R. W. EMERSON 
 
 EDINBURGH, 1848. 
 
 iotypedfrom a painting by DAVID SCOTT 
 
THE 
 
 GENIUS AND CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 EMERSON 
 
 
 LECTURES A T THE I CONCORD SCHOOL 
 OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 F. B. SANBORN 
 
 < 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 .1885 
 
Copyright, 1884, 
 BY JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
A. BRONSON ALCOTT, 
 77/.5 1 FOUNDER 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 &l)i$ IBolttme \% In^cribcb 
 
 BY ITS AUTHORS. 
 
 CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, 
 October 10, 1884. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE Faculty of the Concord School of Philosophy 
 have preferred until now not to make any formal 
 publication of the lectures read at their summer ses 
 sions, leaving each lecturer free to print his own if he 
 chose. Many of the lectures have thus been printed, 
 in volumes or in magazines ; and the newspapers have 
 each year published reports, more or less imperfect, 
 of the lectures and conversations. In 1882 one of the 
 journalists (Mr. BRIDGMAN), who had been most care 
 ful in his reports, was authorized to publish a volume 
 of abstracts (in which were included a few complete 
 addresses and poems) under the title of " Concord 
 Lectures on Philosophy," which appeared early in 
 1883. The present volume, however, is the first 
 which has been published by the School itself, as 
 an indication of its method of discussion as well as in 
 tribute to the memory of its most illustrious teacher. 
 It contains all the Essays and Poems read in the 
 special course of 1884 on " The Genius and Character 
 of Emerson" (except that of Mr. ALBEE on "Emerson 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 as an Essayist," which the author has withheld for 
 publication elsewhere), and also two Poems read at the 
 session of 1882. The lectures on Immortality are not 
 included, and will not be published by the School. 
 Mr. FISKE S lecture has been printed in a volume by 
 Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., and those by Dr. PEABODY, 
 Dr. HARRIS, Dr. HOLLAND, and Mr. DAVIDSON will 
 doubtless be printed by the authors. 
 
 In quoting from Emerson s poems in this volume, 
 the various essayists have cited the lines in the form 
 and manner they thought best, one sometimes re 
 peating in another guise or connection what his col 
 league had before cited. The editor has allowed these 
 quotations to stand as they were read, referring the 
 reader to the different editions of Emerson s poems 
 for the text as the poet printed it. 
 
 The heliotype of Emerson in this volume is from 
 a photograph, by permission of the Concord Library, 
 of David Scott s portrait, representing Emerson as 
 he stood before his Scotch audiences in the winter 
 of 1847-1848 ; painted at Edinburgh in 1848, and 
 never before copied. The view of the Orchard House 
 and Hillside Chapel was taken in 1881 by Mr. E. 
 Chamberlain, of Med field, through whose courtesy it 
 is here printed as the best representation of the 
 rural environment of our School which has yet been 
 made. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY . 
 
 I. EMERSON AND BOSTON. Mrs. E. D. Cheney . . . 
 
 II. EMERSON AND ALCOTT. Passages from the Diary 
 
 and Correspondence of Mr. Alcott 36 
 
 III. EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. Julian Hawthorne . 68 
 
 IV. A ERENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. M. Rene de 
 
 Poyen Belleisle 
 
 V. EMERSON S RELIGION. Dr. C. A. Bartol . . 109 
 VI. EMERSON AS PREACHER. Miss E. P. Peabody . 146 
 VII. EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. F. B. Sanlorn . . 1/3 
 VI11. POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON: 
 
 1. Miss Emma Lazarus 
 
 2. Ellery Channing 216 
 
 8. F. B. Sanlorn 22i 
 
 4. Mrs. E. C. Kinney .... 
 
 IX. EMERSON S ETHICS. Edwin D. Mead 233 
 
 X. EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. Mrs. Julia 
 
 Ward Howe 2SG 
 
VI Ji CONTENTS. 
 
 XL EMERSON S VIEW OP NATIONALITY. George Willis 
 
 Coolce ....... ...... . . 310 
 
 XII. EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. William T. 
 
 Harris ....... ....... 339 
 
 XIII. EMERSON AS SEEN FROM INDIA. Protap Chunder 
 
 Mozoomdar ............ 355 
 
 XIV. EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. William T. Harris . 372 
 XV. EMERSON S RELATION TO GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 
 
 William T. Harris .......... 386 
 
 XVI. ION : A MONODY. A. Bronson Alcott .... 420 
 
 INDEX 
 
THE COXCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 A BRIEF sketch of the origin and purpose of this 
 institution may properly be given here, since it was 
 the last enterprise of a general character in which 
 Mr. EMERSON engaged, and derived a portion of its 
 interest from his connection with it. This connec 
 tion was not very close, however, since its opening 
 was delayed until those later years of his life when 
 he withdrew from an active part even in conversa 
 tion; but he was fully cognizant of its aims, and 
 in the most friendly relation to its founders, the 
 chief of whom was Mr. ALCOTT. It had been the 
 hope of Mr. ALCOTT for many years to establish in 
 the town of his chosen residence a conversational 
 school of philosophy and literature; and the collec 
 tion of a library by him and his English friends in 
 1842 had reference to such an institution. But cir 
 cumstances were unfavorable until, in 1878, the visit 
 of Dr. JONES of Illinois, and the conversations in 
 which he participated, suggested to Mr. ALCOTT and 
 
x CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 his friends that the time had come for announcing 
 the enterprise. Accordingly, in the spring of 1879, 
 under the advice and with the co-operation of Mr. 
 EMERSON, the late Professor PEIRCE, of Harvard Uni 
 versity, Mrs. CHENEY, Professor HARRIS, and other 
 friends of Mr. ALCOTT, the public, or such as chose to 
 come, were invited to the first session of the School, 
 which was opened in Mr. ALCOTT S study, at the Or 
 chard House, now the residence of Professor HARRIS. 
 The attendance much exceeded the expectation of the 
 Faculty, although the session was longer than has 
 since been found expedient, the term being six 
 weeks, and the chief lecturers five in number, occupy 
 ing the five week-days before Saturday, which was 
 given up to single lectures on general topics. Dur 
 ing the next three years the sessions were five weeks ; 
 in 1882 and 1883, four weeks ; and in 1884, two 
 weeks. The Programme in the successive years was 
 as follows: 
 
 FIRST YEAR S PROGRAMME. 1879. 
 
 Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT. 1. Welcome, and plan of future 
 conversations. 2. The Powers of the Person in the de 
 scending scale. 3. The same in the ascending scale. 4. In 
 carnation. 5. The Powers of Personality in detail. 6. 
 The Origin of Evil. 7. The Lapse into Evil. 8. The 
 Return from the Lapse (the Atonement). 9. Life Eternal. 
 10. Valedictory. 
 
 Dr. WILLIAM T. HARRIS. 1. How Philosophical Knowing 
 differs from all other forms of Knowing ; the Five In 
 tentions of the mind. 2. The Discovery of the First 
 

COXCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. xi 
 
 Principle, and its Relation to the Universe. 3. Fate and 
 Freedom. 4. The conscious and unconscious First Prin 
 ciple in relation to human life. 5. The Personality of 
 God. 6. The Immortality of the Soul. 7. Physiological 
 Psychology. 8. The Method of study in Speculative Phi 
 losophy. 9. Art, Religion, and Philosophy in relation to 
 each other and to man. 10. The Dialectic. 
 
 Mrs. EDNAH D. CHENEY. 1. The general subject of Art. 
 2. Greek Art. 3. Early Italian Art. 4. Italian Art. 5. Mi 
 chael Angelo. 6. Spanish Art. 7. German Art. S.Albert 
 Diirer. 9. French Art. 10. Contemporaneous Art. 
 
 Dr. H. K. JONES. 1. General content of the Platonic Phi 
 losophy. 2. The Apology of Socrates. 3. The Platonic 
 idea of Church and State. 4. The Immortality of the Soul. 
 
 5. Reminiscence as related to the Pre-existence of the Soul. 
 
 6. Pre-existence. 7. The Human Body. 8. The Repub 
 lic. 9. The Material Body. 10. Education. 
 
 Mr. DAVID A. WASSON. 1. Social Genesis and Texture. 
 2. The Nation. 3. Individualism as a Political Principle. 
 4. Public Obligation. 5. Sovereignty. 6. Absolutism 
 crowned and uncrowned. 7. Representation. 8. Rights. 
 9. The Making of Freedom. 10. The Political Spirit 
 of 76. 
 
 Professor BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 1. Ideality in Science. 2. Cos 
 mogony. 
 
 Mr. T. W. HIGGINSON. 1. The Birth of American Litera 
 ture. 2. Literature in a Republic. 
 
 Mr. THOMAS DAVIDSON. 1. The History of Athens as re 
 vealed in its topography and monuments. 2. The Same, 
 continued. 
 
 Mr. RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Memory. 
 
 Mr. F. B. SANBORN. 1. Social Science. 2. Philanthropy 
 and Public Charities. 
 
 Rev. Dr. CYRUS A. BARTOL. Education. 
 
 Mr. HARRISON G. 0. BLAKE. Selections from Thoreau s 
 Manuscripts. 
 
xii CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 SECOND YEAR S PROGRAMME. 1880. 
 
 Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT. Five Lectures on Mysticism : 
 
 1. St. John the Evangelist. 2. Plotinus. 3. Tauler and 
 Eckhart. 4. Behmen. 5. Sweclenborg. Mr. Alcott also 
 delivered the Salutatory and Valedictory. 
 
 Dr. H. K. JONES. Five Lectures 011 The Platonic Philosophy, 
 and five on Platonism in its Relation to Modern Civiliza 
 tion : 1. Platonic Philosophy; Cosmologic and Theologic 
 Outlines. 2. The Platonic Psychology ; The Daemon of 
 Socrates. 3. The Two Worlds, and the Twofold Con 
 sciousness ; The Sensible and the Intelligible. 4. The 
 State and Church ; Their Eolations and Correlations. 
 5. The Eternity of the Soul, and its Pre-existence. 6. 
 The Immortality and the Mortality of the Soul ; Personal 
 ity and Individuality ; Metempsychosis. 7. The Psychic 
 Body and the Material Body of Man. 8. Education and 
 Discipline of Man ; The Uses of the World we live 
 in. 9. The Philosophy of Law. 10. The Philosophy of 
 Prayer, and the " Prayer Gauge." 
 
 Dr. WILLIAM T. HARRIS. Five Lectures on Speculative 
 Philosophy, namely : 1. Philosophic Knowing. 2. Philo 
 sophic First Principles. 3. Philosophy and Immortality. 
 
 4. Philosophy and Religion. 5. Philosophy and Art. Five 
 Lectures on the History of Philosophy, namely : 1. Plato. 
 
 2. Aristotle. 3. Kant. 4. Fichte. 5. Hegel. 
 
 Rev. JOHN S. KEDNEY, D.D. Four Lectures on the Philoso 
 phy of the Beautiful and Sublime. 
 
 Mr. DENTON J. SNIDER. Five Lectures on Shakspeare : 
 1. Philosophy of Shakspearian Criticism. 2. The Shak- 
 spearian World. 3. Principles of Characterization in 
 Shakspeare. 4. Organism of the Individual Drama. 
 
 5. Organism of the Universal Drama. 
 
 Rev. WILLIAM H. CHANNING. Four Lectures on Oriental and 
 Mystical Philosophy : 1. Historical Mysticism. 2. Man s 
 Fourfold Being. 3. True Buddhism. 4. Modern Pessimism. 
 
CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. xiii 
 
 Mrs. EDNAH D. CHENEY. 1. Color. 2. Early American Art. 
 
 Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. Modern Society. 
 
 Mr. JOHN ALBEE. 1. Figurative Language. 2. The Lit 
 erary Art. 
 
 Mr. F. B. SANBORN. The Philosophy of Charity. 
 
 Dr. ELISHA MULFORD. 1. The Personality of God. 2. Prece 
 dent Relations of Eeligion and Philosophy to Christianity. 
 
 Mr. HARRISON G. 0. BLAKE. Readings from Thoreau s 
 Manuscripts. 
 
 Eev. Dr. CYRUS A. BARTOL. God in Nature. 
 
 Rev. Dr. ANDREW P. PEABODY. Conscience and Conscious 
 ness. 
 
 Mr. EMERSON. Aristocracy. 
 
 Rev. Dr. FREDERIC H. HEDGE. Ghosts and Ghost-seeing. 
 
 Mr. DAVID A. WASSON. - 1. Philosophy of History. 2. The 
 Same. 
 
 (In place of an expected lecture of Professor PEIRCE, 
 who was too ill to be present, there was a conversa 
 tion on Hawthorne.) 
 
 THIRD YEAR S PROGRAMME. 1881. 
 
 Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT. Salutatory, Valedictory, and Five 
 Lectures on the Philosophy of Life. 
 
 Dr. WILLIAM T. HARRIS. First Course: Philosophical Dis 
 tinctions. 1. Philosophy Distinguished from Opinion or 
 Fragmentary Observation; The Miraculous vs. The Me 
 chanical Explanation of Things. 2. Nominalism of Locke 
 and Hume; Pantheistic Realism of Hobbes, Spinoza, 
 Comte, and Spencer vs. the Realism of Christianity. 3. 
 The Influence of Nature upon the Human Mind; the 
 Emancipation of the Soul from the Body. 4. Sense- 
 Impressions and Recollections vs. Memory and Reflec 
 tion ; Animal Cries and Gestures vs. Human Language. 
 5. The Metaphysical Categories used by Natural Science, 
 
xiv CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Thing, Fact, Atom, Force, Law, Final Cause or Design, 
 Correlation, Natural Selection, Reality, Potentiality, and 
 Actuality. 
 
 Dr. HARRIS. Second Course: Hegel s Philosophy. 1. Hegel s 
 Doctrine of Psychology and Logic; his Dialectic Method 
 and System. 2. Hegel s Doctrine of God and the World, 
 Creator and Created. 3. Relations of Kant and Hegel. 
 4. Hegel s Distinction of Man from Nature; Two Kinds 
 of Immortality, that of the Species and that of the Indi- 
 vidual. 5. Hegel s Doctrine of Providence in History; 
 Asia rs. Europe as furnishing the contrast of Pantheism 
 and Christianity. 6. Hegel s Theory of Fine Arts and 
 Literature as reflecting the development of Man s Spiritual 
 Consciousness. 
 
 Dr. HIRAM K. JONES. First Course: TJie Platonic PJiiloso- 
 phy. 1. The Platonic Cosmology, Cosmogony, Physics, 
 and Metaphysics. 2. Myth ; The Gods of the Greek 
 Mythology ; The Ideas and Principles of their Worship, 
 Divine Providence, Free Will, and Fate. 3. Platonic 
 Psychology. The Idea of Conscience ; The Daemon of 
 Socrates. 4. The Eternity of the Soul, and its Pre- 
 existence. 5. The Immortality of the Soul, and the 
 Mortality of the Soul : Personality and Individuality ; 
 Metempsychosis. 
 
 Dr. JONES. Second Course: Platonismin its Relation to Modern 
 Civilization. 1. The Social Genesis; The Church and the 
 State. 2. The Education and Discipline of Man; The 
 Uses of the World we live in. 3. The Psychic Body 
 and the Material Body of Man; The Christian Resurrec 
 tion. 4. The Philosophy of Law. 5. The Philosophy of 
 Prayer, and the " Prayer Gauge." 
 
 Mr. DENTON J. SNIDER. Five Lectures on Greek Life and 
 Literature. 
 
 Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. 1. Philosophy in Europe and 
 America. 2. The Results of Kant. 
 
 Mrs. EDNAH D. CHENEY. The Relation of Poetry to Science. 
 
CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. xv 
 
 Rev. J. S. KEDNEY, D.D. Three Lectures on the Philo 
 sophic Groundwork of Ethics. 
 
 Mrs. AM ALIA J. HATHAWAY. Schopenhauer. 
 
 President JOHN BASCOM. Freedom of the Will. 
 
 Mr. EDWIN D. MEAD. Philosophy of Fichte. 
 
 Mr. S. H. EMERY, Jr. System in Philosophy. 
 
 Rev. F. H. HEDGE, D.D. A Lecture on Kant. 
 
 Professor GEORGE S. MORRIS. A Lecture on Kant. 
 
 Mr. F. B. SANBORN. 1. Roman Literature. 2. English and 
 German Literature. 3. American Literature and Life. 
 
 Mr. JOHN ALBEE. Faded Metaphors. 
 
 Rev. Dr. C. A. BARTOL. The Transcendent Faculty in Man. 
 
 Dr. ELISHA MULFORD. The Philosophy of the State. 
 
 Dr. ROWLAND G. HAZARD. Philosophical Character of Chan- 
 ning. 
 
 President XOAH PORTER. A Lecture on Kant. 
 
 Professor JOHN W. MEARS. A Lecture on Kant. 
 
 Professor JOHN WATSON. The Critical Philosophy in its 
 relation to Realism and Sensationalism. 
 
 Mr. H. G. 0. BLAKE. Readings from Thoreau s Manuscripts. 
 
 FOURTH YEAR S PROGRAMME. 1882. 
 
 Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT. Four Lectures on The Personal, 
 Generic and Individual Mind. 1. Personality, Divine and 
 Human. 2. The Descending Scale of Powers. 3. Indi 
 vidualism. 4. Immortality, Individual or Personal ? 
 
 Dr. HARRIS. Five Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 
 three on Fichte s Philosophy, and two on Art. 1. Soc 
 rates and the Pre-Socratic Philosophy. 2. Aristotle s De 
 Anima (his distinctions between Nutrition, Feeling, and 
 Thinking). 3. Gnosticism and Neoplatonism. 4. Christian 
 Mysticism : Bonaventura and Meister Eckhart. 5. The 
 Philosophy of the Bhagavat Gita. 6. Fichte s " Destination 
 of Man." 7. Fichte s Wissenschaftslehre Theoretical. 
 8. Fichte s Wissenschaftslehre Practical. 9. Historical 
 Epochs of Art. 10. Landscape Painting Turner. 
 
xvi CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Dr. JONES. Eight Lectures on Christian Philosophy. First 
 Course: Chapters in the History of Philosophy, 1. Prem 
 ises, Predications, and Outlines of Christian Philosophy. 
 2. The Relation between Common-sense and Philoso 
 phy. 3. The Relation between Science and Philosophy. 
 4. The Relation between Experience and Philosophy. 
 
 Dr. JONES . Second Course : Truths that are always Old and 
 always New in tliz History of Human Thought. 1. The 
 Genesis of the "Maya." 2. The Philosophy of Religion 
 and the Law of the Supernatural. 3. The Community 
 of the Faiths and the Worships of Mankind. 4. The 
 Symposium. 
 
 Dr. KEDNEY. Three Lectures on Hegel s ./Esthetics. 1. Cri 
 tique of Fundamentals. 2. Critique of Symbolic Art 
 and of Classic Art. 3. Critique of Romantic Art. 4. The 
 Philosophy of Professor Ferrier, with a Prelude on 
 Berkeley. 
 
 Mr. F. B. SANBORN. Three Lectures on Oracular Poetry. 
 1. Hebrew, Egyptian, and Greek Oracles. 2. Persian and 
 Christian Oracles. 3. The Oracles of New England. 
 
 Rev. Dr. BARTOL. The Nature of Knowledge. 
 
 Prof. JOHN WATSON, of Kingston. Three Lectures on Schell- 
 ing. 1. Schelling s Relations to Kant and Fichte. 2. 
 Early Treatises, Transcendental Idealism, and Philoso 
 phy of Identity. 3. Later Philosophy, and Transition to 
 Hegel. 
 
 Miss E. P. PEABODT. Childhood. 
 
 Mr. JOHN ALBEE. Poetry. 
 
 Mrs. E. D. CHENEY. Nature. 
 
 Dr. GEORGE H. Howisox. Two Lectures on German Phi 
 losophy since Hegel. 
 
 President PORTER. Kantian Ethics. 
 
 Mrs. J. W. HOWE. Idols and Iconoclasts. 
 
 Rev. R. A. HOLLAND. Atomism. 
 
 Dr. R. G. HAZARD. 1. Man as Creative Power. 2. Utility 
 of Metaphysical Pursuits. 
 
CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. xvii 
 
 Mr. G. P. LATHROP. The Symbolism of Color. 
 
 Mr. ALEXANDER WILDER. Alexandrian Platonism. 
 
 Rev. Dr. McCosn. The Scottish Philosophy. 
 
 Mr. F. B. SAXBORX. Readings from Thoreau s Manuscripts. 
 
 Iii addition to the regular lectures of 1882, the 
 recent death of Mr. Emerson was commemorated by 
 a Poern and address by Mr. Sanborn, and the fol 
 lowing exercises on the commemoration day : 
 
 Address, by Rev. Dr. BARTOL ; Ion : a Monody, by Mr. ALCOTT ; 
 Emerson as a Poet, by JOEL BENTOX ; Reminiscences of 
 Emerson, by Mrs. HOWE ; Dialectic Unity in Emerson s 
 Prose, by Dr. HARRIS ; A Visit to Emerson, by Mr. 
 ALBEE ; Poam, " Consolation," by Mrs. MARTHA P. 
 LOWE ; Emerson as a Philosopher, by Dr. ALEXANDER 
 WILDER ; Reminiscences of Emerson, by Mrs. E. D. 
 CHENEY. 
 
 FIFTH YEAR S PROGRAMME. 18S3. 
 
 Dr. WILLIAM T. HARRIS. First Course; Elementary Lessons 
 in Philosophy. 1. Space and Time Considered ; Basis of 
 Kantian Philosophy. Ground of certainty deeper than 
 Scepticism or Agnosticism. 2. Causality and Self-cause ; 
 Force Transient and Persistent; Self-existent Energy under 
 lying all change. 3. Fate and Freedom ; Individuality ; 
 Distinction of Reality and Potentiality from True Actual 
 ity, of Phenomenon from Substance. 4. Laws of Thought, 
 the Principles of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded 
 Middle ; Categories of Being, Essence, Cause, and Person 
 ality. 
 
 Dr. HARRIS. Second Course. 1. The Absolute a personal 
 Reason. Discussion of Plato s insight (Tenth Book of the 
 Laws) and Aristotle s (the eighth book of his Physics and 
 the eleventh of his Metaphysics). 2. Triune Nature of 
 God. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm, 
 6 
 
xviii CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Justice and Grace in the Divine Nature. 3. The World 
 as Revelation of the Divine First Cause, Nature and 
 Man : the doctrine of Evolution ; the Orders of Being as 
 Progressive Revelation of the Divine. 4. Immortality of 
 the individual man in the light of Psychology, in the 
 light of the Christian Religion ; the Vocation of Man in 
 the Future Life. 
 
 Dr. G. H. HOWISON. 1. Hume s Aim and Method; the 
 Problem, as handed over to Kant. 2. Kant s Mode of 
 Dealing with this Problem. 3. The Strength and Weak 
 ness of Kant s Methods and Results. 4. The Same Subject, 
 concluded ; The Outlook from Kant. 
 
 Professor WILLIAM JAMES. Three Lectures on Psychology. 
 
 Mr. DENTON J. SNIDER. Four Lectures on Homer and the 
 Greek Religion. 1. Literary Bibles, Homer. 2. The 
 Iliad. 3. The Odyssey. 4. The Gods. 
 
 Dr. KEDNEY. Two Lectures on Art Appreciation and the 
 Higher Criticism. 
 
 Mr. F. B. SANBORN. 1. The Puritanic Philosophy, Jona 
 than Edwards. 2. The Philanthropic Philosophy, Ben 
 jamin Franklin. 3. The Negation of Philosophy. 4. The 
 Ideal and Vital Philosophy, R. W. Emerson. 
 
 Mr. JOHN ALBEE. The Norman Influences in English 
 Language and Literature. 
 
 Rev. Dr. BARTOL. Optimism and Pessimism, a Personal 
 Equation. 
 
 Miss E. P. PEABODY. Milton s Paradise Lost. 
 
 Mrs. E. D. CHENEY. A Study of Nirvana. 
 
 Mr. EDWIN D. MEAD. Carlyle and Emerson. 
 
 Mrs. J. W. HOWE. A Conversation, Margaret Fuller. 
 
 Mr. JULIAN HAWTHORNE. A Lecture on Novels. 
 
 Mr. DAVID A. WASSON. Herbert Spencer s Causal Law 
 of Evolution. 
 
 Mr. LEWIS J. BLOCK. Platonism and its Relation to 
 Modern Thought. 
 
 Mr. H. G. 0. BLAKE. Readings from Thoreau s Manuscripts. 
 
CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. xix 
 
 SIXTH YEAR S PROGRAMME. 18S4. 
 
 Readings from. Mr. Alcott s Diary and Correspondence. 
 
 Fourteen, Lectures on the Genius and Character of Emerson. 
 1. Emerson s View of Nature; by Dr. HARRIS, of Con 
 cord. 2. Emerson s Religion ; by Dr. BARTOL. 3. Emer 
 son s Ethics ; by Mr. EDWIN D. MEAD. 4. Emerson s 
 Relation to Society; by Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. 5. Em 
 erson as seen from India ; by PROTAP CHCNDER MO- 
 ZOOM DAR, of Calcutta. 6. Emerson as an American ; by 
 Mr. JULIAN HAWTHORNE, of Xew York. 7. Emerson as 
 Preacher ; by Miss E. P. PEABODY. 8. A French View of 
 Emerson ; by M. RENE DE POYEN BELLEISLE. 9. Emer 
 son and Boston ; by Mrs. E. D. CHENEY. 10. Emerson 
 as an Essayist; by Mr. JOHN ALBEE. 11. Emerson and 
 Thoreau, a Conversation. 12. Emerson s View of Na 
 tionality ; by Rev. G. "W. COOKE. 13. Emerson among 
 the Poets ; by Mr. F. B. SANBORN. 14. Emerson s Relation 
 to Goethe and Carlyle ; by Dr. HARRIS. 
 
 Five Lectures on Immortality; by Rev. A. P. PEABODY, D.D., 
 of Cambridge, Mr. JOHN FISKE, of Cambridge, Rev. R. A. 
 HOLLAND, D.D., of New Orleans, Mr. THOMAS DAVIDSON, 
 of Cambridge, and Dr. HARRIS, of Concord. 
 
 SEVENTH YEAR S PROGRAMME. 
 
 At the adjournment of the Concord School, Aug. 2, 
 1884, it was announced that the next session would 
 open about July 20, 1885, and would continue for two 
 weeks or more ; the general topic to be, " Goethe and 
 Modern Science," considered under two main heads : 
 I. Goethe s Genius and Work. II. Is Pantheism the 
 Legitimate Outcome of Modern Science ? 
 
 The special subjects of each lecture are not yet 
 definitely fixed, nor are the lecturers assigned, except 
 
xx CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 in part ; but the following may be taken as a pro 
 visional arrangement, liable to be changed before 
 the final announcements are made in June, 1885 : 
 
 I. Goethe s Genius and Work. I. Goethe and Modern Science ; 
 
 by T. STERRY HUNT, of Montreal. 2. Goethe and Re- 
 ligion ; by Rev. Dr. R. A. HOLLAND. 3. Goethe s Rela 
 tion to Kant and Spinoza in Philosophy ; by Mr. F. L. 
 SOLDAN, of St. Louis. 4. Goethe, the Trench Revolution 
 and its Results. 5, Goethe and Art. 6. Goethe and Mod 
 ern Education. 7. Goethe s Faust ; by Professor HARRIS 
 and Mr. D. J. SNIDER. 8. Goethe s Relation to English 
 Literature; by F. B. SANBORN. 9. Goethe s Classical 
 and Oriental Studies. 10. The Novelettes in " Wilhelm. 
 Meister ; " by Professor HARRIS. 11. "Wilhelm Meister" 
 as a Whole ; by Mr. D. J. SNIDER. 12. Goethe and Schil 
 ler ; by Rev. Dr. BARTOL. 13. The Women of Goethe ; 
 by Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. 14. The Elective Affinities ; 
 by Mr. S. H. EMERY, Jr., of Concord. 15. Goethe s 
 Titanism ; by Mr. THOMAS DAVIDSON. 16. Goethe s Self- 
 Culture ; by Mr. JOHN ALBEE. 
 
 General lectures on Goethe, by Dr. H. K. JONES, Prof. G. 
 H. HOWISON, Mrs. CHENEY, and others, are expected. 
 
 II. A Symposium : Is Pantheism the Legitimate Outcome of 
 Modern Science ? Papers by Rev. Dr. PEABODY, Mr. JOHN 
 FISKE, Professor HARRIS, and others. 
 
 The management of the Concord School, from the 
 beginning, has been in the hands of a Faculty, the 
 officers of which have been Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT, 
 Dean, Mr. S. H. EMERY, Jr., Director, and Mr. F. B. 
 SANBORN, Secretary. These three, with Dr. WILLIAM 
 T. HARRIS, Dr. H. K. JONES, Miss PEABODY, Mrs. 
 CHENEY, Mr. SNIDER, Dr. KEDNEY, Dr. HOLLAND, or 
 
S 
 
 HJKJ 
 
 CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. xxi 
 
 so many of these and the other lecturers as happen 
 to be in Concord, constitute the Faculty for the time 
 being ; but the permanent and active members are 
 Messrs. ALCOTT, HARRIS, EMERY, and SAXBORX. In 
 the second year of the School the Hillside Chapel 
 was built, with the aid of a small fund given by 
 Mrs. ELIZABETH THOMPSON, of Xew York ; and all 
 the sessions are now held there. 
 
 The variety of subjects considered during the six 
 summers that the School has existed show that its 
 scope is not a narrow one ; and the wide diversity of 
 opinion among those who have spoken from its plat 
 form may serve as a guarantee that no limitation of 
 sect or philosophical shibboleth has been enforced. 
 The aim of the Faculty has been to bring together 
 a few of those persons who, in America, have pur 
 sued, or desire to pursue, the paths of speculative 
 philosophy ; to encourage these students and profes 
 sors to communicate with each other what they have 
 learned and meditated ; and to illustrate, by a con 
 stant reference to poetry and the higher literature, 
 those ideas which philosophy presents. The design 
 was modest, and in no ambitious sense a public one ; 
 nor have the Faculty been persuaded, by the attention 
 their experiment has aroused, to diverge from the 
 natural and simple path first chosen. The first pur 
 pose of the School is conversation on serious topics, 
 the lectures serving mainly as a text for discus- 
 
xxii CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 sion, while dispute and polemical debate are avoided. 
 In this we have sought to follow the example of him 
 whom this volume of essays and poems portrays, and 
 whose method in philosophy has proved so attractive 
 to many who may never reach the same intellectual 
 results. What is sought in the discussions at Con 
 cord is not an absolute unity of opinion, but a gen 
 eral agreement in the manner of viewing philosophic 
 truth and applying it to the problems of life. 
 
 F. B. S. 
 CONCOKD, Oct. 10, 1884. 
 
THE GENIUS AND CHAEACTER 
 OF EMERSON. 
 
 I. 
 
 EMERSON AND BOSTON. 
 
 BY MRS. EDXAH D. CHEXEY. 
 
 ALTHOUGH his ancestors were of the old stock of 
 Concord ministers, our Emerson was born in Boston 
 in 1803. l Sball we rejoice at this ? Ordinarily we 
 are glad that the child should draw his first breath 
 in the fresh air of the country, and " babble of green 
 fields " in his infancy, that they may give a touch of 
 Nature and Religion to his old age, even were it 
 spent, like Shakspeare s immortal profligate s, among 
 the foul vices and base pleasures of a city. But 
 Nature s own darling child, henceforth to be her 
 tenderest lover and wisest interpreter, was born 
 
 1 Some of the old friends of Mr. Emerson are under the impres 
 sion that he was born in Harvard, Mass., where his father lived 
 some time ; but the testimony of his family is explicit and decided 
 that he was born in Summer Street, Boston. One of his earliest 
 recollections was of sitting upon the wall and looking longingly at 
 the pears in a neighbor s garden. 
 
 1 
 
2 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 within the limits of the town; for blessed Mother 
 Nature knew that her child would never forsake her, 
 but that, clinging too closely to her breast, he might 
 not learn the sterner lessons of wisdom which only 
 /the life of humanity in association can teach, fit was 
 given to him, therefore, to blend the virtues ooth of 
 the city and of the country in the practical wisdom, 
 the ripe good sense, the broad humanity, the poetic 
 beauty, and the unfailing serenity of his lifeJ Coming 
 from under his pines at Concord, he was no stranger in 
 the streets of our eager and bustling city ; it was the 
 same old native town which he ever loved and be 
 lieved in, and whose influence is clearly traceable in 
 his life and writings. ( I count it a great felicity for 
 him, and for us, that he thus partook of the life of 
 the city from his very youth, and so became not 
 merely the poet of outward Nature, but the seer of 
 Humanity.- How have the greatest men loved their 
 city homes ! Jesus was wont to retire to the Mount 
 of Olives for lonely meditation and prayer ; but he 
 wept over Jerusalem as a mother weeps for her lost 
 child. Dante might choose his home in all the wide, 
 beautiful world ; but to be out of the streets of Flor 
 ence was exile to him. Socrates never cared to go 
 beyond the bounds of Athens. The great universal 
 heart welcomes the city as a natural growth of the 
 eternal forces, and 
 
 " Nature gladly gives it place, 
 Adopting it into her race, 
 And granting it an equal date 
 With Andes and with Ararat." 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 3 
 
 Emerson has many a severe word for the city, as 
 every sensitive soul shrinks at times from the rude 
 contact of average, struggling humanity, and longs to 
 say, in weary mood, 
 
 " Good-by, proud world ! I m going home." 
 
 Indeed, at such times 
 
 " The politics are base, 
 
 The letters do not cheer, 
 And t is far in the deeps of history 
 
 The voice that speaketh clear. 
 Trade and the streets ensnare us, 
 
 Our bodies are weak and worn ; 
 "We plot and corrupt each other, 
 
 And we despoil the unborn." 
 
 Writing to Carlyle concerning Xew York, he says : 
 " I always seem to suffer some loss of faith on enter 
 ing cities ; " and yet he acknowledges that the poor 
 fellows who live there " do get some compensation 
 for the sale of their souls." ^But Emerson also recog 
 nizes that the town is under the care of Nature, who 
 does not desert humanity even in the crisis of its 
 struggle. } How often does the weary toiler take 
 comfort Trom his lines, 
 
 " The inevitable morning 
 
 Finds them who in cellars be ; 
 And be sure the all-loving Xature 
 "Will smile in a factory. 
 
 " Still, still the secret presses, 
 
 The nearing clouds draw down ; 
 The crimson morning flames into 
 The fopperies of the town. 
 
4 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " And what if Trade sow cities 
 
 Like shells along the shore, 
 And thatch with towns the prairie hroad, 
 
 "With railways ironed o er ? 
 They are but sailing foam-bells 
 
 Along Thought s causing stream, 
 And take their shape and sun-color 
 
 From him that sends the dream." 
 
 He says : 
 
 " We can ill spare the commanding social benefits of 
 cities ; they must be used, yet cautiously and haughtily, 
 and will yield their best values to him who best can do 
 without them." 
 
 " Keep the town for occasions ; but the habits should 
 be formed to retirement." 
 
 "Cities give us collision. Tis said London and New 
 York take the nonsense out of a man." 
 
 Boston town as Emerson knew it in his child 
 hood was in its happy youth, when Nature still lay 
 all about it ; and was like a family association, where 
 every man knew his neighbor, and there was a com 
 mon bond of good-fellowship among all. The Com 
 mon was still the training-ground and cow-pasture, 
 and the boy s little feet roamed freely over it, with no 
 caution to " keep off the grass." Yet it was already 
 a place consecrated by historic memories. The British 
 had built fortifications upon it during the war ; and 
 when the Constitution was adopted a procession had 
 carried an old long-boat, named the " Old Confederacy," 
 to the Common, and there burned it amid the shouts 
 of the rejoicing people. The Common was endeared 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 5 
 
 to every one as the theatre of his sports and exercises 
 in youth, or of the quiet walks for thought and con 
 templation or the sweet converse of lovers, in later 
 years. 
 
 Emerson s childhood in Boston was during a period 
 of commercial activity and pecuniary prosperity, when 
 the career w r as open to talent, and every boy might 
 look forward to success and fame in life. Yet econ 
 omy was necessary in the household of the widowed 
 mother; and thus the true-hearted boy learned the 
 lessons of conscientious frugality for the sake of noble 
 good, which are so conspicuous in his thought. But 
 these were blended with a generous wisdom, which 
 counselled to spend for one s genius, but not for show 
 in the eyes of others. His chapter on " Wealth " is 
 full of the wisdom of the saint and the practical 
 sagacity of Poor Richard : 
 
 " As long as your genius buys, the investment is safe, 
 though you spend like a monarch." 
 
 " Spend for your expense, and retrench the expense 
 which is not yours." 
 
 " But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, 
 health, and peace, and is still nothing at last, a long 
 way leading nowhere." 
 
 " A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five 
 hundred to fifteen hundred a year." 
 
 Very early he found the help of the city in getting 
 the novel he craved from the circulating library ; but 
 when his aunt reproached him for spending six cents 
 
6 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 on such a luxury while his mother s needs were so 
 constant, he left the story unfinished, and did not 
 take out the second volume. The wise mother did 
 not keep her boy tied to her apron-strings, but at 
 eight years old sent him to the grammar school, that 
 his life might be rooted in the common ground with 
 his fellow-citizens. This grammar school was prob 
 ably one whose course of instruction was laid down 
 in 1784 by a committee of which Samuel Adams 
 was a member. Dilworth s spelling-book, containing 
 a brief treatise on English grammar, was the only 
 text-book required. Arithmetic included vulgar and 
 decimal fractions ; while the Bible and Psalter were 
 the only reading-books. We do not know how much 
 this programme had been extended in 1811. In 
 1814 he became a Latin School boy. The Latin 
 School is a peculiarly " Boston institution," and was 
 founded in the very earliest period of her history. 
 Boston has always believed in beginning to grow at 
 the top ; and long before she had primary schools 
 for her children she had her college and Latin 
 School, to keep learning alive and furnish leaders in 
 the great warfare against the enemy of souls. The 
 aristocracy that founded the Latin School is not that 
 of selfishness and greed, " the best for me, and the 
 worst for the rest of the world," but it holds 
 the doctrine of noblesse oblige, and teaches that the 
 highest service must have the fullest preparation. 
 The poorest boy may share its privileges ; but he is 
 expected to pay for them by superior work done in 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 7 
 
 the course of his life, not by sinking into the 
 readiest means for gaining wealth or ignoble ease. 
 The honorable names among our Latin School boys 
 have justified this claim. 
 
 If Emerson often read the book of genius by 
 stealth, instead of conning the stupid lessons of rou 
 tine, he still accomplished the work of preparation 
 for college ; and he got from his public-school train 
 ing the best results of an acquaintance with the 
 future men of his age and country. These early 
 companionships, like family ties, have a special value 
 in binding us to acquaintance with those unlike us 
 in tastes and habits, whom we might not seek from 
 choice. They save us from living in a petty world of 
 our own choosing, as well as from the dreary experi 
 ence of the aristocratic lady who said that " the longer 
 she lived the more she realized how little there is out 
 side of one s own circle." Emerson s high courtesy 
 could always meet all on equal terms, and the poor 
 est of servants or the highest of nobles alike felt of 
 kin to him when he gave them the benediction of 
 the morning. 
 
 The commercial prosperity which existed during 
 his childhood was followed by the hated embargo 
 and the war with England, which had such a disas 
 trous influence on the business of Boston, changing it 
 from a purely commercial to a manufacturing town. 
 During the war the British cruisers could be daily 
 seen in the harbor, and volunteer companies were en 
 gaged in defending commerce and in building forts. 
 
8 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Politics furnished the theme of all intellectual con 
 versation, and Emerson must have found his young 
 mind broadened and enriched by the exciting discus 
 sions of the time. The master of the school once 
 invited his boys to spend the next day in helping 
 to throw up defences against the enemy at Noddle s 
 Island, now East Boston. 
 
 Party spirit raged fiercely throughout the nation, 
 and especially in Boston. The French Revolution 
 had aroused the greatest activity of thought on politi 
 cal and social questions, and the party divisions of 
 that day did not represent a mere scramble for office, 
 but the opposite sides of the most important problems 
 of social and political economy. While the Demo 
 crats held those generous views which captivate the 
 young mind, on the other side was an array of per 
 sonal character and historic reputation which could 
 not but command the respect of a modest and rever 
 ent nature ; so that, as Emerson afterwards said, " One 
 party had the best ideas and the other the best men." 
 An orphan boy, much under the influence of wise 
 and sweet women, Emerson was not bound to follow 
 a father s party in politics, and may early have 
 learned the great lesson of unpartisan patriotism 
 which he so fully carried out. As a young man of 
 eighteen or nineteen he may have heard the ani 
 mated discussions in regard to the adoption of the 
 city charter, and may have remembered Josiah 
 Quincy s eloquent eulogiums on the town meetings 
 when he wrote afterwards to Carlyle, 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 9 
 
 " I will show you (as in this country we can anywhere) 
 
 an America in miniature in the April or November town 
 meeting. Therein should you conveniently study and 
 master the whole of our hemispherical politics, reduced to 
 a nutshell, and have a new version of Oxenstiern s little 
 wit, and yet be consoled by seeing that here the farmers, 
 patient as their bulls of head-boards (provided for them 
 in relation to distant national objects by kind editors of 
 newspapers), do yet their will, and a good will, in their 
 own parish." 1 
 
 Nothing of the spirit of the cockney ever came of 
 his city birth and training. The city was a centring 
 of forces which could accomplish great results, but 
 the simple working life of the country supplied the 
 life-blood which gave it strength and power of ac 
 tion. He recognized the function of great centres of 
 population, but also their dangers. France has held 
 herself compact and firm in her intellectual life, amid 
 countless revolutions, greatly through the centralizing 
 influence of her metropolis, to which the eye of every 
 boy of talent and ambition turns as to his polar star. 
 Emerson said of England : " The nation sits in the 
 immense city they have bu ikied, a London extended 
 into every man s mind, though he live in Van 
 Diemen s Land or Cape Town ; " and he recognized 
 Carlyle as a " product of London." Germany must 
 yet find or make a central city (perhaps the Berlin 
 
 1 This passage was equally descriptive of Concord, however, 
 where it was written, and where Emerson made his home con 
 stantly from 1834 to his death in April, 1882. 
 
10 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 of Frederick the Great) before she can become a truly 
 united nation. How wisely have Florence, Turin, 
 Milan, and Naples yielded local prejudices and made 
 Rome, with its far-reaching historic memories, the 
 centre of the new Italian government and life ! 
 
 More than any city on this continent Boston has 
 been a real uniting centre for a large and intelligent 
 population. All over New England, men have said 
 as Emerson wrote to Carlyle, " I am spending the 
 summer in the country, but my address is Boston ; " 
 and as the iron links have been more closely woven 
 around the hills and through the valleys, the inter 
 change has become so constant (as the citizen seeks 
 health and refreshment in every quiet village by the 
 mountain or seaside, and the dweller in the country 
 comes to the city for lessons and lectures, opera 
 and concert) that dress and manners are hardly 
 distinguishable, and each part can " call the farthest 
 brother." 
 
 How truly Emerson felt that the city did not shut 
 me n out from the sublimity of the universe is shown 
 in that glorious passage on the stars with which he 
 opens the great prose poem of " Nature," " Seen in 
 the streets of cities, how great they are ! " We please 
 ourselves with thinking that he had never lost the 
 feeling with which he first looked up through the 
 vista of the narrow streets of Boston, and caught 
 the shining of the Eternal in the stars ; and that ever 
 after they had a glory for him there which he did not 
 find on the mountain-top, or the broad ocean, or as 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 11 
 
 they bent nearer and more lovingly to him on the 
 plains of Concord. 
 
 When he entered Harvard College in 1817, the life 
 at Cambridge, in College and Divinity School, did not 
 break his relation to Boston ; for the two were then 
 closely united, and Commencement Day was a gen 
 eral holiday. The mild Kirkland was President; 
 Channing, Everett, and Ticknor were among his pro 
 fessors ; Josiah Quincy, son and grandson of Josiah, 
 the most Bostonian of Bostonians, who might live at 
 Quincy but prayed to be buried in Boston, was a 
 classmate. More important than college and divinity 
 lectures, however, was the influence of Everett s and 
 Channing s eloquence. The indifference shown by 
 Everett to the great moral conflict of the age de 
 stroyed so much of his personal influence in his later 
 years, that it is difficult for us to realize that his 
 eloquence aroused the enthusiasm of Emerson and 
 Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller ; but he had 
 not then lost the faith and love of youth, and he may 
 have helped the young man to that temperance of 
 thought and sobriety of manner which never failed 
 him, but blended happily with his never-ceasing 
 earnestness and enthusiasm. Dr. Chanuing was then 
 preaching in his Federal Street Church, and Edward 
 Everett, leaving his pulpit in Boston, had become a 
 professor at Cambridge, from which position he en 
 tered Congress in 1825, and in due time became 
 Governor of Massachusetts. Emerson says of him 
 in 1820: 
 
12 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " There was an influence on the young people from the 
 genius of Everett which was almost comparable to that of 
 Pericles in Athens. He had an inspiration which did not 
 go beyond his head, but which made him the master of 
 elegance. If any of my readers were at that period in 
 Boston or Cambridge, they will easily remember his radi 
 ant beauty of person, of a classic style ; his heavy large 
 eye, marble lids which gave the impression of mass that 
 the slightness of his form needed ; sculptured lips ; a voice 
 of such rich tones, such precise and perfect utterance, that, 
 although slightly nasal, it was the most mellow and beau 
 tiful and correct of all the instruments of the time. The 
 word that he spoke, in the manner in which he spoke it, 
 became current and classical in New England. . . . He 
 had nothing in common with vulgarity or infirmity ; but, 
 speaking, walking, sitting, was as much aloof and uncom 
 mon as a star. The smallest anecdote of his conversation 
 or behavior was eagerly caught and repeated ; and every 
 young scholar could recite brilliant sentences from his 
 sermons, with mimicry, good or bad, of his voice. Every 
 youth was his defender, and boys filled their mouths with 
 arguments to prove that the orator had a heart." 
 
 Although Emerson preached for a short time at 
 New Bedford and other places, he accepted a call to 
 settle in Boston as his rightful place, and was in 
 stalled as colleague with Henry Ware in 1829 over 
 the Second Church, in Hanover Street. Welcomed 
 by the pastor and congregation, and " charming them 
 by the beauty of his elocution and the/ direct 
 and sincere manner) in which he addressed them," 
 all seemed to promise a long and happy relation. 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 13 
 
 Although in style his discourses were not unlike 
 those of his predecessors and contemporaries, 
 Channing, Buckminster, etc., yet the great spirit 
 within them was felt by those in harmony with him ; 
 while it was clear that " God had let loose a thinker 
 upon the planet," l and that men must beware for 
 their frail shells of conventionalism, which he would 
 inevitably break down. When the expanding life 
 made it necessary for him to give up some of the 
 customary observances, especially the form of public 
 prayer and the celebration of the Lord s Supper, a 
 general discussion was aroused throughout the city. 
 I remember as a school-girl listening to the com 
 ments of my dressmaker on " this minister who did 
 not go into the pulpit in the spirit of prayer." 
 
 The impersonality of his action in thus leaving the 
 established church of his ancestors is shown by the 
 tender affection which he ever cherished for it. As 
 he truly wrote, 
 
 " "We love the venerable house 
 
 Our fathers built to God. 
 In heaven are kept their grateful vows, 
 Their dust endears the sod." 
 
 1 Nothing could more fitly describe the coming of Emerson to 
 the world of Boston and the influence of his transcendental thought 
 than his own words : " Beware when the great God lets loose a 
 thinker on this planet ; then all things are at risk. It is as when 
 a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows 
 what is safe or where it will end. There is not a piece of science 
 that its flank may not be turned to-morrow; there is not a literary 
 reputation but the so-called eternal names of fame that may not be 
 revised and condemned." 
 
14 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 He recognized 
 
 " How anxious hearts have pondered here 
 
 The mystery of life, 
 And prayed the Eternal Spirit clear 
 Their doubts, and end their strife." 
 
 To many, who 
 
 " In this church a blessing found 
 Which filled their homes again," 
 
 the loss of his weekly ministrations seemed irrepara 
 ble. Many years after, I read manuscript notes taken 
 of his sermons by a woman whose life was fashioned 
 to peace and purity ; and her daughter used to cher 
 ish in memory one of his parochial visits, when he 
 took her on his lap and showed her the barberry 
 blossom, and how its stamens sprang up at the touch 
 of a pin or an insect. 1 
 
 The places in Boston associated with Emerson as 
 a minister are chiefly at the I^orth End. His church 
 was in Hanover Street, not far from Father Taylor s 
 Bethel, and his parsonage was in Chardon Street, 
 near Bowdoin Square. In later times he for years 
 frequented the old American House in Hanover 
 Street, and would shut himself up there to finish a 
 lecture which the music of his pines had not given 
 him leisure for ; and I have pleased myself in think 
 ing that the ancient memory of the church in which 
 
 1 The public record of his work as a preacher is very meagre. 
 It is highly desirable that those who recollect him at that period 
 should give their reminiscences to the public, as Miss Peabody has 
 done to-day. 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 15 
 
 he ministered sanctified to him this street, which to 
 others might seem the very abode of mammon-worship 
 and vulgarity. 
 
 After a year s absence spent in travelling for the 
 benefit of his health, in 1833-1834, Emerson returned 
 to Boston, but not to the work of the Unitarian 
 ministry. He preached only once in his old church, 
 on the occasion of the death of a friend, and he 
 soon went to Concord, and made his home there ever 
 afterward. But in thus leaving Boston he was not 
 severed from it. He still found there his intellectual 
 companionship and his spiritual parish. He was no 
 longer the boy in her schools, or the preacher in her 
 churches ; but on the lecture platform he found op 
 portunity for the freest and fullest expression of his 
 life and thought. Xor can we say that " he came 
 unto his own, and his own received him not." From 
 the time that lie began his first course of lectures 
 in Boston, in 1835, a circle of friends, admirers, and 
 disciples gathered about him, who never faltered in 
 their allegiance, and who found in his words their 
 highest moral and spiritual inspiration and their 
 richest intellectual enjoyment. He never drew a 
 noisy crowd ; he rarely spoke in the largest halls of 
 the city ; but a moderate-sized room was tilled with 
 an audience of the most intelligent, cultivated, and 
 earnest men and women. The same faces might be 
 seen there, week after week and year after year ; and 
 when almost for the last time he repeated a lecture at 
 the Old South Church in 1880 for the benefit of its 
 
16 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 funds, it was touching to see the gray heads bent 
 eagerly forward to catch his words, the hearing of 
 the listener having grown dull, and the silvery voice 
 of the speaker low, while the chord of sympathy and 
 love was still unbroken between them. A generation 
 grew up under the benediction of those great words 
 in which ever the noblest principles and highest 
 faith were appealed to ; and among them were found 
 the lofty men and " honorable women not a few," 
 who have upheld the standard of education, morals, 
 and pure philanthropy in Boston, and who have 
 been the earnest workers in every good cause. 
 
 The portrait by David Scott 1 recalls his expression 
 and action in the lecture-room during that early 
 period. The rapt expression of intense thought was 
 emphasized by the peculiar action of the hand, which 
 Scott has given. His voice was modulated by every 
 shade of feeling, but had always a peculiar resonance 
 which gave spirit and life to its tones ; and it an 
 swered to that glance of the eyes which recalled Mrs. 
 Child s comparison of light shining out from a temple. 
 But the charm of manner was intimately connected 
 with the thought, and was not that superficial readi 
 ness which pleases everybody. Newspaper writers 
 and School-ship boys thought it awkward and em 
 barrassed. 2 He never wearied his audience ; he was 
 
 1 Heliotyped for this volume. 
 
 2 Perhaps every anecdote is worth preserving. Mr. Emerson once 
 addressed the boys on board the Reform School-ship. He disliked 
 extemporaneous speaking, and he was embarrassed and confused by 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 1 7 
 
 a perfect artist in the correspondence between the 
 value of the thought and the beauty of the expres 
 sion, and his sentences were like jewels whose bril 
 liancy drew your attention before you knew their 
 worth. He was very scrupulous in regard to time, 
 never keeping his audience more than an hour, but 
 often tantalizing them by suddenly closing his lec 
 ture when seemingly much of his manuscript re 
 mained unread. 
 
 One of the richest treasures which Emerson found 
 in Boston was the old sailor-preacher, Father Taylor. 
 This son of the forecastle possessed a(jpoetic insight 
 and imagination only equalled by his warm heart and 
 fervent devotionJ Utterly undaunted by pretensions 
 of any kind, he saw clearly through all shams, and 
 recognized the true ring of the Divine wherever he 
 heard the note. Mr. Emerson delighted in his wit 
 and his wisdom, often went to hear him preach, and 
 subscribed to his Bethel. His Ion mot in regard to 
 Emerson has often been repeated, but I will give it 
 as I had it from the lips of Governor Andrew, to 
 whom Father Taylor had said it : 
 
 " Mr. Emerson," said Father Taylor, " is one of the 
 sweetest creatures God ever made. But there is a screw 
 
 the novel audience. A few days after, the teacher of reading, wish 
 ing to impress upon the boys of the ship the importance of ease and 
 freedom of utterance, mimicked the awkwardness and confusion of 
 an inexperienced speaker, and asked, " Now, boys, what should 
 you think if you heard a man speak so ?" " Should think it was 
 Mr. Emerson," shouted the irrepressibles of the forecastle. 
 
18 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 loose somewhere in the machinery ; yet I cannot tell 
 where it is, for I never heard it jar. He must go to 
 heaven when he dies, for if he went to hell the Devil 
 would not know what to do with him. But still he 
 knows no more of the religion of the New Testament 
 than Balaam s ass did of the principles of the Hebrew 
 grammar." 
 
 As the poor beast spoke the word of the Lord, in 
 spite of his ignorance of grammar, so Father Taylor 
 seemed to intimate that Emerson had entered into 
 the life of heavenly grace, though he did not go 
 through the portals of Christianity. The last time I 
 saw Father Taylor, possibly the last time he and 
 Emerson met, was at a meeting of the friends of the 
 Fifty- fourth (colored) Eegiment of Massachusetts Vol 
 unteers, at Chickering s Rooms, on Friday, March 20, 
 1863, to raise means for supplying them with an 
 outfit like that of other regiments sent from this 
 State in the war. Father Taylor was very old and 
 infirm, and spoke little, but his presence on the plat 
 form was significant. Mr. Emerson came in from the 
 anteroom with his face on fire with indignation, as I 
 never saw it on any other occasion, and announced 
 to the audience that he had just learned that South 
 Carolina had given out the threat that colored sol 
 diers, if captured, should not be treated as prisoners, 
 but be put to death. " What answer does Massachu 
 setts send back to South Carolina ? " he said. " Two 
 for one!" shouted voices in the audience. "Is that 
 the answer that Massachusetts sends?" he asked; 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 19 
 
 and the audience responded with applause. He retired 
 from the platform, it seemed to me a little appalled 
 at the spirit he had raised. 
 
 While there was never a time when Emerson was 
 not recognized by the circle of wise and beautiful 
 souls who formed his parish in Boston, his Divinity 
 School Address and other utterances in regard to 
 theological topics undoubtedly gave sincere pain to 
 many who had been numbered among his thoughtful 
 friends, and still greater offence to the superficial 
 crowd that were unable to appreciate his thoughts. 
 It was the fashion among a certain clique to sneer at 
 his lectures as vague, whimsical, and incomprehen 
 sible. " Nothing but whipped syllabub," said a lit 
 erary man now well-nigh forgotten, " but I like 
 syllabub." I once heard the late George S. Hillard 
 say, "/ don t understand Mr. Emerson," in a tone 
 which plainly implied that he considered the loss to 
 be on Emerson s side. To the same effect the tre 
 mendous dictum of the great lawyer, Jeremiah Mason, 
 whose imposing stature overawed lesser men, has 
 been often repeated : " / don t understand Emerson ; 
 my gals do." It is said that Mr. Mason really en 
 joyed every lecture, although he could not quite 
 accept the new light. After hearing the lecture on 
 " Memory," a smart young lawyer approached a lady 
 the next evening who was talking of it to a friend. 
 "Oh, it was all very pretty and pleasant," he said, 
 " but no real thought in it ! I can t remember any 
 thing he said, can you ? " " Yes," replied the lady ; 
 
20 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " he said shallow brains have short 
 The wife of a minister with whom he had exchanged 
 in 1830 said, "Waldo Emerson came last Sunday 
 and preached a sermon with his chin in the air, in 
 scorn of the whole human race." 
 
 -^ During* some seasons the enjoyment of Emerson s 
 lectures was prolonged by a social gathering at the 
 hospitable rooms of Mr. James Fisher or Miss E. P. 
 Peabody. Mr. Emerson would offer his escort to one 
 of his friends to walk to these rooms, and Theodore 
 Parker, Mr. Alcott, and other favored guests followed. 
 Here the timid girl, who had listened in rapt awe 
 and delight to the great speaker, was made happy by 
 a grasp of his hand and a kindly beam from his eye ; 
 and the tones of his voice filled the night air with 
 music, as if the winds of heaven were playing over 
 an ^Eolian harp. 
 
 The influences of these lectures, from 1835 to 186 5, 
 on the growing mind of Boston in those days, is 
 simply inestimable. In the language of one of his 
 hearers, " His words not only fired the thoughts of 
 his hearers, quickened their consciences, and pierced 
 their hearts, but they modelled their lives." I always 
 recall the question of another earnest young woman, 
 which shows the estimation of a Boston ian : "Which 
 could you have least spared out of your life, the 
 Common, or Ealpli Waldo Emerson ? " Perhaps none 
 but a Boston child, to whom the Common had been 
 Nature s very self, would understand the force of the 
 comparison. Theodore Parker was wont to "thank 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 21 
 
 God for the sun, the moon, and Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson." It was hard to tell what were Nature s 
 teachings and what his, they were so fully one. 
 In later years, from 1855 onward, Emerson was 
 chosen to speak for Boston on many important oc 
 casions. He spoke very frequently to the great 
 congregation which Theodore Parker had gathered 
 together, and gave voice to the feelings of heroism 
 and patriotism called forth by the Civil War. He 
 took his stand by the hero of Harper s Eerry in 
 1859, in a lecture before the Parker Fraternity, and 
 at the meeting for sympathy with John Brown s 
 family held in Tremont Temple. In 1863, when a 
 grand festival was held in the Music Hall to cele 
 brate Lincoln s Proclamation of Emancipation, he 
 read his " Boston Hymn." That he gave this name 
 to the poem embodying his lofty ideal of American 
 life, shows his feeling that the city of his birth 
 ought to stand as representative of the principles 
 and virtues which should lead the national life. 
 He also wrote the poem for the centennial cele 
 bration, in 1873, of the destruction of the tea in 
 Boston Harbor ; and it seems as if the spirit of boy 
 hood and fun, which belonged to the days of the 
 lights between Xorth End and South End on the 
 Common, came back to him as he chronicled the half- 
 mad exploit of the Indians who threw the tea over 
 board, under the direction of Sam Adams, in 1773. 
 
 A certain almost forgotten institution, the Town 
 and Country Club, where Concord and Boston were 
 
22 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 expected to meet and exchange the wisdom of the 
 world and of Nature, was established by Mr. Alcott 
 about 1848, and Mr. Emerson and others heartily 
 joined in the scheme. Great was the indignation 
 among the faithful women who found that member 
 ship was confined to one sex. The word " club " had 
 no feminine then. Some of the aggrieved sex perpe 
 trated a poem to express their feelings, of which I 
 can only remember a comparison with Socrates, who 
 did not scorn the wisdom of Diotima. To the " Par 
 liaments of the Times " and other good meetings held 
 there, however, women were cordially invited ; and it 
 was delightful to see the eager pleasure with which 
 Mr. Emerson listened to every speaker. When the 
 New England Women s Club was formed, in 1865, 
 he was at once made an honorary member. He fre 
 quently came to its meetings, and read some of his 
 most personal and charming papers there. Among 
 these was the first draught of his reminiscences of 
 his beloved Aunt Mary, since published in the " At 
 lantic." In his letters to Carlyle he alludes to his 
 Boston Saturday Club, as if he had there found a 
 congenial circle. He always delighted in meeting 
 thoughtful men, whose pursuits differed from his 
 own ; and this was what the Saturday Club gave 
 him, from 1856 till 1880. 
 
 Mr. Emerson was bom in Boston, married a Bosto- 
 nian in 1829, preached and lectured in Boston, and 
 was a member of Boston society for many years, 
 though his home was twenty miles away in Concord. 
 
EMERSON AXD BOSTON. 23 
 
 What Boston thought of him I have pointed put; 
 but the tables are now turned, and what Emerson 
 thought of Boston is more important than what a 
 Boston clique once thought of him. In Ins corre 
 spondence with Carlyle we catch many hints of his 
 feeling about the good city. That he looked upon it 
 as having a pretty distinct individuality and character 
 is very evident, and this trait of Boston was certainly 
 dear to him. It is one way in which we recognize 
 the influence of the city. He was the least egotis 
 tical of men ; but he guarded the sacredness of indi 
 vidual personality most jealously, and was a true 
 idealist in always insisting that it be kept in due 
 relation to the universal 
 
 He was not blind to the faults of his native town, 
 and knew how he was regarded by many ; but he was 
 more interested in the recognition of Carlyle s merit, 
 in 1836-1838, than of his own. Speaking to Carlyle 
 about a friendly notice of his work by Alexander H. 
 Everett, he says : " I am delighted, for this man rep 
 resents a clique to which I am a stranger, and which 
 I supposed might not love you. It must be you shall 
 succeed when Saul prophesies." He seems proud 
 and hopeful of the mental condition of Boston as tried 
 by the Carlyle test. He " hopes to have a work on 
 the First Philosophy in Boston," and does not doubt 
 its reception. " Boston contains some genuine taste 
 for literature, and a good deal of traditional reverence 
 for it," he adds ; and he evidently has satisfaction 
 and pleasure in the reception of his lectures, which 
 
24 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 he "found much indulgence in reading." He fully 
 recognized that he had found his place in the Lyceum 
 at Boston, and that it depended upon the speaker to 
 make of it what he could. "I see not why this is 
 not the most flexible of all organs of opinion, from 
 its popularity and its newness, permitting you to say 
 what you think, without any shackles of prescription. 
 . . . You may handle every member and relation of 
 humanity. What could Homer, Socrates, or Saint Paul 
 say, that cannot be said here ? " He adds (this was 
 in 1837), " I find myself so much more and freer on 
 the platform of the lecture-room than in the pulpit, 
 that I shall not much more use the last ; and do now 
 only in a little country chapel at the request of simple 
 men, to whom I sustain no other relation than that 
 of preacher. But I preach in the lecture-room, and 
 then it tells, for there is no prescription. You may 
 laugh, weep, reason, sing, sneer, or pray, according 
 to your genius. It is the new pulpit, and very 
 much in vogue with my northern countrymen. The 
 audience is of all classes, and its character will 
 be determined always by the name of the lec 
 turer. Why may you not," he says to Carlyle, "give 
 the reins to your wit, your pathos, your philosophy, 
 and become that good despot which the virtuous 
 orator is ? " 
 
 He identifies himself with the city, and says, " We 
 could easily get up for you a course of lectures in 
 Boston ; " but during the " storm in our wash-bowl," 
 which followed the Address at the Divinity School, 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 25 
 
 in 1838, he will not involve Carlyle in his supposed 
 unpopularity. How soon any such feeling against 
 Mm was dissipated, however, is shown by the full 
 attendance at his next course of lectures. His " Bos 
 ton Parish " did not secede from him. In this parish, 
 as he says, were <f all the bright boys and girls in 
 New England, quite ignorant of each other, . . . who 
 do not wish to go into trade, and 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." 
 He must have felt the fullest recognition of his 
 thought by his audiences ; and in his relation to them 
 was the happy blending of fellow-citizenship with 
 the fresh fragrance of his country home. Even " the 
 solid men of Boston " will understand Carlyle ; and 
 he dares to suggest that "a prayer from Boston, 
 Massachusetts, is as worthy of serious and prompt 
 granting as one from Edinburgh or Oxford." 
 
 At the Boston Athenaeum, which he loved to fre 
 quent, he had read Carlyle s "Diamond Necklace" 
 and the " Mirabeau " three weeks before his presenta 
 tion copy came ; and as we read these lines, a vis 
 ion of the rapt face and intent attitude with which he 
 seized the new thoughts of his friend rises before us. 
 Oh ! happy city, where such men lived and read ! 
 
 Yes, Emerson was ours. We claim him by birth, by 
 blood, by mutual service rendered, by the indissoluble 
 ties of gratitude, by steadfast, unfailing love. There 
 is a Boston of degraded politics, of noisy bluster, of 
 
26 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 scramble for wealth, which was not his, and does not 
 bear his seal upon it. But he was patient even with 
 this rough, coarse element ; and in spite of it, as he 
 stood by the ballot-box, he believed that the majority 
 of men tried to vote right, and he never despaired 
 of the uplifting of the masses. There is another 
 Boston whose blood, running blue in its veins, un 
 stirred by sympathy with the groans of the slave, 
 and intrenched in egotistic pride, despaired of the 
 Republic, and sought to erect itself into an aristoc 
 racy of wealth or learning. This Boston strove to 
 throw scorn upon the higher law, and to ridicule the 
 prophet whose truth it could neither receive nor 
 understand. But lie knew well what a thin crust of 
 selfishness overlay the real deep heart of humanity 
 which was underneath it ; and he rejoiced when the 
 sons of the men who in 18501852 had driven the 
 fugitive slave out of their harbor, and closed their 
 doors upon Kossuth, gave, in the Civil War ten years 
 after, their young lives for their country, in tardy 
 reparation for the wrongs of the slave. Emerson s 
 Boston held " men whom to name, the voice breaks 
 and the eye is wet," --men "of noblest affections, 
 whose name is a motive-power and regulator to our 
 city, refusing all office, but impossible to spare." 
 During the Civil War, he says : " A multitude of 
 young men are growing up here of high promise, and 
 I compare gladly the social poverty of my youth with 
 the power on which these draw. The Lowell race 
 again in our war yielded three or four martyrs so able 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 27 
 
 and tender and true that James Russell Lowell can 
 not allude to them in verse or prose but the public 
 is melted anew." "All these," he says to Caiiyle, 
 "know you well, have read and will read you, 
 yes, and will prize and use your benefaction to the 
 College [at Cambridge] ; and I believe it would add 
 hope, health, and strength to you to come and see 
 them." I cannot but regret that Carlyle s bequest of 
 books did not go to the Boston Library, open to all, 
 and furnishing help to students from Canada to Cali 
 fornia; but the Cambridge scholar rejoiced at the 
 association of his dear friend with his Alma Mater. 
 
 Oh, blessed heart ! ever young, that rejoiced thus 
 in the new life and the rich opportunity offered to 
 others, never groaning that the former times were 
 better than these, and incapable of despair of the race 
 that God had begotten. But while he felt the kind re 
 ception and sympathetic response from his young and 
 enthusiastic auditors, like every true artist of that 
 day he saw the want of intelligent, thorough criti 
 cism ; and in his thought of going to England, the 
 hope entered of meeting there critics who would 
 rouse him to put forth his full strength. " At home, 
 no man makes any proper demand on me, and the 
 audience I address is a handful of men and women 
 too widely scattered to dictate to me that which they 
 are justly entitled to say." 
 
 In the dark days of the Antislavery contest, and 
 during the war, he was not separated from his fellow- 
 citizens. His word was sought and heeded in every 
 
28 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 crisis ; and if his quiet manner and scholarly habits 
 kept him from the excitement of the political conven 
 tion, he was always squarely on the side of right and 
 freedom. " As if every sane man were not an Aboli 
 tionist ! " he said, in his speech on the outrage against 
 Charles Sunnier. This speech, made at a meeting in 
 Concord, reported at the time in the daily newspapers, 
 and then almost forgotten by its author till recalled 
 to his memory at the death of Mr. Sumner, deserves 
 to be placed beside the famous orations of antiquity 
 for its condensed power of thought and feeling, and 
 for its influence in changing the minds of men. It 
 was the best voice of New England and of Boston that 
 spoke through him, as he tenderly and reverently 
 closed with these words : 
 
 " I wish that lie may know the shudder of terror that 
 ran through all this community on the first tidings of this 
 brutal attack. Let him hear that every man in New Eng 
 land loves his virtues ; that every mother thinks of him 
 as the protector of families ; that every friend of freedom- 
 thinks him the friend of freedom. And if our arms at 
 this distance cannot defend him from assassins, we confide 
 the defence of a life so precious to all honorable men and 
 true patriots, and to the Almighty Maker of men." 
 
 No one knew better than Emerson how all the 
 surroundings and experiences of life go to make up 
 
 " The being that I am, 
 
 When I am most myself." 
 
 While his horizon was large, and many influences 
 came into his life from inheritance and surroundings, 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 29 
 
 there are marked traits in his character which we 
 caniiot but ascribe to the fact that Boston was his 
 birthplace. " Boston is the hub of the solar system ; 
 you could n t pry that out of a Boston man if you 
 had the tire of all creation for a crowbar/ says the 
 witty Dr. Holmes ; and Emerson never needed any 
 other spot from which to draw the great circle of 
 infinity but that on which he stood. The relation 
 of man to the universe was as confident as it was 
 modest. That in him this sense of relation was per 
 fect in humility and courtesy, while in other men 
 it was blatant and brazen, does not prove that the 
 feeling sprang from no common source. The "wee 
 modest crimson-tipped " daisy has to own its cousin- 
 ship with the flaunting white-weed and showy 
 Rudbeckia. But with all her pride, Boston loves 
 moderation and understatement and the fine re 
 serve of the gentleman. " I wish cities could teach 
 their best lesson of quiet manners," says Emerson. 
 She does not take on tricks of speech, but calls the 
 dear old Common by its homely name. How thor 
 oughly Emersonian is this trait 1 It is English, 
 indeed, and he loved the English blood and speech, 
 and I think had no special fondness for any other 
 tongue. Yet, like Boston, whose nickname of the 
 American Athens is well bestowed, he was rather a 
 Greek than an Englishman, Greek in the fineness 
 of his perceptions, in his love for the subtler- ele 
 ments of thought, his belief in the purity of beauty ; 
 he was full of delight in new ideas, strong in his own 
 
30 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 individuality, but ready for all mental hospitality. 
 Yet he was the Greek blended with the Puritan, 
 for as in Boston the old leaven of that strong Puritan 
 race is still working, so in him was the stern Calvin 
 ism of his fathers, which believed in eternal decrees, 
 and in the absoluteness and omnipotence of right. 
 The same fidelity to belief which obliged the men of 
 Boston and Salem to obey the letter of the word, and 
 " not suffer a witch to live," led them on to the mod 
 ern radicalism which is equally loyal and in its way 
 sometimes equally narrow. Emerson was saved from 
 the extremes of the past or the present by the sanity 
 of his nature and the entire absence of personal 
 regards. Yet without his line of Puritan descent 
 he would not have been the man he was, relin 
 quishing office, friends, and public regard for the 
 sake of truth. The Puritan spirit breathes through 
 all his brave utterances : 
 
 " When duty whispers low, Thou must, 
 The youth replies, I can." 
 
 It was only in the city that he could have had the 
 sympathy of such a group of scholars and thinkers 
 as he found in Boston, and he well understood how 
 much he owed to relation with other men. While 
 he found the benefit of solitude, it was because he 
 could carry into it such a precious freight of thought 
 which he had garnered from life. 
 
 He says : " T is wonderful what sublime lessons I 
 have once and again read on the bulletin-boards in 
 the streets. Everybody has been wrong in his guess 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 31 
 
 except good women, who never despair of an ideal 
 right." He loved solitude, but he was closely linked 
 with society, saying, " I follow, I find, the fortunes 
 of my country in my privatest ways." 
 
 Mrs. Cheney here read, as illustrative of what she 
 had said concerning Emerson s relation to the Boston 
 of his youth, the following letter from Miss Sarah 
 Clark, a pupil of Allston in art and of Emerson in 
 
 thought : 
 
 MARIETTA, Ohio, July 20, 1884. 
 
 DEAR MRS. CHENEY, I would I were with you at 
 Concord on the day to which you invite me to contribute. 
 This invitation gratifies ine immensely ; but I doubt if I 
 can find anything to say on the proposed subject. I have 
 never thought of Emerson as related to Boston. Yet it 
 may not be an unfruitful theme. I remember when he 
 announced six lectures to be read there, I wondered how 
 one who seemed so wholly to belong to " thought s inte 
 rior sphere " could find anything to say to a public as 
 sembly. But he already had his public which came at his 
 call; and when those clear-cut sentences, those selected 
 words, fell from his lips, it became evident that he had a 
 power of throwing light into his abstractions that could 
 easily admit many minds to that illumination. His voice, 
 his manner of saying these wise words, you all remember. 
 Was there not a note of authority, as well as of persuasive 
 sweetness, that made all his hearers take his words to 
 heart 1 It was as if behind him some other power had 
 spoken. It may be that Boston produced him ; but I 
 think rather it was a singular good-fortune, or Heaven s 
 grace, that gave him to us. 
 
32 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 His little public grew year by year. Those who at first 
 cried, "Is this man mad? " came to respect the pure san 
 ity of his utterances ; his influence was felt in circles wider 
 and wider, till he became a power in the whole intellectual 
 world. Whether he was or was not a product of Boston, 
 he certainly loved his city and his country. Who has 
 nttered better words of love than these to " Eoston "1 
 
 " The rocky nook, with hill-tops three, 
 
 Looked eastward from the farms, 
 And twice each day the flowing sea 
 Took Boston in its arms." 
 
 Or who has said a better word for our earliest battle 
 ground than this immortal verse ? 
 
 " By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
 
 Their flag to April s breeze unfurled, 
 Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
 
 And fired the shot heard round the world." 
 
