " Brahma," " Days,"
and others which are well known to all readers
of poetry.
Emerson's delineations of character are re-
markable for high-relief and sharp-cut lines. In
his Eemarks at the Funeral Services for Abra-
ham Lincoln, held in Concord, April 19, 1865,
he drew the portrait of the homespun - robed
chief of the Eepublic with equal breadth and
delicacy : —
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''FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS 248
" Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no
fair weather sailor ; the new pilot was hurried to the
helm in a tornado. In four years, — four years of
battle-days, — his endurance, his fertility of resources,
his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found
wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even
temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a
heroic figure in the centre of a heroic epoch. He is
the true history of the American people in his time.
Step by step he walked before them ; slow with their
slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true
representative of this continent ; an entirely public
man ; father of his country ; the pulse of twenty
millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their
minds articulated by his tongue."
In his " Remarks at the Organization of the
Free Religious Association," Emerson stated his
leading thought about religion in a very succinct
and sufficiently "transcendental'' way: intelli-
gibly for those who wish to understand him;
mystically to those who do not accept or wish to
accept the doctrine shadowed forth in his poem,
"The Sphinx."
— " As soon as every man is apprised of the
Divine Presence within his own mind, — is apprisec^
that the perfect law of duty corresponds with thi
laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, a
face to face in a glass ; that the basis of duty, th<
order of society, the power of character, the wealtl
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244 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
of culture, the perfection of taste, all draw their
essence from this moral sentiment ; then we have a
religion that exalts, that commands all the social and
all the private action."
Nothing could be more wholesome in a
meeting of creed-killers than the suggestive re-
mark, —
— " What I expected to find here was, some prac-
tical suggestions by which we were to reanimate and
reorganize for ourselves the true Church, the pure
worship. Pure doctrine always bears fruit in pure
benefits. It is only by good works, it is only on the
basis of active duty, that worship finds expression. —
The interests that grow out of a meeting like this,
should bind us with new strength to the old eternal
duties."
In a later address before the same association,
Emerson says : —
"I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous
dispensation, — certainly not to the doctrine of Chris-
tianity. — If you are childish and exhibit your saint
as a worker of wonders, a thaumaturgist, I am re-
pelled. That claim takes his teachings out of nature,
and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted
on the teachings."
The " Progress of Culture " was delivered as
a Phi Beta Kappa oration just thirty years after
his first address before the same society. It is
very instructive to compare the two orations
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*' PROGRESS OF CULTURE:^ 245
written at the interval of a whole generation:
one in 1837, at the age of thiiiy-four ; the other
in 1867, at the age of sixty-four. Both are
hopeful, but the second is more sanguine than
the first. He recounts what he considers the
recent gains of the reforming movement: —
" Observe the marked ethical quality of the imio-
vations urged or adopted. The new claim of woman
to a political status is itself an honorable testimony to
the civilization which has given her a civil status new
in history. Now that by the increased humanity of
law' she controls her property, she inevitably takes the
next' step to her share in power."
He enumerates many other gains, from the
war or from the growth of intelligence, — *' All,
one may say, in a high degree revolutionary,
teaching nations the taking of governments into
their own hands, and superseding kings."
He repeats some of his fundamental formulae.
"The foundation of culture, as of character, is at
last the moral sentiment.
"Great men are they who see that spiritual is
stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule
the world.
" Periodicity, reaction, are laws of mind as well as
of matter."
And most encouraging it is to read in 1884
what was written in 1867, — especially in the
view of future possibilities.
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246 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
"Bad kings and governors help ns, if only
they are bad enough." Nan tali auxilio^ we
exclaim, with a shudder of remembrance, and
are very glad to read these concluding words :
" I read the promise of better times and of
greater men."
In the year 1866, Emerson reached the age
which used to be spoken of as the " grand cli-
macteric." In that year Harvard University
conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of
Laws, the highest honor in its gift.
In that same year, having left home on one of
his last lecturing trips, he met his son. Dr.
Edward Waldo Emerson, at the Brevoort House,
in New York. Then, and in that place, he read
to his son the poem afterwards published in the
" Atlantic Monthly," and in his second volume,
under the title " Terminus." This was the first
time that Dr. Emerson recognized the fact that
his father felt himself growing old. The thought,
which must have been long shaping itself in the
father's mind, had been so far from betraying
itself that it was a shock to the son to hear it
plainly avowed. The poem is one of his noblest;
he could not fold his robes about him with more
of serene dignity than in these solemn lines. The
reader may remember that one passage from it
has been quoted for a particular purpose, but here
is the whole poem : —
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TERMINUS. 247
TERMINUS.
It is time to be old.
To take in sail : —
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said : " No more I
No farther shoot
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs : no more invent ;
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There 's not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two ;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot ;
A little while
Still plan and smile,
And, — fault of novel germs, —
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires.
Bad husbands of their fires.
Who when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath
The needful sinew stark as once.
The baresark marrow to thy bones.
But left a legacy of ebbing veins.
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins, —
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.
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248 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
*« As the bird trims her to the gale
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime :
'Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed ;
The port, well worth the croisey is near^
And every wave is charmed.' "
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CHAPTER XL
1868-1873. ^t. 65-70.
Lectures on the Natnral History of the Intellect— Publication
of " Society and Solitude." Contents : Society and Solitude.
— Civilization. — Art. — Eloquence. — Domestic Life. -^
Farming. — Works and Days. — Books. — Clubs. — Cour-
age. — Success. — Old Age. — Other Literary Labors. —
Visit to California. — Burning of his House, and the Story
of its Rebuilding. — Third Visit to Europe. — His Reception
at Concord on his Return.
During three successive years, 1868, 1869,
1870, Emerson delivered a series of Lectures at
Harvard University on the " Natural History of
the Intellect." These Lectures, as I am told by
Dr. Emerson, cost him a great deal of labor, but
I am not aware that they have been collected or
reported. They will be referred to in the course
of this chapter, in an extract from Prof. Thay-
er's "Western Journey with Mr. Emerson."
He is there reported as saying that he cared
very little for metaphysics. It is very certain
that he makes hardly any use of the ordinary
terms employed' by metaphysicians. If he does
not hold the words " subject and object " with
their adjectives, in the same contempt that Mr.
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250 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Euskin shows for them, he very rarely employs
either of these expressions. Once he ventures
on the not me^ but in the main he uses plain
English handles for the few metaphysical tools
he has occasion to employ.
" Society and Solitude " was published in
1870. The first Essay in the volume bears the
same name as the volume itself.
In this first Essay Emerson is very fair to the
antagonistic claims of solitary and social life.
He recognizes the organic necessity of solitude.
We are driven " as with whips into the desert."
But there is danger in this seclusion. "Now
and then a man exquisitely made can live alone
and must ; but coop up most men and you undo
them. — Here again, as so often. Nature delights
to put us between extreme antagonisms, and our
safety is in the skill with which we keep the
diagonal line. — The conditions are met, if we
keep our independence yet do not lose our sym-
pathy."
The Essay on " Civilization " is pleasing, put-
ting familiar facts in a very agreeable way.
The V framed or stone-house in place of the cave
or the camp, the building of roads, the change
from war, hunting, and pasturage to agriculture,
the division of labor, the skilful combinations
of civil government, the diffusion of knowledge
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'' CIVILIZATION." 261
through the press, are well worn subjects which
he treats agreeably, if not with special bril-
liancy : —
" Right position of woman in the State is another
index. — Place the sexes in right relations of mutual
respect, and a severe morahty gives that essential
charm to a woman which educates all that is delicate,
poetic, and self-sacrificing ; breeds courtesy and learn-
ing, conversation and wit, in her rough mate, so that
I have thought a sufficient measure of civihzation is
the influence of good women."
My attention was drawn to one paragraph for
a reason which my reader will readily understand,
and I trust look upon good-naturedly : —
" The ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an
abridgment and compend of a nation's arts : the ship
steered by compass and chart, longitude reckoned by
lunar observation and by chronometer, driven by
steam ; and in wildest sea-mountains, at vast distances
from home, —
" * The pulses of her iron heart
Go beating through the storm.' '*
I cannot be wrong, it seems to me, in supposing
those two lines to be an incorrect version of
these two from a poem of my own called " The
Steamboat : "
" The beating of her restless heart
Still sounding through the storm."
It is never safe to quote poetry from memory,
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252 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
at least while the writer lives, for he is ready to
" cavil on the ninth part of a hair " where his
verses are concerned. But extreme accuracy was
not one of Emerson's special gifts, and vanity
whispers to the misrepresented versifier that
't is better to be quoted wrong
Than to be quoted not at all.
This Essay of Emerson's is irradiated by a
single precept that is worthy to stand by the side
of that which Juvenal says came from heaven.
How could the man in whose thought such a
meteoric expression suddenly announced itself
fail to recognize it as divine ? It is not strange
that he repeats it on the page next the one
where we first see it. Not having any golden
letters to print it in, I will underscore it for
italics, and doubly underscore it in the second
extract for small capitals : —
" Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every in-
stance of his labor, to hUch his wagon to a star, and
see his chore done by the gods themselves." —
" * It was a great instruction,* said a saint in Crom-
well's war, * that the best courages are but beams of
the Almighty.* HncH your wagon to a star.
Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot
and bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. No god
will help. We shall find all their teams going the
other way, — Charles*8 Wain, Great Bear, Orion,
Leo, Hercules : every god will leave us. Work rather
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''ART:' 268
for those interests which th^ divinities honor and
promote, — justice, love, freedom, knowledge, util-
ity." —
Charles's Wain and the Great Bear, he should
have been reminded, are the same constelUtion ;
the Dipper is what our people often call it, and
the country folk all know " the pTnters," which
guide their eyes to the North Star.
I find in the Essay on " Art " many of the
thoughts with which we are familiar in Emer-
son's poem, " The Problem." It will be enough
to cite these passages : —
" We feel in seeing a noble building which rhymes
well, as we do in hearing a perfect song, that it is
spiritually organic ; that it had a necessity in nature
for being ; was one of the possible forms in the
Divine mind, and is now only discovered and exe-
cuted by the artist, not arbitrarily composed by him.
And so every genuine work of art has as much reason
for being as the earth and the sun. —
— " The Iliad of Homer, the songs of David, the
odes of Pindar, the tragedies of JEschylus, the Doric
temples, the Gothic cathedrals, the plays of Shak-
speare, all and each were made not for sport, but
in grave earnest, in tears and smiles of suffering and
loving men. —
— " The Gothic cathedrals were built when the
builder and the priest and the people were over-
powered by their faith. Love and fear laid every
stone. —
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254 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
" Our arts are happy hits. We are like the musi-
cian on the lake, whose melody is sweeter than he
knows."
The discourse on " Eloquence " is more sys-
tematic, more professorial, than many of the
others. A few brief extracts will give the key
to its general purport : —
" Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest
narrative. Afterwards, it may warm itself until it
exhales symbols of every kind and color, speaks only
through the most poetic forms ; but, first and last, it
must still be at bottom a biblical statement of fact. —
" He who will train himself to mastery in this
science of persuasion must lay the emphasis of educar
tion, not on popular arts, but on character and in-
sight. —
— " The highest platform of eloquence is the moral
sentiment. —
— " Its great masters . . . were grave men, who
preferred their integrity to their talent, and esteemed
that object for which they toiled, whether the pros-
perity of their country, or the. laws, or a reformation,
or liberty of speech, or of the press, or letters, or
morals, as above the whole world and themselves
also."'
" Domestic Life " begins with a picture of
childhood so charming that it sweetens all the
good counsel which follows like honey round
the rim of the goblet which holds some tonio
draught : —
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*' farming:^ 255
" Welcome to the parents' the puny straggler,
strong in his weakness, his little arms more irresistible
than the soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion
which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not.
His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his
voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child,
— the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his
vexation, — soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful
and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so
little that all reason and all nature are on his side.
His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge,
and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue.
His flesh is angels' flesh, all alive. — All day, be-
tween his three or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-
house, sputters and spurs and puts on his faces of
importance ; and when he fasts, the little Pharisee
fails not to sound his trumpet before him."
Emerson has favored his audiences and read-
ers with what he knew about " Farming." Dr.
Emerson tells me that this discourse was read
as an address before the " Middlesex Agri-
cultural Society," and printed in the " Transac-
tions " of that association. He soon found out
that the hoe and the spade were not the tools he
was meant to work with, but he had some gen-
eral ideas about farming which he expressed
very happily : —
" The farmer's office is precise and important, but
you must not try to paint him in rose-color ; you can-
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256 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
not make pretty compliments to fate and gravitation,
whose minister he is. — This hard work will always
be done by one kind of man ; not by scheming specu-
lators, nor by soldiers, nor professors, nor readers of
Tennyson ; but by men of endurance, deep-chested,
long-winded, tough, slow and sure, and timely."
Emerson's chemistry and physiology are not
profound, but they are correct enough to make
a fine richly colored poetical picture in his im-
aginative presentation. He tells the common-
est facts so as to make them almost a sur
prise : —
" By drainage we went down to a subsoil we did
not know, and have found there is a Concord under
old Concord, which we are now getting the best crops
from ; a Middlesex under Middlesex ; and, in fine,
that Massachusetts has a basement story more valu-
able and that promises to pay a better rent than all
the superstructure."
In " Works and Days " there is much good
reading, but I will call attention to one or two
points only, as having a slight special intei^est of
their own. The first is the boldness of Emer-
son's assertions and predictions in matters be-
longing to science and art. Thus, he speaks of
" the transfusion of the blood, — which, in Paris,
it was claimed, enables a man to change his blood
as often as his linen ! " And once more,
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''BOOKS,'* 257
" We are to have the hallooD yet, and the next war
will be fought in the air."
Possibly ; but it is perhaps as safe to predict
that it will be fought on wheels ; the soldiers on
bicycles, the officers on tricycles.
The other point I have marked is that we find
in this Essay a prose version of the fine poem
printed in " May-Day " under the title " Days."
I shall refer to this more particularly hereafter.
It is wronging the Essay on " Books " to make
extracts from it. It is all an extract, taken from
years of thought in the lonely study and the pub-
lic libraries. If I commit the wrong I have
spoken of, it is under protest against myself.
Every word of this Essay deserves careful read-
ing. But here are a few sentences I have
selected for the reader's consideration : —
" There are books ; and it is practicable to read
them because they are so few. —
" I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and
I can seldom go there without renewing the convic-
tion that the best of it all is already within the four
walls of my study at home. —
" The three practical rules which I have to offer
are, 1. Never read any book that is not a year old.
2. Never read any but famed books. 3. Never
read any but what you like, or, in Shakspeare's
phrase, —
17
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258 RALPU WALDO EMERSON.
" * No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en ;
In brief, Sir, study what you most affect.' '*
Emerson has a good deal to say a-bout conver-
sation in his Essay on " Clubs," but nothing very
notable on the special subject of the Essay.
Perhaps his diary would have something of in-
terest with reference to the " Saturday Club," of
which he was a member, which, in fact, formed
itself around him as a nucleus, and which he at-
tended very regularly. But he was not given to
personalities, and among the men of genius and
of talent whom he met there no one was quieter,
but none saw and heard and remembered more.
He was hardly what Dr. Johnson would have
called a " clubable " man, yet he enjoyed the
meetings in his stiU way, or he would never have
come from Concord so regularly to attend them.
He gives two good reasons for the existence of a
club like that of which I have been speaking : —
" I need only hint the value of the club for bring-
ing masters in their several arts to compare and
expand their views, to come to an understanding on
these points, and so that their united opinion shall
have its just influence on public questions of educar
tion and politics."
" A principal purpose also is the hospitality of the
club, as a means of receiving a worthy foreigner with
mutual advantage."
I do not think " public questions of education
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'^courage:' 259
and politics " were very prominent at the social
meetings of the " Saturday Club," but " worthy
foreigners," and now and then one not so wor-
thy, added variety to the meetings of the com-
pany, which included a wide range of talents
and callings.
All that Emerson has to say about " Courage "
is worth listening to, for he was a truly brave
man in that sphere of action where there are
more cowards than are found in the battle-field.
He spoke his convictions fearlessly ; he carried
the spear of Ithuriel, but he wore no breastplate
save that which protects him
" Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill."
He mentions three qualities as attracting the
wonder and reverence of mankind: 1. Disin-
terestedness ; 2. Practical Power ; 3. Courage.
" I need not show how much it is esteemed, for
the people give it the first rank. They forgive
everything to it. And any man who puts his
life in peril in a cause which is esteemed be-
comes the darling of all men." — There are
good and inspiriting lessons for young and
old in this Essay or Lecture, which closes with
the spirited ballad of " George Nidiver," writ-
ten " by a lady to whom aU the particulars of
the fact are exactly known."
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260 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Men will read any essay or listen to any lec-
ture which has for its subject, like the one
now before me, " Success." Emerson complains
of the same things in America which Carlyle
groaned over in England : —
" We countenance each other in this life of show,
pufi^g advertisement, and manufacture of public
opinion ; and excellence is lost sight of in the hunger
for sudden performance and praise. —
"Now, though I am by no means sure that the
reader wiU assent to all my propositions, yet I think
we shall agree in my first rule for success, — that we
shall drop the brag and the advertisement and take
Michael Angelo*s course, ' to confide in one's self and
be something of worth and value.' "
Reading about "Success" is after all very
much like reading in old books of alchemy.
" How not to do it," is the lesson of all the
books and treatises. Geber and Albertus Mag-
nus, Koger Bacon and Raymond Lully, and the
whole crew of "pauperes alcumistaB," all give the
most elaborate directions showing their student
how to fail in transmuting Saturn into Luna
and Sol and making a billionaire of himself.
" Success " in its vulgar sense, — the gaining of
money and position, — is not to be reached by
following the rules of an instructor. Our " self-
made men," who govern the country by their
wealth and influence, have found their place by
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''OLD AGE.'' 261
adapting themselves to the particular circum-
stances in which they were placed, and not by
studying the broad maxims of " Poor Richard,"
or any other moralist or economist. — For such
as these is meant the cheap cynical saying quoted
by Emerson, ^^Sien ne rSussit mieux que le
succes.^^
But this is not the aim and end of Emerson's
teaching: —
"I fear the popular notion of success stands in
direct opposition in all points to the real and whole-
some success. One adores public opinion, the other
private opinion ; one fame, the other desert ; one
feats, the other humility ; one lucre, the other love ;
one monopoly, and the other hospitality of mind."
And so, though there is no alchemy in this
Lecture, it is profitable reading, assigning its
true value to the sterling gold of character, the
gaining of which is true success, as against the
brazen idol of the market-place.
The Essay on " Old Age " has a special value
from its containing two personal reminiscences :
one of the venerable Josiah Quincy, a brief
mention ; the other the detailed record of a visit
in the year 1825, Emerson being then twenty-
two years old, to ex-President John Adams, soon
after the election of his son to the Presidency.
It is enough to allude to these, which every
reader will naturally turn to first of alL
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262 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
But many thoughts worth gathering are
dropped along these pages. He recounts the
benefits of age ; the perilous capes and shoals it
has weathered ; the fact that a success more or
less signifies little, so that the old man may go
below his own mark with impunity ; the feeling
that he has found expression, — that his con-
dition, in particular and in general, allows the
utterance of his mind ; the pleasure of complet-
ing his secular affairs, leaving all in the best
posture for the future : —
" When life has been well spent, age is a loss of
what it can well spare, muscular strength, organic
instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these.
But the central wisdom which was old in infancy is
young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstruc-
tions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and
wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in no con-
dition old. I have heard that whenever the name of
man is spoken, the doctrine of inunortality is an-
nounced ; it cleaves to his constitution. The mode
of it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes to us from
the other side. But the inference from the working
of intellect, hiving knowledge, hiving skill, — at the
end of life just ready to be bom, — affirms the in-
spirations of affection and of the moral sentiment"
Other literary labors of Emerson during this
period were the Introduction to "Plutarch's
Morals " in 1870, and a Preface to William El-
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VISIT TO CALIFORNIA. 263
lery Channing's Poem, " The Wanderer," in
1872. He made a speech at Howard University,
Washington, in 1872.
In the year 1871 Emerson made a visit to
California with a very pleasant company, con«-
coming which Mr. John M. Forbes, one of whose
sons married Emerson's daughter Edith, writes
to me as follows. Professor James B. Thayer, to
whom he refers, has more recently written and
published an account of this trip, from which
some extracts will follow Mr. Forbes's letter : —
Boston, February 6, 1884.
My dear Dr., — What little I can give will )be
of a very rambling character.
One of the first memories of Emerson which comes
up is my meeting him on the steamboat at returning
from Detroit East. I persuaded him to stop over at
Niagara, which he had never seen. We took a car-
riage and drove around the circuit. It was in early
summer, perhaps in 1848 or 1849. When we came
to Table Rock on the British side, our driver took us
down on the outer part of the rock in the carriage.
We passed on by rail, and the next day's papers
brought us the telegraphic news that Table Rock had
fallen over ; perhaps we were among the last persons
on it!
About 1871 I made up a party for California, in-
cluding Mr. Emerson, his daughter Edith, and a
number of gay young people. We drove with B ,
the famous Vermont coachman, up to the Greysers,
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264 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and then made the journey to the Yosemite Valley
by wagon and on horseback. I wish I could give
you more than a mere outline picture of the sage at
this time. With the thermometer at 100° he would
sometimes drive with the bufEalo robes drawn up over
his knees, apparently indifferent to the weather, gaz-
ing on the new and grand scenes of mountain and
valley through which we journeyed. I especially
remember once, when riding down the steep side of a
mountain, his reins hanging loose, the bit entirely
out of the horse's mouth, without his being aware
that this was an unusual method of riding Pegasus,
so fixed was his gaze into space, and so unconscious
was he, at the moment, of his surroundings.
In San Francisco he visited with us the dens of the
opium smokers, in damp cellars, with rows of shelves
around, on which were deposited the stupefied Mon-
golians ; perhaps the lowest haunts of humanity to
be found in the world. The contrast between them
and the serene eye and undisturbed brow of the sage
was a sight for all beholders.
When we reached Salt Lake City on our way
home he made a point of calling on Brigham Young,
then at the summit of his power. The Prophet, or
whatever he was called, was a burly, bull-necked man
of hard sense, really leading a great industrial army.
He did not seem to appreciate who his visitor was, at
any rate gave no sign of so doing, and the chief in-
terest of the scene was the wide contrast between
these leaders of spiritual and of material forces.
I regret not having kept any notes of what was
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VI8IT TO CALIFORNIA. 266
said on this and other occasions, but if by chance you
could get hold of Professor J. B. Thayer, who was
one of our party, he could no doubt give you some
notes that would be valuable.
Perhaps the latest picture that remains in my mind
of our friend is his wandering along the beaches and
under the trees at Naushon, no doubt carrying home
large stealings from my domain there, which lost
none of their value from being transferred to his
pages. Next to his private readings which he gave
us there, the most notable recollection is that of his
intense amusement at some comical songs which our
young people used to sing, developing a sense of
humor which a superficial observer would hardly
have discovered, but which fo\x and I know he pos-
sessed in a marked degree.
Yours always,
J. M. Forbes.
Professor James B. Thayer's little book, " A
Western Journey with Mr. Emerson," is a very
entertaining account of the same trip concerning
which Mr. Forbes wrote the letter just given.
Professor Thayer kindly read many of his notes
to me before his account was published, and al-
lows me to make such use of the book as I see
fit. Such liberty must not be abused, and I will
content myself with a few passages in which
Emerson has a part. No extract will interest
the reader more than the following : —
" * How can Mr. Emerson,' said one of the younger
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266 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
members of the party to me that day, ' be so agree-
able, all the time, without getting tired ! ' It was
the naive expression of what we all had felt. There
was never a more agreeable travelling companion;
he was always accessible, cheerful, sympathetic, con-
siderate, tolerant; and there was always that same
respectful interest in those with whom he talked, even
the hmnblest, which raised them in their own estima-
tion. One thing particularly impressed me, — the
sense that he seemed to have of a certain great am-
plitude of tinie and leisure. It was the behavior of
one who really believed in an immortal Hf e, and had
adjusted his conduct accordingly ; so that, beautiful
and grand as the natural objects were, among which
our journey lay, they were matched by the sweet ele-
vation of character, and the spiritual charm of our
gracious &iend. Years afterwards, on that memo-
rable day of his funeral at Concord, I found that a
sentence from his own Essay on Inmiortality haunted
my mind, and kept repeating itself all the day long ;
it seemed to point to the sources of his power. Mean-
time the true disciples saw through the letter the doc-
trine of eternity, which dissolved the poor corpse,
and Nature also, and gave grandeur to the passing
hour."
This extract will be appropriately followed by
another alluding to the same subject.
" The next evening, Sunday, the twenty-third, Mr.
Emerson read his address on * Inmiortality,' at Dr.
Stebbins's churdb. It was the first time thiit he had
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ViaiT TO CALIFORNIA, 267
Spoken on the Western coast; never did he speak
better. It was, in the main, the same noble Essay '
that has since been printed.
" At breakfast the next morning we had the news-
paper, the ' Alta California.' It gave a meagre outr
line of the address, but praised it warmly, and closed
with the following observations : * All left the church
feeling that an elegant tribute had been paid to the
creative genius of the Great First Cause, and that a
masterly use of the English language had contributed
to that end.' "
The story used to be told that after the Eev-
erend Horace HoUey had delivered a prayer on
some public occasion, Major Ben. Eussell, of
ruddy face and ruffled shirt memory, Editor of
" The Columbian Centinel," spoke of it in his
paper the next day as " the most eloquent prayer
ever addressed to a Boston audience."
The "Alta California's" "elegant tribute"
is not quite up to this rhetorical altitude.
" ' The minister,' said he, * is in no danger of losing
his position ; he represents the moral sense and the
humanities.' He spoke of his own reasons for leaving
the pulpit, and added that ' some one had lately come
to him whose conscience troubled him about retaining
the name of Christian ; he had replied that he him-
self had no difficulty about it. When he was called
a Platonist, or a Christian, or a Republican, he wel-
comed it. It did not bind him to what he did not
like. What is the use of going about and setting up
a flag of negation ? ' "
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268 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
^'I made bold to ask him what he had in mind in
nanning his recent coarse of lectures at Cambridge,
* The Natural History of the Intellect.' This opened
a very interesting conversation; but, alas! I could
recall but little of it, — little more than the mere
hintings of what he said. He cared very little for
metaphysics. But he thought that as a man grows
he obserres certain facts about his own mind, —
about memory, for example. These he had set down
from time to time. As for making any methodical
history, he did not undertake it."
Emerson met Brigham Young at Salt Lake
City, as has been mentioned, but neither seems
to have made much impression upon the otheir.
Emerson spoke of the Mormons. Some one had
said, " They impress the common people, through
their imagination, by Bible-names and imagery."
" Yes," he said, "it is an after-clap of Puritan-
ism. But one would think that after this Father
Abraham could go no further."
The charm of Boswell's Life of Johnson is that
it not merely records his admirable conversation,
but also gives us many of those lesser peculiari-
ties which are as necessary to a true biography
as lights and shades to a portrait on canvas.
We are much obliged to Professor Thayer there-
fore for the two following pleasant recollections
which he has been good-natured enough to pre-
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VISIT TO CALIFORNIA. 269
serve for us, and with which we will take leave
of his agreeable little volume : —
''At breakfast we had, among other things, pie.
This article at breakfast was one of Mr. Emerson's
weaknesses. A pie stood before him now. He
offered to help somebody from it, who declined ;
and then one or two others, who also declined ; and
then Mr. ; he too declined. ' But Mr. ! '
Mr. Emerson remonstrated, with humorous empha-
sis, thrusting the knife under a piece of the pie, and
putting the entire weight of his character into his
manner, — ' but Mr. , what is pie for ? ' "
A near friend of mine, a lady, was once in the
cars with Emerson, and when they stopped for
the refreshment of the passengers he was very
desirous of procuring something at the station
for her solace. Presently he advanced upon her
with a cup of tea in one hand and a wedge of
pie in the other, — such a wedge ! She could
hardly have been more dismayed if one of Cae-
sar's cunei^ or wedges of soldiers, had made a
charge against her.
Yet let me say here that pie, often foolishly
abused, is a good creature, at the right time and
in angles of thirty or forty degrees. In semi-
circles and quadrants it may sometimes prove
too much for delicate stomachs. But here was
Emerson, a hopelessly confirmed pie-eater, never,
so far as I remember, complaining of dyspepsia;
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270 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
and there, on the other side, was Carlyle, feeding
largely on wholesome oatmeal, groaning with in-
digestion all his days, and living with half his
self -consciousness habitually centred beneath his
diaphragm.
Like his friend Carlyle and like Tennyson,
Emerson had a liking for a whifE of tobacco-
smoke : —
^^ When alone/' he said, ^^ he rarely cared to finish
a whole cigar. But in company it was singular to
see how different it was. To one who found it
difficult to meet people, as he did, the effect of a
cigar was agreeable ; one who is smoking may be as
silent as he likes, and yet be good company. And so
Hawthorne used to say that he found it On this
journey Mr. Emerson generally smoked a single ci-
gar after our mid-Klay dinner, or after tea, and occa-
sionally after both. This was multiplying, several
times over, anything that was usual with him at
home."
Professor Thayer adds in a note : —
" like Milton, Mr. Emerson ^ was extraordinary
temperate in his Diet,' and he used even less tobacco.
Milton's quiet day seems to have closed regularly
with a pipe; he * supped,' we are told, upon . . .
some light thing; and after a pipe of tobacco and a
glass of water went to bed."
As Emerson's name has been connected with
that of Milton in its nobler aspects, it can do no
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BURNING OF HIS HOUSE, 271
harm to contemplate him, like Milton, indulging
in this semi-philosophical luxury.
One morning in July, 1872, Mr. and Mrs.
Emerson woke to find their room filled with
smoke and fire coming through the floor of a
closet in the room over them. The alarm was
given, and the neighbors gathered and did their
best to put out the flames, but the upper part of
the house was destroyed, and with it were burned
many papers of value to Emerson, including his
father's sermons. Emerson got wet and chilled,
and it seems too probable that the shock hast-
ened that gradual loss of memory which came
over his declining years.
His kind neighbors did aU they could to save
his property and relieve his temporary needs.
A study was made ready for him in the old
Court House, and the " Old Manse," which had
sheltered his grandfather, and others nearest to
him, received him once more as its tenant.
On the 15th of October he spoke at a dinner
given in New York in honor of James Anthony
Froude, the historian, and in the course of this
same month he set out on his third visit to
Europe, accompanied by his daughter Ellen.
We have little to record of this visit, which was
suggested as a relief and recreation while his
home was being refitted for him. He went to
Egypt, but so far as I have learned the Sphinx
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272 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
had no message for him, and in the state of
mind in which he found himself upon the mys-
terious and dream-compelling Nile it may be
suspected that the landscape with its palm3 and
pyramids was an tmreal vision, — that, as to his
Humble-bee,
** All was picture as he passed."
Biit while he was voyaging his friends had not
forgotten him. The sympathy with him in his
misfortune was general and profound. It did
not confine itself to expressions of feeling, but
a spontaneous movement organized itself almost
without effort. If any such had been needed,
the attached friend whose name is appended to
the Address to the Subscribers to the Fund for
rebuilding Mr. Emerson's house would have
been as energetic in this new cause as he had
been in the matter of procuring the reprint of
" Sartor Resartus." I have his kind permission
to publish the whole correspondence relating to
the friendly project so happily carried out.
To the Subscribers to the Fund for the Rebuilding of Mr,
Emerson^ s House, after the Fire of July 24^ 1872 :
The death of Mr. Emerson has removed any objec-
tion 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
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STORY OF ITS REBUILDING, 278
affectionate letters in which he expressed his delight
in this, to him, most unexpected demonstration of
personal regard and attachment, in the offer to restore
for him his rained 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 suh-l
scription was most gratifying. No contribution was
solicited from any one. The simple suggestion to
a few friends of Mr. Emerson that an opportunity
was now offered to be of service to him was all that
was needed. From the first day on which it was
made, the day after the fire, letters began to come in,
with cheques for large and small amounts, so that
in less than three weeks I was enabled to send to
Judge Hoar the sum named in his letter as received
by him on the 13th of Aug^t, and presented by him
to Mr. Emerson the next morning, at the Old Manse,
with fitting words.
Other subscriptions were afterwards received, in-
creasing the amount on my book to eleven thousand
six hundred and twenty dollars. A part of this was
handed directiy to the builder at Concord. The bal-
ance was sent to Mr. Emerson October 7, and ac-
knowledged 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
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274 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
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.
Lb Babon Russell.
Boston, Jf ay 8, 1882.
Boston, Auqwt 13, 1872.
Deab Mb. Emebson :
It seems to have been the spontaneoos desire of
your friends, on hearing of the burning of your house,
to be allowed the pleasure of rebuilding it.
A few of them have united for this object, and
now request your acceptance of the amount which
I have to-day deposited to your order at the Concord
Bank, through the kindness of our friend. Judge
Hoar. They trust that you will receive it as an ex-
pression of sincere regard and affection from friends,
who will, one and all, esteem it a great privilege to
be permitted to assist in the restc»ration of your
home.
And if, in iheir eagerness to participate in so grate-
ful a work, they may have exceeded the estimate of
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STORY OF ITS REBUILDING, 276
joor 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 Babon Russell.
CoNCOBD, August 14, 1872.
Db. Le B. Russell:
Dear Sir, — I received your letters, with the check
for ten thousand dollars inclosed, from Mr. Barrett
last evening. This morning I deposited it to Mr.
Emerson's credit in the Concord National Bank, and
took a bank book for him, with his little balance
entered at the top, and this following, and carried it
to him with your letter. I told him, by way of pre-
lude, that some of his friends had made him treasurer
of an association who wished him to go to England
and examine Warwick Castle and other noted houses
that had been recently injured by fire, in order to get
the best ideas possible for restoration, and then to
apply them to a house which the association was
formed to restore in this neighborhood.
When he understood the thing and had read your
letter, he seemed very deeply moved. He said that
he had been allowed so far in life to stand on his
own feet, and that he hardly knew what to say, ^-
that the kindness of his friends was very great. I
said what I thought was best in reply, and told him
that this was the spontaneous act of friends, who
wished the privilege of expressing in this way their
respect and affection, knd was done only by those
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276 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
who thought it a privilege to do so. I mentioned
Hillard as you desired, and also Mrs. Tappan, who, it
seems, had written to him and offered any assistance
he might need, to the extent of five thousand dollars,
personally.
I think it is all right, hut he said he must see the
list of contributors, and would then say what he had
to say about it. He told me that Mr. F. C. Lowell,
who was his classmate and old friend, Mr. Bangs,
Mrs. Gumey, and a few other friends, had already
sent him five thousand dollars, which he seemed to
think was as much as he could bear. This makes
the whole a very gratifying result, and perhaps ex-
plains 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. B. HoAB.
Ck>NCORD, August 16, 1872.
My Deab Le Babon:
I have wondered and melted over your letter and
its accompaniments till it is high time that I shotdd
reply to it, if I can. My misfortunes, as I ha^e lived
along so far in this world, have been so few that I
have never needed to ask direct aid of the host of
good men and women who have cheered my life,
though many a gift has come to me. And this late
calamity, however rude and devastating, soon began
to look more wonderful in its salvages than in its
ruins, so that I can hardly feel any right to this
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STORY OF ITS REBUILDING, 277
munificent endowment with which you, and my other
friends through you, have astonished me. But I
cannot read your letter or think of its message with-
out delight, that my companions and friends bear me
so noble a good-will, nor without some new aspirations
in the old heart toward a better deserving. Judge
Hoar has, up to this time, withheld from me the
names of my benefactors, but you may be sure that I
shall not rest till I have learned them, every one, to
repeat to myself at night and at morning.
Your affectionate friend and debtor,
R W. Emebson.
Db. Lb Babon Kussell
CoNCOBD, October 8, 1872.
My deab Doctob Le Babon :
I received last night your two notes, and the
cheque, enclosed in one of them, for one thousand
and twenty dollars.