 Or the 4th of July Ode read at Concord in 1857, with 
 its grandly poetic opening image 1 
 
 " Oh, tenderly the haughty day 
 Fills his blue urn with fire; 
 One morn is in the mighty heaven, 
 And one in our desire." 
 
 These, with the "Emancipation Hymn," show the burn 
 ing heart of a patriot unchilled by the philosophy that 
 was sometimes accused of coldness ; but in his personal 
 intellectual relation with many minds what seeds were 
 sown, and what fructification ensued ! Immeasurable 
 forces these, and of unmeasurable duration. They cannot 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 33 
 
 be counted, they cannot be estimated. Emerson was pa 
 triot to the heart s core ; but he was not only a patriot, he 
 was an intellectual force that valued liberty wherever man 
 is found. He was not merely an intellect, but he had the 
 poet s grasp, which holds in one hand the seen and the 
 unseen. He was not merely the poet, he was like the sun 
 which searches out and stimulates life-seeds hidden in the 
 dark earth, waiting for this warm energy to unfold them. 
 Concord is right to talk of him ; he is her best subject. 
 
 But I should weary you long before I should ex 
 haust the countless streams into which my theme 
 runs. Why should I speak longer, when he has 
 spoken for himself ? The poem of " Boston," read 
 in Faneuil Hall, Dec. 16, 1873, on the Centennial 
 Anniversary of the destruction of the Tea in Boston 
 Harbor, is written with the freedom of a boyish 
 muse, and the irregular stanzas seem to pour out 
 like a gurgling brook from the overflow of his mem 
 ory and heart. Who that saw and heard him as he 
 read it will ever forget the youthful gleam in his 
 face, and the loving tones of his voice ? And how 
 clearly did his own boyhood and youth in the old 
 town rise up to his mind as he spoke these lines : 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 The rocky nook, \vith hill-tops three, 
 
 Looked eastward from the farms, 
 And twice each day the flowing sea 
 
 Took Boston in its arms ; 
 The men of yore were stout and poor, 
 And sailed for bread to every shore. 
 3 
 
34 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 And where they went, on trade intent, 
 They did what freemen can ; 
 
 Their dauntless ways did all men praise, 
 The merchant was a man ; 
 
 The world was made for honest trade, 
 
 To plant and eat be none afraid. 
 
 Old Europe groans with palaces, 
 
 Has lords enough and more ; 
 "We plant and build by foaming seas 
 
 A city of the poor ; 
 For day by day could Boston Bay 
 Their honest labor overpay. 
 
 We grant no dukedoms to the few, 
 We hold like rights and shall, 
 
 Equal on Sunday in the pew, 
 On Monday in the mall ; 
 
 For what avail the plough or sail, 
 
 Or land or life, if freedom fail ? 
 
 The noble craftsman we promote, 
 
 Disown the knave and fool ; 
 Each honest man shall have his vote, 
 
 Each child shall have his school ; 
 A union then of honest men, 
 Or union nevermore again. 
 
 They laughed to know the world so wide ; 
 
 The mountains said, Good day ; 
 We greet you well, you Saxon men, 
 
 Up with your towns and stay ! " 
 The world was made for honest trade, 
 To plant and eat be none afraid. 
 
 " For you," they said, "no barriers be, 
 
 For you no sluggard rest ; 
 Each street leads downward to the sea, 
 
 Or landward to the West." 
 
EMERSON AND BOSTON. 35 
 
 O happy town beside the sea, 
 
 Whose roads lead everywhere to all ; 
 Than thine no deeper moat can tie, 
 
 No stouter fence, no steeper wall ! 
 
 Kings shook with fear, old empires crave 
 
 The secret force to find, 
 "Which fired the little State to save 
 
 The rights of all mankind. 
 
 But right is might through all the world, 
 
 Province to province faithful clung, 
 Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled, 
 
 Till Freedom cheered and the joy-bells rung. 
 
 The sea returning day by day 
 
 Restores the world-wide mart ; 
 So let each dweller on the Bay 
 
 Fold Boston in his heart, 
 Till these echoes be choked with snows, 
 Or over the town blue ocean Hows. 
 
 Let the blood of her hundred thousands 
 
 Throb in each manly vein, 
 And the wit of all her wisest 
 
 Make sunshine in her brain ; 
 For you can teach the lightning speech, 
 And round the globe your voices reach. 
 
 And each shall care for other, 
 
 And each to each shall bend, 
 To the poor a noble brother, 
 
 To the good an equal friend. 
 
 A blessing through the ages thus 
 
 Shield all thy roofs and towers ! 
 God with the fathers, so with us, 
 
 Thou darling town of ours ! 
 
36 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 II. 
 
 EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 
 
 PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF MR. 
 ALCOTT, READ AT THE OPENING OF THE SCHOOL OF PHI 
 LOSOPHY, JULY 23, 1884. 
 
 MR. SANBORN said : Among the topics proposed 
 for the discussion we are about to commence con 
 cerning the " Genius and Character of Emerson," was 
 one on " Emerson s Friendships." But not the least 
 of the misfortunes which the continued illness of 
 Mr. Alcott brings to us, is this one, that it deprives 
 us of the voice and the thought of that friend of 
 Emerson who stood beside him for nearly half a 
 century, and who could best have spoken on this 
 delightful theme. Among the qualities of our friend 
 and master, none was more conspicuous or more 
 charming than his loyalty in friendship. His Arab 
 in the poem " Hermione," who in other passages 
 utters the sentiment of Emerson, nowhere speaks 
 more truly than in saying, 
 
 " I am of a lineage 
 That each for each doth fast engage ; " 
 
E11ERSON AXD ALCOTT. 37 
 
 and that noble poem "which precedes the essay on 
 "Friendship" describes no friend more faithfully than 
 Emerson himself : 
 
 " I fancied he was fled, 
 But, after many a year, 
 Glowed unexhausted kindliness 
 Like daily sunrise there." 
 
 To no person was this high companionship per 
 mitted for a longer and more intimate term than to 
 Mr. Alcott; and we have therefore asked him to 
 allow us the public reading from his Diaries and 
 Correspondence in the last fifty years, of a few 
 passages which illustrate the relation between the 
 two friends, and which also fix the date of certain 
 events in Emerson s career. 
 
 Mr. Alcott first met Emerson, and heard him 
 speak from Dr. Channing s pulpit, in 1829; but their 
 acquaintance did not begin until after our Connecti 
 cut Pestalozzi had returned from Philadelphia and 
 opened in Boston his celebrated school for children 
 at the Masonic Temple, in 1834r-1835. Early in 1835, 
 and before knowing Emerson, Mr. Alcott had spent 
 an evening with Allston the painter, at his house in 
 Cambridgeport ; and as these two men of genius 
 Allston and Emerson had many traits in common, 
 we may first hear what Mr. Alcott said in his Diary 
 of Jan. 13, 1835, concerning the artist : 
 
 " I was particularly impressed with the uncommon 
 artlessuess and modesty of this man of genius, a man 
 of higher endowments and skill in the art of painting 
 
38 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 than perhaps any other person in our country. I felt 
 myself in the presence of a superior spirit, an external 
 shaping of the higher traits of the human soul ; the 
 power of genius was there. This is a man of genius ; 
 and how rarely does the spirit, while invested in flesh, 
 behold such manifestation of its inner life ! How rarely 
 doth the soul come forth in shapes of beauty, of truth, 
 and breathe into the dead forms of matter and of words 
 the inspiring life of its own divinity ! And yet this 
 same man this spirit of celestial energy lives in an 
 obscure mansion, away from the noise and stir of every 
 day life ; seldom is his name pronounced j and who are 
 those that behold his face ] Verily, he knoweth his mis 
 sion ; he showeth himself only to the spiritually visaged, 
 like himself." 
 
 How exactly is Emerson, the seer and poet, de 
 picted in this sketch of the superior artist ! A 
 few weeks later, after several interviews with Dr. 
 Channing, then at the height of his renown and in 
 fluence as a preacher in Boston, Mr. Alcott goes to 
 hear Emerson lecture (Feb. 5, 1835), and makes this 
 inadequate record: 
 
 " This evening I heard Eev. Mr. Emerson give a 
 lecture, at the Temple, on the Character of Michael 
 Angelo. This is the second lecture of a course embracing 
 Biographical Sketches of eminent men, before the Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. I did not hear 
 the first lecture. Miss Peabody informs me that it was 
 a beautiful one. The speaker took a general view of the 
 Theory of Life, and of the means to be used in order to 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 39 
 
 realize it. Few men among us take nobler views of the 
 mission, powers, and destinies of man than Mr. Emerson. 
 I hope the people of this city will go and learn of him the 
 conditions of virtue and wisdom, by what self-denial, 
 what exertions, these are to be sought and won. The 
 lives of the great and good are examples of this strife of 
 the soul." 
 
 Again, Feb. 12, 1835, he says: 
 
 " I heard Mr. Emerson s lecture on Martin Luther, 
 at the Temple. There was much in it bespeaking a high 
 philosophy of life as conceived in the mind of the 
 speaker ; and the application of the analysis of Luther s 
 character was beautiful and profound. He deemed Luther 
 not less a. poet than a practical man; and if not a philoso 
 pher in the common sense of the term, he was a prophet, 
 speaking and acting from an imperative above reason." 
 
 The Diary contains no more notices of this course 
 of lectures, in which was that remarkable one on 
 " Milton," afterwards printed in the " Xorth Ameri 
 can Eeview ; " nor do we find records of interview 
 and conversation between the two friends. But that 
 they were already becoming intimate is seen by this 
 entry of July 12, 1835 : 
 
 " A few days since, Mrs. Morrison, of Philadelphia, came 
 in town, bringing me letters from Mr. Eussell. Last 
 evening she saw several of our friends, persons with 
 whom we wished her to be made acquainted. Among 
 these were the following : Mr. Waldo Emerson, Charles 
 Emerson, Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Child, Mr. S. J. May, Miss 
 
40 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Elizabeth and Miss Mary Peabody [now Mrs. Horace 
 Mann], Mrs. Bliss [now Mrs. George Bancroft], Miss Mary 
 Emerson, Miss Elizabeth Hoar, and others." 
 
 Here we see the names of several persons of that 
 Concord circle into which Mr. Alcott afterwards 
 came ; but as yet he had never visited the town. 
 Later in the summer, August 23, he writes : 
 
 " I have been in attendance at the American Institute 
 of Instruction, at the State House in the daytime, at 
 Chauncy Hall in the evening. On Thursday, at eleven 
 o clock, Rev. Mr. Furness, of Philadelphia, gave an intro 
 ductory address on the Spirit of the True Teacher, an 
 eloquent performance. At 4 p. M. Rev. Mr. Emerson, of 
 Concord, gave a lecture on the Means of Inspiring a Taste 
 for English Literature. 
 
 " These two lectures were of a more spiritual character 
 than have been presented to the Institute on former occa 
 sions. They inspire hope. They are proofs that some 
 times more is felt in the community than the material. 
 The members of the Institute many of them teachers 
 from the country, persons of narrow views and superficial 
 attainments were unprepared to follow the lecturers; 
 yet they seemed to listen with interest, and to feel, if 
 they did not appreciate, the truths announced." 
 
 Through this year (1835) Mr. Alcott was deep in 
 the study of Plato and the Bible, which he found 
 in accord with each other and with his own thoughts; 
 and he was also in close communication with those 
 readers of Carlyle who were inviting him to New 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 41 
 
 England, and were proposing a new magazine, to be 
 called " The Transcendentalist," of which mention is 
 made in Emerson s letters to Carlyle of March 12, and 
 April 30, 1835. Of this project Emerson wrote: 
 
 " Dr. Charming 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 
 Trauscendentalist, as the organ of a spiritual philosophy. 
 ... If Mr. Carlyle would undertake a journal of which 
 we have talked much, but which we have never yet pro 
 duced, he would do us great service, and we feel some confi 
 dence that it could be made to secure him a support. It 
 is to be called The Transcendentalist, or The Spiritual 
 Inquirer, or the like, and F. H. Hedge was to be the 
 editor. Hedge is just leaving our neighborhood, to be 
 settled as a minister two hundred and fifty miles off in 
 Maine, and entreats that you will edit the journal. He 
 will write, and I please myself with thinking I shall be 
 able to write under such auspices." 
 
 To this invitation Carlyle listened and responded 
 (May 13, 1835) : - 
 
 " The Boston Transcendentalist, whatever the fate or 
 merit of it prove to be, is surely an interesting symptom. 
 There must be things not dreamt of over in that Trans 
 oceanic Parish, and I shall cordially wish well to this 
 thing, and hail it as the sure forerunner of things better. 
 Innumerable tumults of Metaphysic must be struggled 
 through, and at last Transcendentalism evolve itself as the 
 Euthanasia of Metaphysic altogether. May it be sure ! 
 may it be speedy ! " 
 
42 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Mr. Alcott s record of this premature movement, 
 which found expression in "The Dial" five years 
 later, is in a letter to his friend Eussell at Philadel 
 phia, of which we only find the heads given in his 
 Diary of March, 1835. These are the following : 
 
 " SPIRIT OF LIFE IN BOSTON. Persons : Dr. Chan- 
 ning. Mr. Allston, Dr. Follen, Mr. [James] Walker, Mr. 
 Hedge, Mr. Emerson, Mr. H. Ware, Jr., Mr. Waterston, 
 [Father] Taylor, Mr. [C.] Francis, Mr. [G.] Ripley, Mr. 
 May, Miss Peabody, Mrs. Follen, Mrs. Child. 
 
 " * THE TRANSCENDENTALISM Hedge, Emerson, Pea- 
 body, Clarke, Ripley [no doubt as contributors]. 
 
 " Republication of Coleridge, Abbott s Works [Rev. 
 Jacob Abbott], North American, Examiner, Observer. 
 
 " READINGS. Plato, Coleridge, Hesiod, Boethius, Bock- 
 shirmer [a forgotten German writer on the Will], Sartor 
 Resartus, T. C. Upham." 
 
 What effect all this spiritual movement had "on 
 the thought of -Mr. Alcott may be seen in his Diary. 
 His mind was moving on the same lines with the 
 mind of Emerson, and they read in part the same 
 books. Mr. Alcott writes, from March to August, 
 1835: 
 
 " My own conceptions of life are confirmed in the hap 
 piest manner -in the Platonic theory. In Plato, as in Jesus, 
 do I find the Light of the World, even the supersensual 
 light, that lighteth every one who cometh into the world 
 of sense, and essayeth to regain that spirit it seemeth to 
 have lost by the incarnation of itself. The true study of 
 man is man. When this is felt as it ought to be, natural 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 43 
 
 science will receive an impulse that we cannot at present 
 conceive of. Then we shall begin at the beginning, and 
 not, as now, at the end; we shall trace things in the 
 order of their production, see them in the process of for 
 mation, growth, consummation, the only true way of 
 apprehending them, the method of philosophy. With 
 out this method all our boasted acquisitions are fragments, 
 unintelligible parts, broken members of a whole, whose 
 outline we have not pictured in our ideal, and therefore 
 want the standard by which to resolve these parts to their 
 true place in the great Whole. The unity of truth is 
 wanting ; glimpses only are given of this Whole, and we 
 content ourselves with the dim survey of parts, becoming 
 parts ourselves. ... As Man is my study, universal as 
 well as individual man, man in his elements, embracing 
 views of him in all stages of his career, in his pre-exist- 
 ent life, his infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, decline, 
 resumption in God, so doth all Nature, in its manifold 
 relations, present innumerable topics for consideration, as 
 the framework and emblem of this same Being. Man, the 
 Incarnate Spirit ; God, the Absolute Spirit ; Creation, the 
 emblem of these two, such are my topics of specula 
 tion and inquiry. As in the morning twilight the sun 
 paints in the horizon the radiant glories of his own vis 
 age upon the clear and serene azure, announcing to the 
 risen world the coming day ; even so doth the Divinity, 
 in this terrestrial life, shed forth on the dim forms of 
 mind and matter some intimation of his own celestial 
 visage ; prophesying, in these visible and invisible things, 
 the coming of his own Day, which is Eternity : of his 
 own life, which is Immortality, and Light without 
 obstruction." 
 
44 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 This last passage is dated Aug. 4, 1835 ; and at the 
 close of the month (August 30), after listening to a 
 sermon by Mr. Hedge, Mr. Alcott wrote : 
 
 " The spiritual philosophy appeared as the life of this 
 sermon. Of the few men among us who are helievers in 
 this philosophy, the following are the most interesting ; 
 indeed, they comprise all the thorough disciples of the 
 transcendent and metaphysical life, as revealed in the 
 theory of Jesus. The number is, however, daily increas 
 ing ; for a spiritual idea has gone forth in our community, 
 and the religious instinct apprehends its glory. Let me 
 arrange these prophets of the present time according to 
 their apprehension of the spiritual ideal : Dr. Channing, 
 Dr. Follen, Mr. E. W. Emerson, Mr. Hedge, Mr. R H. 
 Dana, Mr. Furness, Mr. Allston, Mr. Walker, Mr. J. F. 
 Clarke, Mr. Peabody, Mr. Frothingham." 
 
 At a later date Mr. Alcott placed Emerson at the 
 head of this list, where he properly belonged, and 
 where he might also have placed his own name. The 
 two brethren were drawing closer together; and a 
 few weeks later Mr. Alcott paid his first visit to 
 Concord (Oct. 17, 1835). Under date of Oct. 20, 
 1835, the Diary says : 
 
 " On Saturday afternoon I came to Concord with Mr. 
 George P. Bradford. We reached the residence of Mr. 
 Emerson after a ride of three hours. The evening was 
 passed in very interesting conversation. On Sunday, vari 
 ous topics of an intellectual and spiritual character were 
 resumed. On most subjects there was striking conformity 
 of taste and opinion. We had much talk on the character 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 45 
 
 and life of Christ. On this there was some disparity of 
 idea, more the effect, I deem, of difference of association 
 than of thought. Mr. Emerson s fine literary taste is 
 sometimes in the way of a clear and hearty acceptance of 
 the spiritual. Carlyle is his ideal ; his portrait I saw for 
 the first time. I have not found a man in whose whole 
 mind I felt more sympathy than in his. These two per 
 sons [Mr. and Mrs. Emerson] have and represent a new idea 
 of life. I have found a man who, with all his taste for 
 Grecian literature and philosophy, can apprehend some 
 thing spiritual in Christianity. To him it is not alto 
 gether foolishness ; for he has the sense of the Human, 
 and the love and faith of the Pure and the Perfect in 
 Universal Man. With his brother, Mr. Charles Emerson, 
 I had some interesting conversation. He has much of his 
 brother s spirit. They are both scholarlike in their views 
 and tastes, and yet the man is not lost in the scholar. To 
 have a few such friends is the joy and comfort of life. In 
 communion with such the Spirit finds itself, and, for the 
 brief time of their presence, forgets its independent life, 
 being lost in the common Being of Humanity." 
 
 The day on which Mr. Alcott returned to Boston 
 from this Concord visit (Oct. 21, 1835) was that when 
 Garrison was mobbed in the city by " gentlemen of 
 property and standing;" and the first errand, after 
 reaching Boston, was to visit, with Mrs. Alcott, the 
 Antislavery leader in the Leverett Street Jail, where 
 he was confined by the authorities. At an earlier 
 date in the same year (August 1), the Diary records 
 Mr. Alcott s presence at an emancipation meeting in 
 Julien Hall, where George Thompson, the English 
 
46 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Abolitionist, spoke, and where several slaveholders 
 from the South were present. Mr. Alcott writes : 
 
 "Mr. Thompson was eloquent and impassioned, as 
 usual ; hut in a singular compound of imagery "brought 
 forth some very clear and true points to the eye of the 
 audience. The slaveholders seemed somewhat astounded 
 by this strange display of sense, principle, wit, satire, 
 humor, pathos, practical and theoretic wisdom thus show 
 ered upon them. Before he had concluded his philippic 
 (or by what name it shall be called), they deliberately 
 rose and left the room. After the meeting they were 
 found standing at the passage, to get a nearer glance at 
 Mr. Thompson as he passed, perhaps to intimidate him 
 and others. I took my stand near the door to watch their 
 movements. Meanwhile Mr. Thompson s carnage had 
 come to another passage-way, and he was driven off, leav 
 ing these disaffected men to go home without causing 
 disturbance. Before they left the door, however, one of 
 them said to the bystanders : We will give five hundred 
 dollars for him in any one of the slaveholdiug States. 
 I said, And what would you do with him 1 Do with 
 him 1 said he, with a look of mingled malignity and 
 scorn, uttering at the same time an oath, we would 
 hang him ! Yes, said another, if we had him at Vicks- 
 burg, we would bring Lynch s law to bear upon him at 
 once. And they departed." 
 
 The two Transcendentalists were then Emancipa 
 tionists also, and they bore their testimony publicly in 
 after years. What were the opinions of Mr. Alcott 
 in 1835 on " the character and life of Christ/ which 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 47 
 
 he discussed with Mr. Emerson, may be seen in this 
 autobiographical passage from the Diary, dated Sun 
 day, Sept, 27, 1835:- 
 
 " In 1833 I was a disciple of Experience, trying to bring 
 my theories within the Baconian method of Induction, 
 and took the philosophy of Aristotle as the exponent 
 of humanity, while my heart was even then lingering 
 around the theories of Plato, without being conscious of 
 it. A follower of Aristotle was I in theory, yet a true 
 Platonist in practice. Christianity had not found its philo 
 sophical interpretation at that time in my heart ; its spirit 
 was striving for forms agreeable to the understanding. 
 The heart s problems were seeking solution from the skill 
 of the head. I was looking outward for the origin of the 
 human powers, making more of phenomena than I ought ; 
 studying the concrete, without a sense of the grounds on 
 which this was dependent for its form and continuance. 
 It was Coleridge that lifted me out of this difficulty. The 
 perusal of the Aids to Reflection, the Friend, and the 
 * Biographia Literaria at this time gave my mind a turn 
 toward the spiritual. I was led deeper to seek the grounds 
 even of experience, and found the elements of human 
 consciousness not in the impressions of external nature, 
 but in the spontaneous life of Spirit itself, independent of 
 experience in space and time. Thus was I relieved from 
 the philosophy of sense. Since that time I have been 
 steadily pursuing the light thus let in upon me, and striv 
 ing to apprehend, represent, and embody it, not only in 
 theory but in practice. The lights of Aristotle, Plato, 
 Bacon, bright and glorious as they are, have all been lost 
 in the transparent radiance of the gospel of Christ, who is 
 
48 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 the exponent of human nature, and whose theory of life 
 and being is a sublime synthesis of Infinite and Absolute. 
 The analysis of this sublime theory is a work to which I 
 devote myself; Christ in act, word, spirit, I seek to know." 
 
 It was out of this frame of mind that Mr. Alcott s 
 " Conversations on the Gospels " grew, the book 
 which was so brutally attacked by the Boston news 
 papers when it appeared two years later, and which 
 Mr. Emerson so generously defended. Meantime the 
 two friends were drawing still closer together, each, 
 giving up, perhaps, something of his own opinion in 
 deference to the other. Thus in 1835 Mr. Alcott went 
 to spend his thirty-sixth birthday with Emerson at 
 Concord, returning Dec. 1, 1835. The Diary, under 
 date of December 2, says : 
 
 " Last evening I returned, having had a very pleasant 
 time with him and his friends. I shall seek his face and 
 favor as a precious delight in life. While at Concord I 
 saw Rev. Mr. Hedge also j with him and Mr. Emerson 
 I had some very interesting conversation. These men are 
 the most earnest spiritualists of the time. I found much 
 in their ideas and purposes of like character with my own. 
 Time shall unfold what we may do for the good of hu 
 manity. I was pleased to find so ready and sincere appre 
 hension of some of my favorite theories from persons 
 whom I could respect, and who were without guile ; per 
 sons whose culture places them on the mount of clear 
 vision, and who know what they see. Eev. Mr. Goodwin, 
 of Concord, and Dr. Eipley spoke encouragingly to me 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 49 
 
 This was the spring-time of Transcendentalism, 
 before it had aroused enemies, and united itself with 
 social, political, and religious movements which ex 
 cited the most violent hostility and scorn. The 
 mild weather of spring soon turned to fierce storms 
 and cold east-winds, under which the apostles of the 
 Newness shivered and struggled for years. Poverty, 
 neglect, contempt, misrepresentation, were their lot ; 
 but they had a good cause and good courage. Emer 
 son in particular stood up among them like a cham 
 pion, and received on his sunny shield the blows 
 aimed at others as well as at himself. When the 
 "Daily Advertiser," in March, 1837, attacked Mr. 
 Alcott s book of " Conversations on the Gospels," and 
 the school in which he was holding such talks with 
 children, Mr. Emerson wrote in defence of his friend, 
 and to Mr. Alcott wrote thus : 
 
 " I hate to have all the little dogs barking at you, for 
 you have something better to do than to attend to them ; 
 but every beast must do after its kind, and why not 
 these ] And you will hold by yourself, and presently for 
 get them. Whatever you do at school, pray let not the 
 pen halt, for that must be your last and longest lever to 
 lift the world withal. But you will bide your time, and, 
 with views so large and secular, can better afford to wait 
 than other men. I never regretted more than in this case 
 my own helplessness in all practical contingencies. For 
 a knowing and efficient friend can do a man with a mob 
 a better service than he himself. But I was created a 
 seeing eye, and not a useful band." 
 
 4 
 
50 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 In copying this letter into his Diary, Mr. Alcott, 
 in April, 1837, makes this comment: 
 
 "It is much 1 to have the vision of the seeing eye. Did 
 most men possess this, the useful hand would he empow 
 ered with new dexterity also. Emerson sees me, knows 
 me, and, more than all others, helps me, not hy noisy 
 praise, not by low appeals to interest and passion, but by 
 turning the eye of others to my stand in reason and the 
 nature of things. Only men of like vision can apprehend 
 and counsel each other. A man whose purpose and act 
 demand but a day or an hour for their completion can do 
 little by way of advising him whose purposes require 
 years for their fulfilment. Only Emerson, of this age, 
 knows me, of all that I have found. Well, every one does 
 not find one man, one very man, through and through. 
 Many are they who live and die alone, known only to 
 their survivors of an after century." 
 
 So said Alcott in 1837 ; and four years after, Car- 
 lyle, on receiving from Emerson the first volume of 
 " Essays," said almost the same thing, and with quite 
 the same feeling : 
 
 " The voice of one crying in the desert ! It is once 
 more the voice of a man. Ah me ! I feel as if in the 
 wide world there were still but this one voice that re 
 sponded intelligently to my own ; as if the rest were all 
 hearsays, melodious or un melodious echoes ; as if this 
 alone were true and alive." 
 
 This same Diary of 1837 contains a prophetic and 
 critical passage concerning Emerson, which may be 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 51 
 
 quoted as the first prediction of the exact place 
 our poet-philosopher was to take among the leaders 
 of thought. In January, forty-seven years ago, after 
 " Xature " had been published, but when few had 
 read it, Mr. Alcott thus delineated, with sure eye and 
 hand, the genius and fame of its author : 
 
 " Emerson the lecturer always kindles a sublime senti 
 ment when, in those deep and oracular undertones which 
 he knows well when and how to use, he speaks of the 
 divine entities of all being. A solemn, supernatural awe 
 creeps over one as the severe pathos of his manner and 
 the unaffected earnestness of his bearing come upon the 
 senses. At long intervals of remark now bordering 
 almost on coarseness, from the terms that he weaves into 
 his diction, and the picture of vulgar life that he draws 
 with a Shakspearian boldness of delineation respecting 
 farmers, tradesmen, beasts, vermin, the rabid mob, the 
 courtesan, the under as well as the upper vulgar, and 
 now sliding into all that is beautiful, refined, elegant, in 
 thought, speech, action, and vocation he bursts upon the 
 hearer in strains of thought and charms of diction that 
 overpower the soul by their bewildering, lofty grandeur. 
 The burlesque, in a twinkling, is transformed into the 
 serious ; the bold and sketchy outline becomes a deep, 
 sublime idea. His ;s the poet s, not the logician s power ; 
 he states, pictures, sketches, but does not reason. His 
 appeal is through the imagination and the senses to the 
 mind. He leaves things in the place where Xature left 
 them, never deranging that order for a special, logical 
 analysis. Xature shines serenely through the calm depths 
 of his soul, and leaves upon its unruffled surface the 
 
52 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 images of all her works. . . . The day shall come when 
 this man s genius shall shine beyond the circle of his 
 own city and nation. It shall flash across the wide 
 water, and receive the homage of other peoples. Emer 
 son is destined to be the high literary name of this 
 age. Other men we have who ply small trade in the 
 nooks and corners of this wide sea, and whose wares are 
 peddled at this place and that; but this man s genius 
 is cosmopolitan, -and shall be in demand wherever man has 
 risen above the mere mechanics and utilities of life." 
 
 Where shall we find, after all these years, a closer 
 criticism of Emerson s eloquence than this, to which 
 the post-mortem remarks of Arnold and Morley are 
 like descriptions of the living soul drawn in the dis 
 secting-room ? Emerson himself, however, in a let 
 ter to Mr. Alcott of May, 1837, opened the secret of 
 his own success with the world as a writer, while at 
 the same time giving high and wise advice to his 
 friend. He wrote thus : 
 
 " In the few moments broken conversation I had with 
 you a fortnight ago, it seems to me you did not acquiesce 
 at all in what is always my golden view for you, as for all 
 men to whom God has given the vision and the faculty 
 divine ; namely, that one day you would leave the imprac 
 ticable world to wag its own way, and sit apart and write 
 your oracles for its behoof ! Write ! let them hear or let 
 them forbear ; the written word abides until, slowly and 
 unexpectedly and in widely sundered places, it has cre 
 ated its own church. And my love and confidence in that 
 silent Muse is such, that, in circumstances in which I can 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 53 
 
 easily conceive myself placed, I should prefer some manual 
 or quite mechanical labor as a means of living, that should 
 leave me a few sacred hours in the twenty-four, to any 
 attempt to realize my idea in any existing forms called in 
 tellectual or spiritual, where, by defying every settled usage 
 in society, I should be sure to sour my own temper." 
 
 In commenting on this advice (which was sound), 
 and after a visit to Emerson in Concord, Mr. Alcott 
 makes some striking remarks, which show, however, 
 that even he did not then fully appreciate the breadth 
 and variety of his friend s powers. Mr. Alcott wrote 
 thus : 
 
 " Emerson, true to his genius, favors written works. He 
 holds men and things at a distance ; pleases himself with 
 using them for his own benefit, and as means of gathering 
 material for his own work. He does not believe in the 
 actual ; his sympathies are all intellectual. He persuades 
 me to leave the actual, devote myself to the speculative, 
 and embody my thought in written works. Emerson ideal 
 izes all things. This idealized picture is the true and real 
 one to him, all else is nought. Even persons are thus 
 idealized, and his interest in them and their influence over 
 him exist no longer than this conformity appears in his 
 imagination. Beauty, beauty, this it is that charms 
 him. But beauty has pure and delicate tastes ; and hence 
 all that mars or displeases this sense, with however much 
 of truth or of goodness it may be associated, is of no in 
 terest to the mind. Emerson seeks the beauty of truth. 
 With him all men and things have a beauty ; but this is 
 the result of his point of vision, and often falls wide of 
 
54 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 the actual truth. To give pleasure, more than to impart 
 truth, is his mission ; what is beautiful in man, nature, or 
 art, this he apprehends, and with the poet s power sets 
 forth. His genius is high and commanding ; he will do 
 honor to his age. As a man, however, this visit lias some 
 what modified my former notions of him. He seems not 
 to be fully in earnest. Fame stands before him as a daz 
 zling award, and he holds himself somewhat too proudly, 
 nor seeks the humble and sincere regard of his race. His 
 life has been one of opportunity, and he has sought to real 
 ize in it more of the accomplished scholar than of the per 
 fect man ; a great intellect refined by elegant study, rather 
 than a divine life radiant with the beauty of truth and 
 holiness." 
 
 In this criticism the insight is keen, but not always 
 just. As Chaucer says, "there are more stars in the 
 sky than a pair ;" and it is not by this balanced an 
 tithesis that great men are to be judged. There was 
 what astronomers call a "nutation" in Emerson s 
 genius ; he inclined now this way and now that, but 
 the circle of his orbit brought him always round to 
 his place. He bowed to beauty for what it claimed, 
 but not at the expense of justice and the upright. 
 
 JSTot" long after the visit to Concord which suggested 
 this criticism on Emerson, Mr. Alcott heard his friend 
 give a lecture in Boston on "Ethics," bringing out 
 his view of conscience and the moral laws as illus 
 trated by the example of just men. Upon this lecture, 
 considering both its thought and its style, the Diary 
 thus passes judgment (Feb. 15, 1837) : 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 55 
 
 " Emerson is always impressive when he comes to the 
 elucidation of great and eminent natures. In discoursing 
 on these, the awful front of truth, the severe grandeur of 
 beauty, the commanding presence of justice, look forth 
 upon the hearer in their divine majesty of outline. These 
 are realities, and have their root and life in the Spirit. 
 They are great natures, above change, above harm. They 
 know of no peril, but dwell serenely in the bosom of Spirit, 
 of which man and nature are the visible types. 
 
 " But this man s genius has little in common with the 
 spirit and temper of this age. It is the herald of a future 
 time, when nature and life shall have other significance 
 than that which they now wear ; when all things shall be 
 viewed through a nobler organ than the external sense, 
 and subserve other purposes than mere corporeal use. The 
 old enthusiasm for honest and simple bravery, the love 
 of all that is noble and fair, these elements reappear 
 in our modern. Observe his style : it is full of genuine 
 phrases from the Saxon. He loves the simple, the natu 
 ral ; the thing is sharply presented, yet graced by beauty 
 and elegance, both of conception and diction. Our lan 
 guage is a fit organ as used by him. Its sensualism, the 
 filth and dust that had bedaubed it as it was used by 
 coarse natures during the last generations, until all its 
 idioms and commonplaces tell the story of our declension 
 from honor and purity, are all washed away, and we hear 
 clean and classic English once more from Northern lips. 
 Shakspeare, Sidney, Browne, speak again to us, and we 
 recognize our affinity of speech with the fathers of English 
 diction. Poesy and philosophy lisp once more their native 
 accents, uniting beauty with grandeur, grace with force, 
 and asserting the original sweetness and richness of our 
 
56 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 own tongue. Emerson is the only instance of original style 
 among Americans. Who writes like him 1 Who can 1 None 
 of his imitators, surely." 
 
 So much for the style, which is, at least, part of 
 the man. In 1839, Mr. Alcott has a passage on his 
 friend s characteristics which still better expresses 
 them. He writes : 
 
 " I propose spending a few days in Concord with Em 
 erson. We have much, I fancy, to say on the present 
 aspects and tendencies of the times. A day of controversy 
 is coming over our heads. Renovating influences are at 
 work in the very heart of society ; old forms are soon to 
 be cast off. The soul is shedding its slough, and renew 
 ing itself. The timid, the besotted, are looking on with 
 fear. Views with which our names are associated are to 
 be assailed as the prolific cause of this overturn of things. 
 We are to be made the butt of sectarian scandal. Perse 
 cutions fierce and unrelenting are to be waged against us. 
 Our tempers are to be tried. I shall like to learn the mood 
 of this my brother as he looks out from the seclusion of 
 his rural retreat. 
 
 " Brother ! That is a kindling name. I feel the senti 
 ment of kindred quicken within me as I write it. He is 
 a brother of mine, and an only one. All other men seem 
 strange to me when I think of him ; for no other knows 
 me so well, and I value none so dearly. I may confide in 
 him. Bravest among my contemporaries, he walks the earth 
 magnanimously ; and I behold his front, and despair not 
 of men. A spirit like his shall not be cowed. An insight 
 like his shall gain its meed of honor. My brother, we 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 57 
 
 shall do and dare. God is on our side. We believe in the 
 Eeal, and shall come off victorious in our warfare against 
 the Seeming. * 
 
 The passages drawn from the Diary of 1837 have 
 been chiefly taken from Mr. Alcott s comments, week 
 by week, on a course of twelve lectures which Emerson 
 gave in the winter of 1836-1837, in Boston, on what 
 he called " The Methods and Philosophy of History," 
 but which Mr. Alcott, who heard them all, said re 
 lated to " the omniscience, of spirit." The Diary for 
 February, 1837, furnishes these remarks : 
 
 "Mr. Emerson lectured this week on politics, sound 
 doctrines, I thought, in fit phrase. His audience enlarges 
 from week to week. I am glad the people come to hear 
 these discourses, which serve to arouse the noble facul 
 ties and adapt the senses to something supersensual and 
 permanent. But they will not understand aright. Bet 
 ter attain but glimpses, however, than remain in sluggish 
 obscurity, sense-ridden and sense-beguiled. They seem to 
 listen to him as marvelling children to a riddle-telling 
 elder, anxious to fathom the puzzle that drops from his 
 lips and pleasing their dull wits with his mystic lore. 
 Xeed enough is there of some statement of the divine 
 order and beauty of things, and especially in this city. 
 All minds seem to be enveloped in the bewildering haze 
 of sensualism. Ideas are not ; spirit is not ; brains and 
 hands move all things. The world is a busy workshop, 
 exchange, or inn ; and whosoever plies most dexterously 
 the organs that he hath, whether of brain, hand, or belly, 
 doth manfully his duty, and is an accepted member of the 
 
58 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 body social. Channing s ethics touch not these functions 
 of the social order ; Brownson s reasonings stay not the 
 rabid instincts of the populace ; nor Graham s invectives 
 stop the career of intemperance and debauchery, in high 
 places and low. Emerson can scarce do more than please ; 
 for vain is the hope of undermining the foundations of 
 men s belief in shows and shapes, while the philosophy 
 of the speaker is itself deemed a beautiful show, and him 
 self a skilful puzzler of men s brains. Not on those who 
 hear these lectures will the principles which they announce 
 take abiding effect. Another day, another age, are to es 
 pouse and live in harmony and love with them. The 
 divine truths which these utter will be sown in the soil 
 of young and fertile spirits ; and these shall gather the 
 harvest in the old age of the seedsman and the sower. 
 He shall reap in due time of the fruits of his toil, and 
 the thankful laboriousness of self-chosen disciples shall 
 minister to his decline." 
 
 The state of things here described, which will be 
 recognized by those who remember the Presidency of 
 Van Buren in New England, led Mr. Alcott, as well 
 as Emerson, Garrison, and other reformers, to attempt 
 measures and form plans to change what they found 
 so wrong. In the prosecution of his plans for a sim 
 pler mode of social life, a better education, and a truer 
 worship, Mr. Alcott, in the year 1842, felt strongly 
 the importance of visiting England and entering into 
 acquaintance with the men and women there who 
 seemed to be cherishing the same purposes with him 
 self. He had for years corresponded with some of 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 59 
 
 these persons, particularly with Mr. Heraud, a lit 
 erary man, and Mr. Greaves, a disciple and friend 
 of Pestalozzi. Mr. Emerson entered cordially into 
 Mr. Alcott s plans in this respect, and was the prin 
 cipal person who contributed to the fund which was 
 raised for this Transcendental embassy. Writing to 
 Mr. Alcott on the 12th of February, 1842, Mr. Emer 
 son said : 
 
 " I ain far from thinking that the project should be 
 dropped. If it shall continue to seem profitable and de 
 sirable to you, as it has appeared, it will seem so to me. 
 I think you need the diversion and the stimulus which so 
 total a change in your habits and company will afford, with 
 out considering what farther contingencies may accrue." 
 
 Accordingly, on the 8th of May, Mr. Alcott sailed 
 for England, and there spent several months, return 
 ing Oct. 20, 1842, accompanied by two English 
 Socialists, Charles Lane and Henry C. Wright, who 
 afterwards joined in his experiment of an ideal 
 community at Eruitlands, in the town of Harvard. 
 Before his return, Emerson, who was then editing 
 "The Dial," printed in that magazine (October, 1842) 
 an excellent account of Mr. Alcott s mission to Eng 
 land and the companionship which he found there : 
 
 ENGLISH REFORMERS. 
 
 Whilst Mr. Sparks visits England to explore the manu 
 scripts of the Colonial Office, and Dr. Waagen on a mission 
 of art, Mr. Alcott, whose genius and efforts in the great 
 
60 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 art of education have been more appreciated in England 
 than in America, has now been spending some months in 
 that country, with the aim to confer with the most emi 
 nent educators and philanthropists, in the hope to exchange 
 intelligence, and import into this country whatever hints 
 have been struck out there on the subject of literature and 
 the First Philosophy. The design was worthy, and its first 
 results have already reached us. Mr. Alcott was received 
 with great cordiality of joy and respect by his friends in 
 London, and presently found himself domesticated at an 
 institution managed after his own methods and called after 
 his name, the School of Mr. "Wright, at Alcott House, 
 Ham, Surrey. He was introduced to many men of literary 
 and philanthropic distinction, and his arrival was made 
 the occasion of meetings for public conversation on the 
 great ethical questions of the day. 
 
 Mr. Alcott s mission, besides making us acquainted with 
 the character and labors of some excellent persons, has 
 loaded our table with a pile of English books, pamphlets, 
 periodicals, flying prospectuses, and advertisements pro 
 ceeding from a class very little known in this country and 
 on many accounts important, the party, namely, who 
 represent Social Reform. Here are Educational Circulars 
 and Communist Apostles, Alists, Plans for Syncretic Asso 
 ciations and Pestalozzian Societies, Self-supporting Insti 
 tutions, Experimental Normal Schools, Hydropathic and 
 Philosophical Associations, Health Unions and Phalanste- 
 rian Gazettes, Paradises within the reach of all men, Appeals 
 of Man to Woman, and Necessities of Internal Marriage, 
 illustrated by Phrenological Diagrams. These papers have 
 many sins to answer for. There is an abundance of super- 
 ficialness, of pedantry, of inflation, and want of thought. 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 61 
 
 It seems as if these sanguine schemers rushed to the press 
 with every notion that danced before their brain, and 
 clothed it in the most clumsily compound and terminated 
 words, for want of time to find the right one. But although 
 these men use a swollen and vicious diction, yet they write 
 to ends which raise them out of the jurisdiction of ordi 
 nary criticism. They speak to the conscience, and have 
 that superiority over the crowd of their contemporaries 
 which belongs to men who entertain a good hope. More 
 over, these pamphlets may well engage the attention of the 
 politician, as straws of no mean significance to show the 
 tendencies of the time. 
 
 Mr. Alcott found little in the condition or the popu 
 lation of England in 1842 to encourage his labors 
 there ; but he did find a few enthusiastic persons who 
 partook of his own philanthropic idealism, and were 
 eager to join his private efforts at social reform in 
 New England. Some of his observations on per 
 sons and events in the mother country may here be 
 cited : 
 
 "July 18, 1842. Returned to Alcott House. 
 Had much conversation with Mr. "\Vright on our union 
 in Xew England. He inclines to return with me. Even 
 ing, TVe walked to \Vandswortli (six miles), and had 
 a lively conversation there on education, and engaged to 
 resume our conversation there on Tuesday evening next. 
 
 July 20. Dined with "\V. J. Fox, and met Harwood, 
 Dr. Elliotson, Mr. Lalor, and others. The conversation 
 was prolonged till late in the evening, and ran on various 
 topics, Pythagorean diet, taxes, government, magnetism, 
 
62 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 poetry, The Dial/ Emerson, etc. It gave me little satis 
 faction. There was much argument, protestation, and but 
 little from the heart. Our Club in its dotage, even, was 
 wiser far. I seemed to have fallen on Dr. Channing and 
 the Unitarian Association. 
 
 "July 21. Called on J. M. Morgan, and saw his paint 
 ing of a design for his Self -Supporting Institution, at 
 his rooms in Holborn. He discoursed long, and with 
 great good-will, on his plans for relieving the needy and 
 distressed; but relies on the Church for support, and seeks 
 to redeem his own name from disgrace by denying his 
 former intimacy with Mr. Owen. He is another sad in 
 stance of apostasy from the principles so livingiy affirmed 
 by Mr. Greaves. I recognized but little of the wide 
 humanity that pervades his Hampden in the Nine 
 teenth Century. Morgan, Biber, Heraud, Oldham, Smith, 
 Marstou, these are all fallen ; and there remain but 
 Lane and Wright in whom the divine fire still burns. I 
 saw George Thompson again, and heard O Connell, Joseph 
 Hume, M. P., Joseph Sturge, and Sydney Smith, at the 
 Anti-Corn-Law Conference at the King s Arms, West 
 minster. The meeting reminded me of our Abolition and 
 Non-resistance conventions ; and the speakers, of Garrison, 
 Wright, and Phillips. Fierce denunciation, discontent, 
 sedition, desperation, rang throughout the hall ; but neither 
 people, delegates, nor leaders seemed at all aware of the 
 remedy for the social evils under which they are now 
 writhing in sorrow, disappointment, hunger. It is not 
 bread nor wages (and so I told Thompson), but property, 
 gain, and the lust of gain, these are the parents of the 
 ills they sutler. But Thompson is too busy to hear, and 
 the people too hungry to believe. 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 63 
 
 " Had a short interview with Robert Owen at his rooms 
 in Pall Mall. He read me a letter which he had just 
 written, addressed to Sir Eobert Peel, proposing his rem 
 edy for the distress of the nation ; but he seemed but 
 little wiser than the Premier, Parliament, and Reformers. 
 Property, property still, and the people still left enslaved 
 to their lusts and passions. He asked me to breakfast 
 with him at my convenience, which I promised to do, but 
 scarce know why. T is a base errand, this of eating and 
 drinking with lions, and I am getting heartily ashamed 
 of it. Surely, I am made for better things. Evening. 
 At Heraud s. Barham, Marston, Wright, and others, were 
 there. We discussed printing a new journal, to be sup 
 ported by contributions from the Old World and the Xew, 
 and issued quarterly. A good deal was said. Heraud 
 and Barham deem Carlyle s interest essential to its success 
 with the public. I put the work on its own merits, quite 
 independent of names, and Wright agrees with me. I 
 gave them the theory of my new journal : the hopes it 
 must meet, the audience it must create, the contributors 
 it must secure. I proposed that it should answer to some 
 thing like this : The Janus : An Ephemeris of the Per 
 manent in Religion, Philosophy, Science, Art, and Letters. 
 My idea was obviously too broad and daring for them, and 
 so we separated. 
 
 " Two letters from my wife at the close of this storm- 
 ful day. I read them, and found peace in the gardens of 
 Concordia." 
 
 Kearly twenty years later Mr. Alcott s project 
 of an international magazine was carried out in 
 some degree by the establishment of the "Atlantic 
 
64 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Monthly." With Carlyle, to whom Emerson sent 
 him with warm commendatory letters, Mr. Alcott 
 had no good fortune ; the two friends of Emerson 
 proved antipathetic to each other. In a letter to 
 
 Mrs. Alcott, her husband wrote : 
 
 "JUNE 25, 1842. 
 
 " I rode to Chelsea and passed an hour with Carlyle. 
 Ah, me ! Saul amongst the prophets ! It must have been 
 a dark hour with him. He seemed impatient of inter 
 ruption ; faithless, quite, in all social reforms. His wit 
 was sombre, severe, hopeless ; his very merriment had 
 madness in it ; his humor was tragic even to tears. There 
 lay smouldering in him a whole French Revolution, a 
 Cromwellian rebellion ; nor could the rich mellowness 
 of his voice, deepened as it was and made more musical 
 by his broad Northern accent, hide from me the restless 
 melancholy, the memory feeding on hope, the decease of 
 all prophecy in the grave of history. I told him the dead 
 only dealt with the dead ; that the living breathed only 
 with the living. The man is sick ; he needs rest. I know 
 his ailment ; I know its cure. Emerson will sadden when 
 you tell him what I write ; but here is another of the 
 thousand confirmations of that suicide by the pen in which 
 literature abounds. I will not turn on my heel to see 
 another man ; and the women are tragic all (Mrs. Carlyle, 
 Mrs. Fox, etc.), these doleful daughters of Britain, they 
 
 mourn even in their joys." 
 
 "AUGUST 2. 
 
 " I have seen Carlyle again ; but we quarrelled outright, 
 and I shall see him not again. Greatness abides not 
 here ; her home is in the clouds, save when she descends 
 on the meadows or treads the groves of Concord." 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 65 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Alcott did call once more on 
 Carlyle, but he was not at home. A few days after 
 he wrote this letter to Mr. Alcott : 
 
 CHELSEA, Sept. 22, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I am very sorry to have been out the 
 other day when you called again. I suppose it is my last 
 chance of seeing you in England. You leave me, too, as 
 an incorrigible heretic and infidel, which verily I am not, 
 yet must be content to seem for the present ! Well, I will 
 wish you a right pleasant reunion with your native friends, 
 with those whom you know better than you do me. To 
 hear that your scheme of life prospers to the utmost pos 
 sible extent will, you may depend upon it, be always 
 happy news to me. Though not precisely my church, I 
 do reckon it a branch of the true church, very worthy to 
 spread and root itself according to its power in a world so 
 overgrown with falsity and jungle as ours is. ... I was 
 absent in Suffolk when your invitation to the Conference 
 reached me. I can add no more but that sad word, adieu ! 
 May all good Powers watch over you, guide you well, and 
 ever better towards your true aim. I remain always, 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Our last extract shall be taken from the brief 
 Diary for 1846, when Mr. Alcott, after his experiences 
 in England and at Fruitlands, was again established 
 in Concord, at the Hillside Cottage, in which Haw 
 thorne succeeded him, and which has since been 
 known and described as The Wayside. Looking out 
 from this "loophole of retreat" in January, 1846, 
 
 6 
 
66 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 and having lately read Carlyle s book on Cromwell, 
 which Mr. Alcott had found him toiling over in 1842, 
 the Concord mystic thus writes, justly and propheti 
 cally : 
 
 " Carlyle s new hook comes opportunely. This nation 
 seems lost to every sense of right ; the spark of freedom 
 that inflamed the breasts of our fathers is extinct in their 
 Republic. In the midst of a revolution we seem not to 
 know it, nor that the principles for which Luther and 
 Cromwell contended, and which constitute our inheritance, 
 are trodden under foot in the counsels and acts of Con 
 gress. The Reformation is still in progress, and Provi 
 dence invites us to carry it forward and give it permanency 
 in worth} 7 institutions. Freedom in Church, in State, in 
 the Family, in our bosoms and estates, these are the de 
 mands of Protestantism in 1846. The family is the cradle 
 of the Commonwealth ; the private house is the council- 
 chamber of the Republic. Every man has some faint 
 sentiment of this, and human history is the record of 
 struggles for his own freedom or subjection. The ascen 
 dency of a spiritual philosophy in the finer and better 
 minds, and particularly in the youth of our day, is an 
 omen of hope. A silent, gradual, and yet perceptible 
 amendment is taking place, and the final settlement of the 
 new is near and sure. The old order is crumbling away ; 
 the new powers with which modern science has charged 
 the civilized world have given fresh impulse to enterprise 
 in our people, opened new and wider fields for their 
 extension. Our social and geographical position affords 
 additional incentives and opportunity for a broader display 
 of the national character. The Northern genius is success- 
 
EMERSON AND ALCOTT. 67 
 
 fully competing with Nature ; and, no less than the South 
 ern ambition, is adding new territories to the already over 
 grown Republic. This great secular interest, thus called 
 into vigorous existence and furnished with new facilities 
 by its broader field of action, is coming in conflict with 
 existing social and political institutions, and arraying the 
 extreme sections of the country against each other. The 
 struggle has begun. The base and w r icked alliance be 
 tween freedom and slavery the source of national dis 
 cord must issue soon in the dissolution of the present 
 political confederacy. . . . 
 
 " The change in the business of men is no less remark 
 able than in their thinking ; the magnetic and steam 
 couriers match the intuitive philosophy and religion. 
 Man is constructing organs for the mind ; the dynamic 
 forces of his being are forging facile engines, alike of pon 
 derous metal and the subtilest fluid. Flame, Lightning, 
 Intuition, Enthusiasm, are become his readiest porters and 
 runners. Feed me, cries Body, querulously, and I ll 
 feed thee. * Nay, quoth the Soul, * thou canst give me 
 no bread ; thou canst not even grow bread for thyself. 
 J T is of my good pleasure that thou art ; by me are formed 
 all thine organs. I feed thy heart with Piety, thy mind 
 with Science, thy hand with Art ; and sustain thee in 
 comfort all thy life long, in this little mansion and world 
 to which I am a party in making it for thee. But a world 
 ling and hireling art thou, ever discontented with thy 
 fodder and wages. 
 
 " Noblest of benefactors is the thinking Soul ; all men, 
 in some sort and time, are beggars, and receive its alms." 
 
68 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 III. 
 
 EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 
 
 BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 
 IT might be said, both that the time has passed, 
 and that it is not yet come, to assign Emerson his 
 place among the thinkers of the world ; but it can 
 never be out of place to remark that his bent and 
 genius were profoundly and typically American. So 
 far as his thoughts and opinions had color, it was 
 that of his native soil. He believed in our great 
 experiment ; he was not disheartened by our mis 
 takes ; he had faith that the goodness and wisdom 
 of humanity would, in the long run, prove more than 
 equal to the goodness and wisdom of any possible 
 man ; and that men would, at last, govern themselves 
 more nobly and successfully than any individual 
 monarch could govern them. He speaks, indeed, of 
 Representative Men ; but he was no hero-worshipper, 
 like Carlyle. A hero was, to him, not so much a 
 powerful and dominating personality, as a relatively 
 impersonal instrument of God for the accomplish 
 ment of some great end. It would follow from 
 this that humanity is the greatest hero of all ; and 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 69 
 
 Emerson, perhaps, believed in this sense if not other 
 wise that God has put on human nature. In the 
 American Eepublic he saw the most promising field 
 for the unhampered working-out of this Divine in 
 spiration within us. 
 
 But he was American not by determination only, 
 but by the constitution of his mind. His catholic 
 and unflinching acceptance of what truth soever came 
 to him was in accordance with the American idea, 
 though not, unfortunately, with the invariable Amer 
 ican practice. As our land is open to the world to 
 come and inhabit it, so was his mind open to all 
 vigorous and progressive ideas, be their hue and 
 parentage what they might. It were rash to pre 
 dict how soon America will reach his standard of 
 her ideal ; but it is encouraging to remember that 
 nothing in her political construction renders its final 
 attainment impossible. 
 
 It is not with us as with other peoples. Our po 
 sition seems vague, because not primarily related to 
 the senses. I know where England or Italy is, and 
 recognize an Englishman or an Italian ; but Ameri 
 cans are not, to the same extent, limited by geo 
 graphical boundaries. America did not originate as 
 did European nations : they were born after the flesh, 
 but we after the spirit. Their frontiers must be de- 
 feuded, and their race kept distinct ; but highly 
 though I esteem our immeasurable East and West, 
 North and South, our Pacific and our Atlantic and 
 our Gulf of Mexico, I cannot help deeming these a 
 
70 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 secondary matter. If America be not more than 
 these United States, then the United States are lit 
 tle better than a penal colony. It is convenient, no 
 doubt, that a great idea shall find a suitable stage 
 and incarnation ; but it depends not upon these 
 things. It was accidental, or I would rather s^ay 
 providential, that the Puritans came to New Eng 
 land, or that Columbus discovered the continent for 
 them ; but the body is instrumental merely : it ena 
 bles the spirit to take hold of its mortal affairs, just 
 as the hilt enables us to grasp the sword. Had the 
 Puritans not come to New England, still their spirit 
 would have lived, and somehow made its place. 
 How many Puritans, indeed, for how many previous 
 ages, had been trying, and failing, to get foothold 
 in the world ! They were known by many names ; 
 their voice was heard in many tongues : the hour for 
 them to touch their earthly inheritance had not yet 
 struck. But the latent impetus meanwhile accu 
 mulated, and the " Mayflower " was driven across 
 the Atlantic by it at last ! 
 
 And the " Mayflower " sails still between the Old 
 World and the New. Day by day it brings new 
 settlers, if not to Boston Bay, and Castle Garden, 
 and the Golden Gate, at any rate to our mental 
 ports and wharves. I cannot take up a European 
 newspaper without finding an American idea in it. 
 Many of us make the trip to Europe every sum 
 mer; but we come back, and bring with us many 
 more who come to stay. I do not specify the literal 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 71 
 
 emigrants in the steerage ; they may or may not be 
 Americans. But England and the Continent are full 
 of Americans who were bom and may die there, 
 and who may be better Americans than the Bosto- 
 nian or the Xew Yorker who votes the Eepublican, 
 or the Democratic, or even the Independent ticket. 
 Whatever their birthplace or residence, they belong 
 to us, and are with us. Broadway and Washington 
 Street, Xew Hampshire and Colorado, extend all over 
 Europe. Eussia tries to banish them to Siberia, but 
 in vain. Are mountains and prairies solid facts ? 
 the geography of the mind is more stubborn ! I dare 
 say there are oblique-eyed, pig-tailed Xew Englanders 
 in the Celestial Empire. Though they may never have 
 visited these shores, or heard of Kearney, they think 
 our thought, have apprehended our idea, and by and 
 by they or their heirs will cause it to prevail. 
 
 It is useless to hide our heads in the grass, and 
 shun to rise to the height of our occasion. We stand 
 as the fulfilment of prophecy ; we attest a new de 
 parture in moral and intellectual development, or 
 which of us does not, must suffer annihilation. If I 
 deny my birthright as an American, I vanish and am 
 not missed ; an American takes my place. The posi 
 tion is not altogether luxurious : you cannot sit and 
 hold your hands. Hard and unpleasant things are 
 expected of you, which you neglect at your peril. 
 It is Like the fable of the mermaid : she loved a mor 
 tal youth, and in order to win his affection prayed 
 for the limbs and feet of a human maiden. Her 
 
 o 
 
72 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 prayer was answered, and she met her prince ; bu 
 each step she took was as if she trod on razors. S 
 it is fine to sit at ease and reflect on being American 
 but when we must arise and do an American s duty 
 how sharp the razors are ! 
 
 We do not always stand the test ; flesh and bloo< 
 do not differ essentially on different sides of th 
 planet. Possibly we are too numerous. It wer 
 strange if here and there among fifty millions, on 
 were not quite a hero. Possibly, indeed, that littl 
 original band of " Mayflower " Pilgrims has no 
 greatly multiplied since their disembarkation, so fa 
 as their spiritual progeny are concerned. We do no 
 find a succession of Winthrops and Endicotts in th 
 chair of the Governor and on the floor of the Senate 
 Bridget serves us in the kitchen ; but Patrick, mor 
 helpful yet, enters the Legislature and serves the State 
 But turn and turn about is fair play ; and we ough 
 once in a while to take off our coat and do unt< 
 Patrick as he does unto us. 
 
 When we get in a tight place we are apt to sli] 
 out under a plea of European precedent; but wa 
 it not to avoid European precedents that we cam< 
 here ? America should take the highest around ii 
 
 O O 
 
 her political and commercial relations. Why mus 
 the President of the Western Union, for instance, o 
 a late Governor of Massachusetts, be cited as typica 
 Americans ? The dominance of such men has effect; 
 out of proportion with their personal acts. Wha 
 they may do is of small import : the mischief is ii 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 73 
 
 their inclining us to believe (as Emerson puts it) in 
 two gods. They make the morality of Wall Street 
 and the White House seem a different thing from that 
 of the parlor and nursery. " He may be a little shady 
 on Change," we say, " but a capital fellow when you 
 know him." But if I am a capital fellow when you 
 know me, I can afford to be shady in my business. I 
 can endure public opprobrium so long as it remains 
 public : it is the private cold looks that trouble me. 
 
 In short, we have two Americas, the street- 
 corner and newspaper America, and the ideal Amer 
 ica. At present, the former makes the most noise ; 
 but the latter has made the former possible. A great 
 crowd is drawn together for some noble purpose, 
 to declare a righteous war, or to pass a just decree. 
 But there are persons on the outskirts unable to hear 
 the orators, and with time hanging idle on their 
 hands, who take to throwing bricks, smashing hats, 
 or perhaps picking pockets. They may have assem 
 bled with virtuous and patriotic intentions; under 
 favorable circumstances they might themselves have 
 been the orators. Virtue and patriotism are not 
 private property ; at certain times any one may pos 
 sess them. And, on the other hand, how often do 
 we see persons of high respectability and trust turn 
 out sorry scamps ! We vary according to our com 
 pany and the event : the outlook may be sordid to 
 day, but during the Civil War the air was full of 
 heroism. So the real and the ideal America, though 
 far apart in one sense, are, in another, as near as our 
 
74 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 right hand to our left. They exist side by side in 
 each one of us. But civil war comes not every day ; 
 nor do we desire it, even to show us once more that 
 we are worthy of our destiny. Some less expensive 
 and quieter method must remind us of that. And of 
 such methods none, perhaps, is better than to review 
 the lives of Americans who were truly great : to ask 
 what their country meant to them ; what they asked 
 of her ; what virtues and vices they detected in her. 
 Passion may be generous, but cannot last, and coldness 
 and indifference follow ; but in calm moods reason and 
 example reach us, and their lesson abides. 
 
 Although many a true American is born and dies 
 abroad, Emerson was born and died here. In the 
 outward accidents of generation and descent, he 
 could not have been more American than he was. 
 Of course, one prefers that it should be so. A rare 
 gem should be fitly set. It helps us to believe in 
 ourselves to know that Emerson s ancestry was not 
 only Puritan but clerical ; that through his heart 
 ran the vital thread of the idea that created us. We 
 have many traits not found in him ; but nothing in 
 him is not a sublimation and concentration of some 
 thing in us; and such is the selection and grouping 
 of the elements that lie is a typical figure. Indeed, 
 he is all type ; which is the same as to say there 
 is nobody like him. And, mentally, he is all force ; 
 his mind acts without natural impediment or fric 
 tion, a machine that runs unhindered by the contact 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 75 
 
 of its parts. As he was physically lean and slender 
 of figure, and his face but a welding together of fea 
 tures, so there was no adipose tissue in his thought. 
 It is pure, clear, and accurate, and has the fault of 
 dryness, hut often moves with exquisite beauty. It 
 is not adhesive ; it sticks to nothing except to the 
 memory, nor anything to it. After ranging through 
 the philosophies of the world, it emerges clean and 
 characteristic as ever. It has many affinities, but no 
 adhesion ; it is not always self-adherent. There are 
 in any of his essays separate statements presenting 
 no logical continuity ; but though this may cause 
 anxiety to disciples of Emerson, it never troubled 
 him. Wandering at will in the garden of moral and 
 religious philosophy, it was his part to pluck such 
 blossoms as he saw were good and beautiful, not 
 to discover their botanical relationship. He might, 
 for art or harmony s sake, arrange them according to 
 their hue or fragrance ; but it was not his affair to go 
 further in their classification. 
 
 This intuitional method, how little soever it satisfies 
 those who want their thinking done for them, who 
 want not only all the cities of the earth, but straight 
 roads to connect them, carries its own justification. 
 " There is but one Reason," is Emerson s saying ; and 
 we confess again and again that the truth he asserts 
 is true indeed. Even his divergences from the truth, 
 when he is betrayed into them, confirm the rule ; for 
 these are seldom intuitions at first hand, but intui 
 tions from previous intuitions, deductions. They 
 
76 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 are from Emerson, instead of from the Absolute ; 
 tinted, instead of colorless. They show a mental 
 bias, redeeming him back to humanity. We love 
 him the more for them, because they imply that for 
 him, too, was a choice of ways, and that he struggled 
 and watched to choose the right. 
 
 We are so w^edded to systems, and so prone to 
 connect a system with a man, that Emerson s absence 
 of system strikes us as a defect. But truth has no 
 system, nor has the human mind. We cannot bear 
 to be illogical, and enlist, some under this philos 
 opher s banner, some under that ; and so sacrifice 
 to consistency at least half the truth. We cross- 
 examine our intuitions, and ask them, not whether 
 they are true in themselves, but what are their ten 
 dencies. If they would lead us to stultify some 
 past conclusion to which we stand committed, we 
 drop them like hot coals. This, to Emerson, was the 
 nakedest personal vanity. Recognizing his finite- 
 ness, he did not covet consistency. One thing was 
 true to-day : to-morrow, its opposite. Was it for him 
 to elect which should have the preference ? To re 
 ject either was to reject all : it belonged to God to 
 reconcile such contradictions. Between Infinite and 
 finite can exist no ratio ; and the Creator s consis 
 tency implies the inconsistency of the creature. 
 
 Emerson s Americanism, therefore, was American 
 ism in its last and purest analysis, which is giving 
 him praise, and to America hope. But let me not 
 pay him, who was so full of modesty and humility, 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 77 
 
 the ungrateful compliment of holding him up as our 
 permanent ideal. It is his tendency, his* quality, 
 that are valuable, and only in a minor degree his 
 actual results. All human results are limited, and 
 according to the epoch. Emerson does not solve for 
 all time the problem of the universe. He solves 
 nothing ; but, what is more useful, he gives impetus 
 and direction to lofty endeavor. He does not antici 
 pate the lessons of the ages ; but he teaches us so to 
 deal with circumstance as to secure the good instead 
 of the evil issue. New horizons opening before us 
 will carry us beyond the scope of Emerson s surmise ; 
 but we shall not easily improve upon his aim and 
 attitude. In spaces beyond the stars are marvels 
 such as it has not entered into the mind of man to 
 conceive ; but there, as here, the right aspiration will 
 still be upward, and the right conduct still be humble 
 and charitable. 
 
 I spoke of Emerson s absence of system ; yet his 
 writings have coherence by virtue of their single- 
 hearted motive. Those with whom, in this tribute 
 to our beloved poet and sage, I have the honor to 
 be associated, will doubtless notice, as I do, how the 
 whole of Emerson illustrates every aspect of him. 
 "\Vhether your subject be his religion, his ethics, his 
 social aspects, or what not, your picture gains color 
 and form from each page that he has written. All 
 that he is permeates all that he has done. His books 
 cannot be indexed, and he can treat no topic without 
 incorporating in his statement the germs at least of 
 
78 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 all his thought and belief. In this respect he illus 
 trates tlie definition of light, the presence of the 
 general at the particular. And, to say truth, I am 
 somewhat loath to diffract this pure ray to the arbi 
 trary end of my special theme. Why speak of him 
 as an American ? He was American because he was 
 himself. But America gives less limitation than other 
 nationalities to a generous and serene personality. 
 
 Emerson s " English Traits " perhaps reveal his 
 American traits more than most that he has written. 
 We are described by our criticisms of others: the 
 exceptions we take are the mould of our own figures. 
 So this volume affords valuable glimpses of Emerson s 
 contours. And it is almost as remarkable a work for 
 him to write, as a volume of his essays would be for 
 any one else ; it is to his other books as flesh and 
 blood to spirit. Emersonian flesh and blood, it is 
 true, and serni-translucent ; but it completes the man 
 for us : without it, he would have been too problem 
 atical Those who never personally knew him may 
 here finish and solidify their impressions of him. 
 His sympathy with England and the English is be 
 yond our expectation of the mind that evolved " Na 
 ture " and " The Over-Soul." The grasp of his hand, 
 I remember, was firm and stout, and we perceive 
 those qualities in the cordiality of " English Traits." 
 And it is an objective book ; it affords a unique basis 
 for comparing his general human faculty with that 
 of other men. He relents from the airy heights he 
 treads so easily, and descends to measure himself 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 79 
 
 against all comers. He means only to report their 
 stature, leaving himself out of the story ; but their 
 answers reveal the questioner. We suspect (though 
 he did not) that his English friends were put to it 
 to keep the pace of their clear-faced, penetrating, 
 attentive visitor. 
 
 He has seldom said of his own countrymen such 
 comfortable things as he vouchsafes to the English : 
 as a father who is severe with his own children will 
 N freely admire others, for whom he is not responsible. 
 Emerson is stern towards what we are, and arduous 
 indeed in his estimate of what we ought to be. He 
 intimates that we are not quite worthy yet of our 
 continent, have not yet lived up to our blue 
 china. ^ In America the geography is sublime, but 
 the men are not. Even our more presentable public 
 acts are due to the money-making spirit. The bene 
 faction derived in the great West from railroads 
 vastly exceeds any intentional philanthropy on record. 
 He will not celebrate the Forty-niners, though ad 
 mitting that California gets civilized in this immoral 
 way; and is fain to suppose that, just as there is 
 a use in the world for poisons, so the world cannot 
 move without rogues. Huge animals (like America) 
 nourish huge parasites, and the rancor of the disease 
 attests the strength of the constitution. He ridicules 
 our unsuspecting provincialism. " Have you seen 
 the dozen great men of Xew York and Boston ? 
 Then you may as well die I " He does not spare our 
 tendency to declamation ; quotes a shrewd foreigner s 
 
80 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 remark that whatever we say has a little the air of a 
 speech, and proceeds to ask whether the American 
 forest has refreshed some weeds of old Pictish bar- 
 barism just ready to die out. He finds the especial 
 foible of American youth to be pretension ; and 
 remarks, suggestively, that we talk about the " key of 
 the age," but the key of all ages is imbecility ! ( He will 
 not be reconciled to the mania for travel : there is a 
 restlessness in our people that argues want of char 
 acter ; can we never extract this tape- worm of Europe 
 
 from our brains ? } Yet he concedes that we cro to Eu- 
 / 
 
 rope to be Americanized, and has faith that one day 
 we shall cast out the passion for Europe by the pas 
 sion for America. As for our political doings, poli 
 tics is an after-word, a poor patching : we shall learn 
 to supersede politics by education. He sympathizes 
 with Lovelace, and holds that freedom and slavery 
 are inward, not outward, conditions. Slavery is not 
 in fetters, but in feeling ; you cannot by external re 
 strictions eradicate the irons ; and the way to eman 
 cipate the slave is to make him comprehend his 
 inviolable dignity and freedom as a human being. 
 Amelioration of outward circumstances will be the 
 effect, but can never be the means, of mental and 
 moral improvement. Nothing, he affirms, is more 
 disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, 
 as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for free 
 dom of some paper preamble, like a Declaration of 
 Independence, or the statute right to vote. Our 
 America has a bad name for superficialness. Great 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 81 
 
 men and great nations have not been boasters and 
 buffoons, but pereeivers of the terrors of life, and 
 have nerved themselves to face it. Xor will he be 
 deceived by the clamor of blatant reformers. " If 
 an angry bigot assumes the bountiful cause of Aboli 
 tion, and comes to me with his last news from Bar- 
 badoes, why should I not say to him, Go, love thy 
 infant ; love thy woodchopper ; be good-natured and 
 modest; have that grace, and never varnish your 
 hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible ten 
 derness for black folk a thousand miles off!" 
 
 He does not shrink from questioning the validity 
 of some of our pet institutions, universal suffrage, 
 for instance. In old Egypt the vote of a prophet 
 was reckoned equal to one hundred hands, and was 
 much underestimated. Shall we, then, he asks, judge 
 a country by the majority, or by the minority ? By 
 the minority, surely ! T is pedantry to estimate na 
 tions by the census, or by square miles of territory, 
 or other than by their importance to the mind of the 
 time. The majority are unripe, and know not yet 
 their own opinion. Yet he would not counsel organic 
 alteration in this respect, believing that with the 
 progress of enlightenment such coarse constructions 
 of human rights will adjust themselves. He concedes 
 the sagacity of the Fultons and Watts of politics, 
 who, noticing that the opinion of the million was 
 the terror of the world, grouped it on a level, instead 
 of piling it into a mountain, and so contrived to 
 make of this terror the most harmless and energetic 
 
 6 
 
82 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 form of a State. But, again, he would not have us 
 regard the State as a finality, or as relieving any man 
 of his individual responsibility for his actions and 
 purposes. Confide in God, and not in your money, 
 nor in the State because it is the guard of it. The 
 Union itself has no basis but the good pleasure of 
 the majority to be united. The wise and just men 
 impart strength to the State, not receive it; and if 
 all went down, they and their like would soon com 
 bine in a new and better constitution. Yet let us 
 not forget that only by the supernatural is man 
 strong, nothing so weak as an egotist. We are 
 mighty only as vehicles of a truth before which 
 State and individual are alike ephemeral. In this 
 sense we, like other nations, shall have our kings 
 and nobles, the leading and inspiration of the best ; 
 and he who would become a member of that nobility 
 must obey his heart. 
 
 Government, which has been a fossil, must, he 
 says, become a plant: statute law should express, 
 not impede, the mind of mankind. Feudalism suc 
 ceeds monarchy, and this, again, is followed by trade ; 
 the good and evil of which is, that it would put 
 everything in the market, talent, beauty, virtue, 
 and man himself. Trade has done its work ; it has 
 faults, and will end, as the others. We need not fear 
 its aristocracy, because, not being entailed, it can 
 have no permanence. In the time to come we shall, 
 he hopes, be less anxious to be governed : government 
 without governors will, for the first time, be adaman- 
 
EMERSON AS AX AMERICAN. S3 
 
 tine ; each man shall govern himself in the interests 
 of all. These are radical views, but Emerson asks 
 whether every man is not sometimes a radical in 
 politics ? Men are conservative when they are least 
 vigorous or most luxurious ; for Conservatism stands 
 on man s limitations, Eefonn on his infinitude. 
 
 But the age of the quadruped is going out ; the age 
 of brain and heart is coming in. We are still too pet 
 tifogging and imitative in our legislative conceptions ; 
 our Legislature should become more catholic and cos 
 mopolitan than any other. Strong natures are inevi 
 table patriots ; let us be strong enough to trust in 
 humanity. The time, the age, what is that but a 
 few prominent persons and a few active persons who 
 epitomize the times ? There is a bribe possible for 
 any finite will ; but the pure sympathy with univer 
 sal ends is an infinite force, and cannot be bribed or 
 bent. The world wants saviors and religions : so 
 ciety is servile from want of will ; but there is a des 
 tiny by which the human race is guided, the race 
 never dying, the individual never spared its law is, 
 you shall have everything as a member, nothing to 
 yourself. Eeferring to the various communities so 
 much in vogue some years ago, he holds them valu 
 able, not for what they have done, but for the indica 
 tion they give of the revolution that is on the way. 
 Communities place faith in mutual support ; but 
 only as a man puts off from himself external support 
 is he strong, and will he prevail. He is weaker by 
 every recruit to his banner. A man ought to compare 
 
84 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 advantageously with a river, an oak, or a mountain. 
 He must not shun whatever comes to him in the way 
 of duty : the only path of escape is performance ! 
 He must rely on Providence, but not in a timid or 
 ecclesiastical spirit ; no use to dress up that terrific 
 benefactor in the clean shirt and white neck-cloth 
 of a student of divinity. We shall come out well, 
 despite whatever personal or political disasters; for 
 here, in America, is the home of man. After de 
 ducting our pitiful politics, shall John or Jonathan 
 sit in the chair and hold the purse ? and making 
 due allowance for our frivolities and insanities, there 
 still remains an organic simplicity and liberty, which, 
 when it loses its balance, redresses itself presently, 
 and which offers to the human mind opportunities 
 not known elsewhere. 
 
 Whenever Emerson touches upon the fundamental 
 elements of social and rational life, it is always to 
 enlarge and illuminate our conceptions of them. We 
 are not \vont, for example, to question the propriety 
 of the sentiment of patriotism. We are to swear by 
 our own Lares and Penates, and stand by the Ameri 
 can eagle, right or wrong. But Emerson instantly 
 goes beneath this interpretation, and exposes its 
 crudity. The true sense of patriotism is almost the 
 reverse of the popular sense. He has no sympathy 
 with that boyish egotism, hoarse with cheering for 
 our side, for our State, for our town : the right pa 
 triotism consists in the delight which springs from 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 85 
 
 contributing our peculiar and legitimate advantages 
 to the benefit of humanity. Every foot of soil has its 
 proper quality ; the grape on two sides of the fence 
 has new flavors ; and so every acre on the globe, 
 every family of men, every point of climate, has its dis 
 tinguishing virtues. This admitted, Emerson yields 
 in patriotism to no one ; he is only concerned that 
 the advantages we contribute shall be as many in 
 stead of as few as possible. This country, he says, 
 does not lie here in the sun causeless ; and, though 
 it may not be easy to define its influence, men feel 
 already its emancipating quality in the careless self- 
 reliance of the manners, in the freedom of thought, 
 in the direct roads by which grievances are reached 
 and redressed, and even in the reckless and sinister 
 politics, not less than in purer expressions. Bad 
 as it is, this freedom leads onward and upward to a 
 Columbia of thought and art, which is the last and 
 endless end of Columbus adventure. Xor is this 
 poet of virtue and philosophy ever more truty patri 
 otic, from his spiritual stand-point, than when he 
 casts scorn and indignation upon his country s sins 
 and frailties : 
 
 " But who is he that prates of the culture of mankind ? 
 Go, blind worm, go, behold the famous States harrying Mexico 
 "With rifle and with knife ! 
 
 " Or who, with accent bolder, dare praise the freedom-loving 
 
 mountaineer ? 
 I found by thee, rushing Contoocook, and in thy valleys, 
 
 Agiochook, 
 The jackals of the negro-holder ! 
 
86 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 11 What boots thy zeal, glowing friend, who wouldst indignant 
 
 rend 
 
 The northland from the south ? 
 
 Wherefore ? to what good end ? Boston Bay and Bunker Hill 
 would serve things still ; things are of the snake ! 
 
 T is the day of the chattel, web to weave, and corn to grind; 
 Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind ! " 
 
 It is worth noting that he, whose verse is uni 
 formly so abstractly and intellectually beautiful, 
 kindles to passion whenever his theme is America. 
 The loftiest patriotism never found more ardent and 
 eloquent expression than in the hymn sung at the 
 completion of Concord Monument, on the 19th of 
 April, 1836. There is no rancor in it, no taunt of 
 triumph, 
 
 " The foe long since in silence slept," 
 
 but throughout there resounds a note of pure and 
 deep rejoicing at the victory of justice over oppres 
 sion, which Concord Fight so aptly symbolized. In 
 " Hamatreya " and " The Earth-Song " another chord 
 is struck, of calm, laconic irony. Shall we too, he 
 asks, we Yankee farmers, descendants of the men 
 who gave up all for freedom, go back to the creed 
 outworn of feudalism and aristocracy, and affirm of 
 the land that yields us produce, 
 
 " T is mine, my children s, and my name s " ? 
 
 Earth laughs in flowers at our boastfulness, and 
 asks, 
 
 "How am I theirs, 
 If they cannot hold me, 
 But I hold them ? " 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 87 
 
 Or read " Monadnoc," and mark the insight and 
 power wherewith the significance of the great facts 
 of Nature is stated : 
 
 " Complement of human kind, having us at vantage still, 
 Our sumptuous indigence, barren mound, thy plenties fill ! 
 We fool and prate ; thou art silent and sedate. 
 To myriad kinds and times one sense the constant mountain doth 
 
 dispense ; 
 Shedding on all its snows and leaves ; one joy it joys, one grief it 
 
 grieves. 
 
 Thou seest, watchman tall, our towns and races grow and fall, 
 And imagest the stable good for which we all our lifetime grope, 
 And though the substance us elude, we in thee the shadow find. 
 
 Thou dost supply the shortness of our days, 
 And promise, on thy Founder s truth, long morrow to this mor 
 tal youth ! " 
 
 Xo other poet with whom I am acquainted has 
 caused the very spirit of the land the mother of 
 men to express itself so adequately as Emerson 
 has done. 
 
 Emerson is continually urging us to give heed to 
 this grand voice of hills and streams, and to mould 
 ourselves upon its suggestions. The difficulty and 
 anomaly consist in the fact that we are not native ; 
 that England, quite as much as Monadnoc, is our 
 mother ; that we are heirs of memories and traditions 
 reaching far beyond the times and boundaries of the 
 Eepublic. We cannot assume the splendid child- 
 likeness of the great primitive races, and exhibit 
 the hairy strength and unconscious genius that the 
 poet longs to find in us. He remarks somewhere 
 
88 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 that the culminating period of good in Nature and 
 the world is at just that moment of transition, when 
 the hairy juices still flow plentifully from Nature, 
 but their astringency and acidity is got out by ethics 
 and humanity. 
 
 It was at such a period that Greece attained her 
 apogee ; but our experience, I think, must needs be 
 cTifferent. Our story is not of birth, but of regenera 
 tion, a far more subtile and less obvious transac 
 tion. The Homeric California, of which Bret Harte 
 is the reporter, is not, in the closest sense, American. 
 "A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont," 
 says Emerson, " who in turn tries all the professions, 
 who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, 
 preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys 
 a township, and so forth, in successive years, and 
 always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a 
 hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with 
 his days, and feels no shame in not studying a 
 profession/ for he does not postpone his life, but 
 lives it already." 
 
 That is poignantly said ; and yet few of the Ameri 
 cans whom we recognize as great have had such a 
 history; nor, had they had it, would they on that 
 account be any the more American. On the other 
 hand, the careers of men like Jim Fiske and Jay 
 Gould might serve well as illustrations of the above 
 sketch. If we must wait for our national character 
 until our geographical advantages and the absence 
 of social distinctions manufacture it for us, we are 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 89 
 
 likely to remain a long time in suspense. When our 
 foreign visitors begin to evince a keener interest in 
 Beacon Hill and Fifth Avenue than in the Missis 
 sippi and the Yellowstone, we may infer that we are 
 assuming our proper stature relative to our physical 
 environment. " The Land," says Emerson, " is a 
 sanative and Americanizing influence, which promises 
 to disclose new virtues for ages to come." Well, 
 when we are virtuous we may, perhaps, spare our 
 own blushes by allowing our topography symboli 
 cally to celebrate us, and when our admirers would 
 worship the purity of our intuitions, refer them to 
 Walden Pond ; or to Mount Shasta, when they would 
 expatiate upon our lofty idealism. Meanwhile, it is 
 perhaps true that the chances of leading a decent life 
 are greater in a palace than in a pigsty. 
 
 But this is holding the poet too strictly to the let 
 ter of his message ; and at any rate the Americanism 
 of Emerson is better than anything that he has said 
 in its vindication. He is the champion of the Repub 
 lic ; he is our future living in our present, and show 
 ing the world, by anticipation, what sort of excellence 
 we are capable of. A nation that has produced 
 Emerson, and can recognize in him flesh of her flesh 
 and bone of her bone, and, still more, spirit of 
 her spirit, that nation may look forward with secu 
 rity. But he has done more than to prophesy of his 
 country : he js electric, and stimulates us to fulfil 
 our destiny. To use a phrase of his own, we cannot 
 
90 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 hear of personal vigor of any kind great power of 
 performance without fresh resolution. ) Emerson 
 helps us most in provoking us to help ourselves. 
 After Concord Fight, it is Emerson who has made 
 Concord s reputation, or, rather, its reputation has 
 been he. More victorious even than the embattled 
 farmers of a century ago, he attracted invaders in 
 stead of repelling them. No one can take his place, 
 now that he is gone ; but the memory of him, and 
 the purity and vitality of the thoughts and of the 
 example with which he has enriched the world, will 
 abide longer than many lifetimes, and will renew 
 again and again, before an ever-widening audience, 
 the summons to virtue and the faith in immortality 
 which were the burden and the glory of his song. 
 
 The pleasantest kind of revenge is that which we 
 can sometimes take upon great men in quoting of 
 themselves what they have said of others. It is 
 easy to be so revenged upon Emerson, because he 
 has been so broadly generous and cordial in his 
 appreciation of human worth. " If there should 
 appear in the company," he observes, " some gentle 
 soul who knows little of persons and parties, of 
 Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a law that dis 
 poses these particulars, and so certifies me of the 
 equity which checkmates every false player, bank 
 rupts every self-seeker, and apprises me of my inde 
 pendence on any conditions of country, or time, or 
 human body, that man liberates me. I arn made 
 
EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. 91 
 
 immortal by apprehending my possession of incor 
 ruptible goods." Who can state the mission and 
 effect of Emerson more tersely and aptly than in 
 those words ? 
 
 But he does not need eulogiums, and it seems half 
 ungenerous to force them upon him now that he can 
 no longer defend himself. So I will conclude by 
 repeating a passage, characteristic of him both as a 
 man and as an American, which perhaps conveys a 
 sounder and healthier criticism, both for us and for 
 him, than any mere nerveless admiration. For great 
 men are great only in so far as they liberate us ; and 
 in courting their tyranny we undo their work. The 
 passage runs thus : 
 
 " Let me remind you that I am only an experimenter. 
 Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least dis 
 credit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle 
 anything as true or false. I unsettle all things : no facts 
 to me are sacred, none profane. I simply experiment, 
 an endless Seeker, with no Past at my back ! " 
 
92 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 IV. 
 A FEENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 
 
 BY M. RENfi DE POYEN BELLEISLE. 
 
 " Le poete inspire, lorsque la terre ignore, 
 Ressemble a ces grands monts que la nouvelle aurore 
 Dore avant tons a son. reveil ; 
 Et qui, longtemps vainqueurs de 1 ombre, 
 Conservent j usque dans la nuit sombre 
 Les derniers rayons du soleil." 
 
 MESDAMES, MESSIEURS : Si je debute par ces vers 
 de Victor Hugo, c est que je trouve qu il y a admira- 
 blement exprime 1 idee que je me fais du poete ; et, 
 que si un mot, un seul, pouvait exprimer mon opinion 
 sur Emerson ; je dirai : c est un poete. Mais il ne 
 s agit pas de le comparer ici avec d autres poetes ni 
 d examiner ce qu il n a pas fait ou ce qu il aurait pu 
 faire. La methode critique la plus simple et la plus 
 sure quand on se trouve en presence d un poete &, 
 etudier, c est de rechercher d abord quelle etait sa 
 conception generale de son art et en second lieu 
 comment il s y est conforme. 
 
 En ce qui coucerne Emerson, la premiere partie de 
 cette e*tude est facile, car dans ses Essais il a plus 
 d une fois et longuement expose" ses vues sur la 
 poesie. Ce qu il y a de rnieux a faire c est done de 
 
Or ,- 
 
 *5^L 
 
 A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 93 
 
 le laisser parler pour lui-ineme, on du moms tenter de 
 vous faire entendre un echo de sa voix puissante. * 
 
 L homme, place dans 1 Univers an milieu des phe- 
 nomenes de la Xature et des manifestations sans cesse 
 renaissantes de 1 activite de ses semblables, a d abord 
 un sentiment de diversite infinie. Le poete est 
 I liomme qui, doue (Tune vue plus puissante que le 
 conimun des homines, penetre au-dela de ces appa- 
 rences, de cette variete, et decouvre derriere cette 
 diversite de la surface une unite qui est au fond. 
 Plus il s approchera de ce point central ou tout s unit 
 et plus grand sera le Poete. Dans son expression la 
 plus elevee, la Poesie se confond avec la Religion ; les 
 plus grand poetes sont les instructeurs religieux, et les 
 Bibles des nations seront ecrites. Si 1 ceuvre du Poete 
 est un miroir dans lequel toute la Xature vient se re- 
 fleter fidelement ; si en lisant ses vers nous entendons 
 le bruissement des feuilles des arbres ; si la tempete 
 y hurle, si les passions y grondent et si 1* Amour y 
 soupire ce qu il a de plus tendre et de plus delicat, ce 
 poete la, son nom est sur toutes les levres; c est Shake 
 speare ! Si s absorbant dans sa contemplation de la 
 Nature, il s efforce de traduire 1 esprit qui s en degage, 
 de decouvrir sous TefTet la cause qui est encore plus 
 belle, ce poete c est Wordsworth ! Si, au contraire, 
 tournant sa vue plus particulieremeut vers Thornine, 
 il observe ses ridicules, ses travers, ses passions, ses 
 vices, et s il saisit le Protee malgre ses iunombrables 
 transformations, ce poete c est Moliere ! Cette intui 
 tion puissante, voila ce qui fait le Poete et voila ce 
 
94 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 qui fait qu Emerson est un poete. " Poetry," a dit 
 Lord Bacou, " accommodates the shows of the world 
 to the desires of the mind." C est bien la la definition 
 qu il conviendrait d appliquer a sa poesie, c est du 
 reste celle qu il donne lui-meme sous une autre 
 forme, lorsqu il dit : " C est 1 expression de 1 esprit 
 parlant d apres ce qui est ideal et non d apres ce qui 
 est apparent." 
 
 Mais parmi les poetes quelle sera la place d Emer- 
 son ? Parmi les premiers et les plus grands. Sa 
 podsie est de celle qui se confond avec la religion 
 elle-meme. Seulement, il faut s entendre sur la 
 valeur des mots. Lorsqu on parle d Emerson, il est 
 important de definir ceux qu on emploie avec la plus 
 graride exactitude, car il ne tient pas cornpte en s en 
 servant du sens que 1 habitude a faussement pu leur 
 attribuer. La religion est le sentiment de 1 Infini, 
 c est 1 anie s elevant vers les choses qui sont invisibles 
 et e ternelles, c est le sentiment qui s empare de 1 ame 
 en presence du double probleme de notre origine et 
 de notre destinee. - L homme religieux est celui qui 
 croit qu il n est rien dans la creation, pas meme 
 1 atome le plus petit, qui ne soit destine a servir une 
 fin generale et universelle. La religion nous revele 
 le lien subtil qui unit toutes choses. Eien n est 
 isole dans la Nature, tout se rattache a une cause, et 
 la cause supreme trouve son expression dans 1 ordre 
 moral de VUnivers. Si Ton vient m objecter que ces 
 vues sont tant soit peu impregnees de mysticisme, je 
 dois humblement confesser que je suis incapable de 
 
A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 95 
 
 discerner jusqu a quel point j en suis coupable. Je 
 ne suis pas assez profondement verse dans les sys- 
 temes philosophiques pour savoir ou commence et oii 
 finit le inysticisme. Pour moi c est le paroxysme du 
 sentiment religieux, c est 1 extase a laquelle 1 ame 
 arrive par la contemplation de la verite morale ; 
 mais, s il y a du danger a s abandonner a 1 exaltation 
 de ce sentiment, Emerson n y tombe pas ; 1 impor- 
 tance qu il attache a 1 individualite de I homme Ten 
 preserve. Si comme on 1 a dit sa tete est quelquefois 
 entouree de nuages, ses pieds sont to uj ours fortement 
 plantes sur le sol et ne quittent pas la terre. 
 
 II fait de sa raison 1 emploi le plus intrepide et le 
 plus actif, et, 1 applique sur tous les objets qui en sont 
 dignes, car, non seulement son esprit est religieux, 
 mais aussi profondement philosophique. Ce mot de 
 philosophe, nous ne le comprenons pas cependant de 
 la meme fa^on que Mr. Matthew Arnold ; et, nous 
 n avons pas de peine a lui accorder qu Emerson n a 
 pas ete un philosophe ainsi qu il 1 entend. Xon, il 
 n a pas le genie constructif des Platon, des Kant, des 
 Spinosa, mais, est-ce bien le genie constructif de ces 
 grands homines qui leur a gagne notre admiration ? 
 Pour ma part, je croirai plutut que la place qu ils ont 
 su conquerir parmi les maitres de la pensee humaine, 
 ils la doivent non pas a leurs constructions, plus ou 
 moiiis en mines aujourd hui ; mais a la beaute de 
 leurs idees, a leur profoncleur, a 1 impulsion feconde 
 qu ils ont donne a 1 esprit humain. Si le genie con 
 structif est la condition sine qyA non du philosophe, 
 
96 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 il nous faut abandonner ce titre pour Emerson ; mais 
 que nous 1 appellions le Penseur, le Sage, le Prophete 
 il n en demeure pas moins toujours le meme pour 
 nous. Mais pourquoi, apres tout, renoncer a ce mot 
 de philosophe ? il est trop beau pour ne pas le con- 
 server. Emerson est " an endless seeker without any 
 past at his back," mais il est encore quelque chose de 
 plus pour nous, et nous pouvons, certes, lui appliquer 
 la definition du philosophe que Thoreau a faite ; 
 " To be a philosopher is not merely to have sub 
 tle thoughts, or even to found a school, but so to 
 love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a 
 life of independence, simplicity, magnanimity, and 
 trust," 
 
 Mais apres avoir dit qu Emerson e*tait un poete, 
 il semble, pour ainsi dire, oiseux de tant insister sur 
 ses tendances religieuses et philosophiques. Ce mot 
 poete dit tout ; car, dans ma pensee, un poete doit etre 
 necessairement un homme religieux et un philosophe. 
 La philosophic est le sol fertile, ou la plante poetique 
 prendra fortement racine. II n y a pas d incompati- 
 bilite, 1 une n exclut pas 1 autre. Le soleil, qui va 
 chercher j usque dans les entrailles de la terre les 
 semences pour les fe*conder, est aussi le peintre ad 
 mirable qui donne aux fleurs leur splendide eclat. 
 
 Si apres avoir essaye de definir le Poete, nous essay- 
 ons de pe netrer plus profondement dans son oeuvre, si 
 nous fixons notre attention sur ses idees, nous pouvons 
 Jeter sur elles un rapide coup d ceil en les groupant 
 autour des trois points principaux qui contiennent 
 
A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 97 
 
 tout ce qu il est important pour 1 homme de con- 
 naitre. Dieu, la Nature et 1 homme, voila le fonds 
 eternel de toute speculation humaine. 
 
 Et d abord pour conimencer par Dieu, il me semble 
 que toute 1 ceuvre d Emerson peut se concentrer, se 
 resurner dans ce seul mot ; c est la ce point central vers 
 lequel tout converge, duquel tout rayonne. Quelque 
 soit le sujet qu Einerson traite, quelque soit la position 
 qu il occupe sur la circonference, nous sonimes surs 
 qu il suivra toujours le rayon qui le ramenera infail- 
 liblement au Centre. Dieu est tout, il est dans tout 
 et partout. Emerson n est pas un metaphysicien 
 et par consequent nous n avons pas a approfondir ses 
 vues sur la nature de Dieu. Croit-il a la personalite 
 de Dieu ? Ses affirmations sont assez larges pour 
 qu on puisse leur donner la signification qu ou est 
 porte a accepter : " Self-existence is the attribute of 
 the Supreme Being." Ainsi que 1 a fait remarquer 
 Mr. G. W. Cooke, il serait tres injuste de limiter 
 1 idee qu Emerson a de la divinite a ce qu il a dit sur 
 Dieu. L idee qu il a de 1 ame repose sur celle qu il 
 a de Dieu, et il ne separe pas un seul instant ces 
 deux idees. Sa conception de 1 ame necessite la 
 croyance dans 1 existence de Dieu comme une Intel 
 ligence supreme. Une ame qui pense ne peut avoir 
 rien de commun avec une Essence qui ne pense pas ; 
 une ame qui a confiance en elle-meme ne peut pas 
 s absorber dans un Ocean de vie, mais le secret de sa 
 force est dans sa parfaite harmonie avec un principe 
 libre et intelligent comme elle-meme. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 La Nature est le symbole de 1 Esprit Universel, 
 c est 1 ceuvre de Dieu, et ses apparences n ont de 
 realite qu en lui. Ici nous nous trouvoris en pre 
 sence des critiques que Ton prodigue a 1 idealisme. 
 L homme sensuel qui retient avec force les choses 
 dont il tire ses jouissances, traitera de fou celui qui 
 voudra lui faire croire que ces choses ne sont 
 qu apparentes. Neanmoins, tout ce que nous voyons, 
 tout ce que nous sentons, tout ce qui, en un mot, 
 nous tombe sous les sens, ne sont que des accidents. 
 Ce qui n est pas accidental, mais absolu et necessaire, 
 c est 1 Esprit qui a cree tout cela. Nous n entendons 
 pas cependant par la transformer le monde exterieur 
 en une vaste fantasmagorie, ni changer la vie en une 
 hallucination, mais nous affirmons que notre certi 
 tude de la realite de 1 existence des phenomenes 
 exterieurs est basee sur un temoignage plus serieux 
 que celui des sens : " The Universe," dit Emerson, 
 "is the externization of the soul. . . . The world is 
 mind precipitated, the volatile essence is forever es 
 caping again into the state of free thought. Hence 
 the pungency and virtue of every natural object on 
 the mind. Man imprisoned, man crystallized speaks 
 to man impersonated." Non certes nous ne voulons 
 pas jeter des pierres a cette mere si belle, nous ne 
 voulons salir et souiller le doux nid qui nous abrite. 
 L amour de la Nature est un des traits les plus carac- 
 teristiques d Emerson, il se revele avec force dans 
 toutes ses ceuvres ; mais dans aucun de ses ecrits, ce 
 sentiment n est aussi vif que dans "Nature." En 
 
A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 99 
 
 lisant ce livre, il me semble que j assiste an spectacle 
 de 1 aurore. Je sens mon front caresse par la brise 
 matinale, je vois le soleil commence! a clarder ses 
 premiers rayons et les legers nuages qui flottent a 
 1 horizon s empourprer dans 1 immensite claire. Je 
 me laisse entrainer par 1 enthousiasme du poe te, car 
 e est un vrai chant qui resonne a mes oreilles ; et, 
 parfois me me je crois saisir de vrais accents de 
 passion. 
 
 Si la Nature est la contre-partie de 1 ame, son but 
 est evidemment de servir a 1 education et aux besoins 
 de 1 homme. Emerson renferme les differents services 
 qu elle pent nous rendre dans les differentes categories 
 de Commoclite, de Beaute, de Laugage et de Disci 
 pline. Ce qu il dit du Laugage m interesse particu- 
 lierement, d autant plus que j y trouve la definition 
 de sa poesie elle-meme, definition qui peut se for- 
 muler aiusi : " La Poesie est 1 expression d un fait 
 spirituel par un symbols naturel." Le Poete prend 
 possession de la Nature toute entiere et s en sert pour 
 exprimer ses pensees. II donne une voix a toute 
 creature et fait de l univers une immense trope : 
 " L imagination," dit Emerson, "peut etre definie Tusage 
 que la raison fait du moncle exterieur," et, comrne 
 exemple, il cite Shakespeare ; il parle de ses merveil- 
 leux Sonnets avec un enthousiasme entrainant ; mais 
 ce qu il dit de Shakespeare peut s appliquer aussi a 
 lui-meme. La poesie d Emerson c est vraiment la 
 Nature traduite en pensee ; il a fait entrer dans sa 
 trame le brin de paille que 1 hirondelle avait dans 
 
100 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 son bee, son livre est pai-fume* de 1 odeur des pins, sa 
 voix est aussi douce que le fremissement des gerbes 
 d epis, et que le murmure des ruisseaux qui coulent 
 sous 1 herbe. 
 
 A 1 oeil percent du poete une loi de progres se 
 manifests dans cette belle Nature qu il con temple et 
 il suit le mouvement ascensionnel dans 1 echelle des 
 etres : 
 
 " 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 spires of form." 
 
 L homme ! voila done le dernier anneau de la 
 chain e, le couronnement de 1 ceuvre, le roi de la 
 creation. L homme, c est la matiere arrivee au point 
 ou elle a conscience de son existence. L homme a 
 nn ame ; et cette ame est I etincelle divine qui vient 
 du foyer central. L ame c est Dieu dans Thomme ; et 
 Dieu est 1 etre ou s unissent toutes les individuality s. 
 II n y a pas de mouvements lyriques comparables a 
 ceux d Emerson lorsqu il parle de cette unite et de 
 cette identite de Tame humaine : " This central fire 
 which, beaming out of the lips of Etna, lightens the 
 capes of Sicily ; and naming now out of the throat 
 of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of 
 Naples. It is one light which beams out of a thou 
 sand stars ; it is one soul which animates all men." 
 De cette haute conception de ce qui constitue notre 
 
A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 101 
 
 individuality Emerson fait decouler la premiere 
 regie sur laquelle il edifiera sa morale. Sonore et 
 per^ante comme la note clu clairon, il lance cette 
 phrase, " Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that 
 iron string." 
 
 Mais cette confiance en nous-memes, pour en jouir 
 il faut que nous fassions le sacrifice de tout ce que 
 nous avons de personnel et d egoiste en nous. Pour 
 que nous puissions compter sur nous-memes, il est 
 necessaire que nous ayons d abord pleine et entiere 
 confiance dans les e ternelles lois de 1 Univers. 
 
 " Les eternelles lois, comme un fleuve puissant, 
 Poursuivent lentement leur cours irresistible ; 
 Rien ne pent resister a ce flot qui descend 
 Dont 1 oeil ne saisit pas le flux imperceptible. 
 
 " Notre barque, flottant sur cette onde paisible, 
 Profite de leur force en y obeissant, 
 Ease le sein des eaux et glisse en s y bercant, 
 Se laissaut entrainer par uu guide invisible. 
 
 " Nous n avons pas besoin d un incessant travail ; 
 La voile peut tomber et la rame etre oisive, 
 S il est bien dirige, 1 esquif au port arrive. 
 
 " Mais il faut fermement tenir le gouvernail, 
 Et surtout se garder d aller en sens inverse ; 
 Car alors en passant la vague nous ren verse." 
 
 C est notre obeissance a ces lois qui setile peut nous 
 rend re forts. "Lorsqu un homme/ dit Emerson, "tra- 
 vaille dans la direction clu Bien ; il est aide par toutes 
 les forces de 1 Univers. Ce sont ces lois immuables, 
 
102 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 c est cet ordre eternel des choses que les homines 
 accusent dans leur folie. C est ce meme Pouvoir 
 bienfaisant qu ils appellent Eatalite, lorsqu ils se 
 sentent blesses pour avoir tente de le violer." " Tis 
 weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate ; 
 the right use of Fate is to bring up our actions to 
 the loftiness of Nature. Eude and invincible, except 
 by themselves, are the elements ; so let man be, 
 let him empty his breast of his windy conceits and 
 show his lordship by manners and deeds on the scale 
 of Nature. A man should compare advantageously 
 with an oak, a river, or a mountain." 
 
 " Autour de toi, le rocher, 1 arbre, 
 Le granit et le bloc de marbre, 
 Obeissent tons a la loi ; 
 Et tout te repete sans cesse 
 Que tu dois faire avec sagesse 
 Ce qu ils font sans savoir pourquoi. 
 
 " Ces vastes mers et ces montagnes, 
 Ces larges fleuves et ces campagnes, 
 Tout cela n appartient qu a toi ; 
 Et tu fais croitre ta puissance 
 Par ta sublime obeissance 
 Au grand Pouvoir qui t a fait roi ! " 
 
 Cette confiance que nons devons avoir en nous- 
 in ernes, c est la vertu mere de toutes les autres, c est 
 le principe fecond qui nous fera nous retrouver nous- 
 m ernes. II changera la face de notre religion, de 
 notre politique, de notre literature. Nous ne serons 
 plus des imitateurs, mais nous oserons etre nous- 
 
A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 103 
 
 memes. Xous ne nous contenterons pas d une admi 
 ration sterile pour les ceuvres du passe ; mais nous 
 essaierons nous aussi de les egaler et de les surpasser. 
 Le sens d independance spirituelle, d apres Emerson, 
 est comme cet admirable vernis de la rosee ; grace 
 auquel cette vieille terre et toutes ses productions 
 so nt rendues chaque matin nouvelles et brillantes 
 sous la derniere touche de 1 artiste. Non, nous ne 
 nous laisserons pas decourager par les gloires du 
 passe. Les grands hommes qui nous ont precede 
 nous les considererons comme des plongeurs heureux 
 dans cet Ocean, dont le fond est encore pave de perles 
 dont nous pouvons nous emparer. 
 
 " Oui, d autres out plonge dans cette mer profonde, 
 Us sont alles chercher la perTe au fond de 1 onde ; 
 Quand ils sont revenus, ils 1 avaient a la main ; 
 Mais, 1 ocean toujours en tresors abonde, 
 C est a nous de chercher a depouiller son sein, 
 Ceux qui le tenteront, n essaieront pas en vain." 
 
 Comment Emerson se sert-il de ses idees ; ou, en 
 d autres termes ; quelle est sa rnethode ? Je pro- 
 nonce la un mot qui sonne etrangement quand on 
 parle d Emerson ; il est generalement pris dans une 
 acception si pedant esque qu il est vraiment dange- 
 reux de Temployer. La methods d Emerson est 
 toute poetique. II y a une phrase de Montaigne, 
 que du reste Emerson s est appropriee, et qui 
 exprime admirablement ce que j ai dans la pensee. 
 " Les abeilles," dit Montaigne, " qui pillotent de ci, 
 de la, font le miel qui est tout leur ; ce n est plus ni 
 
104 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 thym ni marjolaine." Le poete est cette abeille; 
 tout dans 1 homme et dans la Nature 1 attire, et le miel 
 qu il en distille est sa pensee. Pen importe le sujet 
 qu il prend, il en fera tou jours sortir la grande legon. 
 Comme Wordsworth il pourrait dire aussi : 
 
 " To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
 
 Qui ne connait ces vers charmants au Rhodora ? 
 
 En Mai lorsque des vents les soufles sont moins rudes, 
 
 Je vis le Rhodora parer nos solitudes ; 
 
 II etalait ses fleurs tremblarites sur les eaux 
 
 Pour charmer le desert, 1 onde entre les roseaux 
 
 Ses petales flottaient eclat-antes et belles 
 
 Sur le sombre ruisseau qu egayait sa beaute ; 
 
 Le cardinal cut pji, tout pale a son cote, 
 
 Pour courtiser la fleur venir baigner ses ailes. 
 
 Rhodora ! les sages demanderont pourquoi 
 
 Ce charm e sur la terre est gaspille par toi ? 
 
 Reponds : que si pour voir, 1 ceil s ouvre a la lurniere, 
 
 D etre aussi, la beaute, s excuse a sa maniere. 
 
 Si de te voir ici mon ame s etonna 
 
 Je n ai rien demande rivale de la rose ; 
 
 Car dans mon ignorance humblement je suppose 
 
 Que le memo Pouvoir qui t y mit, m y mena. 
 
 Eien n est trop petit, rien n est indigne de fixer la 
 pensee du poete, car tout aboutit au meme but ; tout 
 aussi emane de la meme cause ; c est toujours la meme 
 essence qui recoit les differents noms d Amour, de 
 Justice, de Temperance, de meme que cet immense 
 ocean qui change de noms sur les differents rivages 
 qu il baigne. 
 
A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 105 
 
 Cette consideration de la methode d Emerson 
 m amene naturellement a parler de son style. Mr. 
 John Burroughs dans un article insere dans le Cen 
 tury d Avril dernier, dit que les grands ecrivains ont 
 deux faqons d exhiber leur style, dans la conception 
 et le dessein, aussi par le fini et le traitement. II 
 reconnait qu Emerson pusseds la seconde qualite 
 dans toute son etendue et que rien n est compara 
 ble a la perfection de sa phrase, niais il semble con- 
 clure que la premiere qualite lui fait defaut. Ce 
 n est pas mon avis ; si je ne vais pas jusqu a trouver 
 chez Emerson une conception et un dessein comme 
 dans rceuvre d un peintre on d un compositeur, j y 
 decouvre une unite reelle qui est plus profonde encore, 
 et qui vient de la tendance uniforms et constants de ses 
 pensees, une unite de but, si je puis m exprimer ainsi. 
 
 Mr. Burroughs a ete plus heureux lorsqu il applique 
 a Emerson la fameuse phrase de Ste. Beuve, qui parle 
 du grands poete, non pas comme de celui qui a le 
 mieux fait au point de vue de la perfection acade- 
 mique ; mais de celui qui suggere le plus, qui excite, 
 feconde, vous laisse beaucoup a deviner et a completer. 
 C est ce que fait Emerson. A ceux qui disent ne pas 
 le comprendre, il a lui-meme repondu d avance : 
 
 " mortal ! thy ears are stones, 
 These echoes are laden with tones 
 "\Vhieh only the pure can hear. 
 Thou canst not catch what they recite 
 Of Will and Fate, of Want and Right, 
 Of man to come, of human life, 
 Of death and fortune, growth and strife." 
 
106 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Emerson est un Beformateur ; le colonel Higgin- 
 son a ce propos 1 a fait remarquer. Nul n a une physi- 
 onomie aussi marquee que lui a cet egard. ; II est 
 arrive en efi et que des homines out fait des revolu 
 tions dans la litterature ou dans la vie, sans d abord 
 se rendre bien compte du resultat qu ils allaient 
 atteindre. Emerson des ses premiers pas avait au con- 
 traire pris 1 attitude qu il devait toujours garder et 
 dont il n a jamais devie. Qu on relise les premieres 
 lignes de " Nature ; " il est impossible d affi rmer plus 
 nettement ses intentions reforinatrices. 
 
 La sanction des enseignements d Emerson est dans 
 sa vie, qui presente un rare exemple d unite et de con 
 sistence. Jarnais une vie n a servi de commentaire 
 aussi eclatant aux ecrits d un homme. Que Ton 
 compare le ton de 1 Adresse devaut le Divinity Col 
 lege en 1838, avec celle qui est intitulee " Progress of 
 Culture." Quelle hardiesse dans la premiere ! quelle 
 serenite dans la seconde ! C est que dans le long 
 espace de temps qui s e*tait ecoule entre elles, bien 
 des evenements etaient survenus, et, que leurs re- 
 sultats avaient plus que jamais augmente sa foi dans 
 riiuinanite. II avait assiste a la grande crise que son 
 pays avait traverse. II etait fier de rheroisme d une 
 nation qui s etait soulevee toute entiere centre la 
 honte de Tesclavage. C est avec une confiance paisible 
 qu il voyait le soleil se coucher dans un ciel sans 
 images ; et que dans la joie de son coeur il s ecriait : 
 " I read the promise of happier times and of better 
 men!" 
 
A FRENCH VIEW OF EMERSON. 107 
 
 Emerson est un Americain ; il Test par le carac- 
 tere determine et hardi de sa pensee, par les graces 
 particulieres de sa forme. II fallal t sans doute line 
 terre vierge pour nourir cette vigoureuse plante ; 
 une individualite aussi puissante que la sienne ne 
 pouvait se produire qu au milieu d une societe qui 
 permet a 1 liomme de se developper en pleiue liberte 
 et de tirer de ses facultes tous les secours qu il 
 peut en attendre. Ce sera, Mesdames et Messieurs, 
 reternel bonneur de votre pays, d avoir merite ce 
 grand homme, Puisse-t-il en produire d autres sem- 
 blables a lui ! Puissent leurs voix puissantes nous 
 arreter sur les pentes glissantes ou nous roulons. 
 Puissent-ils nous aider a nous retrouver nous- 
 memes, en augmentant notre foi dans la liberte 
 de la volonte, notre respect pour la personalite 
 hunmine. 
 
 J ai parle d un poe te, et, j ai conscience, helas ! 
 d etre reste bien au-dessous du sujet que j avais a 
 traiter ; mais j aurais, en passant du moins, laisse 
 tomber ma modeste couronne aux pieds de sa 
 blanche statue. 
 
 Penseur ! en te lisant j apprends a me connaitre, 
 
 Et je deviens moi-meme, en ecoutant ta voix ; 
 
 Tu paries comme un homme et non pas comme un maitre, 
 
 Car tu veux simplement montrer ce que tu vois. 
 
 L Univers est regi par d eternelles lois, 
 
 II faut que I homme accepte et sache se soumettre ; 
 
 Mais il augmente aiusi la force de son etre, 
 
 II grandit, s il s incline en se disant : " Je dois! " 
 
108 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 On t appelle ecrivain, philosophe ou poete, 
 
 Mais de 1 homme pour moi tu fus le vrai prophete, 
 
 Et je te nornmerai mon guide et mon sauveur. 
 
 Car tu m as eclaire d une vive lumiere. 
 
 Grace a toi, je suis fort pour fournir ma carriere ; 
 
 Mon co3ur s est ennamnie de ta noble ferveur. 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 109 
 
 V. 
 
 EMERSON S RELIGION. 
 
 BY REV. C. A. BARTOL, D.D. 
 
 ARTISTS sometimes paint their own portraits. In 
 describing Emerson s religion I shall make him, as 
 far as possible, sit, not to me, but to himself. The 
 soul is shy in its devotions. It enters the closet 
 and shuts the door. What I worship is my secret, 
 says Rubinstein. To know r a man s religion, we 
 must surprise him on his knees ; and that is an 
 intrusion and offence. George Washington, whose 
 nature had but a tropical calm, being interrupted at 
 his prayers by an importunate knocking at his cham 
 ber, arose, and, putting at once wrath for humility, 
 thrust his sword through the panel of the door. 
 
 That Emerson, though no such volcano, rather a 
 cool observer and unimpassioned saint, was a pious 
 man, and that religion was a feeling raised in him to 
 the highest power, was proved to me by the rapture 
 in his look after a service in his house nearly half a 
 century ago. 
 
 " His eyes let out more light than they took in ; 
 They told not when, but did the day begin/ 
 
110 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Such light, as Wordsworth says, " never was on sea 
 or land." Yet Emerson broke with the organized re 
 ligion of the Church, not on a point of faith, but 
 of form. A born idealist, carrying or carried by his 
 idealism sometimes to excess, offended by the dea 
 cons creaking boots as they bore around the con 
 secrated elements in their hands, he forswore his 
 clerical part in that particular ceremony as unsuited 
 to the Occidental mind, and proposed a change in the 
 administration of the Lord s Supper; which his parish 
 not accepting, he resigned his place, parting with grief 
 from his flock. Many years after, when, on a differ 
 ent issue, of removing between church and congrega 
 tion the sacramental line, I was ready to leave my 
 post, he advised me to remain, and reform from the 
 inside ; and he spoke then to me of his own pain in 
 the rupture of the pastoral tie. At one time he 
 queried if Christianity were a blessing. By triangu 
 lating the points of his early experience we may 
 measure his position. The business of the pulpit, 
 function of the preacher, he never decried. When 
 Dr. Bellows congratulated him on his independence 
 as a free lance, he replied, "If there be a load to 
 draw, a harness is a good thing." He had but 
 slipped from an unfit tackle : 
 
 " Why should the vest on him allure, 
 Which I could not on me endure ? " 
 
 Yet not with the investiture did he confound the 
 thing. " Let us converse aside," he said to me, when 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. Ill 
 
 I differed from him about the person of Christ. 
 Doubtless he swuDg from and then back to Chris 
 tianity, but never quite away ; as the magnetic 
 meridian cannot forsake, but leaves and returns to 
 the pole, is now returning, astronomers say. 
 
 " One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world hath never lost." 
 
 What treatise on Scripture inspiration or apostolic 
 succession are not these lines more than worth ? 
 The critic of Emerson has a hard time, finding that 
 Emerson is always beforehand in his trade, and always 
 criticises and answers himself. We can read but one 
 face of the coin at a time, and he never forgets to 
 turn it over. Father Taylor wanted to navigate, he 
 said, on the edge of the pit. Emerson s ship tacks 
 close to the reef, and zigzags into port. He flouts the 
 ritual, and gives it its revenge: "A whole popedom 
 of forms one pulsation of virtue can uplift and 
 vivify." There are two oxen always in his team, and 
 the farther they strain apart the surer and stronger 
 they pull. He is an optimist, extravagant to declare 
 the brothel or gallows a step upwards. 
 
 " Yet spake yon purple mountain, 
 
 Yet said yon ancient wood, 
 That night or day, that love or crime, 
 Sends all men to the good." 
 
 But shall slavery escape his lash ? Does he not see 
 every drop of Mr. Webster s blood point down ? Is 
 he charged with inconsistency, he pleads sincerity. 
 
112 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 As an expert marksman hits and flattens in the tar 
 get his first bullet with a second, so he makes his 
 sentences each other s butt, the spirit of truth always 
 the aim. He claims a first hand with Deity, and 
 says, " Off, ye landings ! " to traditions. 
 
 " By God, I will not be an owl, 
 But sun me in the capitol." 
 
 Yet he bows to the majestic and venerable institu 
 tion that hands down revelations from age to age. 
 Still, he asks, " Why not have an original relation to 
 Nature, our own works and words, and worship ? " 
 
 He is an immigrant from some other land, like 
 David ; a pilgrim and stranger on the earth, like Paul, 
 coining from and seeking a city foreign to this world, 
 where lie is not quite naturalized and at home. As 
 a vessel touches at Bermuda or the Azores, he is a 
 visitor who must weigh anchor and cannot stay; and 
 this posture or aspect is the expression of that sense 
 of the Infinite in which, more than in any feeling of 
 dependence, or owning of obligation, or reading of 
 Nature s volume between the lines, or effort at per 
 sonal perfection, or otherwise defined mood of mind 
 or condition of life, religion consists. He interro 
 gates all observances and creeds, bids them report at 
 he ad -quarters of the intellect; will see and judge for 
 himself, and not look through others spectacles. The 
 divine personality he doubts, but leaves his specu 
 lation, like Joseph s coat, in the hands of the har 
 lot when he prays. To Mr. Arnold s " Power not 
 
EMERSOVS RELIGION. 113 
 
 ourselves that makes for righteousness," he would say, 
 "Is it not OUT self ?" 
 
 " Himself from God he could not free." 
 
 The boundary line or stone betwixt man and his 
 Maker, he thinks, was never found. He can scarce 
 say T/wu to Him of whom he is part. Seven genera 
 tions in him of ministerial blood have so lifted and 
 refined his thought, that he cannot rush rashly into the 
 Great Presence, or pray to order at a set time in a set 
 place. His installation in New Bedford was stopped 
 by his request to the committee that the public 
 prayers should be optional. He offered prayer in 
 the Divinity School Chapel before his Address. But 
 it was impersonal, to Infinite Wisdom and Good 
 ness to grant light to our lowliness, as I still 
 remember the terms which I heard, and which a rev 
 erend brother at the time, loving him, yet pronounced 
 to be no prayer. But it was an articulation, for a 
 moment, of the prayer without ceasing in a loyal 
 heart, a continuation of what had begun or been 
 eternal, 
 
 " Or ever the wild Time coined itself 
 Into calendar months and days." 
 
 Every man of ideas, identified with principles which 
 are everlasting, seems to us and to himself to have 
 pre-existed, as Plato says, and been loved, like Jesus, 
 before the foundation of the world. Emerson says 
 he knows not whether these thoughts, which so ani 
 mate and exercise him, will house again in just such 
 
 8 
 
114 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 a frame, only that they cannot be sick with any sick 
 ness, or die any death. He is not an accredited rep 
 resentative of, nor a seceder from, the Church which 
 first suckled and at last sucked him back ; but he 
 insisted to the last his name should be on her books. 
 He said, as the Master bids, Yea, yea, as well as Nay. 
 nay; but his Yes was more than his No. Aliquando 
 Ecclesia in exiguis. " Sometimes the Church is com 
 posed of the smallest number of persons," says an 
 ancient father. It may be, as avers the Apostle, in 
 a house, or, let us add, in one breast full of saintly 
 company, like Channing s, standing for the dignity 
 of human nature; or Garrison s answering, when re 
 proached with not going to meeting, that he some 
 times preached to himself. ^Emerson, when he felt 
 and celebrated the world-warming spark, 
 
 " The axis of the star, 
 The sparkle of the spar^" 
 
 proclaimed the universal divinity ;/ though he tells us 
 when we are with God we count not the congregation, 
 
 The Muse teaches a living God. 
 
 I 
 
 " Into the fifth himself he flings, 
 And conscious Law is King of kings." 
 
 His doctrine of the access of the Spirit to the pri 
 vate soul is not new, but very old. The Montanists 
 maintained that the Holy Ghost had not spent itself 
 on the formulas of belief and worship understood and 
 agreed upon in the society of the faithful, but had 
 left some things still to be said. American Emerson, 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 115 
 
 like the French Montaigne, was the Roman Mon- 
 tanus over again. Despite Councils of Xice and 
 Chalcedon, and theological triumphs of Saint Angus- 
 tine, modern history demonstrates the indispensable 
 additions to the Hebrew Bible, without which all 
 nations would still be subject to kings, slaves would 
 cringe under their masters whip, women would 
 neither bare their heads nor cut their hair, nor open 
 their mouths save to husbands at home; records 
 would be put for truth, the killing letter for the 
 enlivening spirit, and God be a child that can 
 not find his tongue. Discarding Trinitarian absurd 
 ities, Emerson also scores the pale negations of 
 Unitarianism. Whatever part of the so-called Lib 
 eral, Radical, Free Religious host switches off into 
 materialism and immorality, leaving the main track 
 of the Transcendental movement, as a curve on the 
 railway at length reaches the opposite point of the 
 compass, has none of his sympathy. He reverts to 
 his ancestry. The old Puritan in him revives. He 
 greets a new Orthodoxy rather than any liberty of 
 sin. He says, " A little Calvinism does not hurt the 
 flavor of the bread." 
 
 Labor is respectable ; and this man is a working 
 bee in the hive, not a self-indulging, sensual, honey- 
 eating drone. When one praised to him the privi 
 lege of vacation, the delicious summer-rest, he said, 
 " That poppy grows among the corn." " The miller, 
 like the poet, is a lazy man, setting his wheel in the 
 stream;" but his watching is work. The poet culti- 
 
116 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 vates and reaps, not with plough and hoe, scythe or 
 sickle. 
 
 " One harvest from thy field 
 
 Homeward brought the oxen strong ; 
 A second crop thine acres yield, 
 "Which I gather in a song." 
 
 When I invited him once as a guest, he said, "I 
 must not forsake my tasks." All the sects may well 
 waive claim of property in a man so human and 
 humane. He belongs to no denomination, but to the 
 humanity in all. When the German poet Schiller 
 was asked why he subscribed to no form of religious 
 belief, he answered, " Because I am so religious." 
 When our own Olmsted, of the Sanitary Commis 
 sion, was asked why he absented himself from 
 church, he replied, " Because going to meeting hurts 
 my religious feelings." Church and Saviour were 
 not finalities with Emerson ; and the Bible was to 
 the entire revelation no more than are the wheat- 
 grains among mummies in the Pyramids to all the 
 harvests of the world. 
 
 Emerson came to illustrate and verify again one 
 of the great texts of Holy Writ from the voice of 
 God to John in Patmos : " He that hath an ear, let 
 him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches ; " 
 and if not one of the seven in Asia escaped then, why 
 should any of the thousand in America be excused 
 now ? The prophet must not cease to call the priest 
 to account. He does not break the idols, but puts 
 them out of the way or exposes their deformity ; and, 
 
RELIGION. 117 
 
 though he loves Nature, he makes not, with some of 
 the scientists, a huge idol of her. Rather with Plato 
 he sees but a child s picture-book in all the astron 
 omy ; says the screen is too thin to hide the cause, 
 the outward universe but a shining, peaceful appa 
 rition to be interrogated ; and that the transport of 
 life comes when this vast creation reverently with 
 draws before its Author. None more than Emerson 
 has lived next-door neighbor to truth. " Who is this 
 that turns aside into the thicket from the throng ? " 
 asks Goethe in his poem. It was Moses at Mount 
 Sinai, Paul in Arabia, Jesus in the wilderness, and 
 Emerson a worshipper in the woods. 
 
 "And when I am stretched beneath the pines, 
 Where the evening star so holy shines, 
 I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
 At the sophist schools and the learned clan ; 
 For what are they all, in their high conceit, 
 When mail in the bush with God may meet ?" 
 
 Organ though he be of the religious sentiment, 
 which is vocal in his least syllable and with his last 
 tone, Emerson will be popular only with a class, 
 the finest spirits, a sifted audience of select men and 
 women, because he lacks rush and passion, does not 
 flame or flow, llather he climbs where but few can 
 fiud footing and breath, to dilate and conspire with 
 the morning wind. But to whoso keeps pace with 
 him he gives confidence and peace, a feeling that 
 the world is not base metal, but its Maker, as the 
 Persian Omar Khayam says, a good fellow. Prayer, 
 
118 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Emerson calls the soliloquy of a beholding and jubi 
 lant soul ; meaning not his own or any separate, 
 but that one all are part of, which, as Moses said, 
 takes satisfaction in its own responsive work This 
 participation is not David s prayer, " Cleanse me 
 with hyssop," or Luther s, " Thou must hear me ; " 
 but Wordsworth s, " his mind a thanksgiving to the 
 Power that made him." Emerson is Adam before the 
 Fall. The ground is not cursed for his sake or in his 
 view. He sees no warning angel with flaming sword 
 turning every way on the wall. Thorns and briers 
 fulfil for him no threat. A weed is but a plant 
 whose uses have not been discovered. All the two 
 hundred thousand conceal virtue. He would say, 
 with the Stoics, pain of child-birth or other sort is 
 no evil. He scouts the notion of doom. The poetry 
 of his late incompetent critic, Matthew Arnold, per 
 fect in finish and classic in form, is devoid of cheer ; 
 suggests monumental sculpture, or the adorning of a 
 tomb, as the Eubayat is the dogma of death and 
 splendid mausoleum of human hope. Emerson s lines 
 are an emancipation proclamation set to music, a 
 resurrection to that immortality and identity he told 
 his friend Sanborn he held to. He has not written 
 a verse that does not refresh and exhilarate. ( He 
 never for an instant panders to despondency and 
 despair. If, in Henry Vaughan s figure, such a bird 
 sing not now in some other grove out of mortal sight, 
 what a loss in Nature ! ) What is the use ? ! Says 
 Victor Hugo, " It were unfair if the great expectations 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 119 
 
 of a child be not met ;" arid, if God be not bankrupt, 
 his promissory note will not go to protest.^ Louis 
 Agassiz accounted for the scientists neglect of the 
 supernatural by their being tired, and too much ab 
 sorbed in the natural even to consider the miracu 
 lous ; and Emerson, in the early flush of his genius, 
 was so conscious of the life that is, that he considered 
 as a sort of peeping, all curiosity about that to come. 
 But he was just to the subject in his later years ; 
 the key-hole became a window ; he reverted to the 
 ancient faith ; God and heaven were bound in one 
 volume to his mind. He saw how evolution, like 
 phrenology, deals with structure. It is the book of 
 Exodus, not Genesis. Mind from matter were an 
 effect greater than the cause. Mind from mind has 
 a warrant against dissolution and beyond fate. Re 
 vering the law of duty, he did not resolve religion 
 into morality, but spoke of it as the sentiment. An 
 intelligence like his, the most uncommitted and im 
 partial of our time, deserves for its judgment great 
 respect. What, indeed, but failure can wait on such 
 a fight with the instinct of mankind in all ages and 
 every land, as the attempt to reduce religion to ethics, 
 and cut the blossom from the root ? Whoever has 
 such a purpose, it will spew out of its mouth. We 
 cannot force religion on another, as we may compel 
 him to do his civil duty. v We may have no image in 
 us of God which were a mental idolatry. But the 
 race will always feel and hear from what it cannot 
 comprehend. In vain will any objector brand it as 
 
120 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 unknowable or unknown. (He and his cargo of defi 
 nitions will be swamped in the sea of glory we are 
 full of and float in, by the united, inseparable con 
 stitution of things with the soul. } Emerson s place 
 in the choir of this hosanna and hallelujah will be 
 his crown. 
 
 ; "But why not do something ? " screams Carlyle, with 
 a voice to be heard across the Atlantic, to his friend ; 
 who might reply, quoting himself, " Is not a thought 
 the ancestor of every act ? " But his answer is, that 
 music, not discord, is the core of the world, and an 
 thems better and truer than growls. A sad woman 
 spoke to her legal counsellor of the hollowness of this 
 life, trusting he would give her some courage. How 
 her heart was damped as with a wet sheet, as he ob 
 served, " Well, Madam, all the same let us keep up 
 the sham." So much talk of shams from the Chelsea 
 philosopher not only dejects, but is further from the 
 fact than the Concord sage s lesson from the bee s 
 
 " Merry breezy bass." 
 " Leave the chaff, and take the wheat." 
 
 The American s note is a chant, the Englishman s is 
 prolonged into cant : we stumble on his page. 
 
 Emerson practised on the outcome of his own defi 
 nition of religion, to do and suffer all for others 
 sake. Goethe says it is man s business -to enact hell 
 on the earth. But in a drama of heaven Emerson 
 performed, to prove that what is morose is false. He 
 is not the whole manhood, or its only scribe. He is 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 121 
 
 not fond of the night-side. He is dainty, and lifts 
 his robe, as a lady does, treading through the mire. 
 In his "English Traits" he shuns the shame, unlike 
 those Hebrew scouts of old charged with spying out 
 the nakedness of the land. The world-wide poem 
 of " Faust " is to him a disagreeable composition. He 
 would walk backward to throw a cover on indecency, 
 like Xoah s sons. His admiration for Walt Whit 
 man s firm stroke and unborrowed strain halts at the 
 bald spots on his page. " Xot that we would be un 
 clothed, but clothed upon," he cries with Paul. But, 
 discriminating what is unfit for literature, his percep 
 tion has no drawback. That an observer so quick, 
 a surveyor so wide, whose imagination was an eye 
 and his passions asleep, his brain at least as full 
 as his heart was warm, should advise the reading of 
 all the bibles on bent knees, is a great evidence and 
 vote on behalf of religion. His faith was faithful- 
 
 o 
 
 ness. 
 
 " Nor knowest thou what argument 
 Thy life to thy neighbor s creed hath lent." 
 
 Emerson, supposed irreligious, was pre-eminently 
 religious, because, not bewildered or diverted like a 
 butterfly by the multitude of gay phenomena, he 
 clung to the noumena, the real_and invisible, and his 
 conduct corresponded to his belief Bogtna is thought 
 to be the parent of creed ; but behavior returns the 
 compliment, and fashions the faith. Through all the 
 spectacle and panorama of sensible impressions, coat 
 of many colors, protean forms, he, as Plato bids, exer- 
 
122 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 cised his intellect. His mind and heart sought the 
 object of worship. The atheist leaps like a grass 
 hopper from appearance to appearance ; the pan 
 theist fails to distinguish appearance from reality. 
 He fixed on the unity in the universe. He marked 
 the spiritual motives, perpetual forces, beautiful laws ; 
 he saw them, at work in trifles as manifest as in the 
 vast domain, life a game played with a mill or a mil 
 lion, and from all aberration he noted recovery sure 
 as the planet s or the comet s curve. 
 
 " And while the lamp holds out to burn, 
 The vilest sinner may return." 
 
 He translates the old into a new couplet : 
 
 " And the joy that is sweetest 
 Lurks in stings of remorse." 
 
 To him, as to Wordsworth, all is full of blessings. 
 There is Boston and Concord, Bunker Hill and the 
 "dear old Devil not far off," a shadowy personage to 
 be made a jest of. Life is a normal school, in which 
 he instructs his class, the highest in rank, but not 
 the most numerous ; and he is, unawares, the clear 
 pattern of his own bright lesson. He embodied 
 and was incarnate in every feature and gesture 
 what he taught, affording " the luxury of a religion 
 that does not degrade." Nothing can alienate, dis 
 locate, set him at odds with God. He is reconciled ; 
 he falls " soft on a thought." 
 
 Shall we then indorse his criticism on this wheel 
 or fandango of articles and rites which we call the 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 123 
 
 Church, the same complaint in substance he makes 
 on the common spawn of the species we belong to, 
 
 " Add their niiie lives to this cat, 
 Stuff their nine brains in his hat " ? 
 
 Does his description hold of the poor preacher as 
 spectral, while the snow-storm is real ? Is the sacred 
 truth "but behooted and behowled" ? Let his picture 
 pass for humor. Plato would shut such poetry, with 
 that of Hesiod and Homer and with the enervating 
 music, out of his republic. Let me plead for the poor 
 preacher, to whom a certain " fellow-feeling makes 
 me wondrous kind." He does not in his plain homily 
 grasp the naked thunderbolts of Jove, which slip 
 from all fleshly hands. He does not receive, but 
 transmits, link after link, through long circles and 
 wide ranges, the first full shock. It must be weak 
 ened, for the feeble children of men to bear. The 
 efficacy of certain medicines depends on their dilu 
 tion, and the high potency of moral principle on its 
 nice adaptation to the patient s strength. Meat for 
 men, milk for babes. When Dr. Walker was told the 
 sermon had been very dull one Sunday morning, he 
 said he doubted not it was very good, no ambitious 
 sensational undertaking to capture and astonish by 
 an ambitious official with his chin in the air, but a 
 modest rehearsal of familiar and yet forgotten or neg 
 lected duties. Commonly it is well to serve not high- 
 spiced brands, but brown bread, which Fields told me 
 he furnished. Water is more wholesome than wine. 
 Andrews Norton being in the assembly, Ephraim 
 
124 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Peabody said unquestionably the great professor had 
 despised the logic, and been mortified by the law 
 of the discourse. The strings which the violinist 
 screws too tight before he begins, crack before he 
 gets through, and all for the time is over with the 
 piece he would play. Transcendental catgut will not 
 always bear the strain put upon it, while the hurdy- 
 gurdy in the street pleases the crowd and fears no 
 casualty. " Hear the good artists, hear the bad, and 
 compare," said Eubinstein to his pupil. Ordinary 
 human nature, trudging like Shakspeare s boy " un 
 willingly to school," must not be reproved too harshly 
 in the slow entertainment and moderate stint. 
 
 But Emerson, in his own poems about the " Day s 
 Eation " and the Days like hypocritic dervishes, with 
 artless cunning of self-reproof and owning of however 
 lamented limits, sufficiently refutes his own argu 
 ment or rules his case of exorbitant demand out of 
 court. He goes ahead ; but a good locomotive knows 
 how to back and couple with the train. It must 
 not be forward too far. Loose on the track, flying to 
 and fro, it is called a wild engine, hauling neither 
 passengers nor freight. Such, perhaps, are some of 
 Emerson s excursions. He is one of his own fore 
 runners. Far off his trumpet sounds and stirs. 
 Genius is always sublime in its call. Eubinstein 
 liked not our most famous American preacher s tell 
 ing his audience they could not be expected to go 
 beyond their strength. " No," he affirmed, " they must 
 do the impossible. I tell my pupils they must try 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 125 
 
 to surpass Beethoven, or not study at all." But we 
 accuse God when we are hard on congenitally weak 
 and slenderly endowed men. I sympathize with the 
 under-dog. I think Emerson, the genial and gentle, 
 sometimes punishes his opponent too sorely, bad 
 gers conservatives, and with blockheads and laggards 
 is too severe. But he spares the person, while he 
 assails the class. Only against a few persons did I 
 hear him speak. He is aware of and ever ready to 
 return from his over-statement and excess. He says, 
 perhaps the passage I heard is not in print, " We 
 censure the rich, the fashionable, and luxurious folk ; 
 but we go to their houses to find they are lovers, 
 and our hasty judgment is reversed." His weapon 
 has a trenchant edge and tremendous swing. Ad 
 mirable is Milton s line of the Son of God routing 
 the hosts of Satan : 
 
 " Half his strength he put not forth." 
 
 He would disperse but not destroy ; and enjoining, 
 we must not exact or insist on, angelic virtue save in 
 ourselves ; with the two-edged sword of conscience 
 smiting in more than out. Plato sees the ideal ; the 
 incarnation he does not expect. But superior gift or 
 character is impatient with low attainment. We bolt 
 in vain if the bolters be no better than the rest. Not 
 from any vulgar soul, but from Homer, Dante, Milton, 
 even John and Jesus, come the awful pictures of that 
 underworld where sinners are like flies we poison 
 and burn, only that worm dieth not and the fire is 
 
126 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 not quenched. The infernal upholstery is chalked 
 large, the figures made colossal, because so far off the 
 eye will fetch them down to a small and fitting size. 
 A large dose is brought, when only a little can be 
 got down. It would, one said, have totally depraved 
 Jonathan Edwards to realize the menaces he flung. 
 Emerson atones for his repudiation of the old theology 
 by painting the earthly scene as taunted with churls 
 and little men. But he recants, retracts his satire, 
 prophesies good out of all that is bad and low, gra 
 ciously descends to the folk, not only from the proud 
 hill in Cheshire, but from the Monadnoc of his mind. 
 He scorns the mass as refuse, the majority of voices 
 as base ; yet how quick our acrobat turns, recovers, 
 and falls on his feet ! 
 
 "The pariah hind 
 Admits thee to the perfect mind." 
 
 He cannot be an ecclesiastic when the Church is so 
 corrupt that financial gamblers are communicants in 
 regular standing, to " be sharp as a Baptist deacon " 
 is a motto for the market, and memorial windows are 
 put in cathedrals for persons who have no title to 
 the sacred honor beyond their sect or wealth. Yet 
 Emerson has no conceit of doing without the Church, 
 the institution which does the thinking for Balzac s 
 Breton gentleman and cavalier, who fancies it is 
 enough for him to draw his sword and act. 
 
 On the fact that religion is not an interest of the 
 individual or of all individuals alone, but a social 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 127 
 
 principle, it was not in the line of Emerson s thought 
 more deep and lofty than wise and broad to lay 
 adequate stress. He is not to be blamed that he stuck 
 to his mission. We must not expect a seer to be 
 an organizer, any more than a microscopist to be a 
 helmsman, or an astronomer an engineer. We must 
 supplement his calling, extend his vision, and per 
 haps correct his view. In the irony of his " Sartor 
 Besartus," an essay hinted in Swift s " World in a 
 Suit of Clothes," Carlyle walks over a track of 
 philosophy quite beyond Emerson s beat. Browning, 
 in his satirical poem, makes Bishop Blougram the 
 unbelieving objector s match. Society, civil or re 
 ligious, must have its symbols and symbolical books. 
 To discard ordinances and forms were to abolish its 
 vocabulary and cut out its tongue. To confine its 
 communication to improvised spontaneous speech in 
 its worship, were both to abolish literature and to 
 remand the community from arbitrary characters to 
 picture-language and natural signs. Altar, temple, 
 synagogue, mosque, meeting-house, and conventicle, 
 with their architecture and various inward and out 
 ward order, are the style and alphabet of a common 
 prayer and praise, in token that men are not to go 
 away each to his own selfish solitude with so much 
 of the bread of life as he can get hold of, as a dog 
 runs off with a bone to gnaw ; but in their instruc 
 tions and devotions to have some sort of Lord s Sup 
 per to sit down together to, as in a house we have a 
 table as well as a sideboard ; and, though on occasion 
 
128 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 we may carry a lunch in our pocket, we come back 
 habitually to a joint and punctual feast. 
 
 So, but from poverty of imagination, and a horse- 
 jockey kind of wit, did Theodore Parker call he ele 
 ments nothing but baker s bread and grocer s wine, 
 and say "the Lord ate veal with Abraham;" and 
 that it is whining through an attorney to pray in the 
 name of Christ. (Emerson was kept from such gross- 
 ness by his sagacity and charity no less than his 
 good taste.^ Delivering his blow, he dreamed not the 
 nail he hit was the only one in the common weal s 
 fabric to drive. Abstractions and generalizations will 
 not, without particular prescriptions, heal and save 
 the sick and lost. All space is a temple, but we need 
 some visible shrine. ] All days are holy ; suppose we 
 begin with one ? God is everywhere ; but, lest igno 
 rant creatures think him nowhere, trample his uni 
 versal sanctuary with violence and noise, and find 
 no ground reverently to put off the shoes from their 
 profane and hasty feet, let Protestant service and 
 Romish mass remind them he is at least somewhere ! ^ 
 Better the superstition that besots than the Sadducee- 
 ism that desolates and disenchants. It is a mechani 
 cal age. We have political and theological machines, 
 and must withstand their brute tyrannic force, and 
 get the best resultant we can. But if all contract, 
 compromise, and concerted action fall under the head 
 of machinery, it were as prudent to wipe out mills 
 and railroads, hunt around everybody for his own 
 fig-leaf, and go only afoot, as to disintegrate nations 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 129 
 
 by dissolving civil government or ecclesiastical rule. 
 " In company or on the street," says Bismarck, " I am 
 not an individual, but an event." He means Ger 
 many. , Of the units, society is the source, not the 
 sum. Will you destroy with dynamite and petro 
 leum the religious emblems ? Blow up, then, judicial 
 benches with like explosion, and put flag and shield 
 into the same fire ! The world is a cipher. Only for 
 what it signifies do we care. The soul is the numeral. 
 Time and space are but the floor and curtain-slides 
 of an illusory and transitory stage. Certainly there 
 may be minutiae and mummeries in the Church of 
 but artificial import, which justification of reason 
 cannot reach; but no passwords of an army, no 
 signals at sea, no travellers beckonings or business 
 telegrams, have consequences greater than decent 
 religious observances for the human heart. Eufus 
 Choate humorously said of a certain witness, that he 
 had overworked the participle. We overwork all 
 the parts of speech, and expect to do everything with 
 words. 
 
 " No mountain can 
 Measure with a perfect man." 
 
 Yet no man, says Emerson, can feed us ever. Man, 
 measure of all things, has his measure in every hu 
 man sample yet. Even in our present favorite w r e 
 must note what is limitary and left out as well as 
 catholic and large. Perhaps from his imperfect com 
 prehension comes his atomic style. Cardinal New 
 man has a running hand because borne on amid the 
 
130 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 social or ecclesiastical stream. How can the con 
 scious and unconscious in speech and character be 
 combined ? In certain pieces of orchestral music 
 the general movement of the wind and string instru 
 ments is broken in upon from the unseen outside 
 by some herald s, horseman s, huntsman s messenger- 
 horn, on which the strain pauses for a moment and 
 then relapses into the even tenor of its way. With 
 whatever jars in the execution, it is a grand symphony 
 whose score is set in the human generations. The 
 discord is not in the composition, but in the censori 
 ous critic s ear. But room is provided for the clarion 
 of the prophet to interrupt the uniform sleepy notes 
 in their course. Emerson arrived, after many a He 
 brew and Pagan oracle, to blow the old trumpet again. 
 To him how many owe it that they are now awake, 
 while all the performers within hailing distance of 
 the oracular summons and recall bend with new zeal 
 to their several parts. 
 
 Mr. Arnold, who has forgot the dreams and got 
 so bravely over the supposed illusions of his youth, 
 putting for them the depressing doubts and hopeless 
 speculations of his age, while he prizes Emerson s 
 spiritual substance, eschews, as not good tissue, his 
 literary style. Moses, David, Jesus as reported by his 
 amanuenses, Paul too, and James, under this self-con 
 fident critic s cleaver must lose their heads, as writers 
 and authors, on the same block. They too are no 
 weavers of words, whose work is figured by the loom ; 
 but brief, sententious, pictorial, ejaculatory, a quiver 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 131 
 
 full of arrows being rather their type. Is there not 
 a good prophetic and oracular as well as a didactic 
 or dialectic style ? Emerson s is not the only, and 
 may not be the best. It is not consecutive, a logi 
 cal demonstration, or a spontaneous combustion. It 
 is neither a conflagration nor a flood. It is good 
 form, nevertheless. Its growth is not that of a flower, 
 but a gem. He makes of green wood a fire, some 
 times hot, anon going out. He is an intermittent 
 geyser, a fountain that does not always play. But 
 he draws from the heart of Nature and the river of 
 God. nationalizing writers spin from their brains : 
 he waits patient as a bivalve for the tide. It is not 
 passion, but peace, in this racket of the world of 
 mental uneasiness hushed and drowned so poorly by 
 travel in a million trains. When his tripod speaks, 
 it articulates the everlasting word. It is an even 
 motion, no spurt. Goodness, in Emerson, appears at 
 its high- water mark, like the successive lines the 
 coast-tide leaves, as if it were ruled on the ocean- 
 cliffs. It was absolute, punctual worth. All th e watches 
 oscillate and go a little wrong : hejvas like the Cam 
 bridge Observatory, and gave us sidereal time, but for 
 which to refer to there would be variations incorrigi 
 ble and without end. His was no piecemeal probity. 
 Reverent, not abject ; high, not haughty ; pride and 
 humility ofle and the same. In the conflict between 
 the world-spirit and the Holy Spirit, in which the 
 former is so apt to get the upper hand, he was a 
 Pentecostal man, planting himself on his instincts 
 
132 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 till the huge world came round to him. He was not 
 content with average virtue, or with the available, 
 because unprincipled, nominee. The bawling dema 
 gogue in yonder court-house, he told me, blew him, 
 as he walked, across the road with the breath of his 
 mouth. He refused his hand to the philanthropist 
 on the trickster s side. When Theodore Parker s Har 
 vard College friends wanted to adjourn and lobby to 
 get for him a literary honor, the truthful, impolitic 
 Emerson voted not to postpone. In his tenderness 
 was pluck. Seeing what stuff his virtue was made 
 of, the article seems cheap which is hawked about 
 the streets. We thank him for another example of 
 what God cannot afford to throw away. 
 
 In the Italian engraving of Raphael s " Marriage of 
 the Virgin " is the imprint, that if the yet beardless 
 artist could produce such a work, never did finer 
 dawning announce a splendid day. I am reminded 
 of this inscription by Emerson s first sermons (pas 
 sages of these from the manuscripts having been 
 read to me), which, though somewhat florid, prefigure 
 the style of his poems and essays. His language 
 from the first was like a reminting of old coins from 
 which edge and figure have been worn off. He knew 
 and could reveal the power that lurks in a word. 
 All words in their origin are potencies, dynamites, 
 few of which, as most writers place them, go off. 
 Emerson explodes his in a better fashion than elocu 
 tionists teach ; and they are not from his hands any 
 Nihilist s infernal machines. Never was war more 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 133 
 
 holy than he waged against injustice and untruth. 
 Great as was his genius, it is surpassed by his moral 
 worth. Eeformers have their angles, philanthropists 
 their bitter and uncharitable side. He gave to none 
 gall and vinegar to drink. Should I be suffered to 
 select the three great characters of American his 
 tory, I should name Washington, Lincoln, the lily 
 out of Illinois mud, and Emerson. In the religious 
 sphere, Unitarianism has given us Channiug; Method 
 ism, Taylor; Quakerism, Whittier; Transcendentalism, 
 Emerson, a soul religious because reverent for what 
 deserves to be revered. Plato says the child must be 
 so revered by the parents that they will do nought 
 they would not have him repeat. What gold or gems 
 deserve to spell such a line ! Goethe would teach 
 reverence threefold, for what is beneath as well as 
 above and within. Emerson s posture was expect 
 ance to be surprised and pleased with divine reveal- 
 ings, which he watched for as astronomers for new 
 heavenly bodies or for the aurora, never wanting him 
 self to shine, but to be eclipsed. He longed for the 
 Deity to come out of hiding in every person and 
 at every point. It is a small testimony, but I have 
 not known anybody who won more my own respect ; 
 and on such religiousness, as in certain quarters of 
 fancied intelligence it goes out of fashion, let us lay 
 stress. Emerson s thoughts and moods change. We 
 must make an average or personal equation of them 
 at diverse earlier or later times. But there is no 
 need of a varying judgment or discount of what he 
 
134 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 was, his last days his best. His memory failed ; and 
 how much we can afford to forget ! His spiritual 
 growth did not cease or slow. No American or con 
 temporary in any land has had a finer brain ; but it 
 did not rob his heart of blood. He was not of those 
 who think the universe a great Saturn devouring men, 
 and profess with equanimity to bury forever their 
 dead. In his view, the agnostics and materialists 
 
 " With science poorly mask their hurt." 
 
 He would not have written, at the end of life, of 
 
 " The grief whose balsam never grew." 
 