Are my friends bent on killing me with kindness ?
No, you will say, but to make me live longer. I
thought myself sufficiently loaded with benefits al-
ready, and you add more and more. It appears that
you all will rebuild my house and rejuvenate me by
sending me in my old days abroad on a young man's
excursion.
I am a lover of men, but this recent wonderful
experience of their tenderness surprises and occupies
my thoughts day by day. Now that I have all or
almost all the names of the men and women who
have conspired in this kindness to me (some of whom
I have never personally known), I please myself with
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278
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
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 so-
ciety of those with whom we best agree. Well, 't is
probably my own fault by sticking ever to my soli-
tude. Perhaps it is not too late to learn of these
friends a better lesson.
Thank them for me whenever yon 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 acknowlr
edgments to them and you.
Yours and theirs affectionately,
R. W. Emerson.
Dr. Le Baron Russell.
The following are the names of the subscrib-
ers to the fund for rebuilding Mr. Emerson's
house : —
Mrs. Anne S. Hoopep.
Miss Alice S. Hoopep.
Mrs. Caroline Tappan.
Miss Ellen S. Tappan.
Miss Mary A. Tappau.
Mr. T. G. Appleton.
Mrs. Henry Edwards.
Miss Susan E. Dorr.
Misses Wigglesworth.
Mr. Edward Wigglesworth.
Mr. J. Elliot Cabot.
Mrs. Sarah S. Bussell.
Friends in New Yopk and
Philadelphia, through Mr.
Williams.
Mr. William Whiting.
Mr. Frederick Beok.
Mr. H. P. Kidder.
Mrs. Abel Adams.
Mrs. George Faulkner.
Hon. E. R. Hoar.
Mr. James B. Thayer.
Mr. John M. Forbes.
Mr. James H. Beal.
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RECEPTION AT CONCORD.
279
Mrs. Anna C. Lodge.
Mr. H. H. HunneweU.
Mr. James A. Dupee.
Mrs. M. F. Sayles.
J. R. Osgood & Co.
Mr. Francis Greo. Shaw.
Mr. William P. Mason.
Mr. Sam'l G. Ward.
Mr. Geo. C. Ward.
Mr. John £. WiUiams.
Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge.
Mrs. S. Cabot.
Mrs. Anna C. Lowell.
Miss Helen L. Appleton.
Mr. Richard Soule.
Dr. R. W. Hooper.
Mr. William Gray.
Mr. J. I. Bowditch.
Mrs. Lucia J. Briggs.
Dr. Le Baron Russell.
In May, 1873, Emerson returned to Concord.
His friends and fellow-citizens received him with
every token of affection and reverence. A set
of signals was arranged to announce his arrival.
Carriages were in readiness for him and his fam-
ily, a band greeted him with music, and passing
under a triumphal arch, he was driven to his
renewed old home amidst the welcomes and the
blessings of his loving and admiring friends and
neighbors.
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CHAPTER Xn.
1873-1878. ^T. 70-75.
Pablication of "Pamasscis.^ — Emerson Nominated as Candi-
date for the Office of Lord Rector of Glasgow University. —
Publication of ** Letters and Social Aims." Contents :
Poetry and Imagination. — Social Aims. — Eloquence. —
Resources. — The Comic — Quotation and Originality. —
Progress of Culture. — Persian Poetry. — Inspiration. —
Greatness. — Immortality. — Address at the Unveiling of
the Statue of '' The Minute-Man ** at Concord.— Publication
of Collected Poems.
In December, 1874, Emerson published " Par-
nassus," a Collection of Poems by British and
American authors. Many readers may like to see
his subdivisions and arrangement of the pieces
he has brought together. They are as follows :
" Nature." — « Human Life." — " InteUectuaL"
— " Contemplation." — " Moral and Religious."
— " Heroic." — " Personal." — " Pictures." —
"Narrative Poems and Ballads." — "Songs." —
" Dirges and Pathetic Poems." — " Comic and
Humorous." — " Poetry of Terror." — " Oracles
and Counsels."
I have borrowed so sparingly from the rich
mine of Mr. George Willis Cooke's "Balph
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^'PARNAsaua,'' 281
Waldo Emerson, His Life, Writings, and Pliilos-
ophy," that I am pleased to pay him the respect-
ful tribute of taking a leaf from his excellent
work.
" This collection," he says,
^^ was the result of his habit, pursued for many years,
of copying into his commonplace book any poem
which specially pleased him. Many of these* favorites
had been read to illustrate his lectures on the English
poets. The book has no worthless selections, almost
everything it contains bearing the stamp of genius
and worth. Yet Emerson's personality is seen in its
many intellectual and serious poems, and in the small
number of its purely religious selections. With two
or three exceptions he copies none of those devotional
poems which have attracted devout souls. — His poet-
ical sympathies are shown in the fact that one third
of the selections are from the seventeenth century.
Shakespeare is drawn on more largely than any other,
no less than eighty-eight selections being made from
him. The names of George Herbert, Herrick, Ben
Jonson, and Milton frequently appear. Wordsworth
appears forty-three times, and stands next to Shake-
speare ; while Bums, Byron, Scott, Tennyson, and
Chaucer make up the list of favorites. Many little
known pieces are included, and some whose merit is
other than poetical. — This selection of poems is emi*
nently that of a poet of keen intellectual tastes. It
is not popular in character, omitting many public
favorites, and introducing very much which can never
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282 RALPH WALDO EMEB80N.
be acceptable to the general reader. The Preface is
fall of interest for its comments on many of the
poems and poets appearing in these selections."
I will only add to Mr. Cooke's criticism these
two remarks : First, that I have found it impos-
sible to know under which of his divisions to
look for many of the poems I was in search of ;
and as, in the earlier copies at least, there was
no paged index where each author's pieces were
collected together, one had to hunt up his frag-
ments with no little loss of time and patience,
under various heads, ^^ imitating the careful
search that Isis made for the mangled body of
Osiris." The other remark is that each one of
Emerson's American fellow-poets from whom he
has quoted would gladly have spared almost any
of the extracts from the poems of his brother-
bards, if the editor would only have favored us
with some specimens of his own poetry, with a sin-
gle line of which he has not seen fit to indulge us.
In 1874 Emerson received the nomination
by the independent party among the students of
Glasgow University for the office of Lord Rector.
He received five hundred votes against seven
hundred for Disraeli, who was elected. He says
in a letter to Dr. J. Hutchinson Sterling : —
^' I count that vote as quite the fairest laurel that
has ever tallen on me ; and I cannot but feel deeply
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''LETTERa AND SOCIAL AIMS:' 288
grateful to my young friends in the University, and
to yourself, who have been my counsellor and my too
partial advocate."
Mr. Cabot informs us in his Prefatory Note
to " Letters and Social Aims," that the proof
sheets of this volume, now forming the eighth
of the collected works, showed even before the
burning of his house and the illness which fol-
lowed from the shock, that his loss of memory
and of mental grasp was such as to make it
unlikely that he would in any case have been
able to accomplish what he had imdertaken.
Sentences, even whole pages, were repeated, and
there was a want of order beyond what even he
would have tolerated : —
" There is nothing here that he did not write, and
he gave his full approval to whatever was done in
the way of selection and arrangement; but I cannot
say that he applied his mind very closely to the
matter."
This volume contains eleven Essays, the sub-
jects of which, as just enumerated, are very va-
rious. The longest and most elaborate paper
is that entitled "Poetry and Imagination." I
have room for little more than the enumeration
of the different headings of this long Essay. By
these it will be seen how wide a ground it covers.
They are "Introductory;" "Poetry;" "Imag-
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284 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ination ; " " Veracity ; " " Creation ; " " Melody,
Bhythm, Form ; " " Bards and Trouvenrs ; "
" Morals ; " " Transcendency.'* Many thoughts
with which we are familiar are reproduced,
expanded, and illustrated in this Essay. Unity
in multiplicity, the symbolism of nature, and
others of his leading ideas appear in new phrases,
not imwelcome, for they look fresh in every re-
statement. It would be easy to select a score
of pointed sayings, striking images, large gener-
alizations. Some of these we find repeated in
his verse. Thus : —
" Michael Angelo is largely filled with the Creator
that made and makes men. How much of the original
craEt remains in him, and he a mortal man ! "
And so in the well remembered lines of " The
Problem": —
** Himself from Grod he could not free."
^' He knows that he did not make his thought, —
no, his thought made him, and made the son and
stars."
" Art might obey but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned."
Hope is at the bottom of every Essay of
Emerson's as it was at the bottom of Pandora's
box: —
" I never doubt the riches of nature, the gifts of
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''ELOQUENCE,'* 285
the fatare, the immense wealth of the mind. O yes,
poets we shall have, mythology, symbols, religion of
our own.
— " Sooner or later that which is now life shall be
poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a
richer strain to the song."
Under the title " Social Aims " he gives some
wise counsel concerning manners and conversa-
tion. One of these precepts will serve as a
specimen — if we have met with it before it is
none the worse for wear : —
" Shun the negative side. Never woVry people with
your contritions, nor with dismal views of politics or
society. Never name sickness; even if you could
trust yourself on that perilous topic, beware of un-
muzzling a valetudinarian, who will give you enough
of it"
We have had one Essay on " Eloquence " al-
ready. One extract from this new discourse on
the same subject must serve our turn : —
** These are ascending stairs, — a good voice, win-
ning manners, plain speech, chastened, however, by
the schools into correctness ; but we must come to the
main matter, of power of statement, — know your
fact ; hug your fact. For the essential thing is heat,
and heat comes of sincerity. Speak what you know
and believe ; and are personally in it ; and are an-
swerable for every word. Eloquence is the power to
i/
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286 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
translate a truth into language perfactly intelligible
to the person to whom you speak,'^
The italics are Emerson's.
If our learned and excellent John Cotton used
to sweeten his mouth before going to bed with
a bit of Calvin, we may as wisely sweeten and
strengthen our sense of existence with a morsel or
two from Emerson's Essay on " Besouroes " : —
*^ A Schopenhauer, with logic and learning and wit,
teaching pessimism, — teaching that this is the worst
of all possible worlds, and inferring that sleep is bet-
ter than waking, and death than sleep, — all the tal-
ent in the world cannot save him from being odions.
But if instead of these negatives you give me afi&rma-
tives ; if you tell me thafc there is always life for the
living ; that what man has done man can do ; that
this world belongs to the energetic ; that there is al-
ways a way to everything desirable ; that every man
is provided, in the new bias of his faculty, with a key
to natmre, and that man only rightiy knows himself
as far as he has experimented on things, — I am in-
vigorated, put into genial and working temper ; the
horizon opens, and we are foil of good-will and grati-
tude to the Cause of Causes.''
The Essay or Lecture on " The Comic " may
have formed a part of a series he had contem-
plated on the intellectual processes. Two or three
sayings in it will show his view sufficiently : —
^ The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to
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" QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY,'' 287
be an honest or well-intended halfness ; a non-per-
formance of what is pretended to be performed, at
the same time that one is giving loud pledges of
performance.
" If the essence of the Comic be the contrast in the
intellect between the idea and the false performance,
there is good reason why we should be affected by the
exposure. We have no deeper interest than our in-
tegrity, and that we- should be made aware by joke
and by stroke of any lie we entertain. Besides, a
perception of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel
in our metaphysical structure. It appears to be an
essential element in a fine character. — A rogue alive
to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is
lost, his fellow-men can do little for him."
These and other sayings of like purport are
illustrated by well-preserved stories and anec-
dotes not for the most part of very recent date.
"Quotation and Ori^nality" furnishes the
key to Emerson's workshop. He believed in
quotation, and borrowed from everybody and
every book. Not in any stealthy or shame-faced
way, but proudly, royally, as a king borrows from
one of his attendants the coin that bears his own
image and superscription.
<' All minds quote. Old and new make the warp
and woof of every moment. There is no thread that
is not a twist of these two strands. — We quote not
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288 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion,
customs, and laws ; nay, we quote temples and houses,
tables and chairs by imitation. —
<< The borrowing is often honest enough and comes
of magnanimity and stoutness. A great man quotes
bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his
memory serves him with a word as good.
^^ Next to the originator of a good sentence is the
first quoter of it." —
— " The Progress of Culture," his second Phi
Beta Kappa oration, has already been men-
tioned.
— The lesson of self-reliance, which he is
never tired of inculcating, is repeated and en-
forced in the Essay on " Greatness."
^^ There are certain points of identity in which
these masters agree. Self-respect is the early form in
which greatness appears. — Stick to your own ; don't
inculpate yourself in the local, social, or national
crime, but follow the path your genius traces like the
galaxy of heaven for you to walk in.
^^ Every mind has a new compass, a new direction
of its own, differencing its genius and aim from every
other mind. — We call this specialty the bias of each
individuaL And none of us will ever accomplish any-
thing excellent or commanding except when he listens
to this whisper which is heard by him alone."
If to follow this native bias is the first rule,
the second is concentration. — To the bias of the
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" INSPIRATION.*' 289
individual mind must be added the most catholic
receptivity for the gei^ius of others.
" Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar ?
It is this : Every man I meet is my master in some
point, and in that I learn of him." —
" The man whom we |iave not seen, in whom no
regard of self degraded the adorer of the laws, —
who by governing himself governed others ; sportive
in manner, but inexorable in act ; who sees longevity
in his cause ; whose aim is always distinct to him ;
who is sufiEered to be himself in society ; who carries
fate in his eye ; — ho it is whom we seek, encouraged
in every good hour that here or hereafter he shall be
found."
What has Emerson to tell us of "Inspira-
tion?"
"I believe that nothing great or lasting can be
done except by inspiration, by leaning on the secret
augury. —
" How many sources of inspiration can we count ?
As many as our affinities. But to a practical purpose
we may reckon a few of these."
I will enumerate them briefly as he gives
them, but not attempting to reproduce his com-
ments on each : —
1. Health. 2. The experience of writing let-
ters. 3. The renewed sensibility which comes
after seasons of decay or eclipse of the faculties.
19
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290 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
4. The power of the wilL 6. Atmospheric
causes, especially the influence of morning. 6.
Solitary converse with nature. 7. Solitude of
itself, like that of a country inn in ^summer, and
of a city hotel in winter. 8. Conversation. 9.
New poetry ; by which, he says, he means chiefly
old poetry that is new to the reader.
^^ £very book is good to read which sets the reader
in a working mood."
What can promise more than an Essay by
Emerson on " Immortality " ? It is to be feared
that many readers will transfer this note of in-
terrogation to the Essay itself. What is the
definite belief of Emerson as expressed in this
discourse, — what does it mean? We must tack
together such sentences as we can find that will
stand for an answer : —
'^ I think all sound minds rest on a certain prelimi-
nary conviction, namely, that if it be best that con-
scious personal life shall continue, it wiU continue ;
if not best, then it will not ; and we, if we saw the
whole, should of course see that it was better so."
This is laying the table for a Barmecide feast
of nonentity, with the possibility of a real ban-
quet to be provided for us. But he continues : —
^SchiUer said, 'What is so universal as death
must be benefit.' "
He tells u8 what Michael Angela said, how
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'' IMMORTALITY." 291
Plutarch felt, hovh Montesquieu thought about
the question, and then glances off from it to the
terror of the child at the thought of life without
end, to the story of the two skeptical statesmen
whose unsatisfied inquiry through a long course
of years he holds to be a better affirmative evi-
dence than their failure to find a confirmation
was negative. He argues from our delight in
permanence, from the delicate contrivances and
adjustments of created things, that the contriver
cannot be forever hidden, and says at last
plainly : —
" Everything is prospective, and man is to live
hereafter. That the world is for his education is the
only sane solution of the enigma."
But turn over a few pages and we may
read: —
"I confess that everything connected with our
personality fails. Nature never spares the individual ;
we are always balked of a complete success ; no pros-
perity is promised to our self-esteem. We have our
indemnity only in the moral and intellectual reality
to which we aspire. That is immortal, and we only
through that. The soul stipulates for no private good.
That which is private I see not to be good. ' If truth
live, I live ; if justice live, I live,' said one of the old
saints, ' and these by any man's suffering are enlarged
and enthroned.' '*
Once more we get a dissolving view of Emer-
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292 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
son's creed, if such a .word applies to a state-
ment like the following : —
— '< I mean that I am a better believer, and all
serious souls are better believers in the immortaUty
than we can give grounds for. The real evidence is
too subtle, or is higher than we can write down in
propositions, and therefore Wordsworth's ' Ode ' is the
best modem essay on the subject."
Wordsworth's " Ode " is a noble and beauti-
ful dream; is it anything more? The reader
who would finish this Essay, which I suspect to
belong to an early period of Emerson's develop-
ment, must be prepared to plunge into mysticism
and lose himself at last in an Oriental apologue.
The eschatology which rests upon an English
poem and an Indian fable belongs to the realm
of reverie and of imagination rather than the
domain of reason.'
On the 19th of April, 1875, the hundredth
anniversary of the " Fight at the Bridge," Em-
erson delivered a short Address at the unveiling
of the statue of " The Minute-Man," erected at
the place of the conflict, to commemorate the
event. This is the last Address he ever wrote,
though he delivered one or more after this date.
From the manuscript which lies before me I
extract a single passage : —
^<In the year 1775 we had many enemies and
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*' poems:' 293
many £riends in England, but our one benefactor was
King George the Third. The time had arrived for
the political severance of America, that it might play-
its part in the history of this globe, and the inscru-
table divine Providence gave an insane king to Eng-
land. In the resistance of the Colonies, he alone
was inmiovable on the question of force. England
was so dear to us that the Colonies could only be
absolutely disunited by violence from England, and
only one man could compel the resort to violence.
Parliament wavered. Lord North wavered, all the
ministers wavered, but the king had the insanity of
one idea ; he waa immovable, he insisted on the im-
possible, so the army was sent, America was instantly
united, and the Nation born."
There is certainly no mark of mental failure
in this paragraph, written at a period when he
had long ceased almost entirely from his literary
labors.
Emerson's collected " Poems " constitute the
ninth volume of the recent collected edition of
his works. They will be considered in a fol-
lowing chapter.
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CHAPTER Xin.
1878-1882. ^T. 75-79.
Last Literary Labors. — Addresses and Essays. — " Lectures
and Biographical Sketches/* — " Miscellanies."
The decline of Emerson's working faculties
went on gently and gradually, but he was not
condemned to entire inactivity. His faithful
daughter, Ellen, followed him with assiduous,
quiet, ever watchfid care, aiding his failing mem-
ory, bringing order into the chaos of his manur
script, an echo before the voice whose words it
was to ^hape for him when his mind faltered
and needed a momentary impulse.
With her helpful presence and support he
ventured from time to time to read a paper be-
fore a select audience. Thus, March 30, 1878,
he delivered a Lecture in the Old South Church,
— " Fortune of the Republic." On the 5th of
May, 1879, he read a Lecture in the Chapel of
Divinity College, Harvard University, — " The
Preacher." In 1881 he read a paper on Carlyle
before the Massachusetts Historical Society. —
He also published a paper in the ** North Amer-
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LAST LITERARY LABORS, 296
ican Review," in 1878, — " The Sovereignty of
Ethics," and one on " Superlatives," in " The
Century" for February, 1882.
But in these years he was writing little or
nothing. All these papers were taken from
among his manuscripts of different dates. The
same thing is true of the volumes published
since his death; they were only compilations
from his stores of unpublished matter, and their
arrangement was the work of Mr. Emerson's
friend and literary executor, Mr. Cabot. These
volimies cannot be considered as belonging to
any single period of his literary life.
Mr. Cabot prefixes to the tenth volume of
Emerson's collected works, which bears the title,
" Lectures and Biographical Sketches," the fol-
lowing : —
"NOTE.
"Of the pieces included in this volume the fot-
lowing, namely, those from ' The Dial,' * Character,*
* Plutarch,' and the biographical sketches of Dr.
Ripley, of Mr. Hoar, and of Henry Thoreaa, were
printed by Mr. Emerson before I took any part in
the arrangement of his papers. The rest, except the
sketch of Miss Mary Emerson, I got ready for his
use in readings to his friends, or to a limited public.
He had given up the regular practice of lecturing,
but would sometimes, upcm special request, read a
paper that had been prepared for him from his manu-
scripts, in the manner described in the Preface to
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296 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
^Letters and Social Aims,' •^— some former lecture
serving as a nucleus for the new. Some of these
papers he afterwards allowed to he printed ; others,
namely, * Aristocracy/ * Education/ ' The Man of Let-
ters,' *The Scholar,' * Historic Notes of Life and
Letters in New England,' * Mary Moody Emerson,'
are now published for the first time."
Some of these papers I have already had oc-
casion to refer to. From several of the others
I will make one or two extracts, — a difficult •
task, so closely are the thoughts packed together.
From " Demonology " : —
" I say to the table-rappers
* I will believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,'
And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate 1 "
" Meantime far be from me the impatience which
cannot brook the supernatural, the vast ; far be from
me the lust of explaining away all which appeals to
the imagination, and the great presentiments which
haunt us. Willingly I too say Hail ! to the unknown,
awful powers which transcend the ken of the under-
standing."
I will not quote anything from the Essay
called " Aristocracy." But let him who wishes
to know what the word means to an American
whose life has come from New England soil,
whose ancestors have breathed New England
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LAST LITERARY LABORS, 297
air for many generations, read it, and he will
find a new interpretation of a very old and often
greatly wronged appellation.
"Perpetual Forces" is one of those prose
poems, — of his earlier epoch, I have no doubt,
— in which he plays with the facts of science
with singular grace and freedom.
What man could speak more fitly, with more
authority of " Character," than Emerson ? When
he says, " If all things are taken away, I have
still all things in my relation to the Eternal,"
we feel that such an utterance is as natural to
his pure spirit as breathing to the frame in which
it was imprisoned.
We have had a glimpse of Emerson as a
school-master, but behind and far above the
teaching drill-master's desk is the chair from
which he speaks to us of " Education." Com-
pare the short and easy method of the wise man
of old, — " He that spareth his rod hateth his
son," with this other, " Be the companion of his
thought, the friend of his friendship, the lover
of his virtue, — but no kinsman of his sin."
" The Superlative " will prove light and pleas-
ant reading after these graver essays. MiyScv
ayav, — ne quid nimis, — nothing in excess, was
his precept as to adjectives.
Two sentences from " The Sovereignty of
Ethics " will go far towards reconciling elderly
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298 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
readers who have not forgotten the Westmin-
ster Assembly's Catechism with this sweet-souled
dealer in spiritual dynamite : —
'^ Lather would cut his hand off sooner than write
theses against the pope if he suspected that he was
bringing on with all his might the pale negations of
Boston Unitarianism. - —
<' If I miss the inspiration of the saints of Calvinism,
or of Platomsm, or of Buddhism, our times are not
up to theirs, or, more truly, have not yet their own
legitimate force."
So, too, this from " The Preacher " : —
'< All civil mankind have agreed in leaving one day
for contemplation against six for practice. I hope
that day will keep its honor and its use. — The Sab-
bath changes its forms from age to age, but the
substantial benefit endures."
The special interest of the Address called
" The Man of Letters " is, that it was delivered
during the war. He was no advocate for peace
where great principles were at the bottom of the
conflict : —
" War, seeking for the roots of strength, comes
upon the moral aspects at once. — War ennobles the
age. — Battle, with the sword, has cut many a Gror-
dian knot in twain which all the wit of East and
West, of Northern and Border statesmen could not
untie."
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E8BAY8. 299
** The Scholar " was delivered before two
Societies at the University of Virginia so late as
the year 1876. If I must select any of its wise
words, I will choose the questions which he has
himself italicized to show his sense of their im*
portance : —
" For all men, all women, Time, your country, your
condition, the invisible world are the interrogators :
W?u> are you? What do you? Can you obtain
what you wish ? Is there method in your conscious'
ness ? Can you see tendency in your life ? Can
you help any soul ?
" Can he answer these questions ? Can he dispose
of them ? Happy if you can answer them mutely in
the order and disposition of your life ! Happy for
more than yourself, a benefactor of men, if you can
answer them in works of wisdom, art, or poetry;
bestowing on the general mind of men organic cre-
ations, to be the guidance and delight of all who know
them."
The Essay on " Plutarch " has a peculiar value
from the fact that Emerson owes more to him
than to any other author except Plato, who is
one of the only two writers quoted of tener than
Plutarch. Mutato nomine^ the portrait which
Emerson draws of the Greek moralist might
stand for his own : —
"Whatever is eminent in fact or in fiction, in
opinion, in character, in institutions, in science —
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300 RALPH WALDO EMERSOK,
natural, moral, or metaphysical, or in memorable
sayings drew his attention and came to his pen with
more or less fulness of record.
" A poet in verse or prose must have a sensuous
eye, but an intellectual co - perception. Plutarch's
memory is full and his horizon wide. Nothing touches
man but he feels to be his.
" Plutarch had a religion which Montaigne wanted,
and which defends him from wantonness ; and though
Plutarch is as plain spoken, his moral sentiment is al-
ways pure. —
" I do not know where to find a book — to borrow
a phrase of Ben Jonson's — ' so ranmied with life,'
and this in chapters chiefly ethical, which are so
prone to be heavy and sentimental — His vivacity
and abundance never leave him to loiter or pound on
an incident —
^^In his immense quotation and allusion we quickly
cease to discriminate between what he quotes and what
he invents. — 'T is all Plutarch, by right of eminent
domain, and all property vests in this emperor.
'^ It is in consequence of this poetic trait in his
mind, that I confess that, in reading him, I embrace
the particulars, and carry a faint memory of the argu-
ment or general design of the chapter ; but he is not
less welcome, and he leaves the reader with a relish
and a necessity for completing his studies.
^' He is a pronounced idealist, who does not hesi-
tate to say, like another Berkeley, ' Matter is itself
privation.' —
'^ Of philosophy he is more interested in the results
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ESS ATS. 801
than in the method. He has a just instinct of the
presence of a master, and prefers to sit as a scholar
with Plato than as a disputant.
^^ His natural history is that of a lover and poet,
and not of a physicist.
" But though curious in the questions of the schools
on the nature and genesis of things, his extreme in-
terest in every trait of character, and his broad hu-
manity, lead him constantly to Morals, to the study
of the Beautiful and Good. Hence his love of heroes,
his rule of life, and his clear convictions of the high
destiny of the souL La Harpe said that ' Plutarch
is the genius the most naturally moral that ever ex-
isted.'
'* Plutarch thought * truth to be the greatest good
that man can receive, and the goodliest blessing that
God can give.'
" All his judgments are noble. He thought with
Epicurus that it is more delightful to do than to re-
ceive a kindness.
" Plutarch was well-born, well-conditioned — emi-
nently social, he was a king in his own house, sur-
rounded himself with select friends, and knew the
high value of good conversation. —
" He had that universal sympathy with genius
which makes all its victories his own ; though he never
used verse, he had many qualities of the poet in the
power of his imagination, the speed of his mental
associations, and his sharp, objective eyes. But what
specially marks him, he is a chief example of the
illumination of the intellect by the force of morals."
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802 RALPH WALDO EMERSOK,
How much of all this would have been recog-
nized as just and true if it had been set down in
an obituary notice of Emerson I
I have already made use of several of the other
papers contained in this volume, and will merely
enumerate all that follow the " Plutarch," Some
of £he titles will be sure to attract the reader.
They are " Historic Notes of Life and Letters in
New England ; " " The Chardon Street Conven-
tion ; " " Ezra Ripley, D. D. ; " " Mary Moody
Emerson;" "Samuel Hoar;" "Thoreau;"
" Carlyle." —
Mr. Cabot prefaces the eleventh and last
voliune of Emerson's writings with the follow-
ing " Note " : —
"The first five pieces in this volume, and the
* Editorial Address ' from the * Massachusetts Quar-
terly Review/ were published by Mr. Emerson long
ago. The speeches at the John Brown, the Walter
Scott, and the Free Religious Association meetings
were published at the time, no doubt with his consent,
but without any active co-operation on his part. The
* Fortune of the Republic ' appeared separately in
1879 ; the rest have never been published. In none
was any change from the original form made by me,
except in the * Fortune of the Republic,* which was
made up of several lectures for the occasion upon
which it was read."
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*' MISCELLANIES,'' 803
The volume of "Miscellanies" contains no
less than twenty -three pieces of very various
lengths and relating to many different subjects.
The five referred to as having been previously
published are, " The Lord's Supper," the " His-
torical Discourse in Concord," the " Address at
the Dedication of the Soldiers' Monument in
Concord," the "Address on Emancipation in the
British West Indies," and the Lecture or Essay
on " War," — all of which have been already
spoken of.
Next in order comes a Lecture on the " Fu-
gitive Slave Law." Emerson says, "I do not
often speak on public questions. — My own
habitual view is to the well-being of scholars."
But he leaves his studies to attack the institu-
tion of slavery, from which he says he himself
has never suffered any inconvenience, and the
"Law," which the abolitionists would always
call the " Fugitive Slave BilV Emerson had
a great admiration for Mr. Webster, but he did
not spare him as he recalled his speech of the
seventh of March, just four years before the
delivery of this Lecture. He warns against
false leadership : —
" To make good the cause of Freedom, you must
draw off from all foolish trust in others. — He only
who is able to stand alone is qualified for society.
And that I understand to be the end for which a
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804 BALFE WALDO EMERSON,
soul exists in this world, — to be himself the counter-
balance of all falsehood and all wrong. — The Anglo-
Saxon race is proud and strong and selfish. — Eng-
land maintains trade, not liberty."
Cowper had said long before this : —
" doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade."
And America found that England had not
learned that trade when, fifteen years after this
discourse was delivered, the conflict between
the free and slave states threatened the ruin of
the great Republic, and England forgot her
Anti-slavery in the prospect of the downfall of
" a great empire which threatens to overshadow
the whole earth."
It must be remembered that Emerson had
never been identified with the abolitionists. But
an individual act of wrong sometimes gives a
sharp point to a blunt dagger which has been
kept in its sheath too long : —
" The events of the last few years and months and
days have taught us the lessons of centuries. I do
not see how a barbarous community and a civilized
community can constitute one State. I think we must
get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom."
These were his words on the 26th of May,
1856, in his speech on " The Assault upon Mr.
Sumner."
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''MISCELLANIES,'' 306
A few montHs later, in his " Speech on the
Affairs of Klansas,'* delivered almost five years
before the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter,
he spoke the following fatally prophetic and
commanding words : —
" The hour is coming when the strongest will
not be strong enough. A harder task will the new
revolution of the nineteenth century be than was the
revolution of the eighteenth century. I think the
American Revolution bought its glory cheap. If
the problem was new, it was simple. If there were
few people, they were united, and the enemy three
thousand miles off. But now, vast property, gigantic
interests, family connections, webs of party, cover the
land with a net-work that inmiensely multiplies the
dangers of war,
" Fellow-citizens, in these times full of the fate of
the Republic, I think the towns should hold town
meetings, and resolve themselves into Committees of
Safety, go into permanent sessions, adjourning from
week to week, from month to month. I wish we
could send the sergeant-at-arms to stop every Ameri-
can who is about to leave the country. Send home
every one who is abroad, lest they should find no
country to return to. Come home and stay at home
while there is a country to save. When it is lost it
will be time enough then for any who are luckless
enough to remain alive to gather up their clothes and
depart to some land where freedom exists."
Two short speeches follow, one delivered at a
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806 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
meeting for the relief of the family of John
Brown, on the 18th of November, 1859, the
other after his execution : —
^' Our blind statesmen," he says, '^ go up and down,
with conmiittees of vigilance and safety, hunting for
the origin of this new heresy. They will need a
very vigilant committee indeed to find its birthplace,
and a very strcmg force to root it out. For the arch-
Abolitionist, older than Brown, and older than the
Shenandoah Mountains, is Love, whose other name
is Justice, which was before Alfred, before Lycurgus,
before Slavery, and will be after it."
From his " Discourse on Theodore Parker '' I
take the following vigorous sentence : —
**His conmianding merit as a reformer b this,
that he insisted beyond all men in pulpits, — I cannot
think of one rival, — that the essence of Christianity
is its practical morals ; it is there for use, or it is
nothing ; and if you combine it with sharp trading,
or with ordinary city ambitions to gloze over munic-
ipal corruptions, or private intemperance, or success-
ful fraud, or immoral politics, or unjust wars, or the
cheating of Indians, or the robbery of frontier nations,
or leaving your principles at home to follow on the
high seas or in Europe a supple complaisance to ty-
rants, — it is hypocrisy, and the truth is not in you;
and no love of religious music, or of dreams of
Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley, or of Jeremy
Taylor, can save you from the Satan which yon
are."
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" MISCELLANIES.'' 307
The Lecture on " American Civilization,"
made up from two Addresses, one of which was
delivered at Washington on the 31st of January,
1862, is, as might be expected, full of anti-
slavery. That on the " Emancipation Proclama-
tion," delivered in Boston in September, 1862, is
as full of " sil^it joy " at the advent of " a day
which most of us dared not hope to see, — an
event worth the dreadful war, worth its costs
and uncertainties."
From the " Eemarks " at the funeral services
for Abraham Lincoln, held in Concord on the
19th of April, 1865, I extract this admirably
drawn character of the man : —
" He is the true history of the American people in
his tune. Step by step he walked before them ; slow
with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs,
the true representative of this continent ; an entirely
public man ; father of his country, the pulse of twenty
millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their
minds articulated by his tongue."
The following are the titles of the remainmg
contents of this volume : " Harvard Commemo-
ration Speech;" "Editor's Address: Massar
chusetts Quarterly Review ; " " Woman ; " " Ad-
dress to Kossuth \ " " Robert Bums ; " " Walter
Scott ; " " Remarks at the Organization of the
Free Religious Association ; " " Speech at the
Annual Meeting of the Free Religious Associa-
tion ; " " The Fortune of the Republic."
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308 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
In treating of the " Woman Question," Emer-
son speaks temperately, delicately, with perfect
fairness, but leaves it in the hands of the women
themselves to determine whether they shall have
an equal part in public affairs. "The new
movement," he says, " is only a tide shared by
the spirits of man and woman; and you may
proceed in the faith that whatever the woman's
heart is prompted to desire, the man's mind is
simultaneously prompted to accomplish."
It is hard to turn a leaf in any book of Emer-
son's writing without finding some pithy remark
or some striking image or witty comment which
illuminates the page where we find it and tempts
us to seize upon it for an extract. But I must
content myself with these few sentences from
"The Fortune of the Republic," the last ad-
dress he ever delivered, in which his belief in
America and her institutions, and his trust in
the Providence which overrules all nations and
all worlds, have found fitting utterance : —
" Let the passion for America cast out the passion
for Europe. Here let there be what the earth waits
for, — exalted manhood. What this country longs for
is personalities, grand persons, to counteract its mate-
rialities. For it is the rule of the universe that com
shall serve man, and not man com.
"They who find America insipid, — they for whom
London and Paris have spoiled their own homes, can
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"MISCELLANIES." 309
be spared to return to those cities. I not only see a
career at home for more genius than we have, but for
more than there is in the world.
" Our helm is given up to a better guidance than
our own ; the course of events is quite too strong for
any helmsman, and our little wherry is taken in tow
by the ship of the great Admiral which knows the
way, and has the force to draw men and states and
planets to their good."
With this expression of love and respect for
his country and trust in his country's God, we
may take leave of Emerson's prose writings.
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CHAPTER XIV.
EMEBSON^S FOEBfS.
The following " Prefatory Note " by Mr.
Cabot introduces the ninth volume of the series
of Emerson's collected works : —
^'Tlus Yolome contains nearly all the pieces in-
cluded in the Poems and May-Day of former edi-
tions. In 1876 Mr. Emerson published a selection
from his poems, adding six new ones, and omitting
many. Of those omitted, several are now restored,
in accordance with the expressed wishes of many
readers and lovers of them. Also some pieces never
before published are here given in an Appendix, on
various grounds. Some of them appear to have had
Emerson's approval, but to have been withheld be-
cause they were un£nished. These it seemed best
not to suppress, now that they can never receive their
completion. Others, mostly of an early date, remained
unpublished doubtless because of their personal and
private nature. Some of these seem to have an auto-
biographic interest sufficient to justify their publica-
tion. Others again, often mere fragments, have been
admitted as characteristic, or as expressing in poetic
form thoughts found in the Essays.