 Emerson was a minister who had taken off the 
 gown. As overseer of Harvard University, he thought 
 prayer the highest act of the human mind. His was 
 a virile, not sentimental, vote. To some his gracious 
 form and manner suggested a feminine mind ; and 
 his friend Henry James said one might feel a love 
 for him as for a woman. But he was rugged in his 
 opinion as Bismarck or Carlyle. I asked him if he 
 approved of war. " Yes," he said, " in one bom to 
 fight ; " as Theodore Parker predicted the sword to 
 cut our Gordian knot pf human bonds. He delighted 
 in the heat and onset of Phillips s oratory, preferring 
 Phillips in his difference with Garrison ; but after 
 wards changing his mind. His own tenderness was 
 but the glove or gauntlet of force. He said John 
 Brown had made the gallows glorious like the cross. 
 But the glory of the Kansas raids and of Harper s 
 Ferry, great as it may have been, was not the same 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 135 
 
 as that of Gethsemane and Calvary. One star differ- 
 eth from another star in glory ; though, when the hero 
 of Osawatomie became a martyr, the halo round his 
 head was a complementary color, at least, to that in 
 which Jesus died, and the sun of righteousness set to 
 rise again. Emerson admired will and power ; wanted 
 the leader and " self of the nation " to appear, and the 
 giants of a new race to leap over the "Western hills. 
 It was the rough original vigor, not the coarseness, 
 that pleased him in V^afi Whitman s lines. Xot 
 executive himself, he rejoiced in personal prowess 
 and accomplishment, and repeated with glee Horatio 
 Greenough s story of General Jackson, that when a 
 bank deputation of business men waited on him to 
 protest against the financial policy of the adminis 
 tration, having listened courteously like a polite host, 
 the President made but this reply : " Gentlemen, have 
 you done ? Then it only remains for me to send for 
 Mrs. Eaton to come with her broom and sweep you 
 all out of the Capitol." " That," added Greenough, " not 
 Mr. Webster s logic, is what I call ability." Emer 
 son relished strength, a touch of the mailed hand in 
 speech and literature. Of an English lecturer, Pro 
 fessor Owen, very soft-spoken in his style but bold 
 in his views, he said, " He has a surgical smile." He 
 expected revolutions in our theories of the world, and 
 greeted that herald of evolutionary doctrine, "Ves 
 tiges of Creation," which Agassiz called a second-rate 
 book. But all was from and for the worship which 
 made the span betwixt his Essays and his songs. 
 
136 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 The last half-century of his life overcame the 
 prejudice that began at his break with the Church ; 
 and never by personal traits was won victory more 
 complete. His charm on whoever met him never 
 failed. Father Taylor said, if Ernerson went to hell it 
 would change the climate, and the emigration would 
 be that way. He himself said of a winsome preacher, 
 " He need not speak while he looks thus ; " as he said 
 of a certain political agitator, " His eyes are but holes 
 in his head." He has celebrated in verse how all the 
 powers of the soul ride on the eye ; and there was 
 a soft penetration in his own which expressed the 
 perfect blending of wisdom and love, the keenest 
 curiosity and loftiest rapture of the human mind. 
 
 No man s faith is determined by his own wit 
 alone. Tradition, heredity, and human consent can 
 not be shut off, as from the smallest vessel the air 
 cannot be quite pumped out. Paul declares, " After 
 the way called heresy, so worshipped I the God 
 of my fathers." Webster said his was the belief 
 that came down. Emerson advised accepting the 
 venerable and majestic form of piety transmitted, 
 without criticism too minute, seeing the critical fac 
 ulty has metes and should keep within bounds. In 
 his Historical Discourse, in Concord, 1835, the period 
 of his supposed treason to the Church, he speaks of 
 those who since the planting of the town had served 
 God and never let go the hope of immortality. The 
 acknowledgment of the Supreme Being, he adds, 
 brought the fathers hither. In his last word, at 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 137 
 
 Cambridge, on this theme, he tells the students that to 
 lose this confidence is to take the sun out of the sky. 
 The extreme Independent fancies religion a private 
 conceit, every man to spin his own. An atheistic lec 
 turer whom, though on my friendly invitation, Em 
 erson did not want to see, seems to some to imagine 
 he can untwist its whole cord from the heart of man 
 kind But the thread is wrought into our fibre, not 
 by our fingers, but by many a million hands, like spin 
 dles driven by a head of power. It is threefold, 
 
 -deity, duty, destiny. 
 
 I linger, and am loath to leave contemplating this 
 fine nature, fair creature, beautiful soul, served by 
 an intelligence like a powerful glass well adjusted in 
 every joint and lens, through which when he looked, 
 as Goethe said of himself, he saw all there was ; 
 whatever and whoever he turned his instrument 
 toward being disclosed, the quality, not quantity, 
 being what he would find. In the blackberry pas 
 ture, a thicket of ripeness, he said to me, " Let us eat 
 one berry," wishing not to please his palate, but dis 
 tinguish the taste. He was prophetic, not historic ; 
 
 -gazing for daybreak, not sunset. Like Thoreau, 
 who, when he had made a perfect pencil, dropped that 
 business to try something else, for improvement 
 everywhere Emerson longed and toiled with good 
 cheer. Even the half-pound he weighed more than 
 he thought, he took as an omen of better things. 
 The crescent of the Saracen s banner should be en 
 graved on his shield or carved on his tomb. He was 
 
138 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 a beholder, not one of the players in any game of 
 blind-man s-buff. He was no abbot of unreason, but 
 organ of reason, holding nought a calamity leaving 
 him his eyes. /How speak of his delight at these 
 first pictures in God s great gallery, which Nurse 
 Nature shows ? He did not believe he should, after 
 this hour of mortal life, be turned out. j We com 
 mend him to the Christian conviction he with the 
 great Apostle shared : 
 
 " Then shall we see as we are seen, 
 And know as we are known." 
 
 Some men, great or potent and influential as rulers, 
 actors, orators, preachers, reformers in their time, live 
 only as traditions, and leave in language little record 
 of their career. Emerson s works remain, nothing 
 in American or modern English literature destined to 
 have a longer date, notable I know not whether more 
 for the weight they carry or the height they reach. 
 As the condor outsoars the sparrow and wren, as the 
 frigate outsails the birch canoe, so what is strong in 
 thought is lasting and swift. Bare and delightful as 
 was his public or private speech, no man s words de 
 pend less on the manner and voice. They walk well 
 without their author ; or, like birds pushed over the 
 edge of the parent- nest, fly at once. Yet within recol 
 lection no decease from our midst has withdrawn an 
 element like his, atmosphere to breathe, climate to 
 heal. Some in their day imposing figures we do not 
 miss. Their mission ends, their funeral is in order ; 
 

 EMERSON S RELIGION. 139 
 
 f UN 
 
 it seems proper they should die ; the coffin-lid closes 
 fitly over their remains. But though Emerson had 
 reached a great age, we were not ready to part with 
 him. We felt him in the air. He was an impor 
 tant friend, companion, kinsman, fellow-citizen, to the 
 last ; a wayfarer everybody was glad to greet ; one 
 whose enemy none could continue to be ; a charmer, 
 whose spell was not to be escaped. In our fine silk 
 or broadcloth we look out with shrinking terror on the 
 tramp. / Who are the tramps, but such as, in robes or 
 rags, on foot or in phaeton, pervade this earthly re 
 gion and consume the corn they do not produce, men 
 and women without worth or use ?\ I have spoken 
 of one no tramp, but a worker and traveller in the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 " Standing in the blithe air, my head uplifted into 
 infinite space," says Emerson, " all mean egotism van 
 ishes." He was the air and the sun he stood in, and 
 needed not to speak of them apart from himself. He 
 was a social, yet insulated, man. Jesus had his wil 
 derness, Paul his Arabia, Mahomet the desert, and 
 the Persian poet 
 
 ""Wise Saadi dwells alone." 
 
 Emerson addresses his own person, 
 
 "Go, lonely man ;" 
 
 and he complains that no man goes alone. "Con 
 sider," said a disagreeable man, "you only have to 
 see me occasionally, once in a while. I never get 
 
140 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 away from myself." Few people can bear themselves 
 long, hardly any one all the time. Ernerson likes 
 the tumultuous privacy of the storm, dear hermit 
 age of Nature. See the trains and ships ! Whither 
 go the travellers by land or sea ? Not to Europe, to 
 Asia, to the Yosemite, White Hills, or North Pole ; 
 but away from themselves, away from home, away 
 from God, from the mountains, the unexplored re 
 gions, the Holy Land in their own souls. Emerson 
 abode in his breast. 
 
 " Who bides at home, nor looks abroad, 
 Carries the eagle and masters the sword." 
 
 He could endure and enjoy his own company, which 
 was the divine angelic company, and when guests 
 came he missed his mighty gods. But he was less 
 solitary in his closet than among the stars. He muses, 
 like the psalmist, till the fire burns, of thought and 
 love and worship. But Nature, dear as she was, did 
 not eclipse his spiritual visions, nor worldly noise 
 drown the inward voice so dreadful to Adam and to 
 every sinner, but such a solace to the upright. The 
 soul in him had hushed her secret strife and become 
 a pure and free personality, author, as he says so 
 few are, of its own actions ; an original force, not the 
 property of any party or sect. He preaches inde 
 pendence. Man, to him, is the Fourth of July of 
 zoology. He laments the confounding of individuals 
 in the mass, as soldiers wear uniform, hacks are tick 
 eted, and a prisoner takes the number of his cell. 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 141 
 
 But, says Edmund Burke, when bad men combine, 
 the good should associate. Eeligiously and politi 
 cally so they must and will. Emerson s word is the 
 grain of salt to keep the association from corruption, 
 sound and sweet. 
 
 In one of his papers Mr. Emerson speaks of the 
 vast loss when the brain of a great scholar gives 
 way. The treasure of his own knowledge of things 
 or words seemed at the close hid from him or locked 
 up, and he could not find the key. In this oblivion, 
 with cessation of the power of productive work, 
 there was a pathos and beauty of stillness. " We are 
 very ancient," he would answer to my inquiry after 
 his health. Sometimes he would gently whistle, as 
 if at the vanity of all that passes, as the forgetful 
 wind sweeps off the dust mortal beauty crumbles 
 into, singing by the way in some casement or ^Eolian 
 harp. But l^iis love and worship did not decay; 
 what Jean Paul Eichter calls the night-flower of 
 faith still continued blooming. Kindly feeling re 
 mained, kindred affection occupied the space left 
 vacant by dates and names. As in a building a 
 number of small rooms are turned for some solemn 
 or festal purpose into a large hall, the partitions were 
 taken down in his soul to make a temple of friend 
 ship and praise. Memory was always less to him 
 than hope. Complete remembrance clogs the wings 
 of the spirit ready to soar. Heaven is no rehearsal of 
 the earth. He thought men overweighed with their 
 past. " And he died, and he died," he said to me 
 
142 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 with wet eyes, of the brother who departed, for us, 
 too soon. 
 
 " Ask on, thou clothed eternity, 
 Time is the false reply." 
 
 He is learning the meaning of his own words. 
 
 There are those who consider it impious to com 
 pare living worth with any old character sanctioned 
 in the canon and the calendar. No person present 
 in the world or lately deceased must be likened to 
 Abraham, to Moses, to Jesus or Paul. Alas, we cannot 
 detect a saint in the man round the corner or behind 
 the door ! There is no woman to rank as musician 
 with Miriam, or is just such a seamstress as Dorcas ! 
 It were to mix sacred and profane. But, 
 
 " Seigniors, are the old ISTiles dry ? " 
 
 Has God failed ? Are the prophets no more ? Is 
 there no vision now ? We should almost be sorry 
 the seers ever lived on earth, if they are dead and 
 no member of their class survives. Every such 
 example as I have been called to hold up is a pro 
 test against making ancient merit discredit that of 
 to-day. Truth is as bright, love is as warm, adora 
 tion as lofty and uplifting now as thousands of years 
 ago. A pianist said to me, there is a stamp of fine 
 gold on Beethoven no later composer should expect 
 to match ; as if an old coin discovered in a pyramid, 
 or a bit of the candlestick Titus robbed from the 
 Temple at Jerusalem, had metal in it all the mines of 
 Australia and California put together could not equal 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 143 
 
 or repay ! The earth still yields. Heaven s breast is 
 not shrunk. It nurses the soul still: else itself were 
 empty and at i ault. 
 
 Our error or superstition is to mistake a man for 
 a principle, and identify a name with a type. Xo 
 name can be the whole thing ! Character is always 
 current. God does not fall below himself. The 
 human race is not running out. The light of the 
 sun in the sky is as good as ever, and that of right 
 eousness in Asia or America cannot fail. Emerson 
 was a pattern of integrity. As Goethe said of one, 
 this is a nature, of peculiar property and singular 
 impression, not to be confounded with any other, 
 remarkable for quality, not quantity. " God loveth 
 not size." Xot the mass of his head, but the lines 
 in his face, expressed him. To be moderate and to 
 omit was his gift. "Always understate," he said 
 to Mr. Alcott. 
 
 " I hung my verses in the wind ; 
 Time and tide their faults may find. 
 Have you eyes to find the five 
 "Which five hundred did survive ? " 
 
 He said the chief excellence of style is suppres 
 sion, an expedient so cheap, it is strange it is so 
 seldom used. Reading a paper, he asked one by his 
 side, in the midst of his recital, with wonderful 
 modesty, if he had not better stop ; as Rubinstein 
 whispered to me of his piano recital, when all ears 
 hung on his touch, " It is too long." They who move 
 the world in art or government or war Homer, 
 
144 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Shakspeare, Michael Angelo, Caesar, Bonaparte 
 must have for part of their genius abundance, long 
 flight, a certain precise aim and avoirdupois weight. 
 Emerson, unsurpassed in height, lacked the spread 
 and the motion or impulse of ambition to achieve. 
 He was content to be clean and godly and deliver his 
 soul. He leaves no single extensive performance. 
 He was not caught, impressed, or enlisted by any one 
 idea, object, or aspect of things. He makes no epic 
 or drama. His songs are swallow-flights on eagle s 
 wings. He coolly surveyed and reported, but did 
 not conceive he had any special mission or part to 
 enact, so he could be, as he was, faithful and true. 
 Like Swedenborg, he united the keenest perception 
 to a mystic sense. We may amend or complete, 
 we cannot annihilate, his report. He did deliver 
 his soul. He was essentially religious. The world 
 to him was a haunted house : he never got over 
 his surprise at being in it as one of the ghosts. 
 " Wrangle who will, I will wonder." If he finds 
 himself now in heaven, it is no astonishment to 
 him, as he has had his surprise already on the 
 earth. To exist is all. A genuine man, he was 
 weakened by no contradiction in his own mind. 
 From his influence there is no subtraction of a devia 
 tion or fault. He was whole, a sum total of wisdom 
 and will. What he meant and was meant for was 
 the same. Others might not agree with him; he 
 agreed with himself, 
 of the sky." 
 
EMERSON S RELIGION. 145 
 
 Only to hint a subject, not to explain a man, am I 
 willing to speak. Into no pound of metaphysic can 
 we drive the soul. Emerson thought Plato with his 
 dialectic had but bit this apple of the world on one 
 side. Eubinstein said all were ruined, were all 
 found out. Our mind is the numeral for this cipher 
 of the sphere; but it cannot fathom itself. We 
 at once get beyond soundings when we launch on 
 the intellectual sea. The North Pole seems to resent 
 our search after its mysteries ; but when ships sail 
 across where the meridians meet, there will be a 
 cover of Xature still remaining which no explorer 
 will penetrate or break up. / God and Heaven sub 
 mit not to be analyzed. Our faith in the one, our 
 hope of the other, is an instinct whose root is in 
 both. But as abstractions they furnish no soil for 
 any growth. We must contemplate them with our 
 affections in the living creation, and in the concrete, 
 before we can realize them in our thought or ex 
 press them in our life. Sought as the net result of 
 our logic, they vanish into thin air. With his imagi 
 nation for an eye, Emerson was a perceiver; and 
 he respected perception in himself and others, being 
 as quick and glad to quote their perceptions as to 
 announce his own. He notes, cites, and lauds every 
 scrap of insight, or ripple of tidings over the ocean 
 that heaves from the unknown shore toward which 
 he sails. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE GENIUS OF EMEESON. 
 
 VI. 
 
 EMERSON AS PREACHER. 
 
 BY MISS E. P. PEABODY. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Sanborn wrote to me that I was ap 
 pointed to this lecture, he told me that the subject 
 assigned to me was " Mr. Emerson as Preacher/ 
 not " Mr. Emerson in the Pulpit/ as it stands in the 
 printed programme. But I hold on to what I had 
 immediately agreed to do, for I think Mr. Emerson 
 was always pre-eminently the preacher to his own 
 generation and future ones, but as much if not more 
 out of the pulpit as in it ; faithful unto the end 
 to his early chosen profession and the vows of his 
 youth. Whether he spoke in the pulpit or lyceum 
 chair, or to friends in his hospitable parlor, or tete-a- 
 tete in his study, or in his favorite walks in the woods 
 with chosen companions, or at the festive gatherings 
 of scholars, or in the conventions of philanthropists, 
 or in the popular assemblies of patriots in times 
 and on occasions that try men s souls, always and 
 everywhere it was his conscious purpose to utter a 
 " Thus saith the Lord." It was, we may say, a fact 
 of his pre-existence. Looking back through eight 
 
E^IERS0^ 7 AS PREACHER. 147 
 
 generations of Mr. Emerson s paternal ancestry, we 
 find there were preachers in every one of them ; the 
 first being one of those Independents whom Arch 
 bishop Laud made an attempt to constrain to uni 
 formity by dictating to him how he should regard 
 the Sabbath, and on other ritualistic points, which the 
 spirit of Luther s Reformation had reserved for the 
 private judgment of redeemed souls. It marks the in 
 trinsic conscience of Peter Bulkeley, that he would 
 neither conform with his English pulpit, nor relin 
 quish his profession ; for he was a man of fortune, 
 living on his hereditary property, and rich enough to 
 live a layman s life amid the luxury of a scholar s 
 leisure, which he was educated to value. But there 
 was that spirit of consecration to his calling which 
 seems a divine predestination, that compelled him to 
 leave house and lands and turn his steps towards the 
 Western wilderness, and dare all the dangers and 
 hardships of breaking his way in it, to found a 
 colony which was to be an independent church 
 among the Indians. With them he made concord 
 which named the town by a just purchase of land, 
 and a Christian benevolence to them that was indeed 
 not without parallel among the Independents. These 
 Independents are never to be confounded with the 
 later Puritans, who organized the pharisaical com 
 munity that proudly denied the right of citizenship 
 to Indians and all others not church-members, and 
 also initiated a military policy towards the former 
 that they attempted to justify to themselves from 
 
143 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 the Bible narrative of the conquest of Canaan by the 
 children of Israel, not discriminating the origi 
 nally friendly, hospitable, trustful, and moral Indian 
 from the heathen of ancient Syria, who were them 
 selves recent invaders of that country, where they 
 had established the cruellest and most licentious cus 
 toms known in all antiquity; "passing their chil 
 dren through the fire to Moloch," and making the 
 most vicious practices their rites of worship. 
 
 There is extant, in the public library of Concord, 
 a volume of the writings of Peter Bulkeley, which, 
 though in the form of the repulsive theology of the 
 day, will prove, on careful analysis, to any thoughtful 
 reader, that Mr. Emerson s remote ancestor had a spirit 
 like his own, not to be paralyzed by ecclesiasticism 
 or by the letter of sacred Scripture, but intrinsically 
 moral, worshipping God, not for his power, but for 
 his righteousness. It is interesting to know arid 
 it explains Mr. Emerson s affectionate relations with 
 Concord that many of the old families of Concord, 
 besides the Emersons, of various names, are descend 
 ants of this grand old Independent. Mr. Emerson s 
 grandfather, who died a chaplain of the Revolution 
 ary army, consecrated the first fight of our war for 
 civil independence with a prayer on the battle-field ; 
 and his grandmother watched the light from the 
 study window of the Old Manse. Mr. Emerson s 
 father, too, became minister of the First Church of 
 Boston, in the meridian of his life, and was one of 
 the earliest leaders of the liberal movement in that 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 149 
 
 city which ended in the Unitarian protest. This 
 second Mr. William Emerson left a family of sons 
 to the care of a mother who belonged to the excep 
 tionally pious race of Haskins, strongly inclined to 
 mysticism in religion; and by this temperament the 
 desirable contrast was made with the more intel 
 lectual Emerson temperament ; so that the union of 
 clear, cold intellect and warm, religious heart in the 
 subject of our discourse seems a divine providence. 
 Considering these antecedents, it is not surprising 
 that these brothers all naturally gravitated to the pro 
 fession of preacher. The outlook at the time, however, 
 was not alluring to scions of the old Independent. 
 Although William Emerson, the eldest brother, went 
 to Germany to study for the Christian ministry, he 
 had not the nerve of his great ancestor; and, on 
 his return, shrank from the battle that he had dis 
 cernment enough to see was impending, and took up 
 what he deemed the kindred profession of law. Ed 
 ward and Charles also entered the latter profession, 
 with the most serious conceptions of its ideal, and 
 neither for fame nor fortune, both being strong 
 Christians of the heroic old type. Our Mr. Emerson 
 always spoke of these brothers as his spiritual and 
 intellectual superiors ; but I was told, by one who 
 knew them all intimately, that both of them regarded 
 him as the high-priest of their Holy of holies, rever 
 encing his every intuition as a sacred oracle. Mr. 
 Emerson s poem, entitled " The Dirge," is the memo 
 rial of this rare fraternal relation. 
 
150 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 My own acquaintance with Mr. Emerson dated from 
 1822, when I took a few private lessons from him in 
 Greek, a study that he was at the time immersed 
 in, having just graduated from Harvard University, 
 and being an assistant in the young ladies school 
 kept in his mother s house in Federal Street by his 
 brother William. Mr. Conway mentions this cir 
 cumstance in his very beautiful apotheosis of Mr. 
 Emerson; and, as usual, entirely transforms, by his 
 imaginative memory, something I probably did tell 
 him, which I will take leave to repeat here, as I have 
 often told it myself. It is true that both of us 
 were very shy (Mr. Emerson then nineteen and I 
 eighteen years old), and we did not get into a chat 
 ting acquaintance, but sat opposite each other at the 
 study table, not lifting our eyes from our books, I 
 reciting the poems of the " Gra3ca Majora," and he 
 commenting and elucidating in the most instructive 
 manner ; and we were quite too much afraid of each 
 other to venture any other conversation. When 
 about to leave the city for what proved a two years 
 sojourn on the Kennebec, I sent for his bill, through 
 his cousin George B. Emerson, who had introduced 
 him to me. He came with that gentleman to say 
 that he had no bill to render, for he found he could 
 teach me nothing. It was then that, protected by 
 his cousin s presence, he ventured to speak freely ; 
 and he poured out quite a stream of eloquence in 
 praise of Mr. Edward Everett s oratory, of which I 
 happened to express my admiration, and was de- 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 151 
 
 lighted to find him as great an admirer of it as I was. 
 Mr. Everett had just returned from Europe, and was 
 lecturing in Boston on the panorama of Athens, 
 which Mr. Theodore Lyman had presented to Har 
 vard College. After this our acquaintance lapsed 
 for ten years, comprehending all the time Mr. Emer 
 son was studying divinity and preaching at the 
 Second Church in Boston. Then lie resumed it (in 
 1833) on occasion of reading a little paper of mine 
 which his aunt, Miss Mary Emerson, who was my 
 great friend, and bent on bringing us into intimate 
 acquaintance, had found among some loose papers 
 of a journal of thoughts I fitfully kept, on the same 
 principle that Mr. Emerson kept a journal all his life. 
 This paper was a very free paraphrase of the lirst 
 chapter of the Gospel of Saint John, from the first verse 
 to the fourteenth inclusive, in which I translated the 
 word Logos into " moral truth-speaking," first by the 
 things of Nature, then by the processes of conscious 
 life and reason, etc. 
 
 He was on the eve of his first voyage to Europe, 
 soon after the death of his first wife and the re- 
 linquishment of his Boston pulpit. He was at the 
 time too feeble in health to make visits, and sent 
 to me to come to his house in Chardon Street, where 
 I found him quite absorbed in Goethe and Caiiyle ; 
 but he immediately turned his attention to Saint 
 John s grand peroration, and we discussed every 
 phrase of it. It was one of those conversations 
 which " make the soul," to use a favorite expres- 
 
152 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 sion of his aunt Mary s. It was, therefore, on the 
 highest plane of human thought that we first met, 
 our theme being the Eternal Relations of God, 
 Nature, and Man ; beginning an intercourse that 
 continued there with more or less interval during 
 his lifetime. 
 
 I had never heard Mr. Emerson preach while he 
 was settled in Boston, for I was then always attend 
 ing Dr. Channing s church, and so I did not learn 
 the exceptional character of his preaching. My 
 attention was first drawn to it by hearing that he had 
 preached the sermon on the Lord s Supper that led 
 to the loss of his pulpit. I heard of this from Dr. 
 Charming, who at the same time expressed immense 
 interest in so striking a proof of the moral independ 
 ence as well as profound sincerity of the act. I 
 remember he said he expected great things of him in 
 future. He then told me that Mr. Emerson had, as 
 was the custom of that day, put his name with him 
 as a student when he began his study of divinity ; 
 but he had not become intimate with him, because 
 he found, on talking with him, that he was quite 
 competent to be his own guide, so far as human 
 teaching could go. Dr. Chanuing himself had no 
 desire to be Rabbi to any individual, nor a leader in 
 the Church. He thought, as Mr. Emerson did, that 
 one s own intellect and conscience, used reverently, 
 were the best leaders of the spirit of a man into com 
 munion with the God of Truth. 
 
 Immediately after Mr. Emerson s return from 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 153 
 
 Europe, hearing he was to preach a sermon in his 
 old pulpit, on occasion of the death of his friend Mr. 
 Sampson (the most intimate friend he had had in 
 his parish), I went to hear him. The sermon was a 
 word-portrait of Mr. Sampson, which estimated him 
 as the ideal Christian merchant. It was a wonderful 
 discourse, as it seemed to me, who was familiar with, 
 and had grown up on, the liveliest preaching of the 
 time, that of the leading Unitarians in the first vital 
 vigor of their honest protest against the current Tri- 
 theisrn (for the doctrine of the Trinity had sunk to 
 that in all the churches, whether old Congregational, 
 Baptist, or Episcopal). 
 
 He began with saying that we might well doubt 
 whether, if we had been contemporaries with Plato, 
 we had found him out, if we did not find out in our 
 own time some individuals who, like Plato, were in 
 manifest living relation with the Infinite Mind in 
 thought, or heart, or practical life. In the darkest 
 times there were " seven thousand men in Israel who 
 had not bowed the knee to Baal." There was even 
 now some open vision. Mr. Sampson had this open 
 vision ; and he invited his audience to contemplate 
 with him his "conversation in the world," more 
 especially in his business relations ; for in business, 
 he said, as well as on the tower of contemplation, 
 men could live with God face to face. 1 
 
 1 When, soon after its delivery, I bogged Mr. Emerson to pub 
 lish this sermon, which, it seemed to me, would immediately trans 
 form and elevate the practices of the business world in Boston, he 
 
154 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 From this time forth I never omitted an oppor 
 tunity of hearing Mr. Emerson preach. I went out 
 from Boston to East Lexington to do so when I 
 learned he was preaching there ; and subsequently, 
 when visiting at his house, as I frequently did in 
 the first six years of his married life, I sought and 
 obtained leave to read the sermons he had in manu 
 script. And I am free to affirm that they were all 
 as truly transcendental as any of his later lectures 
 and writings in prose or verse ; if a volume of 
 them could be printed to-day in their own form, it 
 would interpret his later revelations, of which they 
 are but a varied expression, and be of great advan 
 tage to a certain class of minds. I remember one 
 upon the text, "We shall all appear before the 
 judgment-seat of Christ," which, if it could be read 
 in this place to-day, would, better than all my poor 
 words, convey the view I would fain give of Mr. 
 Emerson as always the preacher of the eternal life, 
 entirely emancipated from the " letter which killeth," 
 and minister of the Spirit which maketh alive. It 
 showed his audience, and would show any reader of 
 it, that we all are always before the judgment-seat 
 of Christ, always God is judging the world and 
 passing sentence on every man, and he may hear it 
 if he be sincere. There is no valid excuse for want 
 of self-knowledge. The judgment-seat of Christ is 
 
 told me he had given it to Mrs. Sampson. I trust that Mr. Cabot 
 will look it up and give it to the public even now ; for, like every 
 thing else of Mr. Emerson s, it is of perennial interest. 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 155 
 
 within each of us, where we shall find it if we look 
 for it earnestly, instead of the ipse clixit of the hour. 
 
 I wish I had time to speak of many other dis 
 courses that are fresh in my memory after more than 
 forty years. In reading and comparing Mr. Emer 
 son s two discourses, preached at forty years inter 
 val, the one the Divinity Hall Address, given in 
 1838 ; the other bearing the title of " The Preacher," 
 in 1880, it may be plainly seen that he was al 
 ways a preacher of the Christ whose " glory was with 
 the Father before the world was," " the same yester 
 day, to-day, and forever." But, from first to last, he 
 never shut in his vision of the living God to the 
 limitations of his own or any other individual con 
 ception ; for he dwelt and spoke in that temple of 
 the moral sentiment in which all men commune 
 with all other men as children of a common, impar 
 tial Father of the human race, and which, in the 
 language of the old school-men, is " the Son," to 
 whom "the Father giveth to have life in himself," 
 in order that He may " behold His own glory in his 
 face." Mr. Emerson understood and believed with 
 Etoejifil the cosmopolite prophet of the nineteenth 
 century what Jesus meant when he said that 
 "whoever receiveth a little child in my name re- 
 ceiveth me, and whoever receiveth me receiveth 
 Him that sent me." * Jesus of Xazareth realized to 
 
 1 He says, in one of his Essays, "Infancy is a perpetual Mes 
 siah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with 
 them to return to Paradise." 
 
156 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 him " the divinity that is in all men," the divinity 
 that first appears in the moral sentiment. He de 
 clares, in the Divinity Hall Address, that " the moral 
 sentiment is the essence of all religion ; for," as 
 he goes on to explain, "if a man is at heart just, 
 then in so far is he God; the immortality of God, 
 the majesty of God, do enter into that man with 
 justice." 
 
 I would I had space to copy out the whole of that 
 psean of praise to God living in the moral law, which 
 makes the introduction to that wonderful discourse, 
 whose eloquence is characteristic of him, not like 
 the whirlwind, the earthquake, or the fire, but the 
 still, small voice, on hearing which Elijah veiled his 
 face and worshipped. Who reads it with under 
 standing will agree that Professor Thayer has well 
 said : " There is in Emerson an inflaming religious 
 quality which searches the soul of his readers with 
 singular power. His morals are not merely morals ; 
 they are morals on fire." 
 
 But to go back a little. In 1835 or 1836, when 
 he was still supplying the pulpit at East Lexington, 
 it was my privilege to make frequent visits to his 
 house in Concord, and he would always invite me 
 to go down with him in his chaise on Sundays. In 
 one of these precious seasons for conversation, as 
 we were returning to Concord, I repeated to him 
 the reply of an unconsciously wise and pious woman 
 of the congregation, with whom I had walked to 
 the afternoon meeting, and had asked her why the 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 157 
 
 society did not call to settle over them an eminent 
 preacher that Mr. Emerson had sent in bis stead on a 
 previous Sunday, secretly hoping that they would do 
 so, for he craved him as a near neighbor. " Oh, Miss 
 Peahody," her words were, " we are a very simple 
 people here ; we cannot understand anybody but Mr. 
 Emerson." "There is a tell for a Transcendentalist," 
 said I to him playfully, thinking he would laugh in 
 contrasting it with the current cant in Boston among 
 the Philistines, who said they " could not understand 
 Mr. Emerson." But he did not laugh. On the con 
 trary, with an accent that was almost pathetic, he 
 replied, " If I had not been cut off untimely in the 
 pulpit, perhaps I might have made something of the 
 sermon." " It is evident from this attentive Lexing 
 ton audience," I said, " that you have already made 
 something of the sermon." " Did you observe," he 
 replied, " that row of venerable, earnest faces of old 
 men who sit just in front of the platform ? It would 
 be rather difficult to be frivolous when speaking to 
 them. But in the back part of the hall there were 
 some young men turning over the leaves of a hymn- 
 book. Xo preacher can be satisfied with himself 
 when he leaves any of his audience at leisure to turn 
 over the leaves of a book." " That is a high stand 
 ard," I replied. And soon he added, in a livelier 
 tone, " Henceforth the lycenm chair must be my pul 
 pit. The word of moral truth makes one of any 
 place." And we both fell into silence for the re 
 mainder of our drive, as I went back in thought to 
 
158 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 that old conversation in Chardon Street, on the proem 
 of Saint John s Gospel. 
 
 I think I have shown you reason to agree with, me 
 that it was Mr. Emerson s conscious life-purpose to 
 minister the Living Spirit, whom he sought alike 
 in the material universe and in human history, in 
 literature and in ethics, in art, and, above all, in his 
 own heart and imagination. In every form of his 
 utterance he touched the profound depth of poetry, 
 whether he sung in verse or spoke in prose. Much 
 of his prose is as melodious as his verse, witness 
 his first publication on " Nature," his lecture on the 
 " Method of Nature," and the opening, and indeed 
 the whole, of his Address at Divinity Hall, already 
 alluded to,^vhich was not to me alone the apocalypse 
 of our Transcendental era in Boston. For, if the life 
 less understanding of the day mistook it for a denial 
 of Christ, we now see that upon those whose hearts 
 "the forms of young imagination had kept pure," 
 and whom the pulpit entirely ignored or seldom 
 addressed, it flashed the first light of the revelation 
 of " the friend of man," whom he then affirmed that 
 an effete ecclesiasticism had made "the enemy of 
 man." 
 
 And here I take leave to introduce another per 
 sonal reminiscence. I had the happiness of listening 
 to this truly prophetic discourse ; and when, soon 
 after, he was correcting the proof-sheets of it for 
 the press, I was visiting at his house. One day he 
 came from his study into the room where his wife 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 159 
 
 and myself were sitting at our needle-work, and said, 
 "How does this strike your Hebrew souls?" pro 
 ceeding to read the paragraph containing the above 
 expression, which begins with the words, " This 
 Eastern monarchy of a Christianity," etc. I said, 
 " You will put a capital F to the word friend ? " 
 He seemed to reflect a few moments, and then de 
 liberately replied, " No ; directly I put that capital 
 F my readers go to sleep ! " 
 
 He then went on to read another paragraph, which 
 he remarked he had omitted to deliver because he 
 thought he " was getting too long." It came imme 
 diately after the paragraph in which he accused the 
 "historical Christianity" of corrupting all attempts to 
 communicate living religion, " making Christianity a 
 mythus, and founding the Church not on Jesus prin 
 ciples, but on his tropes," and subordinating all in 
 dividual natures to that of Jesus, " according to the 
 portrait the vulgar drew of him." 
 
 I can recall only one word of this omitted para 
 graph, but remember perfectly the sense. It was a 
 caveat anticipating the development of a new party, 
 only half understanding him, which would fall into 
 what he called the " puppyism " of a criticism irrev 
 erent of the person of Jesus. And this party did 
 soon appear, and has not entirely passed away yet ; 
 some of our free religionists being guilty of this 
 lack of just conception of " the one man who, alone 
 in all history," as Mr. Emerson says, " estimated the 
 greatness of man ! One man was true to what is in 
 
160 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 you and me. He saw that God incarnated himself 
 in man ; and in the ecstasy of a sublime emotion 
 affirmed, through me God acts, through me God 
 speaks ; would you see God, see me. " I said, inter 
 rogatively, " You will certainly print that passage, 
 for it will convict Mr. Ware of misunderstanding 
 and so misrepresenting you in his sermon." (Mr. 
 Henry Ware had just published a sermon contro 
 verting, as he thought, the doctrine of Mr. Emer 
 son s Address.) This was an unlucky suggestion of 
 mine ; for, after a moment s silence, lie replied : " No, 
 it would be shabby to spring upon Mr. Ware this 
 passage now. I must abide by what I delivered, what 
 ever was its lack of full expression." I was struck 
 silent at the moment by this exhibition of an exqui 
 site gentlemanly loyalty, the very poetry of self- 
 respect and politeness. But some months later, irri 
 tated by many exhibitions of the " puppyism " he 
 had predicted, and which stupidly professed itself to 
 be Emersonian, I said to him, " Are you quite sure 
 you did not sacrifice a greater duty to a less, when 
 you decided not to publish that paragraph which 
 defined your exact meaning, lest it should put Mr. 
 Ware in the awkward predicament of having fought 
 a shadow ? " He replied, deliberately but emphati 
 cally, " No." I wish I could remember to repeat in its 
 exact words the conversation that followed. I know 
 he expressed that gentlemanly courtesy was simply 
 social justice, and that anxiety to be personally under 
 stood, rather than to have the truth understood, was 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 161 
 
 the special weakness of the hour. Apology, and even 
 explanation, were the blunders of egotism. "Words 
 were often more deceptive than silence, because of 
 the meanings attached to them by a public which had 
 ceased to think. He ended the conversation by say 
 ing, in illustration of his meaning, " Whoever would 
 preach Christ in these times must say nothing about 
 him 1 " These words, uttered in that low tone of the 
 moral imperative, which all who heard his first lec 
 tures must remember, let me completely into the 
 secret of his method, giving me the key to unlock 
 the meaning alike of what he said and what he did 
 not say. As I pondered on it that day, I called to 
 mind the words of Jesus as reported by Saint John 
 from his discourse at the last supper : " It is expe 
 dient for you that I go away from you ; unless I go 
 away, the Spirit of truth, which is the Comforter, will 
 not come unto you." 
 
 "Whether Mr. Emerson is to be followed by others 
 in this severe method of preaching the Christ by 
 devout silence, may perhaps be a question. The late 
 Mr. Maurice, who suffered from the ecclesiastical ver 
 bosity and ritual trifling of his time a lifelong mar- 
 
 */ O O 
 
 tyrdom, as the recently published memoirs of him 
 reveal, answered a similar question by dropping from 
 his vocabulary the word Christianity, seeing it to be 
 a human abstraction merely, confusing those seeking 
 the secret of life with as many significations as there 
 are denominations in the Church, and individual 
 thinkers ; therefore leading away from that divine 
 
 o 
 
 11 
 
162 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 life manifested in Jesus Christ par eminence. Both 
 Maurice and his most effective apostle, George Mac- 
 donald, always say Christ, instead of Christianity, 
 when they would set forth the true goal of human 
 living, as the deliverer from the vicious subjectivity 
 of the mere thinker which dries up the fountains of 
 life. With the same intent Mr. Emerson said that 
 it was the duty of the individual to affirm all that 
 his experience had proved to be true, and never to 
 be satisfied short of a generalization covering a prin 
 ciple. He had the faith that our growing expe 
 rience would contain the solution of all questions, 
 the consummation of all hopes, the satisfaction of 
 all unselfish desires, inasmuch as the social law 
 was intercommunication of experiences forevermore. 
 His humility w r as a quickening hope, not a weak 
 agnosticism, the humility of a son of God who 
 feels that all that his Father has will duly become 
 his. He never presumes to call the Unknown un 
 knowable. 
 
 But I do not mean to say that the "golden si 
 lence " which heightened the effect of Mr. Emerson s 
 " silvern speech," when he preached those truths that 
 he felt were hidden from his times by the prevalent 
 technics of the pulpit, was a prudential expedient 
 that he contrived to meet a practical difficulty : it 
 came from something deeper and higher, that char 
 acterized his individuality ; it was the unforgotten 
 instinct of the child, who often cannot utter the 
 name of God, precisely because he sees Him with 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 163 
 
 the spiritual eye of pre-existence. I heard Mr. Emer 
 son once say to Mr. Orestes A. Brownson, who was 
 pressing on him the duty of explanation, " I feel 
 myself to be in the midst of a truth I do not com 
 prehend, but which comprehends me." It was this 
 truth before which he bowed with the devoutness 
 which hushes the Hindoo worshipper to the utter 
 ance of the mystic Om; which makes the Hebrew, 
 when in the books of the Law and Prophets he 
 comes to the word Jehovah (which means was and is 
 and is to come, translated in the Pentateuch "the 
 Lord God," and in the Septnagint " the Eternal "), to 
 stop and bow in silence ; which impels a worshipper 
 to fall on his face and shut out the light (that is 
 defined by Hegel as " the presence of the L niversal 
 at the particular," whether we mean material light, 
 or Eeason with its relative poles) ; which made the 
 army of the angels in Milton s magnificent fable 
 " veil their faces with their wings " when the chariot 
 of Christ rolled in a bloodless victory over the battle 
 field of heaven, and found no contending armies, for 
 the enemy had vanished as soon as " far-off his com 
 ing shone." In Mr. Emerson, the Infinite of Being was 
 an intuition " beyond the reach of thought," which is 
 the act of the growing understanding, likened by him 
 self to a man going out in a dark night with a far 
 thing candle to find something. What he discovered 
 with his farthing candle he declared, in words that 
 shine and words that burn, putting his readers at a 
 stand-point open on all sides to the sky of the Uni- 
 
164 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 versal Truth, which comprehends the seer and the seen 
 too ; and then, with the delicate reserve of a spiritual 
 modesty which never says " I," he pauses, to let his 
 hearer or reader supply the ellipses, not attempting 
 to utter the unutterable, which we nevertheless know 
 as we know the fixed stars, wondering what they are. 
 Such silence is eloquent. 
 
 The silent organ loudest chants 
 The master s requiem." 
 
 But the individual s right of reserve Mr. Emerson 
 severely limited to boundaries of his experience. He 
 recognized the duty of every individual, who is a 
 fraction of his generation, on which is doubtless laid 
 the obligation to transmit what it has received from 
 foregone generations, augmented by what he has 
 gained from his own experience in its characteristic 
 individuality ; but this truth could only be expressed 
 in words illuminated by action strictly according to 
 the nature of things, a phrase lie generally used for 
 action according to the will of God ; for he avoided 
 using words whose meaning lie agreed with and even 
 reverenced, when their original lustre had been lost 
 by long lying in the dusty ruts of the highways of 
 custom. 
 
 And no more than Jesus, who "without a para 
 ble opened not his mouth," did Mr. Emerson preach 
 merely in the pulpit form of sermons. He preached 
 still more in song, when his intellect, as well as 
 morals, is seen to be on fire, in worship. Witness 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 165 
 
 the ft Ode to Beauty." Beauty is to him no abstrac 
 tion made by his own mind from lovely concrete 
 forms, but the " Infinite One " 
 
 " gliding through the sea of form, 
 Like the lightning through the storm, 
 Somewhat not to be possessed, 
 Somewhat not to be caressed ; " 
 
 to whom, in a transport of devout ecstasy, he prays, 
 
 " Dread Power, but dear 
 
 If God thou be, 
 Unmake nie quite, 
 
 Or give thyself to me ! " 
 
 And again, in " The Problem." where he sings of the 
 genesis, not of Nature s " beauteous forms " alone, but 
 of the mind s creations, the great sculptures of 
 antiquity, the architectures of Egypt, Greece, Borne, 
 and the Middle Ages, " the litanies of nations," " the 
 canticles of love and woe," and all the wonders that 
 " rise in upper air " 
 
 " Out of thought s interior sphere." 
 
 For the Infinite Goodness and the Infinite Beauty live 
 also as the Infinite Truth, whose coming " full circle " 
 he celebrates in the "Uriel," another anthem of 
 praise to Him who is to be worshipped with all the 
 mind as well as heart and miijht ; and all three are 
 
 O 
 
 summed in the " Ode to Bacchus " (the Greek Bacchus, 
 not the Roman), in which he so importunately prays 
 
166 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 to be " given to drink " of the " wine that never grew 
 in the belly of the grape : " 
 
 " Wine of wine, 
 Blood of the world, 
 Form of forms, and mould of statures, 
 That I, intoxicated, 
 And by the draught assimilated, 
 May float at pleasure through all natures, 
 The bird-language rightly spell, 
 And that which roses say so well. 
 
 " Pour, Bacchus ! the remembering wine ; 
 Retrieve the loss of me and mine ! 
 Vine for vine be antidote, 
 And the grape requite the lote ! 
 Haste to cure the old despair, 
 Reason in Nature s lotus drenched, 
 The memory of ages quenched ; 
 Give them again to shine ; 
 Let wine repair what this undid ; 
 And where the infection slid, 
 A dazzling memory revive ; 
 Refresh the faded tints, 
 Recut the aged prints, 
 And write my old adventures with the pen 
 "Which on the first day drew, 
 Upon the tablets blue, 
 The dancing Pleiads and eternal men." 
 
 And again in the " Woodnotes," when he hears the 
 pine-tree declare : 
 
 " Ever fresh the broad creation, 
 A divine improvisation, 
 From the heart of God proceeds, 
 A single will, a million deeds. 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 167 
 
 Once slept the world an egg of stone, 
 And pulse and sound and light had none ; 
 And God said, Throb ! and there was motion, 
 And the vast mass became vast ocean, 
 
 Pouring of his power the wine 
 
 To every age, to every race ; 
 
 Unto every race and age 
 
 He emptieth the beverage ; 
 
 Unto each and unto all, 
 
 Maker and original. 
 
 The world is the ring of his spells, 
 
 And the play of his miracles. 
 
 As he giveth all to drink, 
 
 Thus or thus they are and think. 
 
 He giveth little, he giveth much, 
 
 To make them several or such. 
 
 "With one drop sheds form and feature, 
 
 With the second special nature ; 
 
 The third adds heat s indulgent spark ; 
 
 The fourth gives light which eats the dark ; 
 
 In the fifth drop himself he flings, 
 
 And conscious Law is King of kings." 
 
 Time would fail me to give specimens of all the 
 utterances of this tongue of fire, which retrieves 
 the disastrous confusion of the old Babel, that has 
 corrupted by dividing the religion of nations, and 
 eclipsed the Eternal Christ almost totally ; while Mr. 
 Emerson in his use of the words Brahrn, Pan, Apollo, 
 the Greek Bacchus, Uriel, and other burning per 
 sonifications of the Persian Muse, revivifies the Pen 
 tecostal Muse and brings home to the imagination 
 of this duller modern time the various attributes of 
 the Eternal Spirit; making a language of his own, 
 
168 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 that creates unity of understanding in all who speak 
 the differing and therefore imperfect languages of 
 man in their partial creeds. Do we not hear this in 
 the great lyric utterances I have already recited ? 
 To which I must add, from " The Sphinx," the 
 answer of the poet to her conundrum : 
 
 " Deep love lieth under 
 
 These pictures of time ; 
 They fade in the light of 
 Their meaning sublime ! 
 
 " The fiend that man harries 
 
 Is love of the Best ; 
 Yawns the pit of the Dragon 
 
 Lit by rays from the Blest ; 
 The Lethe of Nature 
 
 Can t trance him again, 
 "Whose soul sees the Perfect, 
 
 "Which his eyes seek in vain. 
 
 "Profounder, profounder, 
 
 Man s spirit must dive ; 
 To his aye-rolling orbit 
 
 No goal will arrive ; 
 The heavens that now draw him 
 
 "With sweetness untold, 
 Once found, for new heavens 
 
 He spurneth the old. 
 
 " Pride ruined the angels, 
 
 Their shame them restores ; 
 JAnd the joy that is sweetest 
 Lurks in stings of remorse." 
 
 Do not these last two lines contain the deepest 
 secret of the Christ that Jesus revealed, God s 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 169 
 
 forgiveness of sin, which justifies the supreme gift 
 of the freedom to will, through which man may be 
 lifted into the divine sonship, eternal in the bosom of 
 the Father, a vast overpayment even for the expe 
 rience of sin, which being overcome, qualities us to 
 seek and save others ? 
 
 " Draw if thou canst the mystic line 
 Severing rightly his from thine, 
 Which is human, which divine." 
 
 I will not attempt to read the whole of what is to 
 me the most profoundly touching of all Emerson s 
 divine songs, the " deep Heart s " reply in the 
 " Threnody," when he himself came up from the most 
 transforming personal experience of his life, ex 
 pressed in that wild wail over the child lost to him 
 for " the forever of this world," that for a long time 
 plunged him into a deep of sorrow of which the 
 first part of the poem is the all but unequalled 
 expression. But at length he found what fully 
 developed the human tenderness, that gave the last 
 divine touch to the decline of his life. I have said 
 that this rich strain of poetry was of all his utter 
 ances the most touching to me. For several years 
 before this season of his personal experience he was 
 struggling to bear the loss of his brother Charles 
 with the dignity of a man. To the question I had put 
 to him, " Is there not something in God correspond 
 ing to and justifying this human sensibility? 5 he 
 had replied, " Xo ! " And at that period of his life 
 
170 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 he seemed to measure spiritual strength by a man s 
 stoical denial of the fact of pain. His intellectual 
 fire could not smelt the ore of human suffering. A 
 gentleman who stood with him at his brother 
 Charles s grave, said he turned away from it with 
 the words, " Death is an absurdity ! " 
 
 It required nothing short of a father s love to 
 open his ear to the tender voice of the Divine 
 Father, who sung in his bereaved heart this healing 
 song : 
 
 " I came to thee, as to a friend, 
 Dearest! to thee I did not send 
 Tutors, but a joyful eye, 
 Innocence that matched the sky, 
 Lovely locks, a form of wonder, 
 Laughter rich as woodland thunder, 
 That thou might st entertain apart 
 The richest flowering of all art: 
 And, as the great all-seeing Day 
 Through smallest chambers takes its way, 
 That thou might st break thy daily bread 
 With prophet, Saviour, and Head ; 
 That thou might st cherish for thine own 
 The riches of sweet Mary s Son, 
 Boy-Rabbi, Israel s paragon! 
 And thoughtest thou such guest 
 "Would in thy hall take up his rest? 
 
 High omens ask diviner guess ! 
 
 . 
 
 To-morrow, when the masks shall fall 
 That dizen Nature s carnival, 
 The Pure shall see by their own will, 
 Which overflowing Love shall fill. 
 
EMERSON AS PREACHER. 171 
 
 T is not within the power of fate, 
 The fate-conjoined to separate. 
 
 . . . what is excellent, 
 As God lives, is permanent. 
 Hearts are dust ; heart s loves remain ; 
 Heart s love will meet thee again ! " 
 
 only do all his great apocalyptic chants, but 
 nearly all his smaller pieces, such as, "Rhea," "Each 
 and All," " The Rhodora," " Hamatreya," " Lines to 
 J. W." (I might copy out the whole table of con 
 tents from his two volumes of poetry), seem a true 
 preaching, even " The Mountain and the Squirrel," in 
 this instance keenly practical, sometimes catching up 
 our spirits into the vision of principles, sometimes 
 kindling private virtue and patriotic heroism, and 
 sometimes plunging the soul into the unfound infi 
 nite. In one of his lectures he^defined prayer as, "a 
 plunge into the unfound infinite." It seems to me, 
 therefore, that I am not irreverent, but reverent, 
 when, as my last word, I say of him, more and 
 more "the multitude hears him gladly," for, like 
 Jesus, he preaches " with authority," and not as the 
 Scribes. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 There was no time for a conversation after I closed 
 my reading, as Mrs. Cheney s lecture and mine had 
 taken up the usual time of the session ; but to a 
 question that was asked just as we broke up, " What 
 was Mr. Emerson s attitude towards religious institu 
 tions ? " I will here take leave to reply. It was an 
 
172 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 essentially temporary one, like that he held to the 
 technics of the pulpit of his day. His attitude 
 towards the Lord s Supper naturally brought him 
 into sympathy with the Quakers on the point of 
 stated times for public prayer; and he actually 
 ceased to go to meeting on Sundays because church- 
 going also had at that time become merely perfunc 
 tory. But I heard him say, at that very date, that to 
 meet together to consider all our duties in the light 
 of the Divine Omnipresence was by far the most 
 legitimate of human assemblies; and he considered it 
 a great misfortune to society that it had become such 
 a routine that " a devout person " (he meant his own 
 ardently Christian wife) said, " It seems wicked to 
 go to church." 
 
 At the time he ceased to go to church he was 
 making a pulpit of the study-table where he com 
 posed his lectures. He never abandoned his office of 
 preacher. I heard hirn say, in the last half of his 
 life, " My special parish is young men inquiring their 
 way of life." He always favored their free access to 
 him, and it would not be easy to count those to whom 
 a tete-a-tete with him gave the clew of Life eternal. 
 
 In the last of his life, when the infirmities of old 
 age tied his tongue, and he could no longer minister 
 the word of moral truth to others, he resumed his 
 early habit of going to church himself on Sundays ; 
 and his wife told me he thanked her for bringing up 
 his children to do so. 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 
 
 VII. 
 EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 
 
 BY F. B. SAXBORX. 
 
 I WISH to speak of Emerson, and not merely of 
 a poet ; for to me he was a poet and much more. 
 And therefore my theme is, " Emerson among the 
 Poets," the man whom we saw and heard, and 
 read and loved, amidst those men with whom his 
 gifts gave him rank ; who, like him, were poets and 
 something more. It was among his gifts that he 
 could feel the poetic impulse not only in himself but 
 in others ; that he knew and tested high poesy, not 
 so much by a critical faculty and by study, as by 
 native inspiration and appreciation. The great poets 
 addressed him as one of themselves ; he was not of 
 their audience, but of their choir. Homer says : 
 
 " The gods are to each other not unknown, 
 Though far apart they dwell, 
 
 and those earthly gods, the poets, can recognize one 
 another in all disguises, because in them the god 
 head is more than the apparent disguise, " the 
 man is paramount to the poet," as Emerson said of 
 
174 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Milton. Had the Concord seer never written a line 
 of verse, he would still have been a poet by virtue of 
 that insight, that clairvoyance of the imagination, 
 which is the one indispensable token of poetic power. 
 The " accomplishment of verse," as Wordsworth terms 
 it, is another thing ; not usually divorced entirely 
 from the poetic insight, but only in a few rare in 
 stances (as in Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and Ho 
 mer) completely united and fused with it. Even 
 then a third rarity is wont to be absent, a mascu 
 line soul capable of controlling these gifts of genius, 
 and constituting their possessor a true man as well 
 as a true poet. Toward this threefold unity of in 
 sight, expression, and will, this union of what Em 
 erson calls " the Knower, the Sayer, and the Doer," 
 Dante approached nearer than Shakspeare, and 
 Milton nearer than Dante ; though in the strictly 
 poetic gifts Shakspeare surpassed them both. If 
 w 7 e were to look in recent times for the highest ex 
 ample of this union, we should find it in Emerson 
 rather than in Wordsworth, in Victor Hugo, or even 
 in Goethe, who has passed for fifty years as the most 
 perfect type of these blended powers. In poetic ex 
 pression Goethe generally, and Wordsworth often, 
 surpass Emerson ; in poetic insight neither of them 
 is so lofty nor so well sustained. In the acts of 
 life, as Victor Hugo has played a grander part than 
 Wordsworth or Goethe, so Emerson, in his own 
 sphere and for all time, must be deemed to have ex 
 celled the great Frenchman. That force and purity 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 175 
 
 of will which gives Milton his pre-eminence among 
 English poets was a quality no less marked in Em 
 erson, whose fortune it was, also, to be thrown on a 
 time when this austere greatness of soul, like Mil 
 ton s, could give to genius its best sanction, and 
 stamp its impression most durably on succeeding 
 times. For the delight and instruction of England 
 and America Shakspeare has been wondrously effec 
 tive, far beyond Milton ; but for the spiritual gov 
 ernance and advancement of the two nations, he can 
 bear no comparison with that blind poet, 
 
 "In whom is plainest taught and easiest learned 
 What makes a nation happy and keeps it so." 
 
 This parallel between the Puritan and the Tran 
 scendental poet, between Milton and Emerson, is 
 not only obvious in itself, but is thrust upon us by 
 the description which Emerson gave of Milton half 
 a century ago, and in which he unconsciously and 
 prophetically described himself. This essay, which 
 was first a lecture in Boston, and afterwards (in 
 1833) an article in the " Xortli American Review," 
 has not been included by Dr. Emerson in the recent 
 edition of his father s writings, and I may therefore 
 cite from it the more freely, as not being accessible 
 to all. Says Emerson : 
 
 " Milton is rightly dear to mankind, because in him, 
 among so many perverse and partial men of genius, 
 in him humanity rights itself, the old eternal goodness finds 
 a home in his breast, and for once shows itself beau- 
 
176 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 tiful. Among so many contrivances as the world has 
 seen to make holiness ugly, in Milton, at least, it was so 
 pure a flame that the foremost impression his character 
 makes is that of elegance. His gifts are subordinated to 
 his moral sentiments ; yet his virtues are so graceful that 
 they seem rather talents than labors. The victories of the 
 conscience in him are gained by the commanding charm 
 which all the severe and restrictive virtues have for him. 
 Yet in his severity is no grimace or effort ; he serves from 
 love, not from fear. He is innocent and exact, because 
 his taste was so pure and delicate. He acknowledges to 
 his friend Diodati, at the age of twenty-one, that he is 
 enamoured, if ever any was, of moral perfection. * For, 
 whatever the Deity may have bestowed upon me in other 
 respects, he has certainly inspired me, if ever any were 
 inspired, with a passion for the good and fair. The in- 
 differency of a wise mind to what is called high and low, 
 and the fact that true greatness is a perfect humility, are 
 revelations of Christianity which Milton well understood. 
 They give an inexhaustible truth to all his compositions. 
 Milton gentle, learned, delicately bred in all the ele 
 gancy of art arid learning was set down in the stern, 
 almost fanatic society of the Puritans. Susceptible as 
 Burke to the attractions of historical prescription, of roy 
 alty, of chivalry, of an ancient church illustrated by old 
 martyrdoms, and installed in cathedrals, he threw him 
 self, the flower of elegancy, on the side of the reeking 
 conventicle, the side of humanity, but unlearned and un 
 adorned. He advises that in country places, rather than 
 trudge many miles to a church, public worship be main 
 tained nearer home, as in a house or barn, saying : We 
 may be well assured that He who disdained not to be 
 
EMERSON AMOXG THE POETS. 177 
 
 born in a manger, disdains not to be preached in a barn. 
 Though drawn into the great controversies of the times, 
 he is never lost in a party. His private opinions and 
 private conscience always distinguish him. That which 
 drew him to the party was his love of liberty, ideal lib 
 erty ; this, therefore, he could not sacrifice to any party. 
 The most devout man of his time, he frequented no 
 church ; probably from a disgust at the fierce spirit of 
 the pulpits. And so, throughout all his actions and opin 
 ions, he is a consistent spiritualist, or believer in the oin- 
 nipotance of spiritual laws. He wished that his writings 
 should be communicated only to those who desired to see 
 them. He thought nothing honest was low. The tone of 
 his thought and passion is as healthful, as even, and as 
 vigorous as befits the new and perfect model of a race of 
 gods. It was plainly needful that his poetry should be a 
 version of his own life, in order to give weight and solem 
 nity to his thoughts, by which they might penetrate and 
 possess the imagination and will of mankind. His fancy 
 is never transcendent, extravagant ; his imagination min 
 isters to character. Milton s subliinest song is the voice 
 of Milton still. Indeed, throughout his poems one may 
 see, under a thin veil, the opinions, the feelings, even the 
 incidents of the poet s life still reappearing." 
 
 I have here been giving the very words of Emer 
 son, now and then changed in their connection ; and 
 do you not see how closely they apply to the author 
 himself ? Neither is this because of any marked 
 similarity in the fortunes of the two men, but by 
 reason of that superiority of the man to his circum 
 stances, and even to his endowments, in each case. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 These endowments, indeed, were widely different. 
 That perfect command of verse for every form of 
 expression, in which Milton excels every English 
 poet, even Shakspeare, was denied to Emerson, who 
 in turn excelled Milton in the sustained force and 
 beauty of his prose. Like Milton s, however, it is 
 the prose of a poet ; and, as he says of Milton s, " not 
 the style alone but the argument also is poetic, and 
 we read one sense in his prose and in his metrical 
 compositions." 
 
 Let us then pause to consider what poetry is, and 
 what it has in common with prose. For these two 
 styles of writing are not distinct from each other, as 
 air and water are, one ethereal, the other terres 
 trial, one visible, the other invisible and seen only 
 in its effects ; but they are contrasted manifestations, 
 rather, of the single human intelligence, and blend 
 in their source, however distinct may be their course 
 in literature. {The basis of poetr^ is Imagination and 
 the higher Eeason ; the basis of prose is the Under 
 standing or Common-Sense lX Yet neither prose nor 
 poetry rejects Fancy, Wit, arra. Memory, those three 
 graces of literature; nor does prose exclude Imagi 
 nation and the supreme Eeason ; nor yet does Poetry 
 abhor Common-Sense, while often flying high above 
 it. Thus Coleridge himself a good poet, and a 
 follower of his own rule said : " Poetry must first 
 be good sense ; a palace may well be magnificent, 
 but first it must be a house." On the other hand, 
 prose must have something more than good sense in 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 179 
 
 order to be eloquence, which is the highest form of 
 prose. There is eloquence in poetry too ; and in this 
 noble quality we see the union of prose and poetry. 
 For example, we take no offence at a good prose 
 translation of the great poets who wrote Sanscrit, 
 Greek, Latin, Persian, or Italian ; but the translation 
 must be eloquent, or we never call it good. "What 
 we admire in the poetical books of the Bible, as they 
 appear in our common version, is their eloquence, 
 through which, as through a clear glass, we see their 
 essential poetry and truth, though not a shred be 
 left of what in Hebrew was metrical. Can the plain 
 est prose translation deprive the Bhagavat Gita of 
 its poetic eloquence, or quench the magnificence of 
 Hafiz, of Saadi, of Firdusi, or of the antique, half- 
 fabulous Zoroaster ? It is this Zoroaster, indeed, to 
 whom is ascribed what is still the best description 
 of the poet and his genius ; for in his oracular man 
 ner he was understood to say :(" Poets are standing 
 transporters : their employment consists in speaking 
 to the Father and to Matter ; in producing apparent 
 copies of unapparent natures, and thus inscribing 
 things unapparent in the apparent fabric of the world." -> 
 This is more imaginative, and therefore better, than 
 the famous definition of Bacon, "Poetry accom 
 modates the shows of things to the desires of the 
 mind." 
 
 But can anything be better than the sayings of 
 Emerson himself on this subject, of which he was the 
 only modem master ? Thus, he said : 
 
180 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " Poetry is the perpetual endeavor to express the spirit 
 of the thing." 
 
 " Poetry is tho only verity, the expression of a sound 
 mind speaking after the ideal, and not after the apparent." 
 
 " Its essential work is that it "betrays in every word 
 instant activity of mind, shown in new uses of every fact 
 and image ; all its words are poems." 
 
 " God himself does not speak prose, but communicates 
 with us by hints, omens, inference, and dark resemblances 
 in objects lying all around us." 
 
 " Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, 
 and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity. 
 It requires that splendor of expression which carries with 
 it the proof of great thoughts. The great poets are judged 
 by tho frame of mind they induce ; and to them, of all 
 men, tho severest criticism is due." 
 
 It was upon the profound truth here expressed 
 that "great poets are judged by the frame of mind 
 they induce " that Matthew Arnold should have 
 based any criticism he might have to make on 
 Emerson as a poet. Tried by that standard, how 
 different would have been the verdict ! especially if 
 it be true, as Ben Jonson said, that " the principal 
 end of poetry is to inform men in the just reason of 
 living." Mr. Arnold began by making those impos 
 sible comparisons of our poet with Cicero, Voltaire, 
 Swift, and Addison, a collocation which inevitably 
 reminded us of the Irish statuary in the Groves of 
 Blarney, 
 
 "Bold Neptune, Plutarch, and Nicodemus, 
 All standing naked in the open air." 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 181 
 
 The Irish poet who thus revels in the incongruous 
 does it for the sake of compliment, and not, like our 
 English censor, by way of anticipating the awful 
 doom of posterity. Yet, after yielding to Time, as 
 he condescendingly says, " all that Time can take 
 away," imagine the dispenser of " sweetness and 
 light " in the role of Fame, 
 
 " While panting Time toils after him in vain," 
 
 after this severity of award he also falls into the 
 eulogistic strain of the Hibernian bard : 
 
 " So now to finish this brave narration 
 
 "Which all my genius could not entwine, 
 But were I Homer or Nebuchadnezzar, 
 T is in every feature I would make it shine." 
 
 Assuming this laudatory part, and in some degree 
 regaining the right use of his reason, Mr. Arnold 
 proceeds to compare Emerson with Marcus Aurelius, 
 as " the friend and aider of those who would live in 
 the spirit." He certainly was that, and more ; and 
 he did resemble Marcus Aurelius more than he re 
 sembled Nebuchadnezzar or Swift or Voltaire. And 
 yet the likeness of Emerson to the imperial stoic 
 was not a very close or confusing one. For Marcus 
 Aurelius was in no sense a poet, and hardly an appre- 
 ciator of the poets ; while Emerson was both a poet 
 of high rank, as I shall hope to show you, and also 
 the best appreciator of poets that the modern world 
 has seen. If Mr. Arnold, in the great heap of his 
 wisdom, had chosen to compare Emerson with Plu- 
 
182 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 tarch, the precursor of Marcus Aurelius, and much 
 more than that emperor " the friend and aider of 
 those who would live in the spirit," we should have 
 said that the comparison was more just; for Plutarch, 
 in his genius and his influence, nay, even in his 
 style of writing, was the prototype of Emerson; 
 not in all respects, but under the limitations and 
 with the individual peculiarities that distinguish 
 all men of one era from all men of every other. 
 Plutarch was no poet, to be sure, but a dear lover and 
 quoter of the best poetry; and to him we owe the 
 currency, and often the preservation, of noble pas 
 sages in the Greek poets, just as we owe to Emerson 
 the quotation and currency of some of the noblest 
 passages in English and Persian poetry. Plutarch was 
 garrulous too, as Emerson never was, well knowing, 
 as he said, that " poetry teaches the enormous force 
 of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, 
 checks loquacity." Yet the loquacious Plutarch, like 
 the reserved and concentrating Emerson, knew life 
 at its source and in its thousand saliencies, as Shak- 
 speare did ; and had he been a poet, might have been 
 that impossible being the Shakspeare of antiquity 
 whom we must now piece together out of Pindar, 
 ^Eschylus, Plato, and Aristophanes, and still come 
 short of the wonderful genius we name Shakspeare. 
 
 Mr. Symonds, a learned and sometimes a felicitous 
 English critic, when seeking to explain the short 
 brilliancy of dramatic poetry in England during the 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 183 
 
 time of Elizabeth and James, finds occasion to apply 
 the term. " clairvoyance " to the dramatic genius of 
 the English poets. He says : 
 
 " The ancient Greeks and the Italians of the Renais 
 sance possessed clairvoyance in the plastic arts. The 
 present age is clairvoyant in science, and the application 
 of science to purposes of utility. At each great epoch of 
 the -world s history the mind of man has penetrated more 
 deeply than at others into some particular subject ; lias 
 interrogated Nature in its own way, solving for one period 
 of time intuitively and with ease prohlerns which before 
 and after it has been unable with pains to apprehend in 
 the same manner. In the days of our dramatic supremacy 
 the apocalypse of man was more complete than at any 
 other moment of the world s history. Shakspeare and his 
 contemporaries reveal human passions, thoughts, aspira 
 tions, sentiments, and motives of action, with evidence 
 so absolute that the creations even of Sophocles, of Cal- 
 deron, of Corneille, when compared with these, seem to 
 represent abstract conceptions or animated forms rather 
 than the inner truth of life. This clairvoyance gave them 
 insight into things beyond their own experience. Shak 
 speare painted much that he had never seen ; and it was 
 true to Nature. This power, in a greater or less degree, was 
 shared by his contemporaries ; they owed it to that intuition 
 into human character which was the virtue of their age." 
 
 It was also, if not the virtue of Emerson s period 
 and environment, at least the endowment of himself, 
 of Margaret Fuller and Hawthorne, and others of his 
 fellowship. 
 
184 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Mr. Arnold once defined genius as " mainly an 
 affair of energy/ and contrasted the English liter 
 ary "genius" with the French "openness of mind 
 and flexibility of intelligence." The Elizabethan age, 
 he said, produced " a literature of genius ; " and then 
 with characteristic carping he complained of the pov 
 erty of its results, and lauded the power and fecun 
 dity of the French " literature of intelligence " in the 
 great century of Louis XIV. Against this judgment 
 Mr. Symonds protests, rightly, and says that " the 
 memory of the Elizabethan poets, like the memory 
 of youth and spring, is now an element of beauty in 
 the mental life of a people too much given to worldly 
 interests. The blossoms, too, of that spring-time of 
 poetry, unlike the pleasures of youth or the flowers 
 of May, are imperishable." What the Elizabethan 
 age was to English literature, the Transcendental 
 period was to the literature of New England; and 
 our spring-time of poetry, though late and brief in 
 comparison with that which saw the blossoming of 
 Sidney s, Spenser s, Raleigh s, Marlowe s, and Shak- 
 speare s genius, will be as imperishable as theirs. 
 The climate and the soil of Massachusetts were not 
 favorable to the flowers that bloom around the Muses 
 fountain ; yet the may flower and the violet could 
 open there, and another plant there was which the 
 shepherd of our meadows found : 
 
 "Amongst the rest a small unsightly root, 
 But of divine effect, he culled me out ; 
 The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, 
 But in another country, as he said, 
 
y AMONG THE POETS. 185 
 
 Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil ; 
 Unknown, and like esteemed, and the dull swain 
 Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon ; 
 And yet more med ciual is it than that moly 
 "Which Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave." 
 
 We have seen the lofty scholar from Cambridge or 
 Oxford tread as heavily on our unnoticed and divine 
 flower as Milton s ploughman did ; but the virtue 
 and beauty of the plant were there all the same. To 
 trample or browse on flowers is the botany of the 
 ox ; and to neglect or note with scorn a new form 
 of poetry is habitual with all but the best critics. 
 Emerson said, and Arnold may well heed this, 
 "The reason that we set so high a value on any 
 poetry as often on a line or a phrase as on a 
 poem is that it is a new work of Nature, as a 
 man is. It must be as new as foam and as old as 
 the rock. But a new verse comes once in a hun 
 dred years ; therefore Pindar, Hafiz, Dante, speak 
 so proudly of what seems to the clown a jingle." 
 Emerson would never say for himself what we must 
 say for his best verses, in the words that Shakspeare 
 wrote of his own sonnets : 
 
 " Xor marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme." 
 
 What, then, are some of the best poems of Emer 
 son, and why will they be permanent ? We say that 
 " The Sphinx," " Uriel," some passages in " Wood- 
 notes," the "Ode to Beauty," "The Forerunners," 
 " Herniione," " Merlin," " The Three Loves," and the 
 
186 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " Threnody " will survive ; that those short poems 
 which he chose out from his " Discontented Poet s " 
 portfolio, as mottoes for the essays, will be as per 
 manent as they are oracular ; and that many of his 
 epigrams will go down to posterity with those in 
 the Greek Anthology. Of more personal poems, 
 "The Dirge," " Saadi," "Khea," "The Titmouse," "The 
 Days," " Terminus," and some portions of those new 
 poems that appear in the last edition, may be cited 
 as giving in the best manner the poet s portrait of 
 himself. But there is not a poem which he gave 
 to the world in his lifetime hardly a verse that 
 does not contain something worth preserving when 
 the more ambitious poems of other men are allowed 
 to perish. This will seem extravagant to some of 
 you ; but time will bear out what is here said, 
 as it has already brought forward into the light 
 these verses that were once so obscure and un 
 known. 
 
 And why are these verses too often fantastic, 
 rude, or harsh to outlive the more polished and 
 melodious poetry of other men ? First, because of 
 their superior tone. They speak as having author 
 ity, and not as the Scribes. They are oracular, not 
 with ostentation or for effect, but with weight. He 
 is the one modern poet that " uses Nature as his 
 hieroglyphic," and has " an adequate message to con 
 vey thereby." Observe how naturally these symbols 
 fall to his use. He is describing the common expe 
 rience of a lonely youth who through the magic of 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 187 
 
 love comes into communion with the wide world, 
 and thus he writes in " Hermione " : 
 
 "In old Bassora s schools, I seemed 
 Hermit vowed to books and gloom, 
 Ill-bestead for gay bridegroom ; 
 I was by thy touch redeemed ; 
 "When thy meteor glances came, 
 AVe talked at large of worldly fate, 
 And drew truly every trait. 
 
 "Once I dwelt apart, 
 Now I live with all ; 
 As shepherd s lamp on far hillside 
 Seems, by the traveller espied, 
 A door into the mountain heart, 
 So didst thou quarry and unlock 
 Highways for me through the rock." 
 
 Iii the same poem (which seems to be but little read) 
 we find that superb homage which genius pays to the 
 object of its love, and which makes the poet the dar 
 ling of the sex that loves to be worshipped : 
 
 " If it be, as they said, she was not fair, 
 Beauty s not beautiful to me, 
 But sceptred genius, aye inorbed, 
 Culminating in her sphere. 
 This Hermione absorbed 
 The lustre of the land and ocean, 
 Hills and islands, cloud and tree, 
 In her form and motion. 
 
 " I ask no bauble miniature, 
 Nor ringlets dead 
 Shorn from her comely head, 
 Now that morning not disdains, 
 Mountains and the misty plains, 
 Her colossal portraiture ; 
 
188 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 They her heralds be, 
 Steeped in her quality, 
 And singers of her fame 
 "Who is their muse and dame. 
 
 South-wind is my next of blood ; 
 
 He is come through fragrant wood, 
 
 Drugged with spice from climates warm, 
 
 And in every twinkling glade, 
 
 And twilight nook, 
 
 Unveils thy form. 
 
 Out of the forest way 
 
 Forth paced it yesterday, 
 
 And when I sat by the watercourse, 
 
 Watching the daylight fade, 
 
 It throbbed up from the brook." 
 
 As none has written so well the lore of noble love, 
 so none has more sententiously set forth the gospel 
 of friendship, in this brief poem : 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 A ruddy drop of manly blood 
 
 The surging sea outweighs ; 
 
 The world, uncertain, comes and goes, 
 
 The lover rooted stays. 
 
 I fancied he was fled, 
 
 And, after many a year, 
 
 Glowed unexpected kindliness, 
 
 Like daily sunrise there. 
 
 My careful heart was free again, 
 
 "0 friend," my bosom said, 
 
 " Through thee alone the sky is arched, 
 
 Through thee the rose is red ; 
 
 All things through thee take nobler form, 
 
 And look beyond the earth ; 
 
EMERSON AMOXG THE POETS. 189 
 
 The mill-round of our fate appears 
 
 A sun-path in thy worth. 
 
 Me too thy nobleness hath taught 
 
 To master my despair ; 
 
 The fountains of my hidden life 
 
 Are through thy friendship fair." 
 