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EMERSON'S POEMS. 811
" In eoming to a decision in these cases, it seemed
on the whole preferable to take the risk of including
too much rather than the opposite, and to leave the
task of further winnowing to the hands of time.
" As was stated in the Preface to the first volume
of this edition of Mr. Emerson's writings, the readings
adopted by him in the " Selected Poems " have not
always been followed here, but in some cases prefeiv
ence has been given to corrections made by him when
he was in fuller strength than at the time of the last
revision.
^^ A change in the arrangement of the stanzas of
" May-Day," in the part representative of the marck
of Spring, received his sanction as bringing them more
nearly in accordance with the events in Nature."
Emerson's verse has been a fertile source of
discussion. Some have called him a poet and
nothing but a poet, and some have made so
much of the palpable defects of his verse that
they have forgotten to recognize its true claims.
His prose is often highly poetical, but his verse
is something more than the most imaginative
and rhetorical passages of his prose. An illus-
tration presently to be given will make this point
clear.
Poetry is to prose what the so-called full dress
of the ball-room is to the plainer garments of
the household and the street. Full dress, as we
call it, is so full of beauty that it cannot hold it
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312 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,^
all, and the redundancy of nature overflows the
narrowed margin of satin or velvet.
It reconciles us to its approach to nudity by
the richness of its drapery and ornaments. A
pearl or diamond necklace or a blushing bouquet
exouses the liberal allowance of undisguised na-
ture. We expect from the fine lady in her
brocades and laces a generosity of display which
we should reprimand with the virtuous severity
of TartufiEe if ventured upon by the waiting-
maid in her calicoes. So the poet reveals him-
self under the protection of his imaginative and
melodious phrases, — the flowers and jewels of
his vocabulary.
Here is a prose sentence from Emerson's
" Works and Days : " —
" The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans.
They come and go like muffled and veiled figures,
sent from a distant friendly party ; but they say
nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring,
they carry them as silently away."
Now see this thought in full dress, and then
ask what is the difference between prose and
poetry : —
"DAYS.
** Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless ffle,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
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EMER80IP8 POEMS. 318
Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I too late
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn."
— Cinderella at the fireside, and Cinderella
at the prince's ball ! The full dress version of
the thought is glittering with new images like
bracelets and brooches and ear-rings, and fringed
with fresh adjectives like edges of embroidery.
That one word pleachSd^ an heir-loom from
Queen Elizabeth's day, gives to the noble sonnet
an antique dignity and charm like the effect of
an ancestral jewel. But mark that now the poet
reveals himself as he could not in the prosaic
form of the first extract. It is his own neglect
of his great opportunity of which he now speaks,
and not merely the indolent indifference of
others. It is himself who is the object of scorn.
Self-revelation of beauty embellished by orna-
ments is the privilege of full dress; self-reve-
lation in the florid costume of verse is the divine
right of the poet. Passion that must express
itself longs always for the freedom of rhythmic
utterance. And in spite of the exaggeration and
extravagance which shield themselves under the
claim of poetic license, I venture to affirm that
"/» vino Veritas " is not truer than In carmine
verit<M.
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814 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
As a further illustration of what has just
been said of the self-revelations to be looked for
in verse, and in Emerson's verse more especially,
let the reader observe how freely he talks about
his bodily presence and infirmities in his poetry,
— subjects he never referred to in prose, except
incidentally, in private letters.
Emerson is so essentially a poet that whole
pages of his are like so many litanies of alter-
nating chants and recitations. His thoughts slip
on and off their light rhythmic robes just as the
mood takes him, as was shown in the passage I
have quoted in prose and in verse. Many of
the metrical preludes to his lectures are a versi-
fied and condensed abstract of the leading doc-
trine of the discourse. They are a curious in-
stance of survival ; the lecturer, once a preach-
er, still wants his text; and finds his scriptural
motto in his own rhythmic inspiration.
Shall we rank Emerson among the great poets
or not ?
" The great poets are judged by the frame of mind
they induce ; and to them, of all men, the severest
criticism is due.'*
These are Emerson's words In the Preface to
*' Parnassus."
His own poems will stand this test as well as
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EMER80IP8 POEMS. 815
any in the language. They lift the reader into
a higher region of thought and feeling. This
seems to me a better test to apply to them
than the* one which Mr. Arnold cited from
Milton. The passage containing this must be
taken, not alone, but with the context. Milton
had been speaking of " Logic " and of " Rheto-
ric," and spoke of poetry " as being less subtile
and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passion-
ate." This relative statement, it must not be
forgotten, is conditioned by what went before.
If the terms are used absolutely, and not com-
paratively, as Milton used them, they must be
very elastic if they would stretch widely enough
to include all the poems which the world recog-
nizes as masterpieces, nay, to include some of
the best of Milton's own.
In spite of what he said about himself in his
letter to Carlyle, Emerson was not only a poet,
but a very remarkable one. Whether a great
poet or not will depend on the scale we use and
the meaning we affix to the term. The heat at
eighty degrees of Fahrenheit is one thing and the
heat at eighty degrees of Reaumur is a very
different matter. The rank of poets is a point
of very imstable equilibrium. From the days
of Homer to our own, critics have been dis-
puting about the place to be assigned to this or
that member of the poetic hierarchy. It is not
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816 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the most popular poet who is necessarily the
greatest ; Wordsworth never had half the pop-
ularity of Scott or Moore. It is not the mul-
titude of remembered passages which settles
the rank of a metrical composition as poetry.
Gray's " Elegy," it is true, is full of lines we all
remember, and is a great poem, if that term can
be applied to, any piece of verse of that length.
But what shall we say to the " Ars Poetica "
of Horace? It is crowded with lines worn
smooth as old sesterces by constant quotation.
And yet we should rather call it a versified criti-
cism than a poem in the full sense of that word.
And what shall we do with Pope's "Essay
on Man," which has furnished more familiar
lines than " Paradise Lost " and " Paradise Re-
gained " both together ? For all that, we know
that there is a school of writers who will not
allow that Pope deserves the name of poet.
It takes a generation or two to find out what
are the passages in a great writer which are to
become commonplaces in literature and conver-
sation. It is to be remembered that Emer-
son is one of those authors whose popularity
must diffuse itself from above downwards. And
after all, few will dare assert that " The Van-
ity of Human Wishes" is greater as a poem
than SheUey's " Ode to the West Wind,^' or
Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," because no
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EMERSON'S POEMS. 817
line in either of these poems is half so often
quoted as
<* To point a moral or adorn a tale."
We cannot do better than begin our consid-
eration of Emerson's poetry with Emerson's
own self -estimate. He says in a fit of humility,
writing to Carlyle : —
" I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low
department of literature, the reporters, suburban
men."
But Miss Peabody writes to Mr. Ireland : —
" He once said to me, * I am not a great poet —
but whatever is of me is a poetJ "
These opposite feelings were the oflFspring of
different moods and different periods.
Here is a fragment, written at the age of
twenty-eight, in which his self-distrust and his
consciousness of the " yision," if not " the faculty,
divine," are revealed with the brave nudity of
the rhythmic confessional : —
**A dull uncertain brain.
But gifted yet to know
That God has cherubim who go
Sing^g an immortal strain,
Immortal here below.
I know the mighty bards,
I listen while they sing,
And now I know
The secret store
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818 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Which these explore
When they with torch of genius pierce
The tenfold cloudfl that cover
The riches of the universe
From God's adoring lover.
And if to me it is not given
To fetch one ingot thence
Of that unfading gold of Heaven
His merchants may dispense,
Yet well I know the royal mine
And know the sparkle of its ore.
Enow Heaven's truth from lies that shine, —
Explored, they teach us to explore."
These lines are from " The Poet," a series
of fragments given in the " Appendix," which,
with his first volume, " Poems," his second,
"May-Day, and other Pieces," form the complete
ninth volmne of the new series. These frag-
ments contain some of the loftiest and noblest
passages to be found in his poetical works, and
if the reader should doubt which of Emerson's
self -estimates in his two different moods spoken
of above had most truth in it, he could question
no longer after reading " The Poet."
Emerson has the most exalted ideas of the
true poetic function, as this passage from " Mer-
lin " sufficiently shows : —
** Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear ;
Its chords should ring as hlows the hreeze>
Free, peremptory, clear.
I
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EMERSON'B POEMS. 319
No jingling serenader's art
Nor tinkling of piano-strings
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs ;
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard.
As with hammer or with mace ;
That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the snpersolar blaze.
Great is the art,
Great be the manners of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number ;
But leaving rule and pale forethought
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
'Pass in, pass in,' the angels say^
* In to the upper doors.
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise
By the stairway of surprise.' "
And here is another passage from " The Poet,"
mentioned in the quotation before the last, in
which the bard is spoken of as performing greater
miracles than those ascribed to Orpheus : —
" A Brother of* the world, his song
Sounded like a tempest strong
Which tore from oaks their branches broad,
And stars from the ecliptic road.
Time wore he as his clothing^weeds,
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820 RALPH WJA.DO EMERSON.
He sowed the son and moon for seeds.
As melts the iceberg in the seiu,
As clouds give rain to the eastern breeze.
As snow-banks thaw in April's beam.
The solid kingdoms like a dream
Resist in vain his motive strain.
They totter now and float amain.
For the Muse gave special charge
His learning should be deep and large.
And his training should not scant
The deepest lore oi wealth or want :
His flesh should feel, his e jes should read
Every maxim of dreadful Need ;
In its fulness he should taste
Life's honeycomb, but not too fast ;
Full fed, but not intoxicated ;
He should be loved ; he should be hated ;
A blooming child to children deai^
His heart should palpitate with fear."
We look naturally to see what poets were
Emerson's chief favorites. In his poems " The
Test" and "The Solution," we find that the
five whom he recognizes as defying the powers
of destruction are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare,
Swedenborg, Gx)ethe.
Here are a few of his poetical characterizations
from "The Harp:"—
<< And this at least I dare affirm,
Since genius too has bound and term.
There is no bard in all the choir,
Not Homer's self, the poet-sire,
Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleame^
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EMERSOIPa POEMS. 821
Or Shakespeare whom no mind can measure,
Nor Collins' verse of tender pain,
Nor Byron's clarion of disdain,
Scott, the delight of generous boys,
Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice, —
Not one of all can put in verse.
Or to this presence could rehearse
The sights and vmces ravishing
The boy knew on the hills in spring." —
In the notice of "Parnassus" some of his
preferences have been already mentioned.
Comparisons between men of genius for the
sake of aggrandizing the one at the expense of
the other are the staple of the meaner kinds of
criticism. No lover of art will clash a Venetian
goblet against a Roman amphora to see which
is strongest ; no lover of nature undervalues a
violet because it is not a rose. But comparisons
used in the way of description are not odious.
The difference between Emerson's poetry and
that of the contemporaries with whom he would
naturally be compared is that of algebra and
arithmetic He deals lai^ely in general sym-
bols, abstractions, and infinite series. He is al-
ways seeing the universal in the particular. The
great multitude of mankind care more for two
and two, something definite, a fixed quantity,
than for a + 5'* and a?**, — symbols used for
undetermined amounts and indefinite possibili-
21
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822 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ties. Emerson is a citizen of the imiverse who
has taken up his residence for a few days and
nights in this travelling caravansary between
the two inns that hang out the signs of Venus
and Mars. This little planet could not provin-
cialize such a man. The multiplication-table is
for the every day use of every day earth-people,
but the symbols he deals with are too vast, some-
times, we must own, too vague, for the unillumi-
nated terrestrial and arithmetical intelligence.
One cannot help feeling that he might have
dropped in upon us from some remote centre of
spiritual life, where, instead of addition and sub-
traction, children were taught quaternions, and
where the fourth dimension of space was as famil-
iarly known to everybody as a foot-measure or a
yard-stick is to us. Not that he himself dealt
in the higher or the lower mathematics, but he
saw the hidden spiritual meaning of things as
Professor Cayley or Professor Sylvester see the
meaning of their mysterious formulae. Without
using the Rosetta-stone of Swedenborg, Emeiv
son finds in every phenomenon of nature a hiero-
glyphic. Others measure and describe the monu-
ments, — he reads the sacred inscriptions. How
^ alive he makes Monadnoc! Dinocrates under-
took to "hew Mount Athos to the shape of
man" in the likeness of Alexander the Great.
Without the help of tools or workmen, Emers(Hi
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EMERSON'S POEMS, 328
makes ^' Cheshire's haughty hill " stand before
us an impersonation of kingly humanity, and
talk with us as a god from Olympus might have
talked. .
This is the fascination of Emerson's poetry ;
it moves in a world of universal symbolism. The
sense of the infinite fills it with its majestic
presence. It shows, also, that he has a keen
delight in the every-day aspects of nature* But
he looks always with the eye of a poet, never
with that of the man of science. The law of
association of ideas is wholly different in the two.
The scientific man connects objects in sequences
and series, and in ' so doing is guided by their
collective resemblances. His aim is to classify
and index all that he sees and contemplates so
as to show the relations which unite, and learn
the laws that govern, the subjects of his study.
The poet links the most remote objects together
by the slender filament of wit, the flowery chain
of ^ncy, or the living, pulsating cord of imagina-
tion, always guided by his instinct for the beauti-
ful. The man of science clings to his object, as
the marsupial embryo to its teat, until he has
filled himself as full as he can hold ; the poet
takes a sip of his dew-drop, throws his head up
like a chick, rolls his eyes around in contempla-
tion of the heavens above him and the universe in
general, and never thinks of asking a Linnaean
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824 RALPH WALDO EMERBON.
question as to the flower that furnished him
his dew-drop. The poetical and scientific natures
rarely coexist; Haller and Goethe are examples
which show that such a union may occur, but afi
a rule the poet is contented with the colors of
the rainbow and leaves the study of Fraunhof er's
lines to the man of science.
Though far from being a man of science,
Emerson was a realist in the best sense of that
word. But his realities reached to the highest
heavens : like Milton, - —
** He passed the flaming bounds of place and time ;
The living throne, the sapphire blaze
Where angels tremble while they gaze.
He saw"—
Everywhere his poetry abounds in celestial im-
Ag^^T- U Gralileo had been a poet as well as an
astronomer, he would ^hardly have sowed his
verse thicker with stars than we find them in the
poems of Emerson.
Not less did Emerson clothe the conunoQ as-
pects of life with the colors of his imagination.
He was ready to see beauty everywhere : —
" Thou can'st not wave thy staff in air,
Or dip thy paddle in the lake,
But it carves the bow of beauty there,
And the ripples in rhyme the oar'forsake."
He called upon the poet to
^' Tell men what they knew be£oro ;
Paint the prospect from their door."
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EM£R80IPS POEMS. 825
And his practice was like his counsel. He saw
our plain New England life with as honest New
England eyes as ever looked at a huckleberry-
bush or into a milking-pail.
This noble quality of his had its dangerous
side. In one of his exalted moods he would
have us
''Give to barrowSy trays and pans
Grace and glimmer of romance."
But in his Lecture on " Poetry and Imagina-
tion," he says : —
" What we once admired as poetry has long since
come to be a sound of tin pans ; and many of our
later books we have outgrown. Perhaps Homer and
Milton will be tin pans yet."
The " grace and glimmer of romance " which
was to invest the tin pan are forgotten, and he
uses it as a belittling object for comparison.
He himself was not often betrayed into the mis-
take of confounding the prosaic with the poetical,
but his followers, so far as the " realists " have
taken their hint from him, have done it most
thoroughly. Mr. Whitman enumerates all the
objects he happens to be looking at as if they
were equally suggestive to the poetical mind, fur-
nishing his reader a large assortment on which
he may exercise the fullest freedom of selec-
tion. It is only giving him the same liberty
that Lord Timothy Dexter allowed his readers
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826 RALPR WALDO EMERSON.
in the matter of punctuation, by leaving all
stops out of his sentences, and printing at the
end of his book a page of commas, semicolons,
colons, periods, notes of interrogation and ex-
clamation, with which the reader was expected
to "pepper" the pages as he might see fit.
French realism does not stop at the tin pan,
but must deal with the slop-pail and the wash-
tub as if it were literally true that
" In the mud and scum of things
There alway, alway something sings."
Happy were it for the world if M. Zola and his
tribe would stop even there ; but when they cross
the borders of science into its infected districts,
leaving behind them the reserve and delicacy
which the genuine scientific observer never for-
gets to carry with him, they disgust even those
to whom the worst scenes they describe are too
wretchedly familiar. The true realist is such a
man as Parent du Chatelet ; exploring all that
most tries the senses and the sentiments, and
reporting all truthfully, but soberly, chastely,
without needless circumstance, or picturesque
embellishment, for a useful end, and not for a
mere sensational effect.
What a range of subjects from " The Prob-
lem " and " Uriel " and "Forenmners " to " The
Humble-Bee" and "The Titmouse!" Nor let
the reader who thinks the poet must go far to
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EMERaON*a POEMS. 827
find a fitting theme fail to read the singularly-
impressive home-poem, " Hamatreya," beginning
with the names of the successive owners of a
piece of land in Concord, — probably the same
he owned after the last of them : —
"Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,"
and ending with the austere and solemn " Earth-
Song."
Full of poetical feeling, and with a strong
desire for poetical expression, Emerson experi-
enced a difi&culty in the mechanical part of met-
rical composition. His muse picked her way as
his speech did in conversation and in lecturing.
He made desperate work now and then with
rhyme and rhythm, showing that though a born
poet he was not a born singer. Think of mak-
ing " feeble " rhyme with " people," " abroad "
with "Lord," and contemplate the following
couplet which one cannot make rhyme without
actual verbicide : —
" Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear,
And up the tall mast runs the woodpeck "- are !
And how could prose go on all-fours more un-
metrically than this ?
" In Adirondac lakes
At mom or noon the guide rows bare-headed."
It was surely not difficult to say —
*^ At mom or noon bare-headed rows the guide."
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828 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
And yet while we note these blemishes, many of
us will confess that we like his uncombed verse
better, oftentimes, than if it were trimmed more
neatly and disposed more nicely. When he is
at his best, his lines flow with careless ease, as a
mountain stream tmnbles, sometimes rough and
sometimes smooth, but all the more interesting
for the rocks it nms against and the grating of
the pebbles it rolls over.
There is one trick of verse which Emerson
occasionally, not very often, indulges in. This
is the crowding of a redundant syllable into a
line. It is a liberty which is not to be abused by
the poet. Shakespeare, the supreme artist, and
Milton, the " mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmo-
nies," knew how to use it effectively. Shelley
employed it freely. Bryant indulged in it oc-
casionally, and wrote an article in an early num-
ber of the "North American Review " in defence
of its use. Willis was fond of it. As a relief
to monotony it may be now and then allowed,
— may even have an agreeable effect in breaking
the monotony of too formal verse. But it may
easily become a deformity and a cause of aver-
sion. A humpback may add picturesqueness to
a procession, but if there are too many hump-
backs in line we turn away from the sight of
them. Can any ear reconcile itself to the last
of these three lines of Emerson's ?
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EMERSON'S POEMS. 329
** Oh, what is Heaven but the fellowship
Of minds that each can stand against the world
By its own meek and incorruptible will ? "
These lines that lift their backs up in the mid-
dle — span-worm lines, we may call them — are
not to be commended for common use because
some great poets have now and then admitted
them. They have invaded some of our recent
poetry as the canker-worms gather on our elms
in June. Emerson has one or two of them here
and there, but they never swarm on his leaves
so as to frighten us away from their neighbor-
hood.
As for the violently artificial rhythms and
rhymes which have reappeared of late in English
and American literature, Emerson would as soon
have tried to ride three horses at once in- a cir-
cus as to shut himself up in triolets, or attempt
any cat's -cradle tricks of rhyming sleight of
hand.
If we allow that Emerson is not a bom singer,
that he is a careless versifier and rhymer, we
must still recognize that there is something in
his verse which belongs, indissolubly, sacredly,
to his thought. Who would decant the wine
of his poetry from its quaint and antique-look-
ing lagena ? — Read his poem to the -Solian
harp (" The Harp ") and his model betrays it-
self:—
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380 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" These syllables that Nature spoke,
And the thoughts that in him woke
Can adequately utter none
Save to his ear the wind-harp lone.
Therein I hear the Parcse reel
The threads of man at their humming wheel.
The threads of life and power and pain,
So sweet and mournful falls the strain.
And best can teach its Delphian chord
How Nature to the soul is moored,
If once ag^ain that silent string,
As erst it wont, would thrill and ring."
There is nd need of quoting any of the poems
which have become familiar to most true lov-
ers of poetry. Emerson saw fit to imitate the
Egyptians by placing "The Sphinx" at the
entrance of his temple of song. This poem was
not fitted to attract worshippers. It is not easy
of comprehension, not pleasing in movement.
As at first written it had one verse in it which
sounded so much like a nursery rhyme that
Emerson was prevailed upon to omit it in the
later versions. There are noble passages in it,
but they are for the adept and not for the begin-
ner. A commonplace young person taking up
the volume and puzzling his or her way along
will come by and by to the verse : —
** Have I a lover
Who is noble and free ?—
I would he were nobler
Than to love me."
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EMERSON'S POEMS. 831
The commonplace young person will be apt to
say or think g est magnifique^ mais pe rHest pas
— r amour.
The third poem in the volume, " The Prob-
lem," should have stood first in order. This
ranks among the finest of Emerson's poems.
All his earlier verse has a certain freshness
which belongs to the first outburst of song in a
poetic nature. " Each and All," " The Humble-
Bee," " The Snow-Storm," should be read before
"Uriel," "The World-Soul," or " Mithridates."
"Monadnoc" will be a good test of the read-
er's taste for Emerson's poetry, and after this
" Woodnotes."
In studying his poems we must not overlook
the delicacy of many of their descriptive por-
tions. If in the flights of his imagination he
is like the strong-winged bird of passage, in his
exquisite choice of descriptive epithets he re-
minds me of the tenui-rostrals. His subtle selec-
tive instinct penetrates the vocabulary for the
one word he wants, as the long, slender bill of
those birds dives deep into the flower for its
drop of honey. Here is a passage showing admi-
rably the two different conditions : wings closed
and the selective instinct picking out its de-
scriptive expressions ; then suddenly wings flash-
ing open and the imagination in the firmament,
where it is always at home. Follow the pitiful
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332 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
inventory of insignificances of the forlorn being
he describes with a pathetic humor more likely
to bring a sigh than a smile, and then mark the
grand hyperbole of the last two lines. The pas-
sage is from the poem called " Destiny " : —
^ Alas I that one is bom in blight,
Vicfcim of perpetual sli^t :
When thou lookest on his face,
Thy heart saith * Brother, go thy ways I
None bhall ask thee what thon doest,
Or care a rush for what thou knowest,
Or listen when thou repliest,
Or remember where thou liest,
Or how thy supper is sodden ; '
And another is bom
To make the sun forgotten."
Of all Emerson's poems the " Concord Hymn '^
is the most nearly complete and faultless, — but
it is not distinctively Emersonian. It is such
a poem as Collins might have written, — it has
the very movement and melody of the "Ode
on the Death of Mr. Thomson," and of the
" Dirge in Cymbeline," with the same sweetness
and tenderness of feeling. Its one conspicuous
line,
"And fired the shot heard round the world,"
must not take to itself all the praise deserved
by this perfect little poem, a model for all of
its kind. Compact, expressive, serene, solemn,
musical, in four brief verses it tells the story of
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EMERSOIPa POEMS. 833
the past, records the commemorative act of the
passing day, and invokes the higher Power that
governs the future to protect the Memorial-stone
sacred to Freedom and her martyrs.
These poems of Emerson's find the readers
that must listen to them and delight in them, as
the " Ancient Mariner " fastened upon the man
who must hear him. If any doubter wishes to
test his fitness for reading them, and if the
poems already mentioned are not ' enough to
settle the question, let him read the paragraph
kA " MayvDay," beginning, —
" I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth,"
** Sea-shore," the fine fragments in the " Ap-
pendix " to his published works, called, collec-
tively, "The Poet," blocks bearing the mark
of poetic genius, but left lying roimd for want
of the structural instinct, and last of all, that
which is, in many respects, first of all, the
"Threnody," a lament over the death of his
first-bom son. This poem has the dignity of
*' Lycidas " without its refrigerating classicism,
and with all the tenderness of Cowper's lines
on the receipt of his mother's picture. It may
well compare with others of the finest memorial
poems in the language, — with Shelley's " Ado-
nais," and Matthew Arnold's " Thyrsis," leaving
out of view Tennyson's " In Memoriam " as of
wider scope and larger pattern.
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384 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Many critics will concede that there is much
truth in Mr. Arnold's remark on the want of
" evolution " in Emerson's poems. One is struck
with the fact that a great number of fragments
lie about his poetical workshop: poems begun
and never finished; scraps of poems, chips of
poems, paving the floor with intentions never
carried out. One cannot help remembering Cole-
ridge with his incomplete " Christabel," and his
"Abyssinian Maid," and her dulcimer which
she never got a tune out of. We all know that
there was good reason why Coleridge should have
been infirm of purpose. But when we look at
that great unfinished picture over which AUston
labored with the hopeless ineffectiveness of Sisy-
phus ; when we go through a whole gallery of
pictures by an American artist in which the
backgrounds are slighted as if our midsummer
heats had taken away half the artist's life and
vigor; when we* walk round whole rooms full of
sketches, impressions, effects, symphonies, invisi-
bilities, and other apologies for honest work, it
would not be strange if it should suggest a pain-
ful course of reflections as to the possibility that
there may be something in our climatic or
other conditions which tends to scholastic and
artistic anaemia and insufficiency, — the opposite
of what we find showing itself in the full-blooded
verse of poets like Browning and on the flaming
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EMERSON'S POEMS. 335
canvas of painters like Henri Regnault. Life
seemed lustier in Old England than in New
England to Emerson, to Hawthorne, and to that
admirable observer, Mr. John Burroughs. Per-
haps we require another century or two of accli-
mation.
Emerson never grappled with any considerable
metrical difficulties. He wrote by preference in
what I have ventured to call the normal respir-
atory measure, — octosyllabic verse, in which
one common expiration is enough and not too
much for the articulation of each line. The
" fatal facility " for which this verse is noted
belongs to it as recited and also as written, and
it implies the need of only a minimum of skill
and labor. I doubt if Emerson would have writ-
ten a verse of poetry if he had been obliged to
use the. Spenserian stanza. In the simple meas-
ures he habitually employed he found least
hindrance to his thought.
Every true poet has an atmosphere as much
as every great painter. The golden sunshine of
Claude and the pearly mist of Corot belonged
to their way of looking at naturiB as much as the
color of their eyes and hair belonged to their
personalities. So with the poets; for Words-
worth the air is always serene and clear, for
Byron the sky is uncertain between storm and
sunshine. Emerson isees all nature in the same
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836 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
pearly mist that wraps the willows and the
streams of Corot. Without its own character-
istic atmosphere, illuminated by
" The light that never was on sea or land,**
we may have good verse but no true poem. In
his poetry there is not merely this atmosphere,
but there is always a mirage in the horizon.
Emerson's poetry is eminently subjective, —
if Mr. Ruskin, who hates the word, will pardon
me for using it in connection with a reference
to two of his own chapters in his "Modem
Painters." These are the chapter on " The
Pathetic Fallacy," and the one which follows it
" On Classical Landscape." In these he treats
of the transfer of a writer's mental or emotional
conditions to the external nature which he con-
templates. He asks his readers to follow him in
a long examination of what he calls by the sin-
gular name mentioned, " the pathetic fallacy,"
because, he says, "he will find it eminently
characteristic of the modem mind ; and in the
landscape, whether of literature or art, he will
also find the modem painter endeavoring to
express something which he, as a living creature,
imagines in the lifeless object, while the classical
and mediaeval painters were content with ex-
pressing the unimaginary and actual qualities of
the object itself."
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EMERSON'S POEMS, 887
Illustrations of Mr. Buskin's "pathetic fal-
lacy " may be found almost anywhere in Emer-
son's poems. Here is one which offers itself
without search : —
<< Daily the bending skies solicit man,
The seasons chariot him from this exile,
The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing wheels,
The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along,
Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights
Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home."
The expression employed by Ruskin gives the
idea that he is dealing with a defect. If he
had called the state of mind to which he refers
the sympathetic illusion^ his readers might have
looked upon it more justly.
It would be a pleasant and not a difficult task
to trace the resemblances between Emerson's
poetry and that of other poets. Two or three
such resemblances have been incidentally re-
ferred to, a few others may be mentioned.
In his contemplative study of Nature he re-
minds us of Wordsworth, at least in certain
brief passages, but he has not the staying power
of that long-breathed, not to say long-winded,
lover of landscapes. Both are on the most in-
timate terms with Nature, but Emerson contem-
plates himself as belonging to her, while Words-
worth feels as if she belonged to him.
^ 22
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388 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
** Grood-by, proad world,"
recalls Spenser and Raleigh. "The Humble-
Bee " is strongly marked by the manner and
thought of MarvelL Marvell's
** Annihilatinfi^ all thai 's made
To a green thought in a green shade/'
may well have suggested Emerson's
<< The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow, breezy bass."
" The Snow-Storm " naturally enough brings
to mind the descriptions of Thomson and of
Cowper, and fragment as it is, it will not sufEer
by comparison with either.
" Woodnotes," one of his best poems, has
passages that might have been found in Milton's
" Comus ; " this, for instance : —
" All constellations of the sky
Shed their virtue through his eye.
Him Nature giveth for defence **
His formidable innocence."
Of course his Persian and Indian models be-
tray themselves in many of his poems, some of
which, called translations, sound as if they were
original.
So we follow him from page to page and find
him passing through many moods, but with one
pervading spirit : —
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EMERSON'S POEMS. 839
** Melting matter into dreams,
Panoramas which I saw,
And whatever glows or seems
Into substance, into Law."
We think in reading his " Poems " of these
words of Sainte-Beuve : —
<< The greatest poet is not he who has done the
best ; it is he who suggests the most ; he, not all of
whose meaning is at first obvious, and who leaves
you much to desire, to explain, to study; much to
complete in your turn."
Just what he shows himself in his prose,
Emerson shows himself in his verse. Only
when he gets into rhythm and rhyme he lets
us see more of his personality, he ventures upon
more audacious imagery, his flight is higher and
swifter, hfi brief crystalline sentences have dis-
solved and pour in continuous streams. Where
they came from, or whither they flow to empty
themselves, we cannot always say, — it is enough
to enjoy them as they flow by us.
Incompleteness — want of beginning, middle,
and end, — is their too conmion fault. His pages
are too much like those artists' studios all hung
round with sketches and " bits " of scenery.
" The Snow-Storm " and " Seashore " are " bits "
out of a landscape that was never painted, ad-
mirable, so far as they go, but forcing us to ask,
^^ Where is the painting for which these scraps
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840 RALPH WALDO EMERBON.
are studies ? " or ^^Out of what great picture have
these pieces been cut ? "
We do not want his fragments to be made
wholes, — if we did, what hand could be found
equal to the task ? We do not want his rhythms
and rhymes smoothed and made more melodious.
They are as honest as Chaucer's, and we like
them as they are, not modernized or manipulated
by any versifying drill-sergeant, — if we wanted
them reshaped whom could we trust to meddle
with them?
His poetry is elemental; it has the rock be-
neath it in the eternal laws on which it rests ;
the roll of deep waters in its grander harmonies ;
its air is full of .^lian strains that waken and
. die away as the breeze wanders oyer them ; and
through it shines the white starlight, and from
time to time flashes a meteor that startles us
with its sudden brilliancy.
y After all our criticisms, our selections, our
analyses, our comparisons, w« have to recognize
that there is a charm in Emerson's poems which
cannot be defined any more than the fragrance
i of a rose or a hyacinth, — any more than the
tone of a voice which we should know from all
others if all mankind were to pass before us, and
each of its articulating representatives should
call us by name.
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EMERSON'S POEMS. 841
All our crucibles and alembics leave unac-
counted for the great mystery of style. " The
style is of [a part of] the man himself," said
Buffon, and this saying has passed into the
stronger phrase, " The style is the man."
The " personal equation " which differentiates
two observers is not confined to the tower of
the astronomer. Every human being is individ-
ualized by a new arrangement of elements. His
mind is a safe with a lock to which only certain
letters are the key. His ideas follow in an order
of their own. His words group themselves to-
gether in special sequences, in peculiar rhythms,
in unlooked-for combinations, the total effect of
which is to stamp all that he says or writes with
his individuality. We may not be able to assign
the reason of the fascination the poet we have
been considering exercises over us. But this we
can say, that he lives in the highest atmosphere
of thought ; that he is always in the presence
of the infinite, and ennobles the accidents of hu-
man existence so that they partake of the ab-
solute and eternal while he is looking at them ;
that he unites a royal dignity of manner with
the simplicity of primitive nature; that his
words and phrases arrange themselves, as if by
an elective affinity of their own, with a ct/ri-
osa fdicitas which captivates and enthrals the
reader who comes fully under its influince, and
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342 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
that through all he sings as in all he says for
lid ive recognize the same serene, high, pure in-
gence and moral nature, infinitely precious
s,not only in themselves, but as a promise of
,t the transplanted life, the air and soil and
jding of this western world may yet educe
Q their potential virtues, shaping themselves,
Bngth, in a literature as much its own as the
ky Mountains and the Mississippi.
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CHAPTER XV.
Recollections of Emerson's Last Tears. — Mr. Conway's
YisitSi — Extracts from Mr. Whitman's Journal. — Dr. Le
Baron Rossell's Visit. — Dr. Edward Emepson's Account.
— Illness and Death. — Funeral Services.
Mb. Conway gives the following account of
two visits to Emerson after the decline of his
faculties had begun to make itself obvious : —
" In 1875, when I stayed at his house in Concord for /^
a little time, it was sad enough to find him sitting as a
listener before those who used to sit at his feet in -
silence. But when alone with him he conversed in the
old way, and his faults of memory seemed at times to
disappear. There was something striking in the kind
of forgetfulness by which he suffered. He remem-
bered the realities and uses of things when he could
not recall their names. He would describe what he
wanted or thought of; when he could not recall
< chair' he could speak of that which supports the
human frame, and ^ the implement that cultivates the
soil ' must do for plough. —
** In 1880, when I was last in Concord, the trou-
ble had made heavy strides. The intensity of his
silent attention to every word that was said was
painful, suggesting a concentration of his powers
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844 RALPH WALDO EMERSOIT.
to break through the invisible walls closing around
them. Tet his face was serene ; he was even cheer^
^/ ful, and joined in our laughter at some letters his
eldest daughter had preserved, from young girls,
trying to coax autograph letters, and in one case
asking for what price he would write a valedictory-
address she had to deliver at college. He was still
able to joke about his ' naughty memory ; ' and no
complaint came from him when he once rallied him-
self on living too long. Emerson appeared to me
strangely beautiful at this time, and the sweetness of
his voice, when he spoke of the love and providence
at his side, is quite indescribable." —
One of the later glimpses we have of Emerson
18 that preserved in the journal of Mr. Whitman,
. who visited Concord in the autumn of 1881.
Mr. Ireland gives a long extract from this jour-
nal, from which I take the following : —
^'On entering he had spoken very briefly, easily
and politely to several of the company, then settled
himself in his chair, a trifle pushed back, and,
though a listener and apparently an alert one, re-
mained silent through the whole talk and discussion.
And so, there Emerson sat, and I looking at him.
A good color in his face, eyes clear, with the well-
known expression of sweetness, and the old clears
peering aspect quite the same."
Mr. Whitman met him again the next day,
Simday, September 18th, and records : —
^^As just said, a healthy color in the cheeks, and
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DR. LE BARON RUS8ELV8 VISIT. 345
good light in the eyes, cheery expression, and just the
amount of talking that best suited, namely, a word or
short phrase only where needed, and almost always
with a smile."