 The permanence of Friendship, in contrast with 
 the flitting, fugitive nature of Love, is well marked 
 in this poem ; for Friendship, as the French say, " is 
 Love without his wings." Emerson understood this, 
 like every other part of the lore which Love im 
 parts, and which is fully known only to women and 
 to poets ; and he perceived that magnanimity was 
 the shibboleth in Love s camp. Observe the advice 
 he gives to lovers, which not only in purity but in 
 profound art and wisdom goes far beyond Ovid s or 
 Petrarca s or even Shakspeare s doctrine and disci 
 pline of love : 
 
 " Give all to Love ; obey thy heart : 
 Friends, kindred, days, estate, good-fame, 
 Plans, credit, and the Muse, 
 Nothing refuse. 
 
 T is a brave master, let it have scope : 
 Follow it utterly, hope beyond hope : 
 High and more high it dives into noon, 
 "With wing unspent, 
 Untold intent ; 
 
 But t is a god ; knows its own path 
 And the outlets of the sky. 
 
 " It was never for the mean ; 
 It requireth courage stout, 
 Souls above doubt, 
 Valor unbending ; 
 
190 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Such twill reward, they shall return 
 More than they were, and ever ascending. 
 
 Cling with life to the maid ; 
 
 But when the surprise, 
 
 First vague shadow of surmise, 
 
 Flits across her bosom young, 
 
 Of a joy apart from thee, 
 
 Free be she, fancy-free : 
 
 Nor thou detain her vesture s hem, 
 
 Nor the palest rose she flung 
 
 From her summer diadem. 
 
 "Though thou loved her as thyself, 
 As a self of purer clay, 
 Though her parting dims the day, 
 Stealing grace from all alive ; 
 Heartily know 
 When half-gods go 
 The gods arrive." 
 
 In another tone, but to the same effect, he sings in 
 "Khea": 
 
 " When a god is once beguiled 
 By beauty of a mortal child, 
 And by her radiant youth delighted, 
 He is not fooled, but warily knoweth 
 His love shall never be requited. 
 And thus the wise Immortal doeth, 
 T is his study and delight 
 To bless that creature day and night ; 
 From all evils to defend her ; 
 In her lap to pour all splendor ; 
 To ransack earth for riches rare, 
 And fetch her stars to deck her hair : 
 He mixes music with her thoughts, 
 And saddens her with heavenly doubts : 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 191 
 
 All grace, all good his great heart knows, 
 Profuse in love, the king bestows : 
 Saying, Hearken, Earth, Sea, Air ! 
 This monument of my despair 
 Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair. 
 
 These presents be the hostages 
 Which I pawn for my release. 
 See to thyself, universe ! 
 Thou art better, and not worse, 
 And the god, having given all, 
 Is freed forever from his thrall." 
 
 It is in the longer poem, however, " Initial, Dae 
 monic, and Celestial Love," that Emerson treats 
 most fully of the universal passion ; yet not here 
 like a boy with his spelling-lesson, nor a school 
 master with his protasis and apodosis, his thus and 
 therefore, but in the free manner of the great artist, 
 whose sketch contains more of feeling and picture 
 than the mosaic of lapidaries. In this wonderful 
 chart of love he begins with the first voyage of 
 Cupid, and arrives, by magic isle and wild ship 
 wreck, at the harbor of the celestials, where the freed 
 spirits, 
 
 " Borne o er the bosom of the untrammelled deep, 
 Eide in the heavenly boat and touch new stars." 
 
 In the first part of this poem, " The Initial Love," 
 Emerson is sportive as Mercutio, a gay bachelor who 
 is in the first freshness of his adventure, and pub 
 lishes his hue-and-cry for the son of Venus as a 
 Greek poet might : 
 
192 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " Venus, when her son was lost, 
 Cried him up and down the coast. 
 
 He came late along the waste, 
 
 Shod like a traveller for haste ; 
 
 "With malice dared me to proclaim him, 
 
 That the maids and boys might name him." 
 
 So the young poet accepts the challenge, and goes 
 on like Mercutio painting the portrait of Queen 
 Mab: 
 
 " Boy no more, he wears all coats, 
 Frocks, and blouses, capes, capotes ; 
 He bears no bow or quiver or wand, 
 Nor chaplet on his head or hand. 
 Leave his weeds and heed his eyes, 
 All the rest he can disguise. 
 In the pit of his eye s a spark 
 Would bring back day if it were dark. 
 
 Fleeter they than any creature, 
 They are his steeds, and not his feature ; 
 Inquisitive and fierce and fasting, 
 Restless, predatory, hasting ; 
 And they pounce on other eyes 
 As lions on their prey. 
 
 Heralds high before him run ; 
 He has ushers many a one ; 
 He spreads his welcome where he goes, 
 And touches all things with his rose. 
 All things wait for and divine him, 
 How shall I dare to malign him, 
 Or accuse the god of sport ? 
 I must end my true report, 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 193 
 
 " He is wilful, mutable, 
 Shy, untamed, inscrutable, 
 Swifter-fashioned than the fairies, 
 Substance mixed of pure contraries ; 
 His vice some elder virtue s token, 
 And his good is evil-spoken. 
 
 Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses ! 
 He has a total world of wit ; 
 Oh how wise are his discourses ! 
 But he is the arch-hypocrite. 
 
 He is a Pundit of the East, 
 He is an augur and a priest, 
 And his soul will melt in prayer, 
 But word and wisdom is a snare ; 
 Corrupted by the present toy, 
 He follows joy, and only joy. 
 There is no mask but he will wear ; 
 He invented oaths to swear. 
 
 Boundless is his memory ; 
 Plans immense his term prolong ; 
 He is not of counted age, 
 Meaning always to be young. 
 And his wish is intimacy, 
 Intimater intimacy, 
 And a stricter privacy ; 
 The impossible shall yet be done, 
 And, being two, shall still be one." 
 
 Here ends the Mercutio phase of the poet, and 
 when he next speaks, in " The Daemonic Love," it is 
 in a more serious tone, and with an air of solemn 
 warning, something like that of Lucretius, but with a 
 higher meaning. Now appears that docrine of magic 
 
 13 
 
194 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 influences of which we catch glimpses here and there 
 all through Emerson s imaginative writing. His the 
 ory of Daemons is plainly yet fancifully stated : 
 
 " Close, close to men, 
 Like undulating layer of air, 
 Eight above their heads, 
 The potent plane of Dsemons spreads ; 
 Stands to each human soul its own, 
 For watch and ward and furtherance, 
 In the snares of Nature s dance ; 
 And the lustre and the grace 
 To fascinate each youthful heart, 
 Beaming from its counterpart, 
 Translucent through the mortal covers, 
 Is the Daemon s form and face. 
 To and fro the Genius hies, 
 A gleam which plays and hovers 
 Over the maiden s head, 
 And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes. 
 
 Sometimes the airy synod bends 
 And the mighty choir descends, 
 And the brains of men thenceforth, 
 In crowded and in still resorts, 
 Teem with unwonted thoughts : 
 As when a shower of meteors 
 Cross the orbit of the earth, 
 And, lit by fringent air, 
 Blaze near and far, 
 Mortals deem the planets bright 
 Have slipped their sacred bars, 
 And the lone seaman, all the night, 
 Sails, astonished, amid stars." 
 
 These Dsemons are both good and bad, black and 
 white, like the genii that attended on the ancients ; 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 195 
 
 and when Love conies under the power of " Daemons 
 less divine/ the issue is disastrous : 
 
 " The Daemon ever builds a wall, 
 Himself encloses and includes, 
 Solitude in solitudes : 
 In like sort his love doth fall. 
 
 He doth elect 
 
 The beautiful and fortunate, 
 
 And the sons of intellect, 
 
 And the souls of ample fate, 
 
 Who the Future s gates unbar, 
 
 Minions of the Morning Star. 
 
 In his prowess he exults, 
 
 And the multitude insults. 
 
 His impatient looks devour 
 
 Oft the humble and the poor ; 
 
 And, seeing his eye glare, 
 
 They drop their few pale flowers, 
 
 Gathered, with hope to please, 
 
 Along the mountain towers, 
 
 Lose courage, and despair. 
 
 He will never be gainsaid, 
 
 Pitiless, will not be stayed ; 
 
 His hot tyranny 
 
 Burns up every other tie. 
 
 Therefore comes an hour from Jove 
 
 "Which his ruthless will defies, 
 
 And the dogs of Fate unties. 
 
 Shiver the palaces of glass ; 
 
 Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls, 
 
 "Where in bright Art each god and sibyl dwelt 
 
 Secure as in the zodiac s belt ; 
 
 And the galleries and halls, 
 
 Wherein every siren sung, 
 
 Like a meteor pass. 
 
196 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 For this fortune wanted root 
 In the core of God s abysm, 
 Was a weed of self and schism ; 
 And ever the Dtemonic Love 
 Is the ancestor of wars 
 And the parent of remorse." 
 
 And now we come to the culmination of this three 
 fold poem, " The Celestial Love," which restores 
 and completes this broken vision of the grand pas 
 sion. It is no longer Cupid, the boy-god, nor the 
 tyrannical and exclusive Daemon of whom these 
 dithyrambic verses, imaginative and inconsequent 
 as the strophes of a Greek chorus, chant to us ; we 
 hear the Divine voice itself : 
 
 " But God said, 
 
 I will have a purer gift ; 
 
 There is smoke in the flame ; 
 
 New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift, 
 
 And love without a name ! 
 
 " * Deep, deep are loving eyes, 
 Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet : 
 And the point is paradise, 
 Where their glances meet ; 
 Their reach shall yet be more profound, 
 And a vision without bound. 
 
 Higher far, 
 
 Upward into the pure realm, 
 
 Over sun and star, 
 
 Over the flickering Dsemon film, 
 
 Thou must mount for love ; 
 
 Into vision where all form 
 
EMERSON AMOXG THE POETS. 197 
 
 In one only form dissolves, 
 
 In a region -where the wheel 
 
 On which all beings ride 
 
 Visibly revolves ; 
 
 Where the starred, eternal worm 
 
 Girds the world with bound and term ; 
 
 Where unlike things are like, 
 
 Where good and ill, 
 
 And joy and moan, 
 
 Melt into one. 
 
 There Past, Present, Future, shoot 
 
 Triple blossoms from one root ; 
 
 Substances at base divided 
 
 In their summits are united ; 
 
 There the holy Essence rolls 
 
 One through separated souls ; 
 
 And the sunny JEou sleeps, 
 
 Folding Xature in its deeps ; 
 
 And every fair and every good, 
 
 Known in part or known impure 
 
 To men below, 
 
 In their archetypes endure. 
 
 The race of gods, 
 
 Or those we erring own, 
 
 Are shadows flitting up and down 
 
 In the still abodes. 
 
 The circles of that sea are laws 
 
 Which publish and which hide their cause." 
 
 This is mysticism, and the very romance of mys 
 ticism, intelligible to some, musical to all, and 
 breathing deeply of Plato and the Orientals, who, 
 more than all others, were the torch-bearers to Emer 
 son in his philosophy. Of that I do not speak, but 
 of his poetry, which in this instance rises to its 
 highest flight, and far beyond those meaningless 
 
198 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 melodies of Edgar Poe which caught the ear of 
 the world in Emerson s time. But now follows the 
 ethical lesson delivered from this height of the 
 imagination : 
 
 " Pray for a beam 
 Out of that sphere, 
 Thee to guide and to redeem. 
 
 Counsel which the ages kept 
 Shall the well-born soul accept. 
 As garment draws the garment s hem, 
 Men their fortunes bring with them. 
 
 " Not less do the eternal poles 
 Of tendency distribute souls. 
 There need no vows to bind 
 "Whom not each other seek, but find. 
 They give and take no pledge or oath, 
 Nature is the bond of both : 
 No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns, 
 Their noble meanings are their pawns. 
 Plain and cold is their address, 
 Power have thej r for tenderness ; 
 And, so thoroughly is known 
 Each other s counsel by his own, 
 They can parley without meeting ; 
 Need is none of forms of greeting ; 
 They can well communicate 
 In their innermost estate ; 
 "When each the other shall avoid, 
 Shall each by each be most enjoyed. 
 
 " Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves 
 Do these celebrate their loves ; 
 Not by jewels, feasts, and savors, 
 Not by ribbons or by favors, 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 199 
 
 But by the sun-spark on the sea, 
 And the cloud -shadow on the lea, 
 The soothing lapse of mom to mirk, 
 And the cheerful round of work. 
 Their cords of love so public are, 
 They intertwine the farthest star : 
 The throbbing sea, the quaking earth, 
 Yield sympathy and signs of mirth. 
 
 Even the fell Furies are appeased, 
 The good applaud, the lost are eased. 
 
 "Love s hearts are faithful, but not fond, 
 Bound for the just, but not beyond ; 
 Not glad, as the low-loving herd, 
 Of self in other still preferred, 
 But these have heartily designed 
 The benefit of broad mankind ; 
 And they serve men austerely, 
 After their own genius, clearly, 
 "Without a false humility ; 
 For this is Love s nobility, 
 Not to scatter bread and gold, 
 Goods and raiment bought and sold ; 
 But to hold fast his simple sense, 
 And speak the speech of innocence, 
 And with hand and body and blood 
 To make his bosom-counsel good. 
 He that feeds men serveth few ; 
 He serves all who dares be true." 
 
 " What extraordinary language for a vestry -meet 
 ing!" shuddered the English bishop, when his Ameri 
 can brother related the imsanctified confession of 
 his quarrelsome church-warden. What an uncom 
 mon ending is this for a love-poem, you will say, 
 this noble maxim, which does not in the least remind 
 
200 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 us of Romeo and Juliet. Our Mercutio has been 
 transformed into Romeo, and the amorous Montague 
 again into the Platonic poet, and now this soaring 
 Muse alights and reappears as one 
 
 " Of those budge doctors of the Stoic fur, 
 Praising the lean and sallow abstinence." 
 
 The changes are bewildering, I confess, but the 
 doctrine of this stoic is admirable, and he has drawn 
 it direct from the book of Love, in which not even 
 Shakspeare was better read. Nor do we find in 
 Emerson those low and jesting commentaries on the 
 heavenly text which Shakspeare could not avoid 
 writing in ; while, on the other hand, Emerson avoids 
 those marginal references to Aristotle and the scho 
 lastic theology which chill and weary the reader of 
 Dante s love-poems. Of the four great scholars in 
 the philosophy of Love, Plato, Dante, Shakspeare, 
 and Emerson, our countryman pierced nearer to 
 the heart of the matter than the Greek, the Tuscan, 
 or the Englishman, not excepting Shakspeare s 
 " sugared Sonnets," nor that mysterious poem as 
 cribed to him, " The Phoenix and Turtle," which 
 Emerson thought so " quaint and charming in dic 
 tion, tone, and allusions, and in its perfect metre and 
 harmony," as to be poetry for poets alone. Emerson 
 added, what will apply well to much of his own 
 verse : " This poem, if published for the first time, 
 and without a known author s name, would find no 
 general reception ; only the poets would save it." 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 201 
 
 I have dwelt at this length on Emerson s love-poems, 
 because it is by their treatment of this universal 
 subject that poets are judged and tested. I do not 
 know from what page of Milton Mr. Arnold took 
 the dictum that poetry ought always to be " simple, 
 sensuous, or impassioned," but it is chiefly to love- 
 poetry, narration, and description that this test would 
 apply ; and Milton himself, in his highest flights, dis 
 regarded it completely, as the Greek dramatists, and 
 Pindar, Lucretius, Dante, and Shakspeare had done 
 before him, and as Mr. Arnold (to compare great 
 things with small) has since done. Montaigne or 
 Aristotle, to say nothing of Plato, could have sup 
 plied us with a better test. Says Montaigne, speak 
 ing of style : " The precepts of the masters, and still 
 more their example, tell us that we must have a 
 little insanity, if we would not have still more stupid 
 ity. A thousand poets drawl and languish in prose ; 
 but the best of the ancient prose (and the same with 
 verse) glows throughout with the vigor and daring 
 of poesy, and assumes an air of inspiration. The 
 poet, says Plato," I am still quoting Montaigne, who 
 gives his own quaint form to the passage in Plato s 
 Laws, " the poet, sitting on the Muses tripod, pours 
 out, like mad, all that comes into his mouth, as if it 
 were the spout of a fountain, without digesting or 
 weighing it ; and so things escape him of various 
 colors, of opposite natures, and with intermittent 
 flow. Plato himself is wholly poetic ; the old the 
 ology is all poetry, say the scholars ; and the First 
 
202 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Philosophy is the original language of the gods." 
 To this wild rule Emerson conforms ; and still more 
 to that saying of Aristotle in his Poetics, " Poetry 
 is more philosophical and more earnest than his 
 tory," fyi\oGO$a)Tepov KOI cnrov^aiorepov laropia^ 
 Tro^o-t? eariv. By history, as Professor David 
 son has shown, Aristotle here meant all account of 
 and -research into fact, while poetry is the artis 
 tic spirit. Or, as Professor Davidson says, " History 
 is in its highest form a matter of the understand 
 ing; poetry is based upon the reason." And this 
 reason is not only more philosophical and more 
 earnest than the understanding of man, but it moves 
 by swifter and less connected steps, is winged where 
 the understanding is footed or crawling. Its wings are 
 insight and imagination, and its logic is a flight and 
 not a stairway, or at the slowest, a "flight of stairs," 
 in which surprise awaits every ascending step. 
 
 " 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. " 
 
 Montaigne, who read all the poets, if he did not 
 discriminate very wisely between them, said also : 
 " Strange to say, we have many more poets than we 
 have good judges and interpreters of poetry ; it is 
 easier to write it than to appreciate it." I have 
 already said that Emerson was first of all an appre- 
 ciator of poetry ; and Mr. Arnold, little as we should 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 203 
 
 guess it from his criticism on Emerson, was formerly 
 capable of recognizing poetry when he saw it. In his 
 Introduction to that valuable collection, " Ward s 
 English Poets," Mr. Arnold wrote, as commentary on 
 Aristotle s just quoted maxim, 
 
 " The substance and matter of the best poetry acquire 
 their special character from possessing, in an eminent 
 degree, truth and seriousness. The superior character of 
 truth and seriousness [by which he means Aristotle s 
 " philosophy " and " earnestness "], in the matter and sub 
 stance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the supe 
 riority of diction and movement, marking its style and 
 manner. So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are 
 wanting to a poet s matter and substance, so far also will 
 a high poetic stamp of diction and movement be wanting 
 to his style and manner." 
 
 Then taking up that wondrous poet, Chaucer, of 
 whom Emerson said, " I think he has lines of more 
 force than any English writer except Shakspeare," 
 Mr. Arnold says : " Something is wanting to the 
 poetry of Chaucer which poetry must have before it 
 can be placed in the glorious class of the best ; and 
 there is no doubt what that something is. It is the 
 earnestness, the high and excellent seriousness, which 
 Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poe 
 try. Chaucer s view of things and his criticism of 
 life has largeness, freedom, benignity ; but it has not 
 this high seriousness. Homer s criticism of life has 
 it, Dante s has it, Shakspeare s has it ; " and he might 
 have added, for it is eminently true, " Emerson s has 
 
204 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 it." He does say, however, and the remark is more 
 just in its application to Emerson than to any except 
 these three, " The greatness of the great poets, the 
 power of their criticism of life, is that their virtue is 
 sustained," not fitful like that of poor Villon the 
 Trench scamp-poet, or the English dramatists of 
 Shakspeare s time. And then, in this essay of four 
 years ago, Mr. Arnold makes these just observations 
 concerning Pope and Gray, whom, in his Emerson 
 lecture, he had the whim of setting above our poet in 
 point of style : 
 
 " Do you ask me whether Pope s verse, take it almost 
 where you will, is not good 1 
 
 To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down ; 
 Thence conies your mutton, and these chicks my own. 
 
 I answer, Admirable for the purposes of a high-priest of 
 an age of prose and reason. But do you ask me whether 
 such verse proceeds from men with an adequate poetic 
 criticism of life ; from men whose criticism of life has a 
 high seriousness, or even has poetic largeness, freedom, 
 insight, benignity ? I answer, It has not and cannot have 
 them ; it is the poetry of the builders of an age of prose 
 and reason. Though they may write in verse, though 
 they may be in a certain sense masters of the art of versi 
 fication, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry ; 
 they are classics of our prose. Gray is our poetical clas 
 sic of that literature and age. He has not the volume or 
 the power of poets who, coming in times more favorable, 
 have attained to an independent criticism of life. But he 
 lived with the great poets ; he lived, above all, with the 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 205 
 
 Greeks, and he caught their poetic point of view for re 
 garding life. The point of view and the poetic manner 
 are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others ; 
 and he had not the free and abundant use of them. But 
 whereas Addison and Pope never had the use of them, 
 Gray had the use of them at times. He is the scantiest 
 and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic." 
 
 This is unjust to Gray ; but it was far more unjust 
 to Emerson to place Gray above him, as Mr. Arnold 
 did last winter. In one point only did Gray excel 
 Emerson, in the art of versification ; which is a 
 lower gift than either poetic insight or poetic expres 
 sion, in both which Emerson greatly excelled Gray. 
 But in " high seriousness," in " poetic largeness, free 
 dom, benignity," in his whole criticism of life, our Con 
 cord poet-philosopher stood far above the poet-pedant 
 and virtuoso of English Cambridge, sweet and stirring 
 as were the strains of Gray. Compare the "Elegy in 
 a Country Churchyard" with the "Threnody," the 
 " Dirge " and " In Memoriam," contrast these two 
 verses only, and tell me which is the greater poet: 
 
 " Can storied urn, or animated bust, 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
 Can honor s voice provoke the silent dust, 
 Or flatt ry soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? 
 
 " Turn the key and bolt the door, 
 Sweet is death for evermore. 
 Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, 
 Nor murdering hate can enter in. 
 All is now secure and fast ; 
 Not the gods can shake the Past." 
 
206 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Here is the same number of syllables in the two 
 competing stanzas, the same theme, the same tone 
 of mind ; but how much higher is the insight of 
 Emerson ! Or compare, if your love for Gray does 
 not too much mortify you to do so, his Epitaph 
 on Sir William Williams, with Emerson s Ode on 
 the death of Colonel Shaw. The English hero was 
 killed at the siege of Belleisle, the French town 
 from which our friend M. de Poyen derives his. local 
 name. 
 
 THE EPITAPH. 
 
 Here, foremost in the dangerous paths of fame, 
 Young Williams fought for England s fair renown ; 
 
 His mind each Muse, each Grace adorned his frame, 
 Nor envy dared to view him with a frown. 
 
 At Aix his voluntary sword he drew, 
 
 There first in blood his infant honor sealed ; 
 
 From fortune, pleasure, science, love he flew, 
 And scorned repose when Britain took the field. 
 
 "With eyes of flame and cool undaunted breast, 
 Victor he stood on Belleisle s rocky steeps ; 
 
 Ah, gallant youth ! this marble tells the rest, 
 Where melancholy friendship bends and weeps. 
 
 This is Gray, not at his best, we must own, but 
 it is Gray and his age. Now listen to Emerson, who 
 " was not of an age, but for all time." 
 
 THE ODE. 
 
 So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
 
 So near is God to man, 
 
 When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
 
 The youth replies, / can. 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 207 
 
 Oh, well for the fortunate soul 
 
 "Which music s wings infold, 
 
 Stealing away the memory 
 
 Of sorrows new and old ! 
 
 Yet happier he whose inward sight, 
 
 Stayed on his subtile thought, 
 
 Shuts his sense on toys of time 
 
 To vacant bosoms brought. 
 
 But best befriended of the God 
 
 He who in evil times, 
 
 "Warned by an inward voice, 
 
 Heeds not the darkness and the dread ; 
 
 Biding by his rule and choice, 
 
 Feeling only the fiery thread 
 
 Leading over heroic ground, 
 
 "Walled with mortal terror round, 
 
 To the aim which him allures ; 
 
 And the sweet Heaven his deed secures. 
 
 Peril around, all else appalling, 
 
 Cannon in front and leaden rain, 
 
 Him Duty through the clarion calling 
 
 To the van, called not in vain. 
 
 Stainless soldier on the walls, 
 
 Knowing this, and knows no more, 
 
 Whoever fights, whoever falls, 
 
 Justice, after as before, 
 
 Justice conquers evermore ; 
 
 And he who battles on her side, 
 
 God, though he were ten times slain, 
 
 Crowns him victor glorified, 
 
 Victor over death and pain. 
 
 Here ends the memorial ode ; but then the poet, 
 having paid his tribute to courage and friendship, 
 resumes the perpetual chant which celebrates the 
 
208 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 might of the Unseen Powers, and which distinguishes 
 Emerson s verse among all the oracles of the modern 
 world : 
 
 THE EPODE. 
 
 Blooms the laurel which belongs 
 
 To the valiant chief who fights ; 
 I see the wreath, I hear the songs 
 
 Lauding the Eternal Rights, 
 Victors over daily wrongs ; 
 
 Awful victors, they misguide 
 
 Whom they will destroy, 
 And their coming triumph hide 
 
 In our downfall, or our joy : 
 They reach no term they never sleep 
 In equal strength through space abide ; 
 Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep, 
 The strong they slay, the swift outstride ; 
 Fate s grass grows rank in valley clods, 
 And rankly on the castled steep, 
 Speak it firmly ! these are gods, 
 All are ghosts beside. 
 
 If we would restore Gray to anything like his fair 
 place among poets after this mortifying comparison, 
 we must turn to his best ode, " The Bard," which in 
 expression, not in theme nor insight, is on a level 
 with Emerson s best verse : 
 
 " On a rock whose haughty brow 
 Frowns o er old Conway s foaming flood, 
 
 Robed in the sable garb of woe, 
 With haggard eyes the poet stood ; 
 (Loose his beard, and hoary hair 
 Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air) ; 
 And, with a master s hand, a prophet s fire, 
 Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre : 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 209 
 
 * Hark ! how each giant-oak, and desert cave, 
 
 Sighs to the torrent s awful voice beneath ! 
 
 O er thee, King, their hundred arms they wave, 
 
 Revenge on thce in hoarser murmurs breathe ; 
 
 Yocal no more, since Cambria s fatal day, 
 
 To high-born Hoel s harp, or soft Llewellyn s lay. 
 
 Cold is Cadwallo s tongue 
 
 That hushed the stormy main ; 
 Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed ; 
 
 Mountains, ye mourn in vain 
 
 Modred, whose magic song 
 Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head. 
 
 On dreary Arvon s shore they lie 
 Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale : 
 Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail ; 
 
 The famished eagle screams, and passes by. 
 Dear lost companions of my tuneful art ! 
 
 Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, 
 Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, 
 
 Ye died amidst your dying country s cries. 
 Ko more I weep. They do not sleep. 
 
 On yonder cliffs, a grisly band, 
 I see them sit, they linger yet, 
 
 Avengers of their native land. 
 
 Fond impious man ! think st thou yon sanguine cloud, 
 
 Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day ? 
 To-morrow he repairs the golden flood 
 
 And warms the nations with redoubled ray. 
 Enough for me ; with joy I see 
 
 The different doom our fates assign, 
 Be thine despair, and sceptred care, 
 
 To triumph, and to die, are mine. 
 He spoke, and headlong from the mountain s height 
 Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night." 
 
 It must be admitted that Gray wrote verse with more 
 skill and harmony than Emerson : so far Mr. Arnold 
 
 14 
 
210 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 was correct in his criticism. But then how little had 
 Gray to utter in verse, compared with the oracles and 
 canticles of Emerson ! " Byron had nothing to say, 
 but he said it magnificently ! " was the pithy verdict 
 of Emerson on his youthful favorite, whom he some 
 times quoted in his Essays. We measure poets first 
 by what they tell us, next by the words they use, and 
 lastly by the skill with which they weave these words 
 into verse. " Homer s words," says Aristotle, in the Po 
 etics, " are the only words that have energy, movement, 
 and action ; they are words of substance." Emerson, 
 also, used words of this sort; and in one of his unpub 
 lished pieces, " The Discontented Poet," he thus de 
 scribed in fanciful terms the poet s dictionary : 
 
 " The gallant child, where er he came, 
 Threw to each fact a tuneful name. 
 The things whereon he cast his eyes 
 Could not the nations rebaptize, 
 Nor Time s snows hide the names he set, 
 Nor last posterity forget. 
 Yet every scroll whereon he wrote 
 In latent fire his secret thought, 
 Fell unregarded to the ground, 
 Unseen by such as stood around. 
 The pious wind took it away, 
 The reverent darkness hid the lay. 
 Methought like water-haunting birds, 
 Divers or dippers, were his words ; 
 And idle clowns beside the mere 
 At the new vision gape and jeer ; 
 But when the noisy scorn was past, 
 Emerge the winged words in haste. 
 New-bathed, new-trimmed, on healthy wing, 
 Eight to the heaven they steer and sing." 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 211 
 
 This is the history of every poet s dialect, so far as 
 he makes it anew ; and such has been the fortune of 
 Emerson s. His vocabulary is rich and novel, and 
 he has brought it well into acceptance. But in mar 
 shalling these words he felt his inadequacy, and in 
 this was the " discontented poet " of whom he wrote. 
 He lamented his imperfect use of the metrical faculty, 
 which he felt all the more keenly in contrast with 
 the melodious thoughts he had to utter, and the fit 
 ting words in which he could clothe these thoughts. 
 He would have written much more in verse if he had 
 been content witli his own metrical expression as 
 constantly as he was delighted with it sometimes. 
 But it is also true that he purposely roughened his 
 verse, and threw in superfluous lines and ill-matched 
 rhymes, as a kind of protest against the smoothness 
 and jingle of what he called " poetry to put round 
 frosted cake." The passage from his " Merlin," which 
 Mr. Albee has quoted to us, is preceded by this intro 
 duction to that great but unequal poem : 
 
 " Thy trivial harp will never please 
 
 Or fill my craving ear ; 
 Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, 
 
 Free, peremptory, clear. 
 No jingling serenader s art, 
 
 Nor tinkle 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 ; 
 
212 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 That they may render "back 
 Artful thunder, which conveys 
 Secrets of the solar track, 
 Sparks of the supersolar blaze. 
 Merlin s blows are strokes of fate. 
 
 " By Sybarites beguiled, 
 He shall no task decline ; 
 Merlin s mighty line 
 Extremes of nature reconciled, 
 Bereaved a tyrant of his will, 
 And made the lion mild." 
 
 Pursuing this thought of the magical power which 
 the poet can wield, and which he strove to attain, 
 Emerson closes " Merlin " with these lines : 
 
 " Subtle rhymes with ruin rife, 
 Murmur in the house of life, 
 Sung by the Sisters as they spin ; 
 In perfect time and measure they 
 Build and unbuild our echoing clay, 
 As the two twilights of the day 
 Fold us music-drunken in." 
 
 In the " Bacchus," which stands next to " Merlin " 
 in the volumes, the same theme is carried forward, 
 with a change of imagery ; and I may properly close 
 with its mystical aspiration, which leaves our poet in 
 the timeless, immortal existence, out of which he 
 came and to which he has returned, a pilgrim of 
 the eternal and melodious spheres. It has been read 
 in part by Miss Peabody, but you will easily pardon 
 the repetition. 
 
EMERSON AMONG THE POETS. 213 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 "We buy diluted wine ; 
 
 Give me of the true, 
 
 "\Vhose ample leaves and tendrils curled 
 
 Among the silver hills of heaven, 
 
 Draw everlasting dew ; 
 
 Wine of wine, blood of the world, 
 
 Form of forms, and mould of statures, 
 
 That I, intoxicated, 
 
 And by the draught assimilated, 
 
 Hay float at pleasure through all natures ; 
 
 The bird-language rightly spell, 
 
 And that which roses say so well. 
 
 "Wine which Music is, 
 
 Music and wine are one, 
 
 That I, drinking this, 
 
 Shall hear far Chaos talk with me ; 
 
 Kings unborn shall walk with me ; 
 
 And the poor grass shall plot and plan 
 
 "What it will do when it is man. 
 
 Quickened so, will I unlock 
 
 Every crypt of every rock. 
 
 I thank the joyful juice 
 For all I know ; 
 "Winds of remembering 
 Of the ancient being blow, 
 And seeming-solid walls of use 
 Open and flow. 
 
 Pour, Bacchus ! the remembering wine ; 
 Retrieve the loss of me and mine ! 
 Vine for vine be antidote, 
 And the grape requite the lote ! 
 
214 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Haste to cure the old despair, 
 
 Reason in Nature s lotus drenched, 
 
 The memory of ages quenched, 
 
 Give them again to shine ; 
 
 Let wine repair what this undid ; 
 
 And where the infection slid, 
 
 A dazzling memory revive ; 
 
 Refresh the faded tints, 
 
 Recut the aged prints, 
 
 And write my old adventures with the pen 
 
 Which on the first day drew, 
 
 Upon the tablets blue, 
 
 The dancing Pleiads and eternal men. 
 
POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 215 
 
 VIII. 
 
 POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 
 I. 
 
 SOXXET OF 1884. Miss EMMA LAZARUS. 
 
 y 
 
 TO E. W. E. 
 
 As, when a father dies, his children draw 
 
 About the empty hearth, their loss to cheat 
 
 With uttered praise and love, and oft repeat 
 
 His all-familiar words with whispered awe, 
 
 The honored habit of his daily law ; 
 
 Not for his sake, but theirs, whose feebler feet 
 
 Need still that guiding lamp, whose faith less sweet 
 
 Misses that tempered patience without flaw ; 
 
 So do we gather round thy vacant chair, 
 
 In thine own elm-roofed, amber-rivered town, 
 
 Master and father ! For the love we bear, 
 
 Not for thy fame s sake, do we weave this crown, 
 
 And feel thy presence in the sacred air, 
 
 Forbidding us to weep that thou art gone. 
 
 NEW YORK, May, 1884. 
 
216 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 II. 
 
 ODE OF 1845. ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 IF we should rake the bottom of the sea 
 
 For its best treasures, 
 
 And heap our measures, 
 If we should ride upon the winds, and be 
 
 Partakers of their flight 
 
 By day and through the night, 
 Intent upon this business, to find gold, 
 Yet were thy story perfectly untold. 
 
 Such waves of wealth are rolled up in thy soul, 
 Such swelling argosies 
 Laden with Time s supplies, 
 
 Such pure, delicious wine shines in the bowl, 
 We could drink evermore 
 Upon the glittering shore, 
 
 Drink of the pearl-dissolved, brilliant cup, 
 
 Be madly drunk, and drown our thirsting up. 
 
 This vessel richly chased about the rim 
 
 With golden emblems is, 
 
 The utmost art of bliss ; 
 With figures of the azure gods who swim 
 
 In the enchanted sea 
 
 Contrived for deity, 
 
 Floating in rounded shells of purple hue ; 
 The sculptor died in carving this so true. 
 
POEMS IX HOSOR OF EMERSON. 217 
 
 Some dry uprooted saplings we have seen, 
 
 Pretend to even 
 
 Tliis grove of Heaven, 
 This sacred forest where the foliage green 
 
 Breathes music like mild lutes, 
 
 Or silver-coated flutes, 
 Or the concealing winds that can convey 
 Never their tone to the rude ear of Day. 
 
 Some weary-footed mortals we have found 
 
 Adventuring after thee ; 
 
 They, rooted, as a tree 
 Pursues a swift breeze o er a rocky ground, 
 
 Thy grand imperial flight 
 
 Sweeping thee far from sight, 
 As sweeps the movement of a southern blast 
 Across the heated Gulf, and bends the niast. 
 
 The circles of thy thought shine vast as stars ; 
 
 No glass shall round them, 
 
 No plummet sound them, 
 They hem the observer like bright steel- wrought bars ; 
 
 Yet limpid as the sun, 
 
 Or as bright waters run 
 From the cold fountain of an Alpine spring, 
 Or diamonds richly set in the King s ring. 
 
 The piercing of thy soul scorches the thought, 
 
 As great fires burning, 
 
 Or sunlight turning 
 Into a focus ; in its meshes caught, 
 
218 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Our palpitating minds 
 
 Show stupid, like coarse hinds ; 
 
 So strong and composite through all thy powers 
 
 The Intellect divine serenely towers. 
 
 This heavy castle s gates no man can ope, 
 
 Unless the lord doth will, 
 
 To prove his skill 
 And read the fates hid in his horoscope ; 
 
 No man may enter there 
 
 But first shall kneel in prayer, 
 And to superior gods orisons say, 
 Powers of old time, unveiled in busy Day. 
 
 Thou need st not search for men in Sidney s times 
 
 Or Raleigh fashion, 
 
 And Herbert s passion, 
 For us these are but dry preserved limes ; 
 
 There is ripe fruit to-day 
 
 Hangs yellow in display 
 Upon the waving garment of the bough ; 
 The graceful Gentleman lives for us now. 
 
 Neither must thou turn back to Angelo, 
 
 Who Rome commanded, 
 
 And, single-handed, 
 Was architect, poet, and bold sculptor too : 
 
 Behold a better thing 
 
 When the pure Mind can sing ; 
 When true philosophy is linked with verse, 
 When moral laws in rhyme themselves rehearse. 
 
POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 219 
 
 The smart and pathos of our suffering race 
 
 Bear thee no harm ; 
 
 Thy muscular arm 
 The daily ills of living doth efface. 
 
 The sources of the spring 
 
 From whence thy instincts wing 
 Unsounded are by lines of sordid day ; 
 Enclosed with inlaid walls thy virtue s way. 
 
 In city s street how often shall we hear 
 
 It is a period 
 
 Deprived of every god, 
 A time of indecision, and doom s near; 
 
 "What foolish altercation 
 
 Threatens to break the nation ! 
 All men turned talkers, and much good forgot, 
 With score of curious troubles we know not. 
 
 By this account their learning you shall read, 
 
 Who tell the story 
 
 So sad and gory, 
 People that you can never seek in need; 
 
 The pygmies of the race, 
 
 Who crowd the airy space 
 With counterfeit presentments of the Man 
 Who has done all things all things surely can. 
 
 We never heard thee babble in this wise, 
 
 Thou age-creator, 
 
 And clear debater 
 Of that which this good Present underlies ; 
 
220 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Thy course was better kept, 
 Than where the dreamers slept ; 
 Thy sure meridian taken by the sun, 
 Thy compass pointing true as waters run. 
 
 In vain for us to say what thou hast been 
 
 To our occasion, 
 
 This flickering nation, 
 This stock of people from an English kin, 
 
 And he who led the van, 
 
 The frozen Puritan, 
 
 We thank thee for thy patience with his faith, 
 That chill delusive poison mixed for death. 
 
 So moderate in thy lessons, and so wise, 
 
 To foes so courteous, 
 
 To friends so duteous, 
 And hospitable to the neighbors eyes ; 
 
 Thy thoughts have fed the lamp 
 
 In Learning s polished camp ; 
 But who suspects thee of this well-earned fame, 
 Or meditates on thy renowned name ? 
 
 The pins of custom have not pierced through thee 
 
 (Thy shining armor 
 
 A perfect charmer), r- 
 Even the hornets of divinity 
 
 Allow thee a -brief space ; 
 
 And thy thought has a place 
 Upon the well-bound library s chaste shelves, 
 Where man of various wisdom rarely delves. 
 
POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 221 
 
 Within thy books the world is plainly set 
 
 Before our vision, 
 
 Thou keen physician ! 
 We find there, wisely writ, what we have met 
 
 Along the dusty path, 
 
 And o er the aftermath, 
 
 Where natures once world-daring held the scythe, 
 Nor paid to superstition a mean tithe. 
 
 Great persons are the epochs of the race ; 
 
 Then royal Xature 
 
 Takes form and feature, 
 And careless handles the surrounding space ; 
 
 The age is vain and thin, 
 
 A pageant of gay sin, 
 Without heroic response from that soul 
 Through which the tides diviner amply roll. 
 
 When thou dost pass below the forest shade, 
 
 The branches drooping 
 
 Enfold thee, stooping 
 Above thy figure, and form thus a glade ; 
 
 The flowers admire thee pass, 
 
 In much content the grass 
 Awaits the pressure of thy firmest feet ; 
 The bird for thee sends out his greeting sweet. 
 
 And welcomes thee, designed, the angry storm, 
 
 When deep-toned thunder 
 
 Steals up from under 
 The heavy-folded clouds ; and on thy form 
 
222 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 The lightning glances gay, 
 
 With its perplexing ray, 
 
 And sweep across thy path the speeding showers ; 
 This pageantry doth fill thy outward hours. 
 
 Upon the rivers thou dost float at peace, 
 
 Or on the ocean 
 
 Feelest the motion ; 
 Of every natural form thou hast the lease, 
 
 Because thy way lies there 
 
 Where it is good arid fair. 
 Thou hast perception, learning, and much art, 
 Propped by the columns of a stately heart. 
 
 From the deep mysteries thy goblet fills ; 
 
 The wines do murmur 
 
 That Nature warmed her, 
 When she was pressing out from must the hills, 
 
 The plains that near us lie*, 
 
 The foldings of the sky ; 
 Whate er within the horizon s bound there is, 
 From Hades caldron to the blue God s bliss. 
 
 We may no more ; so might we sing fore er, 
 
 Thy thought recalling ; 
 
 Thus waters falling 
 Over great cataracts from their lakes do bear 
 
 The power that is divine, 
 
 And bends their stately line : 
 All but thy beauty the cold verses have, 
 All but thy music, organ-mellowed nave. 
 
POEMS IN HOXOR OF EMERSON. 223 
 
 NOTE. In connection with this Ode of Mr. Channing which 
 was read at the School of Philosophy from his second volume of 
 "Poems" (Boston, 1847), there was also read an ode by the same 
 poet to a son of Mr. Emersoii when three years old, from which, at 
 the desire of many who heard it, the following lines are here printed. 
 The whole poem may be found in a little volume called "The 
 Woodman and other Poems " (Boston, 1849), which has long been 
 out of print, but exists in libraries here and there : 
 
 " Child of the Good Divinity, 
 
 Child of one 
 Who shines on me 
 
 Like a most friendly sun; 
 Child of the azure sky 
 (Who has outdone it in that eye, 
 That trellised window in unfathomed blue), 
 Child of the midworld, sweet and true ! 
 Child of the combing crystal spheres 
 Throned above this salt pool of tears, 
 
 Child of immortality, 
 Why hast t-hou come to cheat the Destiny ? 
 
 " By the sweet mouth half-parted in a smile, 
 
 By all thou art, 
 
 By the pat beating of thy criss-cross heart, 
 How couldst thou light on this plain homespun shore ? 
 And not upon thy own aerial riding 
 Fall down on earth, where turbid sadly pour 
 The old perpetual rivers of backsliding if 
 
 "Since thou art fast 
 On our autumnal ball, 
 
 Of thistle and specked grass weave thee a nest; 
 Renounce (if possible) the mighty air-spanned hall, 
 
 Cups of imperial nectar, 
 Vases of transparent porphyry, 
 Amethystine rings of splendor, 
 Bright footstools of chalcedony, 
 
224 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 The alabaster bed, 
 
 Where in the plume of seraph sunk thy head, 
 
 To the full-sounding organ of the sphere, 
 
 So amorously played 
 
 By the smooth, hyaline finger of thy peer ! 
 Be those blue eyes 
 
 Thy only atmosphere ! 
 For in them lies 
 
 What is than earth, than heaven more dear." 
 
 III. 
 
 ODE OF 1882. F. B. SANBORN. 
 
 I. 
 
 ACROSS these meadows, o er the hills, 
 
 Beside our sleeping waters, hurrying rills, 
 
 Through many a woodland dark and many a bright 
 
 arcade, 
 
 Where out and in the shifting sunbeams braid 
 An Indian mat of checkered light and shade, 
 The sister seasons in their maze, 
 Since last we wakened here 
 From hot siesta the still drowsy year, 
 Have led the fourfold dance along our ways ; 
 Autumn apparelled sadly gay, 
 Winter s white furs and shortened day. 
 Spring s loitering footstep, quickened at the last, 
 And half the affluent Summer went and came, 
 As for uncounted years the same, 
 Ah me ! another unreturning spring hath passed. 
 
POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 225 
 
 II. 
 
 " When the young die," the Grecian mourner said, 
 " The spring-time from the year hath vanished," 
 The gray-haired poet, in unfading youth, 
 Sits by the shrine of Truth, 
 Her oracles to spell, 
 And their deep meaning tell ; 
 Or else he chants a bird-like note 
 From that thick-bearded throat 
 "Which warbled forth the songs of smooth-cheeked 
 
 May 
 
 Beside Youth s sunny fountain all the day ; 
 Sweetly the echoes ring- 
 As in the flush of spring ; 
 At last the poet dies, 
 The sunny fountain dries, 
 The oracles are dumb, no more the wood-birds sing. 
 
 m. 
 
 Homer forsakes the billowy round 
 Of sailors circling o er the island-sea ; 
 Pindar, from Theban fountains and the mound 
 Builded in love and woe by doomed Antigone, 
 Must pass beneath the ground ; 
 Stout ^Eschylus that slew the deep-haired Mede 
 At Marathon, at Salamis, and freed 
 Athens from Persian thrall, 
 Then sung the battle-call, 
 Must yield to that one foe he could not quell ; 
 In Gela s flowery plain he slumbers well. 
 
 15 
 
226 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Sicilian roses bloom 
 
 Above his nameless tomb, 
 
 And there the nightingale doth mourn in vain 
 
 For Bion, too, who sang the Dorian strain : 
 
 By Arethusa s tide 
 
 His brother swains might flute in Dorian mood, 
 
 The bird of love in thickets of the wood 
 
 Sing for a thousand years his grave beside, 
 
 Yet Bion still was mute, the Dorian lay had died. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Attic poet at approach of age 
 
 Laid by his garland, took the staff arid scrip, 
 
 For singing-robes the mantle of the sage, 
 
 And taught gray wisdom with the same grave lip 
 
 That once had carolled gay, 
 
 Where silver flutes breathed soft, and festal harps 
 
 did play; 
 
 Young Plato sang of love and beauty s charm, 
 While he that from Stagira came to hear, 
 In lyric measures bade his princely pupil arm 
 And strike the Persian tyrant mute witli fear. 
 High thought doth well accord with melody, 
 Brave deed with Poesy, 
 
 And song is prelude fair to sweet Philosophy. 
 But wiser still was Shakspeare s noble choice, 
 Poet and sage at once, whose varied voice 
 Taught beyond Plato s ken while charming every 
 
 ear, 
 A kindred choice was his, our poet, sage, and seer ! 
 
POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 227* 
 
 V. 
 
 Now Avon glides through Severn to the sea, 
 
 And murmurs that her Shakspeare sings no more ; 
 
 Thames bears the freight of many a tribute shore, 
 
 But on those banks her poet bold and free, 
 
 That stooped in blindness at his lowly door, 
 
 Yet never bowed to priest or prince the knee, 
 
 Wanders no more by those sad sisters led ; 
 
 Herbert and Spenser dead 
 
 Have left their names alone to him whose scheme 
 
 Stiffly endeavors to supplant the dream 
 
 Of seer and poet, with mechanic rule 
 
 Learned from the chemist s closet, from the surgeon s 
 
 tool. 
 
 With us Philosophy still spreads her wing, 
 And soars to seek Heaven s King, 
 Nor creeps through charnels, prying with the glass 
 That makes the little big, while gods unseen may 
 
 pass. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Along the marge of these slow-gliding streams, 
 Our winding Concord and the wider flow 
 Of Charles by Cambridge, walks and dreams 
 A throng of poets, tearfully they go, 
 For each bright river misses from its band 
 The keenest eye, the truest heart, the surest minstrel- 
 hand, 
 
 They sleep each on his wooded hill above the sorrow 
 ing land. 
 
> 228 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Sadly their mound with garlands we adorn 
 
 Of violet, lily, laurel, and the flowering thorn, 
 
 Sadly above them wave 
 
 The wailing pine-trees of their native strand ; 
 
 Sadly the distant billows smite the shore, 
 
 Plash in the sunlight, or at midnight roar : 
 
 All sounds of melody, all things sweet and fair, 
 
 On earth, in sea or air, 
 
 Droop and grow silent by the poet s grave. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Yet wherefore weep ? Old age is but a tomb, 
 
 A living hearse, slow creeping to the gloom 
 
 And utter silence. He from age is freed 
 
 Who meets the stroke of death, and rises thence 
 
 Victor o er every woe ; his sure defence 
 
 Is swift defeat, by that he doth succeed : 
 
 Death is the poet s friend, I speak it sooth ; 
 
 Death shall restore him to his golden youth, 
 
 Unlock for him the portal of renown, 
 
 And on Fame s tablet write his verses down 
 
 For every age in endless time to read. 
 
 With us Death s quarrel is ; he takes away 
 
 Joy from our eyes, from this dark world the day, 
 
 When other skies he opens to the poet s ray. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Lonely these meadows green, 
 Silent these warbling woodlands must appear 
 To us, by whom our Poet-sage was seen 
 Wandering among their beauties, year by year, 
 
POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 229 
 
 Listening with delicate ear 
 
 To each, fine note that fell from tree or sky, 
 
 Or rose from earth on high, 
 
 Glancing his falcon eye, 
 
 In kindly radiance, as of some young star, 
 
 At all the shows of Mature near and far, 
 
 Or on the tame procession plodding by 
 
 Of daily toil and care, and all Life s pageantry ; 
 
 Then darting forth warm beams of wit and love, 
 
 Wide as the sun s great orbit, and as high above 
 
 These paths wherein our lowly tasks we ply. 
 
 IX. 
 
 His was the task and his the lordly gift 
 Our eyes, our hearts, bent earthward, to uplift; 
 He found us chained in Plato s fabled cave, 
 Our faces long averted from the blaze 
 Of Heaven s broad light, and idly turned to gaze 
 On shadows, flitting ceaseless as the wave 
 That dashes ever idly on some isle enchanted ; 
 By shadows haunted 
 
 We sat, amused in youth, in manhood daunted. 
 In vacant age forlorn, then slipped within the grave, 
 The same dull chain still clasped around our shroud. 
 These captives, bound and bowed, 
 He from their dungeon like that angel led, 
 Who softly to imprisoned Peter said, 
 " Arise up quickly ! gird thyself and flee ! " 
 We wist not w r hose the thrilling voice, we knew our 
 souls were free. 
 
230 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 X. 
 
 Ah ! blest those years of youthful hope, 
 
 When every "breeze was zephyr, every mornin< 
 
 May ! 
 
 Then, as we bravely climbed the slope 
 Of life s steep mount, we gained a wider scope 
 At every stair, and could with joy survey 
 The track beneath us, and the upward way ; 
 Both lay in light, round both the breath of love 
 Fragrant and warm from Heaven s own tropic blew ; 
 Beside us what glad comrades smiled and strove ! 
 Beyond us what dim visions rose to view I 
 With thee, dear Master, through that morning land 
 We journeyed happy ; thine the guiding hand, 
 Thine the far-looking eye, the dauntless smile ; 
 Thy lofty song of hope did the long march beguile. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Now scattered wide and lost to loving sight 
 
 The gallant train 
 
 That heard thy strain ! 
 
 T is May no longer, shadows of the night 
 
 Beset the downward path, thy light withdrawn, 
 
 And with thee vanished that perpetual dawn 
 
 Of which thou wert the harbinger and seer. 
 
 Yet courage ! comrades, though no more we hear 
 
 Each other s voices, lost within this cloud 
 
 That Time and Chance about our way have cast, 
 
 Still his brave music haunts the hearkening ear, 
 
POEMS IN HONOR OF EMERSON. 231 
 
 As mid bold cliffs and dewy passes of the Past. 
 Be that our countersign ! for chanting loud, 
 His magic song, though far apart we go, 
 Best shall we thus discern both friend and foe. 
 
 CONCORD, May, 1882. 
 
 IV. 
 
 TWO SOXXETS. MRS. E. C. KINNEY. 
 EMERSON. 
 
 LIKE some old Titan of majestic height, 
 
 His march has been with grand and solemn tread, 
 
 The brain profoundly working, while the head, 
 
 Circled by mists, was often hid from sight ; 
 
 Yet from its cloud, when great thought flashed to 
 
 light, 
 
 That mighty brain by the elect was read ; 
 The many saw not, turned away instead, 
 His brightness, veiled, to them was only night. 
 But, as he walked, anon at either side 
 Fell pregnant seeds of thought, which, taking root 
 In minds long barren, showed the tender shoot 
 That later blossomed, : clouds might genius hide, 
 Yet everywhere the great man planted foot, 
 His mark remains, and shall through time abide. 
 
 NEW YORK, April, 1882. 
 
232 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 II. 
 
 DEAR Nature s Child, he nestled close to Her ! 
 She to his heart had whispered deeper things 
 Than Science from the wells of learning brings : 
 His still small voice the human soul could stir, 
 For Nature made him her interpreter, 
 And gave her favorite son far-reaching wings, 
 He soared and sang (as Heaven s lark only sings) 
 Devout in praise, Truth s truest worshipper. 
 With eyes anointed in his upward flight, 
 He quick discerned what was divine iri men, 
 Beading the humblest spirit s tongue aright : 
 Oh, Prophet, Poet, Leader ! in thy light 
 How many saw beyond their natural ken, 
 Who follow now the star which led them then ! 
 
 NEW CASTLE, N. H., Sept. 5, 1884. 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 233 
 
 IX. 
 
 EMERSON S ETHICS. 
 
 BY EDWIX D. MEAD. 
 
 I THIXK the only thing which will secure to this 
 Concord School of Philosophy a long remembrance 
 will be the mention of it in Emerson s biography. 
 When we are dead, men will read there, that in the 
 evening of his life he was interested in these meet 
 ings and read lectures in them ; and this mention 
 will secure that men shall ask of them, to a day when 
 else all questions had long ceased. It is proper, then, 
 and worthy that we should give his thought that 
 large measure of attention and of prominence which 
 we do give it here and now. It is well that we 
 American students of philosophy should seek to 
 learn and to teach the doctrine of this greatest mas 
 ter of ours, and greatest perhaps the only great 
 American philosopher. For, much more than phi 
 losopher, so much more that the philosopher is but 
 one simple element in the harmonious man, in no 
 wise monopolizing or tyrannizing over temperament 
 and powers, yet is Emerson truly one of the great 
 est philosophers of all time, and has given the deepest 
 
234 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 answers in his time to the soul s Whence ? and 
 What ? and Whither ? / So harmonious and synthetic 
 is he, so interfused is Vhis philosophy with life and 
 poetry and beauty and counsel, ihat it is not a wholly 
 grateful task to discuss hinr in that analytic and 
 departmental manner which our programme imposes. 
 Yet if by such discussion, by any stimulation of curi 
 osity through the showing of Emerson s relation to 
 those problems which everlastingly vex most men s 
 minds, a more careful study of his own life-giving 
 page is provoked in any, the price is surely not too 
 high. 
 
 So much being said, it is with exceptional pleasure 
 that I invite the attention of this serious company to 
 the subject which has been given me, of Emerson s 
 ethics. Eor I have been thinking long that in this 
 time, when philosophic men are working more inge 
 niously and energetically to properly ground a sys 
 tem of morals than to do anything else in philosophy, 
 the hint and much more than the hint, the clear 
 indication of the direction which the next real and 
 great advance in ethical theory must take is given us 
 by Emerson. / T believe that, just as Emerson has best 
 given the insight which harmonizes idealism and the 
 modern doctrine of evolution, which shows indeed 
 that the doctrine of evolution gets its adequate and 
 rational ground only in a spiritual philosophy, J 
 so he has made an ethical statement possible, large 
 enough to take in both Kant and Spencer ; and this 
 in no mere eclectic fashion, but in the genuinely 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 235 
 
 synthetic way of enriching and illuminating and 
 explaining both, in a truth which is deeper and 
 larger than theirs. 
 
 It has been impossible for me, in the brief time 
 which is all that I have been able to give to the 
 preparation of this essay, to do much more than pre 
 sent in some sort of systematic way such words of 
 Emerson s own as best indicate and illustrate his 
 great truth. Yet perhaps, after all, no one could do 
 better than this; and I hope at least to make the 
 conception clear and influential 
 
 This truth is, that morality is the law of the uni 
 verse as it is operative and consciously adopted in 
 the soul of man, just as gravitation and the chemic 
 forces are the same law of the universe operating 
 otherwise. 
 
 I might repeat a score of passages in which this 
 truth finds notable expression, to set as a sort of text 
 before what I would say. I will here set two such 
 passages, passages which will be the better remem 
 bered because of the significant occasions of their 
 utterance. The first is the closing words of the 
 famous Harvard Address of 1838, an address which, 
 as a whole, it is perhaps not unfair to pronounce the 
 first free and full utterance of rational religion in 
 America: 
 
 " I look for the new teacher that shall follow so far 
 those shining laws that he shall see them come full circle ; 
 shall see their rounding, complete grace ; shall see the 
 world to be the mirror of the soul ; shall see the identity 
 
236 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 of the law of gravitation with purity of heart ; and shall 
 show that the Ought, that Duty, is one thing with 
 Science, with Beauty, and with Joy." 
 
 The other passage is from the address before the 
 Tree Religious Association, in 1869 : 
 
 " I am ready to give, as often before, the first simple 
 foundation of my belief : that the Author of Nature has 
 not left himself without a witness in any sane mind ; that 
 the moral sentiment speaks to every man the law after 
 which the universe was made ; that we find parity, iden 
 tity of design, through Nature, and benefit to be the uni 
 form aim ; that there is a force always at work to make 
 the best better and the worst good." 
 
 " The identity of the law of gravitation with purity 
 of heart. ")" The moral sentiment speaks to every\ 
 man the law after which the universe was made// 
 Those are especially the texts which I would have 
 remembered. It is one idea which speaks through 
 both. Indeed, the most notable thing about this 
 whole brief address of 1869, as still more about the 
 address of 1880, upon "The Preacher," Emerson s 
 last great religious utterance, is the way in which 
 it revives and reiterates in some form almost every 
 leading thought of the Address of 1838. But this 
 rare consistency and persistency is the ever notable 
 thing in Emerson. It is the superficial man that finds 
 and talks of inconsistencies in Emerson. Never was N 
 so deep a thinker so mature at thirty ; and " Nature," 
 his earliest essay, might still pass for the best, and a 
 sufficient, summary of his philosophy. 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 237 
 
 I have chosen these two texts for a study of Emer 
 son s ethics, not more because they were spoken on 
 memorable occasions, than because those memorable 
 occasions were religious occasions. The ethics of 
 Emerson can never be dissociated from the religion 
 
 O 
 
 of Emerson. The study of the one involves reference 
 to the other. " How can we speak of the action of 
 the mind under any divisions," he asks once himself, 
 " as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and 
 so forth, since it melts will into perception, knowl 
 edge into act ? Each becomes the other." Truest of 
 all in Emerson s case is this melting of ethics and 
 religion. Ethics ever becomes religion with him, 
 and religion becomes ethics, in ways which we shall 
 consider. 
 
 A few words concerning Emerson s religious thought 
 are convenient and necessary at the very outset of this 
 study of his ethics. And perhaps much ground can 
 be cleared in no other way so quickly as by a brief 
 statement of his attitude toward the popular religion, 
 the creed of the Church. Of all the great religious 
 thinkers of America, and almost of our time altogether, 
 Emerson has been perhaps the most impatient of the 
 Church and its doctrinal statements. Of this, this 
 audience does not need to be reminded. But the 
 matter of interest to us is the manner and purpose 
 of his expressions of impatience, and the doctrine 
 which inspires his criticism. He said : 
 
 " We are all very sensible, it is forced on us every day, 
 that churches are outgrown j that the creeds are outgrown. 
 
,238 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 . . . The Church is not large enough for the man ; it 
 cannot inspire the enthusiasm which is the parent of 
 everything good in history. . . . For that enthusiasm 
 you must have something greater than yourselves, and not 
 less. . . . But in churches every healthful and thought 
 ful mind finds itself in something less; it is checked, 
 cribbed, confined." 
 
 " The Jewish cultus is declining ; the Divine, or, as some 
 will say, the truly Human, hovers, now seen, now unseen, 
 before us." 
 
 " Swedenborg and Behmen both failed by attaching 
 themselves to the Christian symbol instead of to the 
 moral sentiment, which carries innumerable Christianities, 
 .humanities, divinities, in its bosom. What have I to 
 do with arks and passovers, ephahs and ephods ; what with 
 heave-offerings and unleavened bread, chariots of fire, 
 dragons crowned and horned, behemoth and unicorn? 
 Good for Orientals, these are nothing to me. The more 
 learning you bring to explain them, the more glaring the 
 impertinence. Of all absurdities, this of some foreigner 
 proposing to take away my rhetoric and substitute his 
 own, and amuse me with pelican and stork instead of 
 thrush and robin, palm-trees and shittim-wood instead of 
 sassafras and hickory, seems the most useless." 
 
 "If a man claims to know and speak of God, and 
 carries you backward to the phraseology of some old 
 mouldered nation in another country, in another world, 
 believe him not." 
 
 The animating feeling here is that no time or place 
 was ever sacreder than ours, that God is in all his 
 tory alike, and that we too sustain original relations 
 
E PERSON S ETHICS. 239 
 
 with God. It is the same spirit as that of the 
 opening lines of " Nature : " 
 
 " The foregoing generations heheld God and Nature 
 face to face; we through their eyes. Why should not 
 we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why 
 should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight, 
 and not of tradition ; and a religion hy revelation to us, 
 and not the history of theirs 1 . . . The sun shines to-day 
 also. There is more wool and flax in the fields." 
 
 " An original relation to the universe/ that word 
 describes the spirit ; and it is in the enforcement of 
 this that he comes into collision with the Church 
 upon its three doctrines of Miracle, the Bible, and 
 Christ. His demand throughout is for an original 
 relation and a uniform and universal law. 
 
 " The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian 
 churches, gives a false impression ; it is Monster. It 
 is not one with the blowing clover and the falling 
 rain." 
 
 " I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous dispen 
 sation, certainly not to the doctrine of Christianity. 
 This claim impairs, to my mind, the soundness of him 
 who makes it, and indisposes us to his communion. . . . 
 It is contrary to that law of Nature which all wise men 
 recognize ; namely, never to require a larger cause than is 
 necessary to the effect." 
 
 " The word miracle, as it is used, only indicates the 
 ignorance of the devotee, staring with wonder to see water 
 turned into wine, and heedless of the stupendous fact of 
 his own personality. Here he stands, a lonely thought 
 
240 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 harmoniously organized into correspondence with the uni 
 verse of mind and matter. What narrative of wonders 
 coming down from a thousand years ought to charm his 
 attention like this? ... It seems as if, when the spirit 
 of God speaks so plainly to each soul, it were an impiety 
 to be listening to one or another saint. Jesus was better 
 than others, because he refused to listen to others and 
 listened at home." 
 
 "It is so wonderful to our neurologists that a man can 
 see without his eyes, that it does not occur to them that 
 it is just as wonderful that he should see with them ; and 
 that is ever the difference between the wise and the un 
 wise : the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man 
 wonders at the usual," 
 
 " Far be from me the impatience which cannot brook 
 the supernatural, the vast ; far be from me the lust of ex 
 plaining away all which appeals to the imagination, and 
 the great presentiments which haunt us. Willingly I too 
 say, Hail ! to the unknown awful powers which transcend 
 the ken of the understanding." 
 
 " It is not the incredibility of the fact," he says of 
 various alleged marvels, "but a certain want of harmony 
 between the action and the agent. We are used to vaster 
 wonders. One moment of a man s life is a fact so stupen 
 dous as to take the lustre out of all fiction. But Nature 
 never works like a conjurer. . . . The soul penetrated 
 with the beatitude which pours into it on all sides, asks 
 no interpositions, no new laws, the old are good enough 
 for it, finds in every cart-path of labor ways to heaven, 
 and the humblest lot exalted." 
 
 " We want all the aids to our moral training. We can 
 not spare the vision nor the virtue of the saints ; but let 
 
EMERSO^S ETHICS. 241 
 
 it be by pure sympathy, not with any personal or official 
 claim. If you are childish, and exhibit your saint as a 
 worker of wonders, a thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That 
 claim takes his teachings out of logic and out of Nature, 
 and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on 
 the teachings. It is the praise of our Xew Testament 
 that its teachings go to the honor and benefit of humanity, 
 that no better lesson has been taught or incarnated. 
 Let it stand, beautiful and wholesome, with whatever is 
 most like it in the teaching and practice of men ; but do 
 not attempt to elevate it out of humanity by saying, This 
 was not a man, for then you confound it with the fables 
 of every popular religion, and my distrust of the story 
 makes me distrust the doctrine as soon as it differs from 
 my own belief." 
 
 He sees how much the New Testament loses in 
 the charm of suggestion, of poetry and truth, by its 
 connection with a church, and by the official place in 
 which it is put : 
 
 " Mankind cannot long suffer this loss, and the office of 
 this age is to put all these writings on the eternal footing 
 of equality of origin in the instincts of the human mind. 
 It is certain that each inspired master will gain instantly 
 by the separation from the idolatry of ages." 
 
 " Men have come to speak of the revelation as some 
 what long ago given and done, as if God were dead." 
 
 " It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God 
 is, not was ; that he speaketh, not spake." 
 
 " With each new mind, a new secret of Xature trans 
 pires ; nor can the Bible be closed until the last great man 
 is born." 
 
 13 
 
242 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " The world is young : the former great men call to ns 
 affectionately. We too must write bibles, to unite again 
 the heavens and the earthly world." 
 
 There is, you perceive, no trouble with the doctrine 
 of inspiration, but rather a larger assertion of inspira 
 tion, trouble only with the doctrine which limits 
 inspiration. He cannot allow that the Holy Ghost 
 was exhausted by one effort or a dozen ; it still and 
 forever hovers over elect men with informations as 
 surprising and commanding as those which came 
 through Moses or Elias or Paul. There is no trouble 
 with the supernatural, trouble only with the pro 
 vincial-supernatural, with the doctrine of the limita 
 tion or insulation of the divine energy. He asserts 
 the natural-supernatural ; " in the universal miracle 
 petty and particular miracles disappear." " The cure 
 for false theology," he said, " is mother- wit. The 
 scepticism which men say devastates the community 
 cannot be cured or stayed by any modification of 
 theologic creeds, much less by theologic discipline." 
 " Forget your books and traditions, and obey your 
 moral perceptions at this hour." 
 
 More strikingly than in his discussion of the 
 Church s general doctrine of miracle and its doc 
 trine of inspiration, does this conception of Emerson 
 appear in his opposition to the Church s doctrine of 
 Christ. I think that no man in late times, unless 
 perhaps Fi elite in Germany, has paid such notable, 
 discriminating, and illuminating tribute to the mind 
 of Christ as Emerson. " Until I read Emerson," said 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 243 
 
 one of our ablest Congregational ministers to me, " I 
 did not know the mind of Christ." But this tribute 
 is always to Christ s pre-eminent possession of those 
 qualities which constitute the glory of the human 
 mind as such, and draws back at each suggestion of 
 peculiarity and miracle : 
 
 " The excellence of Jesus, and of every true teacher, is, 
 that he affirms the Divinity in him and in us, not 
 thrusts himself between it and us. It would instantly 
 indispose us to any person claiming to speak for the 
 Author of Nature, the setting forth any fact or law which 
 we did not find in our consciousness." 
 
 "Jesus has immense claims on the gratitude of man 
 kind, and knew how to guard the integrity of his brother s 
 soul from himself also ; but, in his disciples, admiration 
 of him runs away with their reverence for the human soul, 
 and they hamper us with limitations of person and text. 
 Every exaggeration of these is a violation of the soul s 
 right, and inclines the manly reader to lay down the New 
 Testament, to take up the Pagan philosophers." 
 
 " The language that describes Christ to Europe and 
 America is not the style of friendship and enthusiasm to a 
 great and noble heart, but is appropriated and formal, 
 paints a demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would 
 describe Osiris or Apollo." 
 
 " The Christian Church has dwelt it dwells with 
 noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul 
 knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to 
 the full circle of the universe." 
 
 " J T is presumed there is but one Shakspeare, one Homer, 
 one Jesus, not that all are or shall be inspired. But 
 
244 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 we must begin by affirming. Truth and goodness sub 
 sist forevermore. . . . No historical person begins to con 
 tent us." 
 
 " Jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. They 
 cannot unite him to history, or reconcile him with them 
 selves. As they come to revere their intuitions and aspire 
 to live holily, their own piety explains every fact, every 
 word." 
 
 " There are humble souls who think it the highest wor 
 ship to expect of Heaven the most and the best ; who do 
 not wonder that there was a Christ, but that there were 
 not a thousand ; who have conceived an infinite hope for 
 mankind ; who believe that the history of Jesus is the 
 history of every man, written large." 
 
 "Let a man believe in God, and not in names and 
 places and persons. . . . Dare to love God without medi 
 ator or veil. Thank God for these good men, but say, I 
 also am a man." 
 
 And particularly, in this connection, will be re 
 membered the famous passage in the Divinity School 
 Address : 
 
 " Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. 
 He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn 
 by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived 
 in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he 
 estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to 
 what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates him 
 self in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take posses 
 sion of his World. He said, in this jubilee of sublime 
 emotion, I am divine. Through me, God acts ; through 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 245 
 
 me, speaks. "Would you see God, see me ; or see thee, 
 when thou also tliinkest as I now think. " 
 
 Having thus considered Emerson s assertion of the 
 universal-supernatural, the perennial inspiration, and 
 the common divine sonship, through his negation 
 of the Church s doctrines of historical miracle, of a 
 Bible with covers, and of an " only-begotten " son, 
 we are prepared to understand better the aim and 
 scope and spirit of his positive expositions of religion, 
 and to see how his religious conception is the very 
 foundation of, or rather almost one with, his moral 
 conviction and philosophy. 
 
 Two well-known passages upon the Church and 
 the worship of the future will serve us as a good 
 starting-point for this part of our study. The first, 
 as will be recognized, is from that inspired last page 
 of the essay on "Worship," published in 1860 : 
 
 "There will he 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 ; sci 
 ence for symbol and illustration ; it will fast enough gather 
 beauty, music, picture, poetry." 
 
 The other passage is from " The Preacher," pub 
 lished in 1880:- 
 
 " We are in transition, from the worship of the fathers, 
 which enshrined the law in a private and personal history, 
 to a worship which recognizes the true eternity of the law, 
 
246 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 its presence to you and me, its equal energy in what is 
 called brute nature as in what is called sacred history. 
 The next age will behold God in the ethical laws, as 
 mankind begins to see them in this age, self-equal, self- 
 executing, instantaneous, and self-affirmed ; needing no 
 voucher, no prophet, and no miracle besides their own 
 irresistibility, and will regard natural history, private for 
 tunes, and politics, not for themselves, as we have done, but 
 as illustrations of those laws, of that beatitude and love." 
 
 The new church will be "founded on moral sci 
 ence." " The next age will behold God in the ethical 
 laws." It is, you perceive, one thought which speaks 
 in both places. " In transition from a worship which 
 enshrined the law in a private and personal history, 
 to a worship which recognizes the true eternity of 
 the law, its presence to you and to me." The law 
 which the old worships have thus enshrined in a 
 private and personal history is the moral law. To 
 Emerson, as to Kant and to Carlyle, the purpose 
 and the essence of religion is the moral life, and the 
 significance and value of all saints and cults is in 
 their illustration and enforcement of this. 1 " Hast 
 
 1 This principle, thus generally stated, would not of course be 
 denied by the really thoughtful and philosophic minds among those 
 who attach a greater significance and value to the "personal his 
 tory" and the cult than Emerson does. The principle, indeed, 
 could scarcely be better asserted than in these words of Bishop 
 Huntington : "The end of Christianity, the object of Revelation, 
 the ideal of the Church, is personal character. Systems, theologies, 
 creeds, sacraments, liturgies, missions, all are for this ; unless this 
 is produced somewhere, they fail. This making of character is our 
 first concern." 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 247 
 
 them reflected, serious reader, Advanced-Liberal or 
 other," asks Carlyle, in " Past and Present," " that 
 the one end, essence, use, of all religion, past, pres 
 ent, and to come, was this only : To keep that same 
 Moral Conscience or Inner Light of ours alive and 
 shining ; which certainly the Phantasms and the 
 turbid media were not essential for ? All religion 
 was here to remind us, better or worse, of the quite 
 infinite difference there is between a Good man and 
 a Bad ; to bid us love infinitely the one, abhor and 
 avoid infinitely the other, strive infinitely to be 
 the one, and not to be the other." 
 
 Emerson is full of passages urging this view. " The 
 essence of Christianity," he said, in his eulogy of 
 Parker, " is its practical morals. It is there for use, 
 or it is nothing." " I consider theology," he says, 
 using theology, of course, in the popular, not in the 
 philosophical, sense, " to be the rhetoric of morals. 
 The mind of this age has fallen away from theology 
 to morals. I conceive it an advance." 
 
 " I think that all the dogmas rest on morals, and that 
 it is only a question of youth or maturity, of more or less 
 fancy in the recipient ; that the stern determination to do 
 justly, to speak the truth, to be chaste and humble, was sub 
 stantially the same, whether under a self-respect, or under 
 a vow made on the knees at the shrine of Madonna." 
 
 " The creed, the legend, forms of worship, swiftly de 
 cay. Morals is the incorruptible essence, very heedless in 
 its richness of any past teacher or witness, heedless of- 
 their lives and fortunes. It does not ask whether you are 
 
248 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 wrong or right in your anecdotes of them ; but it is all in 
 all how you stand to your own tribunal." 
 
 " The infant soul must learn to walk alone. At first 
 he is forlorn, homeless ; but this rude stripping him of all 
 support drives him inward, and he finds himself unhurt ; 
 he finds himself face to face with the majestic Presence, 
 reads the original of the Ten Commandments, the original 
 of Gospels and Epistles ; nay, his narrow chapel expands 
 to the blue cathedral of the sky." 
 
 " The popular religion echoes an original conscience in 
 men. The commanding fact which I never do not see, is 
 the sufficiency of the moral sentiment. We buttress it up, 
 in shallow hours or ages, with legends, traditions, and forms, 
 each good for the one moment in which it was a happy type 
 or symbol of the Power ; but the Power sends in the next 
 moment a new lesson, which we lose while our eyes are 
 reverted and striving to perpetuate the old." 
 