Dr. Le Baron EKissell writes to me of Emer-
son at a still later period : —
"One incident I will mention which occurred at
my last visit to Emerson, only a few months before
his death. I went by Mrs. Emerson's request to pass
a Sunday at their house at Concord towards the end
of June. His memory had been failing for some
time, and his mind as you know was clouded, but the
old charm of his voice and manner had never left
him. On the morning after my arrival Mrs. Emer-
son took us into the garden to see the beautiful roses
in which she took great delight. One red rose of
most brilliant color she called our attention to espe-
cially ; its ' hue ' was so truly ' angry and brave ' that
I involuntarily repeated Herbert's line, —
* Bid the rash gazer wipe his eye,' —
from the verses which Emerson had first repeated to
me so long ago. Emerson looked at the rose admir-
ingly, and then as if by a sudden impulse lifted hit
hat gently, and said with a low bow, ' I take off my
hat to it' "
Once a poet, always a poet. It was the same
reverence for the beautiful that he had shown in
the same way in his younger days on entering
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846 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
the wood, as Governor Rice has told us the story,
given in an earlier chapter.
I do not remember Emerson's last time of at-
tendance at the "Saturday Club," but I recollect
that he came after fche trouMe in finding words
had become well marked. " My memory hides
itself," he said. The last time I saw him, living,
was at Longfellow's funeral. I was sitting op-
posite to him when he rose, and going to the side
of the coffin, looked intently upon the face of the
dead poet. A few minutes later he rose again
and looked once more on the familiar features,
not apparently remembering that he had just
done so. Mr. Conway reports that he said to a
friend near him, ^^ That gentleman was a sweet,
beautiful soul, but I have entirely forgotten his
name."
Dr. Edward Emerson has very kindly fur-
nished me, in reply to my request, with informa-
tion regarding his father's last years which will
interest every one who has followed his life
through its morning and midday to the hour of
evening shadows.
"May-Day," which was published in 1867,
was made up of the poems written since his first
volume appeared. After this he wrote no poems,
but with some difficulty fitted the refrain to the
poem " Boston," which had remained unfinished
since the old Anti-slavery days. " Greatness,"
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DR, EDWARD EMERSON'S ACCOUNT. 347
and the "Phi Beta Kappa Oration" of 1867,
were among his last pieces of work. His Col-
lege Lectures, " The Natural History of the In-
tellect," were merely notes recorded years before,
and now gathered and welded together. In
1876 he revised his poems, and made the selec-
tions from them for the " Little Classic " edition
of his works, then called " Selected Poems."
In that year he gave his "Address to the
Students of the University of Virginia." This
was a paper written long before, and its revision,
with the aid of his daughter Ellen, was accom-
plished with much difficulty.
The year 1867 was about the limit of his
working life. During the last five years he
hardly answered a letter. Before this time it
had become increasingly hard for him to do so,
and he always postponed and thought he should
feel more able the next day, until his daughter
Ellen was compelled to assume the correspond-
ence. He did, however, write some letters in
1876, as, for instance, the answer to the invita-
tion of the Virginia students.
Emerson left off going regularly to the " Sat-
urday Club" probably in 1876. He used to de-
pend on meeting Mr. Cabot there, but after Mr.
Cabot began to come regularly to work on " Let-
ters and Social Aims," Emerson, who relied
on his friendly assistance, ceased attending the
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848 RALPH WALDO EMERSOlf.
meetings. The trouble he had in finding the
word he wanted was a reason for his staying
away from all gatherings where he was called
upon to take a part in conversation, though
he the more willingly went to lectures and
readings and to church. His hearing was very
slightly impaired, and his sight remained pretty
good, though he sometimes said letters doubled,
and that "M's" and "N's" troubled him to
read. He recognized the members of his own
family and his old friends ; but, as I infer from
this statement, he found a difGlculty in remem-
bering the faces of new acquaintances, as is com-
mon with old persons.
He continued the habit of reading, — read
through all his printed works with much interest
and surprise, went through all his manuscripts,
and endeavored, unsuccessfully, to index them.
In these Dr. Emerson found written " Examined
1877 or 1878,'^ but he found no later date.
In the last year or two he read anything which
he picked up on his table, but he read the same
things over, and whispered the words like a
child. He liked to look over the " Advertiser,"
and was interested in the " Nation." He enjoyed
pictures in books and showed them with del^ht
to guests.
All this with slight changes and omissaons is
from the letter of Dr. Emerson in answer to my
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DB. EDWARD EMERSON'S ACCOUNT. 849
questions. The twilight of a long, bright day
of life may be saddening, but when the shadow
falls so gently and gradually, with so little that
is painful and so much that is soothing and
comforting, we do not shrink from following the
imprisoned spirit to the very verge of its earthly
teistence.
But darker hours were in the order of nature
very near at hand. From these he was saved by
his not untimely release from the imprisonment
of the worn-out bodily frame.
In April, 1882, Emerson took a severe cold,
and became so hoarse that he could hardly speak.
When his son. Dr. Edward Emerson, called to
see him, he f oirnd him on the sofa, feverish, with
more difficulty of expression than usual, dull,
but not uncomfortable. As he lay on his couch
he pointed out various objects, among others a
portrait of Carlyle "the good man, — my friend."
His son told him that he had seen Carlyle, which
seemed to please him much. On the following
day the unequivocal signs of pneumonia showed
themselves, and he failed rapidly. He still rec-
ognized those around him, among the rest Judge
Hoar, to whom he held out his arms for a last
embrace. A sharp pain coming on, ether was
administered with relief. And in a little time,
surrounded by those who loved him and whom
he loved, he passed quietly away. He lived very
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350 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
nearly to the completion of his eightieth year,
having been bom May 25, 1803, and his death
occurring on the 27th of April, 1882.
Mr. Ireland has given a full account of the
funeral, from which are, for. the most part, taken
the following extracts : —
<< The last rites over the remains of Ralph Waldo
Emerson took place at Concord on the 30th of ApriL
A special train from Boston carried a large nmnber
of people. Many persons were on the street, attracted
by the services, but were unable to gain admission to
the church where the public ceremonies were held.
Almost every building in town bore over its entrance-
door a large black and white rosette with other
sombre draperies. The public buildings were heavily
draped, and even the homes of the very poor bore
outward marks of grief at the loss of their friend and
fellow-townsman.
"The services at the house, which were strictly
private, occurred at 2.30, and were conducted by
Rev. W. H. Furness of Philadelphia, a kindred spirit
and an almost life-long friend. They were simple in
character, and only Dr. Furness took part in them.
The body lay in the front northeast room, in which •
were gathered the family and close friends of the de-
ceased. The only flowers were contained in three
vases on the mantel, and were lilies of the valley, red
and white roses, and arbutus. The adjoining room
and hall were filled with friends and neighbors.
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FUNERAL SERVICES, 851
" At the church many hundreds of persons were
awaiting the arrival of the procession, and all the
space, except the reserved pews, was packed. In front
of the pulpit were simple decorations, houghs of pine
covered the desk, and in their centre was a harp of
yellow jonquils, the gift of Miss Louisa M. Alcott.
Among the floral trihutes was one from the teachers
and scholars in the Emerson school. By the sides of
the pulpit were white and scarlet geraniums and pine
houghs, and high upon the wall a laurel wreath.
" Before 3.30 the pall-bearers brought in the plain
black walnut coffin, which was placed before the pul-
pit. The lid was turned back, and upon it was put
a cluster of richly colored pansies and a small bouquet
of roses. While the coffin was being carried in,
* Pleyel's Hymn ' was rendered on the organ by re-
quest of the family of the deceased. Dr. James
Freeman Clarke then entered the pulpit. Judge E.
Rockwood Hoar remained by the coffin below, and
when the congregation became quiet, made a brief
and pathetic address, his voice many times trembling
with emotion."
I subjoin this most impressive " Address "
entire, from the manuscript with which Judge
Hoar has kindly favored me : —
" The beauty of Israel is fallen in its high place !
Mr. Emerson has died; and we, his friends and
neighbors, with this sorrowing company, have turned
aside the procession from his home to his grave, — to
this temple of his fathers, that we may here unite in
our parting tribute of memory and love.
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862 RALPH WALDO EMER80N.
<< There is nothing to mourn for him. That brave
and manly life was rounded out to the full length
of days. That dying pillow was softened by the
sweetest domestic affection ; and as he lay down to
the sleep which the Lord giveth his beloved, his face
was as the face of an angel, and his smile seemed to
give a glimpse of the opening heavens.
^< Wherever the English language is spoken through-
out the world his fame is established and secure.
Throughout this great land and from beyond the sea
will come innumerable voices of sorrow for this great
public loss. But we, his neighbors and townsmen,
feel that he was ours. He was descended from the
founders of the town. He chose our village as the
place where his lifelong work was to be done. It
was to our fields and orchards that his presence gave
such value ; it was our streets in which the children
looked up to him with love, and the elders with rev-
erence. He was our ornament and pride.
" * He is gone — is dust, —
He the more fortunate I Yea, he hath finished I
For him there is no longer any future.
His life is bright — bright without spot it was
And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour
Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap.
Far off is he, above desire and fear ;
No more submitted to the change and chance
Of the uncertain planets. —
^ < The bloom is vanished from my life^
For, oh I he stood beside me like my youth ;
Transformed for me the real to a dream,
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FUNERAL SERVICES. 368
Clothing the palpable and the familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
Whatever fortunes wait my future toils,
The beautiful is vanished and returns not.'
"That lofty brow, the home of all wise thoughts
and high aspirations, — those lips of eloquent music,
— that great soul, which trusted in God and never
let go its hope of immortality, — that large heart, to
which everything that belonged to man was welcome,
— that hospitable nature, loving and tender and gen-
erous, having no repulsion or scorn for anything but
meanness and baseness, — oh, friend, brother, father,
lover, teacher, inspirer, guide ! is -there no more that ^
we can do now than to give thee this our hail and
farewell ! "
Judge Hoar's remarks were followed by the
congregation singing the hymns, " Thy will be
done,'* "I will not fear the fate provided by
Thy love." The Rev. Dr. Fumess then read
selections from the Scriptures.
The Rev. James Freeman Clarke then deliv-
ered an " Address," from which I extract two
eloquent and inspiring passages, regretting to
omit any that fell from lips so used to noble
utterances and warmed by their subject, — for
there is hardly a living person more competent
to speak or write of Emerson than this high-
minded and brave-souled man, who did not
wait until he was famous to be his admirer and
champion.
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854 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" The saying of the liturgy is true and wise, that
' in the midst of life we are in death.' But it is still
more true that in the midst of death we are in life.
Do we ever believe so much in immortality as when
we look on such a dear and noble face, now so still,
which a few hours ago was radiant with thought and
love ? ' He is not here : he is risen.* That power
which we knew, — that soaring intelligence, that soul
of fire, that ever-advancing spirit, — that cannot have
been suddenly annihilated with the decay of these
earthly organs. It has left its darkened dust behind.
It has outsoared the shadow of our night. God does
not trifle with his creatures by bringing to nothing the
ripe fruit of the ages by the lesion of a cerebral cell, or
some bodily tissue. Life does not die, but matter dies
off from it The highest energy we know, the soul of
man, the unit in which meet intelligence, imagination,
memory, hope, love, purpose, insight, — this agent of
immense resource and boundless power, — this has
not been subdued by its instrument. When we think
of such an one as he, we can only thiok of life, never
of death.
^' Such was his own faith, as expressed in his paper
on * Immortality.' But he himself was the best argu-
ment for immortality. Like the greatest thinker^, he
did not rely on logical proof, but on the higher
evidence of universal instincts, — the vast streams of
belief which flow through human thought like cur-
rents in the ocean ; those shoreless rivers which for-
ever roll along their paths in the Atlantic and Pacific,
not restrained by banks, but glided by the revolutions
of the globe and the attractions of the sun."
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^nNEBAL BJEnVtCEQ, 366
** Let us then ponder his words : —
** * Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know
What rainbows teach and sunsets show ?
Voice of earth to earth returned,
Prayers of saints that inly burned.
Saying, What is excellent
As God lives, is permanent ;
Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain^
Hearts' love wiU meet thee again.
• • • . •
House and tenant go to ground ""
Lost in God, in Godhead found.' "
After the above address a feeling prayer was
offered by Rev. Howard M. Brown, of Brook-
line, and the benediction closed the exercises in
the church. Lnmediately before the benediction,
Mr. Alcott recited the following sonnet, which he
had written for the occasion : —
" Ilis harp is silent : sliall successors rise.
Touching with venturous hand the trembling string.
Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise,
And wake to ecstasy each slumbering thing ?
Shall life and thought flash new in wondering eyes.
As when the seer transcendent, sweet, and wise.
World-wide his native melodies did sing.
Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories ?
Ah, no I That matchless lyre shall silent lie :
None hath the vanished minstrePs wondrous skill
To touch that instrument with art and will.
With him, winged poesy doth droop and die ;
Wliile our dull age, left voiceless, must lament
The bard high heaven had for its service sent."
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866 RALPH WALDO EMERSOK.
*^ Over an hour was occupied by the passing files
of neighbors, friends, and visitors looking for the last
time upon the face of the dead poet. ' The body was
robed completely in white, and the face bore a natural
and peaceful expression. From the church the pro-
cession took its way to the cemetery. The grave was
made beneath a tall pine-tree upon the hill-top of
Sleepy Hollow, where lie the bodies of his friends
Thoreau and Hawthorne, the upturned sod being
concealed by strewings of pine boughs. A border of
hemlock spray surrounded the grave and completely
lii\ed its sides. The services here were very brief,
and the casket was soon lowered to its final resting-
place.
" The Rev. Dr. Haskins, a cousin of the family, an
Episcopal clergyman, read the Episcopal Burial Ser-
vice, and closed with the Lord's Prayer, ending at the
words, *and deliver us from evil.' In this all the
people joined. Dr. Haskins then pronounced the ben-
ediction. After it was over the grandchildren passed
the open grave and threw flowers into it."
So vanished from human eyes the bodily pres-
ence of Ealph Waldo Emerson, and his finished
record belongs henceforth to memory.
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CHAPTER XVI.
EMERSON. — A RETROSPECT.
Personalitj and Habits of Life. — His Commission and Er-
rand. — As a Lecturer. — His Use of Authorities. — Resem-
blance to Other Writers. — As influenced by Others. — His
Place as a Thinker. — Idealism and Intuition. — Mjsticism.
— His Attitude respecting Science. — As an American. —
His Fondness for Solitary Study. — His Patience and
Amiability. — Feeling with which he was regarded. — Emer-
son and Bums. — His Religious Belief. — His Relations
with Clergymen. — Future of his Reputation. — His Life
judged by the Ideal Standard.
Emerson's earthly existence was in the esti-
mate of his own philosophy so slight an occur-
rence in his career of being that his relations to
the accidents of time and space seem quite sec-
(mdary matters to one who has been long living
in the companionship of his thought. Still, he
had to be bom, to take in his share of the at-
mosphere in which we are all immersed, to have
dealings with the world of phenomena, and at
length to let them all " soar and sing " as he left
his earthly half-way house. It is natural and
pardonable that we should like to know the de-
tails of the daily life which the men whom we
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858 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
admire have shared with common mortals, our-
selves among the rest. But Emerson has said
truly " Great geniuses have the shortest biogra-
phies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about
them. They lived in their writings, and so their
home and street life was trivial and common-
place."
The reader has had many extracts from Emer-
son's writings laid before him. It was no easy
task to choose them, for his paragraphs are so
condensed, so much in the nature of abstracts,
that it is like distilling absolute alcohol to at-
tempt separating the spirit of what he says from
his undiluted thought. His books are all so full
of his life to their last syllable that we might
letter every volume Emersoniana^ by jRalph
Waldo Emerson.
From the numerous extracts I have given
from Emerson's writings it may be hoped that
the reader will have formed an idea for himself
of the man and of the life which have been the
subjects of these pages. But he may probably
expect something like a portrait of the poet and
moralist from the hand of his biographer, if the
author of this Memoir may borrow the name
which will belong to a future and better equipped
laborer in the same field. He may not unreason-
ably look for some general estimate of the life-
work of the scholar and thinker of whom he has
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PERSONALITY AND HABITS OF LIFE, 359
been reading. He will not be disposed to find
fault with the writer of the Memoir if he men-
tions many things which would seem very trivial
but for the interest they borrow from the indi-
vidual to whom they relate.
Emerson's personal appearance was that of a
scholar, the descendant of scholars. He was tall
and slender, with the complexion which is bred
in the alcove and not in the open air. He used
to tell his son Edward that he measured six feet
in his shoes, but his son thinks he could hardly
have straightened himself to that height in his
plater years. He was very light for a man of
his stature. He got on the scales at Cheyenne,
on his trip to California, comparing his weight
with that of a lady of the party. A little while
afterwards he asked of his fellow-traveller. Pro-
fessor Thayer, "How much did I weigh? A
hundred and forty?" "A himdred and forty
and a half," was the answer. " Yes, yes, a him-
dred and forty and a half ! That half I prize ;
it is an index of better things I "
Emerson's head was not such as Schopen-
hauer insists upon for a philosopher. He wore
a hat measuring six and seven eighths on the
cephalometer used by hatters, which is equiva-
lent to tweniy-one inches and a quarter of cir-
cimif erence. The average size is from seven to
seven and an eighth, so that his head was quite
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360 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
small in that dimension. It was long and nar-
row, but lofty, almost synmietrical, and of more
nearly equal breadtib in its anterior and poste-
rior regions than many or most heads.
His shoulders sloped so much as to be com-
mented upon for this peculiarity by Mr. Gilfil-
lan, and like ^^ Ammon's great son," he carried
one shoulder a little higher than the other. His
face was thin, his nose somewhat aocipitrine,
casting a broad shadow ; his mouth rather wide,
well formed and well closed, carrying a question
and an assertion in its finely finished curves ; the
lower lip a little prominent, the chin shapely and
firm, as becomes the comer-stone of the counte-
nance. His expression was calm, sedate, kindly,
with that look of refinement, centring about the
lips, which is rarely found in the male New Eng-
lander, unless the family features have been for
two or three cultivated generations the battle-
field and the playground of varied thoughts and
complex emotions as well as the sensuous and
nutritive port of entry. -His whole look was ir-
radiated by an ever active inquiring intelligence.
His manner was noble and gracious. Few of our
fellow-countrymen have had larger opportunities
of seeing distinguished personages than our pres-
ent minister at the Court of St. James. In a
recent letter to myself, which I trust Mr. Lowell
idll pardon my quoting, he says of Emerson : — r
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PERSONALITY AND HABITS OF LIFE. 361
" There was a majesty about him beyond all
other men I have known, and he habitually
dwelt in that ampler and diviner air to which
most of us, if ever, only rise in spurts."
From members of his own immediate family
I have derived some particulars relating to his
personality and habits which are deserving of
record.
His hair was brown, quite fine, and, till he
was fifty, very thick. His eyes were of the
" strongest and brightest blue." The member
of the family who tells me this says : —
" My sister and I have looked for many years
to see whether any one else had such absolutely
blue eyes, and have never found them except in
sea-captains. I have seen three sea-captains who
had them."
He was not insensible to music, but his gift
in that direction was very limited, if we may
judge from this family story. When he was in
College, and the singing-master was gathering
his pupils, Emerson presented himself, intending
to learn to sing. The master received him, and
when his turn came, said to him, " Chord ! "
" What ? " said Emerson. " Chord I Chord I I
tell you," repeated the master. " I don't know
what you mean," said Emerson. " Why, sing I
Sing a note." "So I made some kind of a noise,
and the singing-master said, ' That will do, sir.
You need not come again.' "
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862 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Emerson's mode of living was very simple:
coffee in the morning, tea in the evening, animal
food by choice only once a day, wine only when
with others using it, but always pie at breakfast.
"It stood before him and was the first thing
eaten." Ten o'clock was his bed-time, six his
hour of rising imtil the last ten years of his life,
when he rose at seven. Work or company some-
times led him to sit up late, and this he could
do night after night. He never was hungry, —
could go any time from breakfast to tea witibout
food and not know it, but was always ready for
food when it was set before him.
He always walked from about four in the
afternoon till tea-time, and often longer when
the day was fine, or he felt that he should work
the better.
It is plain from his writings that Emerson
was possessed all his life long with the idea of
his constitutional infirmity and insufficiency. He
hated invalidism, and had little patience with
complaints about ill-health, but in his poems,
and once or twice in his letters to Carlyle, he
expresses himself with freedom about his own
bodily inheritance. In 1827, being then but
.twenty-four years old, he writes : —
" I bear in youth the sad infirmities
That use to undo the limb and sense of agse."
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PERSONALITY AND HABITS OF LIFE. 863
Four years later : —
** Has God on thee conferred
A bodily presence mean as Paul's,
Yet made thee bearer of a word
Which sleepy nations as with trumpet calls ? "
and again, in the same year : —
" Leave me, Fear, thy throbs are base.
Trembling for the body's sake." —
Almost forty years from the first of these dates
we find him bewailing his inherited weakness of
organization in " Terminus."
And in writing to Carlyle, he says : —
" You are of the Anakim and know nothing
of the debility and postponement of the blonde
constitution."
Again, " I am the victim of miscellany — mis-
cellany of designs, vast debility and procrasti-
nation."
He thought too much of his bodily insufficien-
cies, which, it will be observed, he only refers to
in his private correspondence, and in that semi-
nudity of self-revelation which is the privilege of
poetry. His presence was fine and impressive,
and his muscular strength was enough to make
him a rapid and enduring walker.
Emerson's voice had a great charm in conver-
sation, as in the lecture-room. It was never
loud, never shrill, but singularly penetrating.
He was apt to hesitate in the course of a sen-
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864 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
tence, so as to be sure of the exact word he
wanted ; picking his way through his vocabulary,
to get at the best expression of his thought, as a
well-dressed woman crosses the muddy pavement
to reach the opposite sidewalk. It was this nat-
ural slight and not unpleasant semicolon paus-
ing of the memory which grew upon him in his
years of decline, until it rendered conversation
laborious and painful to him.
He never laughed loudly. When he laughed
it was under protest, as it were, with closed
doors, his mouth shut, so that the explosion had
to seek another respiratory channel, and foimd
its way out quietly, while his eyebrows and nos-
trils and all his features betrayed the " ground
swell," as Professor Thayer happily called it, of
the half-suppressed convidsion. He was averse
to loud laughter in others, and objected to Mar-
garet Fuller that she made him laugh too much.
Emerson was not rich in some of those nat-
ural gifts which are considered the birthright of
the New Englander. He had not the mechanical
turn of the whittling Yankee. I once questioned
him about his manual dexterity, and he told me
he could split a shingle four ways with ctoe nail,
— which, as the intention is not to split it at all
in fastening it to the roof of a house or else-
where, I took to be a confession of inaptitude
for mechanical works. He does not seem to have
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PERSONALITY AND HABITS OF LIFE, 865
been very accomplished in the handling of agri-
cultural implements either, for it is told in the
family that his little son, Waldo, seeing him at
work with a spade, cried out, " Take care, papa,
— you wiU dig your leg."
He used to regret that he had no ear for music.
I have said enough about his verse, which often
jars on a sensitive ear, showing a want of the
nicest perception of harmonies and discords in
the arrangement of the words.
There are stories which show that Emerson
had a retentive memory in the earlier part of his
life. It is hard to say from his books whether
he had or not, for he jotted down such a multi-
tude of things in his diary that this was a kind
of mechanical memory which supplied him willi
endless materials of thought and subjects for his
pen.
Lover and admirer of Plato as Emerson was,
the doors of the academy, over which was the
inscription ftiySct? aycwfierpi/Tos lo-ctTO), — lict no
one unacquainted with geometry enter here, —
would have been closed to him. All the exact
sciences found him an unwilling learner. He
says of himself that he cannot multiply seven
by twelve with impunity.
In an unpublished manuscript kindly sub-
mitted to me by Mr. Frothingham, Emerson is
reported as saying, "God has given me the
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866 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
seeing eye, but not the working hand." His ^ft
was insight: he saw the germ through its en-
velop ; the particular in the light of the univer-
sal ; the fact in connection with the principle ;
the phenomenon as related to the law ; all this
not by the slow and sure process of science, but
by the sudden and searching flashes of imagina-
tive double vision. He had neither the patience
nor the method of the inductive reasoner; he
passed from one thought to another not by log-
ical steps but by airy flights, which left no foot-
prints. This mode of intellectual action when
found united with natural sagaciiy becomes poe-
try, philosophy, wisdom, or prophecy in its various
forms of manifestation. Without that gift of
natural sagaciiy (pdoratio qucedam venaticd), —
a good scent for truth and beauty, — it appears
as extravagance, whimsicaliiy, eccentricity, or
insanity, according to its degree of aberration.
Emerson was eminently sane for an idealist. He
carried the same sagacity into the ideal world
that Franklin showed in the affairs of common
life.
He was constitutionally fastidious, and had
to school himself to become able to put up with
the terrible inflictions of imcongenial fellow-
ships. We must go to his poems to get at his
weaknesses. The clown of the first edition of
*' Monadnoc " " with heart of cat and eyes of
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PERSONALITY AND HABITS OF LIFE. 367
bug," disappears in the after-thought of the latet
version of the poem, but the eye that recognized
him and the nature that recoiled from him were
there still. What must he not have endured
from the persecutions of small-minded worship-
pers who fastened upon him for the interminable
period between the incoming and the outgoing
railroad train 1 He was a model of patience and
good temper. We might have feared that he
lacked the sensibility to make such intrusions and
offences an annoyance. But when Mr. Froth-
ingham gratifies the public with those most in-
teresting personal recollections which I have had
the privilege of looking over, it will be seen that
his equanimity, admirable as it was, was not in-
capable of being disturbed, and that on rare
occasions he could give way to the feeling which
showed itself of old in the doom pronounced on
the barren fig-tree.
Of Emerson's affections his home-life, and
those tender poems in memory of his brothers
and his son, give all the evidence that could be
asked or wished for. His friends were all who
knew him, for none could be his enemy ; and his
simple graciousness of manner, with the sincerity
apparent in every look and tone, hardly admitted
indifference on the part of any who met him,
were it but for a single hour. Even the little
children knew and loved him, and babes in arms
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368 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
returned his angelic smile. Of the friends who
were longest and most intimately associated with
him, it is needless to say much in this place.
Of those who are living, it is hardly time to
speak ; of those who are dead, much has already
been written. Margaret Fuller, — I must call
my early schoolmate as I best remember her, —
leaves her life pictured in the mosaic of five
artists, — Emerson himself among the number ;
Thoreau is faithfully commemorated in the lov-
ing memoir by Mr. Sanborn ; Theodore Parker
lives in the story of his life told by the eloquent
Mr. Weiss ; Hawthorne awaits his portrait from
the master-hand of Mr. LowelL
How nearly any friend, other than his broth-
ers Edward and Charles, came to him, I cannot
say, indeed I can hardly guess. That " majesty "
Mr. Lowell speaks of always seemed to hedge
him round like the divinity that doth hedge
a king. What man was he who would lay his
hand fajniliarly upon his shoulder and call him
Waldo ? No disciple of Father Mathew would
be likely to do such a thing. There may have
been such irreverent persons, but if any one
had so ventured at the '' Saturday Club," it
would have produced a sensation like Brummel's
" George, ring the bell," to the Prince Regent.
His ideas of friendship, as of love, seem almost
too exalted for our earthly conditions, and sug-
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EIS COMMISSION AND ERRAND, 869
gest the thought as do many others of his char-
acteristics, that the spirit which animated his
mortal frame had missed its way on the shin-
ing path to some brighter and better sphere of
being.
Not so did Emerson appear among the plain
working farmers of the village in which he Kved.
He was a good, unpretending fellow-citizen who
put on no airs, who attended town-meetings, took
his part in useful measures, was no great hand
at farming, but was esteemed and respected, and
felt to be a principal source of attraction to Con-
cord, for strangers came flocking to the place as
if it held the tomb of Washington.
What was the errand on which he visited our
earth, — the message with which he came com-
missioned from the Infinite source of all life ?
Every human soul leaves its port with sealed
orders. These may be opened earlier or later
on its voyage, but until they are opened no one
can tell what is to be his course or to what har-
bor he is bound.
Emerson inherited the traditions of the Bos-
ton pulpit, such as they were, damaged, in the
view of the prevailing sects of the country,
perhaps by too long contact with the " Sons of
Liberty," and their revolutionary notions. But
tiie most ^^ liberal " Boston pulpit still held to
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370 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
many doctrines, forms, and phrases open to the
challenge of any independent thinker.
In the year 1832 this young priest, then a
settled minister, ^^ began," as was said of an-
other, — " to be about thirty years of age." He
had opened his sealed orders and had read
therein :
Thou shalt not profess that which thou dost
not believe.
Thou shalt not heed the voice of man when it
agrees not with the voice of God in thine own
soul.
Thou shalt study and obey the laws of the
Universe and they will be thy fellow-servants.
Thou shalt speak the truth as thou seest it,
without fear, in the spirit of kindness to all thy
fellow-ereatures, dealing with the manifold in-
terests of life and the typical characters of his-
tory.
Nature shall be to thee as a symboL The Hf e
of the soul, in conscious union with the Infinite,
shall be for thee the only real existence.
This pleasing show of an external worl I
through which thou art passing is given thee to
interpret by the light which is in thee. Its least
appearance is not unworthy of thy study. Let
thy soul be open and thine eyes will reveal to
thee beauty everywhere.
Gro forth with thy message among thy fellow-
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EI8 COMMISSION AND ERRAND. 371
creatures ; teach them that they must trust
themselves as guided by that inner light which
dwells with the pure in heart, to whom it was
promised of old that they shall see God.
Teach them that each generation begins the
world afresh, in perfect freedom ; that the pres-
ent is not the prisoner of the past, but that to-
day holds captive all yesterdays, to compare, to
judge, to accept, to reject their teachings, as
these are shown by its own morning's sun.
To thy fellow-countrymen thou shalt preach
the gospel of the New World, that here, here in
our America, is the home of man ; that here is
the promise of a new and more excellent social
state than history has recorded.
Thy life shall be as thy teachings, brave,
pure, truthful, beneficent, hopeful, cheerful, hos-
pitable to all honest belief, all sincere thinkers,
and active according to thy gifts and opportu-
nities.
He was true to the orders he had received.
Through doubts, troubles, privations, opposition,
he would not
" bate a jot
Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steep
Right onward."
All through the writings of Emerson the spirit
of these orders manifests itself. His range of
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372 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
subjects is very wide, ascending to the highest
sphere of spiritual contemplation, bordering on
that " intense inane " where thought loses itself
in breathless ecstasy, and stooping to the home-
liest maxims of prudence and the every-day les-
sons of good manners. And all his work was
done, not so much
" As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye,"
as in the ever-present sense of divine companion-
ship.
He was called to sacrifice his living, his posi-
tion, his intimacies, to a doubt, and he gave them
all up without a murmur. He might have been
an idol, and he broke his own pedestal to attack
the idolatry which he saw all about him. He
gave up a comparatively easy life for a toilsome
and trying one; he accepted a precarious em-
ployment, which hardly kept him above poverty,
rather than wear the golden padlock on his lips
which has held fast the conscience of so many
pulpit Chrysostoms. Instead of a volume or
two of sermons, bridled with a text and har-
nessed with a confession of faith, he bequeathed
us a long series of Discourses and Essays in
which. we know we have his honest thoughts,
free from that professional bias which tends to
make the pulpit teaching of the fairest-minded
preacher follow a diagonal of two forces, — the
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HIS COMMISSION AND ERRAND, 373
promptings of his personal and his ecclesiastical
opinions.
Without a church or a pulpit, he soon had a
congregation. It was largely made up of young
persons of both sexes, young by nature, if not
in years, who, tired of routine and formulae, and
full of vague aspirations, foimd in his utterances
the oracles they sought. To them, in the words
of his friend and neighbor Mr. Alcott, he
" Sang his full song of hope and lofty cheer.*'
Nor was it only for a few seasons that he drew
his audiences of devout listeners around him.
Another poet, his Concord neighbor, Mr. San-
bom, who listened to him many years after the
first flush of novelty was over, felt the same en-
chantment, and recognized the same inspiring
life in his words, which had thrilled the souls of
those earlier listeners.
" His was the task and his the lordly gift
Our eyes, our hearts, bent earthward, to uplift."
This was his power, — to inspire others, to make
life purer, loftier, calmer, brighter. Optimism
is what the young want, and he could no more
help taking the hopeful view of the universe and
its future than Claude could^help flooding his
landscapes with sunshine.
"Nature," published in 1836, "the first clear
manifestation of his genius," as Mr. Norton calls
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874 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
it, revealed him as an idealist and a poet, with
a tendency to mysticism. If he had been inde-
pendent in circumstances, he would doubtless
have developed more freely in these directions.
But he had his living to get and a family to
support, and he must look about him for some
paying occupation. The lecture-room naturally
presented itself to a scholar accustomed to speak-
ing from the pulpit. This medium of communi-
cating thought was not as yet very popular, and
the rewards it offered were but moderate. Emer-
son was of a very hopeful nature, however, and
believed in its possibilities.
— " I am always haimted with brave dreams
of what might be accomplished in the lecture-
room, — so free and so impretending a platform,
— a Delos not yet made fast. I imiagine an
eloquence of infinite variety, rich as conversation
can be, with anecdote, joke, tragedy, epics and
pindarics, argument and confession." So writes
Emerson to Carlyle in 1841.
It would be as unfair to overlook the special
form in which Emerson gave most of his thoughts
to the world, as it would be to leave out of view
the calling of Shakespeare in judging his liter-
ary character. Eoierson was an essayist and a
lecturer, as Shakespeare was a dramatist and a
play-actor.
The exigencies of the theatre account for
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A8 A LECTURER. 375
much that is, as it were, accidental in the writ-
ings of Shakespeare. The demands of the lec-
ture-room account for many peculiarities which
are characteristic of Emerson as an author.
The play must be in five acts, each of a given
length. The lecture must fill an hour and not
overrun it. Both play and lecture must be
vivid, varied, picturesque, stimulating, or the
audience would tire before the allotted time was
over.
Both writers had this in common : they were
poets and moralists. They reproduced the con-
ditions of life in the light of penetrative observa-
tion and ideal contemplation ; they illustrated
its duties in their breach and in their observ-
ance, by precepts and well-chosen portraits of
character. The particular form in which they
wrote makes little difference when we come upon
the utterance of a noble truth or an elevated
sentiment.
It was not a simple matter of choice with the
dramatist or the lecturer in what direction they
should turn their special gifts. The actor had
learned his business on the stage ; the lecturer
had gone through his apprenticeship in the pul-
pit. Each had his bread to earn, and he must
work, and work hard, in the way open before
him. For twenty years the playwright wrote
dramas, and retired before middle age with a
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876 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
good estate to his native town. For forty years
Emerson lectured and published lectures, and
established himself at length in competence in
the village where his ancestors had lived and
died before him. He never became rich, as
Shakespeare did. He was never in easy circum-
stances until he was nearly seventy years old.
Lecturing was hard work, but he was under the
'^ base necessiiy," as he called it, of constant
labor, writing in summer, speaking everywhere
east and west in the trying and dangerous win-
ter season.
He spoke in great cities to such cultivated
audiences as no other man could gather about
him, and in remote villages where he addressed
plain people whose classics were the Bible and
the "Farmer's Almanac." Wherever he ap-
peared in the lecture -room, he fascinated his
listeners by his voice and manner ; the music of
his speech pleased those who found his thought
too subtle for their dull wits to follow.
When the Lecture had served its purpose, it
came before the public in the shape of an Essay.