 " The decline of the influence of Calvin, or Fenelon, or 
 Wesley, or Channing, need give us no uneasiness. The 
 builder of heaven has not so ill constructed his creature 
 as that the religion that is, the public nature should 
 fall out. The public and the private element, like north 
 and south, like inside and outside, like centrifugal and 
 centripetal, adhere to every soul, and cannot be subdued 
 except the soul is dissipated. God builds his temple in 
 the heart, on the ruins of churches and religions." 
 
 " The life of those once omnipotent traditions was really 
 not in the legend, but in the moral sentiment and the 
 metaphysical fact which the legends enclosed ; and these 
 survive. A new Socrates, or Zeno, or Swedenborg, or 
 Pascal, or a new crop of geniuses like those of the Eliza 
 bethan age, may be born in this age, and, with happy 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 249 
 
 heart and a bias for theism, bring asceticism, duty, and 
 magnanimity into vogue again." 
 
 " Men will learn to put back the emphasis perempto 
 rily on pure morals, always the same, not subject to doubt 
 ful interpretation ; ... to make morals the absolute test, 
 and so uncover and drive out the false religions." 
 
 " "\Ve are thrown back on rectitude forever and ever, 
 only rectitude, to mend one ; that is all we can do. But 
 that the zealot stigmatizes as a sterile chimney-corner phi 
 losophy. Xow, the first position I make is, that natural 
 religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised un 
 der the dogma of popular creeds. The progress of religion 
 is steadily to its identity with morals." 
 
 " It accuses us that pure ethics is not now formulated 
 and concreted into a cultus, a fraternity with assem 
 blings aud holy-days, with song and book, with brick and 
 stone." 
 
 " Ethics are thought not to satisfy affection. But all 
 the religion we have is the ethics of one or another holy 
 person. As soon as character appears, be sure love will, 
 and veneration, and anecdotes, and fables about him, and 
 delight of good men and women in him." 
 
 " Whenever the sublimities of character shall be incar 
 nated in a man, we may rely that awe and love and in 
 satiable curiosity will follow his steps." 
 
 " Is it quite impossible to believe that men should be 
 drawn to each other by the simple respect which each 
 man feels for another in whom he discovers absolute hon 
 esty ; the respect he feels for one who thinks life is quite 
 too coarse and frivolous, and that he should like to lift 
 it a little, should like to be the friend of some man s 
 virtue 1 for another who, underneath his compliances with 
 
250 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 artificial society, would dearly like to serve somebody, to 
 test his own reality by making himself useful and indis 
 pensable 1 " 
 
 " America shall introduce a new religion," he ex 
 claimed ; and the new religion which he thus fore 
 saw and prophesied was this religion of ethics. 
 Already it seemed to him the religious feeling was 
 preparing to rise out of its old forms " to an absolute 
 justice and healthy perception," infusing " a new 
 feeling of humanity into public actions." 
 
 It will not fail to occur to some here, that this 
 whole view of ethical religion is strikingly approxi 
 mated by the programme of the Societies for Ethical 
 Culture, whose rise in various of our cities, starting 
 with the work of Professor Adler in New York, is 
 certainly one of the signs of the times, and a matter 
 which seems to me deserving of the serious atten 
 tion of religious men. And it is especially notable 
 that Mr. Salter, the most speculative mind, perhaps, 
 that is actively interested in this movement, re 
 marked, in a recent address upon the philosophical 
 basis of the movement, "I know not what true 
 thought of mine you may not find, stripped of its 
 imperfections of statement, in Emerson." In truth, 
 I do believe that this movement, and all such, are 
 notable approximations to the view of Emerson, and 
 mark the effort of humanity to fulfil his prophecy. 
 Wherein Mr. Salter s own expressed philosophy falls 
 short of Emerson, and, as it seems to me, of truth, 
 appears as well by testing it by our two passages in 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 251 
 
 " Worship " and " The Preaclier " as otherwise. " A 
 new church will be founded on ethical law," said 
 Emerson in " Worship ; " but he added, " The Laws 
 are alive ; they know if we have obeyed." " The next 
 age will behold God in the ethical laws," he said in 
 " The Preacher;" but mark deeply, not simply be 
 hold the ethical laws, but behold God in the ethi 
 cal laws. The points here involved are essentially 
 the same as those involved in the ethical and reli 
 gious thought of Fichte during his Jena period, with 
 which most of those here are doubtless familiar. The 
 evolution of Fichte s own thought from the concep 
 tion of God as the moral law of the universe, to the 
 conception of God as real ground, is worthy every 
 student s careful study. 
 
 ^"Xjrod in the ethical laws." " The good laws are 
 / alive. " The notion of virtue," Emerson says in the 
 essay on Plato, "is not to be arrived at except through 
 direct contemplation of the divine essence." " I am 
 far from accepting the sentiment," he says elsewhere, 
 " that the revelations of the moral sentiment are in 
 sufficient, as if it furnished a rule only, and not the 
 spirit by which the rule is animated. . . . The sen 
 timent itself teaches unity of source." " Men talk 
 of mere morality, which is much as if one should 
 say, Poor God, with nobody to help him ! I find 
 the omnipresence and the alinightiness in the reac 
 tion of every atom in Xature. . . . Let us replace 
 sentimentalism by realism, and dare to uncover those 
 simple and terrible laws." 
 
252 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 We are thus brought to the particular considera 
 tion ofwhat morality is, in the philosophy of Emer 
 son. / 1 denned his view, at the beginning, as this : 
 that morality is the law of the universe as it is 
 operative and consciously adopted in the soul of man, 
 just as gravitation and the chemic forces are the 
 same law of the universe operating otherwise^] And 
 we will here recall our two texts : " the identity of 
 the law of gravitation with purity of heart ; " " the 
 moral sentiment speaks to every man the law after 
 which the universe was made." 
 
 " All power," says Emerson, " is of one kind, a 
 sharing of the nature of the world." 
 
 " It is a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those 
 of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth. These 
 laws do not stop when our eyes lose them, but push the 
 same geometry and chemistry up into the invisible plane 
 of social and rational life." 
 
 " It is the same fact existing as sentiment and as will 
 in mind, which works in nature as irresistible law, ex 
 erting influence over nations, intelligent beings, or down 
 in the kingdoms of brute or of chemical atoms." 
 
 " I look on those sentiments which make the glory of 
 the human being, love, humanity, faith, as being also 
 the intimacy of Divinity in the atoms ; and that man 
 is made of the same atoms as the world is, he shares the 
 same impressions, predispositions, and destiny. When his 
 mind is illuminated, when his heart is kind, he throws 
 himself joyfully into the sublime order, (#nd does with 
 knowledge what the stones do by structure. " 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 253 
 
 It would perhaps be imposssible to find any single 
 phrase which better defines Emerson s view of mor 
 ality than this last, doing icitli knov:icdge v:hat the , 
 stones do ly structure. We exist to an absolutely de-l 
 fined end ; and toward the fulfilment of that defini 
 tion the absolute law of our being commands, as truly 
 as the law of structure commands the inert and pas 
 sive stone. " The weight of the universe/ says Em 
 erson, "is pressed down on the shoulders of each moral 
 agent to hold him to his task. The only path of es 
 cape known in all the worlds of God is performance." 
 But this performance, which is necessary, must, to 
 make morality, be also voluntary. Man is free. He 
 must do with knowledge, and by choice, what the 
 stones do by structure, to fulfil his greater definition. 
 " The last lesson of life," says Emerson, " the choral 
 song which rises from all elements and all angels, 
 is a voluntary obedience, a necessitated freedom." 
 ^/Morality, then, is simply the health, the obedience, 
 Jhe perfection of our nature. It is the fulfilment of 
 our definition, the triumph over the negative ele 
 ments of tig soul, the law of the universe reflected 
 in the higlSet sphere. The moral law is the law of 
 the universe. Says Emerson : 
 
 " The universe is alive. All things are moral. The 
 soul which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a 
 law. In us it is inspiration ; out there in Nature we see 
 its fatal strength." 
 
 " A breath of will blows eternally through the universe 
 of souls in the direction of the Right and Xecessary. It is 
 
254 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 the air which all intellects inhale and exhale, and it is the 
 wind which blows the worlds into order and orbit." 
 
 " If in sidereal ages gravity and projection keep their 
 craft, and the ball never loses its way in its wild path 
 through space, a secreter gravitation, a secreter projec 
 tion, rule not less tyrannically in human history, and keep 
 the balance of power from age to age .unbroken. For 
 though the new element of freedom and an individual has 
 been admitted, yet the primordial atoms are prefigured 
 and predetermined to moral issues, are in search of justice, 
 and ultimate right is done." 
 
 " The dice are loaded ; the colors are fast, because they 
 are the native colors of the fleece ; the globe is a battery, 
 because every atom is a magnet ; and the police and sin 
 cerity of the universe are secured by God s delegating his 
 divinity to every particle." 
 
 " Morals are generated as the atmosphere is. T is a 
 secret, the genesis of either ; but the springs of justice 
 and courage do not fail any more than salt or sulphur 
 springs." 
 
 " The constitution of the universe is on the side of the 
 man who wills to do right. It is of no use to vote down 
 gravitation or morals." 
 
 f " Character," he says, " is nature in the highest 
 
 ( form." Over and over, in the essays of Emerson, do 
 
 ! we come upon sharp and striking definitions of .cjaa, 
 
 acter. I know of nothing which he defines so often 
 
 by a phrase, as character. And you will observe that 
 
 the definition is always a mere variation of the phrase 
 
 I have quoted, "character is nature in the highest 
 
 form," 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 255 
 
 " Character is the moral order of the universe seen 
 through the medium of an individual nature." 
 
 " Virtue is the adopting of the dictate of the universal 
 mind by the individual mind. Character is the habit of 
 this obedience, and religion is the accompanying emotion, 
 the emotion of reverence, which the presence of the 
 universal ever excites in the individual." l 
 
 " Character is the habit of action from the permanent 
 vision of truth." 
 
 " Character is a will built on the reason of things." 
 
 " Character is a natural power, like light and heat, and 
 all nature co-operates with it." 
 
 " The reason why we feel one man s presence, and 
 do not feel another s," says Emerson, " is as simple as 
 gravity. Truth is the summit of being ; justice is the 
 application of it to affairs. All individual natures 
 stand in a scale, according to the purity of this ele 
 ment in them. . . . This natural force is no more to 
 be withstood than any other natural force. AVe can 
 drive a stone upward for a moment into the air, but 
 it is yet true that all stones will forever fall ; and 
 whatever instances can be quoted of unpunished theft, 
 or of a lie which somebody credited, justice must 
 prevail, and it is the privilege of truth to make itself 
 believed." 
 
 This fundamental idea in Emerson s ethics, that 
 morality is simply the law of the universe, recurs so 
 
 1 In accord with this definition of religion is the following : 
 " The perception of this law of laws awakens in the mind a senti 
 ment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes our 
 highest happiness." 
 
256 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 constantly, and in such forcible and striking form, 
 that it is difficult to set a limit to quotation. The 
 following passage from " Nature " is important be 
 fore we leave this portion of our subject, for the sake, 
 especially, of the philosophical principle suggested at 
 its close : 
 
 " All things are moral ; and in their boundless changes 
 have an unceasing reference to the spiritual nature. 
 Therefore is Nature glorious with form, color, and mo 
 tion, that every globe in the remotest heaven, every chem 
 ical change from the rudest crystal up to the laws .of 
 life, every change of vegetation from the first principle of 
 growth in the eye of a leaf to the tropical forest and ante 
 diluvian coal-mine, every animal function from the sponge 
 up to Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws 
 of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments. 
 t Therefore is Nature ever the ally of Eeligion. . . . This 
 / ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow of 
 Nature, as to seem the end for which it was made." 
 
 This last thought is considered in detail, as will be 
 remembered, in the chapter on " Discipline ; " and at 
 the beginning of the chapter on " Idealism " occurs 
 the notable remark : " A noble doubt perpetually sug 
 gests itself, whether this end of discipline be not the 
 Final Cause of the universe, and whether Nature out 
 wardly exists. ... 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 cer 
 tain number of congruent sensations, which we call 
 sun and moon, man and woman, house and trade." 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 257 
 
 The grounds on which he proceeds to reject the 
 extreme theory of Subjective Idealism will be re 
 membered ; and that theory is not necessary for the 
 freest use of this thought of the ethical and disci 
 plinary character of the universe. But it is inter 
 esting and significant that Emerson is here occupied 
 with the same conception which Fichte declared so 
 unreservedly in his essay on the " Ground of our 
 Faith in a Divine Government." The world, said 
 Fichte, is " nothing else than the rationally objecti 
 fied perception of our own inner activity," " the ob 
 jectified material of our duty." Not objectified, of 
 course, in the sense of being made real, but- rendered 
 sensible, illustrating, versinnlichte is the German 
 word. "Die Welt is ja nichts weiter, als die nach 
 Yernunftgesetzen versinnlichte Ansicht unseres eige- 
 neu innereu Handelns," u das versinnlichte Materiale 
 uuserer Prlicht." Emerson says : 
 
 " Every natural process is a version of a moral sentence. 
 The moral law lies at the centre of Xature and radiates to 
 the circumference. . . . All things with which we deal 
 preach to us. ... The moral sentiment, which thus scents 
 the air, grows in the grain, and impregnates the waters of 
 the world, is caught by man and sinks into his soul. The 
 moral influence of Xature tipon every individual is that 
 amount of truth which it illustrates to him. Who can 
 estimate this ? who can guess how much firmness the 
 sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman 1 how much 
 tranquillity has been reflected to man from the azure sky, 
 over whose unspotted deeps the winds forevermore drive 
 flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain ? 
 
 17 
 
258 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 how much industry and providence and affection we have 
 caught from the pantomime of brutes 1 " 
 
 He says elsewhere : 
 
 " A virtuous man is in unison with the works of Mature, 
 and makes the central figure of the visible sphere. Homer, 
 Pindar, Socrates, Phocian, associate themselves fitly in our 
 memory with the geography and climate of Greece. The 
 visible heavens and earth sympathize with Jesus." 
 
 The words in which Kant, in his " Kritik of Prac 
 tical Reason," formulated the moral law are famous : 
 " So act, that the maxim of thy will may always be 
 the valid principle of a universal legislation." That 
 is, morality is the conformity of our will to absolute 
 or universal law. Precisely this is the thought of Em 
 erson ; and it is noteworthy that he expressly remem 
 bers Kant in more than one statement of it. 
 
 "What is moral?" he asks. "It is the respecting in 
 action catholic or universal ends. Hear the definition 
 which Kant gives of moral conduct : l Act always so that 
 the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal 
 rule for all intelligent beings. " 
 
 Again : 
 
 "Morals is the direction of the will on universal ends. 
 He is immoral who is acting to any private end. He is 
 moral we say it with Marcus Aurelius and with Kant 
 whose aim or motive may become a universal rule, 
 binding on all intelligent beings." 
 
 " On the perpetual conflict between the dictate of 
 this universal mind and the wishes and interests of 
 
ETHICS. 259 
 
 the individual," he says, " the moral discipline of life 
 is built. The one craves a private benefit, which the 
 other requires him to renounce out of respect to the 
 absolute good. . . . He that speaks the truth exe 
 cutes no private function of an individual will, but 
 the world utters a sound by his lips." 
 
 " A man is a little thing whilst he works by and for 
 himself;" but "when his will leans on a principle, when 
 lie is the vehicle of ideas, he borrows their omnipotence." 
 
 " The first condition of success is secured in putting 
 ourselves right. We have recovered ourselves from our 
 false position, and planted ourselves on a law of Xature." 
 
 " Men who make themselves felt in the world avail 
 themselves of a certain fate in their constitution which 
 they know how to use." 
 
 " Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas are impregnable, 
 and bestow on the hero their invincibility. It was a 
 great instruction/ said a saint in Cromwell s war, that 
 the best courages are but beams of the Almighty. " 
 
 v Hitch your wagon to a star," is the homely, pithy 
 word in which Emerson puts his doctrine into injunc 
 tion. And perhaps his most adequate statement of 
 the doctrine is the following : 
 
 O 
 
 " The open secret of the world is the art of subliming 
 a private soul with inspirations from the great and public 
 and divine Soul from which we live." 
 
 Herein, it seems to me, is the superiority of Em 
 erson to Kant. With Kant, the moral life appears 
 
260 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 almost as a chronic crucifixion, and we are forever 
 suspicious whether an act be moral at all in so far 
 as it is a pleasure. fVith Emerson, the moral life be 
 comes by and by, to the healthy and obedient soul, 
 a joy and an inspiration from the great God. " The 
 law was given by Moses/ says the old Bible writer, 
 " but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And 
 so it is here. There is no disparagement of the 
 Kantian Sinai, but only added glory ; yet severity 
 itself appears as loveliness, and law is but another 
 word for grace, obedience for joy. 
 
 I suppose we may say that three ethical theo 
 ries essentially cover what occupies the attention of 
 philosophical students to-day, the three theories 
 sufficiently indicated by the names of Kant and Mill 
 and Spencer. But the essay of Mill is not concerned 
 with what is really the urgent question with the 
 purely philosophical student ; namely, What is the 
 genesis and meaning of the idea of right? For, 
 somehow or other, as Emerson himself remarks, the 
 idea of right exists in the human mind. It is a fixed 
 quantity, a, not x. It is here. It must be taken for 
 granted at the outset of ethical inquiry, as truly as 
 the perceptions of sense. The ethical question is not 
 about the fact, but about its explanation and impli 
 cation. I say that Mill s essay is not much con 
 cerned with this. The general counsel that men 
 should act unselfishly for public ends is estimable ; 
 and it is certainly true that if they do not, society 
 will ultimately fall, and individuals will suffer by 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 261 
 
 it. But seventy years has little to do with what 
 will ultimately happen to society by reason of any 
 thing ; and I say that Utilitarianism has no impera 
 tive or adequate word for the selfish man who elects 
 to take his chances with his selfishness. " If morality 
 has no better foundation than a tendency to promote 
 happiness," well observes Mr. Froude, "its sanction is 
 but a feeble uncertainty. If it be recognized as part 
 of the constitution of the world, it carries with it its 
 right to command." Emerson says somewhere, " Xo 
 matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can 
 never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive ; " 
 and whether true of bees or not, it is certainly true 
 of men and the human hive, which are really what 
 are here spoken of. But it is absolutely and uni 
 versally true of humanity only because humanity 
 is immortal, and because society is its redeemed 
 form. 1 
 
 With, the real truth of Utilitarianism, Emerson 
 was of course in heartiest accord. He was in most 
 
 1 An important chapter in any complete study of Emerson s 
 ethics would be upon his conception of the moral character of 
 society as such. "Civilization depends on morality," he says. 
 "The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral, it 
 must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels ; " and he would 
 have said as freely that morality depends on civilization or social 
 institutions. Man creates moral institutions, which become them 
 selves a moral power and conservator and canon and rebuke. There 
 is a social ideal always extant, a higher always being born, which 
 uplifts individuals above themselves. Emerson notes how the moral 
 tone is immediatelj- elevated and ennobled when men address large 
 bodies or the nation. 
 
262 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 natural accord with it ; for, sovereign of idealists, 
 Poor Richard himself was not more shrewd and prac 
 tical than he. "The highest proof of civility," he 
 said, " is iliat the whole public action of the State 
 is directed on securing the greatest good of the 
 greatest number." But he well knew that the great 
 est good Is spiritual good, and that the greatest num 
 ber is the whole. He well knew that the greatest 
 good mighc lie in some act of justice that should 
 decimate the material resources of a whole commu 
 nity. With a single word he exposed the spirit for 
 which " Utilitarianism " too often stands : " Instead 
 of enthusiasm, a low prudence seeks to hold society 
 stanch ; but its arms are too short : cordage and 
 machinery never supply the place of life." And he 
 touched the ultimate truth in the couplet, 
 
 " He that feeds men serveth few ; 
 He serves all who dares be true." 
 
 And now what is Emerson s relation to the so- 
 called ethics of evolution ? Not in the least an 
 antagonistic relation, but a vivifying and rationaliz 
 ing one. His philosophy has abundant room for 
 all the facts of evolution. His remarkable general 
 anticipations of Darwinism have been frequently 
 pointed out, and were dwelt upon by Dr. Harris in his 
 lecture on " Nature." 1 But he would view a work 
 
 1 I may refar to an article of my own in the Princeton Review " 
 for Novjmber, 1884, on "Emerson and the Philosophy of Evolu 
 tion," as supplementing this portion of the discussion. 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 263 
 
 like Mr. Spencer s " Data of Ethics " as merely an 
 account of processes, still without explanation. J"That 
 explanation is the teleological principle, the truth 
 that the eternally creative and informing Force is 
 itself moral and jideal. Moral life is not something 
 into which we drift. It is that thing whereto we 
 are sent. The moral life is the centre, the genesis, 
 and the commanding factj " You must have a source 
 higher than your tap." " We are made of the moral 
 sentiment," says Emerson ; " the world is built by 
 it, things endure as they share it ; all beauty, all in 
 telligence, all health, exist by it. . . . An Eastern 
 poet said that God had. made Justice so dear to the 
 heart of Xature that, if any injustice lurked any 
 where under the sky, the blue vault would shrivel 
 to a snake-skin and cast it out by spasms. But the 
 spasms of Xature are years and centuries, and it will 
 tax the faith of man to wait so long." 
 
 Belief in " a force always at work to make the best 
 better and the worst good," that, it will be remem 
 bered, was one of the four articles of Emerson s creed, 
 which was read at the beginning. Keeping that in 
 mind, viewing evolution simply as the method of 
 the Moral Mind of the universe, then we shall find 
 that there is no process described by Spencer which 
 might not find proper place in the pages of Emerson. 
 So notable indeed is the element of evolution in his 
 own ethical discussions, that we may justly speak of 
 the Spencerisui that was in Emerson before Spencer, 
 in the same way that we speak of the Darwinism 
 
264 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 there. Perhaps no single passage better combines 
 Emerson s optimistic teleology and his doctrine of 
 evolution than this : 
 
 " Fate involves the melioration. No statement of the 
 universe can have any soundness which does not admit 
 its ascending effort. The direction of the whole and of 
 the parts is toward benefit, and in proportion to the 
 health. Behind every individual closes organization; 
 before him opens liberty. * 
 
 He also says : 
 
 " The history of Nature, from first to last, is incessant 
 advance from less to more, from rude to finer organization, 
 the globe of matter thus conspiring with the principle of 
 undying hope in man. . . . The best civilization yet is 
 only valuable as a ground of hope." 
 
 To these two passages I add two others, in which 
 the doctrine of evolution is treated in detail, with 
 special reference to its ethical bearings : 
 
 " Nature is a tropical swamp in sunshine, on whose 
 purlieus we hear the song of summer birds, and see pris 
 matic dew-drops, but her interiors are terrific, full of 
 hydras and crocodiles. In the pre-adamite, Nature bred 
 valor only ; by and by she gets on to man, and adds 
 tenderness, and thus raises virtue piecemeal.. When we 
 trace from the beginning, that ferocity has uses ; only so 
 are the conditions of the then world met, and these 
 monsters are the scavengers, executioners, diggers, pio 
 neers, and fertilizers, destroying what is more destructive 
 than they, and making better life possible. We see the 
 
E^fERSON S ETHICS. 265 
 
 steady aim of beuefit in view from the first. Melioration 
 is the law. The cruellest foe is a masked benefactor. 
 The wars which make history so dreary have served the 
 cause of truth and virtue. There is always an instinctive 
 sense of right, an obscure idea which animates either 
 party, and which in long periods vindicates itself at last. 
 Thus a sublime confidence is fed at the bottom of the 
 heart that, in spite of appearances, in spite of malignity 
 and blind self-interest living for the moment, an eternal, 
 beneficent necessity is always bringing things right ; and 
 though we should fold our arms, which we cannot do, 
 for .our duty requires ns to be the very hands of this 
 guiding sentiment, and work in the present moment, the 
 evils we suffer will at last end themselves through the 
 incessant opposition of Xature to everything hurtful." 
 
 The other passage is yet more striking : 
 
 " Very few of onr race can be said to be yet finished 
 men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the 
 preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call these 
 millions men ; but they are not yet men. Half engaged 
 in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music 
 that can be brought to disengage him. If Love, red 
 Love, with tears and joy, if Want with his scourge, if 
 War with his cannonade, if Christianity with its charity, 
 if Trade with its money, if Art with its portfolios, if 
 Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of space 
 and time, can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud 
 taps on his rough chrysalis can break its walls and let the 
 new creature emerge erect and free, make way and sing 
 psean ! The age of the quadruped is to go out, the age of 
 the brain and of the heart is to come in. The time will 
 
266 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 come when the evil forms we have known can no more 
 be organized. Man s culture can spare nothing, wants all 
 the material. He is to convert all impediments into 
 instruments, all enemies into power. The formidable 
 mischief will only make the more useful slave. And if 
 one shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic 
 effort of Nature to mount and meliorate, and the corre 
 sponding impulse to the better in the human being, we 
 shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not over 
 come and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the 
 chaos and gehenna. He will convert the Furies into 
 Muses, and the hells into benefit." 
 
 " Behind every individual closes organization ; be 
 fore him opens liberty." No man ever laid greater 
 stress upon organization and environment than Emer 
 son. He says : 
 
 " Men are what their mothers made them. You may 
 as well ask a loom which weaves huckabuck why it does 
 not make cashmere, as expect poetry from this engineer, 
 or a chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger 
 in the ditch to explain Newton s laws ; the fine organs of 
 his brain have been pinched by overwork and squalid 
 poverty from father to son for a hundred years." 
 
 " I knew a witty physician who found the creed in the 
 biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was disease 
 in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ 
 was sound, he became a Unitarian." 
 
 Many pages of the essay on " Fate " on the 
 whole, the greatest of the strictly ethical essays 
 are occupied by this strong showing of the tyranny 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 267 
 
 of circumstance. Some of his friends complained 
 that he ran the risk of making the argument for 
 circumstance and fate so strong that he could not 
 answer it. But he replied : " I dip my pen in the 
 blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into 
 my ink-pot. I have no sympathy with a poor man 
 I knew, who, when suicides abounded, told me he 
 dared not look at his razor. A just thinker will 
 allow full swing to his scepticism. I do not fear 
 scepticism for any good soul." " If you please to 
 plant yourself on the side of Fate," he said, " and 
 say, Fate is all ; then we say, a part of Fate is the 
 freedom of man." " To hazard the contradiction, 
 freedom is necessary." "Shall I preclude my future," 
 he asks, in his Yankee manner, " by taking a high 
 seat and kindly adapting my conversation to the 
 shape of my head ? When I come to that, the doc 
 tors shall buy me for a cent." 
 
 " Behind every individual closes organization : 
 
 v O 
 
 before him opens liberty." The latter is as neces 
 sary and as evident to Emerson as the former. 
 Freedom working through organization to freedom, 
 that is the process which he sees ; and the soul 
 of man is one of the rivulets of freedom. He 
 says : 
 
 " 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. . . . Morals im 
 plies freedom and will. The will constitutes the man. 
 He has his life in Xature, like a beast : but choice is born 
 
268 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 in him ; here is he that chooses ; here is the Declara 
 tion of Independence, the July Fourth of zoology and 
 astronomy. He chooses, as the rest of creation does 
 not." 
 
 " Morals implies freedom." This principle has 
 been declared by almost every great thinker from 
 Plato and Aristotle to Kant. To me it seems self- 
 evident. I think it must be regarded as an axiom in 
 ethics. The tree obeys the law, but the tree is not 
 moral. Morals implies freedom ; but freedom is 
 moral only when it obeys the righteous necessity. 
 " Obedience alone," says Emerson, " gives the right 
 to command." 
 
 " We throw ourselves by obedience into the circuit of 
 the heavenly wisdom and share the secret of God." 
 
 " We arrive at virtue by taking its direction instead of 
 imposing ours." 
 
 " If you wish to avail yourself of the might of the 
 infinite forces, and in like manner if you wish the force 
 of the intellect, the force of the will, you must take their 
 divine direction, not they yours. Things work to their 
 ends, not to yours, and will certainly defeat any adventurer 
 who fights against this ordination." 
 
 " The education of the will is the object of our exist 
 ence. " 
 
 " All our power, all our happiness, consists in our recep 
 tion of the hints of the soul, which ever become clearer 
 and grander as they are obeyed." 
 
 " We need only obey. There is guidance for each of 
 us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word." 
 
EMERSOFS ETHICS. 269 
 
 " A point of education that I can never too much insist 
 upon is this tenet, that every individual man has a bias 
 which he must obey, and that it is only as he feels and 
 obeys this that he rightly develops and attains his legiti 
 mate power in the world. ... In morals, this privatest | 
 oracle is conscience; in intellect, genius." 
 
 Morality, then, is the conscious adoption of the - 
 universal, it is the controlling presence of the uni 
 versal in the individual. Again and again we come 
 back to that great and simple thought. V" Our first \ 
 experiences in moral as in intellectual nature," says 
 Emerson, " force us to discriminate a universal mind, 
 identical in all men. Certain biases, talents, execu 
 tive skills, are special to each individual ; but the 
 high, contemplative, all-commanding vision, the sense 
 of Eight and Wrong, is alike in all. Its attributes 
 are self-existence, eternity, intuition, and command. 
 It is the mind of the mind. We belong to it, not 
 it to us. It is in all men, and constitutes them 
 men." Theodore Parker spoke no more absolutely, 
 and scarcely oftener, than Emerson of conscience as 
 "the voice of God." 
 
 " The moral sentiment comes from the highest place. 
 It is that which, being in all sound natures, and strongest 
 in the best and most gifted men, we know to be implanted 
 by the Creator of men. It is a commandment at every 
 moment and in every condition of life to do the duty of 
 that moment and to abstain from doing the wrong. And 
 it is so near and inward and constitutional to each, that 
 
270 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 no commandment can compare with it in authority. All 
 wise men regard it as the voice of the Creator himself." 
 
 " The inviolate soul is in perpetual telegraphic commu 
 nication with the source of events. ... If we should 
 ask ourselves what is this self-respect, it would carry us 
 to the highest problems. It is our practical perception 
 of the Deity in man. It has its deep foundations in 
 religion." 
 
 " Let man learn the revelation of all Nature and all 
 thought to his heart; this, namely, that the Highest 
 dwells with him; that the sources of Nature are in his 
 own mind, if the sentiment of duty is there." 
 
 " It is impossible that the creative power should exclude 
 itself. Into every intelligence there is a door which is 
 never closed, through which the Creator passes." 
 
 " The soul of God is poured into the world through the 
 thoughts of men. The world stands on ideas, and not on 
 iron or cotton ; and the iron of iron, the fire of fire, the 
 ether and source of all the elements, is moral force." 
 
 In one of the poems are these striking lines : 
 
 " But love me then and only, when you know 
 Me for the channel of the rivers of God, 
 From deep ideal fontal heavens that flow." 
 
 The following lines from " Saadi " will be well 
 remembered : 
 
 " Open innumerable doors, 
 The heaven where unveiled Allah pours 
 The flood of truth, the flood of good, 
 The Seraph s and the Cherub s food : 
 Those doors are men : the Pariah hind 
 Admits thee to the perfect Mind." 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 271 
 
 " In morals/ I have quoted, " this privatest oracle 
 is conscience ; in intellect, genius." Emerson con 
 tinually speaks of genius in almost the identical 
 terms which he uses of morality, and always as the 
 presence of the Divine and the yielding of ourselves 
 to its control Genius in men is "the Godhead in 
 distribution." "Genius is an emanation of that it 
 tells of." "Genius is religious." 
 
 "The hand that rounded Peter s dome, 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
 "Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 Himself from God he could not free ; 
 He builded better than he knew. 
 
 The passive Master lent his hand 
 
 To the vast soul that o er him planned." 
 
 " We cannot look at works of art but they teach us how 
 near man is to creating. Michael Angelo is largely filled 
 with the Creator that made and makes men. How much 
 of the original craft remains in him, and he a mortal man ! 
 In him and the like perfecter brains the instinct is resist 
 less, knows the right way, is melodious, and at all points 
 divine. The reason we set so high a value on any poetry, 
 as often on a line or a phrase as on a poem, is that it 
 is a new work of Xature, as a man is." 
 
 " The delight which a work of art affords seems to arise 
 from our recognizing in it the mind that formed Xature, 
 again in active operation. It differs from the works of 
 Nature in this, that they are organically reproductive. This 
 is not, but spiritually it is prolific by its powerful action 
 on the intellects of men. Hence it follows that a study 
 
272 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 of admirable works of art sharpens our perceptions of the 
 beauty of oSTature ; that a certain analogy reigns throughout 
 the wonders of both ; that the contemplation of a work of 
 great art draws us into a state of mind which may be called 
 religious." 
 
 " There does not seem to be any limit to these new 
 informations of the same Spirit that made the elements 
 at first, and now, through man, works them." 
 
 A worker together with God, that is the defini 
 tion of the genius and of the moral man alike. A 
 thinker of God s thoughts after him, that is the 
 true man of science. And an omnipresent and ulti 
 mately irresistible force is impelling humanity to 
 this love and realization of the true, the beautiful, 
 and the good. 
 
 " The fiend that man harries 
 
 Is love of the Best ; 
 Yawns the pit of the Dragon, 
 
 Lit by rays from the Blest. 
 The Lethe of Nature 
 
 Can t trance him again, 
 Whose soul sees the perfect, 
 
 Which his eyes seek in vain." 
 
 I have dwelt upon this similar treatment of genius 
 and virtue by Emerson, because the point which I 
 would next emphasize, as of great significance in his 
 ethics, is that of the harmony and unity of the pow 
 ers of the mind. I have already spoken at length 
 of Emerson s general conception of the community 
 of forces and the identity of law. " The identity of 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 273 
 
 gravitation with purity of heart," as we will not for 
 get, is our text. " All departments of life," he said, 
 " feel and labor to express the identity of their law. 
 They are rays of one sun ; they translate each into 
 a new language the sense of the other." 
 
 " Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and on 
 the other to morals." 
 
 "Intellect and morals appear only the material forces 
 on a higher plane." 
 
 " We are as much strangers in Nature as we are aliens 
 from God. "We do not understand the notes of hirds." 
 
 " I delight in tracing those wonderful powers, the elec 
 tricity and gravity of the human world." 
 
 " In proportion as a man s life comes into union with 
 truth, his thoughts approach to a parallelism with the 
 currents of natural laws, so that he easily expresses his 
 meaning by natural symbols." 
 
 "There is but one Eeason," he says in this con 
 nection. " The mind that made the world is not one 
 mind, but the mind." 
 
 But nowhere does Emerson emphasize this con 
 ception of unity so strikingly as in its reference to 
 the powers of the mind, and especially to genius 
 and virtue. " There is genius," he says, " as well 
 in virtue as in intellect." 
 
 " Men are ennobled by morals and by intellect ; but 
 those two elements know each other, and always beckon 
 to each other, until at last they meet in the man, if he is 
 to be truly great." 
 
 18 
 
274 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 "So intimate is this alliance of mind and heart, that 
 talent uniformly sinks with character." 
 
 "The moment of your loss of faith and acceptance of 
 the lucrative standard will be marked in the pause or sol 
 stice of genius, the sequent retrogression, and the inevi 
 table loss of attraction to other minds. The vulgar are 
 sensible of the change in you, and of your descent, though 
 they clap you on the back and congratulate you on your 
 increased common-sense." 
 
 "The high intellect is absolutely at one with moral 
 nature. A thought is imbosomed in a sentiment, and the 
 attempt to detach and blazon the thought is like a show 
 of cut flowers." 
 
 " I see that when souls reach a certain clearness of 
 perception they accept a knowledge and motive above 
 selfishness." 
 
 " Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he whose 
 thought is deepest will be the strongest character." 
 
 "As much love, so much perception." 
 
 "All the great ages have been ages of belief." 
 
 " It was the conviction of Plato, of Van Helmont, of 
 Pascal, of Swedenborg, that piety is an essential condition 
 of science ; that great thoughts come from the heart." 1 / 
 
 "In the voice of Genius I hear invariably the moral 
 tone, even when it is disowned in words." 
 
 " All high beauty has a moral element in it, and I find 
 the antique sculpture as ethical as Marcus Antoninus, and 
 the beauty ever in proportion to the depth of thought." 
 
 " The highest platform of eloquence is the moral sen 
 timent. ... I have observed that in all public speaking 
 
 1 We remember here that word of Anselm s, "I believe, in order 
 that I may know." 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 275 
 
 the rule of the orator begins, not in the array of his facts, 
 but when his deep conviction, and the right and necessity 
 he feels to convey that conviction to his audience, when 
 these shine and burn in his address. . . . There is a cer 
 tain transfiguration ; all great orators have it, and men 
 who wish to be orators simulate it." 
 
 "The finer the sense of justice, the better poet." The 
 habit of injustice " takes away the presentiments." 
 
 " There was never poet who had not the heart in the 
 right place. The old trouveur, Pons Capdueil, wrote : 
 
 Oft have I heard, and deem the witness true, 
 "Whom man delights in, God delights in too. 
 
 All beauty warms the heart, is a sign of health, prosperity, 
 and the favor of God." 
 
 " Show me, said Sarona in the novel, one wicked man 
 who has written poetry, and I will show you where his 
 poetry is not poetry." 
 
 " In poetry, said Goethe, only the really great and pure 
 advances us, and this exists as a second ^nature, either 
 elevating us to itself, or rejecting us." 
 
 Does any intellectual man need to have this truth 
 painfully enforced ? Do we not all learn rapidly, as 
 writers, as speakers, as public workers in any way, 
 that there is no secret to success and power but that 
 of simple sincerity ; that every fond admixture of pre 
 tension or of pedantry instantly betrays itself and 
 vitiates the effect; that there is no weakness but 
 deception and diplomacy, and no power but truth ? 
 There is no power but truth. There is no success 
 
276 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 but morality. "Civilization depends upon moral 
 ity," says Emerson. All high private fortune depends 
 upon it no less. 
 
 "The soul at the centre of Nature has so infused its 
 strong enchantment into Nature, that we prosper when we 
 accept its advice, and when we struggle to wound its 
 creatures our hands are glued to our sides, or they beat 
 our own breasts." 
 
 " If I will stand upright, the creation cannot bend me. 
 But if I violate myself, if I commit a crime, the lightning 
 loiters by the speed of retribution, and every act is not 
 hereafter but instantaneously rewarded according to its 
 quality." 
 
 " There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of 
 men is always driving them to the right ; and, again, 
 making all crime mean and ugly." 
 
 " Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Char 
 acter is always known. Thefts never enrich ; alms never 
 impoverish ; murder will speak out of stone walls. The 
 league between virtue and nature engages all things to 
 assume a hostile front to vice. All our political disasters 
 grow as logically out of our attempts in the past to do 
 without justice, as the sinking of some part of your house 
 comes of defect in the foundation." 
 
 "The laws of the soul execute themselves, There is 
 in the soul a justice whose retributions are instant and 
 entire. He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. 
 He who does a mean deed is by the action itself con 
 tracted. ... If a man is at heart just, then in so far is 
 he God ; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the 
 majesty of God, do enter into that man with justice." 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 277 
 
 The inevitable disaster of wrong is the guarantee 
 of morality. The moral alone is strong. The moral 
 alone can succeed. The moral is the measure of 
 power. It is also the measure of health. This is a 
 point upon which Emerson dwells with great force 
 and frequency, the interdependence of morals and 
 mental and even bodily health. " Genius is health," 
 he says, " and Beauty is health, and Virtue is health." 
 
 " Xo talent gives the impression of sanity if wanting 
 the moral sentiment." 
 
 " The moral sentiment has the property of invigorating." 
 
 "Strength enters just as much as the moral element 
 prevails." 
 
 Character is " that sublime health which values one mo 
 ment as another, and makes us great iu all conditions." 
 
 " The moral must be the measure of health." 
 
 " I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition 
 old." 
 
 " It is certain that worship stands in some commanding 
 relation to the health of man and to his highest powers, so 
 as to be in some measure the source of intellect." 
 
 " A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the 
 True, as the magnet arranges itself with the pole." l 
 
 " If your eye is on the eternal, your intellect will grow." 
 
 " Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from 
 an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, 
 ever sanative conscience." 
 
 1 " He that has a soul unasphyxied will never want a religion ; 
 he that has a soul asphyxied, reduced to a succedaneum for salt, will 
 never find any religion, though you rose from the dead to preach 
 him one." CARLYLE. 
 
278 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Conversely, he says of health, " Health is the con 
 dition of wisdom." He lays down as the first obvious 
 rule of life, Get health. "Health is the condition 
 of wisdom. . . . Sickness is a cannibal which eats up 
 all the life and youth it can lay hold of, and absorbs 
 its own sons and daughters. I figure it as a pale, 
 wailing, distracted phantom, absolutely selfish, heed 
 less of what is good and great, attentive to its sensa 
 tions, losing its soul, and afflicting other souls with 
 meanness and mopings, and with ministration to its 
 voracity of trifles." He quotes with approval the 
 word of Dr. Johnson, " Every man is a rascal as 
 soon as he is sick." He finds somewhat moral in all 
 health and all beauty, and he preaches the duty of 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 " Set not thy foot on graves : 
 Hear what wine and roses say ; 
 The mountain chase, the summer waves, 
 The crowded town, thy feet may well delay. 
 
 " Life is too short to waste 
 In critic peep or cynic bark, 
 Quarrel or reprimand : 
 T will soon be dark ; 
 Up ! mind thine own aim, and 
 God speed the mark ! " 
 
 The progress of humanity is to completer health, a 
 greater purity, a nobler knowledge, and a deeper joy. 
 
 "It is true there is evil and good, night and day ; but 
 these are not equal. The day is great and final. The night 
 is for the day, but the day is not for the night." 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 279 
 
 " Man helps himself by larger generalizations. The les 
 son of life is practically to generalize ; to believe what the 
 years and the centuries say, against the hours ; to resist 
 the usurpation of particulars ; to penetrate to their catholic 
 sense." 
 
 With the most practical eye and hand to deal 
 with evils and with sin, his philosophical optimism 
 is absolute. " A hopeless spirit," lie says, " puts out 
 the eyes." Moreover, the deepest insight, like the 
 deepest experience, worketh hope. 
 
 " Ever as you ascend your proper and native path, you 
 rise on the same steps to science and to joy." 
 
 " Men are all secret believers in the Law alive and 
 beautiful, else the word justice would have no meaning : 
 they believe that the best is the true ; that right is done 
 at last, or chaos is come." 
 
 It is the belief in Providence, in the Divine Xature, 
 " which carries on its administration by good men." 
 
 " I find the survey of these cosrnical powers a doctrine 
 of consolation in the dark hours of private or public for 
 tune. It shows us the world alive, guided, incorruptible ; 
 that its cannon cannot be stolen nor its virtues misap 
 plied. It shows us the long Providence, the safeguards 
 of rectitude." 
 
 " I hope we have reached the end of our unbelief, 
 have come to a belief that there is a divine Providence 
 in the world, which will not save us but through our own 
 co-operation." 
 
 " Nature works through her appointed elements ; and 
 
280 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good 
 and brave men or they are no better than dreams." 
 
 " Will not man one day open his eyes and see how dear 
 he is to the soul of Nature, how near it is to him 1 " 
 
 " The ancients believed in a serene and beautiful Gen 
 ius which ruled in the affairs of nations ; which with a 
 slow but stern justice carried forward the fortunes of cer 
 tain chosen houses, weeding out single offenders or offend 
 ing families, and securing at last the firm prosperity of 
 the favorites of Heaven. It was too narrow a view of the 
 Eternal Nemesis. There is a serene Providence which 
 rules the fate of nations, which makes little account of 
 time, little of one generation or race, makes no account 
 of disasters, conquers alike by what is called defeat or by 
 what is called victory, thrusts aside enemy and obstruc 
 tion, crushes everything immoral as inhuman, and obtains 
 the ultimate triumph of the best race by the sacrifice of 
 everything which resists the moral laws of the world. It 
 makes its own instruments, creates the man for the time, 
 trains him in poverty, inspires his genius, and arms him for 
 his task." If he fail, another shall rise, " Though ministers 
 of justice and power fail, Justice and Power fail never." 
 
 It is in the contemplation of this " sublime and 
 friendly Destiny by which the human race is guided," 
 that Emerson rises to his highest inspirations. The 
 thought of a mechanical, unconscious, automatic 
 world is to him impossible. Neither morals nor 
 intellect has so an explanation or a voucher. 
 
 " There is a persuasion in the soul of man that he is 
 here for cause ; that he was put down in this place by the 
 Creator to do the work for which he inspires him." 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 281 
 
 " Nature is too thin a screen ; the glory of the One 
 breaks in everywhere." 
 
 " Men do not see that He, that It, is there, next and 
 within ; the thought of the thought ; the affair of affairs ; 
 that he is existence, and take him from them and they 
 would not be." 
 
 "0 my brothers, God exists ; there is a soul at the 
 centre of Xature and over the will of every man. . . . 
 The whole course of things goes to teach us faith." 
 
 " Unlovely, nay frightful, is the solitude of the soul 
 which is without God in the world." 
 
 "A man of thought must feel the thought that is parent 
 of the universe. . . . The world is saturated with deity." 
 
 " The man who shall be born shall rely on the Law 
 alive and beautiful, which works over our heads and under 
 our feet." 
 
 The Law is alive ; it knows : this is ever his 
 thought ; and perhaps it is in a line of poetry that 
 he has put the truth most adequately : 
 
 "And conscious Law is King of kings." 
 
 In this God s universe, he says, 
 
 "What is excellent, 
 As God lives, is permanent." 
 
 " I have heard," he says, this is ever the form 
 of his, Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 " I have heard that whenever the name of man is spo 
 ken, the doctrine of immortality is announced ; it cleaves 
 to his constitution. . . . All our intellectual action, not 
 promises but bestows a feeling of absolute existence." 
 
282 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " A man speaking from insight affirms of himself what 
 is true of the mind : seeing its immortality, he says, I am 
 immortal ; seeing its invincibility, he says, I am strong." 
 
 But " the teachings of the high spirit are abste 
 mious, and, in regard to particulars, negative." Em 
 erson, too, is abstemious ; and any who are giving 
 up their lives, in a spirit of uneasy curiosity, to 
 fond discussions of a future life and other worlds 
 are not living in the spirit of EmersfDn, and to my 
 thinking are not laying the stress in a good place. 
 It was, on the whole, a wise word of Thoreau, and an 
 Emersonian word, " One world at a time." " When 
 I talked with an ardent missionary," said Emerson, 
 " and pointed out to him that his creed found no sup 
 port in my experience, he replied, * It is not so in your 
 experience, but is so in the other world. I answer : 
 Other world ! there is no other world. God is one 
 and omnipresent ; here or nowhere is the whole fact. " 
 It is no question of the soul s eternal nature and 
 immortal life, no man s faith in that so entire. It 
 is a rebuke of the irreligious blindness that does not 
 see that the soul is immortal, not will be, and that 
 eternity is one. 
 
 " In past oracles of the soul the understanding seeks to 
 find answers to sensual questions, and undertakes to tell 
 from God how long men shall exist, what their hands 
 shall do, and who shall be their company, adding names 
 and dates and places. . . . But we must pick no locks. 
 We must check this low- curiosity. An answer in words 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 283 
 
 is delusive ; it is really no answer to the questions you 
 ask. Men ask concerning the immortality of the soul, the 
 employments of heaven, the estate of the sinner, and so 
 forth. They even dream that Jesus has left replies to 
 precisely these interrogatories. Xever a moment did that 
 sublime spirit speak in their patois. ... It was left to 
 his disciples to sever duration from the moral elements, 
 and to teach the immortality of the soul as a doctrine, 
 and maintain it by evidences. The moment the doctrine 
 of the immortality is separately taught, man is already 
 fallen. . . . These questions which we lust to ask about 
 the future are a confession of sin. God has no answer for 
 them. ... It is not in an arbitrary decree of God, but 
 in the nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts 
 of to-morrow ; for the soul will not have us read any 
 other cipher than that of cause and effect. By this veil 
 which curtains events it instructs the children of men to 
 live in to-day. The only mode of obtaining an answer to 
 these questions of the senses is to forego all low curiosity, 
 and, accepting the tide of being which floats us into the 
 secret of Xature, work and live, work and live ; and all 
 unawares the advancing soul has built and forged for 
 itself a new condition, and the question and the answer 
 are one." 
 
 " Why should I hasten to solve every riddle which life 
 offers me ? I am well assured that the Questioner who 
 brings me so many problems will bring the answers also 
 in due time. Very rich, very potent, very cheerful Giver 
 that he is, he shall have it all his own way, for me." 
 
 " Of immortality, the soul when well employed is incu 
 rious. It is so well, that it is sure it will be well. It asks 
 no questions of the Supreme Power." 
 
284 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Such, slightly and inadequately sketched, is Emer 
 son s view of the moral life of man. My friends, it is 
 my religion, a truth sufficient to enable me, when 
 I am faithful to it, to live strongly and joyfully ; 
 a truth, I believe, by which any soul may enter any 
 future with confidence and peace. 
 
 Wickedness may fill the earth and manifold cor 
 ruptions taint society, but they that see that the law 
 of the universe is the moral law, that morality is the 
 soul s lawfulness and health and order, will be para 
 lyzed by no thought of " moral interregnums." The 
 immoral year is but the world s diastole. Tiberius 
 is Christianity s gymnasium, and papal Borgias and 
 Medicis manure the Reformation. Morality is sure, 
 because it is of the nature of things ; but immorality 
 is depravity. Crowd the cork to the bottom, but 
 every atom is crowded up forever by the picture it 
 carries of the sky. Morality has far deeper founda 
 tions than our passing purposes. Reality does not 
 humor our imaginings. This one laments this oth 
 er s atheism, as though his atheism cancelled God. 
 And this one writes, " I was, but am not " on his 
 tombstone, heedless of the smiles of the stars at the 
 fatuity that fails to see that only an / am has any 
 message. So fatuous is the thought that the uni 
 verse leaves its morality to accident. " The con 
 science of man," says Emerson, " is regenerated as is 
 the atmosphere, so that society cannot be debauched. 
 The health which we call virtue is an equipoise which 
 easily redresses itself, and resembles those rocking- 
 
EMERSON S ETHICS. 285 
 
 stones which a child s finger can move, and a weight 
 of many hundred tons cannot overthrow." Churches 
 many and creeds many pass away, and " in the rapid 
 decay of what was called religion timid and unthink 
 ing people fancy a decay of the hope of man ; " but 
 they that see the law " believe that man need not 
 fear the want of religion, because they know his re 
 ligious constitution, that he must rest on the moral 
 and religious sentiments, as the motion of bodies rests 
 on geometry." f " As soon as every man is apprised of 
 the Divine Presence within his own mind, is ap 
 prised that the perfect law of duty corresponds with 
 the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, as 
 face to face in a glass; that the basis of duty, the 
 order of society, the power of character, the wealth of 
 culture, the perfection of taste, all draw their essence 
 from this moral sentiment, then we have a religion 
 that exalts, that commands all the social and all the 
 private action. 
 
286 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 X. 
 EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 
 
 BY MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE. 
 
 WHAT is society ? or, if it comes to that, what was 
 society ? In the first place, an assemblage of human 
 creatures whose humanity consisted largely in their 
 power of discrimination and comparison between the 
 various objects and advantages of life. Animals have 
 habits, passions, affections, preferences, reasonings. 
 Man must have always been able to compare the ob 
 jects of these with a standard existing in his own mind, 
 and then to compare them with each other. In this 
 comparison, poor and rudimentary as it must once 
 have been, the greater good constantly gained upon 
 the lesser. The advantage of alliance was found to be 
 greater than that of discord. Law was recognized as 
 better than violence, temperance prevailed over ex 
 cess, industry was seen to be more productive than 
 rapine. The power of thought asserted its right to 
 a nobler employment than the devising of fables for 
 the superstitious, or of artifices for the covetous and 
 ambitious. And so by slow steps we come from pre 
 historic man to the nineteenth century, and to that 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 287 
 
 part of it in which the heaven of Xew England 
 was bright with particular stars. "We who were ac 
 customed to the presence of these stars in the social 
 firmament took very insufficient note of them. Which 
 of us stops to rave about the sunlight, glorious and 
 wonderful fact though it be ? Take it away, and we 
 recognize its constant and supreme office. While we 
 have it, our life and it are so at one that we cannot 
 much notice it. 
 
 Mr. Emerson s years surpassed by nine man s three 
 score and ten. His intellectual activity covers the 
 whole period intervening between his early manhood 
 and his seventy-first year. Yet I cannot find in 
 what I have known of this time any evidence that 
 the community at large felt itself either richer or 
 safer for his presence. If this was true of the busi 
 ness world, it was equally true of the world of fashion. 
 If I remember rightly, there were many years of his 
 life in which his words and works were valued by a 
 very small number of people. Has he not himself 
 said, turning his face from his own Boston, 
 
 " Goou-by, proud world ! I m going home ; 
 Thou art not my friend, and I m not thine " ? 
 
 The next strophe may tell us what he had seen there : 
 
 " Good-by to Flattery s fawning face ; 
 To Grandeur with his wise grimace ; 
 To upstart Wealth s averted eye ; 
 To supple Office, low and high ; 
 To crowded halls, to court and street, 
 To frozen hearts and hasting feet." 
 
288 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 And a little further on he says : 
 
 " When I am stretched beneath the pines, 
 Where the evening star so holy shines, 
 I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
 At the sophist schools, and the learned clan." 
 
 Even the recognized literary men of the time paid 
 him little attention. The elder Dana, in those days 
 at ]east, would have classed him with those whom he 
 esteemed as eccentric disturbers of peace and religion. 
 C. C. Felton, while professor of Greek at Harvard, 
 wrote a notice of one of his books, which he compared 
 to the orange-peel and water mentioned by Dickens s 
 Little Marchioness, with the explanation that, " If 
 you make believe very much, it is very good." 
 
 I remember having been sharply called to account 
 some forty-five years ago for advising an acquaint 
 ance to attend the first course of lectures which he 
 gave in New York; and I remember thinking that 
 from an orthodox point of view I had been a little 
 imprudent in so doing. In those days, and long 
 after, Cambridge held him in doubtful and super 
 cilious consideration. The world of fashion only in 
 rare instances knew enough of him to laugh at him. 
 Of course, there were exceptions to this. I think it 
 must have been in 1843 that I heard of his having 
 been invited after one of his lectures in Boston to 
 the house of Mr. Nathan Appleton ; and the friend 
 who mentioned this to me appeared much edified at 
 the countenance thereby given to Mr. Emerson. 
 
 It would be instructive for us to compare Mr. 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 289 
 
 Emerson s attitude toward society with that of Mar 
 garet Fuller in the days in which each had a position 
 of strangeness and novelty. I should say that Mr. 
 Emerson s patient and cautious nature made his po 
 sition a less aggressive one than that of his brilliant 
 contemporary. Margaret s eloquence, which gave ex 
 pression to the quick and vehement action of her 
 mind, was less favorable to the formation of reserved 
 judgment than was Mr. Emerson s more deliberate 
 speech. Eloquent on foot Mr. Emerson was rarely 
 or never. The glinfpses of his genius showed him 
 heights to be built up to, and this process was a slow 
 one. I remember him as rather averse to extempore 
 addresses, and as greatly preferring to read from a 
 manuscript. On the other hand, we must remember 
 that Margaret s encounter with the society of her 
 youth was more of a hand-to-hand fight than Mr. 
 Emerson was called upon to maintain. The fact of 
 her sex aggravated in her case the displeasure which 
 the worshippers of custom always visit upon inno 
 vators. In addition to this, a certain quality in her, 
 difficult to define, often provoked hostility in those 
 who knew her slightly, or not at all. Her critical 
 attitude, her authoritative manner, and her somewhat 
 novel method of imparting what she knew, brought 
 upon her a wrath and ridicule which Mr. Emerson 
 was not likely to encounter. Eor his prime abord, on 
 the contrary, had in it nothing of challenge or defi 
 ance. A solemn suavity, saved by an overspreading 
 cheerfulness, an eye in which severity of observation 
 
 19 
 
290 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 and kindliness of judgment were strangely blended, 
 these traits of person and of character made Mr. 
 Emerson s relations with those around him smooth at 
 the start ; and the severe sentences which he some 
 times fulminated took by surprise those who looked 
 into his genial countenance, and who heard those 
 uncompromising rebukes through the silver medium 
 of his voice. 
 
 I cannot follow here the steps by which he came 
 to stand where we all remember him, in conceded 
 eminence, as first in rank among our men of letters. 
 We all know that each of these steps was brave, 
 true, and independent. Clad in his wonderful tem 
 perament as in a seraph s golden armor, Mr. Emerson 
 reviewed the forces of his time, showing neither fear 
 nor favor to what he found amiss. Nothing did he 
 set down in malice, nor aught extenuate. A single 
 figure was he in his lone crusade; for though the field 
 was full of brave fighters, no one of them followed his 
 device. What could give one man the courage to ex 
 pose so many shams, ignore so many false pretensions, 
 assert so many unflattering convictions ? His knowl 
 edge of the value of what he had to give, and his 
 determination to give it. 
 
 I remember as if it were a thing of yesterday 
 the noble ring and scope of Mr. Emerson s Phi Beta 
 Kappa Oration, delivered in the year 1837. What 
 inspiration must his words have carried with them 
 to those who stood in his serene presence, and who 
 saw in his face the full beaming of his thought ! 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 291 
 
 To me, at that time a youthful scorner of much that 
 I did not understand, it sounded a new bugle-call, 
 opened a new way. And I cannot but admire as a 
 dispensation of Providence the gift of art and imagi 
 nation through which the speaker s ingrained purity 
 of soul was carried into the consciousness of all who 
 heard him, and gave its tone to the hour, single and 
 never to be forgotten. 
 
 The tardiness of Mr. Emerson s attainment of the 
 recognition to which he was entitled is easily ex 
 plained by the fact that he, like some of his peers, 
 had to teach a new valuation to the community which 
 assumed to judge him. Certain forms of belief, of 
 reasoning, of expression, had in the minds of men 
 become so hardened out of second nature into second 
 death, that the fossilized community had become in 
 capable of entertaining a novelty in either kind. To 
 it religion meant a catechism and a creed, morality 
 a bulwark of uncharities, art a catalogue of technical 
 terms. 
 
 Now, Mr. Emerson was not the only person sent 
 to blow up these coral reefs; but he wrought at them 
 alone, because his manner of work was, above all, 
 individual. He held to it, moreover, never borrowing 
 Parker s hammer, nor Phillips s flashing artillery. 
 His was the secret of a subtle solvent which changed 
 enmity into friendship, and the titter of ridicule into 
 the paean of manly praise. Not the secret of base 
 compliance this, but the finding of that deepest truth 
 within whose domain all must agree. 
 
292 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 The perfect politeness of Mr. Emerson s attitude in 
 regard to society appears as much in what is remem 
 bered of his life as in his works. A great element of 
 caution, a great sensitiveness to the rights and claims 
 of others, sometimes made him a waiter where others 
 dashed headlong into the fight. When he distinctly 
 saw what to aim at, a single shaft from his bow flew 
 far and hit the mark. He was, I should think, in 
 stinctively averse to all strife, delighting above all 
 in the philosophic coup-d wil which takes account of 
 individual shortcomings only to lose sight of them inj 
 the final harmony. Keeping in view this determining 
 characteristic of his mind, we must the more admire 
 the unsparing frankness of his satire. 
 
 There are some rude truths which it is polite to 
 utter, just as it would be polite to shake one s grand 
 father if he were sleeping to his hurt. The utterance 
 of these truths was never shirked by Mr. Emerson ; 
 but his manner of imparting them rather encouraged 
 those who were in error to come out of it, than con 
 demned them to abide in their sins and await their 
 punishment. 
 
 Forces, indeed, were not powers, in his view ; and 
 while he made due account of them, he did not unduly 
 revere them. " The powers that be " he did not find 
 in the rich merchants and haughty dames who repre 
 sented wealth and social pretension, but in men and i 
 women of commanding rnind and merit. 
 
 I do not remember him in the pulpit, but I think 
 that, once out of it, he eyed it askance. Not the 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 293 
 
 pulpit of Charming and Parker, but that from which a 
 learned ignorance sought to impose its limits, from 
 which a surface morality forbade the digging of a 
 deeper well. I once heard him say, in a Sunday 
 discourse, that he entered the pulpit somewhat un 
 willingly, because it contained traditions which he 
 neither wished to accept nor to reject. Many of 
 these have melted away since that time. They were 
 the prescriptions of an authority which then admitted 
 neither question nor examination, but which has since 
 learned to thrive upon both. 
 
 Mr. Emerson s power of critical appreciation is no 
 where more fully shown than in his "English Traits." 
 From the studious and laborious seclusion of his 
 Concord home he went, in 1847, to the world s me 
 tropolis, to London and its kindred cities. Eecog- 
 nition he surely found there, and of the best. The 
 voyage was undertaken by the invitation of a number 
 of associations much like our own lecture lyceums. 
 The book tells us nothing of the success of the lec 
 tures which Mr. Emerson delivered in various towns 
 of Great Britain, but we do not need to learn from it 
 that his reputation and position at once introduced 
 him to all that is best and most substantial in Eng 
 lish society. The book startles us by its trenchant 
 statements, which cut " deep down the middle " of 
 English character. It is no less remarkable for the 
 grasp and comprehension with which it presents the 
 strong and redeeming points of the race. The first 
 feature is illustrated in passages like the following, 
 
294 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 which is not over-gratifying to those who claim that 
 their families came over with the Conqueror : 
 
 " Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These 
 founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious 
 dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates. They were 
 all alike. They took everything they could carry, they 
 burned, harried, violated, tortured, and killed. Such, how 
 ever, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent 
 and dignified men, now existing, boast their descent from 
 those filthy thieves." 
 
 Mr. Emerson finds the English "led by a coarse 
 logic to worship wealth as the absolute test and cri 
 terion of merit." He finds them much given also 
 to the service of the god Brag, whom he charitably 
 recognizes as an ancient Norse deity. He considers 
 them as preserved from over-quickness of judgment 
 by the mask of " a certain saving stupidity." On 
 the other hand, he says : " There is an English hero 
 superior to the French, the German, the Italian, or 
 the Greek. When he is brought to the strife with 
 fate, he sacrifices a richer material possession, and 
 on more purely metaphysical grounds. On deliberate 
 choice, and from grounds of character, he has elected 
 his part to live and die for, and dies with grandeur. 
 This race has added new elements to humanity, and 
 has a deeper root in the world." Well does he re 
 mark that the English have great range of scale, from 
 ferocity to exquisite refinement. 
 
 Since the days in which this book was written, the 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 295 
 
 attitude of Great Britain to the rest of the world 
 has changed, not altogether for the better. She then 
 appeared as the uncompromising foe of slavery : she 
 has since become its apologist. A republican mon 
 archy then, she has since appeared as an imperial 
 autocracy. 
 
 We need not, for all this, suppose the values of the 
 race to be lost. They still exist, and will assert 
 themselves. But in the struggle and change of 
 society the least worthy elements have attained a 
 prominence which for the time gives to the very 
 name " English " a significance very different from, 
 that which Mr. Emerson so cordially recognizes in 
 the passage last quoted. The complex elements of 
 the nationality make themselves felt, despite the long 
 effort at assimilation. The fatality of its history per 
 severes, and every unrighteous conquest is called in 
 question, though the wrongs inflicted have seemed 
 to sleep the sleep of death for centuries. Is not Jus 
 tice, after all, the enchanted princess who lies spell 
 bound in her bower until the true knight finds his 
 way to her and bears her forth in his strong arms, 
 conquering and" to conquer ? 
 
 Power is changing hands in the Island Empire, 
 and the cherished immunities from change and dis 
 turbance are enjoyed no longer. There, as elsewhere, 
 the nineteenth century will do its utmost work be 
 fore it departs, and the people will assert their will 
 and pleasure in a form neither to be suppressed nor 
 ignored. 
 
296 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Since the days of which Mr. Emerson wrote, more 
 over, the precedence which he gives to English edu 
 cation, authorship, and scholarship is no longer to be 
 conceded. American education is found to develop 
 the faculties more fully than does the drill of Oxford 
 or Cambridge. The extremely limited horizon of 
 English life produces a national short-sightedness 
 which is unhappily reproduced among us by select 
 youths whose parents view everything through the 
 craze of a false social ambition, and send them abroad, 
 ostensibly to make gentlemen of them, but really to 
 train honest republican natures to the fashion of a 
 pseudo-aristocracy. 
 
 Of the English aristocracy of forty years ago Mr. 
 Emerson certainly saw all the good points. He 
 credits them with manners whose charm and value 
 take the place of the thought of which they show 
 small traces. " T is wonderful," he says, " how much 
 talent runs into manners : nowhere and never so 
 much as in England." He saw those fine people 
 where they appear best, at home. Their contempt 
 for other nations leads them to be less regardful of 
 the claims of others on other soil than their own. 
 As I have met them, on the Eastern Continent and 
 on the Western, I should call politeness the exception, 
 rather than the rule, among them. 
 
 It is not perhaps as difficult to be polite in cere 
 monious company, which imposes its own rules, as in 
 the freedom and isolation of country life. How Mr. 
 Emerson excelled as a country host and as a country 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 297 
 
 neighbor is well known in this place. Too sorrowful 
 is the thought of the bread that will be broken with 
 him no more. I will not dwell upon it. But of his 
 home-content he has left us glimpses which have in 
 them a great charm : 
 
 "Because I was content with these poor fields, 
 Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, 
 And found a home in haunts which others scorned, 
 The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, 
 And granted me the freedom of their state. 
 
 And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty 
 
 In the glad home plain-dealing Xature gave. 
 
 The polite found me impolite ; the great 
 
 "Would mortify me, but in vain ; for still 
 
 I am a willow of the wilderness, 
 
 Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts 
 
 My garden spade can heal." 
 
 I quote these lines, as you will all know, from a 
 poem in Mr. Emerson s first volume of verse. Few 
 books, it seems to me, so fully as this reveal the 
 character and habitual thought of the writer. The 
 finest of the poems may aptly be termed " Medita 
 tions in Verse." They are pictures, each of a dis 
 tinct cycle of thought, in which Courage asks the 
 question which Faith and Imagination beautifully an 
 swer. Such are, among many others, " The Sphinx," 
 "Each and All," and, above all, "The Problem," 
 sentences of which have now become a part of Eng 
 lish speech. These poems have not the flat subjec 
 tivity of one who, in every scene, sees himself first, 
 and other things long after, if at all. They pour 
 
298 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 forth no unhappy nor unholy passion. They reveal 
 the fair soul to us without violating its reserves, rapt 
 as it is in the contemplation of life s sublime mys 
 teries. A charm of unconsciousness is in them. The 
 poet sings to us with thoughts beyond his song. The 
 spell of rhythm soothes the Cerberus of his vigilant 
 caution. What view of sin was ever more polite 
 than this ? 
 
 " The fiend that man harries 
 
 Is love of the Best ; 
 Yawns the pit of the Dragon 
 Lit by rays from the Blest. 
 
 " Pride ruined the angels, 
 
 Their shame them restores ; 
 And the joy that is sweetest 
 Lurks in stings of remorse." 
 
 Polite, too, is Mr. Emerson in his extreme agony, of 
 which the well-known " Threnody " is the utterance. 
 Nothing that has been said of this poem seems to me 
 to express fully its unique merit. It calls up the joys 
 and beauties which have proved evanescent, sparing 
 not one dear domestic recollection, not one of the 
 beautiful traits of his dead child. But it shows the 
 mortal fixed in immortality, and the deep serene 
 persuasion which smiles beyond tears, and which 
 
 carries him 
 
 " Past the blasphemy of grief," 
 
 and shows him that 
 
 " Death, with solving rite, 
 Pours finite into infinite." 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 299 
 
 Death, or the power that lies behind it, has changed 
 his wondrous flower into a wondrous gem, his rose 
 into a ruby, with the rose s perfume. And he bids 
 himself 
 
 " Eevere the Maker ; fetch thine eye 
 Up to his style, and manners of the sky." 
 
 The indignation which Mr. Emerson felt at the great 
 wrongs which have disgraced our social and political 
 history was expressed in a calm and concentrated 
 form, with touches of deep philosophic suggestion, 
 which still speak to us like oracles. We find a 
 striking instance of this in the ode inscribed to 
 William Henry Channing, and written in the days 
 of the Mexican War : 
 
 " Who is he that prates 
 Of the culture of mankind, 
 Of better arts and life ? 
 Go, blind worm, go, 
 Behold the famous States 
 Harrying Mexico 
 "With rifle and with knife ! " 
 
 How is this for satire ? 
 
 " The God who made New Hampshire 
 Taunted the lofty land 
 With little men ; 
 Small bat and wren 
 House in the oak : 
 If earth-fire cleave 
 
 The upheaved land, and bury the folk, 
 The Southern crocodile would grieve ! " 
 
300 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 And the lesson of all this, what is it ? 
 
 " Let man serve law for man ; 
 Live for friendship, live for love, 
 For truth s and harmony s behoof ; 
 The State may follow how it can, 
 As Olympus follows Jove." 
 
 But this indignation reached its highest expression 
 in the poems called " Voluntaries," written either 
 during the war of the Southern Confederacy, or just 
 before, and in the "Boston Hymn," whose brave music 
 so fitly accompanied Abraham Lincoln s mandate of 
 emancipation to the colored race in America. 
 
 The poem on " Tact," in the first volume, illus 
 trates Mr. Emerson s appreciation of the importance 
 of that quality in all relations and in all successes. 
 But he himself had a finer tact than that which 
 these verses recognize. His was not that ready ad 
 dress which takes advantage of every favoring circum 
 stance in order to carry personal aims, but that fine 
 feeling which weighs and ponders, and is right. 
 
 In what I am trying to say, I may not hit pre 
 cisely the mark set up for me in my present task, 
 which is to speak of Mr. Emerson in his relation to 
 society. With all respect to this philosophic assem 
 blage, I think that some among you may expect to 
 hear something concerning our great friend s appear 
 ance at balls and parties, and his success in the light 
 skirmishing which occupies the border between lit 
 erary and commonplace society. And here, if nowhere 
 else, the example of Mr. Matthew Arnold may help 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 301 
 
 me. He began his well-known lecture by the asser 
 tion that Mr. Emerson was neither a great writer nor 
 a great poet. I may as aptly say that he was neither 
 a leader of the German, nor a tailor s model, nor yet 
 the pet lion of any social menagerie. I must also 
 confess that in the haunts of high fashion I never, to 
 my knowledge, met either with him or with his like. 
 I have seen him at dinners, have entertained him 
 myself after that manner. Xo one here will question 
 the perfect urbanity of his manners, fit expression 
 of the elegance of his nature. As I remember, he 
 was not a free talker, but was an attentive listener. 
 He was often very patient of extreme loquacity in 
 others, but stood ready to redeem the conversation 
 by some apt word, a helper in it, not a leader. I 
 think that he dreaded and disliked over-emphasis, 
 even in affirming the most important truths ; and 
 am sure that he would have justified Talleyrand s 
 pregnant saying, Point de zele. 
 
 Most of us easily run into panegyric when speak 
 ing of a man so eminent and so faultless as Mr. 
 Emerson. I confess that for my part I fear more 
 my own insufficiency in praising than in criticising 
 him ; that is, I fear more to miss the deeper merit 
 of his work than to overlook the surface traits in it 
 which may admit of question, and the liberty uni 
 versally conceded in the saying, DC gmtibus non 
 disputandum est. 
 
 I have sometimes differed from Mr. Emerson on 
 points both of feeling and opinion. I think that the 
 
302 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 glamour of Eastern thought sometimes overcame his 
 wiser judgment, and that his belief in the absolute 
 logic of organization occasionally led him to utter 
 sayings that savored of fatalism. This, I think, was 
 but a play of his mind, from which his sternly Puri 
 tan conscience quickly recalled him. Yet I have felt 
 this vein in him as one which I could not follow. 
 I did not agree with him, either, in wishing that the 
 meetings of the Boston Eadical Club should not be 
 reported in the papers. While gladly conceding that 
 a more intimate liberty of communion might have 
 been enjoyed with no such result in view, I thought, 
 and still think, that the earnest encounter of thought 
 ful oppositions, which gave so much interest to the 
 meetings of the Club, was too instructive and useful 
 to be withheld from the general public. 
 
 Yet we must give Mr. Emerson the praise which 
 belongs to a man of faultless intention, without de 
 fect of temper or of passion. He was, through some 
 dispensation of grace, exempt from some of the dark 
 est agonies of human nature. He had no brutal im 
 pulses to conquer, no raging appetite to contend with. 
 He knew, from the first, the victory of good over 
 evil ; and when he told me, to my childish amaze 
 ment, that the angel must always be stronger than 
 the demon, he gave utterance to a thought most fa 
 miliar to him, though at the time new to me. 
 
 Mysterious is this inequality of life, by which one 
 thus enters the field armed with the talisman of vie- 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 303 
 
 tory, while the contending ranks around him struggle 
 and bleed to achieve it. When all philosophies, all 
 religions, have done their best, this " why " still re 
 mains without its " wherefore." 
 
 I suppose that Dean Swift had in his mind the 
 contrast between the great man and the average one 
 when he wrote his humorous tale of Liliput. This 
 contrast was probably greater in his time and region 
 than in the Xew England of Mr. Emerson s earlier 
 life. And still, when one thinks of him in his study 
 at Concord, and of the soi-disant society of that time, 
 one does not wonder that the little creatures so poorly 
 understood the great man. Fortunate for them was 
 it that he had a higher office than to satirize them, 
 or by any lofty gymnastic to illustrate the difference 
 between his proportions and theirs. From that great 
 soul of his the multitude were to be fed and nour 
 ished. And well may it be written that " he gave 
 them bread from heaven." For in a certain divine 
 field of culture lie gathered and winnowed the 
 choicest grain. The spirit of antiquity was in it, 
 and the life of the present and future. These do, 
 indeed, literally meet in the seed which we sow in 
 the furrows. But this bread with which Mr. Emer 
 son fed the generations of his time had in it such 
 values as only the highest powers of thought could 
 perceive, realize, and transmit. The old historic rivers 
 spoke to him, Xilus, Strymon, Xanthus, Kephisus, 
 Padus, and Tiber. Poets and philosophers said sooth 
 
304 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 to him. He saw the unity in their multiplicity, the 
 harmony of their difference, and knew that the secret 
 of the heroic and beautiful is always the same, and 
 always unutterable. 
 
 From these rich studies he spoke to us. He gave 
 us the refined quintessence of their elements. Yet 
 he gave us not Homer, nor Plato, nor Hermes, nor 
 Kant, but a woven web in which their imperishable 
 beauties were brought together, sealed by a beauty 
 all his own. 
 
 The word " clubable " is, I believe, of English origin. 
 Would one have supposed it likely to apply to Mr. 
 \ Emerson ? It did, I think. He was clubable ; that 
 jis, capable of enjoying a mixed company gathered 
 with a fixed object. From some of his writings one 
 might have formed a different opinion of him. It 
 might have appeared as if isolation had been an essen 
 tial condition of his appearing ; as if one who had 
 so distinct a doctrine to teach might have found his 
 office incompatible with the encounters of common 
 intercourse. I could name, though I will not, cer 
 tain clubs which would not have been at all to his 
 taste, centres of vapid pretension and of fashion 
 able gossip. To imagine him in such surroundings 
 is profane ; but where two or three or more were 
 gathered together in the name of any high object, 
 he was likely to be among them and at home with 
 them. All of us remember him in the sittings of 
 the Kadical Club. He has often visited the New 
 England Women s Club, and has given his voice as 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 305 
 
 well as his presence to make its occasions worthy. 
 A kindred gathering of young damosels, the Satur 
 day Morning Club, has more than once been honored 
 by his ministration. The club of worthies who for 
 many years have dined together on the last Saturday 
 of every month was, I think, a favorite institution of 
 his. Xever having been at one of those dinners, I 
 cannot tell you what part he took in the accompany 
 ing conversation ; but I can in my mind picture 
 him as seated between Agassiz and Longfellow, with 
 other illustrious people who are now present with 
 us only in recollection. 
 
 Mr. Emerson s treatment of "the comic" in his 
 work entitled " Letters and Social Aims " shows that 
 he was fully aware of its importance in human 
 affairs. I remember very rarely to have seen him 
 moved to laughter ; and when some touch of his fine 
 humor thrilled his audience, and brought a pleasant 
 ripple to the surface, I cannot remember that his 
 countenance underwent any change. The broad grin 
 which is nowadays so much in fashion would, I 
 think, have appeared to him a pitiable symptom. 
 The nearest approach to absolute fun that I can 
 recall in connection with him was his reading of a 
 piece called " The Old Cove," which some of you may 
 remember. He read it in his own parlor, at the 
 request of one of his daughters, and did not neglect 
 one of its humorous points. 
 
 You are all familiar with the anecdote which rep 
 resents him as having gone with Margaret Fuller to 
 
306 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 see Fanny Elsler dance. " Margaret, this is moral 
 ity." " Waldo, this is religion." I should be glad to 
 know whether there is any foundation for the story. 
 A much-esteemed English friend once told me that 
 the subject of such an anecdote should not spoil it 
 by denying its truth. He quoted a well-known anec 
 dote about Sydney Smith, and said : Landseer told 
 me that when they met, after it had been put in cir 
 culation, Sydney Smith said to Landseer, " The story 
 is good ; we had better not spoil it." 
 
 With all that we owe in various ways to Mr. 
 Emerson, I feel most to thank him for his concern 
 in the common life of humanity. With a refinement 
 of taste which bordered upon the hypercritical, how 
 loyal was he to the rights and dignities of the mil 
 lion. Horace said : Odi profanum vulgus et arceo. 
 But Mr. Emerson, as I remember him, was concerned 
 for the least of those vulgar facts called common 
 men and women. No claim did he make to a life 
 apart from his fellows. His interpretation of life 
 his and theirs was heroic, but also sound and 
 simple. He spoke to ordinary lecture audiences, as 
 well as to special ones of his own ; to both with the 
 same grace and with the same patience. I think 
 he loved homely illustrations, and the smell of earth 
 and labor. I remember a lecture in which he spoke 
 of the recent purchase of Neander s library by a West 
 ern college, made upon the principle, he said, " that 
 the longest pole takes the persimmon." The demo 
 cratic soul which utters itself here and there through- 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 307 
 
 out his prose and his poetry reached its culmination 
 in such lines as these : 
 
 "Who is the master ? The slave is master, 
 And always was. Pay him." 
 
 1 have several times been Mr. Emerson s guest 
 The first time was on the occasion of an Antislavery 
 tea-party which was given in Concord somewhere in 
 the fifties. Mr. Garrison and Wendell Phillips were 
 the principal speakers at this meeting, and were in 
 vited, as I was, to stay at the Emerson house. The 
 next day some hours intervened between our break 
 fast and the time of leaving for Boston, and I remem 
 ber that we passed these hours with Mr. Emerson in 
 his library, and that the conversation was most easy 
 and delightful. I once asked Mr. Emerson s permis 
 sion to bring a European friend of mine to his house. 
 This permission was graciously given, and very gladly 
 improved. Our host knew how to grant a favor as if 
 he had been receiving one. 
 
 Years after this time I had occasion to attend a 
 Woman Suffrage Convention held in Concord, and 
 was fortunately appointed to visit the same hospi 
 table house, which had been burned and rebuilt since 
 I had last seen it. The evening was inclement, and 
 in a comfortless and dripping state I arrived at 
 the Emerson mansion. Mr. Emerson immediately 
 brought me a glass of wine ; and when Mrs. Emerson, 
 coming in a little later, said, " I am going to give 
 Mrs. Howe something to eat," her husband replied, 
 
308 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 "That s a good girl, Queenie, that s a good girl!" 
 with a heartiness not easily to be forgotten. 
 
 I have spoken of Mr. Emerson as a critic and 
 teacher of society. I would also speak of him as an 
 exemplar. In an age in which dead statutes ruled 
 the land, he lifted a courageous voice proclaiming the 
 holy laws whose spirit underlies the dead letter of 
 prescription. When Justice was inelegant and un 
 acceptable the whole world over, he pointed to her 
 ermine, and said, " It is ermine still." When wild 
 crowds shrieked, raged, and hooted against the oppo 
 nents of human slavery, he answered the rude sym 
 phony with the laughter of the gods. In a time full 
 of personal pretension, his poise of modest dignity 
 rebuked the fantastic and shamed the grovelling. 
 Nobility was in his walk, his word, his every gesture. 
 What an assurance did we feel in company of which 
 he made a part ! Nothing unworthy would dare to 
 show itself in his presence. Vulgarity of rustic or of 
 millionnaire would retire to the background before 
 him. The wonderful eye, the wonderful smile, not 
 only rebuked them, but cast them out. 
 
 The feminine follies which are so intangible yet 
 so powerful, at least as withes and nets are powerful, 
 to entangle arid detain, how well he understood 
 them ! How delicately he unravelled them, knowing 
 the true womanhood as few know it, despite the 
 pseudo-feminine caricatures in which fools of both 
 sexes delight ! He spoke for Woman Suffrage more 
 than once with sober weight and earnestness. The 
 
EMERSON S RELATION TO SOCIETY. 309 
 
 character and intelligence of the women who ask for 
 it impressed him with the belief that the time for it 
 had come. Mr. Parkman and a good many with him 
 find a number of women to be despicable in character 
 and intelligence because they believe in their right to 
 the franchise. Mr. Emerson considered these women 
 as of a rank to commend any views concerning their 
 own sex which they might adopt, and this one among 
 the number. 
 
 And now let me ask one question. What ought I 
 to be able to tell you about Mr. Emerson, you here 
 in Concord, who so long enjoyed his inspiriting and 
 delightful presence ? The only thing that I can sup 
 ply is the more distant view of what was so near as 
 well as so dear to you. You may say to me : " We 
 know him in his home, and in his home village, 
 where the grass could not grow without him. How 
 did he look outside these familiar bounds ? How 
 did our star shine among the world s great constella 
 tions ? " And I can reply, " He shone always with 
 his own peculiar lustre, calm and radiant." Xeed I 
 say that he still so shines ? So much of his thought 
 and life was cast in forms of immortal beauty, that 
 it endures and will endure, for generations that never 
 heard his voice nor saw his smile, a joy and an 
 inheritance forever. 
 
310 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 XL 
 EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 BY GEORGE WILLIS COOKE. 
 
 EMERSON was at the same time an American and a 
 cosmopolitan ; be believed equally ii humanity and 
 in bis own country. An American by inheritance, 
 love, and genius, he belongs to the whole world by 
 the breadth of his sympathies, his faith in the great 
 thoughts of all times and men, and his confidence 
 in the individual soul. To him, race, color, and cli 
 mate had but an external importance ; they were but 
 sign-marks to indicate the inferior phases of exist 
 ence. Where a man is born does not matter, but 
 what is born into him. " If you have man," he says, 
 " black or white is an insignificance. The intellect, 
 that is miraculous. Who has it has the talisman. 
 His skin and bones, though they were of the color 
 of night, are transparent, and the everlasting stars 
 shine through with attractive beams." 
 
 He looked upon the nations into which mankind 
 is divided as parts " in the great anthem we call 
 history, a piece of many parts and vast compass ; " 
 and he felt that the mighty song of human destiny 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 311 
 
 cannot be well sung out, unless all the races and 
 peoples give utterance to what is in them. ""\Ve 
 have no sympathy," he said, " with that boyish ego 
 tism, hoarse with cheering for our side, for our State, 
 for our town ; the right patriotism consists in the 
 delight which springs from contributing cur peculiar 
 and legitimate advantages to the benefit of humanity. 
 Every foot of soil has its proper quality ; the grape 
 on the two sides of the same fence has new flavors ; 
 and so every acre on the globe, every family of men, 
 every point of climate, has its distinguishing vir 
 tues." His view of nationality is, that the special 
 quality of each nation gives it a merit and oppor 
 tunity enjoyed by no other, and that its genius is to 
 be made a contribution to the universal advancement 
 of humanity. 
 
 His faith in the soul was such that he was willing 
 to omit no one from the higher promise of humanity. 
 To him no individual was ever so low as to have lost 
 his capacity for manhood, or to have lost the oppor 
 tunity of becoming a receptacle of descending truth. 
 His faith in individuality made him regard every 
 one as an agent of the highest, and capable of being, 
 doing, and saying that which is impossible to any 
 other person. In each nation, however, there appear 
 great men who give a tendency to life and thought, 
 adding their personal peculiarity to that of climate 
 and race, to make the national type. Each nation 
 representing some special phase of social and moral 
 development, giving utterance to some great thought 
 
312 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 and purpose no other nation represents so clearly, 
 it is desirable that reciprocity should exist between 
 nations, for the sake of the, common good. 
 
 Nothing was dearer to Emerson than the advance 
 ment of liis own country ; and to this subject he often 
 returned. In that remarkable paper on " The Ameri 
 can Scholar," written at the opening of his career 
 as a public teacher, he said that we must follow 
 the way marked out for us by our own capacities 
 and opportunities. " Let us be Americans, take new 
 guides and explore the present." The same thought 
 is in his latest appeal to his countrymen on "The 
 Fortune of the Republic," wherein he once more 
 asserted his conviction that we are not to look back 
 ward, but trust the ever-fruitful now. Zealous as 
 he was that America should be American, and riot 
 European or Asiatic, he was none the less zealous 
 that we should not be partisans for our own coun 
 try. Even when he was urging us to be faithful to 
 this marvellous opportunity put into our keeping, 
 and to take new patterns to ourselves for the making 
 of our national life, he could also urge upon our 
 attention the higher ideal. " We want men of origi 
 nal perception and original action," he said in 1878, 
 "who can open their eyes wider than to a nation 
 ality, namely, to considerations of benefit to the 
 human race, can act in the interest of civilization ; 
 men of elastic, men of moral mind, who can live in 
 the moment and take a step forward." " The civility 
 of no race can be perfect," he said in 1844, "whilst 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 313 
 
 another race is degraded. It is a doctrine alike of 
 the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is 
 one, and that you cannot injure any member without 
 a sympathetic injury to all the members." 
 
 To be true Americans we must be faithful to hu 
 manity ; for the genuinely democratic spirit leads us 
 to consider the rights of all, even those not of our 
 own race. If we can respect the rights of other 
 individuals, we should respect the rights of other na 
 tions none the less ; and the demanding of rights 
 for ourselves makes it imperative that, if we would 
 secure them, we demand the rights of others at the 
 same time. A nation may become a guide and in- 
 spirer along the way of that brotherhood of the race 
 of which all the prophets have dreamed. Emerson 
 would have America become the inspired teacher 
 of this higher social and national life. " I wish to 
 see America," he says with ringing emphasis, "not 
 like the old powers of the earth, grasping, exclusive, 
 and narrow, but a benefactor such as no country ever 
 was, hospitable to all nations, legislating for all na 
 tionalities. Nations were made to help each other 
 as much as families were ; and all advancement is by 
 ideas, and not by brute force or mechanic force." 
 
 Such being Emerson s view of nationality, it can be 
 best illustrated, and its truthfulness inquired into, by 
 turning to that field of activity to which he was most 
 strongly attracted. It is as the literary interpreter of 
 America that he can be most clearly understood in re 
 lation to his humanitarian and political convictions. 
 
314 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 In the doctrine of individuality is the explanation 
 of all his other theories. That doctrine he early de 
 clared : " Help must come from the bosom alone." 
 In another statement he makes the meaning clearer : 
 " The world is nothing, the man is all ; in yourself is 
 the law of all nature ; ... in yourself slumbers the 
 whole of reason ; it is for you to know all, it is for 
 you to dare all." It is a bold doctrine he thus pre 
 sents, not acceptable to the present time. We are 
 now enamoured with the outward, believing that all 
 truth comes through the senses. To the agnostic 
 nothing can be so repugnant as Emerson s doctrine 
 of the soul. It often happens, however, that the man 
 of intuition and the man of science, when faithful in 
 the search for truth without dogmatic aims, starting 
 from opposite sides come together unexpectedly. It 
 is the same truth they seek, and the same world 
 they seek it in ; and so it comes about that outer 
 and inner prove themselves to be one. 
 
 The dispute about methods is of little avail ; there 
 must be some other test. There can be no better test 
 than that which is suggested by Emerson s career as 
 a man of letters. What is it which has the greatest 
 influence in developing the literary activities of a 
 nation, creating the truest poetry and the most per 
 fect art ? Finding the answer to this question, we 
 have found the answer to the question of method in 
 so far as it most deeply concerned Emerson s thought. 
 At the same time we shall find Emerson s point of 
 view as an American, and how it was that in desiring 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF yATIOXALITY. 315 
 
 the advancement of humanity he looked for it along 
 the lines of national development. 
 
 There are two theories of the sources of literary 
 creation. One of them Emerson has presented with 
 that conciseness and force which mark his best words : 
 " I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic ; 
 what is doing in Italy or Arabia ; what is Greek art 
 or Provencal minstrelsy ; I embrace the common, I 
 explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. 
 Give me insight into to-day, and you may have 
 the antique and future worlds." To round out this 
 thought of his to its fulness there must be added 
 these w r ords : " Wherever a man comes, there comes 
 revolution. The old is for slaves. When a man 
 comes, all books are legible, all things transparent, 
 all religious are forms." 
 
 Matthew Arnold can best present to us the other 
 theory of literary creation, though it must be in words 
 which are as diffuse as Emerson s are concise : 
 
 " What the young writer wants is a hand to guide him 
 through the confusion of the present times, a voice to pre 
 scribe to him the aim which he should keep in view, and 
 to explain to him that the value of the literary works 
 which offer themselves to his attention is relative to their 
 power of helping him forward on his road towards this 
 aim. Such a guide the English writer at the present day 
 will nowhere find. Failing this, all that can be looked 
 for, all indeed that can be desired, is that his attention 
 should be fixed on excellent models ; that he may repro 
 duce, at any rate, something of their excellence, by pene- 
 
316 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 trating himself with their works and by catching their 
 spirit, if he cannot be taught to produce what is excel 
 lent independently. . . As he penetrates into the spirit 
 of the great classical works, as he becomes gradually aware 
 of their intense significance, their noble simplicity, and 
 their calm pathos, he \vill be convinced that it is this 
 effect, unity and profoundness of moral impression, at 
 which the ancients aimed; that it is this which constitutes 
 the grandeur of their works, and which makes them im 
 mortal. He will desire to direct his own efforts towards 
 producing the same effect. Above all, he will deliver 
 himself from the jargon of modern criticism, and escape 
 the danger of producing poetical works conceived in the 
 spirit of the passing time, and which partake of its tran- 
 sitoriness." 
 
 The history of American literature is a sufficient 
 test of the worthiness of these two theories, proving 
 one to be invigorating and creative, while the other 
 has a tendency in it towards what is depressing and 
 destructive. While the Americans, during the first 
 period of our literature, were mere imitators of the 
 English, seeking alike there for great models and for 
 their materials, nothing was accomplished. The lit 
 erature of that time is forgotten, except as some his 
 torian brings to our knowledge remnants of a buried 
 past. When Cooper began to write of American In 
 dians and forest scenery, and Bryant of the hills and 
 rivers and birds about his own home, an American 
 literature began to appear. It was not noble art- 
 models which were wanted, but a living man to see 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 317 
 
 and describe what was about him. Art caii never 
 take the place of life ; great models do not go before 
 enthusiasm for the beauty which is all around. 
 
 Others had set the example of going to Xature and 
 being independent ; but the influence of Emerson in 
 this direction cannot be overestimated. Until he 
 began to exert an influence on our literature, it was 
 possible to say that our writers were mere imitators 
 of the English. It was, indeed, almost impossible 
 for the American writers at the beginning of the cen 
 tury, situated as they were, to keep from being over 
 powered by a great and noble literature, full of art 
 and genius, presented to them in their own language 
 by the authors of another nation. That literature 
 embodied other ideas than their own, brought be 
 fore them traditions and memories alien to their own 
 spirit as a people, and describing nature under such 
 forms as were not familiar to them. The traditional 
 influence was upon them as it was upon the English, 
 and they went on imitating the old models. 
 
 It was not long after we became politically inde 
 pendent that the desire began to be felt for literary 
 freedom. As early as 1809 Buckminster expressed 
 the hope that our literature would take a bolder 
 flight and form itself on better models. Two years 
 earlier Noah Webster appealed to his countrymen to 
 think and speak for themselves, saying, " It is de 
 sirable that inquiries should be free and opinions 
 unshackled." It was one of the fondest dreams of 
 Webster s life, that we should cast off the Old- World 
 
318 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 models and develop a literature based on our own 
 life and national characteristics. When Bryant wrote 
 his essay on American poetry, in 1818, he treated it 
 as mostly rubbish, and made a demand, according to 
 his biographer, " for a spirit of greater independence, 
 for less imitation of form, for a more hearty reliance 
 upon native instinct and inspiration ; in a word, for 
 greater freedom, greater simplicity, and greater truth." 
 Such was the desire of nearly all the writers who 
 came to have any influence during the first three 
 decades of the century. 
 
 It was easier to dream of literary independence, 
 however, than to give an inspiring impulse in the 
 creation of a new form of writing. When Cooper 
 was writing his first novel, in 1820, lie long delayed 
 its completion because he distrusted " the disposition 
 of the country to read a book that treated of its 
 own familiar interests." A taste had to be created 
 for what was fresh, native, and original. Though 
 " native Americanism " was developed in politics, in 
 finance, and in social custom, the number of persons 
 who had an interest in literature was so small, and 
 the material interests were so paramount and ever- 
 pressing, there was little hope for an encouragement 
 of what was distinctive in literary art. It was the 
 novelty and freshness of the writings of Cooper, 
 Irving, and Bryant which gave them recognition in 
 England ; and it was the interest awakened by these 
 authors abroad which first really made them popular 
 at home. They had to develop a taste for the work 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 319 
 
 they did, create an audience and train it to a love of 
 what is truly American. 
 
 Much as these men did, however, they were never 
 fully emancipated from their reverence for the old 
 models, which influenced even their best work. It 
 was left for a later generation to create an American 
 literature in a more distinctive sense. It was not 
 enough to describe American character and scenery 
 while the old models and ideals were retained. The 
 flavor of the soil must go into the writing before 
 it could be really American. It was that literary 
 movement which began in this country about the 
 year 1835, and with which the name of Emerson is 
 indissolubly connected, which has given to our litera 
 ture a native flavor not to be mistaken. In America 
 we have breadth, range, and endless promise. Here 
 is every form of scenery, a clear sky, a pure atmos 
 phere, and a horizon stretching boundlessly away. 
 Here are no cramped physical conditions ; a conti 
 nent opens before us, crowded with variety and 
 promise of life. Conventionalisms are no longer op 
 pressive; the nightmare weight of centuries is not 
 upon us ; we may go forth in the pure morning air, 
 fresh, natural, joyous, to see with our own eyes and 
 to act with a free spirit. Here is mixing of races, 
 crossing of blood, new combinations of faculty and 
 talent, an untainted race of men, and opportunities 
 as untrammelled as the daylight. 
 
 The promise of this new world of Nature and man 
 Emerson was quite awake to, and no hope of his ran 
 
320 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 higher than that we should have a literature worthy 
 of these physical conditions, and the freedom amidst 
 which it may develop. His expectation did not rest 
 alone on Nature, but on the free opportunity given 
 for the soul s expansion. And it is worthy of no 
 tice, that the development of our literature into new 
 forms and ideals came with the awakening of a fresh 
 conception of man s place in Nature, and as a moral 
 and spiritual being. The philosophy of Emerson was 
 creative, it set men to look about them more keenly, 
 and it made them care more for what is real than for 
 what is formal and artistic. He gave an impulse to 
 thought, he made men look directly at the world, he 
 made them say straight out of the heart the things 
 which were in it. He gave them faith in themselves 
 and in their own thoughts, he roused in them a de 
 sire to say simply and sincerely how the world and 
 life seemed to them. Here were the elements out of 
 which to create a fresh, vigorous, and national litera 
 ture. " Look in thy heart and write," was heard by 
 the generation to which Emerson belonged ; and as 
 they heeded that eternal word, casting models and 
 formalities aside, they created an American literature. 
 " It is but a few years," says a critic of rare taste and 
 a charming style, " since we have dared to be Ameri 
 can in even the details and accessories of our literary 
 work ; to make our allusions to natural objects real, 
 not conventional ; to ignore the nightingale and sky 
 lark, and look for the classic and romantic on our 
 own soil. This change began mainly with Emerson. 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 321 
 
 Some of us can recall the bewilderment with which 
 his verses on the humble-bee, for instance, were re 
 ceived, when the choice of subject caused as much 
 wonder as the treatment." "When we .turn to his 
 earlier addresses, and consider what he says in behalf 
 of listening to the voice within and to the voice of 
 Xature, and when we look at his influence on Haw 
 thorne, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, we cannot 
 think these words claim too much for Emerson. 
 Though a new generation is now with us, his influ 
 ence on our literature has not passed away. There 
 are new ideals appealing to us ; but his voice is 
 heard above that of every other, and the impulse of 
 his life yet remains a fresh and inspiring creative 
 influence. 
 
 Henry James the novelist, in his life of Haw 
 thorne, has attempted to show how that great master 
 was crippled as a literary creator by the absence of 
 the picturesque and romantic in America. He for 
 gets that the highest of all literary motives come 
 from sympathy with man in the daily struggles of 
 his own inward nature, and that literature has other 
 purposes than artistic form and beauty. The best 
 answer which can be made to such literary theoriz 
 ing is to be found in the words of George Eliot, to 
 whom plain men and women were vastly more inter 
 esting than picturesque knights and troubadours, and 
 who turned away from the romantic past to portray 
 the homely present. " Depend upon it/ she said in 
 one of the noblest of her novels, " you would gain 
 
 21 
 
322 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some 
 of the poetry and pathos, the tragedy and the 
 comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul 
 that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that 
 speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones." 
 
 The search for the merely romantic and the artistic 
 casts a blight over some of the best literature of the 
 present hour. It is beautiful without, but there is 
 no life within ; it describes the surface of life in 
 glowing colors, but it does not penetrate to the heart. 
 It gives us a magnificent form, a glowing outline, 
 and melody of movement, but there is no living soul 
 to animate the figure. It has no passion, no ardor, 
 nothing heroic, nothing sternly pure, nothing of great 
 manhood. The writers who have accepted the liter 
 ary theory based on imitation of the past are tame, 
 fashionable, and polished in their style and thought ; 
 they are mere describers ; not poets, riot creators. 
 They look not towards the dawn, they look not about 
 to see how humanity in its possibilities can be por 
 trayed in the light of opening day, when all is fresh 
 and pure. The joy, pain, and tragedy which life 
 everywhere presents they pass by. They do not 
 care for anything so real ; they do not see the liter 
 ary promise there is in these mighty facts of daily 
 existence. There must be as much that is genuinely 
 human and heroic in the life of the toiling millions 
 of America as in the rudeness and savagery of a 
 more picturesque age. Better the rugged verse of 
 Whitman, with its intense appreciation of the strug- 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 323 
 
 gling and urgent life of America, than the polished 
 prose of James, with its keen-thrusting analysis of 
 that pseudo-Americanism which imitates what is 
 shallow and pretentious in European society. 
 
 If we take much of the highest literature of the 
 present hour in England and America, and examine 
 it closely, we find it beautiful without, but full of 
 doubt and weariness within. The English writers 
 since 1865 show too little of the joy, hope, and con 
 viction which marked those of the preceding age. 
 When we turn to their books we find much to admire 
 in the way of artistic perfection and a wonderful de 
 velopment of poetic melody. "When we look to the 
 inner motive of their poetry we find it to be retro 
 spective or sceptical. They believe in the past, but 
 not in the present. They are full of praise of the 
 faiths of the dead past, clothing them with beauty 
 and grace ; but toward the faiths of the living now 
 they adopt the philosophy of ignorance. They seem 
 always to be weary and doubtful, to suffer from per 
 petual ennui. How different the poetry of Words 
 worth, Tennyson, and Emerson, with their delight in 
 the near and familiar, their eyes turned towards the 
 present and the future with the expectancy of faith. 
 
 Literature demands the thrill of life, deep energy 
 of purpose, tragedy of the inward nature in its 
 searching for a solution of life s meaning, passion, en 
 thusiasm, boundless aims, and a faith pure and sub 
 lime. The heart quivering with human sympathy 
 and pity, the heart on fire with high ideal enterprise, 
 
324 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 the soul aflame with mighty thoughts, the soul aglow 
 with spiritual conviction, out of these will books 
 grow that have immortality in them. It is said by 
 "Wordsworth that poetry is emotion recalled in hours 
 of tranquillity; but there must be emotion, if there 
 is to be poetry, and even deep and surging emotion, 
 worked sternly out into forms of beauty in the hours 
 of calm and pure thought. Only the hero in possi 
 bility, however, can write a heroic book, one who 
 feels the heroic throb of the heart when the brave 
 deed has been done, and the longing to act in the 
 midst of great concerns. He may not have done the 
 hero s deed, but he must be capable of imagining and 
 feeling it, and of doing it, too, and then his 
 words will breathe, his pages will have in them the 
 tramp of hosts and the joy of battles won. 
 
 That literature is great which is the product of 
 great living. When men are weak and paltry and 
 sensual they have nothing great and wise to say, and 
 their books are worthless. It is the age which is 
 moved by earnest motives which produces a litera 
 ture of moral power and beauty. A frivolous time 
 may give us finely rounded periods and ornate sen 
 tences, but at the heart of them they will be hollow 
 and dead. When mighty thoughts pulsate through a 
 nation s being, uniting the hearts of a people in one 
 common purpose, making them love justice and truth 
 far more than life and its beauty, then will books be 
 written that shall live forever. The times of mental 
 wakening, clash of thought with thought and culture 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 325 
 
 with culture, have been the times of the greatest lit 
 erary activity. Not all outward influences taken to 
 gether, however, and fused into one concentrated white 
 heat of environing impulse, could produce the weak 
 est of the world s literary masters ; but they help to 
 bring out what is in men, they give occasion for the 
 outburst and full flush of a capable soul. Only a 
 rose-bush can produce roses, whatever the soil, nur 
 ture, and climate. Xo outward conditions can bring 
 forth mighty thoughts, thoughts which rouse or glad 
 den the world, from the brains of ordinary men. The 
 poet is born ; he conies as a new light into the midst 
 of the world s darkness, to say and to create what 
 has not been said and created before. His appear 
 ance is a miracle ; no study of physical or social con 
 ditions can account for him. He is a burst of light 
 out of those regions where light always is ; he brings 
 revelations of a world richer and more beautiful than 
 that in which we daily live. The poet does not wait 
 on circumstances ; he creates circumstances, and a 
 world of the romantic and picturesque, out of the 
 flaming sentiments of his own heart. The poet is 
 not the product of an environing past ; he environs 
 himself rather with those ideals which answer to all 
 that is within his own being, as rose-tint answers to 
 rose-tint to make a thing of perfect beauty. 
 
 The times when the faces of men have been turned 
 wholly towards the past have not been those of liter 
 ary fruitfulness. It is the seeing eye without and 
 the burning heart within which are the truest models 
 
326 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 of literary art. What they do not teach cannot be 
 made up to us by any perfection in words or any 
 richness in music. Thought is the creator of form, 
 and not form the inventor of thought. The true 
 music is to be found in the harmonious soul, and not 
 in the rhythmic concurrence of words. The springs 
 of literary power and beauty are within ; the Homers 
 and Shakspeares have sat at the feet of no other 
 masters than their own souls. 
 
 No one could more clearly recognize than Emer 
 son has done, that literature must be the outgrowth 
 of life, that it must proceed from thought, sympathy, 
 and experience. What we have not seen, heard, and 
 felt, how can we describe ? If we take a scene from 
 the past for our story, for the sake of a picturesque 
 setting, we must infuse into it the life which has been 
 our own, or it will not glow with passion and thrill 
 with energy. It is because our life is like the life 
 of the past, because the heart of man is the same in 
 all ages, touched by the same emotions and played 
 upon by the same experiences, that we are enabled 
 to represent bygone times with reality and justice. 
 Whatever the time or scene, it is our own heart 
 which throbs in its beauty and our own mind which 
 informs it with truth. Emerson has recognized in 
 his characteristic manner that our experience is our 
 test of other men and times. " I am tasting the 
 self-same life," he says, "its sweetness, its great 
 ness, its pain, which I so much admire in other men. 
 Do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable, obliterated 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 327 
 
 past, what it cannot tell, the details of that nature, 
 of that day, called Byron or Burke ; but ask it of 
 the enveloping now. The more quaintly you inspect 
 its evanescent beauties, its wonderful details, its as 
 tounding whole, so much the more you master the 
 biography of this hero, and that, and every hero." 
 
 As extravagant as this may seem, a great and preg 
 nant truth lies under it, and the force of it must be 
 recognized wherever literature is to have a living 
 power and charm. To write great books we must be 
 capable of feeling and thinking great things. 
 
 He never ceased to criticise us for the spirit of 
 imitation. He did not see in America that original 
 
 O 
 
 life which he so much desired should be developed 
 amongst us. Men did not sufficiently assert them 
 selves, living and thinking as it seems to them best, 
 to satisfy him. " America is provincial," he said in 
 one of his last addresses. " See the secondariness 
 and aping of foreign and English life, that runs 
 through this country, in building, in dress, in eating, 
 in books. . . . The tendency of this is to make all 
 men alike; to extinguish individualism and choke 
 up all the channels of inspiration from God to man." 
 From first to last this was his criticism ; and it was 
 needed. Perhaps it was too self-conscious a criticism 
 to have produced the desired effect. It is not when 
 men know their weaknesses that they accomplish the 
 largest results. A life of impulse and energy is the 
 one which develops a literature of enduring quality, 
 and not one that can see its own defects as in a niir- 
 
328 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 ror. With the creative skill of a Homer or a Dante, 
 Emerson would have accomplished that in which he 
 has now only partially succeeded. 
 
 Urgent as was his demand that we should be 
 American and individual, foregoing the past and 
 trusting to present inspiration, he was himself a 
 diligent student of literature. He loved books, and 
 he knew how to use them, for his essays everywhere 
 show the indications of his literary tastes. Not an 
 omnivorous reader, he contrived to secure what is 
 best, by some process of mental selection which was 
 extraordinary. What is of the highest import he 
 did not hesitate to appropriate to his own page, fit 
 ting the quotation into the living structure of his 
 essay, as if it grew there. He knew how to get 
 quickening of thought and inspiration from books, 
 how to assimilate the thoughts of other men into his 
 own life-blood. ISTor did he altogether scorn the 
 past, for he took many a lesson from it. He was es 
 sentially a cosmopolitan, admiring what is excellent 
 wherever it is to be found. 
 
 These seemingly antagonistic tendencies in Emer 
 son were in reality quite in harmony with each other. 
 He scorned imitation for the same reason that he 
 loved original thought. His delight in the great 
 books grew from the same root as his faith in the 
 now and here. He went to the literary masters, not 
 for models, but for quickening of heart and mind. 
 They were to him like the mountain height, the 
 ocean roused by the stormy winds of heaven, or the 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 329 
 
 sinile that plays tenderly over the face of a babe, 
 elementary forces, to be studied as one with flower 
 and star. As he would assimilate the mountain 
 scene, so would he take Homer into his own nature. 
 As God speaks to me, he might have said, so has he 
 spoken to other men and times ; the word to others 
 is also good for me to hear. 
 
 Emerson felt what all the literary initiators have 
 felt, the need of liberating the human spirit from 
 the bondage of oppressive forms. He wished to do 
 for America what Lessing did for Germany, throw 
 off the influence of ideals not in accordance with the 
 genius of his own country. This was also the pur 
 pose which animated the great literary pathfinders of 
 the Eenaissauce ; they wished to develop a national 
 literature by writing in the language of the people ; 
 and, by setting the example, they did an immense ser 
 vice in the awakening of the modern spirit. So was 
 it when men grew tired of the classic doctrine of the 
 unities, and other such antiquated methods ; the old 
 was thrown aside because a new life and power had ap 
 peared. The same struggle has gone on in every crea 
 tive period, and in every nation which has come to a 
 literary expression of its genius, a struggle for in 
 dependence of old forms and ideals, and for liberty of 
 uttering the human soul in the words and in the spirit 
 of the present time and place. Until a nation arrives 
 at such measure of genius that it is capable of stand 
 ing up in its own might and glory to assert its freedom 
 and its manhood, tnere is little hope for its literature. 
 
330 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 When we turn to the great creative age of English 
 literature, that of the time of Elizabeth, one of its 
 characteristics to which our attention is soonest called 
 is the avidity with which its men of letters absorbed 
 what was best, or most to their purpose, in the lit 
 erature of other lands and times. They borrowed a 
 good plot wherever they could find it ; and those who 
 could, sought the inspiration of Italy, then the centre 
 of the world s intellectual activity. But the men of 
 the dawn and full morning glory of English literature, 
 eager as they were to gather the riches of every clime, 
 wrote English books for English people. It was a 
 time when men were awake, when the whole world 
 seemed to be opening to them, when many forces 
 were clashing together. The wealth of the classic 
 ages was being opened before them, the New World 
 was just discovered, and the spirit of commercial 
 adventure being developed; and on every hand in 
 fluences were at work to rouse and to liberate the 
 human spirit. Feudalism died, and the modern 
 world was born.. 
 
 Every great literary period has come when men were 
 thus roused by the stirring of new and antagonistic 
 forces. It is not the conflict of civilization with 
 civilization which begets literary power ; but when 
 forces long developed apart come in contact with 
 each other, in the movements of peoples or in the 
 progress of discovery, men are thrown out of their 
 old habits, their minds are set free, and they come to 
 act from what is within, not merely by the force of 
 
E^fERSOX S VIEW OF XATIOXAL1TY. 331 
 
 what is without. They find themselves no longer 
 the victims of circumstance and custom, they rejoice 
 in all their powers, and pour out their souls with a 
 joy pure and fresh. For the first time then they live 
 as men, take delight in all their faculties, and pour 
 forth their thoughts, feelings, and ideals with the 
 grace and delight of a child playing in the summer 
 sun. When Greece came- in contact with the East, 
 had its imagination roused by the marvels of that 
 fruitful region, and had been stirred to new political 
 activity in defence of its own existence, it produced 
 Plato, ^Eschylus, and Herodotus. So was it that the 
 energies of Europe, brought into contact with new 
 and widening influences, urging men to fresh exer 
 tions for political development and liberty, and ap 
 pealing to them through loftier ideals, gave to Italy 
 her Dante, Petrarch, and Eaphael. 
 
 These movements of national genius Emerson 
 recognized ; but it is to be said, that he did not see 
 what is the true influence of the past on the present. 
 He did not clearly realize that the past may serve 
 to the individual the same office which the world- 
 movements do to nations and ages. The mind 
 comes in contact with what men have been and 
 done; is quickened and inspired by the riches of 
 that mighty world which lies behind iis. The 
 breadth and the wealth of it, liberating them from 
 the material thraldom of the present, sets them free 
 to create new forms and ideals which shall represent 
 what is best out of every human endeavor. This 
 
332 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 capacity of the past Emerson did not see ; it was not 
 open to him to realize it in its fulness of power. He 
 did see, what is even more important, that genuine 
 literary productiveness must be the growth of the 
 impulses of the present. The past may give us 
 materials, it may stimulate and broaden the mind ; 
 but the present must give the thrill of life and the 
 beating heart. 
 
 Emerson s faith in America is justified, whether 
 we trust in the capacities of the individual soul, or 
 whether our expectation grows from the promises 
 of a new civilization. America brings together the 
 races of the world as no nation or time ever did be 
 fore ; and it centres in itself the freshest impulses 
 of an age full of activity and daring. Its freedom 
 from traditions of its own, after the pattern of which 
 it would need to live and walk, gives it the opportu 
 nity to acquire the traditions of all the lands from 
 which it takes its great population. Greece had the 
 traditions of its own past, those of Egypt and of a lit 
 tle corner of Asia ; Rome had the traditions of Greece 
 and Egypt and a part of the East in addition to its 
 own ; Italy fed on the inherited life of the Christian 
 and classic ages ; England turns its eyes to the past 
 of Europe ; but America takes to itself the tra 
 ditions of the whole world. America no castles and 
 feudal romances ! What is such trumpery as this 
 compared to those long successions of human effort 
 after the ideal, which have been caught up into the 
 forms of mythology, history, poetry, romance, and 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 333 
 
 art, and which now await the new people who can 
 transform them into its own inheritance, and give 
 them back to the world no longer national traditions, 
 but the poetry of mankind ? We are to have all 
 mythology, all history, all literature, for our posses 
 sion. As a free people we are to look upon the life 
 of the race, its heroisms and achievements, and, suf 
 fusing it with the new spirit, turn it into song and 
 story for the free peoples to come. We shall sing 
 not only of the taking of Troy and of Paradise Lost, 
 but of the triumphs of man as a free soul. A new 
 light will gleam along the pages of the old traditions, 
 and we shall find in them a meaning and a beauty 
 not there before. This is whereto the literature of 
 the present time is feeling, blindly and feebly, amid 
 crudities and weariness, but in hope and promise. It 
 recognizes the wealth of material with which it has 
 
 o 
 
 to work, but it has not caught that living spirit of 
 faith which must be at the heart of its creative im 
 pulse. It awaits a new land for its achievements ; 
 and Emerson s hope for America may yet be justified 
 by a literature in harmony with the new time. 
 
 If the anticipations of Emerson were in any degree 
 correct, the literature representing America will have 
 in it the spirit of freedom and equal rights, recogni 
 tion of man wherever and however found, trust in the 
 powers of Xature and of the mind, and an abiding 
 conviction that the life of the world is that of Spir 
 itual Intelligence. Such forces as these, working in 
 a virgin soil, should produce epics, and dramas, and 
 
334 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 histories not less great, but truer, than any the past 
 has given us. Genius will fitly sing the new earth 
 and the new peoples. 
 
 A nation that would be great must not trust to 
 what other men have done and believed. It may 
 have sympathies so wide as to look with joy on the 
 achievements and traditions of other peoples ; but it 
 must have memories of its own and cherish them, 
 before it can rise to the loftiest attitude of national 
 conviction and self-consciousness. It must have an 
 idea of its own destiny; it must have an ideal capa 
 ble of uniting its citizens in a common purpose ; it 
 must have the realization of its own individuality as 
 a people. It is not like other nations ; it has a past, 
 a physical environment, and an inner consciousness, 
 quite its own. In being distinctly national it can 
 best serve the universal human interests ; for we 
 do not become cosmopolitan in renouncing the ties 
 which bind us to our own people. We may roam 
 through all lands, but only one place can have given 
 us birth. It is not the negation of individuality 
 which gives a person a wide range of sympathy with 
 his fellows. 
 
 America has two ideas which stand out distinctly, 
 individuality and freedom. Personal and exclu 
 sive as they may seem capable, at first glance, of 
 making us, their real effect is to widen our sympa 
 thies, and to make us the most cosmopolitan people 
 the world has ever known. Intensely national, our 
 hopes embrace all lands and peoples. Zealously 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 335 
 
 American, nothing that is human is indifferent to us. 
 Sitting apart, we watch with sympathetic interest the 
 movements of humanity. 
 
 These national qualities are in the mind and the 
 writings of Emerson. Concerned as we are rather 
 for the individual than the nation, preferring that 
 persons shall have their rights recognized rather than 
 that the nation shall be powerful, he has become the 
 embodiment of this idea, given it a philosophical, 
 moral, and religious interpretation. It is the thought 
 which finds constant expression in his poems, ad 
 dresses, and essays : it kindles his most eloquent 
 ideas about the future of mankind. Xatioual and 
 yet cosmopolitan is the America he believed in so 
 earnestly. It is a higher type of national being he 
 cherished, that finds its noblest memories and its 
 truest heroisms in the direction of the advancement 
 of humanity. Peace, brotherhood, and universal ad 
 vancement may give traditions and ideal hopes. 
 Great memories may cluster about the interests of 
 peace and freedom as about the interests of war and 
 heroism. It is these more peaceful, more human, 
 more nobly sympathetic interests to which we give 
 ourselves as Americans ; and the ideals of the future 
 are to be formed after this type. The national ideal 
 will cease to be selfish and exclusive and become hu 
 mane and attractive. It will take form around the 
 thought of our common humanity, giving to freedom 
 and justice the heritage of our best hopes. 
 
 When this new national spirit, based on the idea 
 
336 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 of individuality, freedom, and a common humanity, 
 has been fully developed, it will take up the past of 
 mankind and interpret it in harmony with its own 
 ideals. It will create a new literary, artistic, and 
 social tendency, which will embody itself in forms 
 suited to its own aspirations. The influence of the 
 past will still be upon us, and we shall be capable of 
 profiting by its lessons ; but we shall interpret it in 
 the light of larger experiences. None the less will 
 it feed and stimulate the ideal life, but we shall be 
 less under bondage to it. Around the central thoughts 
 animating the new national life literature will weave 
 its garments of beauty. 
 
 A view of nationality which recognizes the dis 
 tinctive American type as essential, and which is as 
 cosmopolitan as the race, is that to be found in the 
 writings of Emerson. It is not cosmopolitan in the 
 manner of some of his predecessors, who teach that 
 the nation is nothing ; but he makes the idea of a 
 universal humanity the very centre of his conception 
 of nationality. Attachment to our country becomes 
 the motive for a recognition of all mankind. Indi 
 viduals cohere into families in order that they may 
 become true individuals, families into communities, 
 communities into nations, while the family of nations 
 is to include the whole race. The nation remains 
 distinct and individual that it may render a more 
 perfect service to humanity. 
 
 The broad and human view is that which appeared 
 most conspicuously in Emerson s Americanism. He 
 
EMERSON S VIEW OF NATIONALITY. 337 
 
 was an American in no narrow and sectional spirit ; 
 it was no special spot of earth for which he con 
 tended. He was an idealistic American, an Ameri 
 can of the soul, caring for freedom, and morality, and 
 the seeing mind, more than for Concord Eiver or 
 Wachusett Mountain. An American literature of 
 local description and provincial dialect would not 
 have satisfied his desire ; but that rather which grows 
 out of the spirit of high enterprise, loyalty of man to 
 man, and the consciousness of soul-freedom. Faith 
 ful as he was to what is local, loyal as he was to the 
 individual, he would have these put in their true 
 relations to the human and universal. Concord had 
 beauties of its own ; but Concord was a part of the 
 universe. It was worthy of study because represen 
 tative of the whole ; it was the whole fur which he 
 sought, the universal for which he yearned. This 
 spot of earth is a true indication of the universe. 
 The secrets of the whole universe are to be learned 
 here. This hour of time is a true type of eternity ; 
 the loftiest revelations of eternity may vision them 
 selves before us now. " You may run back," Emer 
 son would say, " through the ages and countries we 
 have travelled from, but what you seek is on this 
 spot and in this time." 
 
 Having by the aid of this conception made himself 
 sure of the sacredness of the soul and of the divine 
 life in Xature, he ceased to feel any exclusive interest 
 in time and place. Convinced that man is a living 
 soul, and in contact with the eternal truth here in 
 
338 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Concord and America, he turned to Africa and China 
 with the same promise for them. Concord was no 
 Mecca to him; he saw no special sacredness in its 
 flowers, rivers, and ponds. America is not represented 
 by its many kinds of climate and its great variety of 
 scenery, but by its common intelligence and its rights 
 for all. Its ideal is not that of wide-stretching power, 
 but that of a common humanity co-working for the 
 highest ends of intelligent moral beings. The true 
 America is in the soul that is free, intelligent, and 
 aspiring. The country of man is the genuine America. 
 It does not lie here or there, but towards the way of 
 hope and promise, where men rise up to liberty and 
 justice, where they live in the light of the ideal. 
 When the serf is taught to be his own master, when 
 the slave is made to know that he is an intelligent 
 being, when justice speaks in clear-toned voice the 
 rights of all, when the ignorant are educated and the 
 vicious reclaimed, then America comes to what 
 ever people to whom this light has been given. It 
 lies fresh and fair to the open day wherever it may 
 be ; there is a youthful glow and enterprise within it, 
 and its citizens make war no more, but join their 
 hands in the good deeds of peace. 
 
EMERSO^S PHILOSOPHY OF MATURE. 339 
 
 XII. 
 EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 
 
 BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS. 
 
 THE eminent physicist, Tyndall, has told us that 
 he considers Emerson a profoundly religious influ 
 ence. Emerson accepted all new discoveries in sci 
 ence without dismay, and without loss of reverence 
 or of faith in the supremacy of the divine in the 
 world. This certainly is a trait that belongs to a 
 religious nature. 
 
 There is another aspect of science, that of its rela 
 tion to poetry or poetic art, that interests us when 
 we take up Emerson s poetry. It has been supposed 
 by some that the age of poetry is now past, and no 
 longer possible, because of the advent of modern 
 natural science and the invention of labor-saving 
 machines. " The Muses have fled and Nature is for 
 ever disenchanted." If this were true, the spiritual 
 uses of Nature would have become obsolete. Nature 
 could not be used as a symbol of mind and a means 
 of expression of spiritual nature. An iron age of 
 empty show and pretence would indeed be upon us ; 
 for no poetic tropes or metaphors could be found 
 
340 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 with which we could express invisible nature by visi 
 ble images. If such were used, they must needs be 
 feigned, a sham performance imitating consciously 
 the Greek view of Nature, which was a genuine one. 
 An age of hollowness and insincerity, profoundly 
 sceptical of the very existence of spiritual things, is 
 bound to appear when men lose their insight into 
 the correspondence between the material and spiritual, 
 and cease to regard nature as the type whose arche 
 type is mind. Accordingly in this epoch of prose 
 science and machinery an unusual interest attaches 
 to the work of its poets. The original poet of this 
 time is the one that makes incursions into the realm 
 of nature, with the aid of the newest scientific theo 
 ries, and is able to discover spiritual correspondences 
 in prose realities, whether they be cosmic laws or 
 mere machines. 
 
 It is in this important field that Emerson may 
 be regarded as the poet of the future. He sees in 
 their poetic aspect the generalizations of astronomy, 
 geology, arid biology, the theories of nebular con 
 solidation and the evolution of life. The essential 
 characteristic of poetry is to be found in metaphor 
 and personification rather than in the forms of rhythm 
 and rhyme. Hebrew poetry, for example, although 
 the most sublime species of poetry, has no rhythm 
 and rhyme, but only parallelism and correspondence, 
 for its external dress. Much of the so-called poetry 
 lacks metaphor and personification, although it pos 
 sesses the jingle of rhyme and its metres are perfect. 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 341 
 
 Such writing lacks the poetic vision that sees the 
 invisible and spiritual in the visible and material. 
 Hence the attempt to use modern discoveries in 
 natural science for poetic matter has for the most 
 part failed, by reason of the lack of a deeper insight 
 which discerned their spiritual significance. 
 
 Emerson s poetry abounds in metaphors taken from 
 the modern theories of nature. His spiritual vision 
 pierces through the prose hull to the vital kernel. 
 
 The freshness and wilclness of nature as depicted 
 by Shakspeare in his lyrics, such, for example, as 
 " Under the greenwood tree," and " When icicles hang 
 by the wall," may be found in Emerson s poems of 
 nature, especially the "Woodnotes," "May-Day," 
 "The Ehodora," " Hamatreya," " My Garden," "The 
 Titmouse," and " Sea-Shore." 
 
 The beauty of nature demands a certain neglect 
 of regularity and symmetry, in order to reach free 
 dom and gracefulness by suggesting boundless re 
 sources of form, and emancipation from mechanical 
 conformity to laws and types. There is in this a 
 sort of justification for Emerson s apparent careless 
 ness in respect to metre. In the nature-poems es 
 pecially there is a suggestion of the transcendency 
 over all mechanism which we always see when we 
 look at the world in masses and put by our analyti 
 cal spectacles of species and genera and laws. How 
 restful and refreshing are the glimpses of genuine 
 untamed nature offered us in Shakspeare s poem just 
 now alluded to ! 
 
342 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " Under the greenwood tree 
 
 Who loves to lie with me, 
 
 And turn his merry note 
 
 Unto the sweet bird s throat, 
 Come hither, come hither, come hither : 
 
 Here shall he see 
 
 No enemy 
 But winter and rough weather ! " 
 
 Here is abrupt transition of rhythm that suggests 
 freedom from conventionality. The resources of 
 poetry are many and adequate. One may not expect 
 to find all moods and all subjects fittingly expressed 
 in one species of poetry. While one range of sub 
 jects demands strict sequence of rhyme and perfect 
 measure of rhythm, another range, involving sud 
 den flashes of insight and vast metamorphoses of 
 objects, may require altogether different treatment. 
 In art, the deepest law is the unity of subject and 
 form. 
 
 Merlin s idea of the kind of poetry for the wizard 
 bard was this, according to Emerson, . 
 
 " 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. " 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 343 
 
 " Machine poetry " is over-careful of its metre and 
 rhyme. Those who " write poetry fit to put round 
 frosted cake," among whom Emerson places the 
 poets of the epoch of Queen Anne, seldom take 
 any flights into the realm of the inspired bard. They 
 do not conquer any new realm of nature, and reduce 
 it by trope or personification to the symbol of spirit 
 ual nature. They use only the old conventional 
 metaphors. But the realm of true poetry, like " the 
 potent plane of Demons, spreads " 
 
 " Close, close to men, 
 Like undulating layer of air, 
 Eight above their heads." 
 
 The brave poet may surely ascend into it if he is 
 always true to his aspiration. 
 
 In his poem " Woodnotes " Emerson sings the song 
 of the pine-tree ; not a song of the idle fancies of the 
 poet on beholding it, but the song of the thoughtful 
 naturalist, who is above all a poet. He sees in the pine- 
 tree the pioneer of vegetation, conquering the drifting 
 sand-heaps, binding together the soil by its roots and 
 covering it with a layer of leaves and branches, by and 
 by to become vegetable mould, in which all plants 
 may flourish. After the pine come other trees, and 
 then animals, and then all is ready for man. 
 
 " Whether is better the gift or the donor ? 
 * Come to me, 
 Quoth the pine-tree, 
 I am the giver of honor. 
 
344 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 My garden is the cloven rock, 
 And my manure the snow; 
 And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock, 
 In summer s scorching glow. " 
 
 He proceeds to interpret like another Merlin the 
 low murmur with which the pine sings when the 
 wind swells, 
 
 " And the countless leaves of the pine are strings 
 Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings." 
 
 Here is the prose doctrine of development turned 
 into poetry : 
 
 " To the open air it sings 
 Sweet the genesis of things, 
 Of tendency through endless ages." 
 
 This is the tendency of which he speaks when he 
 says, in another place, 
 
 "And, striving to be man, the worm 
 Mounts through all the spires of form." 
 
 The oracle of the pine continues, and names the 
 great epochs in the " genesis of things," and that 
 endless "tendency" 
 
 " Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages, 
 Of rounded worlds, of space and time. 
 Of the old flood s subsiding slime, 
 Of chemic matter, force, and form, 
 Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm : 
 The rushing metamorphosis 
 Dissolving all that fixture is, 
 Melts things that be to things that seem, 
 And solid nature to a dream." 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 345 
 
 In " My Garden " (around Walden Pond) he de 
 scribes how the deluge ploughed and laid the terraces 
 one by one ; how it flowed away at a later period, 
 leaving them to bleach and dry in the sun ; how the 
 wind and birds sowed Walden beach. In " Sea- 
 Shore " he makes the chiding sea describe its deeds. 
 It pounds with its hammer the rocky coast, smiting 
 Andes into dust, strewing its bed, and in another 
 age rebuilding a continent of better men. 
 
 "Then I unbar the doors : my paths lead out 
 The exodus of nations : I disperse 
 Men to all shores that front the hoary main." 
 
 In " Merlin " he has laid down his doctrine of 
 poetry in verse. In his prose essay on " Poetry and 
 Imagination " lie says that the " Poet discovers that 
 what men value as substances have a higher value 
 as symbols ; that nature is the immense shadow of 
 man." So " Poetry is the perpetual endeavor to 
 express the spirit of the thing ; to pass the brute 
 body and search the life and reason which cause it 
 to exist." " Xature itself is a vast trope, and all 
 particular natures are tropes." 
 
 In Emerson s first published work we find an 
 attempt to make an inventory of the various aspects 
 of the world in time and space. His most important 
 principle reached is this: 
 
 " It is a sufficient account of that appearance we call 
 the world, that God will teach a human mind, and so 
 makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruent 
 
346 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 sensations, which we call the sun and moon, man and 
 woman, house and trade." 
 
 Considering the universe as composed of nature 
 and soul, he defines the former : " Strictly speaking, 
 all that is separate from us, all which philosophy dis 
 tinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and 
 art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked 
 under this name, NATURE." Four uses include the 
 purposes served by objects of nature. These are com 
 modity, beauty, language, discipline. 
 
 Under commodity we find what is useful for food, 
 clothing, and shelter, the body s wants. Besides 
 this there is the co-operation of one s fellow-men. 
 "The private poor man hath cities, ships, canals, 
 bridges, built for him. He goes to the post-office, 
 and the human race run on his errands ; to the book 
 shop, and the human race read and write all that 
 happens, for him." But commodity is not a final 
 end : " This mercenary benefit is one which has re 
 spect to a farther good. A man is fed, not that he 
 may be fed, but that he may work." 
 
 Nature serves a nobler want than food, clothing, 
 and shelter; namely, the love of beauty. The as 
 pects of beauty he distributes under three heads : 
 (1) delight ; (2) as " the mark God sets on virtue ; " 
 (3) as tributary to self-knowledge. " A work of art 
 is an abstract, or epitome, of the world ; it is the 
 result or expression of Nature in miniature. The 
 production of a work of art throws a light upon the 
 mystery of humanity." 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 347 
 
 That nature serves man in a still more indispen 
 sable way, for self-knowledge, not through beauty 
 but directly through language, is obvious. " Xature 
 is the vehicle of thought, and in a simple, double, 
 and threefold degree : (1) words in their literal sense 
 (2) in their figurative sense ; (3) Xature as a whole 
 being the symbol of spirit. 
 
 " Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual i 
 fact." Here is the key to the poetic use of Xature. j 
 " Man is conscious of a universal soul within or be 
 hind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, 
 the natures of justice, truth, love, freedom, arise and 
 shine." " These are not the dreams of a few poets 
 here and there ; but man is an analogist, and studies 
 relations in all objects. He is placed in the centre 
 of being, and a ray of relation passes from every 
 other being to him." In speaking of the relation of 
 language to people whose life is mere use and wont, 
 and to secondary lights in literature, he very strik 
 ingly remarks : 
 
 " Hundreds of writers may be found in every long- 
 civilized nation who for a short time believe, and make 
 others believe, that they see and utter truths, who do not 
 of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, 
 but who feed unconsciously on the language created by 
 the primary writers of the country, those, namely, who 
 hold primarily on nature." 
 
 Thirdly, Xature as a whole is the symbol of the 
 soul. "The visible creation is the terminus or the 
 
348 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 circumference of the invisible world." " There seems 
 to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in mate 
 rial forms ; and day and night, river and storm, beast 
 and bird, acid and alkali, pre-exist in necessary ideas 
 in the mind of God, and are what they are by virtue 
 of preceding affections in the world of spirit." 
 
 Coming to the fourth use of Nature, discipline, he 
 finds this to include all the others. " Nature is a 
 discipline of the understanding in intellectual truths." 
 It trains his common-sense year after year by a con 
 tinual reproduction of annoyances, inconveniences, 
 dilemmas. Debt and credit perform the same good 
 office. Nature disciplines the will. "It offers all 
 its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he 
 may mould into what is useful." " One after another 
 his victorious thought comes up with and reduces all 
 things until the world becomes at last only a realized 
 will, the double of man." 
 
 Moreover, everything has a moral aspect. "All 
 things with which we deal preach to us. . . . The 
 chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, 
 insects, sun, it is a sacred emblem from the first 
 furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of 
 winter overtakes in the fields." 
 
 From this idea of discipline in morals Emerson 
 finds a transition to idealism through the thought of 
 the "unity of nature, the unity in variety which 
 meets us everywhere." /In fact, we find everywhere 
 in this remarkable essay what may be called a dia 
 lectic, whereby one part joins to the next by a sort 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 349 
 
 of natural growth. Thus commodity becomes beauty 
 through the idea of all society existing for the well- 
 being of each member of it, the whole existing in 
 the part manifests beauty. So, too, beauty becomes 
 language in its phase of presenting self-knowledge. 
 Language in its highest form, wherein Nature as a 
 whole reflects spirit as a whole, reveals the end of 
 Nature as a discipline, and we reach an ultimate 
 unity. 
 
 " So intimate is this unity that it is easily seen ; 
 it lies under the undermost garment of nature, and 
 betrays its source in universal spirit." 
 
 He finds manifestations of this central unity (a) in 
 the fact that every universal truth implies or sup 
 poses every other truth ; (&) " an action is the perfec 
 tion and publication of thought, and a right action 
 seems to fill the eye and to be related to all Nature ; " 
 (c) every object in Nature suggests some other. 
 
 But " words and actions are not attributes of brute 
 nature. They introduce us to the human form of 
 which all other organizations appear to be degrada 
 tions." From this he would conclude as to the form 
 of the "central unity" of nature. The basis of all 
 must be truth and virtue. Human forms " are in 
 comparably the richest informations of the power 
 and order that lie at the heart of things." Notwith 
 standing the defects of humanity, men and women 
 " all rest like fountain-pipes on the unfathomed sea 
 of thought and virtue, whereto they alone of all or 
 ganizations are the entrances." Thus he believes 
 
350 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Titian to hold a unique place in the world, he alone 
 4 having the form of the highest principle of nature, 
 ( and alone having access to that principle. 
 
 In the sixth chapter of " Nature " Emerson comes 
 to consider idealism as the view of the world result 
 ing from the foregoing contemplations. All parts of 
 nature conspire to this one end of discipline, and so 
 suggest a doubt whether this object be not the sole 
 purpose of the world. Are not things painted on 
 the firmament of the soul rather than spread out 
 there in space ? It is impossible for us to test the 
 authenticity of the report of our senses. 
 
 "Whilst we acquiesce entirely in the permanence of 
 natural laws, the question of the absolute existence of Na 
 ture still remains open. It is the uniform effect of culture 
 on the human mind not to shake our faith in the stability 
 of particular phenomena, as of heat, water, azote; but to 
 lead us to regard nature as phenomenon, not a substance ; 
 to esteem nature as an accident and an effect." 
 
 He gives an account of the rise of this idealistic 
 point of view in psychology. (1) The senses have a 
 sort of instinctive belief in the absolute existence of 
 Nature ; (2) so too has the understanding ; (3) but rea 
 son sees through outlines and surfaces into causes and 
 spirits beneath. " The best moments of life are these 
 delicious awakenings of the higher powers, and the 
 reverential withdrawing of Nature before its God." 
 
 He proceeds to make a sort of inventory of the facts 
 jthat conspire to make the reason an idealist. 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 351 
 
 (1) A change of view changes the object, and by 
 this most common mechanical means Xature suggests 
 the difference between the observer and the spectacle, 
 between man and Nature. This may be called 
 the idealistic lesson of spatial perspective. But the 
 perspective of time, too, has its idealistic lesson. 
 
 (2) The poet in a higher manner communicates this 
 lesson. He transfigures all material objects, and uses 
 matter as the symbol of his heroic passion. " He un 
 fixes the land and the sea, makes them revolve around 
 the axis of his primary thought, and disposes them 
 anew. He invests dust and stones with humanity, 
 and makes them the words of reason." He gives 
 an extended application of this view of the poet to 
 Shakspeare, quoting especially from the Sonnets. 
 
 (3) " The philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones 
 the apparent order and relations of things to the empire 
 of thought." 
 
 " It is, both with the poet and the philosopher, a spirit 
 ual life imparted to nature ; that the solid seeming block 
 of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a thought ; 
 that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast 
 masses of nature with an informing soul, and recognized 
 itself in their harmony, that is, seized their law. In 
 physics, when this is attained, the memory disburthens 
 itself of its cumbrous catalogues of particulars, and carries 
 centuries of observation in a single formula." 
 
 (4) If the presuppositions of science are idealistic, 
 so, too, are its results. " It fastens the attention 
 upon immortal necessary uncreated natures, that is, 
 
352 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 upon ideas ; and in their presence we feel that the 
 outward circumstance is a dream and a shade. Whilst 
 we wait in this Olympus of gods we think of na 
 ture as an appendix to the soul. We ascend into 
 their region, and know that these are the thoughts 
 of the Supreme Being." 
 
 Although this region of divine ideas is accessible 
 to few men as a matter of science or philosophy, yet, 
 says Emerson, " all men are capable of being raised 
 by piety, or by passion, into their region." In the 
 company of such ideas the mind sees its immortality 
 as a necessary fact. 
 
 (5) Finally, the ground of the doctrine of idealism 
 is to be found in religion and ethics. He defines and 
 distinguishes the two provinces ; both agree in that 
 their function is " the practice of ideas, or the intro 
 duction of ideas into life." " Ethics and religion 
 differ herein: that ethics is the system of human 
 duties commencing from man ; religion, from God. 
 Eeligion includes the personality of God ; ethics does 
 not." Here, in this earliest essay of Emerson, how 
 completely is expressed the doctrine of the person 
 ality of God and the moral and intellectual character 
 of his Being ! 
 
 | (jKeligion is for the uneducated mind what phi 
 losophy is for the cultured, j "It does that for the 
 unschooled which philosophy does for Berkeley and 
 Vyasa. The first and last lesson of religion is, The 
 things that are seen are temporal; the things that 
 are unseen are eternal. " 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 353 
 
 While he loves nature, therefore, with a love 
 amounting to a passion, Emerson announces ideal 
 ism as indicating the " true position of nature in re 
 gard to man, wherein to establish man all right 
 education tends, as the ground which to attain is 
 the object of human life, that is, of man s con 
 nection with nature." 
 
 With this theory of Xature the soul " sees the 
 world in God and beholds the whole circle of persons 
 and tilings, of actions and events, of country and re 
 ligion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, 
 act after act, in an aged, creeping past, but as one 
 vast picture which God paints on the instant eter 
 nity, for the contemplation of the soul." 
 
 Hence the soul " sees something more in Chris 
 tianity than the scandals of ecclesiastical history or 
 the niceties of criticism. ... It accepts from God the 
 phenomenon as it finds it, as the pure and awful 
 form of religion in the world." 
 
 In the six chapters that are devoted to this dis 
 cussion we have progressed by a natural growth of 
 the subject by what would be called a dialecti 
 cal evolution of the idea of nature to the doc 
 trine of the first principle of the world as a personal 
 being. In the seventh chapter, to which we have / 
 ^arrived, this result is made a special theme. It is 
 \the doctrine of Spirit as the absolute. "Idealism is 
 a hypothesis to account for nature by other prin 
 ciples than those of carpentry and chemistry." But 
 as merely negative it is a defective view. " If it only 
 
 23 
 
354 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 deny the existence of matter, it does not satisfy the 
 demands of the spirit. It leaves God out of me. It- 
 leaves me in the splendid labyrinth of my percep 
 tions, to wander without end." 
 
 Idealism, then, is only a useful introduction to the 
 positive doctrine of spirit. In answering the ques 
 tions, Whence is matter, and whereto ? we reach 
 this positive doctrine. " The world proceeds from the 
 same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter 
 and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of 
 God in the unconscious." 
 
 Up to this point the doctrine of nature has been 
 what we may call that of evolution, or at least in 
 harmony with the modern doctrine of that name. 
 Indeed, there is prefixed to the essay one of those 
 oracular pieces of verse that Emerson often used to 
 sum up his prose essays. The key-note which ex 
 presses the theme sounds forth : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 Here is the doctrine of evolution substantially 
 set forth. It does not say that the lower produces 
 the higher. Nor does the doctrine of evolution, when 
 rightly understood. In saying "there is a survival 
 of the fittest," it says that mind is the goal of na 
 ture. The farther from mind, the farther from sur 
 vival. | The chaotic and inorganic is an unstable 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 355 
 
 equilibrium which is continually changing and at 
 tempting some new form.^ But individuality be 
 gins when nature ascends to mind, and the power 
 of self-preservation increases with the increase of 
 mind. Does not this point clearly towards the su 
 premacy of mind, if nature moves always to attain 
 the form of intelligence ? That which comprehends 
 itself and the world, and is able to act with directive 
 intelligence, is able to conquer all other beings and 
 make all serve him. Evolution of the fittest, there 
 fore, points to man or spiritual being as the final 
 cause of nature. All beings are on their way thither. 
 In the result of the process of nature one may read 
 the character of the supreme first principle revealed 
 in it. If nature is so constituted that left to its 
 own laws it does evolve and can evolve only rational 
 creatures as the fittest, evidently the absolute Being 
 must be rational. Here is the view of nature that 
 Emerson had reached and announced in his own 
 doctrine of evolution before 1836. AVhile it is sub 
 stantially the doctrine of evolution, it is spiritual 
 evolution ; being an insight into the fact that nature 
 reveals spirit as its final cause, and into the fact that 
 the universe is not alien to man, but throughout the 
 projection of a being like man, or divine-human. 
 
 Turning from the contemplation of evolution to 
 the final chapter of this treatise on "Xature," we 
 come to the question of " Prospects." In the eighth 
 chapter we rise to take a survey of the whole. 
 "Prospects" shall mean both history and prophecy. 
 
356 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 He unfolds in this chapter an altogether new and 
 surprising theory of the world, a theory that one 
 would pronounce incompatible with the evolutional 
 theory developed thus far. It is no less than the 
 theory of " Lapse," or Descent of the Soul, somewhat 
 like that found in the fourth Ennead of Plotinus. 
 
 There are, indeed, a few notes in the preceding 
 chapter on " Spirit," at the close, which form the 
 transition to this remote doctrine of Lapse. The 
 inadequacy or imperfection of the individual is the 
 connecting link. "As we degenerate, the contrast 
 between us and our house is more evident. We are 
 as much strangers in nature as we are aliens from 
 God. We do not understand the notes of birds. 
 The fox and the deer run away from us ; the bear 
 and the tiger rend us. We do not know the uses of 
 more than a few plants, as corn and the apple, the 
 potato and the vine." 
 
 How do we reconcile this inadequacy with the posi 
 tive doctrine of spirit? This had been stated thus: 
 
 " We learn that the highest is present to the soul of 
 man ; that the dread universal essence, which is not wis 
 dom, 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 ; one and not com 
 pound, it does not act upon us from without, that is, 
 in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves ; 
 therefore that spirit that is, the Supreme Being does 
 not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 357 
 
 us as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and 
 leaves through the pores of the old. . . . Man has ac 
 cess to the entire mind of the Creator, and is himself the 
 creator of the finite." 
 
 If man is the creator of the finite, then all imper 
 fect beings have arisen through his agency. From 
 this the doctrine of Lapse is easily deduced. But 
 the doctrine of Evolution does not account for the 
 existence of lower orders of being by supposing a 
 lapse, or degeneration, of higher beings. It supposes 
 that an All-Good Highest Being desires to share his 
 blessedness with creatures, and therefore creates them 
 by an eternal process, giving them the possibility of 
 developing by freedom into all knowledge and good 
 ness. All lower and lowest creatures belong to the 
 process necessary in the Divine Wisdom for creating 
 beings with free individuality. Such free individu 
 ality must be reached by the exercise of will power. 
 Natural selection involves this exercise of such rudi 
 ments of will and intellect as belong to lowest organ 
 isms. Arrived at man, individuality is reached that 
 can know universal truth, and will universal good; 
 and thus the final type is attained. 
 
 As the view of evolution here described makes 
 nature a process of creating new spirits, and thus of 
 increasing the number of blessed beings, it is thor 
 oughly optimistic in its character. The other view, 
 that explains nature by the fall of spirits from an 
 Eden of blessedness or by a lapse from holiness, is, 
 on the contrary, pessimistic. 
 
358 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 With these suggestions we turn to the most impor 
 tant part of the final chapter, which he introduces 
 with the following words : 
 
 " I shall therefore conclude this essay with some tradi 
 tions of man and Nature which a certain poet sang to me ; 
 and which, as they have always been in the world, and 
 perhaps reappear to every hard, may be both in history 
 and prophecy." 
 
 Either because he wishes to indicate that the 
 theory is one delivered to him by tradition, and one 
 which he has not fully verified in his own intuitions, 
 or because he has a feeling of the discrepance be 
 tween this theory and that of evolution already 
 approved, he calls it " some traditions/ and intimates 
 that he received it from " a certain poet/ whom he 
 quotes or feigns to quote. Note especially the differ 
 ence in style between the foregoing essay and these 
 "traditions." There is a sort of poetic rhythm in 
 the latter, and a sonorous balance of sentences 
 quite in contrast to the epigrammatic style of the 
 remainder of the treatise : 
 
 " The foundations of man are not in matter, but in 
 spirit ; but the element of spirit is eternity. To it, there 
 fore, the longest series of events, the oldest chronologies, 
 are young and recent. In the cycle of the universal man, 
 from whom the known individuals proceed, centuries are 
 points, and all history is but the epoch of one degra 
 dation. 
 
 " We distrust and deny inwardly our sympathy with 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 359 
 
 nature. We own and disown our relation to it, by turns. 
 We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned, bereft of reason, 
 and eating grass like an ox. But who can set limits to 
 the remedial force of spirit? 
 
 " A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, 
 life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal as 
 gently as we awake from dreams. Now, the world would 
 be insane and rabid if these disorganizations should last 
 for hundreds of years. It is kept in check by death and 
 infancy. Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes 
 into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to re 
 turn to paradise. 
 
 " Man is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated 
 and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his over 
 flowing currents. Out from him sprang the sun and 
 moon, from man the sun, from woman the moon. The 
 laws of his mind, the periods of his actions, externized 
 themselves into day and night, into the year and the sea 
 sons. But having made for himself this huge shell, his 
 waters retired ; he no longer fills the veins and veinlets ; 
 he is shrunk to a drop. He sees that the structure still 
 fits him, but fits him colossally. Say, rather, once it 
 fitted him, now it corresponds to him from far and on 
 high. He adores timidly his own work. Now is man 
 the follower of the sun, and woman the follower of the 
 moon. Yet sometimes he starts in his slumber, and won 
 ders at himself and his house, and muses strangely at the 
 resemblance betwixt him and it. He perceives that if his 
 law is still paramount, if still he have elemental power, 
 if his word is sterling yet in nature, it is not conscious 
 power, it is not inferior but superior to his will. It is In 
 stinct. Thus my Orphic poet sang." 
 
360 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 He comments on these oracles in his former sober 
 vein : " At present man applies to nature but half 
 his force. He works on the world with his under 
 standing alone." Apparently commenting on the 
 passage beginning, " Yet sometimes he starts in his 
 slumber/ he continues : " Meantime, in the thick 
 darkness there are not wanting gleams of a better 
 light, occasional examples of the action of man 
 upon nature with his entire force, with reason as 
 well as understanding." Ancient miracles, the his 
 tory of Christ, prayer, eloquence, and the like, occur 
 to him. Far more profound, and in harmony with his 
 optimism and evolution, is the following : 
 
 " The ruin or the blank that we see when we look at 
 nature is in our own eye. The axis of vision is not co 
 incident with the axis of things, and so they appear not 
 transparent but opaque. The reason why the world lacks 
 unity, and lies in broken heaps, is because man is dis 
 united with himself. . . . When a faithful thinker, reso 
 lute to detach every object from personal relations and see 
 it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle 
 science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will 
 God go forth anew into the creation." 
 