But the Essay never lost the character it bor-
rowed from the conditions under which it was
delivered; it was a lay sermon, — concio adpop'
ulum. We must always remember what we are
dealing with. "Expect nothing more of my
power of construction, — no ship - building, no
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AS A LECTURER. 877
clipper, smack, nor skiff even, only boards and
logs tied together." — '' Here I sit and read and
write, with very little system, and, as far as re-
gards composition, with the most fragmentary
result : paragraphs incompressible, each sentence
an infinitely repellent particle." We have then
a moralist and a poet appearing as a Lecturer
and an Essayist, and now and then writing in
verse.' He liked the freedom of the platform.
"I preach in the Lecture-room," he says, "and
there it tells, for there is no prescription. You
may laugh, weep, reason^ sing, sneer, or pray,
according to your genius." In England, he
says, " I find this lecturing a key which opens
all doors." But he did not tend to overvalue
the calling which from " base necessity " he fol-
lowed so diligently. " Incorrigible spouting Yan*
kee," he calls himself; and again, "I peddle
out all the wit I can gather from Time or from
Nature, and am pained at heart to see how
thankfully that little is received." Lecture-
peddling was a hard business and a poorly paid
one in the earlier part of the time when Emerson
was carrying his precious wares about the country
and offering them in competition with the cheap-
est itinerants, with shilling concerts and negro-
minstrel entertainments. But one could get a
kind of living out of it if he had invitations
enough. I remember Emerson's coming to my
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378 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
house to know if T could fill his place at a
certain Lyceum so that he might accept a very-
advantageous invitation in another direction. I
told him that I was imfortimately engaged for
the evening mentioned. He smiled serenely, say-
ing that then he supposed he must give up the
new stove for that season.
No man would accuse Emerson of parsimony
of ideas. He crams his pages with the very
marrow of his thought. But in weighing out a
lecture he was as punctilious as Portia about the
pound of flesh. His . utterance was deliberate
and spaced with not infrequent slight delays.
Exactly at the end of the hour the lecture
stopped. Suddenly, abruptly, but quietly, with-
out peroration of any sort, always with "a gentle
shock of mild surprise " to the unprepared lis-
tener. He had weighed out the full measure to
his audience with perfect fairness.
*'HT€(rTad)uiv^X®i;(ra koX Upiov, iifjupls WAjcci
lo-ctfowy, tya iraialy deiKca fiiaOhv &fniraif
or, in Bryant's version,
" as the scales
Are held by some just woman, who maintams
By spinning wool her household, — carefully
She poises both the wool and weights, to make
The balance even, that she may provide
A pittance for her babes." —
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AS A LECTURER. 379
As to the charm of his lectures all are agreed.
It is needless to handle this subject, for Mr.
Lowell has written upon it. Of their effect on
his younger listeners he says, " To some of us
that long past experience remains the most mar-
vellous and fruitful we have ever had. Emer-
son awakened us, saved us from the body of this
death. It is the sound of the trumpet that the
young soul longs for, careless of what breath
may fill it. Sidney heard it in the ballad of
* Chevy Chase,' and we in Emerson. Nor did it
blow retreat, but called us with assurance of
victory."
There was, besides these stirring notes, a sweet
seriousness in Emerson's voice that was infinitely
soothing. So might " Peace, be still," have
sounded from the lips that silenced the storm.
I remember that in the dreadful war-time, on
one of the days of anguish and terror, I fell in
with Governor Andrew, on his way to a lectm^e
of Emerson's, where he was going, he said, to
relieve the strain upon his mind. An hour
passed in listening to that flow of thought, calm
and clear as the diamond drops that distil from
a mountain rock, was a true nepenthe for a care-
worn soul.
An author whose writings are like mosaics
must have borrowed from many quarries. Em-
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380 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. '
erson had read more or less thoroughly through
a very wide range of authors. I shall presently
show how extensive was his reading. No doubt
he had studied certain authors diligently, a few,
it would seem, thoroughly. But let no one be
frightened away from his pages by the terrible
names of Plotinus and Proclus and Porphyry,
of Behmen or Spinoza, or of those modem Ger-
man philosophers with whom it is not pretended
that he had any intimate acquaintance. Mr.
George Ripley, a man of erudition, a keen critic,
a lover and admirer of Emerson, speaks very
plainly of his limitations as a scholar.
" As he confesses in the Essay on ' Books,*
his learning is second hand; but everything
sticks which his mind can appropriate. He de-
fends the use of translations, and I doubt whether
he has ever read ten pages of his great authori-
ties, Plato, Plutarch, Montaigne, or Goethe, in
the original. He is certainly no friend of pro-
found study any more than of philosophical
speculation. Give him a few brilliant and sug-
gestive glimpses, and he is content."
One correction I must make to this statement.
Emerson says he has "contrived to read" al-
most every volume of Goethe, and that he has
fifty-five of them, but that he has read nothing
else in German, and has not looked into him for
a long time. This was in 1840, in a letter to
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HI8 USE OF AUTHORITIES, 381
Carlyle. It was up-liill work, it may be sus-
pected, but he could not well be ignorant of his
friend's great idol, and his references to Goethe
are very frequent.
Emerson's quotations are like the miraculous
draught of fishes. I hardly know his rivals
except Burton and Cotton Mather. But no one
would accuse him of pedantry. Burton quotes
to amuse himself and his reader; Mather quotes
to show his learning, of which he had a vast
conceit ; Emerson quotes to illustrate some orig-
inal thought of his own, or because another wri-
ter's way of thinking falls in with his own, —
never with a trivial purpose. Reading as he
did, he must have unconsciously appropriated a
great number of thoughts from others. But he
was profuse in his references to those from
whom he borrowed, — more profuse than many
of his readers would believe without taking the
pains to count his authorities. This I thought
it worth while to have done, once for all, and
I will briefly present the results of the examinar
tion. The named references, chiefly to authors,
as given in the table before me, are three thou-
sand three hundred and ninety-three, relating to
eight hundred and sixty-eight different individ-
uals. Of these, four hundred and eleven are
mentioned more than once; one hundred and
fifty-five, five times or more ; sixty-nine, ten
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382
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
times or more ; thirty-eight, fifteen times or
more ; and twenty-seven, twenty times or more.
These twenty-seven names alone, the list of
which is here given, furnish no less than one
thousand and sixty-five references.
Authorities. Number of times
•^ mentioned.
Shakespeare. . . .112
Napoleon 84
Plato 81
Plutarch 70
Goethe ..... 62
Swift 49
Bacon 47
Milton 46
Newton 43
Homer 42
Socrates 42
Swedenborg .... 40
Montaigne .... 30
Saadi .30
Luther 30
Authorities. ^^^Jtio'n^-
Webster 27
Aristotle 25
Hafiz 25
Wordsworth ... 25
Burke 24
Saint Paul .... 24
Dante 22
Shattuck (Hist, of Con-
cord) 21
Chaucer 20
Coleridge .... 20
Michael Angelo . . 20
The name of Jesus
occurs fifty - four
times.
It is interesting to observe that Montaigne,
Franklin, and Emerson all show the same fond-
ness for Plutarch.
Montaigne says, " I never settled myself to
the reading of any book of solid learning but
Plutarch and Seneca."
Franklin says, speaking of the books in his
father's library, " There was among them Plu-
tarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I
still think that time spent to great advantage."
Emerson says, "I must think we are more
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EI8 USE OF AUTHORITIES. 883
deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient
writers."
Studies of life and character were the delight
of all these four moralists. As a judge of char-
acter, Dr. Hedge, who knew Emerson well, has
spoken to me of his extraordinary gift, and no
reader of " English Traits " can have failed to
mark the formidable penetration of the intellect
which looked through those calm cerulean eyes.
Noscitur a sodis is as applicable to the books
a man most affects as well as to the companions
he chooses. It is with the kings of thought that
Emerson most associates. As to borrowing from
his royal acquaintances his ideas are very simple
and expressed without reserve.
"All minds quote. Old and new make the
warp and woof of every moment. There is no
thread that is not a twist of these two strands.
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we
all quote."
What Emerson says of Plutarch applies very
nearly to himself.
" In his immense quotation and allusion we
quickly cease to discriminate between what he
quotes and what he invents. We sail on his
memory into the ports of every nation, enter
into every private property, and do not stop to
discriminate owners, but give him the praise of
alL"
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884 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Mr. Ruskin and Lord Tennyson have thought
it worth their while to defend themselves from
the charge of plagiarism. Emerson would never
have taken the trouble to do such a thing. His
mind was overflowing with thought as, a river in
the season of flood, and was full of floating frag-
ments &om an endless variety of sources. He
drew ashore whatever he wanted that would serve
his purpose. He makes no secret of his mode of
writing. " I dot evermore in my endless jour-
nal, a line on every knowable in nature ; but the
arrangement loiters long, and I get a brick-kiln
instead of a house." His journal is " full of dis-
jointed dreams and audacities." Writing by the
aid of this, it is natural enough that he should
speak of his " lapidary style " and say " I build
my house of boulders."
" It is to be remembered," says Mr. Ruskin,
*^ that all men who have sense and feeling are
continually helped : they are taught by every
person they meet, and enriched by everything
that falls in their way. The greatest is he who
has been oftenest aided ; and if the attainments
of all human minds could be traced to their real
sources, it would be found that the world had
been laid most under contribution by the men
of most original powers, and that every day of
their existence deepened their debt to their race,
while it enlarged their gifts to it."
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EJS USE OF AUTHORITIES. 885
The reader may like to see a few coincidences
between Emerson's words and thoughts and
those of others.
Some sayings seem to be a kind of family
property. "Scorn trifles" comes from Aunt
Mary Moody Emerson, and reappears in her
nephew, Ralph Waldo. — " What right have
you. Sir, to your virtue ? Is virtue piecemeal ?
This is ar jewel among the rags of a beggar."
So writes Ralph Waldo Emerson in his Lec-
ture " New England Reformers." — " Hiding the
badges of royalty beneath the gown of the men-
dicant, and ever on the watch lest their rank be
betrayed by the sparkle of a gem from under
their rags." Thus wrote Charles Chauncy Em-
erson in the " Harvard Register " nearly twenty
years before.
" The hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats."
The image comes from Pythagoras via Plutarch.
Now and then, but not with any questionable
frequency, we find a sentence which recalls Car-
lyle.
" The national temper, in the civil history, is
not flashy or whiffling. The slow, deep English
mass smoulders with fire, which at last sets all
its borders in flame. The wrath of London is
not French wrath, but has a long memory, and
in hottest heat a register and rule."
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886 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Compare this passage from " English Traits "
with the following one from Carlyle's "French
Revolution " : —
" So long this Gallic fire, through its succes-
sive changes of color and character, will blaze
over the face of Europe, and afflict and scorch
aU men : — till it provoke all men, till it kindle
another kind of fire, the Teutonic kind, namely ;
and be swallowed up, so to speak, in a day !
For there is a fire comparable to the burning of
dry jungle and grass; most sudden, high-blaz-
ing: and another fire which we liken to the
burning of coal, or even of anthracite coal, but
which no known thing will put out."
" O what are heroes, prophets, men
But pipes through which the breath of man doth blow
A momentary music."
The reader will find a similar image in one of
Burns's letters, again in one of Coleridge's poet-
ical fragments, and long before any of them, in
a letter of Leibnitz.
" He builded better than he knew "
is the most frequently quoted line of Emerson.
The thought is constantly recurring in our liter-
ature. It helps out the minister's sermon ; and a
Fourth of July Oration which does not borrow it
is like the ^^ Address without a PhoBnix " amo^g
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HIS USE OF AUTHORITIES. 387
the Drury Lane mock poems. Can we find any
trace of this idea elsewhere ?
In a little poem of Coleridge's, " William
Tell," are these two lines :
" On wind and wave the boy would toss
Was great, nor knew how great he was."
The thought is fully worked out in the cele-
brated Essay of Carlyle called " Characteris-
tics." It reappears in Emerson's poem " Fate."
" Unknown to Cromwell as to me
Was Cromwell's measure and degree ;
Unknown to him as to his horse,
If he than his groom is better or worse."
It is unnecessary to illustrate this point any
further in this connection. In dealing with his
poetry other resemblances will suggest them-
selves. All the best poetry the world has
known is full of such resemblances. If we find
Emerson's wonderful picture, " Initial Love "
prefigured in the "Symposium" of Plato, we
have only to look in the "Phaedrus" and we
we shall find -an earlier sketch of Shakespeare's
famous group, —
" The lunatic, the lover, and the poet."
Sometimes these resemblances are nothing more
than accidental coincidences ; sometimes the sim-
ilar passages are unconsciously borrowed from
another ; sometimes they are paraphrases, varia-
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888 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
tions, embellished copies, editions de luxe of
sayings that all the world knows are old, but
which it seems to the writer worth his while to
say over again. The more improved versions of
the world's great thoughts we have, the better,
and we look to the great minds for them. The
larger the river the more streams flow into it.
The wide flood of Emerson's discourse has a
hundred rivers and thousands of streajnlets for
its tributaries.
It was not from books only that he gathered
food for thought and for his lectures and essays.
He was always on the lookout in conversation
for things to be remembered. He picked up
facts one would not have expected him to care
for. He once corrected me in giving Flora
Temple's time at Kalamazoo. I made a mistake
of a quarter of a second, and he set me right.
He was not always so exact in his memory, as
I have already shown in several instances. An-
other example is where he speaks of Quintus
Curtius,the historian,when he is thinking of Met-
tus Curtius, the self-sacrificing equestrian. Lit-
tle inaccuracies of this kind did not concern
him much ; he was a wholesale dealer in illus-
trations, and could not trouble himself about a
trifling defect in this or that particular article.
Emerson was a man who influenced others
more than others influenced him. Outside of
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INFLUENCE OF OTHERS UPON HIM, 389
his family connections, the personalities which
can be most easily traced in his own are those
of Carlyle, Mr. Alcott, and Thoreau. Carlyle's
harsh virility could not be without its effect on
his valid, but sensitive nature. Alcott's psycho-
logical and physiological speculations interested
him as an idealist. Thoreau lent him a new set
of organs of sense of wonderful delicacy. Em-
erson looked at nature as a poet, and his natural
history, if left to himself, would have been as
vague as that of Polonius. But Thoreau had
a pair of eyes which, like those of the Indian
deity, could see the smallest enmiet on the black-
est stone in the darkest night, — or come nearer
to seeing it than those of most mortals. Emer-
son's long intimacy with hira taught him to give
an outline to many natural objects which would
have been poetic nebulae to him but for this com-
panionship. A nicer analysis would detect many
alien elements mixed with his individuality, but
the family traits predominated over all the ex-
ternal influences, and the personality stood out
distinct from the common family qualities. Mr.
Whipple has well said: "Some traits of his
mind and character may be traced back to his
ancestors, but what doctrine of heredity can give
us the genesis of his genius ? Indeed the safest
course to pursue is to quote his own words, and
despairingly confess that it is the nature of gen-
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890 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
lus 'to spring, like the rainbow daughter of
Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past
and refuse all history.' "
Emerson's place as a thinker is somewhat dif-
ficult to fix. He cannot properly be called a
psychologist. He made notes and even deliv-
ered lectures on the natural history of the in-
tellect; but they seem to have been made up,
according to his own statement, of hints and
fragments rather than of the results of system-
atic study. He was a man of intuition, of in-
sight, a seer, a poet, with a tendency to mysti-
cism. This tendency renders him sometimes
obscure, and once in a while almost, if not quite,
unintelligible. We can, for this reason, under-
stand why the great lawyer turned him over to
his daughters, and Dr. Walter Channing com-
plained that his lecture made his head ache.
But it is not always a writer's fault that he is
not understood. Many persons have poor heads
for abstractions; and as for mystics, if they
understand themselves it is quite as much as can
be expected. But that which is mysticism to a
dull listener may be the highest and most inspir-
ing imaginative clairvoyance to a brighter one.
It is to be hoped that no reader will take offence
at the following anecdote, which may be found
under the title " Diogenes," in the work of his
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HIS PLACE AS A THINKER, 391
namesake, Diogenes Laertius. I translate from
the Latin version.
" Plato was talking about ideas, and spoke of
mensality and cyathlty [tdbleity^ and gohletity'],
* I can see a table and a goblet,' said the cynic,
' but I can see no such things as tableity and
gobletity.' ' Quite so,' answered Plato, ' because
you have the eyes to see a goblet and a table
with, but you have not the brains to understand
tableity and gobletity.' "
This anecdote may be profitably borne in
mind in following Emerson into the spheres of
intuition and mystical contemplation.
Emerson was an idealist in the Platonic sense
of the word, a spiritualist as opposed to a mate-
rialist. He believes, he says, "as the wise
Spenser teaches," that the soul makes its own
body. This, of course, involves the doctrine of
preexistence ; a doctrine older than Spenser,
older than Plato or Pythagoras, having its cra-
dle in India, fighting its way down through
Greek philosophers and Christian fathers and
German professors, to our own time, when it
has found Pierre Leroux, Edward Beecher, and
Brigham Young among its numerous advocates.
Each has his fancies on the subject. The geog-
raphy of an undiscovered country and the sound-
ings of an ocean that has never been sailed over
may belong to romance and poetry, but they do
not belong to the realm of knowledge.
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892 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
That the organ of the mind brings with it in-
herited aptitudes is a simple matter of observa-
tion. That it inherits truths is a different prop-
osition. The eye does not bring landscapes into
the world on its retina, — why should the brain
bring thoughts? Poetry settles such questions
very simply by saying it is so.
The poet in Emerson never accurately differ-
entiated itself from the philosopher. He speaks
of Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Im-
mortality as the high-water mark of the poetry
of this century. It sometimes seems as if he
had accepted the lofty rhapsodies of this noble
Ode as working truths.
" Not in entire forgetfiilness,
And not in utter nakedness.
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."
In accordance with this statement of a divine
inheritance from a preexisting state, the poet
addresses the infant: —
" Mighty prophet ! Se^r blest I
On whom those truths do rest
Which we are toiling all our lives to find." —
These are beautiful fancies, but the philoso-
pher will naturally ask the poet what are the
truths which the child has lost between its cradle
and the age of eight years, at which Words-
worth finds the little girl of whom he speaks in
the lines, —
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HIS PLACE AS A THINKER.
" A simple child —
That lightly draws its breath
And feels its Hf e in every limb, —
What should it know of death ? "
Wliat should it, sure enough, or of any other of
those great truths which Time with its lessons,
and the hardening of the pulpy brain can alone
render appreciable to the consciousness? Un-
doubtedly every brain has its own set of moulds
ready to shape all material of thought into its
own individual set of patterns. If the mind
comes into consciousness with a good set of
moulds derived by "traduction," as Ben Jon-
son called it, from a good ancestry, it may be
all very well to give the counsel to the youth
to plant himself on his instincts. But the in-
dividual to whom this counsel is given prob-
ably has dangerous as well as wholesome in-
stincts. He has also a great deal besides the
instincts to be considered. His instincts are
mixed up with innumerable acquired prejudices,
erroneous conclusions, deceptive experiences, par-
tial truths, one-sided tendencies. The clearest
insight will often find it hard to decide what is
the real instinct, and whether the instinct itself
is, in theological language, from God or the devil.
That which was a safe guide for Emerson might
not work well with Lacenaire or Jesse Pomeroy.
The cloud of glory which the babe brings with
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894 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
it into the world is a good set of instincts, whieli
dispose it to accept moral and intellectual truths,
— not the truths themselves. And too many
children come into life trailing after them clouds
which are anything but clouds of glory.
It may well be imagined that when Emerson
proclaimed the new doctrine, — new to his young
disciples, — of planting themselves on their in-
stincts, consulting their own spiritual light for
guidance, — trusting to intuition, — without ref-
erence to any other authority, he opened the
door to extravagances in any unbalanced minds,
if such there were, which listened to his 'teach-
ings. Too much was expected out of the mouths
of babes and sucklings. The children shut up
by Psammetichus got as far as one word in their
evolution of an original language, but bekkos
was a very small contribution towards a com-
plete vocabulary. " The Dial " was well charged
with intuitions, but there was too much vague-
ness, incoherence, aspiration without energy, ef-
fort without inspiration, to satisfy those who
were looking for a new revelation.
The gospel of intuition proved to be practi-
cally nothing more or less than this: a new
manifesto of intellectual and spiritual indepen-
dence. It was no great discovery that we see
many things as truths which we cannot prove.
But it was a great impulse to thought, a great
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EFFECTS OF HIS TEACHINGS. 895
advance in the attitude of our thinking commu-
nity, when the profoundly devout religious free-
thinker took the ground of the undevout and
irreligious free-thinker, and calmly asserted and
peaceably established the right and the duty of
the individual to weigh the universe, its laws
and its legends, in his own balance, without fear
of authority, or names, or institutions.
All this brought its dangers with it, like other
movements of emancipation. For the Fay ce
que voudras of the revellers of Medmenham
Abbey, was substituted the new motto, Pense ce
que voudras. There was an intoxication in this
newly proclaimed evangel which took hold of
some susceptible natures and betrayed itself in
prose and rhyme, occasionally of the Bedlam
sort. Emerson's disciples were never accused
of falling into the more perilous snares of anti-
nomianism, but he himself distinctly recognizes
the danger of it, and the counterbalancing effect
of household life, with its curtain lectures and
other benign influences. Extravagances of opin-
ion cure themselves. Time wore off the effects
of the harmless debauch, and restored the giddy
revellers to the regimen of sober thought, as re-
formed spiritual inebriates.
Such were some of the incidental effects of
the Emersonian declaration of independence.
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896 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
It was followed by a revolutionary war of opin-r
ion not yet ended or at present like to be, A
local outbreak, if you will, but so was throwing
the tea overboard. A provincial affair, if the
Bohemian press likes that term better, but so
was the skirmish where the gun was fired the
echo of which is heard in every battle for free-
dom all over the world.
Too much has been made of Emerson's mys-
ticism. He was an intellectual rather than an
emotional mystic, and withal a cautious one.
He never let go the string of his balloon. He
never threw over all his ballast of conmion sense
so as to rise above an atmosphere in which a
rational being could breathe. I found in his
library William Law's edition of Jacob Behmen.
There were all those wonderful diagrams over
which the reader may have grown dizzy, — just
such as one finds on the walls of lunatic asy-
limis, — evidences to all sane minds of cerebral
strabismus in the contrivers of them. Emerson
liked to lose himself for a little while in the
vagaries of this class of minds, the dangerous
proximity of which to insanity he knew and has
spoken of. He played with the incommunicable^
the inconceivable, the absolute, the antinomies,
as he would have played with a bundle of jack-
straws. " Brahma," the poem which so mysti-
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HIS MYSTICISM. 397
fied tll^ readers of the " Atlantic Monthly," was
one of his spiritual divertisements. To the aver-
age Western mind it is the nearest approach to
a Torricellian vacuum of intelligibility that lan-
guage can pump out of itself. If "Rejected
Addresses " had not been written half a century
before Emerson's poem, one would think these
lines were certainly meant to ridicule and par-
ody it.
"The song of Braham is an Irish howl;
Thinking is but an idle waste of, thought,
And nought is everything and everything is nought."
Braham, Hazlitt might have said, is so obviously
the anagram of Brahma that dulness itself could
not mistake the object intended.
Of course no one can hold Emerson respon-
sible for the " Yoga " doctrine of Brahmanism,
which he has amused himself with putting in
verse. The oriental side of .Emerson's nature
delighted itself in these narcotic dreams, bom
in the land of the poppy and of hashish. They
lend a peculiar charm to his poems, but it is not
worth while to try to construct a philosophy out
of them. The knowledge, if knowledge it be,
of the mystic is not transmissible. It is not
cumulative ; it begins and ends with the solitary
dreamer, and the next who follows him has to
build his own cloud-castle as if it were the first
aerial edifice that a human soul had ever con-
structed.
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898 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Some passages of "Nature," "The Over-Soul,"
"The Sphinx," "Uriel," illustrate sufficiently
this mood of spiritual exaltation. Emerson^s
calm temperament never allowed it to reach
the condition he sometimes refers to, — that of
ecstasy. The passage in " Nature " where he says
" I become a transparent eyeball " is about as
near it as he ever came. This was almost too
much for some of his admirers and worshippers.
One of his most ardent and faithful followers,
whose gifts as an artist are well known, mounted
the eyeball on legs, and with its cornea in front
for a countenance and its optic nerve project-
ing behind as a queue, the spiritual cyclops was
shown setting forth on his travels.
Emerson's reflections in the " transcendental "
mood do beyond question sometimes irresistibly
suggest the close neighborhood of the sublime
to the ridiculous. .But very near that precipitous
border line there is a charmed region where, if
the statelier growths of philosophy die out and
disappear, the flowers of poetry next the very
edge of the chasm have a peculiar and mysteri-
ous beauty. "Uriel" is a poem which finds
itself perilously near to the gulf of unsounded
obscurity, and has, I doubt not, provoked the
mirth of profane readers; but read in a lucid
moment, it is just obscure enough and just sig-
nificant enough to give the voltaic thrill which
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HIS MYSTICISM. 399
comes from the sudden contacts of the highest
imaginative conceptions.
Human personality presented itself to Emer-
son as a passing phase of universal being. Born
of the Infinite, to the Infinite it was to return.
Sometimes he treats his own personality as inter-
changeable with objects in nature, — he would
put it off like a garment and clothe himself in
the landscape. Here is a curious extract from
" The Adirondacs," in which the reader need not
stop to notice the parallelism with Byron's —
** The sky is changed, — and what a change ! O night
And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong." —
Now Emerson : —
" And presently the sky is changed ; O world I
What pictures and what harmonies are thine !
The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene,
So like the soul of me, what if H were me f "
We find this idea of confused personal identity
also in a brief poem printed among the " Trans-
lations " in the Appendix to Emerson's Poems.
These are the two last lines of " The Mute, from
Hilali": —
** Saying, Sweetheart ! the old mystery remains.
If I am I ; thou, thou, or thou art I ? "
The same transfer of personality is hinted in
the line of Shelley's " Ode to the West Wind " :
" Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one I "
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400 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Once more, how fearfully near the abyss of the
ridiculous ! A few drops of alcohol bring about
a confusion of mind not unlike this poetical
metempsychosis.
The laird of Balnamoon had been at a dinner
where they gave him cherry-brandy instead of
port wine. In driving home over a wild tract
of land called Munrimmon Moor his hat and
wig blew oflf, and his servant got out of the gig
and brought them to him. The hat he recog-
nized, but not the wig. " It 's no my wig. Hairy
[Harry], lad; it's no my wig," and he would
not touch it. At last Harry lost his patience :
" Ye 'd better tak' it, sir, for there 's nae waile
[choice] t)' wigs on Munrimmon Moor." And
in our earlier days we used to read of the be-
wildered market-woman, whose Ego was so ob-
scured when she awoke from her slumbers that
she had to leave the question of her personal
identity to the instinct of her four-footed com-
panion : —
" If it be I, he '11 wag his little tail ;
And if it be not I, he '11 loudly bark and waU."
I have not lost my reverence for Emerson in
showing one of his fancies for a moment in the
distorting mirror of the ridiculous. He would
doubtless have smiled with me at the reflection,
for he had a keen sense of humor. But I take
the opportunity to disclaim a jesting remark
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HIS ATTITUDE RESPECTING SCIENCE, 401
about " a foresmell of the Infinite " which Mr.
Conway has attributed to me, who am innocent
of all connection with it.
The mystic appeals only to those who have an
ear for the celestial concords, as the musician
only appeals to those who have the special en-
dowment which enables them to understand his
compositions. It is not for organizations im-
tuned to earthly music to criticise the great
composers, or for those who are deaf to spiritual
harmonies to criticise the higher natures which
lose themselves in the strains of divine contem-
plation. The bewildered reader must not forget
that passage of arms, previously mentioned, be-
tween Plato and Diogenes.
Emerson looked rather askance at Science in
his early days. I remember that his brother
Charles had something to say in the " Harvard
Register" (1828) about its disenchantments.
I suspect the prejudice may have come partly
from Wordsworth. Compare this verse of his
with the lines of Emerson's which follow it.
" Physician art thou, one all eyes ;
Philosopher, a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave ? "
Emerson's lines are to be found near the end
of the Appendix in the new edition of his works.
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402 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
" Philosophers are lined with eyes within,
And, being so, the sage unmakes the man.
In love he cannot therefore cease his trade ;
Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek,
He feels it, introverts his learned eye
To catch the unconscious heart in the very act.
His mother died, — the only friend he had, —
Some tears escaped, but his philosophy
Couched like a cat, sat watching close behind
And throttled all his passion. Is 't not like
That devil-spider that devours her mate
Scarce freed from her embraces ? "
The same feeling comes out in the Poem
"Blight," where he says the "yoimg scholars
who invade our hills '*
" Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names ; '*
and in " The Walk," where the " learned men "
with their glasses are contrasted with the sons
of Nature, — the poets are no doubt meant, —
much to the disadvantage of the microscopic
observers. Emerson's mind was very far from
being of the scientific pattern. Science is quan-
titative, — loves the foot-rule and the balance,
— methodical, exhaustive, indifferent to the beau-
tiful as such. The poet is curious, asks aU man-
ner of questions, and never thinks of waiting for
the answer, still less of torturing Nature to get
at it. Emerson wonders, for instance, —
" Why Nature loves the number five,"
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HIS STYLE. 403
but leaves his note of interrogation without
troubling himself any farther. He must have
picked up some wood-craft and a little botany
from Thoreau, and a few chemical notions from
his brother-in-law, Dr. Jackson, whose name is
associated with the discovery of artificial anses-
the^a. It seems probable that the genial com-
panionship of Agassiz, who united with his scien-
tific genius, learning, and renown, most delightful
social qualities, gave him a kinder feeling to men
of science and their piu-suits than he had enter-
tained before that great master came among us.
At any rate he avails himself of the facts drawn
from their specialties without scruple when they
wiU serve his turn. But he loves the poet al-
ways better than the scientific student of nature.
In his Preface to the Poems of Mr. W. E. Chan-
ning, he says : —
" Here is a naturalist who sees the flower and
the bud with a poet's curiosity and awe, and
does not count the stamens in the aster, nor the
feathers in the wood-thrush, but rests in the sur-
prise and affection they awake." —
This was Emerson's own instinctive attitude
to all the phenomena of nature.
Emerson's style is epigrammatic, incisive, au-
thoritative, sometimes quaint, never obscure, ex-
cept when he is handling nebulous subjects.
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404 RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
His paragraphs are full of brittle sentences that
break apart and are independent units, like the
fragments of a coral colony. His imagery is
frequently daring, leaping from the concrete to
the abstract, from the special to the general and
universal, and vice versa^ with a bound that is
like a flight. Here are a few specimens of his
pleasing audacities : —
" There is plenty of wild azote and carbon un-
appropriated, but it is naught till we have made
it up into loaves and soup." —
" He arrives at the sea-shore and a sumptuous
ship has floored and carpeted for him the stormy
Atlantic." —
" If we weave a yard of tape in all humility
and as well as we can, long hereafter we shall
see it was no cotton tape at all but some galaxy
which we braided, and that the threads were
Time and Nature." —
"Tapping the tempest for a little side
wind." —
"The locomotive and the steamboat, like
enormous shuttles, shoot every day across the
thousand various threads of national descent
and employment and bind them fast in one
web." —
He is fond of certain archaisms and unusual
phrases. He likes the expression " mother-wit,"
which he finds in Spenser, Marlowe, Shake-
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HIS STYLE. 405
speare, and other old writers. He often uses
the word " husband " in its earlier sense of econ-
omist. His use of the word " haughty " is so
fitting, and it sounds so nobly from his lips, that
we could wish its employment were forbidden
henceforth to voices which vulgarize it. But his
special, constitutional, word is " fine," meaning
something like dainty, as Shakespeare uses it, —
" my dainty Ariel," — " fine Ariel. " It belongs
to his habit of mind and body as " faint " and
" swoon " belong to Keats. This word is one of
the ear-marks by which Emerson's imitators are
easily recognized. " Melioration " is another fa-
vorite word of Emerson's. A clairvoyant could
spell out some of his most characteristic traits
by the aid of his use of these three words ; his
inborn fastidiousness, subdued and kept out of
sight by his large charity and his good breed-
ing, showed itself in his liking for the word
" haughty ; " his exquisite delicacy by his fond-
ness for the word " fine," with a certain shade
of meaning ; his optimism in the frequent recur-
rence of the word "melioration."
We must not find fault with his semi-detached
sentences until we quarrel with Solomon and
criticise the Sermon on the Mount. The " point
and surprise " which he speaks of as character-
izing the style of Plutarch belong eminently to
his own. His fertility of illustrative imagery is
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406 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
very great. His images are noble, or, if bor-
rowed from hmnble objects, ennobled by his
handling. He throws his royal robe over a
milking- stool and it becomes a throne. But
chiefly he chooses objects of comparison grand
in themselves. He deals with the elements at
first hand. Such delicacy of treatment, with
such breadth and force of effect, is hard to
match anywhere, and we know him by his style
at sight. It is as when the slight fingers of a
girl touch the keys of some mighty and many-
voiced organ, and send its thunders rolling along
the aisles and startling the stained windows of a
great cathedral. We have seen him as an un-
pretending lecturer. We follow him round as
he " peddles out all the wit he can gather from
Time or from Nature," and we find that "he has
changed his market cart into a chariot of the
sun," and is carrying about the morning light as
merchandise.
Emerson was as loyal an American, as thor-
ough a New Englander, as home-loving a citizen,
as ever lived. He arraigned his countrymen
sharply for their faults. Mr. Arnold made one
string of his epithets familiar to all of us, —
" This great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious
America." This was from a private letter to
Carlyle. In his Essay, " Works and Days," he
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AS AN AMERICAN. 407
is quite as outspoken : " This mendicant America,
this curious, peering, itinerant, imitative Amer-
ica." " I see plainly," he says, " that our society
is as bigoted to the respectabilities of religion
and education as yours." " The war," he says,
" gave back integrity to this erring and immoral
nation." All his life long he recognized the
faults and errors of the new civilization. All
iis life long he labored diligently and lovingly
to correct them. To the dark prqphecies of
Carlyle, which came wailing to him across the
ocean, he answered with ever hopeful and
cheerful anticipations. "Here," he said, in
words I have already borrowed, "is the home
of man — here is the promise of a new and
more excellent social state than history has re-
corded."
Such a man as Emerson belongs to no one
town or province or continent ; he is the common
property of mankind ; and yet we love to think
of him as breathing the same air and treading
the same soil that we and our fathers and our
children have breathed and trodden. So it
pleases us to think how fondly he remembered
his birthplace; and by the side of Franklin's
bequest to his native city we treasure that golden
verse of Emerson's : —
" A blessing through the ages thus
Shield all thy roofs and towers,
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408 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
GrOD WITH THE FATHERS, SO WITH US,
Thoa darling town of ours ! "
Emerson sympathized with all generous public
movements, but he was not fond of working in
associations, though he liked well enough to at-
tend their meetings as a listener and looker-on.
His study was his workshop, and he preferred to
labor in solitude. When he became famous he
paid the penalty of celebrity in frequent inter-
ruptions by those " devastators of the day " who
sought him in his quiet retreat. His courtesy
and kindness to his visitors was uniform and re-
markable. Poets who come to recite their verses
and reformers who come to explain their projects
are among the most formidable of earthly visi-
tations. Emerson accepted his maiiyrdom with
meek submission ; it was a martyrdom in detail,
but collectively its petty tortures might have
satisfied a reasonable inquisitor as the punish-
ment of a moderate heresy. Except in that
one phrase above quoted he never complained
of his social oppressors, so far as I remember,
in his writings. His perfect amiability was one
of his most striking characteristics, and in a na-
ture fastidious as was his in its whole organiza-
tion, it implied a self-command worthy of ad-
miration.
The natural purity and elevation of Emer-
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EMERSON AND BURNS, 409
son's character show themselves in all that he
writes. His life corresponded to the ideal we
form of him from his writings. This it was
which made him invulnerable amidst all the
fierce conflicts his gentle words excited. His
white shield was so spotless that the least scru-
pulous combatants did not like to leave their de-
facing marks upon it. One would think he was
protected by some superstition like that which
Voltaire refers to as existing about Boileau, —
" Ne disons pas mal de Nicolas, — cela porte malheur."
(Don't let us abuse Nicolas, — it brings ill luck.)
The cooped-up dogmatists whose very citadel of
belief he was attacking, and who had their
hot water and boiling pitch and flaming brim-
stone ready for the assailants of their outer de-
fences, withheld their missiles from him, and even
sometimes, in a movement of involimtary human
sympathy, sprinkled him with rose-water. His
position in our Puritan New England was in
some respects like that of Bums in Presbyterian
Scotland. The dour Scotch ministers and elders
could not cage their minstrel, and they could not
clip his wings ; and so they let this morning lark
rise above their theological mists, and sing to
them at heaven's gate, until he had softened all
their hearts and might nestle in their bosoms
and find his perch on " the big ha' bible," if he
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410 RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
would, — and as he did. So did the music of
Emerson's words and life steal into the hearts
of our stem New England theologians, and soften
them to a temper which would have seemed trea-
sonable weakness to their stiff-kneed forefathers.
When a man lives a life commended by all the
Christian virtues, enlightened persons are not so
apt to cavil at his particular beliefs or unbeliefs
as in former generations. We do, however, wish
to know what are the convictions of any such
persons in matters of highest interest about
which there is so much honest difference of
opinion in this age of deep and anxious and de*
vout religious scepticism.
It was a very wise and a very prudent course
which was taken by Simonides, when he was
asked by his imperial master to give him his
ideas about the Deity. He begged for a day to
consider the question, but when the time came
for his answer he wanted two days more, and at
the end of these, four days. In short, the more
J he thought about it, the more he found himself
perplexed.
The name most frequently applied to Emer-
son's form of belief is Pantheism. How many
persons who shudder at the sound of this word
can tell the difference between that doctrine and
their own professed belief in the omnipresence
of the Deity?
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HIS RELIGIOUS BELIEF, 411
Theodore Parker explained Emerson's posi-
tion, as he understood it, in an article in the
"Massachusetts Quarterly Review." I borrow
this quotation from Mr. Cooke : —
" He has an absolute confidence in God. He
has been foolishly accused of Pantheism, which
sinks God in nature, but no man is further from
it. He never sinks God in man ; he does not
stop with the law, in matter or morals, but goes
to the Law-giver ; yet probably it would not be
so easy for him to give his definition of God, as
it would be for most graduates at Andover or
Cambridge."
We read in his Essay, " Self-Reliance " : "This
is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on
this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into
the ever-blessed One. Self-existence is the at-
tribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes
the measure of good by the degree in which it
enters into all lower forms."
The " ever-blessed One " of Emerson corre-
sponds to the Father in the doctrine of the
Trinity. The " Over-Soul " of Emerson is that
aspect of Deity which is known to theology as
the Holy Spirit. Jesus was for him a divine
manifestation, but only as other great human
souls have been in all ages and are to-day. He
was willing to be called a Christian just as he
was willing to be called a Platonist.
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412 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Explanations are apt not to explain much in
dealing with subjects like this. "Canst thou
by searching find out God ? Canst thou find out
the Almighty unto perfection? " But on certain
great points nothing could be clearer than the
teaching of Emerson. He believed in the doc-
trine of spiritual influx as sincerely as any Cal-
vinist or Swedenborgian. His views as to fate,
or the determining conditions of the character,
brought him near enough to the doctrine of
predestination to make him afraid of its con-
sequences, and led him to enter a caveat against
any denial of the self-governing power of the
will.
EBs creed was a brief one, but he carried it
everywhere with him. In all he did, in aU he
said, and so far as aU outward signs could show,
in all his thoughts, the indwelling Spirit was his
light and guide ; through all nature he looked
up to nature's God ; and if he did not worship
the " man Christ Jesus " as the churches of
Christendom have done, he followed his foot-
steps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father
Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than
any man he had known.
Emerson was in friendly relations with many
clergymen of the church from which he had
parted. Since he left the pulpit, the lesson, not
of tolerance, for that word is an insult as ap-
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HIS RELATIONS WITH CLERGYMEN. 413
plied by one set of well-behaved people to an-
other, not of charity, for that implies an im-
pertinent assumption, but of good feeling on the
part of divergent sects and their ministers has
been taught and learned as never before. Their
official Confessions of Faith make far less dififer-
ence in their human sentiments and relations
than they did even half a century ago. These
ancient creeds are handed along down, to be
kept in their phials with ^heir stoppers fast, as
attar of rose is kept in its little bottles ; they
are not to be opened and exposed to the atmos-
phere so long as their perfume, — the odor of
sanctity, — is diffused from the carefully treas-
ured receptacles, — perhaps even longer than
that.
Out of the endless opinions as to the signifi-
cance and final outcome of Emerson's religious
teachings I will select two as typical.
Dr. William Hague, long the honored min-
ister of a Baptist church in Boston, where I had
the pleasure of friendly acquaintance with him,
has written a thoughtful, amiable paper on Em-
erson, which he read before the New York Gene-
alogical and Biographical Society. This Essay
closes with the following sentence : —
" Thus, to-day, while musing, as at the begin-
ning, over the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
we recognize now as ever his imperial genius as
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414 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
one of the greatest of writers ; at the same time,
his life work, as a whole, tested by its supreme
ideal, its method and its fruitage, shows also a
great waste of power, verifying the saying of
Jesus touching the harvest of human life : ^ He
THAT GATHEBETH NOT WITH ME SCATTEBETH
ABROAD.' "
''But when Dean Stanley returned from
America, it was to report," says Mr. Conway
" (' Macmillan,' Jun&, 1879), that religion had
there passed through an evolution from Edwards
to Emerson, and that 'the genial atmosphere
which Emerson has done so much to promote is
shared by all the churches equally.' "
What is this "genial atmosphere" but the
very spirit of Christianity? The good Baptist
minister's Essay is full of it. He comes asking
what has become of Emerson's " wasted power "
and lamenting his lack of "fruitage," and lo!
he himself has so ripened and mellowed in that
same Emersonian air that the tree to which he
belongs would hardly know him. The close-
communion clergyman handles the arch-heretic
as tenderly as if he were the nursing mother of
a new infant Messiah. A few generations ago
this preacher of a new gospel would have been
burned; a little later he woidd been tried and im-*
prisoned ; less than fifty years ago he was called
infidel and atheist; names which are fast beoomr
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HIS RELATIONS WITH CLERGYMEN, 415
ing relinquished to the intellectual half-breeds
who sometimes find their way into pulpits and
the so-called religious periodicals.
It is not within our best-fenced churches and
creeds that the self-governing American is like
to find the religious freedom which the Concord
prophet asserted with the strength of Luther
and the sweetness of Melancthon, and which the
sovereign in his shirt-sleeves will surely claim.
Milton was only the precursor of Emerson when
he wrote : —
"Neither is God appointed and confined, where
and out of what place these his chosen shall be
first heard to speak ; for he sees not as man sees,
chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote
ourselves again to set places and assemblies, and
outward callings of men, planting our faith one
while in the old convocation house, and another
while in the Chapel at Westminster, when all
the faith and religion that shall be there canon-
ized is not sufficient without plain convincement,
and the charity of patient instruction, to supple
the least bruise of conscience, to edify the mean-
est Christian who desires to walk in the spirit
and not in the letter of human trust, for all the
number of voices that can be there made ; no,
though Harry the Seventh himself there, with
all his liege tombs about him, should lend their
voices from the dead, to swell their number."
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416 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
The best evidence of the effect produced by
Emerson's writings and life is to be found in the
attention he has received from biographers and
critics. The ground upon which I have ventured
was already occupied by three considerable
Memoirs. Mr. George Willis Cooke's elaborate
work is remarkable for its careful and thorough
analysis of Emerson's teachings. Mr. Moncure
Daniel Conway's "Emerson at Home and
Abroad " is a lively picture of its subject by one
loDg and well acquainted with him. Mr. Alex-
ander Ireland's " Biographical Sketch " brings
together, from a great variety of sources, as well
as from his own recollections, the facts of Emr
erson's history and the comments of those whose
opinions were best worth reproducing. I must
refer to this volume for a bibliography of the
various works and Essays of which Emerson
furnished the subject.
From the days when Mr. Whipple attracted
the attention of our intelligent, but unawakened
reading community, by his discriminating and
appreciative criticisms of Emerson's Lectures,
and Mr. Lowell drew the portrait of the New
England " Plotinus-Montaigne " in his brilliant
" Fable for Critics," to the recent essays of Mr.
Matthew Arnold, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Henry
Norman, and Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman,
Emerson's writings have furnished one of the
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EMERSON AS JUDGED BY HIS TOWNSMEN, 417
most enduring pieces de resistance at the critical
tables of the old and the new world.
He early won the admiration of distinguished
European thinkers and writers : Carlyle accepted
his friendship and his disinterested services ;
Miss Martineau fully recognized his genius and
sounded his praises ; Miss Bremer fixed her
sharp eyes on him and pronounced him " a noble
man." Professor TyndaU found the inspiration
of his life in Emerson's fresh thought ; and Mr.
Arnold, who clipped his medals reverently but
unsparingly, confessed them to be of pure gold,
even while he questioned whether they would
pass current with posterity. He found discern-
ing critics in France, Germany, and Holland.
Better than all is the testimony of those who
knew him best. They who repeat the saying
that " a prophet is not without honor save in his
own country," wiU find an exception to its truth
in the case of Emerson. Kead the impressive
words spoken at his funeral by his fellow-towns-
man. Judge Hoar ; read the glowing tributes of
three of Concord's poets, — Mr. Alcott, Mr.
Channing, and Mr. Sanborn, — and it will ap-
pear plainly enough that he, whose fame had
gone out into aU the earth, was most of all
believed in, honored, beloved, lamented, in the
little village circle that centred about his own
fireside.
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418 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
It is a not uninteresting question whether
Emerson has bequeathed to the language any
essay or poem which will resist the flow of time
like " the adamant of Shakespeare," and remain
a classic like the Essays of Addison or Gray's
Elegy. It is a far more important question
whether his thought entered into tlie spirit of
his day and generation, so that it modified the
higher intellectual, moral, and religious life of
his time, and, as a necessary consequence, those
of succeeding ages. Corpora non agunt nisi
soluta^ and ideas must be dissolved and taken
up as well as material substances before they can
act. " That which thou sowest is not quickened
except it die," or rather lose the form with which
it was sown. Eight stanzas of four lines each
have made the author of "The Burial of Sir
John Moore " an immortal, and endowed the
language with a classic, perfect as the most fin-
ished cameo. But what is the gift of a mourn-
ing ring to the bequest of a perpetual annuity ?
How many lives have melted into the history of
their time, as the gold was lost in Corinthian
brass, leaving no separate monumental trace of
their influence, but adding weight and color and
worth to the age of which they formed a part
and the generations that came after them! We
can dare to predict of Emerson, in the words of
his old friend and disciple, Mr. Cranch : —
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EMERSON AS JUDGED BY HIS LIFE. 419
" The wise will know thee and the good will love,
The age to come will feel thy impress given
In all that lifts the race a step above
Itself, and stamps it with the seal of heaven."
It seems to us, to-day, that Emerson's best liter-
ary work in prose and verse must Kve as long
as the language lasts ; but whether it live or fade
from memory, the influence of his great and
noble life and the spoken and written words
which were its exponents, blends, indestructible,
with the enduring elements of civilization.-
It is not irreverent, but eminently fitting, to
compare any singularly pure and virtuous life
with that of the great exemplar in whose foot-
steps Christendom professes to follow. The time
was when the divine authority of his gospel
rested chiefly upon the miracles he is reported
to have wrought. As the faith in these excep-
tions to the general laws of the universe dimin-
ished, the teachings of the Master, of whom it
was said that he spoke as never man spoke,
were more largely relied upon as evidence of his
divine mission. Now, when a comparison of
these teachings with those of other religious
leaders is thought by many to have somewhat
lessened the force of this argument, the life of
the sinless and self-devoted servant of God and
friend of man is appealed to as the last and con-
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420 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
vincing proof that he was an immediate mani-
festation of the Divinity.
Judged by his life Emerson comes very near
our best ideal of humanity. He was born too
late for the trial of the cross or the stake, or
even the jail. But the penalty of having an
opinion of his own and expressing it was a seri-
ous one, and he accepted it as cheerfully as any
of Queen Mary's martyrs accepted his fiery
baptism. His faith was too large and too deep
for the formulae he found built into the pulpit,
and he was too honest to cover up his doubts
under the flowing vestments of a sacred calling.
His writings, whether in prose or verse, are
worthy of admiration, but his manhood was the
underlying quality which gave them their true
value. It was in virtue of this that his rare
genius acted on so many minds as a trumpet
call to awaken them to the meaning and the
privileges of this earthly existence with all its
infinite promise. No matter of what he wrote
or spoke, his words, his tones, his looks, carried
the evidence of a sincerity which pervaded them
all and was to his eloquence and poetry like the
water of crystallization ; without which they
would effloresce into mere rhetoric' He shaped
an ideal for the commonest life, he proposed an
object to the humblest seeker after truth. Look
for beauty in the world around you, he said, and
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LIFE JUDGED BY THE IDEAL STANDARD. 421
you shall see it everywhere. Look within, with
pure eyes and simple trust, and you shall find
the Deity mirrored in your own soul. Trust
yourself because you trust the voice of God in
your inmost consciousness.
There are living organisms so transparent that
we can see their hearts beating and their blood
flowing through their glassy tissues. So trans-
parent was the life of Emerson ; so clearly did
the true nature of the man show through it.
What he taught others to be, he was himself.
His deep and sweet humanity won him love and
reverence everywhere among those whose natures
were capable of responding to the highest mani-
festations of character. Here and there a nar-
row-eyed sectary may have avoided or spoken ill
of him ; but if He who knew what was in man
had wandered from door to door in New England
as of old in Palestine, we can well believe that
one of the thresholds which " those blessed feet"
would have crossed, to hallow and receive its
welcome, would have been that of the lovely
and quiet home of Emerson.
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INDEX.
[For numy references, not found elsewhere, see under the general
headings of EmersonU Books ^ Essays^ Poem*.'}
Abbott, Josiah GABDnnER, a papU of
Emerson, 49, 50.
Academic Aaces, 2, 3. (See Hered-
Acaon, subordinate, 112.
Adams, John, old age, 261.
Adams, Samuel, Harvard debate,
115.
Addison, Joseph, classio, 416.
Advertiser, The, Emerson's interest
in, 348.
.Solian Harp, his model, 329, 340.
(See Emerson's Poems, — Harp. )
.fischyluB, tragedies, 253. (See
Greek.)
Agassis, Louis : Saturday Club, 222 ;
companionship, 403.
Agriculture : in Anthology, 30 ; at-
tacked, 190 ; not Emerson's field,
255, 256, 365.
Akenside, Mark, allusion, 16.
Alchemy, adepts, 260, 261.
Alcott, A. Bronson : hearing Emer-
son, 66 ; speculations, 86 ; an ideal-
ist, 160 ; The Dial, 159 ; sonnet,
366 ; quoted, 373 ; personality
traceable. 389.
Alcott, Louisa M., funeral bouquet,
351.
Alexander the Great : allusion, 184;
mountain likeness, 322.
Alfred the Great, 220, 306.
Allston, Washington, unfinished pic-
ture. 334. (See Pictures.)
Ambition, tretited in Anthology, 30.
America : room for a poet, 136, 137 ;
virtues and defects, 143 ; faith in,
179 ; people compared with Eng-
lish, 216 ; things awry. 260 ; ctris-
tocraey, 296 ; in the CivU War, 304 ;
Revolution. 306 ; Lincoln, the true
histotry of his time, 307 ; passion
for, 306, 309 ; wtifldal rhythm,
329 ; its own literary style, 342 ;
home of man, 371 ; loyalty to, 406 ;
epithets, 406, 407. (See .ffn^/otuf.
New England.etc.)
Amici, meeting Emerson, 63. (See
Italy.)
Amusements, in New England, 30.
Ansemia, artistic, 334.
Ancestry: in general, 1-3; Emer-
son's, 3 ei seq. (See Heredity.)
Andover,Mass.: Theological School,
48 ; graduates, 411.
Andrew, John Albion : War Gov-
ernor, 223 ; hearing Emerson, 379.
(See South.)
Ai^lo. (See Michael Angelo.)
Antinomianism : in The Dial, 162 ;
kept from, 177. (See 6od, Seli-
gion, etc.)
Anti-Slavery: in Emerson's pulpit,
67; the reform. 141, 145, 152;
Emancipation address, 181 ; Bos-
ton and New York addresses, 210-
212 ; Emancipation Proclamation,
228 ; Fugitive Slave Law, and other
matters, 303-307. (J&w South.)
Antoninus, Marcus, allusimi, 16.
Architecture, illustrations, 253.
Arianism, 51. (See Unitarianism.)
Aristotle : influence over Marj
Emerson, 17 ; times mentioned,
382.
Arminianism, 51. (See Methodism^
Religion, etc.)
Amim, Gisela von, 225.
Arnold, Matthew : quotation about
America, 137 : lecture, 236 ; on
Milton, 315; his Thyrsis, 333;
criticism, 334 ; string of Emerson*s
epithets, 406.
Aryans, comparison, 312.
Asia: a pet name, 176 ; inunovaUa,
200.
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INDEX.
AMttbet Blver, 70, 71.
Aatronomy : Harp Oluitnitioii, 108 ;
BtartAipunst wrong, 262, 263. (See
OaliUOy Start f Fenia, etc.)
AiUntio MontUy: sketch of Dr.
Bipley, 14, 16 ; of Mary Moody
Emerson, 16; established, 221;
sapposititious club, 222 ; on Per-
sianPoetry, 224 ; on Thoreau, 228 ;
Bmerson's contributions, 239, 241 ;
Brahma, 296.
Atmosphere: effect (m inq^ration,
290 ; Qdritual, 413, 414.
Augustine, Emerson's study of.
Authors, quoted by Emerson, 381-
383. (SeeP/tttorc^etc.)
Baoov, Frakcb : allusion, 22, 111 :
times quoted, 382.
Bflmcroft, Georae : literary rank, 33 ;
in college, 41^
Barbier, Henri Augnste, on Napo-
leon, 208.
Barnwell, Robert W. : in history,
46 ; in college, 47.
Beaumont and Fletcher, disputed,
line, 128, 129.
Beauty : its nature, 74, 94, 96 ; an
end, 99, 136, 182 ; study. 301.
Beecher, Edward, on preexistence,
391. (See Preixistence.)
Behmen. Jacob : mysticism, 201,
202, 396 ; citation, 380.
Berkeley, lUshop : characteristics,
189; matter, 800.
Bible : Mary Emerson's study, 16 ;
Mosaic cosmogony, 18; the Exo-
dus, 35; the Lord's Supper, 58;
Psalms, 68, 181, 182, 253 ; lost Par-
adise, 101; Genesis, Sermon on
the Mount. 102; Beer of Patmos,
102, 103; Apocalypse. 105; Song
of Songs, 117 ; Baruch's roll, 117,
118 ; not closed, 122 : the Sower,
154 ; Koah's Ark, 191 ; Pharisee's
trumpets, 265 ; names and inuu^-
ery, 268; sparing the rod, 297;
rhythmic mottoes, 314 ; beau^ of
Israel, 351 ; face of an angel, 352 ;
barren fig-tree, 367 ; a dauic, 376 ;
body of death, *' Peace be still I '^
379; draught of fishes, 381; its
semi-detached sentences, 405;
Job quoted, 411 ; ** the man
Christ Jesus," 412; scattering
abroad, 414. (See Christ, God,
Religion, etc.)
Bigelow, Jacob, on rural cemeteries,
Biography, erafy man writes his
own, 1.
Uackmore, Sir Bichard, oontro-
Ter^, 81.
VOm Family, 9.
Bliss, DanieL patriotism, 72.
Blood, transfusion of, 266.
Books, use and abuse. 110, 111. (See
Emergon^s E»»ayg.)
Boston, Mass. : First Church, 10, 12,
13; Woman's Club, 16; Harbor,
19; nebular spot, 25. 26 ; its pul-
pit darling, 27; Epkcopacy. 28;
Athenaeum, 31 ; magasines, 28-34 ;
intellectual character, lishts on ita
three hills, hk;h caste re^on, 34 ;
Samaria aikl Jerusalem, 8o ; streeta
and squares,. 37-39 ; Latin School,
39, 40, 43 ; new buildings, 42 ; Mrs.
Emerson's boarding-house, the
Common as a pasture, 43 ; Unita-
rian preaching, 61 ; a Kew England
centre, 52 ; Emerson's settlement,
64 ; Second Church, 55-61 ; lec-
tures, 87, 88, 191 ; Trimount Ora-
cle, 102 ; stirred 1^ the Birinity-
School address, 126; scho<d-keep-
ing, Boxbury, 129 ; aesthetic soci-
ety, 149; Transcendentalists, 156,
150 ; Bay, 172 ; Freeman PUce
Chapel, 210: Saturday Club, 221-
223 ; Bums Centennial, 224, 225 \
Parker meeting, 228 ; letters, 263,
274. 275 ; OldSouth lecture, 294 ;
Unitarianism, 298 ; Emancipation
Proclamation, 307 ; special train,
350; Sons of Liberty, 869; birth-
place, 407 ; Baptists. 413.
Boswell, James : aUuuon, 138 ; one
lacking, 223 ; life of Johnson, 268.
Botany, 403. ( See Science. )
Bowen, Francis : literary rank, 34 ;
on Nature, 103, 104.
Brook Farm, 159, 164-166, 189, 191.
(See Transcendtntalism, etc.)
Brown, Howard N., prayer, 36&
Brown, John, sympathy with, 211.
(See AiiH-Slavery, South.)
Brownson, Orestes A., at a party,
149.
Bryant, Wmiam Cullen : his literary
rank, 33 ; redundant syllable, 328 ;
his translation of Homer quoted,
378.
Buckminster, Joseph Stevens : min-
ister hi Boston, 12, 26, 27, 62;
Memoir, 29; destruction of Ool-
dau,31.
Buddhism : like Transcendentalism,
161; Buddhist nature, 188; sainta
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298. (See BmersonU Poemi,—
Brahma, — IndiOj etc. )
BnfFoiif on style, 341.
Bulkeley Family, 4-7.
Bulkeley, Peter: minister of Con-
cord, 4-7, 71 ; comparison of ser-
mons, 57 ; patriotism, 72 ; land-
owner, 327.
Banyan, John, auoted, 169.
Burke, Edmund: essay, 73; times
mentioned, 382.
Bums, Robert: festival, 224, 225;
rank, 281 ; image referred to, 386 ;
religious position, 409. (See Scoi-
Burrouffhs, John, view of EngUsh
life, 335.
Burton, Robert, quotations, 109,
381.
Buttrick, Major, in the Revolution,
71, 72.
Byron, Lord: allusion, 16; rank,
281 ; disdahi, 321 ; uncertain sky,
335; puallelism, 399.
Cabot, J. Eluot : on Emerson^s lit-
erary habits, 27 ; The Dial, 159 ;
prefaces, 283, 302 ; Note, 295, 296 ;
Prefatory Note, 310, 311 ; the last
meetings, 347, 348.
CflBsar, Julius, 184, 197.
California, trip, 263-271, 359. (See
Thayer.)
Calvin, John : his Cotnmentary,
103 ; used bv Cotton, 286.
Calvinism : WUliam Emerson^s want
of sympathy with, 11, 12; out-
grown, 61 ; predestination, 230 ;
sahits,298; spiritual influx, 412.
(See God, Puritanism, JUligion,
Unitarianism.)
Cambridge, Mass. : Emerson teach-
ing there, 50: exclusive circles,
62. ^See Harvard University.)
Cant, disgust with, 156.
Carlyle, Thomas : meeting Emerson,
63; recollections of thoir rela-
tions, 78-80, 83 ; Sartor Resartus,
81, 82, 91 ; correspondence, 82, 83,
89, 90. 127, 176, 177, 192, 315, 317,
374, 380, 381, 406, 407 : Life of
Schiller, 91 ; on Nature, 104, 105 ;
Miscellanies. 130 ; the WaterviUe
Address, 136-138 ; influence, 149,
150 ; on Transcendentalism, 156-
158; The DUl, 160-163; Brook
Farm, 164 ; friendship, 171 ; Chel-
sea visit, 194 ; bitter legacy, 196 ;
love of power. 197 ; on Napoleon
and Goethe, 206 ; gramblings, 260 ;
tobacco, 270; Sartor reprinted,
272; pi^r on, 294; Emerson^s
dying friendship, 349; physique,
363 ; Gallic fire, 386 ; on Charac-
teristics, 387 ; personality trace-
able, 389.
Carper t«r, William B., 230.
Century, The, essay in, 295.
Cerebration, imconscious, 112, 113.
Chalmers, Thomas, preaching, 65.
Channing, Walter, headache, 175,
390.
Channing, William Ellery : allusion,
16; directing Emerson's studies,
51 ; preaching, 52 ; Emerson in his
pulpit, 66; influence, 147, 149;
kept awake, 157.
Channing, William Ellery, the poet :
his Wanderer, 263 ; Poems, 4(».
Channing, William Henry : allu-
sions, 131, 149 ; in The Dial. 159 ;
the Fuller Memoir, 209 ; Ode in-
scribed to, 211, 212.
Charleston, S. C, Emerson's preach-
ing, 53. (See South. )
Charlestown, Mass., Edward Em^-
son's residence, 8.
Charles V., 197.
Charles XII., 197.
Chatelet, Parent du, a realist, 326.
Chatham, Lord, 255.
Chaucer, Geoffrey : borrowings, 206 ;
rank, 281 ; honest rhymes, 340 ;
times mentioned, 382.
Chelmsford, Mass., Emerson teach-
ing there, 49, 50.
Chemistry, 403. (See Science.)
Cheshire, its "haughty hUl," 323.
Choate, Rufus, oratory, 148.
Christ: reserved expressimis about,
13 ; mediatorship, 59 ; true office,
120-122; worship, 412. {SeeJesuSf
Religiony etc.)
Christianity: its essentials, 13;
primitive, 35 ; a mythus, defects,
121 ; the true, 122 ; two benefits,
123; authority, 124; incarnation
of, 176 ; the essence, 306 ; Fathers,
391.
Christian, Emerson a, 267.
Christian Examiner, The : on Wil-
liam Emerson, 12; its literary
predecessor, 29 ; on Nature, 103,
104: repudiates Divinity School
Address, 124.
Church : activity in 1820, 147 ; avoids
ance of, 153 : the true, 244 ; music,
306. (See God^JestiSy BeligUm^
etc.)
Cicero, allusion, IIL
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426
INDEX.
Cid,the,184.
Clarke, James FreOTum : letten. 77-
80, 128-131 ; traoscendentaliBin,
149; The Dial, 159; FuUer Me-
moir, 209 ; Emerson's funeral, 361,
353-365.
Clarke, Samuel, aUusion, 16.
Clarke, Sarah, sketches, 130.
Clarkson, Thomas, 220.
Clergy : among Emerson's ancestry,
3-8 ; grayestones, 9. (See CotUm^
Heredity, eta.)
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor : aUusion,
16 ; Emerson's account, 63 ; influ-
ence, 149, 150; Gaiiyle's criti-
cism, 196 ; Ancient Mariner, 333 ;
Christabel, Al^sshiian Maid. 334 ;
times mentioned, 382; an image
quoted, 386 ; William TeU, 387.
Collins, William: poetry, 321; Ode
and iNrge, 332.
Commodi^, essav, 94.
Concentration, 288.
Concord, Maes. : Bulkeley*s minia-
try, 4-7 ; first association with the
Emerson name, 7; Joseph's de-
scendants, 8 ; the Fight, 9 ; Dr.
Bipley, 10 ; Social Club, 14 ; Emer-
son's preaching, 54; Goodwin's
settlement, 56 ; discord, 67 : Em-
erson's residence begim, 69, 70 ;
a ^rpical town, 70; settlement,
71 ; a Delphi, 72 ; Emerson home,
83; Second Centennial, 84, 85,
303; noted citizens, 86; town
government, the, monument, 87 ;
the Sage, 102; letters, 125-131,
226 ; supposition of Carlyle's life
there, 171 ; Emancipation Ad-
dress, 181; leaving, 192; John
Brown meeting, 211; Samuel
Hoar, 213 ; wide-awake, 221 ; Lin-
coln obsequies, 243, 307 ; an «n-
<ter.Concord, 256; fire, 271-279;
letters, 275-279 ; return, 279; Min-
ute Man tmveiled, 292 ; Soldiers'
Monument, 303; land-owners, 327;
memorial stone, 333; Conway's
visits, 343, 344 : Whitman's, 344,
345; Russell's, 345: fimeral, 350-
356 ; founders, 352 : Sleepy Hol-
low, 356 ; a strong attraction, 369 ;
neighbors, 373 : Prophet, 415.
Congdon, Charles, his Reminis-
cences, 66.
Conservatism, fairly treated, 166,
157. (See JRe/ormerx, Beligion,
Transcendentalism^ etc)
Conversation : C. C. Emerson's e»-
say, 22, 268 *, inspiration, 290.
Conway, Moncure D.: aocount of
Emerson, 66, 66, 66, 194: two
visits, 343, 344; anecdote, 346;
error, 401 ; on Stanley, 414.
Cooke, George Willis : biography of
Emerson, 43, 44, 66, 88 ; on Amer-
ican Scholar, 107, 108; on anti-
slavery, 212: cm Parnassus, 28^
282 ; <Hi pantheism, 411.
Cooper, James Fenimore, 33.
Corot, pearly mist, 836, 336. (See
Pictures, etc.)
Cotton, John: service to scholar-
ship, 34 ; reading Calvin. 286.
Counterparts, the stox^, 226.
Cowper, William : Mother's Picture,
178; disinterested good, 304; ten-
derness, 333 ; vOTse, 338.
Cnmch, Christopher P.: The Dial,
169 ; poetic prediction, 416, 417.
Cromwell, Oliver : saying by a war
saint, 252 ; in poetry, 387.
Cudworth, Ralph, epithets, 200.
Cupples, George, on Emerson's lec-
tures, 196.
Curtius, Quintus for Mettus, 388.
Cushing. Caleb: rank, 33; in col-
lege, 46.
Dana, Richabo Hekst, his literary
pLu;e, 33, 223.
Dante : aUudon in Anthology, 31 ;
rank, 202, 320 ; times mentioned,
382.
Dartmouth College, oration, 131-
136.
Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species,
106.
Dawes, Rufus, Boyhood Memories,
Declaration of Independence, in-
tellectual, 116. (See American,
etc.)
Delirium, imaghiative, easily pro-
duced, 238. (See Intuition. )
Delia Cruscans, allusion, 162. (See
Transcendentalism.)
Delos, allusion, 374.
Delphic Oracle : of Kew England,
72 ; illustration, 84.
Democratic Review, The, on Nature,
103.
De Profundis, illustrating Carlyle's
spirit, 83.
De Quhicey, Thomas : Emerson's
interview with, 63, 195; on origi-
nality, 92.
De StaSl, Mme., aUusion, 16.
De TocqueviUle, account of Unita-
rianism, 61.
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427
Dewey, OnHle, New Bedford minis-
try, 67.
Dexter, Lord Timothy, ponctuation,
325,326.
Dial, The : ostabliahed, 147. 158 ;
editors, 159; influence, 160-163;
death, 164 ; poems, 192 ; old con-
tributors, 221 ; papers, 2i95; intui-
tions, 394.
Dial, The (second), in C i n ci nna ti ,
239.
Dickens, Charles : on Father Taylor,
56 ; American Notes, 155.
Diderot, Denis, essay, 79.
Diogenes, story, 401. (See Loert^tM.)
DisOiterestedness, 259.
Disraeli, Benjamin, the rectorship,
282.
Dramas, their limitations, 375. (See
Shakespeare.)
Dress, iUustration of poetry, 311,
312.
Dryden, John, quotation, 20, 21.
Dwight, John S. : in The Dial, 159 ;
musical critic, 223.
East Lkxivoton, Mass., the Unita-
rian pulpit, 88.
Economy, its meaninsr, 142.
Edinburgh, Scotland : Emerson's
visit and preaching, 64, 65; lec-
ture, 195.
Education : through friendship, 97,
98 ; public questions, 258, 259.
Edwards, Jonathan: allusions, 16,
61 ; the atmosphere chai^^d, 414.
(See Calvinisnit Puritanism^
Uniiarianism, etc.)
Egotism, a pest, 233.
Egypt : poetic teaching, 121 ; trip,
lW1.272;SpWnx,330. {See Emer-
son* s Poems f — Sphinx. )
Election Sermon, illustration, 112.
Elizabeth, Queen, verbal heir-loom,
313. (See Raleigh, etc.)
Ellis, Rufus, minister of the First
Church, Boston, 43.
Eloquence, defined, 285, 286.
Emerson Family, 3 et seq.
Emerson, Charles Chauncy, brother
of Ralph Waldo : f eeUng towards
natural science, 18, 237 ; memo-
ries, 19-25, 37, 43 ; character, 77 ;
death, 89, 90 ; influence, 98 ; The
Dial, 161 ; " the hand of Doug-
las," 234 ; nearness, 368 ; poetry,
385 ; Harvard Register, 401.
Emerson, Edith, dwighter of Ralph
Waldo, 263.
Emerson, Edward, of Newbuiyi 8.
Emerson, Edward Bliss, brother of
Ralph Waldo: allusions, 19, 20,
37, 38 ; death, 89 ; Last Farewell,
poem, 161 ; nearness, 368.
Emerson, Edward Waldo, son of
Ralph Waldo : in New York, 246 ;
on the F^urming essay, 255 ; father's
hist days, 346-349 ; remmiscences,
359.
Emerson, Ellen, daughter of Rah)h
Waldo : residence, 83; trip to ^•
rope, 271 ; care of her father, 294 ;
correspondence, 847.
Emerson. Mrs. Ellen Louisa Tucker,
first wife of Ralph Waldo, 56.
Emerson, Joseph, minister of Men-
don, 4, 7, 8.
Emerson. Joseph, the second, min-
ister of Maiden, 8.
Emerson, Mrs. Lydia Jackson, sec-
ond wife of Ralph Waldo : mar-
riage, 83 ; Asia, 176.
Emerson, Mary Moody: influenco
over her nephew, 16-18 ; quoted,
385.
Emerson, Peter Bulkeley, brother of
Ralph Waldo, 37.
Emkrson, Ralph Waldo, his Life:
moulding influences, 1 ; New Eng-
land heredity, 2 ; ancestry, 3-10 ;
parents, 10-16 ; Aunt Mary, 16-19 ;
brothers, 19-26 ; the nest, 25 ;
noted scholars, 26-36 ; birthplace,
37, 38; boyhood, 39, 40; early
efforts, 41, 42 ; parsonages, 42 ;
father's death, 43 ; boyish appear-
ance, 44 ; college days, 45-47 ; let-
ter, 48; teaching, 49, 50: studv-
ing theology, and preaching, 61-
54 ; ordination, marriage, 65 ; be-
nevolent efforts, wife's death, 56 ;
withdrawal from his church, 57-
61 ; first trip to Europe, 62-65 ;
preachh^ hi America, 66, 67 ; re-
membered conversations, 68, 69;
residence in the Old Manse, 69-72 ;
lecturing, essays in The Nortii
American, 73 ; poems, 74 ; portray-
ing himself, 75 ; comparison with
MUton, 76, 77 ; letters to Chirke,
78-80, 128-131 ; interest in Sartor
Resartus, 81 ; first letter to Car-
lyle, 82 ; second marriage and
Concord home, 83 ; Second Cen-
tennial, 84-87; Boston lectures,
Concord Fight, 87 ; East Lexing-
ton church, War, 88 ; death of
brothers, 89, 90 ; Nnture published,
91 ; parallel with Wordsworth, 92 ;
free utterance, 83 i Beauty, poems,
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INDEX.
94; Lsmraage, 96-87; DiadpUne,
97,98; f^^nn, 98, 99 ; lUiuiQiu,
99, 100; Spirit and Matter, 100;
Paradise regained, 101 ; the BiUe
spirit, 102 ; Berelatioiis, 103 ; Bow-
en's criticism, 104; Byolution,
105, 106 ; Phi Beta Kappa oration,
107, 106; fable of the One Man,
109; num thinking, 110; Books,
111 ; uncoDsdoiis cerebration, 112 ;
a scholar's duties, 113 ; specialists,
114; a declaration of intellectual
independence, 115 ; address at the
Theological School, 116, 117 ; ef-
fect on Unitarians, 118 ; sentiment
of duty, 119 ; Intuition, 120 ; Rea-
son, 121; the Traditional Jesus,
122 ; Sabbath and Preaching, 123;
correspondence with Ware, 124-
127 ; ensuing controverqr, 127 ;
Ten Lectures, 128 ; Dartmouth
Address, 131-136; WaterviUe Ad-
dress, 136-140 ; reforms, 141-145 ;
new views, 146 ; Past and Present,
147; on Everett, 148; assembly
at Dr. Warren's, 149 ; Boston doc-
trinaire*. 150; unwise followers,
161-156 ; CJonsenratives, 166, 167 ;
two Transcendental products, 167-
166 ; first volume of Essays, 166 ;
History, 167, 168; Self-reliance,
168, 1^ ; Compensation, 169 ; other
essays, 170; Friendship, 170, 171 ;
Heroism, 172 ; Over-Soul, 172-175 ;
house and income, 176 ; son's
death, 177, 178 ; American and
Oriental quaUties, 179; English
virtues, 180; Emancipation ad-
dresses in 1844, 181 ; second series
of Essays, 181-188; Reformers,
188-191 ; Carlyle's business. Poems
Eiblished, 192 ; a second trip to
urope, 193-196; Representative
Men, 196-209 ; lectures a^n, 210 ;
Abolitionism, 211, 212; Woman's
Rights, 212, 213 ; a Kew England
Roman, 213, 214 ; English Traits,
214-221 ; a new magfcrine, 221 ;
dubs, 222, 223 ; more poetry, 224 ;
Bums Festival, 224 ; letter about
various literary matters, 225-227 ;
Parker's death, Lincoln's Procla-
mation, 228 ; Conduct of Life, 228-
239 ; BostonHymn, 240 ; " So nigh
is grandeur to our dust,*' 241 ; At-
lantic ccmtributions, 242 ; Lincoln
obsequies, 243 ; Free Religion, 243,
244 ; second Phi Beta Kappa ora-
tion, 244-246; poem read to his
MD, 246-248 ; Harvard Lectures,
249-255; agticultiiie and adeDoe,
255, 256 ; predictions, 267 ; Books,
258 ; Conversation, 258 ; dements
of Courage, 259 ; Success, 260, 261 ;
on old men, 261, 262 ; California
trip, 263-268 ; eacting, 268 ; smok-
ing, 270 ; conflagration, loss of
memory, Froude banquet, third
trip abroad, 272; friendly gifte,
272-279; editing Ptonassus, 280-
282 ; failing powers, 283 ; Hope
everywhere, 284 ; n^^ons, 285 ;
Eloquence, Pessimism, 286 ; Com-
edy, Plagiarism, 287; lessons re-
pelted, 288; Sources of Inspira-
tion, 289, 290; Future Life, 290-
292; dissolving creed, 292; Con-
cord Bridge, 292, 293 ; decline of
faculties, Old South lecture, 294 ;
papers, 294, 295 ; quiet pen, 295 ;
posthumous works, 295 et seq. ;
the pedagMTue, 297 ; University of
Yir^nia, §99; hidebtedness to
Plutarch, 299-302; slavery quea-
tions, 303-308 ; Woman Question,
308 ; patriotism, 308, 309 ; nothing
but a poet, 311 ; antique words,
313 ; self-revelation, 313, 314 ; a
great poet? 314-316; humility,
317-319; poetic favorites, 320,
321; comparison with contempora-
ries, 321 ; dtizen of the universe,
822 ; fascination of symbolism,
323 ; realism, sdence, imaginative
coloring, 324 ; dangers of realistic
poetry, 325 ; range of subjects,
826 ; bad rhymes, 327 ; a trick of
verse, 308 ; one faultless poem,
332; spell- bound readers, 333;
workshop, 334 ; oct<^llabio verse,
atmosphere, 335, 336; compar-
ison with Wordsworth, 337; and
others, 338 ; dissolving sentences,
339 ; incompleteness, 339, 340 ;
, 342; last visits
recdved, 343-345; the red rose,
345; forgetfulness, 346; literary
work of last years. 346, 347 ; let-
ters unanswered, 347 ; hearing and
siffht, subjects that interested him,
348; later hours, death, 349; last
rites, 350-356; portrayal, 357-
419 ; atmosphere, 357 ; books, dis-
tilled alcohol, 358 ; physique, 359 ;
demeanor, 360 ; hair and eyes, in-
sensibiliW to music, 361; daily
habits, 362; bodily infirmities,
362, 363 ; voice, 363 ; quiet laugh-
ter, want of manual dexterity,
364; spade anecdote, memoiy.
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ignorance of exact science, 365;
intuition and natural sanity
united, fastidiousness, 366 ; unpa-
tience with small-minded woramp-
pers, Frothingham's Biography,
367 ; intimates, familiarity not in-
vited, 368; among fellow-towns-
men, errand to earth, inherited
tradi>^ions, 369; sealed orders,
370, 371 ; conscientious work, sac-
rifloas lor truth, essays instead
of sermons, 372; conpegation
at large, charm, optimism, 373;
financially straitened, 374; lec-
ture room limitations, 374, 375;
a Shakespeare parallel, 375, 376 ;
platform fascination, 376; con-
structive power, 376, 377 ; English
experiences, lecture-peddlmg, 377;
a stove relinquished, utterance,
an hour's weight, 378; trumpet-
sound, sweet seriousness, diamond
drops, effect on (Governor Andrew,
379 ; learning at second hand, 380 ;
the study of Goethe, 380 ; a great
quoter, no pedantry, 381 ; list of
authors referred to, 381, 382 ; spe-
cial indebtedness, 382 ; penetra-
tion, borrowing, 383; method of
writing and its results, aided by
others, 384; sayings that seem
family propertv, 386 ; pasrages
compared, 385-fc7 ; the tributary
streams, 388 ; accuracy as to facts,
888; personalities tracealde in
hhn, 389 ; place as a thinker, 390 ;
Platonic anecdote, 391 ; preexist-
ence, 391, 392 ; mind-momds, 393 ;
reiving on inathict, 394 ; dangers
of intuition, 395 ; mysticism, ZQQ ;
Oriental side, 397 ; transcendental
mood, 398; personal identity con-
fused, 399; a distorting mirror,
400 ; distrust of science, 401-403 ;
style illustrated, 403, 401 ; favor-
ite words, 405; roval imagery,
406; comments on America, 406,
407; common property of man-
kind, 407 ; public spirit, solitary
workshop, martvrdom from visit-
ors, 408 ; white shield invulnerable,
409 ; religious attitude. 409-411 ;
spiritual influx, creed, 412; cler-
ical relations, 413 ; Dr. Hague's
criticism, 413, 414; ameliorating
religious influence, 414 ; freedom,
415 ; enduring verse and thoi^fht,
416, 417 ; comparison with Jesus,
417 ; shicere manhood, 418 ; trans-
parency, 419.
Ehebson's Books: —
Conduct of Life, 229, 237.
English Traits : the first European
trip, 62 ; published, 214 ; analy-
sis, 214-220; penetration, 3^;
Teutonic fire, 386.
Essays : Dickens's allusion, 156 ;
collected, 166.
Essays, second series, 183.
Lectures and Biographical Sketch-
es, 128, 295, 290, 347.
Letters and Social Aims, 210, 283,
284,296.
May-day and Other Pieces, 161,
192, 224, 242, 257, 310, 318, 346.
Memoir of Margaret Fuller, 209.
B^isceUanies. 302, 303.
Nature, Addresses, and Leotores,
179.
Nature : resemblance of extracts
from Mary Moody Emerson, 17 ;
where written, 70 ; the Many hi
One, 73 ; first published, 91, 92,
373 ; analysis, 93-107 ; obscure,
108 ; Beauty, 237.
Parnassus: collected, 280; Pref-
ace, 314 ; allusion, 321.
Poems, 293, 310, 318, 339.
Representative Men, 196-209.
Selected Poems, 311, 347.
Society and Solitude, 250.
Emkrson's Essays, Lbctuiibs, StR-
MONS, SPEECHK9, CtC. : —
Li general : essays, 73, 88, 91,
92, 310 ; income from lectures,
176, 191, 192 ; lectures in Eng-
land, 194-1% ; long series, 372 ;
lecture-room, 374; plays and
lectures, 375 ; double duty, 376,
377 ; charm, 379. (See Enter'
son^s Life» Luceun^ etc. )
American Civilisation, 307.
American Scholar, The, 107-115,
133, 188.
Anglo-Saxon Race, The, 210.
Anti-Slavery Address, New York,
210-212.
Anti-Slavery Lecture, Boston, 210,
211.
Aristocracy, 296.
Art, 166, 175, 263, 254.
Beauty, 235-237.
Behavior, 234.
Books, 257, 380.
Brown, John, 302, 305, 306.
Burke, Edmund, 73.
Bums, Robert, 224, 226, 307.
Oarlyle, Thomas, 294, 302, 317.
Ghanning's Poem, preface, 2G2,
Digitized by
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430
INDEX,
Cluurmcter, 183, 296, 297.
Chardon Street and Bible Cknnren-
tion, 159, 302.
Circles, IGG, 174, 175.
Civilization, 250-253.
Clubs, 258.
Comedy. 128.
Comic, The, 28C, 287.
Commodity, 94.
Compensation, 166, 169.
Concord Fi^rlit, the anniTemry
speech, 292, 293.
Concord, Second Centennial Dis-
course, 84-86.
Conservatiye, The, 166, 157,
159.
Considerations by the Way, 236.
Courage, 259.
Culture, 232, 233.
Demonology, 128, 296.
Discipline, 97, 98.
Divinity School Address, 116-127,
131.
Doctrine of the Soul, 127.
Domestic Life, 254, 256.
Duty, 128.
Editorial Address, Mass. Quar-
terly Review, 193, 302, 307.
Education, 29G, 297.
Eloquence, 254: second essay,
286,286.
Emancipation in the British West
Indies, 181, 303.
Emancipation Proclamation, 228,
307.
Emerson, Mary Moody, 296, 296,
302.
English Literature, 87.
Experience, 182.
Farming, 255, 256.
Fate, 228-330.
Fortune of the Republic, 294, 302,
307-309.
Fox, George, 73.
France, 196.
Free Religious Association, 243,
302 307
Friendship, 166, 170.
Froude, James Anthony, after-
dinner speech, 271.
Fugitive Slave Law, 303, 304.
Genius, 127.
Gifts, 184, 185.
Ck)ethe, or the Writer, 208, 209.
Greatness, 288, 346.
Harvard Commemoration, 307.
Heroism, 166, 172.
Historical Discourse, at Concord,
303.
Historic Notes of Life and Letters
in New England, 147, 165, 296,
302.
History, 166, 167.
Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214, 296, 302.
Home, 127.
Hope, 284, 286.
Howard University, speech, 263.
Human Culture, ST.
Idealism, 98-100.
lUusions, 235, 239.
ImmortaUty, 266, 290-292, 354.
Inspiration, 289.
Intellect, 160, 175.
Kansas Affairs, 306.
Kossuth, 307.
Language, 95-97.
Lincoln, Abraham, funeral re-
marks, 242, 243, 307.
Literary Ethics, 131-136.
Lord's Supper, 57-60, 303.
Love, 127, 128, 160, 170. (See ^f»-
erson''s Poems.)
Luther, 73.
Manners, 183, 234.
Man of Letters, The, 296, 298.
Man the Reformer, 142, 143.
Method of Nature, The, 13&-141.
Michael Angelo, 73, 75.
Milton, 73775.
Montaigne, or the Skeptic, 202-
204.
Napole<m, or the Man of the
World, 206-209.
Natural Hietory of the InteUect,
249 268 347.
Nature (the essay), 186, 186, 398.
New England Reformers, 188-191,
385.
Nominalism and Realism, 188.
Old Age, 261, 262.
Over-Soul, The, 166, 172-176, 398,
411.
Parker, Theodore, 228, 306.
Perpetual Forces, 297.
Persian Poetry, 224.
Phi Beta Kappa oration, 347.
PhUosophy of History, 87.
Plato, 196-200; New Readings,
200.
Plutarch, 296, 299-«)2.
Plutarch's Morals, introducticm,
262.
Poet, The, 181, 182.
Poetry, 210.
Poeti^ and Imagination, 283 ; sub-
divisions : Bards and Trouveurs,
Creation, Form, Imagination,
Melody, Morals, Rhytiba, Po-
etry, Transcendency, Yeiadty,
283,284; qaoted,m
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431
Politics, 186, 187.
Power, 230, 231.
Preacher, The, 294, 298.
Professions of Divinity, Law, and
Medicine, 41.
Progress of Culture, The, 244,
288.
Prospects, 101-103.
Protest, The, 127.
Providence Sermon, 130.
Prudence, 166, 171, 172.
Quotation and Originality, 287,
288.
Relation of Man to the Globe, 73.
Resources, 286.
Right Hand {of Fellowship, The,
at Concord, 56.
Ripley, Dr. Ezra, 295, 302.
Scholar, The, 296, 299.
School, The, 127.
Scott, speech, 302, 307.
Self-Reliance, 166, 168, 411.
Shakespeare, or the Poet, 204-
206.
Social Aims, 285.
Soldiers' Monument, at Concord,
303.
Sovereignty of Ethics, The, 295,
297,298.
Spirit, 100, 101.
Spiritual Laws, 166, 168.
Success, 260, 261.
Sumner Assault, 304.
Superlatives, 295, 297.
Swedenborg, or the Mystic, 201,
202,206.
Thoreau, Henry D., 228, 295, 302.
Times, The, 142-145.
Tragedy, 127.
Transcendentalist, The, 145-155,
159.
Universality of the Moral Senti-
ment, 66.
University of Virginia, address,
War,*88,303.
Water, 73.
Wealth, 231, 232.
What is Beauty ? 74, 94, 95.
Woman, 307, 308.
Woman's Rights, 212, 213.
Work and Days, 256, 312, 406, 407.
Worship. 235.
Young American, The, 166, 180,
181.
Exbbson's Poxks : —
Li general : inspiration from na-
ture, 22, 96 ; poetic rank in col-
lege, 45, 46 ; prose-poetry and
philosophy, 91, 93 ; taaxaalafflor
ttUj in America, 136, 137 ; first
volume, 192 ; five immortsd po-
ets, 202; ideas repeated, 239;
true position, 311 et seq. ; in
carmine Veritas, 313; litanies,
314 ; arithmetic, 321, 322 ; fas-
cination, 323 ; celestial imagery,
324 ; tin pans, 325 ; realism,
326; metrical difficulties, 327,
335; blemishes, 328; careless
rhymes, 329; delicate descrip-
tions, 331 ; pathos, 332 ; fasci-
nation, 333; unfinished, 334,
339, 340 ; atmosphere, 335 ; sub-
jectivity, 336; sympathetic U-
lusion, ^7 ; resemblances, 337,
338 ; rhythms, 340 ; own order,
341, 342; always a poet, 346.
(See Emersott^s Life, MUton^
Poets, etc.)
Adirondacs, The, 242, 309, 327.
Blight, 402.
Boston, 346, 407, 408.
Boston Hymn, 211, 221, 241, 242.
Brahma, 221, 242, 396, 397.
Celestial Love, 170. (Three
Loves.)
Class Day Poem, 45-47.
Concord Hymn, 87, 332.
Daemonic Love, 170. (Three
Loves.)
Days, 221, 242, 257, 312 ; pleached,
Destiny, 332.
Each and All, 73, 74, 94, 331.
Earth-Song, 327.
Elements, 242.
Fate, 159, 387.
Flute, The, 399.
Good-by, Proud World, 129, 130,
338.
Hamatreya, 327.
Harp, The, 320, 321, 329, 330. (See
^olian Harp.)
Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214.
Humble Bee, 46, 74, 75, 128, 272,
326, 331, 338.
Liitial Love, 170, 387. (Three
Loves. )
In Memoriam, 19, 89.
Latin Translations, 43.
May Day, 242 ; changes, 311, 333
MerUn, 318, 319. (MerUn's Song.)
Mithiidates, 331.
Monadnoc, 322, 331 ; alterations,
366.
My Garden, 242.
Nature and Life, 242.
Occasional and Miscellaneous
Pieces, 242.
Digitized by
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432
INDEX,
Ode inacribedHo W. H. Ghajoningt
211 212.
Poet/The,* 317-320, 333.
Preface to Nature, 105.
Problem, The, 169, 161, 253, 284,
326, 337, 380.
Quatrains, 223, 242.
Rhodora, The, 74, 94, 95, 129.
Romany Girl, The, 221.
Saadl, 221, 242.
8ea-Shore, 333, 339.
Snow-storm, 331, 338, 339.
Solution, 320.
Song for Knights of Square Table,
42.
Sphinx, The, 113, 159, 243, 330,
398.
Terminus. 221, 242 ; read to his
Test, The, 201, 202, 320.
Threnody, 178, 333.
Titmouse, The, 221, 326.
Translations, 242, 399.
Uriel, 326, 331, 398.
Voluntaries, 241.
Waldeinsamkeit, 221.
Walk, The, 402.
Woodnotes, 46, 159, 331, 838.
World-Soul, The, 331.
Emersoniana, 358.
Emerson, Thomas, of Ipswich, 38.
Bmerson, Waldo, child of Ralph
Waldo: death, 177, 178; anec-
dote, 265.
Emerson, WHliam, grandfather of
Ralph Waldo : mmister of Con-
cord, 8-10, 14 ; building the Manse,
70; patriotism, 72.
Emerson, William, father of Ralph
Waldo : minister, in Harvard and
Boston, 10-14; editorship, 26, 32,
33 ; the parsonage, 37, 42 ; death,
43.
Emerson, William, brother of Ralph
Waldo, 37, 39, 49, 53.
England: first visit, 62-65; Lake
Windermere, 70 ; philosophers,
76 ; the virtues of the people, 179,
180 ; a second visit, 192 et sea. ;
notabilities 195 ; the lectures, 196 ;
Stonehenge, 215 ; the aristocracy,
215; matters wrong, 260; Anglo-
Saxon race, trade and liberty, 304 ;
lustier life, 335; language, 352;
lecturing, a key, 377 ; smouldering
fire, 385. (See America, Europe,
etc.)
Enthusiasm: need of, 143; weak-
ness, 154.
Epicurus, agreement with, 301.
Episcopacv: in Boofeon, 28, 34, 62;
church in Newton, 68 ; at Efano-
ver, 132 ; quotation from lituivy,
354 ; bunal service , 356. ( See Cal-
vinism^ Church, Religion, etc.)
Esquimau, allusion, 167.
Establishment, party of the, 147.
(See Puritanism, Religion, Uni-
taricmism, etc. ) ^
Eternal, relations to the, 297. (See
God, Jesus, Religion, etc.)
Europe: Em^-son^i first visit, 62-
65; return, 72; the Muses, 114;
debt to the East, 120; famous
gentlemen, 184 ; second visit, 193-
196 ; weary of Napoleon. 207 ; re-
turn, 210: conflict possible, 218;
third visit, 271-279 ; cast-out pas-
sion for, 308. (See .America, .^n^
land, France, etc.)
Everett, Edward: on Tudor, 28;
literary rank, 33 ; preaching, 52 ;
influence, 148.
Evolution, taught in " Nature,'* 105,
106.
Eyeball, transparent, 398.
Faith: lacking in America, 143,
buUding cathedrals, 253. (See
God, Religion, etc.)
line, a charaoteristio expression,
405.
Fire, illustration, 386. (See Eng-
land, France, etc.)
Forbes, John M., connected with the
Emerson family, 263-265; his
letter, 263.
Foster, John, minister of Brighton,
15.
Fourth-of-July, orations, 386. (See
America, etc.)
Fox, QeoTge, essay on, 73.
France : Emerson's first visit, 62,
63 ; philosophers, 76 ; Revolution,
80; tired of Napoleon, 207, 208;
realism, 326 ; wrath, 385, 386. (See
Carlyle, England, Europe, etc)
Francis, Gonvers, at a party, 149.
Franklin, Benjamin : birthplace, 37 ;
allusion, 184 ; characteristics, 189 ;
Poor Richard, 231 ; quoted, 236 ;
maxims, 261 ; fondness for Plu-
tarch, 382 ; bequest, 407.
Fraunhofer, Joseph, optician, 230,
324. \
Frazer's Blagazine: "The Mud,"
79; Sartor Resartus, 81. (See '
Carlyle.)
Freeman, James, minister of Eing*s
Chapel, U, 12, 52.
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UfDEX.
433
Free Trade, Athenteiim banquet,
220.
Friendship, 0. G. Emeraon*B essay,
22, 23, 77.
Frothingham, Nathaniel L., account
of Emerson's mother, 13.
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks : Life
of Ripley, 165; an . unpublished
manuscript, 365-367.
Fuller, Margaret : borrowed sermon,
130; at a party, 149; The Dial,
159, 160, 162 ; Memoir, 209 ; caus-
ing laughter, 364 ; mosaic Biogra-
phy, 368.
Fumess, William Henry: on the
Emerson family, 14; Emerson's
funeral, 360, 3^.
Future, party of the, 147.
Oalton, F&urais, composite por-
traits, 232.
Gardiner, John Sylvester John : al-
lusion, 26; leadership in Boston,
28; Anthology Society, 32. (See
EpUcopacy.)
Gardner, John Lowell, recollections
of Emerson's boyhood, 38-42.
Gardner, S. P., |^en, 38.
Genealogy, surviyal of the fittest, 3.
(See Heredity.)
Gentleman's Mi^^azine, 30.
Gentleman, the, 183.
Geography, illustration, 391.
German : study of, 48, 49, 78, 380 ;
philosophers, 76 ; scholarship, 148 ;
oracles, 206 ; writers unread, 208 ;
philosophers, 380 ; professors, 391.
Germany, a visit, 225, 226. (See
Europe^ France^ Goethey etc.)
Gifts, 185.
Gilfillan, Geoive: on Emerson's
preaching, 65; Emerson's phy-
sique, 360.
Gilman, Arthur, on the Concord
home, 83.
Glasgow, the rectorship, 280.
God : the universal spirit, 68, 69,
94 ; face to face, 92, 93 ; teaching
the human mind, 98, 99 ; aliens
from, 101 ; hi us, 139-141 ; his
thought. 146 ; belief, 170 ; seen by
man. 174 ; divine offer, 176 ; writ-
ing oy grace, 182: presence, 243 ;
tribute to Great First Cause, 267 ;
Sirplexity about, 410 ; ever-blessed
ne, 411; mirrored, 412. (See
Christianity, Bsligion, etc. )
Goethe: called ifr., 31; dead, 63;
Clarke's essay, 79; generalizations,
148; infloenoo, 160; on Spinoxa,
174, 175 ; rank as a poet, 202, 320 ;
lovers, 226; rare union, 324; his
books read, 380, 381 ; times quoted,
382. (See German, etc.)
Goldsmith, Oliver, his Vicar of
Wakefield, 9, 10, 15.
Good, the study of, 301.
Goodwin, H. B., Concord minister,
56.
Gould, Master of Latin School. 39.
Gould, Thomas R., sculptor, 60.
Gourdin, John Gaillard Keith and
Robert, in college, 47.
Government, abolition of, 141.
Grandmother's Review, 30.
Gray, Thomas, Elegy often quoted,
316, 317, 416.
Greece : poetic teaching, 121 ; allu-
sion, 168.
Greek : Emerson's love for, 43, 44 ;
in Harvard, 49 ; poets, 253 ; moral-
ist, 299; Bryant's translation,
378 ; philosophers, 391. (See Ho-
mer, etc. )
Greenough, Horatio, meeting Emer-
son, 63.
Grimm, Hermann, 226.
Guelfs and Ghibellines, illustration,
47.
Haitz, times mentioned, 382. (See
Persia.)
Hague, William, essay, 413.
Haller, Albert von, rare union, 324.
Harvard, Mass., William Emerson's
settiement, 10, 11.
Harvard Univeraity: the Bulkeley
gift, 6 ; William Emerson's gradu-
ation, 10; list of graduates, 12;
Emerson's brothers, 19, 21 ; Reg-
ister, 21, 24, 385, 401 : Hillard, 24,
25 ; Kirkland's presidency, 26,
27 ; Gardner, 39-41 ; Emerson's
connection, 44-49 ; the Boylston
prizes, 46; Southern students,
47; graduates at Audover, 48;
Divinity School, 51, 53; a New
England centre, 52 ; Bowen's pro-
fessorship, 103 ; Phi Beta Kappa
oration, 107, 115, 133, 188, 244;
Divinity School address, 116-132 ;
degree conferred, 240; lectures,
249 ; library, 257 ; last Divinity
address, 294 ; Commemoration,
307 ; singing class, 361 ; graduates,
411. (See Cambridge.)
Haskins, David Green, at Emerson's
funeral, 356.
Hawkins, Ruth (Emerson's mother),
10, 13, 14.
Digitized by
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484
INDEX,
Hragbtyf % chftr«oterIrtic ezpres-
•ion, 406.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel : his Moeaes,
70; *^ dream -peopled solitude/'
8G ; at the club, 223 ; view of Eng-
lish Ufe, 335 ; grave, 356 ; biogra-
phy, 3C8.
Haslitt, William : British Poets, 21.
Health, inspiration, 289.
Hebrew Language, study, 48. (See
Hed^e, Frederic Henry : at a party,
149 ; quoted, 383.
Henry Vll., tombs, 415.
Herbert, George: Poem on Man,
102 ; parallel, 170; poetry, 281 ; a
line quoted, 345.
Herder, Jobann Gottfried, allusion,
16.
Heredity: Emerson's belief, 1, 2;
in Emerson family, 4, 19 ; Whip-
ple on, 389 ; Jonson, 893.
Herrick, Robert, poetry, 281.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth.
(See Emerson^ 8 Books^ — Nature. )
Hilali, The Flute, 399.
Hillard, George Stillman : in college,
24, 25 ; his literary place, 33 ; idd,
276.
Hindoo Scriptures, 199, 200. (See
Bible, India, etc.)
History, how it should be written,
168.
Hoar, Ebenezer Bockwood : refer-
ence to, 223 ; op the Bums speech,
225 ; kindness, 273, 274, 276-279;
at Emerson's death-bed, 349 ; fu-
neral address, 351-353.
Hoar, Samuel : statesman, 72 ; trib-
ute, 213, 214.
Holland, description of the Dutch,
217.
Holley, Horace, prayer, 267.
Holmes, John, a pupil of Emerson,
60.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell : memories
of Dr. Ripley, 15 ; of C. C. Emer-
son, 20, 21 ; familiarity with Cam-
bridge and its college, 45 ; errone-
ous quotation from, 251, 252 ; jest
erroneously attributed to, 400, 401.
Holy Ghost, "a new bom bard of
the," 123. (See Christ, God, Re-
ligion, etc.)
Homer : poetic rank, 202, 320 ; pla-
giarism, 205 ; Diad, 253 ; allusion,
315 ; tin pans, 325 ; times quoted,
382. (See Greek, etc.)
Homer, Jonathan, minister of New-
ton, 15.
Homr, Mrs. Ellen, The Dial, 169,
H<^ : lacking in America, 143 ; in
every essay, 284.
Horace : allusion, 22 ; Ars Poetica,
816.
Horses, Flora Templ«*8 time, 388.
Howard University, speech, 263.
Howe, Samuel Gndley, the philan-
thropi£t, 223.
Hunt, Leigh, meeting Emerson, 195.
Hunt, William, the pidnter, 223.
Idealism, 98-100, 146, 160.
Idealists: Ark fuU, 191; Platonic
Imagination : the faculty, 141 ; de-
fined, 237, 238 ; essay, 283 ; colore
ing life, 324.
ImbeciUty, 231.
Immortality, 262. (See God, Re-
ligion, etc. )
Incompleteness, in poetry, 339.
India: poetic models, 338; idea of
preezlstence, 391 ; Brahmanism,
397. (See Emerson^s Poems,
— Brahma.)
Indians : in history of Concord, 71 ;
Algonquins, 72.
Inebriation, subject in Monthly An-
thology, 30.
Insects, defended, 190.
Insi^ration: of Nature, 22, 96, 141 ;
urged, 146.
Instinct, from God or Devil, 393.
Intellect, confidence in, 134.
Intmtion,394.
Ipswich, Mass., 3, 4, 8.
Ireland, Alexander : glimpses of
Emerson, 44, 64, 66; reception,
193, 194 ; on Oarlyle, 196 ; letter
from Miss Peabody, 317 ; quoting
Whitman, 344 ; quoted, 360.
Irving, Washington, 33.
Italy: Emerson's first visit, 62, 63 ;
Naples, 113.
Jackson, Charles, garden, 38.
Jackson, Dr. Charles Thomas, anaes-
thesia, 403.
Jackson, Miss Lydia, reading Car-
lyle, 81. ( See Mrs. Emerson. )
Jahn, Johann, studied at Andover,
48.
Jameson, Anna, new book, 131.
Jesus: times mentioned, 382; a
divine manifestation, 411 ; fol-
lowers, 417; and l^erson, 419.
(See Bible, Christ, Church, Re-
ligion, etc)
Digitized by
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INDEX,
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Joachim, the Tiolinist, 225, 226.
Johiiiaon, Samuel, literary style, 29.
Jonaon, Ben : poetic rank, 281 ; a
phrase, 300; traduction, 393.
(See lieredUy^ etc.)
Journals, as a method of work, 384.
Jupiter Scapin, 207.
Jury Trial, and dinners, 216.
Justice, the Arch Abolitionist, 306.
Juvenal : allusion, 22 ; precept from
heaven, 252.
Kalamazoo, Mich., allusion, 388.
Kamschatka, allusion, 167.
Keats, John : quoted, 92 ; Ode to a
Nightingale, 316 ; fairU, swoon,
405.
King, the, illustration, 74.
SJrkland, John Thornton : Harvard
presidency, 26, 52 ; memories, 27.
Koran, allusion, 198. (See BibtCy
God, Religion, etc.)
•Labor : reform, 141 ; dignity, 142.
Lacenaire, evil instinct, 392.
Laertius, Diogenes, 390, 391.
La Harpe, Jean Francois, on Plu-
tarch, 301.
Lamarck, theories, 166.
Lamb, Gnarles, Carlyle's criticiam,
196.
Landor, Walter Savage, meeting
Emerson, 63.
Landscape, never painted, 339, 240.
(See Pictures, etc.)
Lomguage : its qrmbolism, 95-97 ; an
original, 394.
Latin : Peter Bulkeley's scholarship,
7 ; translation, 24, 25 ; Emerson^s
Translations, 43, 44.
Laud, Archbishop, 6.
Law, William, mysticism, 396.
Lawrence, Mass., allusion, 44.
Lecturing, given up, 295. (See Em-
erson's E8»ay», Lectures, etc. )
Leibnitz, 386.
Leroux, Pierre, preexistence, 391.
Letters, insiHration, 289.
Lincoln, Abraham, character, 307.
(See Emerson's Essays. )
Linnaeus, illustration, 323, 324.
Litanies, in Emerson, 314. (See
Episcopacy.)
literature : aptitude for, 2, 3 ; ac-
tivity in 1820, 147.
Little Classics, edition, 347.
Liverpool, Eng., a visit, 193, 194.
{See England, Europe, Scotland,
etc.)
Looke, John, allusioii, 16, 111.
Lmdon, England. : Tower Stairs,
63 ; readers, 194 ; sights, 221 ;
travellers, 308 ; wrath, 385. (See
England, etc^
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth :
allusions, 31, 33 ; Saturday Club,
222, 223 ; burial, 346.
Lord, Nathan, Preadent of Dart-
mouth College, 132.
Lord's Supper, Emerson's doubts,
57-61.
Lothrop & Co., publishers, 83.
Louisville, Ky., Dr. Clarke's resi-
dence, 78-80.
Lounsbury, Professor, Chaucer let-
ter, 205.
Love : in America, 143 ; the Arch
Abolitionist, 306. (See Emerson^s
Poems.)
Lowell, Charles: minister of the
West Church, 11, 12, 52 ; on Kirk-
land, 27.
LoweU, P. C, generosity, 276. *
Lowell, James Russell : an allusion,
33 ; on The American Scholar, 107 ;
editorship, 221 ; club, 223 ; on the
Bums speech, 225 ; on Emerson's
bearing, 360, 361 ; Hawthorne
biography, 368 ; on lectures, 379.
Lowell, Mass. , factories, 44.
Luther, Martin : lecture, 73 ; his con-
servatism, 298 ; tunes mentioned,
382.
Lyceum, the: a pulpit, 88; New
Enghmd, 192; a sacrifice, 378.
(See Lecturing, Emerson^'s Leo-
tures, etc.
Lycurgus, 306. (See Greece.)
Mackintosh, Sir Jamxs, an allusion,
16.
Macmillan's Magazine, 414.
Maiden, Mass. : Joseph £merson*s
ministry, 8 ; diary, 17.
Man : a fable about, 109. 110 ; faith
in, 122 ; apostrophe, 140.
Manchester, Eng. : visit, 194, 195 ;
banquet, 220. (See England, etc. )
Marlowe, Christopher, expressions,
404.
Marvell, Andrew : reading by C. C.
Emerson, 21 ; on the Dutch, 217 ;
verse, 338.
Mary, Queen, her martyrs, 418.
Massachusetts Historical Society :
tribute to C. C. Emerson, 21 ; qual-
ity of its literature, 84 ; on Gar-
lyle, 294.
Mayssachusetts Quarterly Beview,
193, 802, 307, 411.
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INDEX.
ICaterUUflm, 146, 381. (See Rdi- I
gion.) I
JCather, Cotton : hk Magnalia, 5-7 ; i
on Concord diacord, 57 ; oo New
Sngland Melancholy, 216 ; a bor-
rower, 381.
Matbew, Father, diaciples, 368.
Mayhew, Jonathan, Boeton minister,
Melioration, a characteriatic expres-
sion, 405.
Mendon, Mass., Joseph BmerwHi's
ministry, 4.
Mephistopheles, Goethe's creation,
208.
Merrimac Rirer, 71.
Metaphysics, indifference to, 2A9.
Methodism, In Boston, 56. (See
Father Taylor.)
Michael Angelo: allusions, 73, 75;
on external beauty, 99 ; course,
260 ; filled with God, 284 ; on hn-
mortality, 290 ; times mentioned,
382.
Middlesex Agricultural Association,
235. {See AffricuUure, Emertan^s
Essays.)
Middlesex Association, Emerwrn ad-
mitted, 63.
Miller's Retron)ect, 34.
Milton, John : influence in New Eng-
land, 16 ; quotation, 24 ; essay, 73,
75; compared with Emerson, 76,
77 ; Lycidas, 178 ; supposed speech,
220; diet, 270, 271; poetic rank,
281 ; Arnold's citation. Logic, Rhet-
oric, 315; popularity, 310; quoted,
324; tin pans, 32&; inyentor of har-
monies, 328; Lycidas, 333; Gomus,
338; times mentioned, 382; pre-
cursor, quotation, 415
Miracles: false impresdon, 121, 122;
and idealism, 146 ; theories, 191 ;
St. Januarius, 217; objections,
244. (See Bible, Christ, Eeligion,
etc.)
Modena, Italy, Emerson's visit, 63.
Honadnoc, Mount, 70.
Montaigne : want of religion, 300 ;
ereat authority, 380 ; times quoted,
Montesquieu, on immortality, 291.
Monthly Anthology : Wm. Emerson's
connection, 13, 26; precursor of
North American Review, 28, 29 ;
character, 30, 31 ; Quincy's trib-
ute, 31 ; Society formed, 32 ;
career, 33; compared with The
Dial, 160.
Moody Ftunily, of Tork, Me., 8, 10.
Morals, in Plntan±, 30L
Morisoa, John H<qpkins, on '.
son's preachim^ 67.
Mormons, 264, 2w.
Mother-wit, a favorite expresskm,
404,405.
Motley, John Lothrop, 33, 223.
Mount Auburn, stroUs, 40.
Movement, party of the, 147.
Munroe & Co., publishers, 81.
Music : church, 306 ; imqititade for,
361 ; great ccwnpoeers, 401.
Musketaquid River, 22, 70, 71.
Mysticism : nninteUigible, 390 ; Eok-
er8on's,396.
Napolboh : allnsioii, 197 ;
mentioned, 382.
Napoleon ni., 225.
Nation, The, Emerson's interest in,
348.
Native Bias, 288.
Nature : in undress, 72 ; . solicita-
tions, 110 ; not truly studied, 135 ;•
neat men, 199; tortured, 402.
(See Emerson's Books, Emerson't
Essays, etc.^
N^;ations, to be shunned, 285.
New Bedford, Mass., Emerson's
preaching, 52, 67.
Newbury, Ibss., Edward Emerson's
deaconship, 8.
New England : families, 2, 3, 5; Pe-
ter Bulkeley's coming, 6 ; clerical
virtues, 9; Church, 14; literary
sky, 33 ; domestic service, 34, 35 ;
two centres, 52 ; an ideal town,
70, 71; the Delphi, 72; Cariyle
invited, 83; anniversaries, 84;
town records, 85; Genesis, 102;
effect of Nature, 106 ; boys and
girls; 163; Massachusetts, Con-
necticut River, 172; lyceums,
inn . ...^i._^i.^i» nia . ic^.—. ii>__
N
)
Newton, Stuart, sketches, 130.
New World, gospel, 371. (See^imerw
iea.)
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INDEX.
487
New York: Brevoort House, 246;
Oenealogicsil Society, 413.
Niagara, visit, 263.
Nidiver, George, ballad. 259.
Niglitingale, Florence, 220.
Nithadale, Eng., mountains, 78.
Non-R3sistance, 141.
North American Review : its prede-
cessor, 28, 29, 33 ; the writers,
34 ; Emerson's contributions, 73 ;
Ethics, 294, 295 : Bryant's article,
328.
Norihampton, Mass., Emerson's
preachhig, 53.
Norton, ijidrews: literary rank,
34 ; professorship, 52.
Norton, Charles Eliot: editor of
Correspondence, 82 ; on Emer-
son's genius, 373.
Ou> MAmn, Ths : alluidon, 70 ; fire,
271-279. (Sae Cmcord.)
Oliver, Daniel, in Dartmouth Col-
lege, 132.
Optimism : in philosophy, 136 ;" in-
nocent luxuriance,'' 211 ; wanted
by the young, 373,
Oriental : genius, 120 ; spirit in Em-
erson, 179.
Orpheus, allusion, 319.
PjUNB, R. T., Jb., quoted, 31.
Palfrey, Jolm Gorham: literary
rank, 34 ; professorship, 52.
Pan, the deitv, 140.
Pantheism : in Wordsworth and Na-
ture, 1(3; dreaded, 141; Emer-
son's 410, 411.
Paris, France : as a residence, 78 ;
allusion, 167; salons, 184; visit,
196,308.
Parker, Theodore : a right arm of
freedom, 127; at a party, 149;
The Dial, 159, 160; editorship,
193 ; death, 228 ; essence of Chris-
tianity, 306; biography, 368; on
Emerson's position, 411.
Parkhurst, John, studied at Ando-
ver, 48.
Parr, Samuel, allusion, 28.
Past, party of the, 147.
Peabody, Andrew Preston, literary
rank, 34.
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer : her Es-
thetic Papers, 88; letter to Mr.
Ireland, 317.
Peirce, Benjamin,, matheniAtician,
223.
Pelagianism, 51. (See^/^ion.)
Pepya, Samuel, allusion, 12.
Pericles, 184^ 263.
Persia, poetic models, 338. (See
Emerson'' s Poems ^ Saadi.)
Pessimism, 286. (Sae Optimism.)
Pliiladelphia, Pa., society, 184.
Philanthropy, activity in 1820, 147.
Philolaus, 199.
Pie, fondness for, 269.
Pierce, John : the minister of Brook-
line, 11 ; " our clerical Pepys," 12.
Pindar, odes, 253. (See Greek^ Ho-
mery etc.)
Plagiarism, 205, 206, 287, 288, 384.
(Sae Quotations, Mather , etc. )
Plato : influence on Mary Emerson,
16, 17 ; over Emerson, 22, 52, 173,
188, 299, 301 ; youthful essay, 74 ;
Alcott's study, 150 ; reading, 197 ;
borrowed thought, 205, 206 ; Pla-
tonic idea, 222 ; a Platonist, 207 ;
saints of Platonism, 298; acad^
emy inscription, 365; great au-
thority, 380 ; times quoted, 382 ;
Symposium and Phaedrus quoted,
387 ; tableity, preezistence, 391 ;
Diogenes dialogue, 401 ; a Plato-
nist, 411. (See Emerson'' s Books,
and Essays, Greek, etc.)
Plotinus : influence over Mary Em-
erson, 16, 17; ashamed of his
body, 99; motto, 105; opinions,
173, 174 ; studied, 380.
Plutarch: allusion, 22; his Lives,
50 ; study, 197 ; on immortality.
291 ; influence over Emerson, 299
et seq. ; liis great authority, 380 ;
times mentioned, 382; Emerson
on, 383 ; imagery quoted, 385 ;
style, 405.
Plymouth, Mass. : letters written,
78, 79 ; marriage, 83.
Poetry : as an inspirer, 290 ; Milton
on, 315. (See Shakespeare^ etc.)
Poets : list in Parnassus, 281 ; com-
p»rative popularity, 316, 317 ; con-
sulting Emerson, 408. (See Ein-
er son's Poems.)
Politics: activity in 1820, 147; in
Saturday Club, 259.
Pomeroy, Jesse, allusion, 393.
Pope, Alexander, familiar lines, 316
Porphyry : opinions, 173, 174 ; stud-
ied, 380.
Porto Rico, E. B. Emerson's death,
19.
Power, practical, 259.
Prayer : not enoi^h, 138, 139 ; an-
ecdotes, 267. (See God, Religion,
etc.)
Preaching, a Christian blessingy 123.
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INDEX.
aoi.
,in8cot]jmd,40e.
Prescott, William, the Judge^s man-
aion, 38.
Preacott, WOliam Hickling: rank,
33; Conquest of Mexico, 38.
Prior, Matthew, 30.
Proclus. influence, 173. 380.
PrometbeuB, 209.
Prospects, for man, 101-103. (See
Emerson's Essays.)
Protestantiam, its idols, 28. (See
Channingy Religion, Unitctrian-
isnij etc)
Psammeticus, an orip^inal language,
394. (See Heredity ^ Language ^
etc.)
Punch, London, 204.
Puritans, rear guard, 16. (See Cal-
vinism, etc)
Puritanism: relaxation from, 30;
after-clap, 268 ; in New England,
409. (See Unitarianism.)
Putnam's Magagine, on Ramnel
Hoar, 213, 214.
Pytlutforas : imagery quoted, 385 ;
preexlstence, 391.
QiTAKEBS, seeing only InxMd-brims,
218.
Qnincy, Josiah : History of Boston
Athenaeum, 31 ; tribute to the An-
thology, 32. 33 ; memories of Em-
erson, 45-47 ; old age, 261.
Quotations, 381-383. (See Plagia-
rUntf etc.)
Ralqgh, Sm Walter, verse, 338.
Raphael, his Transfiguration, 134.
(See AUslon^ Painters^ etc.)
Rats, illustration, 167, 168.
Reed, Sampson, his Orowth of the
Mind, 80.
Reforms, in America, 141-145.
Reformers, fairness towards, 156,
157, 188-192. (See Anti-Slavery,
John Brovm. )
Religion : opinions of Wm. Emerson
and others, 11-13; nature the
symbol of spirit, 95 ; pleas for in-
dependence, 117 ; universal senti-
ment, 118-120 ; public rites, 152 ;
Church of England, 219 ; of the
future, 235 ; relative positions to-
wards, 409, 410; Trinity, 411;
Emerson's belief, 412-415 ; bigotry
modified, 414. (See Calvinism,
Channing, Christ, Emerson's Life,
Essays, and Poems, Episcopacy y
Qod, unitarianism, etc)
RepabUoanismjBplritaal, 86.
Revolutionary War : Wm. Emerson'a
service, 8, 9; subsequent confu-
sion, 25, 32; Concord's part, 71,
72, 292, 293. (See America, New
England.etc.)
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 228.
Rhythm, 328, 329, 340. {SeeEmer-
son^s Poems, etc.)
Rice, Alexander H., anecdote, 68,
69,340. (See Newton.)
Richard Plantagenet, 197.
Ripley, Ezra : minister of Concord,
10 ; Emeraoo's sketch, 14-16 ;
garden, 42; colleague, 56; resi-
dence, 70.
Ripley, George : a party, 149 ; The
Dial 159 ; Brook Farm, 164-166 ;
on Emerson's limitations, 380.
Robinson, Edward, literary rank,
34.
Rochester, IT. Y., speech, 168.
Rome : allusions, 167, 168 ; growth,
222; amphora, 321. (See Latin.)
Romilly, Samuel, allusion, 220.
Rose, anecdote, 345. {See Flowers.)
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, his Savoy-
ard Vicar, 51, 52.
Ruakin. John : on metaphysics, 250 ;
certain chapters, 336; pathetic
fallacy, 337 ; plagiarism, 384.
Russell, Ben., quoted, 267.
Russell, Le Baron : on Sartor Besar-
tus, 81, 82 ; grocnnsman, 83 ; aid
in rebuilding the Old Manse, 292-
279 ; Concord visit, 346.
Saaoi : a borrower, 205 ; times i
tioned, 382. (See Persia.)
Sabbath: a blessing of Christianity,
123,298.
Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, on
poetry, J
Saint Paii
tt Paul, times mentioned, ^2.
{See Bible.)
Saladin, 181
Sallust, on Catiline, 207.
Sanborn, Frank B. : facts about Em-
erson, 42, 43, 66 ; Thoreau memoir,
363 ; old neighbor, 373.
Sapor, 184.
Satan, safety from, 306. (See Meph^
istcpheles. Religion, etc.)
Saturday Club : establishment, 221-
223, 258 : last visits, 346, 347 ;
familiarity at, 368.
Soaliger, quotation, 109, 110.
Sohelling, idealism, 148; influence,
173.
Schiller, ozx immortality, 290.
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INDEX.
439
Scholarship : % priesthood, 137 ; do-
ciUty of, 289.
School-teaching, 297. (See CheljM-
ford.)
Schopenhauer, Arthur : his pessi-
mism, 286; idea of a philosopher,
359.
Science : growth of, 148 ; Emerson
inaccurate in, 256; attitude to-
ward, 401, 402. (BsM C.C.Emer-
son.)
Scipio, 184.
Scotland : Carlyle's haunts, 79 ; no-
tabiUties, 195, 19G ; Presbyterian,
409.
Ssott, Sir Walter : allusi<m, 22 ; quo-
tations, 23, 77;. dead, 63; "the
hand of Do«glas,*' 231 ; as a poet,
281 ; popularity, 316 ; poetic rank,
321.
Self : the highest, 113 ; respect for,
283,289.
Seneca, Montaigne's study, 382.
Shakespeare : allusion, 22 ; Hamlet,
90, 94; Benedick and love, 106;
disputed line, 128, 129; an idol,
197 ; poetic rank, 202, 281, 320,
321 ; plagiarism, 204-206 ; on
studies, 257, 258 : supremacy, 328 ;
a comparison, 374 ; a playwright,
875, 376 ; pimctiliousneas of Por-
tia, 378 ; times mentioned, 382 ;
lunatic, lover, poet, 3S7 ; Polo-
nius, 389; mother-tint, 404; fine
Ariel, 405 ; adamant, 416.
Shattifck, Lemuel, History of Oon-
cord, 382.
Shaw, Lemuel, boarding-place, 43.
Shelley, Percy Byssbe : Od^ to the
West Wind, 316, 399 ; redundant
syllable, 328 ; Adonais, 333.
Shenandoah Mountain, 306.
Shiagle, Emerson's jest, 364.
Ships : illustration of longitude, 154 ;
erroneous quotation, 251, 252 ;
buildmsr illustration, 376, 377.
Sicily : Emerson's visit, 62 ; Etna,
113.
Sidney, Sir Philip, Chevy Chaoe, 379.
Silsbee, William, aid in publishing
Carlyle, 81.
Simomdes, prudence, 410.
Sisyphus, iUustration, 334.
Sleight-of-hand, illustration. 332.
Smith, James and Horace, Rejected
Addresses, 387, 397.
Smith, Sydney, on bishops, 219.
Socrates : allusion, 203 ; times m
tioned, 382.
Solitude, sought, 135.
Solomon, epigrammatio, 405. (See
Bible.)
Solon, 199.
Sophron, 199.
South, the: Emerson's preaching
tour, 53; Rebellion, 305,407. (See
America, Anti-Slavery, etc.)
Southerners, in college, 47.
Sparks, Jared, literary rank, 33.
Spenser, Edmund : stanza, 335, 338 ;
soul making body, 391 ; mother-
wit 404.
Spinoza, influence, 173, 380.
Spirit and matter, 100, 101. (See
Ood, Religion, Spenser^ etc.)
Spiritualism, 296.
Sprague, William Buel, Annals of
the American Pulpit, 10-12.
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, on Amer-
ican religion, 414.
Star: '* hitch your wagon to a
star," 252, 253; stars m poetry,
324.
Sterling, J. Hutchinson, letter to,
282,283.
Stewart, Dugald, allusion, 16.
Story, Joseph, literary rank, 33.
Stuart, Moses, literary rank, 33.
Studio, Ulustration, 20.
Summer, description, 117.
Sumner, Gliarles : literary rank, 33 :
the outrage on, 211; Saturday
Club, 223.
Swedenborg, Emanuel : poetic rank,
202,320; dreams, 306; Rosetta-
Stone, 322 ; times mentioned,
382.
Swedenborgians : liking for a paper
of Carlyle's, 78 ; Reed's essay, 80 ;
spiritual influx, 412.
Swift, Jonathan: allusion, 30; the
Houyhnhnms, 163; times men-
tioned, 382.
Synagogue, illustration, 169.
Tafpan, Mbs. Cabounb, The Dial,
159.
TartufFe, allusion, 312.
Taylor, Father, relation to Emer-
son, 55, 56, 413.
Taylor, Jeremy : allusion, 22 ; Emer-
son's etudy. 52 ; " the Shakespeare
of divines," 91 ; praise for, 306.
Teague, Irisli name, 143.
Te Deura: the hymn, 68; illustra-
tion, 82.
Temperance, the reform, 141, 152.
(Bm Reform*.)
Tennyson, Alfred : readers, 266 ; to-
I bacco, 270; poetio rank, 281 ; In
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INDEX.
384.
%\ on plagiariam,
Thacher, Samuel Cooper: alliuioii,
26 ; death, 29.
Thayer, James B. : Western Journey
with Emerson, 249, 263, 265-271,
359 ; ^ound «uW/, 364. (See Co^
ifomia.)
Thinkers, let loose. 175.
Thomson, James, descriptions, 338.
Thoreau, Henry D. : allusion, 22 ; a
Crusoe, 72; *'nullifier of dvilixa-
tion," 86; one-utartment house,
142, 143: The Diai, 159, 160;
death, 228 ; Emerson's burial-
place, 356 ; biographj, 368 ; person-
alicy traceable, 389 ; woodcraft,
403.
Ticknor, George : on William Emer-
son, 12 ; on Kirkland, 27 ; literary
rank, 33.
Traduction, 393. (See Heredity^
Jonson^ etc.)
Transcendentalism : Bowen's paper,
103, 104; idealism, 146; adher-
ents, 150-152 ; dilettanteism, 152-
155; a terror. 161.
Transcendentalist, The, 157-159.
Truth : as an end, 99 ; sought, 135.
Tudor, William : allusion, 26 ; con-
necting Uterary link, 28, 29.
Turgot, quoted, 98, 99.
Tyburn, allusion, 183.
Unttabianism : Dr. Freeman's, 11,
12 ; nature of Jesus, 13 ; its sun-
shhie, 28 ; white-handed, 34 ; head-
quarters, 35 : lingual studies, 48,
49; transition, 51; domination,
52 ; pulpits, 53, 54 ; chapel in Ed-
inburgh, 65; file-leaders, 118; its
organ, 124 ; " pale negations," 298.
(See BeligUm, Triniiy, etc.)
United States, intellectual history,
32 . ( See America, New EnglaiM,
etc.)
Unity, hi diversi^, 73, 106, 284.
Upham, Charles W., his History, 45.
Verne, Jules, onditologie^ 186.
Yerplanck, Gulian Crommelin, lit-
erary rank, 33.
Virginia, University of. 299.
Volcano, illustration, 113.
Voltaire, 409
Voting, done reluctantly, 152, 153.
Wachusett, Mount, 70.
Walden Pond : allusion, 22, 70, 72 ;
cabin, 142, 143. (See Ccmcor^f.)
War: o u tgrown, 88, 89 ; «m»nMfpy^
Ware, Henry, professorship, 52. (See
Harvard University.)
Ware, Henry, Jr. : Bottton ministry,
55 ; correspimdence, 124-127. (See
Unitarianismj etc.)
Warren, John Collins, Transcenden-
talism and Temperance, 1^.
Warren, Judge, of New Bedford,
67.
Warwick Castle, fire, 275.
Washington City, addresses, 307.
(See AniirSlavery, etc.)
Waterville College, Adelphi Society,
135-142.
Webster, Daniel: E B. Emer8(xi*s
association with, 19; <m Tudor, 28,
29 ; literary rank, 33 ; Sermth-of-
March Speech, 303; times men-
tioned, 382.
Weiss, John, Parker iMOgraidiy,
368.
Welli^^n, Lord, seen by Emerson,
Wesley, John, praise of, 306. (See
Methodism.)
Western Messenger, poems in, 128.
West India Islands, Edward B. Em-
erson's death, 89.
Westminster Abbey, Emerson's
-visit. 63, 64. (See Emerson's
Books, — English Traits, — Eng-
landy etc.)
Westnunster Catechism, 298. (See
Calvinism,^ Religion^ etc. )
Whipple, Edwin Percy: literary
rank, 33; club, 223; on heredity,
White of Selbome, 228.
Whitman, Walt : his enumerations,
3257^ ; journal, 344, 346.
Wilberforce, William, funeral, 64.
Wm : inspiration of, 289 ; power of,
290.
Windermere, Lake, 70. (See Eng-
land.)
Winthrop, Francis William, in col-
lege, 45.
Wolfe, Charles, Burial ci Moore,
416.
Woman : her position, 212, 213, 251 ;
crossing a street, 364.
Woman's Club, 16.
Words, Emerson's favorite, 404, 406.
(See Emerson's Poems, — Day«.)
Wordsworth, William: Emerson*s
account, 63 ; early reoeption, Ex-
cursion, 92, 95 ; quoted, 96, 97 ;
1 Tintem Abbey, 103; Inflnennfl,
Digitized by
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INDEX.
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14S, 160; poetic rank, 281, 321;
on Immortality, 293, 382; popu-
larity, 316; serenity, 385; study
of nature, 337 ; times mentioned,
882 ; We are Seven, 393 ; prejudice
asamat science, 401.
Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted, 269.
Yakksb: a spouting, 136 ; improve^
176; whittling, 364. (See Amer-
ictti New England, etc.)
Yoga, Hindoo idea, 397.
Toung, Brigham: Utah, 264, 268;
on pre^xistence, 891.
Young, Edward, influence in Kew
England, 16, 17.
Zola, liluiLB, offenslTe realism, 326.
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V
WORKS OF
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
There is no man living to wliom, as a writer, so many of ns feel and
tliankf uUy acknowledge so great an indebtedness for ennobling impulses.
We look upon him as one of the few men of genius whom our age has
produced ; and there needs no better proof of it than his masculine fac-
ulty of fecundating other minds. — James Rdssiu. Lowell.
In doing homage to that sweet nature, we do it to the highest type of
our common humanity. Emerson was a splendid manifestation of reason
in its most comprehensive form, and with all its most godlike aspiiatioDB.
— JOHH Tthdall.
COMPLETE WOBES.
Riverside Edition. With two Portraits. In 11 volumes, 12mo, gilt top,
each, $1.75. The set, $19.25 ; half calf, $38.50 ; half crushed levant,
$49.50.
An entirely new library edition of the works of Mr. Emerson, printed
from new electrotype plates. It includes the prose and poetical writings
of Mr. Emerson hitherto published in book form, and, in addition, two
new volumes of essays, lectures, and speeches. The order of the volumes
is as follows : —
I. Nature, Addresses, and Lectures (formerly known as Miscellanies).
II. Essays. First Series.
III. Essays. Second Series.
IV. Representative Men.
Y. English Traits.
VI. Conduct of Life.
VII. Society and Solitude.
Vni. Letters and Social Ams.
IX. Poems.
X. Lectures and Biographical Sketches. (A new volume.)
XI. Miscellanies. (A new volume.)
The workmanship of tliis elegantly simple edition is what we expect
from the taste that presides over the publications of the Riverside Press.
— New York Evening Post,
" Little Qassie " Edition. In 11 volumes, 18mo, each, $1.50. The set,
U volumes, $16.50 ; half oalf , or half morocco, $32.00 ; tree calf, 940.0a
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SELECTED VOLUHES.
Poems. "Uttie Oastie" Edition, Half ealf, $3.00.
Sssays. *^Littte Classic '* Edition. 2 vols. Half calf, f 6.OO1.
OULTUU, Bkhayior, Biautt, Power, Wealth, Illusionii, Books, Art, Elo-
quence. *' Modem Classics " No. 2. 82ino, orange edges, 75 cents.
School Edition, d2mo, 40 cents.
Katuri, Succiss, Grkathkss, Immortality, Lore, Friendship, Domestic
life. '* Modem Classics -' No. 8. d2mo, orange edges, 75 cents.
School Edition. 32mo, 40 cents.
VoBTunx or thi Eepubuo. 16mo, 50 cents ; paper corers, 25 cents.
COMPILATIONS.
Parnassus. A choice collection of Poetxy. Edited, and with an Intro-
ductory Essay by It. \V. Emerson. Household Edition. 12mo, $2.00;
half calf, 84.00 ; morocco, or tree calf, $5.00.
Library Edition. Svo, $4.00 ; half calf, $7.00 ; morocco, or tree calf, $9.00.
Emibsom Birthday Book. With Portrait and 12 Illustrations. 18mo,
$1.00 j full calf, seal, or morocco, limp, $3.50.
Emerson Cauendar. Containing selections from Mr. Emerson's writings
for eveiy Day in the Year. Mounted on decorated card. $1.00.
To no English writer since Milton can we assign so high a place ; eren
Milton himself, great genius though he was, and great architect of beauty,
has not added so many thoughts to the treasury of the race. Such is the
beauty of his speech, such the majesty of his ideas, such the power of the
moral sentiment in men, and such the impression which his whole char-
acter makes on them ttiat they lend him erery where their ears ; and
thousands bless his manly thoughts. — Massachusetts (Quarterly Remew.
In no equal body of writing is there a more uniform ralne. It is all
golden, and it is unquestionably the richest contribution of American
genius to unirersal literature. -^ Georgx William Curtis.
*0* For sale by all Booksellers. Sent f post-paid , on receipt ofjmee by
the Publishers,
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
FuBLUHBRs, B08XON, Mass.
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WORKS OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
As he is everybody -s favorite, there is no occasion for critics to n^eddle
with him, either to censure or to praise. He can afford to laugh at the
whole reviewing fraternity. His wit is all his own, so sly and tingling,
but without a drop of ill-nature in it, and never leaving a sting behind.
His humor is so grotesque and queer that it reminds one of the frolics of
Puck ; and deep pathos mingles with it so naturally that when the read-
er's eyes are brimming with tears he knows not whether they have their
source in sorrow or in laughter. — North American Review,
PROSE WORKS.
The Autocrat of the Bbxakfast-Table. New Edition, revised, and con-
taining a new Preface and Bibliographical Notes. Crown 8vo, gilt top,
12.00.
Handy Volume Edition. 82mo, f 1.25 ; half calf, $2.60 ; morocco, tree
calf, or seal, {|4.00.
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. New Edition, revised, and
with a new Preface. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00.
The Poet at the Breaefast-Tablb. New Edition, revised, and with a
new Preface. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00.
The Breakfast-Table Series, containing "The Autocrat," "The Pro-
fessor,*' and " The Poet. " 3 vols, crown Svo, $6.00 ; half calf, $12.00 ;
morocco, $15.00.
Elsie Venner. A Romance of Destiny. New Edition. Crown Svo, gilt
top, $2.00.
The Guardian Anqel. New Edition. Crown Svo, gilt top, $2.00.
Pages from an Old Volume of Life, including " Soundings from the
Atlantic " and " Mechanism in Thought and Morals,-' etc. Crown Svo,
gilt top, $2.00.
The Breakfast-Table Series, Elsie Tenner, The Guardian Angel, Pages
FROM AN Old Volume of Life, and Poems {Household Edition). The set,
7 vols., gilt top, uniform in box, $12.00 ; half calf, $24.00.
Medical Essaxs (including the volumes published under the titles, "Cur-
rents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science," and " Border Lines,"
etc.) Crown Svo, gilt top, $2.00.
Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science, with other Essays.
New Edition. Uniform 'with New Edition of Dr. Holmes's Watka.
Crown Svo, gilt top, $2.00.
Border Lines in some Provinces of Medical Science. 16mo, $1.00.
SouNDiNas from the Atlahtio. 16mo, $1.75.
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M«<yit4«f«if Di Thoosht axs Moeals. I61110, $1JOO,
JoHa LoTHSOP MoTLiT. A Memok. Popular Biitiom* Ifimo, gilt top,
Miemorial Edition, With Portrait, ito, $8.00.
Ralph Waldo Em£esoh. In ** American Men of Letters " Series. WKh
Portrait. 16mo, gilt top, 91.25.
Ths Stort op Iris (together with FaTorite Poems). *' Modem Classics *^
No. 30. Illustrated. d2mo, orange edges, 75 cents.
SiLKonoHS PROM *'Brxakpast-Tabli Siriks," and " Paqis prom ah Old
YoLCMS OP LiPR.** " Modem Classics" No. 88. Slostrated. 82mo,
orange edges, 75 cents.
School Edition. 82mo, 40 cents.
POETICAL WORKS.
FOBMS. Household Edition. With Portrait. 12nus $2.00; half calf,
•4.00 ; morocco, or tree calf, $5.00.
Handy Volume Edition. With Portrait. 2 toIs. 82mo, gilt top, $2.60 ;
half calf, $5.00 ; morocco, tree calf, or seal, $8.00.
The Same. Together with Handy Volume " Antocrat.'* 8 rols. 82dio,
$8.75 ; half calf, $7.50 ; tree calf, morocco, or seal, $12.00.
lUustrtUed Library Edition. With 82 full page Blnstrations, and Por-
trait. 8to, full gUt, $4.00; half calf, $7.00; morocco, or tree calf,
$9.00.
SoHOs OP Mart Srasohs. 16mo, $2.00.
Bonos m Maitt Keys. 16mo, $1.50.
AsTRiEA . '*'<«x Balancb OP IiLUR^ Ks. 16mo, 76 cents.
Thk Sohool-Bot. Illustrated. 4to, full gilt, $3.00; morocco, or tree
calf, $7.50.
Grandmother's Stort, and other Poems. " Rirerside Literature Series,'*
No. 6. 16mo, paper covers, 15 cents.
The Iron Oats, and other Poems. With Portrait 12mo, gilt top, $1.25.
Favorite Poems (together with the Story of Irie). " Modem Classics.'*
No. 80. Illustrated. 82mo, orange edges, 75 cents.
COMPILATIONS.
noLMBS Lbaplbts. Selections from the Writings of Holmes, for Home
and School Use. With Biographical Sketch. Illustrated. I2mo, paper
covers, 48 cent«. Leaflets or pamphlet separately, each 24 cents.
Holmes Calendar. Selections from the Writings of Holmes, for every
Day in the Year. On decorated card. $1.00.
*#* For sale by all Booksellers. Sent by matlj post-paid f on receipt of
price by the PubliaherSy
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON, HA81.
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american ^tn of lLttttx&*
EDITED BY
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
A series of biographies of distinguished American
authors, having all the special interest of biography,
and the larger interest and value of illustrating the
different phases of American literature, the social,
political, and moral influences which have moulded
these authors and the generations to which they be-
longed.
This series when completed will form an admi-
rable survey of all that is important and of historical
influence in American literature, and will itself be a
creditable representation of the literary and critical
ability of America to-day.
Washington Irving, By Charles Dudley Warner.
Noah Webster. By Horace E. Scudder.
Henry D, Thoreau, By Frank B. Sanborn.
George Ripley. By OcTAvius Brooks Frothinghabi.
y, Fenimore Cooper. By Prof. T. R. Lounsbury.
Margaret Fuller Ossoli, By T. W. Higginson.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, By Oliver Wendell Holmes.
IN PREPARATION
Edgar Allan Poe. By George E. Woodberry.
Edmund Quincy. By Sydney HowArd Gay.
Nathaniel Parker Willis, By Henry A. Beers.
Nathaniel Hawthorne. By James Russell Lowell.
William Cullen Bryant. By John Bigelow.
Bayard Taylor. By J. R. G. Hassard.
William Gilmore Simms. By George W. Cable.
Benjamin Franklin, By John Bach McMaster.
Others to be announced hereafter.
Each volume, with Portrait, i6mo, gilt top, $1.25.
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"WASHINGTON IRVING."
Mr. Warner has not only written with sympathy, minute
knowledge of his subject, fine literary taste, and that easy,
fascinating style which always puts him on such ^ood
terms with his readers, but he has shown a tact, critical
sagacity, and sense of proportion full of promise for the
rest of the series which is to pass under his supervision.
— New York Tribune,
MrL Charles Dudley Warner has made an admirable
biography of Washington Irving, and his critical estimate
of the man and the writer is unbiased, well weighed, and
accurate. — Philadelphia Press.
It is a very charming piece of literary work, and pre-
sents the reader with an excellent picture of Irving as a
man and of his methods as an author, together with an
accurate and discriminating characterization of his works.
— Boston Journal.
It would hardly be possible to produce a fairer or more
candid book of its kind. — Literary World (London).
"NOAH WEBSTER."
Mr. Scudder's biography of Webster is alike honorable
to himself and its subject. Finely discriminating in all
that relates to personal and intellectual character, schol-
arly and just in its literary criticisms, analjrses, and esti-
mates, it is besides so kindly and manly m its tone, its
narrative is so spirited and enthralling, its descriptions
are so quaintly graphic, so varied and cheerful in their
coloring, and its pictures so teem with the bustle, the
movement, and the activities of the real life of a by-gone
but most interesting age, that the attention of the reader
is never tempted to wander, and he lays down the book
with a sigh of regret for its brevity. — Harper's Monthly
Magazine,
Mr. Scudder has done his work with characteristic
thoroughness and fidelitv to facts, and has not spared
those fine, unobtrusive cnarms of style and humor which
give him a place among our best writers. — Christian
Union (New York).
This little volume is a scholarly, painstaking, and intel-
ligent account of a singularly unique career. In a purely
literary point of view it is a surprisingly good piece of
work. — New York Times,
It fills completely its place in the purpose of this se-
ries of volumes — The Critic (New York).
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"HENRY D. THOREAU.'
Mr. Sanborn*s book is thoroughly American and truly
fascinating. Its literary skill is exceptionally good^ and
there is a racy flavor in its pages and an amount of ex-
act knowledge of interesting people that one seldom meets
with in current literature. Mr. Sanborn has done Tho-
reau*s genius an imperishable service. — American Church
Review (New York).
Mr. Sanborn has accomplished his difficult task with
much ability. ... He has told in an entertaining and
luminous way the strange story of Thoreau's remarkable
career, and has expounded with much appreciative sym-
pathy and analytical power the moral and intellectual
idiosyncrasies of the most striking and original figure in
American literature. — Philadelphia North American,
Mr. Sanborn has written a careful book about a curious
man, whom he has studied as impartially as possible ;
whom he admires warmly but with discretion ; and the
story of whose life he has told with commendable frank-
ness and simplicity. — New York Mail and Express,
It is undoubtedly the best life of Thoreau extant.—
Christian Advocate (New York).
"GEORGE RIPLEY."
Mr. Frothingham's memoir is a calm and thoughtful
and tender tribute. It is marked by rare discrimination,
and good taste and simplicity. The biograpITer keeps
himself in the background, and lets his subject speak.
And the result is one of the best examples of personal
portraiture that we have met with in a long time. — The
Churchman (New York).
He has fulfilled his responsible task with admirable
fidelity, frank earnestness, justice, fine feeling, balanced
moderation, delicate taste, and finished literary skill. It
is a beautiful tribute to the hi^h-bred scholar and gener-
ous-hearted man, whose friend he has so worthily por-
trayed. — Rev, William H, Channing (London).
Mr. Frothingham has made a very interesting and val-
uable memoir, and one that can be read with profit by all
aspirants for recognition in the world of letters. He
writes affectionately and admiringly, though temperately.
— Chicago Journal,
It is a valuable addition to our literature. The work
was committed to a skilled hand, and it is executed with
the delicacy of perception and treatment which the sub-
ject required. — Charleston News and Courier,
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"JAMES FENIMORE COOPER^**
We have here a model biography. We venture to believe
that the accuracy of its statements will not be challenged,
its absolute impartialitv will not be questioned, the sense
of literary proportion in the use of material will be ap-
preciated by all who are capable of judging, the critical
acumen will be intensely relished, and to the mass of
readers who care little for facts, or impartiality, or literary
form, or criticism, the story of the life will have some-
thing of the fascination of one of the author's own ro-
mances. For the book is charminglv written, with a felic-
ity and vigor of diction that are notable, and with a humor
sparkling, racy, and never obtrusive. — New York Tribune.
Prof. Lounsbury's book is an admirable specimen of
literary biography. . . . We can recall no recent addition to
American biography in any department which is superior
to it. It gives the reader not merely a full account of Coo-
per's literary career, but there is mingled with this a suffi-
cient account of the man himself apart from his books, and
of the period in which he lived, to keep alive the interest
from the first word to the last — New York Evening Post.
"MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI."
Here at last we have a biography of one of the noblest and the
most intellectual of American women, which does full justice to
its subject. The author lias had ample material for his work,
— all the material now available perhaps, — and has shown the
skill of a master in his use of it. . . . It is a ffesh view of .ne
subject, and adds important information to tiiat already given
to the public. Mr. Higginson throws new light on the family
connections and early years of Margaret Fuller, and gives th«
best account we have yet had of what is termed the " Transcen-
dental " epoch in American literature, and of the origin and his-
tory of " The Dial," its representative organ. — Rev. Dr. F. Hii
Hedge, in Boston Advertiser.
Mr. Higginson writes with both enthusiasm and sympathy,
and makes a volume of surpassing interest It is at once I
biography of Margaret Fuller, a sympathetic study of her char
acter, her aspirations, and her work, and a specially valuable
history of the movement which he holds to have emancipated
American literature from its thraldom to foreign conventions
and models. — Commercial Advertiser (New York).
He has filled a gap in our literary history with excellent taste,
with sound judgment, and with that literary skill which ifi pre-
eminently his own. — Christian Union (New York).
%* For sale by all Booksellers. Sent by maily post-paidt on
receipt of price by the Publishers,
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston, Mass.
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