 He returns to the " Orphic " poet, and closes his 
 book with the following quotation : 
 
 " Nature is not fixed, but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, 
 makes it. The immobility or bruteness of nature is the 
 absence of spirit ; to pure spirit it is fluid, it is volatile, 
 it is obedient. Every spirit builds itself a house ; and be 
 yond its house a world ; and beyond its world a heaven. 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 361 
 
 " Know, then, that the world exists for you. For you is 
 the phenomenon perfect. What we are that only can we 
 see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have 
 and can do. Adam called his house heaven and earth, 
 Caesar called his house Borne ; you perhaps call yours a 
 cobbler s trade, a hundred acres of ploughed land, or a 
 scholar s garret. Yet, line for line and point for point, 
 your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine 
 names. Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as 
 you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that 
 will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolu 
 tion in things will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast 
 will disagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, 
 madhouses, prisons, enemies, vanish ; they are temporary, 
 and shall be seen no more. The sordor and filths of na 
 ture the sun shall dry up and the wind exhale. As when 
 the summer comes from the south, the snow-banks melt, 
 and the face of the earth becomes green before it, so shall 
 the advancing spirit create its ornaments along its path, 
 and carry with it the beauty it visits, and the song 
 which enchants it ; it shall draw beautiful faces, warm 
 hearts, wise discourse, and heroic acts, around its way, 
 until evil is no more seen. The kingdom of man over 
 nature, which cometh not with observation, a dominion 
 such as now is beyond his dream of God, he shall enter 
 without more wonder than the blind man feels who is 
 gradually restored to perfect sight." 
 
 This form of the Lapse differs from the Oriental 
 tradition of it, found in Xeoplatonism and Gnosti 
 cism, in having two forms of paradise, a past and a 
 future. Since the soul lapsed from a past perfection, 
 
362 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 how can it be assured against a future lapse if it 
 recovers its state once more ? More especially, how 
 can it recover at all ? 
 
 The inconsistency of Asiatic philosophy ever re 
 appears in the mysticism of the Occident. But this 
 special form of it, one is piqued to ask : Does it 
 belong to some earlier studies of Emerson which 
 marked his first insights into Plato s Phsedrus, or the 
 Enneads of Plotinus, or Jacob Boehme ? And did he 
 feign to quote it in order (like a favorite device of 
 Carlyle) to avoid the necessity of making a steep 
 transition to such an Orphic style ? Or, are the quo 
 tation-marks no mask, after all, and did he quote the 
 substance of his friend Alcott s Orphic rhapsodizings ? 
 Perhaps, however, these words were written before 
 the acquaintance with Alcott began; perhaps, too, 
 before Alcott himself adopted the theory of the Lapse. 
 But it is certain that nowhere else (not even in the 
 " Tablets ") could one find such a complete statement 
 of the Lapse theory, held by Alcott ever since the Or 
 phic sayings were written for "The Dial" in 1842. 
 
 I cannot think that Emerson ever held the doc 
 trine of the Lapse, or believed it seriously to be the 
 true view of the world. He makes occasionally a 
 poetic allusion to it, and sometimes seems to be at 
 tracted by its intimation of a former union with God 
 which the soul may attain again ; but for his own 
 genuine theory of the world one must look to his 
 statement of evolution an ascent rather than a 
 lapse. 
 
EMERSON S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. 363 
 
 I quote in conclusion, as one of the completest of 
 
 his statements, this poem on "Wealth," illustrating 
 how science can be turned into spiritual metaphor : 
 
 " Who shall tell what did befall 
 
 Far away in time when once 
 
 Over the lifeless ball 
 
 Hung idle stars and suns ? 
 
 What god the element obeyed ? 
 
 Wings of what wind the lichen bore, 
 , Wafting the puny seeds of power, 
 
 Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade ? 
 
 And well the primal pioneer 
 
 Knew the strong task to it assigned, 
 
 Patient through Heaven s enormous year 
 
 To build in matter home for mind. 
 
 From air the creeping centuries drew 
 
 The matted thicket low and wide, 
 
 This must the leaves of ages strew 
 
 The granite slab to clothe and hide, 
 
 Ere wheat can wave its golden pride. 
 
 What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled 
 
 (In dizzy aeons dim and mute 
 
 The reeling brain can ill compute) 
 
 Copper and iron, lead and gold ? 
 
 What oldest star the fame can save 
 
 Of races perishing to pave 
 
 The planet with a floor of lime ? 
 
 Dust is their pyramid and mole. 
 
 Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed 
 
 Under the tumbling mountain s breast 
 
 In the safe herbal of the coal ? 
 
 But when the quarried means were piled 
 
 All is waste and worthless, till 
 
 Arrives the wise selecting will, 
 
 And out of slime and chaos, Wit 
 
 Draws the threads of fair and fit. 
 
364 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Then temples rose, and towns and marts, 
 The shop of toil, the hall of arts ; 
 Then flew the sail across the seas 
 To feed the North from tropic trees ; 
 The storm -wind wove, the torrent span, 
 Where they were bid, the rivers ran ; 
 New slaves fulfilled the poet s dream, 
 Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam. 
 Then docks were built and crops were stored 
 And ingots added to the hoard. 
 But, though light-headed man forget, 
 Remembering Matter pays her debt ; 
 Still, through her motes and masses, draw 
 Electric thrills and ties of Law, 
 Which bind the strengths of Nature wild 
 To the conscience of a child." 
 
EMERSON AS SEEN FROM INDIA. 365 
 
 XIII. 
 
 X 
 
 EMERSON AS SEEN FROM INDIA. 
 
 BY PROTAP CHUXDER MOZOOMDAR. 
 
 To speak frankly, the meditative Hindoo feels that 
 much of all this Anglo-Saxon muscularity might be 
 spared. India is networked with iron roads, warped 
 and woofed with electric wires, measured, triangulated, 
 dock-yarded, garrisoned, planted with 90-pounder 
 guns, inundated with mum and whiskey. We ask in 
 innocent wonder where all this will end. The Eng 
 lish newspapers, when they do not fight against the 
 " natives," fight against each other, or speak of wars 
 and amnesties in other lands, or deal with trade statis 
 tics, parliamentary triumphs, ball-room dresses, and 
 marriages in high life. They bring us in ship-loads 
 of literature from England about romantic attach 
 ments and refined flirtations and aristocratic ras 
 calities. They write books to prove that men have 
 as little soul as oysters, that animals show their 
 passions and intelligence by affections of the same 
 nerves as human beings, and that some handsome 
 women when angry display their canine teeth. Eu- 
 
366 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 rope has conquered us, and now she is trying to 
 materialize us. We cannot cope with her tremendous 
 muscularities. 
 
 The brooding East with awe beheld 
 
 Her impious younger world, 
 The Roman tempest swelled and swelled, 
 
 And on her head was hurled. 
 The East bowed low before the blast, 
 
 In patient, deep disdain ; 
 She let the legions thunder past, 
 
 And plunged in thought again." 
 
 While wandering last year under the classic shad 
 ows of your great trees at Concord, my dear friend 
 Dr. Putnam often talked to me of the rapt, thought- 
 plunged figure of Emerson so often seen in those 
 Arcadian walks. My reverence for him was great. 
 Every scene of beauty seemed to be haunted by his 
 spirit. The fragrance of his presence, removed but 
 so lately, still hovered over all that I saw. And now 
 you want me to say what we think of him in India. 
 Where the blue Narbudda, so still, so deep and pure, 
 flows through the high, milk-white walls of the marble 
 hills near Jubbulpoor, in the natural alcoves of the 
 virgin rocks there are devotional inscriptions in San 
 scrit. I wish Emerson had composed his essays on 
 Nature there. The azure dome above, the azure floor 
 beneath, the pure white hills around, without a blade 
 of grass, the mysterious calmness and coolness, the 
 hum of the wild bees, the cooing of the wild doves, 
 remind one of the spirit, depth, sweetness, pureness, 
 and stillness of Emerson s genius. 
 
EMERSON AS SEEN FROM INDIA. 367 
 
 Amidst this ceaseless, sleepless din and clash of 
 Western materialism, this heat of restless energy, the 
 character of Emerson shines upon India serene as the 
 evening star. He seems to some of us to have been 
 a geographical mistake. He ought to have been born 
 in India, Perhaps Hindoos were closer kinsmen to 
 him than his own nation, because every typical Hin 
 doo is a child of Nature. All our ancient religion is 
 the utterance of the Infinite through Nature s symbol 
 ism. The sky, the luminous atmosphere, the sun, the 
 sea, and the swift night-winds, twilight and the dawn, 
 daughters of the heavens, called out the Hindoo 
 sage into the bosom of the unspeakable Dyaus Pitar 
 (Dicspater, Jupiter), the Heavenly Father. Emerson 
 speaks of his sense of childhood in the green mansions 
 of Nature; his rapt communion with the spirit of 
 "the august Mother;" his starlight wanderings ; the 
 upward gazing into the infinite depths ; his sense of 
 homogeneity with the woods and wilderness. The 
 tranquil landscape and the distant line of the horizon 
 gave him that perception of occult relationship be 
 tween man and all things which is the key to the 
 sublime culture known as Yoga in the history of 
 Hindoo philosophy. " I become a transparent eye 
 ball," says he ; " I am nothing ; I see all ; the cur 
 rents of universal being circulate through me. I 
 am part or parcel of God. ... I am the lover of 
 uncontained, immortal beauty." 
 
 Keshub Chunder Sen in his last work on Yoga 
 says : " The face-wall of Nature s cathedral is opaque 
 
368 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 to the ordinary eye, but to the spiritual eye of Yoga 
 it is transparent. Hence the Rishi (devotee) saw 
 through the diversified forms of gross matter the 
 presence of a resplendent person." Such God-vision 
 is possible only to the favored eye of the Yogi. West 
 ern intellect has disenchanted, hardened, vulgarized 
 Nature ; driven all soul, all poetry, all religion and 
 supersensible meaning out of it. Emerson has re 
 habilitated the deepest revelations in this outward 
 frame of the universe. He has re-established the 
 priestly functions of man in the mysterious temples 
 of Nature. You will have to admit now that the 
 great fathers of our people in going to discover the 
 secrets of all things in the animated symbols of this 
 vast creation, read Truth at its very source. Emerson 
 read from that same mysterious volume, and scattered 
 beauty, wisdom, and spiritual plenty over all his 
 land. 
 
 The evolution of Hindoo spirituality shows in its 
 second stage the wonderful development of insight. 
 The Vedas are the religious interpretation of Nature, 
 the Upanishads or Vedantas are the concentrated re 
 ligion of the soul. All the varied powers of Nature, 
 all names, and all forms resolve into Atman, or self. 
 The Vedic poet asks : " Who saw him [the soul] when 
 he was first born ; when he who has no bones bore 
 him who has ? Where was the breath, the blood, the 
 self of the world ? Who went to ask this from any 
 that knew it ? Though solitary, still he [the soul] 
 walks far : though lying down, he goes everywhere. 
 
EMERSON AS SEEN FROM INDIA. 369 
 
 Who save myself is able to know that God who re 
 joices and rejoices not ? " All at once, iii this stage 
 of Yedic theology, the solid universe vanishes as an 
 illusion, and religion soars sublime in the azure in 
 finitude of soul. Who but Emerson, in the West, 
 represents this illumined, spiritual introspection ? 
 True, his intercourse with Nature was part of his 
 daily food ; but it did not shut out, it unsealed his 
 insight into, that grander heaven and earth within 
 himself. Nature was but the outer halo of the deep, 
 inner fire ; the soul overshadowed everything ; the 
 universe became pale before its grandeur. " Go out 
 of the house," says he, " to see the moon, and it is 
 mere tinsel." Who discovered so well as he that 
 Nature teaches us nothing but what we ourselves 
 contribute to it ? The spirit is the centre and arche 
 type of all things, and beauty, beneficence, law, and 
 wisdom only lead us to ourselves. Emerson laid the 
 foundation of the true philosophy of man by tracing 
 phenomena to their real source in reflective humanity. 
 He laid the foundations of the true philosophy of the 
 world by viewing matter, not as a soulless succession 
 of appearances, nor yet a creation of the brain of 
 man, but as a mysterious, marvellous putting forth 
 in outward form of beauty that which he inwardly 
 realizes in the spirit. His writings, too, often recall to 
 inind the utterances of Hindoo philosophy, that all 
 the universe is a divine dream, passing away ; but in 
 passing it reminds us of the meaning, glory, pres 
 ence, and life, which it reveals and conceals at the 
 
 24 
 
370 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 same time. Creation rests on the bosom of man, and 
 man rests on the bosom of the Infinite. "No mor 
 tal," says the Vedanta, " lives by the breath that goes 
 up or by the breath that goes down. We live in 
 another, in whom -both repose." 
 
 Amidst all this soul-absorbing philosophy of things, 
 it is a true happiness to find that Emerson so deeply 
 felt the reality and earnestness of life, the reality 
 of the inner and outer world as well. There are two 
 orders of devotees in India, those who renounce 
 their homes and retire into the forests, and those who 
 live in their houses, but, with everything that per 
 tains to them, devote themselves to the culture and 
 the perfection of virtue. Shiva himself, the prince 
 of Yogis, belongs to the latter order. " All the fet 
 ters of the heart here on earth are broken, all that 
 binds us to this life is undone ; the mortal becomes 
 immortal." This is the lofty idea of emancipated 
 humanity which Krishna inculcates in the Bhagavat 
 Gita. And to Emerson surely belonged that beatified 
 humanity. I do not know why, but as often as I 
 study his features in the imperfect photograph which 
 I possess, the idea of Nirvana as taught by the great 
 Sakya Muni suffuses my soul. There is that hushed, 
 ineffable, self-contained calmness over his counte 
 nance so familiar to us who have studied the expres 
 sion of Gotama s image in every posture. In Japau, 
 China, Barman, Ceylon, Nepaul, Thibet, Buddha 
 has the same mysterious calmness. The Egyptians 
 prefigure it in the awful face of the Sphinx. It is 
 
EMERSON AS SEEN FROM INDIA. 371 
 
 Nirvana made flesh and visible. It is the "peace 
 past understanding " which lights up the face of 
 every true child of God. Emerson had it in a won 
 derful measure. It did me good to hear of his broad, 
 warm, many-sided humanity. Did he not welcome 
 work, spirituality, aspiration, obscure excellence, from 
 every quarter of the globe into his house ? Did he 
 not identify himself with every good movement, 
 however unpopular, which had for its object the 
 amelioration of his race ? 
 
 Long, long had we heard of his name and reputa 
 tion. We wondered what manner of man he was. 
 When at last I landed on your continent, how glad I 
 should have been to sit at his feet and unfold before 
 him the tale of our woe and degradation ! But he 
 had gone to his rest ; and instead of touching his 
 warm hand, which had blessed so many pilgrims, I 
 could but kiss the cold dust of his nameless grave 
 at the Concord cemetery. 
 
 Yes, Emerson had all the wisdom and spirituality 
 of the Brahmans. Brahmanism is an acquirement, a 
 state of being rather than a creed. In whomsoever 
 the eternal Brahma breathed his unquenchable fire, 
 he was the Brahman. And in that sense Emerson 
 was the best of Brahmans. 
 
 PEACE COTTAGE, CALCUTTA, July, 1884. 
 
372 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 XIV. 
 EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. 
 
 BY W. T. HARRIS. 
 
 IN his " Bepresentative Men " Emerson describes 
 Plato as visiting Asia and Egypt, and imbibing " the 
 idea of one Deity in which all things are absorbed." 
 Asia, according to him, is " the country of unity, of 
 immovable institutions ; the seat of a philosophy de 
 lighting in abstractions, of men faithful in doctrine 
 and in practice to the idea of a deaf, unimplorable 
 fate, which it realizes in the social institution of 
 caste." Europe, on the other hand, is active and 
 creative in its genius ; " it resists caste by culture ; 
 its philosophy was a discipline ; it is a land of arts, 
 inventions, trade, freedom. If the East loved infinity, 
 the West delighted in boundaries." Plato, according 
 to him, is the balanced soul who sees the two ele 
 ments and does justice to each. What Emerson says 
 of Plato we may easily and properly apply to himself. 
 But he goes farther than Plato towards the Orient, 
 and his pendulum swings farther West into the 
 Occident. He delights in the all-absorbing unity 
 of the Brahman, in the all-renouncing ethics of the 
 Chinese and Persian, in the measureless images of 
 
EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. 373 
 
 the Arabian and Hindoo poets. But he is as practi 
 cal as the extremest of his countrymen. His practical 
 is married to his abstract tendency. It is the problem 
 of evil that continually haunts him, and leads him 
 to search its solution in the Oriental unity which is 
 above all dualism of good and evil. It is his love of 
 freedom that leads him to seek in the same source 
 an elevation of thought above the trammels of fini- 
 tude and complications. Finally, it is his love of 
 beauty, which is the vision of freedom manifested in 
 matter, that leads him to Oriental poetry, which sports 
 with the finite elements of the world as though they 
 were unsubstantial dreams. 
 
 Perhaps nowhere in our literature may one find so 
 complete a characterization of the East Indian phi 
 losophy as is contained in the short poem called 
 " Brahma/ which appeared in the first number of 
 the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1857. There is no sub 
 ject farther from the thought of the average common- 
 sense of the modern European or American than the 
 all-absorbing unity which the East Indian conceived 
 under the name Braluna. Hence the mirth excited at 
 first by the strange conceits of the poem in question. 
 To the reader of the Bhagavat Gita, "Brahma" seemed 
 a wholly admirable epitome, or condensed statement, of 
 that wonderful book. One may illustrate each stanza 
 by parallel passages from the Indian episode. 
 
 " If the red slayer think he slays, 
 
 Or if the slain think he is slain, 
 They know not well the subtle ways 
 I keep, and pass, and turn again." 
 
374 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Brahma is pure Being, the same in all things that 
 exist, the same under all changes. In the second 
 chapter of the Bhagavat G-ita (J. Cockburn Thom 
 son s translation), the following passage occurs : 
 
 " He who believes that this spirit l can kill, and he 
 who thinks that it can be killed, both of these are wrong 
 in judgment. It neither kills, nor is killed. It is not 
 born, nor dies at any time. It has no origin, nor will it 
 ever have an origin. Unborn, changeless, eternal, both as 
 to future and past time, it is not slain when the body 
 is killed." 
 
 In the same chapter the " subtle ways " of Being 
 are described thus : " All things which exist are in 
 visible in their first state, visible in their intermediate 
 state, and again invisible in their final state." The 
 visible state is the passing state, and the invisible 
 state is that which Being returns to and keeps. 
 
 " Far or forgot to me is near ; 
 
 Shadow and sunlight are the same ; 
 The vanished gods to me appear ; 
 And one to me are shame and fame." 
 
 To pure being there is no distinction. Even one 
 so important as separation in space and time is 
 nothing, and all is " near." Light and darkness, too, 
 the most wonderful of material distinctions, are the 
 
 1 The word translated "spirit " here, signifies pure being rather 
 than consciousness, as it does with us ; for the spirit is something 
 above mind (buddhi) and heart (manas), which are its external 
 instruments. The "red slayer" is a member of the warrior caste, 
 the Kshatriyas. 
 
EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. 375 
 
 same to pure being. Even the invisible (" van 
 ished ") gods are pervaded by Being, and invisibility 
 has no validity. But a far deeper distinction to 
 humanity is that between good and evil, shame and 
 fame. Even this, however, does not enter the divine 
 essence of Brahma ; to him one is the same as the 
 other. This moral indifference is Indian, but not 
 Persian. To the Persian, good and evil are absolute, 
 and irreducible to a common ground. At first, light 
 and darkness shadow and sunlight were the 
 ultimate elements of the absolute dualism. Then 
 came Zoroaster, who elevated the thought to good and 
 evil, as being more ultimate natures than light and 
 darkness. Ahura Mazda and Ahriman are in eternal 
 conflict. A primeval unity for the two Zcrruane 
 Akercne is a comparatively modern thought, re 
 sulting from an attempt to reduce the Persian doc 
 trine to a monism, like Brahmanism. In the ninth 
 chapter of the BJuigavat Gita Krishna says : 
 
 " I am the same to all beings. I have neither foe nor 
 friend. But those who worship me with devotion dwell 
 in me and I also in them. Even if one who has led a 
 very bad life worship me, devoted to no other object, he 
 must be considered as a good man ; for he has judged 
 aright. He soon becomes religiously disposed, and enters 
 eternal rest ; he who worships me never perishes. For 
 even those who are born in sin even women, Yaishyas, 
 and Shiidras take the highest path if they have re 
 course to me. How much more, then, sacred Brahmans 
 and pious Rajarshis." 
 
376 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 In the thirteenth chapter we recognize the indiffer 
 ence of space and time in this : " It [spirit, or pure 
 being] cannot be recognized, on account of its sub- 
 tility, and it exists both far and near." 
 
 The network of distinctions in the world forms a 
 divine illusion (Maya), by w r hich those men are de 
 luded who do not take refuge in Brahma. This is 
 described in the seventh chapter of the Bhagavat 
 Gita. Here, too, occurs the mention of the Over-Soul, 
 or Adhyatma, an expression which Emerson used as 
 a title for one of the greatest of his essays. In the 
 eighth chapter we read : " The supreme universal 
 spirit is the One simple and indivisible ; and my 
 own nature is called Adhyatma " (Adhi, meaning 
 above, superior to, or presiding over ; and atma, the 
 soul, not the soul that presides over all, but that 
 which is above the soul itself). 
 
 "They reckon ill who leave me out ; 
 
 When me they fly, I am the wings ; 
 I am the doubter and the doubt, 
 
 And I the hymn the Brahmin sings." 
 
 The last line recalls the passage in the tenth chapter 
 of the Bhagavat Gita, where we are told which one is 
 the hymn : " Of the Vedas, I am the Sama-Veda. I 
 am the Vrihatsaman among the hymns (of the Sama- 
 Veda) ; the Gaytri among rhymes." 
 
 " The strong gods pine for my abode, 
 
 And pine in vain the sacred Seven ; 
 But thou, meek lover of the good ! 
 Find me, and turn thy back on heaven." 
 
EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. 377 
 
 The "strong gods" are : Indra, the god of the sky, the 
 wielder of the thunder- bolt; Agni, the god of fire; 
 and Yaina, the god of death and judgment. These and 
 all the inferior gods are absorbed into Brahma at the 
 close of the Kalpa, or day of Brahma (four thousand 
 three hundred and twenty millions of our years) ; 
 and after the night of Brahma are again created at 
 the beginning of the next clay. The " sacred seven " 
 are the seven Maharshis (Jfaha, great, and rishi, saint), 
 or highest saints. In the tenth chapter we are told : 
 " The seven Maharshis . . . were born of my mind, 
 and from them these inhabitants of the world are 
 sprung." They preside over each manwantara (one of 
 the fourteen divisions of the Kalpa). 
 
 Brahma exhorts man to come to him through at 
 taining a state of mental indifference to all dis 
 tinctions. He may even neglect the holy Vedas, if 
 he will turn his back on Indra s heaven and seek to 
 know " the single imperishable principle of existence 
 in all things ; " and when he is in a condition where 
 "he neither rejects nor hopes," then "he enters me" 
 without any intermediate condition." In the eigh 
 teenth chapter is this injunction : 
 
 "Place thy affections on me, worship me, sacrifice to me, 
 and reverence me. Thus thou wilt come to me. I declare the 
 truth to thee. Abandoning all religious duties, seek me as thy 
 refuge. I will deliver thee from all sin. Be not anxious." 
 
 Thus it happens that, as we learn in chapter eigh 
 teenth, " He whose disposition is not egotistical, and 
 
378 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 whose mind is not polluted, does not kill, even though 
 he slay yonder people." 
 
 This Bhagavat Gita, an episode in the Mahdbha- 
 ro.ta.- t represents a field of battle; and Arjuna, com 
 manding the younger branch of the Kuru tribe, is 
 seized with irresolution at the sight of his relatives 
 in the opposing army. Krishna the god, disguised 
 as his charioteer, delivers the doctrines of the book 
 as an argument to induce him to fight, and succeeds. 
 " A treatise of metaphysics before a battle, in eigh 
 teen lectures, under the form of a dialogue between 
 Arjuna and his companion Krishna, such is the 
 Bhagavat Git a" says Cousin in his " History of Mod 
 ern Philosophy" (vol. ii. ch. vi.). He well charac 
 terizes (in the same chapter) the nature of Brahma 
 as conceived by the Indian consciousness : 
 
 "In fact, what is the sole exercise of the sage 1 Con 
 templation ; the contemplation of God. And what is this 
 Godl We have seen what ; the abstraction of being. But 
 the abstraction of being, without fixed attribute, is realized 
 quite as well in a dog as in a man ; for there is being in 
 everything, as Leibnitz has said ; there is being in a clod 
 of earth as well as in the soul of the last of the Brutnses. 
 The indifference of the Yogin is, therefore, consistent ; he 
 searches only for God, but he finds him equally in every 
 thing." 
 
 In his article on Plato, in the " representative 
 Men " (first edition, page 53), Emerson has fully de 
 scribed this idea in the form that he held it, and as he 
 understood the East Indians to hold it, thus : 
 
EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. 379 
 
 " The Same, the Same : friend and foe are of one stuff; 
 the ploughman, the plough, and the furrow are of one 
 stuff ; and the stuff is such, and so much, that the varia 
 tions of form are unimportant. * You are fit, says the 
 supreme Krishna to a sage, * to apprehend that you are 
 not distinct from me. That which I am, thou art, and 
 that also is this world, with its gods, and heroes, and 
 mankind. Men contemplate distinctions, hecause they are 
 stupefied with ignorance. . . . The words I and Mine con 
 stitute ignorance. What is the great end of all, you shall 
 now learn from me. It is soul, one in all bodies, per 
 vading, uniform, perfect, pre-eminent over Nature, exempt 
 from birth, growth, and decay, omnipresent, made up of 
 true knowledge, independent, unconnected with unreali 
 ties, with name species, and the rest, in time past, present, 
 and to come. The knowledge that this spirit, which is 
 essentially one, is in one s own, and in all other bodies, is 
 the wisdom of one who knows the unity of things. As 
 one diffusive air, passing through the perforations of a 
 flute, is distinguished as the notes of a scale, so the nature 
 of the Great Spirit is single, though its forms be mani 
 fold, arising from the consequences of acts. When the 
 difference of the investing form, as that of god, or the 
 rest, is destroyed, there is no distinction. . . . The whole 
 world is but a manifestation 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 dwelling 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 
 light is whitewash, and durations are deceptive, and form 
 
380 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 is imprisonment, and heaven itself a deco} 7 . That which 
 the soul seeks is resolution into being, above form, out of 
 Tartarus, and out of heaven, liberation from nature." 
 
 It is remarkable that while Emerson has given us 
 this wonderful summary of the spirit of the Indian 
 mind, Alcott should have made a somewhat similar 
 statement of the Egyptian mind. In his " Tablets " 
 (page 167) he develops his theory of man as the au 
 thor of Nature : 
 
 " Man is a soul, informed by divine ideas, and bodying 
 forth their image. His mind is the unit and measure of 
 things visible and invisible. In him stir the creatures 
 
 O 
 
 potentially, and through his personal volitions are con 
 ceived and brought forth in matter whatsoever he sees, 
 touches, and treads under foot, the planet he spins." 
 
 He then proceeds with this remarkable epitome of 
 the Egyptian mind as the Neoplatonists interpreted 
 it: 
 
 " He omnipresent is, 
 All round himself he lies, 
 Osiris spread abroad, 
 Upstaring m all eyes ; 
 Nature his globed thought, 
 Without him she were not, 
 Cosmos from Chaos were not spoken, 
 And God bereft of visible token." 
 
 This is spoken of man, as though the Egyptian 
 Sphinx had brooded over the riddle of human life, 
 its universal significance in the world, as the final 
 object of all creation. 
 
E^fERSON S ORIENTALISM. 381 
 
 The problem of evil and fmitude receives a solu 
 tion in Emerson s " Uriel." In this poem the sub 
 stantiality of evil is denied and the supremacy of 
 good asserted. Not merely this doctrine but a much 
 concreter form is set forth ; namely, that all deeds 
 return upon their doer, and that all influences re 
 turn to their source in such a manner that all pain 
 or evil is but good in the process of making. The re 
 turn of injury upon the doer does not annihilate him, 
 but punishes him into goodness, heals and blesses 
 him. The form of this poem is a suggestion of Per 
 sian or Arabic poetry. It refers to Seyd (sultan), 
 suggesting a favorite Persian poet, and hints at the 
 seven archangels, of whom Uriel was one, by the term 
 Pleiads (the famous seven). Uriel was the archangel 
 of the Sun, endowed with the fulness of divine 
 light. Milton speaks of him as the interpreter of 
 God s will : 
 
 " Uriel, for them of those seven spirits that stand 
 In sight of God s high throne, gloriously bright, 
 The first art wont his great authentic will 
 Interpreter through highest heaven to bring." 
 
 Uriel would be the spirit most fitting to see the 
 deepest solution of the problem of life. In the pro 
 found discussion with the other archangels on the 
 question of " what subsisteth and what seems," he 
 gives " sentiment divine " against the subsistence of 
 eviL Nothing in the universe exists except self- 
 relation, all will return to itself, all is circular. 
 
382 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Evil returned on itself will neutralize itself so that 
 its subsistence or continuance can only be in the 
 form of the good. 
 
 " Line in nature is not found ; 
 Unit and universe are round ; 
 In vain produced, all rays return ; 
 Evil will bless, and ice will burn." 
 
 This oracle causes a shudder in heaven : 
 
 " Seemed to the holy festival 
 The rash word boded ill to all ; 
 The balance-beam of Fate was bent ; 
 The bounds of good and ill were rent ; 
 Strong Hades could not keep his own, 
 But all slid to confusion." 
 
 If good and evil are only two roads, both leading 
 to the same goal, where, then, is the distinction be 
 tween heaven and hell ? Strong Hades cannot keep 
 its devils ; who entering heaven, among the angels, 
 all will slide into confusion. Here is the same issue 
 that is found in the second stanza of "Brahma" : 
 
 " Shadow and sunlight are the same ; 
 And one to me are shame and fame." 
 
 Taken directly, without the mediation provided for in 
 the self-return, it paralyzes the will and denies moral 
 ity and religion. Of what use is it to choose the right 
 and renounce the wrong, if all comes to the same in 
 the end? But consider the mediation: If you do evil, 
 it will come back to pain you, and you must be puri 
 fied by its fire. Uriel sees that evil changes on its 
 
EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. 383 
 
 return into a purifying fire, a purgatory. The uni 
 verse does not suffer, but the individual writhes in 
 pain, although he is purified by it. 
 
 The universe is not made for happiness, but for 
 the development of free individuality. To free indi 
 viduality happiness, or rather blessedness, is inciden 
 tal. But pain is the means by which it is enabled to 
 grow into freedom, the pain of struggle and exer 
 tion, the pain of returning evil deeds, by which it 
 comes to self-knowledge and learns its identity with 
 the universe : 
 
 " "With damning conceit and self-assertion 
 To say Tliou in addressing the rest of existence, 
 Nor hear the answer, in agony echoed : 
 I, the prime All, am within as without thee ; 
 Who worketh woe, to himself doth work it. " 1 
 
 Such knowledge of the conversion of evil into 
 good tends to quietism. Uriel retires from the holy 
 festival into his cloud after this sad self-knowledge, 
 although it is doubtful whether he lapsed into the 
 sea of generation, or whether he grew too bright to 
 be seen ; at all events, he withdrew from sight : 
 
 " A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell 
 On the beauty of Uriel ; 
 In heaven once eminent, the god 
 Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud ; 
 "Whether doomed to long gyration 
 In the sea of generation, 
 Or by knowledge grown too bright 
 To hit the nerve of feebler sight. 
 
 1 Jordan s " Sigfridsage," Mr. Davidson s translation. 
 
384 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Straightway, a forgetting wind 
 
 Stole over the celestial kind, 
 
 And their lips the secret kept, 
 
 If in ashes the fire-seed slept. 
 
 But now and then, truth-speaking things 
 
 Shamed the angels veiling wings ; 
 
 And, shrilling from the solar course, 
 
 Or from fruit of chemic force, 
 
 Procession of a soul in matter, 
 
 Or the speeding change of water, 
 
 Or out of the good of evil born, 
 
 Came Uriel s voice of cherub scorn, 
 
 And a blush tinged the upper sky, 
 
 And the gods shook, they knew not why." 
 
 Another most remarkable poetic statement of the 
 law of return, which Emerson saw to be the foun 
 dation of the universe, is the oracle prefixed to the 
 essay on " Spiritual Laws " : 
 
 " The living Heaven thy prayers respect, 
 House at once and architect, 
 Quarrying man s rejected hours, 
 Builds therewith eternal towers ; 
 Sole and self-commanded works, 
 Fears not undermining days, 
 Grows by decays, 
 
 And, by the famous might that lurks 
 In reaction and recoil, 
 Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil ; 
 Forging, through swart arms of Offence, 
 The silver seat of Innocence." 
 
 The universe is here spoken of as the living 
 Heaven, which contains and upholds, and at the 
 same time is active builder or architect ; using the ; 
 hours that man has not moulded by his feeble will, 
 
EMERSON S ORIENTALISM. 385 
 
 it erects eternal towers. It is sole and self-com 
 manded, not co-ordinate with any one, but supreme. 
 It does not fear overthrow of its divine good through 
 the evil works of wicked men who have not learned 
 to will the good for its own sake. By the famous 
 might of this law of return, the deepest of Heaven s 
 laws, flame will freeze and ice will boil ; evil will 
 bless, by curing the perverse will through the pain of 
 its recoil. Through the dark ministration of offending 
 deeds the silver seat of "Innocence will be forged. The 
 universe is so made that as a whole it always brings 
 
 J O 
 
 out good from evil, and " better thence again." The 
 individual is prevented from subsisting contentedly 
 in evil through the ministration of pain. " He makes 
 the wrath of man to praise Him." 
 
 25 
 
386 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 XV. 
 
 EMERSON S EELATION TO GOETHE 
 AND CARLYLE. 
 
 BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS. 
 
 IN our study of the great man and his environ 
 ment we must consider, before all, his contemporaries. 
 By common consent Emerson is joined with Carlyle 
 as co-author of the stream of influence which has 
 acted so powerfully on the thinking and literary 
 expression of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Other sources of the same stream of influence are 
 Coleridge and Wordsworth. The latter, Words 
 worth, indeed, stands for the great English poet 
 of the century with a large and increasing number of 
 highly cultured people. We have already, in discuss 
 ing the relation of Emerson to Nature, spoken of the 
 characteristics of poetry. Poetry performs the office 
 of imposing a spiritual view of some sort upon the 
 world as it exists for us. The poet passes it through 
 his mind, and forthwith his version of nature, of men 
 and things, is accepted by his readers and becomes 
 their view of the world. There goes with poetry 
 music of rhythm and rhyme; but that is less essen 
 tial than the trope and personification by which the 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 387 
 
 poet makes over the tilings of the world into means 
 of spiritual expression. They were prose facts, mere 
 opaque things ; now they become transparent, and 
 a sort of spiritual light shines through them. They 
 express facts of human experience, facts that were 
 unutterable before. The deep spiritual truths which 
 could not be communicated nor even conceived 
 clearly, now by the poet s aid become expressible in 
 trope and metaphor and through the personification 
 of natural things. The invisible is now visible. 
 
 This function of poetry in revealing spiritual ex 
 perience and the structure of our moral and intellec 
 tual selves by metaphor and personification goes on 
 from age to age. There are poets of various degrees 
 of universality. Homer s revelation underlies all our 
 literature, all the literature of European civilization. 
 He taught man to recognize in nature the presence 
 of human spirit. Every object is an expression of 
 some spiritual being: the fountains, groves, moun 
 tains, streams, clouds, winds, waves, plants, animals, 
 all express in their motions, sounds, appearances, 
 some passion, some desire or meaning of invisible con 
 scious beings. Nurtured in this view of the world, it 
 is not strange that the European man has learned to 
 know himself in the course of three thousand years 
 by seeing his reflection in an ideal world created for 
 him by the Muse. 
 
 In the line of Homer have followed other poets, 
 great and small The great poets since Homer have 
 taken new themes, new experiences of the inner 
 
388 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 world of man, and found their expression in terms 
 of correspondence with external nature. Dante lias 
 revealed thus the inner world of Christianity. Shak- 
 speare has made visible the genesis of human institu 
 tions from the individual man; he has shown man 
 as a social animal creating the social forms and 
 evolving social unities, the colossal institutions in 
 which he lives. We may study the individual, and 
 see how these greater selves come to manifest them 
 selves in his thinking and feeling. Each individual 
 shows fragments of his larger self ; he indicates his 
 place in some institution which supplements his 
 deficiencies. If Shakspeare is the revealer of the 
 essential character of human institutions, teaching 
 us in what sense they are the substance of individ 
 ual men, Goethe is the revealer of a new phase of 
 human experience, of still deeper and subtler spirit 
 ual laws. Goethe shows the individual not so much 
 the source, as the result, of institutions. All returns 
 to the individual. The institution which man gen 
 erates and places over himself as a supreme self to 
 nurture and preserve him, educates him ; all that 
 he gives to it returns to him. By sufficient intelli 
 gence he shall be able to turn all manner of fortune 
 into blessing. The attitude of the individual towards 
 the world is therefore all-important. The Christian 
 religion had taught from the beginning the germ of 
 this doctrine. It is the attitude of the soul towards 
 the world that determines its state of weal or woe. 
 The soul, in the Inferno of Dante, seeks directly the 
 
EMERSOX, GOETHE, AND CARLYLE. 389 
 
 gratification of its finite wants and desires, careless 
 of the welfare of its fellows. This produces collision. 
 The individual against society the one against the 
 many fights, to lose the battle. Pain is the only 
 result. The individual has neglected his higher self, 
 the social whole, and has assumed that man possesses 
 completeness as a mere individual, without institu 
 tions ; but he learns by the suffering of the Inferno 
 that he is, after all, a mere fragment, and that by 
 selfish isolation he maims and wounds himself. 
 
 In the Inferno, the soul pursues this hopeless 
 struggle of selfishness against altruism, growing more 
 deeply imbittered against his fellow-men and the 
 universe. This attitude changes in the Purgatory. 
 The individual sees the nature of his sin, and repents. 
 He strives to reunite himself to his higher self by 
 conforming to institutions, family, civil society, Xa- 
 tion, Church. He gradually eliminates from himself 
 the habits and tendencies of antagonism and selfish 
 ness. He attains at last the Paradise. This is the 
 state of soul wherein the individual lives in conscious 
 harmony with institutions, the state wherein he 
 enjoys the complete fruition of his higher self. He 
 sees and feels his unity with all, and he enjoys the 
 life of all. All returns to him. He has found that 
 by giving all he receives all. Selfishness has given 
 place to love. 
 
 The natural consequence of the Christian revelation 
 unfolds by and by this idea of culture of the individual, 
 not as a different revelation, but as its own result. 
 
390 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Goethe is the world-poet of this movement. He 
 shows in the Faust that if the individual would find 
 a permanent state of blessedness, and be able to say to 
 the happy moment, " Stay, for thou art fair," lie must 
 energize not against the institutions of the world, as 
 he does in the first part of the drama, nor attempt to 
 find his supreme object in any subordinate institution, 
 as in the second part of the drama. He must find 
 the paradise in altruism. Only the reflection of the 
 well-being of others can fill his soul with gladness 
 that does not weary or turn to sorrow. Accordingly 
 Goethe, in the last scene of the second part of Faust, 
 paints the four phases of Christian history in the 
 three typical holy fathers and the Doctor Marianus. 
 
 The perfection of the soul by asceticism in Pater 
 Ecstaticus repelling the social world for the sake 
 of personal salvation is an imperfect Christianity, 
 because it preserves the form of selfishness although 
 it practises supreme renunciation. The recognition 
 of divine reason in nature by Pater Profundus is still 
 partial, because only a theoretical attitude towards the 
 world. Pater Seraphicus is higher, because he actively 
 engages in the work of lifting up others towards per 
 fection, using his knowledge to illuminate the imper 
 fectly developed. Doctor Marianus announces the view 
 of the world on which all this is based, the doctrine 
 of grace. It is what Goethe calls in his great prose 
 romance the "worship of sorrow." Wilhelm Meister 
 hears this discussed in the Pedagogical Province: 1 
 
 1 Carlyle s Translation. 
 
EMERSOX, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 391 
 
 " Xo religion that grounds itself on fear," said tbe Three, 
 " is regarded among us. \Vith the reverence, to which a 
 man should give dominion in his mind, lie can, in paying 
 honor, keep his own honor j he is not disunited with him 
 self, as in the former case. The religion which depends 
 on reverence for what is above us we denominate the 
 Ethnic; it is the religion of the nations, and the first 
 happy deliverance from a degrading fear. All Heathen 
 religions, as we call them, are of this sort, whatsoever 
 names they bear. The second religion, which founds itself 
 on reverence for uhat is around us, we denominate the 
 Philosophical ; for the philosopher stations himself in the 
 middle, and must draw down to him all that is higher, 
 and up to him all that is lower, and only in this medium 
 condition does he merit the title of AVise. Here, as he 
 surveys with clear sight his relations to his equals, and 
 therefore to the whole human race, his relation likewise 
 to all other earthly circumstances and arrangements neces 
 sary or accidental, he alone, in a cosmic sense, lives in 
 Truth. But now we have to speak of the third religion, 
 grounded on reverence for what is beneath us : this we 
 name the Christian, as in the Christian religion such a 
 temper is with most distinctness manifested : it is a last 
 step to which mankind were fitted and destined to attain. 
 But what a task was it, not only to be patient with the 
 Earth, and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a higher 
 birthplace ; but also to recognize humility and poverty, 
 mockery and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering 
 and death, to recognize these things as divine ; nay, even 
 on sin and crime to look not as hindrances, but to honor 
 and love them as furtherances of what is holy ! Of this, 
 indeed, we find some traces in all ages ; but the trace is 
 
392 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 not the goal ; and this being now attained, the human 
 species cannot retrograde ; arid we may say, that the 
 Christian religion, having- once appeared, cannot again 
 vanish ; having once assumed its divine shape, can he 
 subject to no dissolution. " 
 
 To a remark of his, the Three reply to Meister : 
 
 " Our confession has been adopted, though unconsciously, 
 by the greater part of the world." And " Where?" he asks. 
 " In the Creed ! " exclaimed they ; " for the first Article is 
 Ethnic, and belongs to all nations ; the second, Christian, 
 for those struggling with affliction and glorified in afflic 
 tion ; the third, in fine, teaches an inspired Communion of 
 Saints, that is, of men in the highest degree good and 
 wise." 
 
 In another connection the eldest of the Three, after 
 discussing the other aspects of Christ s life, says : 
 
 " Now, omitting all that results from this consideration, 
 do but look at the touching scene of the Last Supper. 
 Here the Wise Man, as it ever is, leaves those that are 
 his own utterly orphaned behind him ; and while lie is 
 careful for the Good, he feeds along with them a traitor 
 by whom he and the Better are to be destroyed." 
 
 He continues, describing the rules and methods of 
 the Pedagogic Province : 
 
 " All that is external, worldly, universal, we communi 
 cate to each from youth upwards ; what is more particularly 
 spiritual and conversant with the heart, to those only who 
 grow up with some thoughtfulness of temper ; and the 
 rest, which is opened only once a year, cannot be imparted 
 
FMERSON, GOETHE, AND CARLYLE. 393 
 
 save to those whom we are sending forth as finished. 
 That last religion which arises from the reverence of 
 what is beneath us ; that veneration of the contradictory, 
 the hated, the avoided, we give each of our pupils in 
 small portions, by way of outfit, along with him into 
 the world, merely that he may know where more is to be 
 had, should such a want spring up within him. I invite 
 you to return hither at the end of a year, to visit our 
 general festival, and see how far your son is advanced : 
 then shall you be admitted into the Sanctuary of 
 Sorrow." 
 
 In this idea of the worship of sorrow Goethe rises 
 to his highest and purest thought, and joins his own 
 epoch to the preceding epoch. History is made con 
 tinuous. Without this insight the modern world 
 breaks off from the old world with the idea of indi 
 vidual culture, and reverts to a sort of barbarism. 
 Eefined selfishness, enlightened self-interest, cold, 
 calculating understanding, supreme individualism, is 
 the dry-rot of character ; and it is the special form 
 in which the diabolic makes its appearance in an age 
 of science. This is the meaning of Mephistopheles, 
 whose spiritual import is so well expressed by Emer 
 son in his " Representative Men," in a passage that 
 shows the significance of Goethe s work in litera 
 ture : 
 
 " Take the most remarkable example that could occur of 
 this tendency to verify every term in popular use. The 
 devil had played an important part in mythology in all 
 times. Goethe would have no word that does not cover a 
 
394 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 thing. The same measure will still serve : I have never 
 heard of any crime which I might not have committed/ 
 So he flies at the throat of this imp. He shall be real ; 
 he shall be modern ; he shall be European ; he shall dress 
 like a gentleman, and accept the manners, and walk in 
 the streets, and be well initiated in the life of Vienna, and 
 of Heidelberg, in 1820, or he shall not exist. Accord 
 ingly, he stripped him of mythologic gear, of horns, cloven 
 foot, harpoon tail, brimstone, and blue-fire, and, instead of 
 looking in books and pictures, looked for him in his own 
 mind, in every shade of coldness, selfishness, and unbelief 
 that, in crowds or in solitude, darkens over the human 
 thought, and found that the portrait gained reality and 
 terror by everything he added and by everything he 
 took away. He found that the essence of this hobgoblin, 
 which had hovered in shadow about the habitations of 
 men ever since there were men, was pure intellect, applied 
 
 as always there is a tendency to the service of the 
 senses j and he flung into literature, in his Mephistopheles, 
 the first organic figure that has been added for some ages, 
 and which will remain as long as the Prometheus." 
 
 Mephistopheles is the devil that tempts men of 
 culture. Not merely nor chiefly in sensuous things, 
 but rather in sceptical coldness towards one s fellow- 
 men. The preference of one s higher self it may be, 
 
 the higher self of culture, of refined taste, insight, 
 purity that keeps aloof and is pharisaic is Mephis- 
 tophelian. 
 
 This element, the element of Goethe s devil, 
 strange to .say, is the element that is generally rec 
 ognized as Goethe s ideal. Olympian serenity and 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 395 
 
 self-seeking in the midst of all the sorrow and evil 
 that prevails in the world is supposed to be Goethe s 
 conception of the divine. 
 
 Even Emerson, although possessed of the piercing 
 vision of a seer, discovers only so much in him. He 
 does justice to this ideal by accrediting it with a com 
 paratively lofty aim. He says of Goethe : 
 
 " The old Eternal genius who built the world has con 
 fided himself more to this man than to any other. I dare 
 not say that Goethe ascended to the highest grounds from 
 which genius has spoken. He has not worshipped the 
 highest unity ; he is incapable of a self-surrender to the 
 moral sentiment. There are nobler strains in poetry than 
 any he- has sounded. There are writers poorer in talent, 
 whose tone is purer and more touches the heart. Goethe 
 can never be dear to men. His is not even the devotion 
 to pure truth ; but to truth for the sake of culture. He 
 has no aims less large than the conquest of universal 
 nature, of universal truth, to be his portion ; a man not 
 to be bribed, nor deceived, nor overawed ; of a stoical self- 
 command and self-denial, and having one test for all men, 
 What can you teach me 1 All possessions are valued by him 
 for that only ; rank, privileges, health, time, being itself." 
 
 " From him nothing was hid, nothing withholden. The 
 lurking daemons sat to him, and the saint who saw the 
 daemons : and the metaphysical elements took form. 
 Piety itself is no aim, but only a means, whereby through 
 inward peace we may attain the highest culture. " 
 
 " Enmities he has none. Enemy of him you may be, 
 if so you shall teach him aught which your good-will can 
 not, were it only what experience will accrue from your 
 
396 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 ruin. Enemy and welcome, but enemy on high terms. 
 He cannot hate anybody ; his time is worth too much." 
 
 " In this aim of culture, which is the genius of his 
 works, is their power. The idea of absolute eternal truth 
 without reference to my own enlargement by it, is higher. 
 The surrender to the torrent of poetic inspiration is higher ; 
 but compared with any motives on which books are written 
 ill England and America, this is very truth, and has power 
 to inspire which belongs to truth. Thus has he brought 
 back to a book some of its ancient might and dignity." 
 
 This view of Goethe is illustrated still further, and 
 its limitation indicated in what Emerson tells us of 
 " Wilhelm Meister " : 
 
 " Wilhelm Meister is a novel in every sense, the first 
 of its kind, called by its admirers the only delineation of 
 modern society, as if other novels, those of Scott, for 
 example, dealt with costume and condition, this with the 
 spirit of life. It is a book over which some veil is still 
 drawn. It is read by very intelligent persons with wonder 
 and delight. It is preferred by some such to Hamlet, as 
 a work of genius. I suppose no book of this century can 
 compare with it in its delicious sweetness, so new, so pro 
 voking to the mind, gratifying it with so many and so 
 solid thoughts, just insights into life, and manners, and 
 characters ; so many good hints for the conduct of life, so 
 many unexpected glimpses into a higher sphere, and never 
 a trace of rhetoric or dulness. A very provoking book to 
 the curiosity of young men of genius, but a very unsatis 
 factory one. Lovers of light reading, those who look in 
 it for the entertainment they find in a romance, are disap 
 pointed. On the other hand, those who begin it with the 
 
EMERSOX, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 397 
 
 higher hope to read in it a worthy history of genius, and 
 the just award of the laurel to its toils and denials, have 
 also reason to complain. We had an English romance 
 here, not long ago, professing to embody the hope of a 
 new age, and to unfold the political hope of the party 
 called Young England/ in which the only reward of 
 virtue is a seat in Parliament, and a peerage. Goethe s 
 romance has a conclusion as lame and immoral. George 
 Sand, in Consuelo and its continuation, has sketched a 
 truer and more dignified picture. In the progress of the 
 story the characters of the hero and heroine expand at a 
 rate that shivers the porcelain chess-table of aristocratic 
 convention : they quit the society and habits of their rank ; 
 they lose their wealth ; they become the servants of great 
 ideas, and of the most general social ends ; until, at last, 
 the hero, who is the centre and fountain of an association 
 for the rendering of the noblest benefits to the human 
 race, no longer answers to his own titled name : it sounds 
 foreign and remote in his ear. I am only man, he says } 
 1 1 breathe and work for man, and this in poverty and 
 extreme sacrifices. Goethe s hero, on the contrary, has 
 so many weaknesses and impurities, and keeps such bad 
 company, that the sober English public, when the book 
 was translated, were disgusted. And yet it is so crammed 
 with wisdom, with knowledge of the world, and with 
 knowledge of laws ; the persons so truly and subtly drawn, 
 and with such few strokes, and not a word too much, the 
 book remains ever so new and unexhausted, that we must 
 even let it go its way, and be willing to get what good 
 from it we can, assured that it has only begun its office, 
 and has millions of readers yet to serve. 
 
 " The argument is the passage of a democrat to the 
 
398 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 aristocracy, using both words in their best sense. And 
 this passage is not made in any mean or creeping way, but 
 through the hall door. Nature and character assist, and 
 the rank is made real by sense and probity in the nobles. 
 No generous youth can escape this charm of reality in the 
 book, so that it is highly stimulating to intellect and 
 courage." 
 
 Were it true, as Emerson supposes, that Goethe s 
 view of the world places self- culture supreme, and 
 without subordinating it to altruism, there would be 
 the most serious grounds for denying to Goethe his 
 rank as one of the four great world-poets, a rank, 
 as we shall see, that is actually assigned to him by 
 Emerson himself. Emerson sees clearly enough the 
 place of Goethe in literature, but without being able 
 thoroughly to account for it. 
 
 Dante, too, he ranks with Homer and Shakspeare ; 
 not because he sees the validity of Dante s message 
 to mankind, but for his obvious historic importance 
 in literature. 
 
 One of the most wonderful and instructive of 
 Emerson s poems is the " Test and Solution," giving 
 us his supreme critical insight, and his canon of 
 highest honor in literature. 
 
 The Muse speaks : 
 
 "I hung my verses in the wind, 
 Time and tide their faults may find. 
 All were winnowed through and through, 
 Five lines lasted sound and true; 
 Five were smelted in a pot 
 Than the South more fierce and hot; 
 
EMERSOX, GOETHE, AND CARLYLE. 399 
 
 These the siroc could not melt, 
 Fire their fiercer flaming felt, 
 And the meaning was more white 
 Thau July s meridian light. 
 Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, 
 Kor time unmake what poets know. 
 Have you eyes to find the five 
 "Which five hundred did survive ? " 
 
 The Muse makes her own answer to the riddle ; 
 the same Muse that " sung alway by Jove," even " at 
 the dawn of the first clay." This Muse sat alone, 
 crowned with stars, and for long ages strove to mix 
 the stagnant earth with thought. Her song prevailed 
 on the spawning slime ; the fierce elements were 
 tamed; wolves shed their fangs; and the earth smiled 
 in flowers when man was born. The shepherd races 
 of Asia with their tents, the civilization of Egypt 
 with its granite architecture, came first; and then 
 stepped forth the perfect Greek : 
 
 " That wit and joy might find a tongue, 
 And earth grow civil. Homer sung." 
 
 Homer then wrote the first of the five lines that 
 survived the five hundred. But who is the second of 
 the five gifts of the Muse ? 
 
 The Muse proceeds to tell how, having flown from 
 Greece to Italy, she brooded long and held her peace, 
 being accustomed to sing when not expected. Some 
 times she unlocks doors of new delight, singing wit 
 and joy to men in evil times ; on other occasions she 
 appalls men with a bitter horoscope, and fills them 
 with spasms of terror: 
 
400 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 " So I folded me in fears, 
 And Dante searched the triple spheres, 
 Moulding nature at his will, 
 So shaped, so colored, swift or still, 
 And, sculptor-like, his large design 
 Etched on Alp and Apennine." 
 
 Dante, then, is the second of the great world-poets. 
 The characterization of his genius is by no means so 
 happy as that of the next following : 
 
 "Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur, 
 Taught by Plinlimmon s Druid power, 
 England s genius filled all measure 
 Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, 
 Gave to the mind its emperor, 
 And life was larger than before: 
 Nor sequent centuries could hit 
 Orbit and sum of Shakspearc s wit. 
 The men Avho lived with him became 
 Poets, for the air was fame." 
 
 The first three favorites of the Muse do not sur 
 prise us ; they have long been chosen by the world at 
 large. But the fourth has not yet been found by the 
 common consent of mankind. He is regarded as a 
 religious genius, but not as a poet : 
 
 " Far in the North, where polar night 
 Holds in check the frolic light, 
 In trance iipborne past mortal goal 
 The Swede Emanuel leads the soul. 
 Through snows above, mines underground, 
 The inks of Erebus he found; 
 Rehearsed to men the damned wails 
 On which the seraph music sails. 
 In spirit-worlds he trod alone, 
 But walked the earth unmarked, unknown. 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 401 
 
 The near by-stander caught no sound, 
 Yet they who listened far aloof 
 Heard rendings of the skyey roof, 
 And felt, beneath, the quaking ground; 
 And his air-sown, unheeded words, 
 In the next age, are flaming swords." 
 
 Recalling to mind our definition of the poetic, and 
 laying stress on the function of seeing the spiritual 
 meaning of the natural, we may perhaps feel the 
 force of the same reasons that led Emerson to place 
 Swedenborg in the rank of the great poets. We cer 
 tainly gain a hint of the powerful personal influence 
 which he exercised on Emerson. In the "Representa 
 tive Men" one may find the account of Swedenborg 
 much more definite and satisfactory than that of any 
 other personage honored with mention there. His in 
 ventory of the Swede s ideas and achievements is of a 
 character to justify the high place he assigns to him. 
 The central doctrine of correspondence comes near 
 to a scientific statement of the contents of the poet s 
 vision, and we may well believe that it was this 
 especially which attracted Emerson s admiration and 
 study. However that may be, certainly literature, 
 philosophy, and religion have "caught no sound/ and 
 his air-sown words" are yet unheeded; although it 
 is still possible that the prophecy may come true, and 
 those unheeded words 
 
 " In the next age be flaming swords." 
 
 The four great names in literature are usually 
 made to include Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and 
 
 26 
 
402 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Goethe. If Sweclenborg is added as a fifth, one would 
 expect that Plato would also form the sixth, or even 
 take precedence of the Swede. Goethe s claims for 
 a place among the five immortals are set forth by the 
 Muse in these lines : 
 
 " In newer days of war and trade, 
 Romance forgot, and faith decayed, 
 When Science armed and guided war, 
 And clerks the Janus-gates unbar, 
 When France, where poet never grew, 
 Halved and dealt the globe anew, 
 Goethe, raised o er joy and strife, 
 Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life, 
 And brought Olympian wisdom down 
 To court and mart, to gown and town; 
 Stooping, his finger wrote in clay 
 The open secret of to-day." 
 
 And with these the Muse concludes : 
 
 " So bloom the unfading petals five, 
 And verses that all verse outlive." 
 
 Ill discussing Emerson s appreciation of the import 
 of Goethe to the world, we come upon the relation of 
 both these men to Carlyle. For it is undoubtedly 
 to Carlyle that Emerson s diligence in the study of 
 Goethe is due. Most profitable, too, it is to consider 
 the differences of attitude in these men towards 
 Goethe. 
 
 " Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe," says Carlyle 
 to the gloomy individual plunged in the lake of the 
 " everlasting no." 
 
 "Well did the wisest of our time write: It is only 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 403 
 
 with renunciation that life, properly speaking, can be 
 said to begin. " 
 
 The " worship of sorrow " finds in Carlyle a readier 
 votary than in Emerson. Here is his most eloquent 
 apostrophe to it, from the "Sartor Eesartus" (book ii. 
 chap. 9) : 
 
 "Poor, wandering, wayward man ! Art thou not tried, 
 and beaten with many stripes, even as I am ? Ever, 
 whether thou bear the royal mantle or the beggar s gabar 
 dine, art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden ; and thy Bed 
 of Eest is but a grave. my Brother, my Brother, why 
 cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all 
 tears from thy eyes ! Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, 
 which in this solitude, with the mind s organ, I could hear, 
 was no longer a maddening discord, but a melting one : 
 like inarticulate cries, and sobbings of a dumb creature, 
 which in the ear of Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth, 
 with her poor joys, was now my needy Mother, not my 
 cruel step-dame ; Man, with his so mad Wants and so mean 
 Endeavors, had become the dearer to me ; and even for his 
 sufferings and his sins, I now first named him brother. 
 Thus was I standing in the porch of that Sanctuary of 
 Sorrow ; by strange, steep ways, had I too been guided 
 thither ; and ere long its sacred gates would open, and the 
 4 Divine Depth of Sorrow lie disclosed to me. . . . 
 
 " Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth with 
 its injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained 
 thee : thou canst love the Earth while it injures thee ; for 
 this, a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent. 
 Knowest thou that "Worship of Sorrow ? The Temple 
 hereof, founded some eighteen centuries ago, now lies in 
 
404 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation of doleful 
 creatures : nevertheless, venture forward ; in a low crypt, 
 arched out of falling fragments, thou fmdest the Altar still 
 there, and its sacred Lamp perennially burning." 
 
 In that most wonderful of all recent books, the "Cor 
 respondence of Caiiyle and Emerson," 1 the highest 
 interest attaches to this interpretation of Goethe and 
 to the practical lessons drawn by each of the friends 
 from it. Nov. 20, 1834, Emerson writes : 
 
 " Truth is ever born in a manger, but is compensated 
 by living till it has all fools for its kingdom. Far, far 
 better seems to me the unpopularity of this Philosophical 
 Poem (shall I call it?), Sartor Kesartus, than the adulation 
 that followed your eminent friend Goethe. With him I 
 am becoming better acquainted, but mine must be qualified 
 admiration. It is a singular piece of good nature in you 
 to apotheosize him. I cannot but regard it as his misfor 
 tune, with conspicuous bad influence on his genius, that 
 velvet life he led. . . . Then, the Puritan in me accepts 
 no apology for bad morals in such as he. We can tolerate 
 vice in a splendid nature whilst that nature is battling 
 with the brute majority in defence of some human princi 
 ple. The sympathy his manhood and his misfortunes call 
 out adopts even his faults ; but genius pampered, acknowl 
 edged, crowned, can only retain our sympathy by turning 
 the same force once expended against outward enemies 
 now against inward, and carrying forward and planting 
 the standard of Oromasdes so many leagues farther on 
 into the envious Dark." 
 
 l Boston : James E. Osgood & Co., 1883. 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AND CARLYLE. 405 
 
 Carlyle replies : 
 
 " Your objections to Goethe are very natural, and even 
 bring you nearer me : nevertheless, I am by no means 
 sure that it were not your wisdom, at this moment, to set 
 about learning the German Language, with a view towards 
 studying him mainly ! I do not assert this ; but the truth 
 of it would not surprise me. Believe me, it is impossible 
 you can be more a Puritan than I ; nay, I often feel as if 
 I were far too much so : but John Knox himself, could 
 he have seen the peaceable impregnable fidelity of that 
 man s mind, and how to him also Duty was Infinite, 
 Kuox would have passed on, wondering, not reproaching. 
 But I will tell you in a word why I like Goethe : his is the 
 only healthy mind, of any extent, that I have discovered 
 in Europe for long generations ; it was he that first con 
 vincingly proclaimed to me (convincingly, for I saw it 
 done) : Behold, even in this scandalous Sceptico-Epicu- 
 rean generation, when all is gone but hunger and cant, 
 it is still possible that Man be a man ! For which last 
 Evangel, the confirmation and rehabilitation of all other 
 Evangels whatsoever, how can I be too grateful ] On the 
 whole, I suspect you yet know only Goethe the Heathen 
 (Ethnic) ; but you will know Goethe the Christian by and 
 by, and like that one far better." 
 
 In another letter (Dec. 9, 1840) : 
 
 " Even what you say of Goethe gratifies me ; it is one 
 of the few things yet spoken of him from personal insight, 
 the sole kind of things that should be spoken ! You call 
 kirn actual, not ideal ; there is truth in that too ; and yet at 
 bottom is not the whole truth rather this : The actual well 
 
406 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 seen is the ideal 1 The actual, what really is and exists : 
 the past, the present, the future no less, do all lie there ! 
 Ah yes ! one day you will find that this sunny-looking, 
 courtly Goethe held veiled in him a Prophetic sorrow deep 
 as Dante s, all the nobler to me and to you, that he 
 could so hold it. I believe this ; no man can see as he sees, 
 that has not suffered and striven as man seldom did." 
 
 In a certain obvious sense Goethe and Carlyle and 
 Emerson preach the same doctrine, the doctrine of 
 our age. The age of science is the age of ascent out 
 of conventionalities, out of mere prescription and 
 ignorant following of law and custom into individual 
 insight into the rational necessity of the law. 
 
 But which of the three has seen and stated the prob 
 lem of the time in its entirety ? Which has found the 
 solution ? Goethe, it must be confessed, and Goethe 
 alone. Goethe has understood human history as a 
 growth, and has seen the inevitable approach of democ 
 racy as something to be prepared for by all nations. 
 Goethe has studied the spirit and appliances of the 
 Middle Ages, and seen that the rise of the scientific 
 tendency is the rise of scepticism against what is pre 
 scribed. Faust has studied " Philosophic, Juristerei, 
 und Medicin . . . auch Theologie," and finds himself 
 wise but unhappy because he doubts the possibility 
 of knowing the Divine, or of ascending into the image 
 of the First Principle of the Universe. Not only is 
 he unequal to the comprehension of Nature, but even 
 to that of human nature. He cannot approach the 
 Erd-Geist, the Microcosm, or have a comprehension 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 407 
 
 of the mind of the .race except through loss of in 
 dividuality. The lesson that through social union the 
 individual is divinely reinforced and comes to equal 
 the Absolute, he has not yet learned. This lesson, 
 however, it shall be the mission of the entire drama 
 of Faust to teach. 
 
 Carlyle fulminates during his entire literary career 
 against the doctrine of individualism in its form of 
 revolutionary protest, and in favor of individualism 
 as manifested by men in power or supported by insti 
 tutions. This is an implicit contradiction, and utterly 
 misses the point of Goethe s solution. Carlyle sees 
 the divinity of institutions, but not the mediation of 
 the individual by them. 
 
 Emerson, on the other hand, sets forth personal 
 morals as the solution of individualism. He confirms 
 Goethe s belief in individual perfection as the result of 
 the entire human process on the planet. All the world 
 is for man, and all human institutions are for the per 
 fection of the individual. But Emerson does not lay 
 great stress on the cardinal institutions of man. The 
 Church and the State are not exhaustively studied by 
 him as developments of essential humanity. Even civil 
 society and the family are not specially prized as 
 something divine, above the accidents of the individ 
 ual. The Transcendental reformers attacked in one 
 way or another all of these institutions. It is true 
 that Emerson did not partake in the merely negative 
 excursions of the Transcendentalists, but always saw 
 the affirmative aspect of things that had got into 
 
408 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 existence. In his lecture on " The Reformer and the 
 Transeendentalist," in 1841, he said: If the institu 
 tion of property seems to deprive the individual of 
 his birthright to a piece of land to live on, yet it 
 has preserved for him the rational achievements of 
 the race, " libraries, museums and galleries, colleges, 
 palaces, hospitals, observatories, cities, Eome and 
 Memphis, Constantinople and Vienna, and Paris and 
 London, and New York." But what socialist could 
 state better the negative side ? " There is a cunning 
 juggle in riches. I observe that they take somewhat 
 for everything they give. I look bigger, but am less ; 
 I have more clothes but am not so warm, more armor 
 but less courage, more books but less wit." 
 
 Goethe, who lived through all the phases of the 
 French Revolution, saw the truth in the conservative 
 instinct that supports institutions even when they 
 have become worn out, as well as the truth of the 
 radicalism that wishes to reform what it does not 
 understand. Goethe was a prophet in discerning the 
 fruits of the era of labor-saving machinery in forms of 
 government and creeds and social caste. Especially 
 in the novelettes that are found in Meister s Wander- 
 jakre one may find our social problem of the readjust 
 ment of vocations stated, as well as the solution by 
 means of a systematic migration and a general edu 
 cation. How to manage in order to meet an age of 
 revolutions in the State and in civil society is indi 
 cated by the particulars of an organization formed by 
 the leading spirits as described in that novel for the 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AND CAELYLE. 409 
 
 purchase and improvement of property in various 
 parts of the world. 
 
 Carlyle shows in the " Sartor Eesartus " how deeply 
 he had pondered the problems of sociology ; but in all 
 the latter years of his life he seems to have treated 
 such problems from the stand-point of the nation, and 
 to have made the State of the most importance. His 
 " French Revolution " is an epic poem, and the " Fred 
 erick the Great" must altogether precede every history 
 yet written as a complete study of the genesis and 
 mature development of one of the greatest powers of 
 the world. It is the history of Europe in essential 
 particulars for its most important century. But the 
 problems in sociology and the meaning of the move 
 ments in natural science and labor-saving machinery, 
 the printing-press and the daily newspaper and local 
 self-government, humanitarianism, all these things 
 which were so significant in Goethe s eyes are not 
 seen in their true light by Carlyle. Perhaps we may 
 say, too, that Emerson undervalues them in compari 
 son with the ethical culture of the individual. With 
 ethics, it is true, man is complete in all ages. But the 
 Orientals are precocious in their ethics only for the rea 
 son of the meagre development of the State with them. 
 Crude States without written constitutions, pure des 
 potisms, require the best ethical education of their 
 rulers to make them tolerable. Where all government 
 is conducted by an irresponsible ruler, the happiness of 
 the people depends entirely upon the wisdom and mod 
 eration of the despot. Where the superior in rank or 
 
410 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 in age holds despotic power over the inferior or the 
 younger, ethics alone can ameliorate the lot of the peo 
 ple ; for each citizen has his despot above him, even 
 though he may be despot in his turn to those below 
 him. The invention of constitutional forms protects 
 the governed from those who govern; and Europe and 
 America care very little whether their rulers are 
 personally amiable or otherwise. Hence the ethical 
 message is not itself of so weighty a character as 
 the one based on institutions, on the realization in 
 the world, of man s higher self in social forms, the 
 " Grand Man," as called by Swedenborgians. 
 
 Froude tells us l in a very pointed manner that 
 he regards Carlyle s message as negative to the ten 
 dencies of the nineteenth century. If modern civ 
 ilization is on the right road, then Carlyle was all 
 wrong : 
 
 " An adequate estimate of Carlyle s work in this world 
 is not at present possible. He was a teacher and a 
 prophet in the Jewish sense of the word. The prophe 
 cies of Isaiah and Jeremiah have become a part of the 
 permanent spiritual inheritance of mankind, because 
 events proved that they had interpreted correctly the 
 signs of their own times, and their prophecies were ful 
 filled. Carlyle, like them, believed that he had a special 
 message to deliver to the present age. Whether he was 
 correct in that belief, and whether his message was a true 
 message, remains to be seen. He has told us that our 
 
 1 Thomas Carlyle : A History of the first Forty Years of his Life ; 
 Preface. 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 411 
 
 most cherished ideas of political liberty, with their kin 
 dred corollaries, are mere illusions, and that the progress 
 which has seemed to go along with them is a progress 
 towards anarchy and social dissolution. If he was wrong, 
 he has misused his powers. The principles of his teach 
 ing are false. He has offered himself as a guide upon a 
 road of which he had no knowledge ; and his own desire 
 for himself would be the speediest oblivion both of his 
 person and his works. If, on the other hand, he has been 
 right; if, like his great predecessors, he has read truly 
 the tendencies of this modern age of ours, and his teach 
 ing is authenticated by facts, then Carlyle, too, will take 
 his place among the inspired seers, and he will shine on, 
 another fixed star in the intellectual sky. Time only can 
 show how this will be." 
 
 To Americans who have faith in their form of 
 government as the coming State-form for all civilized 
 nations, this method of putting Caiiyle s claims 
 seems cruel and unjust. If local self-government 
 shall triumph in history, then Thomas Carlyle shall 
 have been only a false prophet ! One hopes there is 
 a different alternative. 
 
 Emerson s praise of the "History of Frederick" 
 shows how an optimist and a thorough democrat could 
 find in Carlyle s latest work the most discerning book 
 ever written : 1 
 
 " Meantime here has come into the country three months 
 ago a book of Carlyle, History of Frederick, infinitely 
 
 1 From Emerson s Diary; see "Correspondence of Carlyle and 
 Emerson," vol. ii. p. 272. 
 
412 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 the wittiest book that ever was written, a book that one 
 would think the English people would rise up in mass 
 to thank him for, by cordial acclamation, and congratu 
 late themselves that such a head existed among them, 
 and much-sympathizing and on-its-own-account-reading 
 America would make a new treaty extraordinary of joy 
 ful, grateful delight with England, in acknowledgment of 
 such a donation, a book with so many memorable and 
 heroic facts. . . . And withal a book that is a Judgment 
 Day, for its moral verdict on the men and nations and 
 manners of modern times ; with its wonderful new sys 
 tem of mnemonics, whereby great and insignificant men 
 are ineffaceably ticketed and marked in the memory by 
 what they were, had, and did." 
 
 With this transcendent esteem for the " Frederick," 
 Emerson could write the following to Carlyle in 
 1864, severely rebuking the latter s disparagement of 
 America : 
 
 " I have in these last years lamented that you had not 
 made the visit to America which in earlier years you pro 
 jected or favored. It would have made it impossible that 
 your name should be cited for one moment on the side 
 of the enemies of mankind. Ten days residence in this 
 country would have made you the organ of the sanity of 
 England and of Europe to us and to them, and have shown 
 you the necessities and aspirations which struggle up in 
 our Free States, which, as yet, have no organ to others, 
 and are ill and unsteadily articulated here. . . . Are 
 English of this day incapable of a great sentiment 1 Can 
 they not leave cavilling at petty failures, and bad manners, 
 
EMERSOX, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 413 
 
 and at the dunce part (always the largest part in human 
 affairs), and leap to the suggestions and finger-pointings of 
 the gods, which, above the understanding, feed the hopes 
 and guide the wills of men?" 1 
 
 Directly after the close of the war (Jan. 7, 1866) 
 Emerson wrote on the same theme : 
 
 " I am very sorry that Jonathan looks so unamiable seen 
 from your island. Yet I have too much respect for the 
 writing profession to complain of it. It is a necessity 
 of rhetoric that there should be shades, and, I suppose, 
 geography and government always determine, even for 
 the greatest wits, where they shall lay their shadows. 
 But I have always the belief a trip across the sea would 
 have abated your despair of us. The world is laid out 
 here in large lots, and the swing of natural laws is shared 
 by the population, as it is not or not as much in your 
 feudal Europe. My countrymen do not content me, but 
 they are susceptible of inspirations. In the war it was 
 humanity that showed itself to advantage, the leaders 
 were prompted and corrected by the intuitions of the peo 
 ple, they still demanding the more generous and decisive 
 measure, and giving their sons and their estates as we had 
 no example before. In this heat they had sharper per 
 ceptions of policy, of the ways and means and the life of 
 nations, and on every side we read or heard fate-words, 
 in private letters, in railway cars, or in the journals. We 
 were proud of the people, and believed they would not go 
 down from this height. But peace came, and every one 
 ran back into his shop again." 
 
 1 Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, vol. ii. pp. 2S5, 2S6. 
 
414 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 And again (Jan. 5, 1872): 
 
 " Meantime, I know well all your perversities, and give 
 them a wide berth. They seriously annoy a great many 
 worthy readers, nations of readers sometimes, but I heap 
 them all as style, and read them as I read Eabelais gigan 
 tic humors, which astonish in order to force attention, and 
 by arid by are seen to be the rhetoric of a highly virtuous 
 gentleman who swears" 
 
 In this connection here are a few passages from 
 Carlyle showing the value he set on Emerson s 
 writings, and also the limitations he set on his admi 
 ration of the themes selected : 
 
 " And so now by a direct transition I am got to the 
 Oration. My friend ! you know not what you have done 
 for me there. It was long decades of years that I had 
 heard nothing but the infinite jangling and jabbering, and 
 inarticulate twittering and screeching, and my soul had 
 sunk down sorrowful, and said there is no articulate speak 
 ing then any more, and thou art solitary among stranger- 
 creatures ! and lo, out of the West comes a clear utterance, 
 clearly recognizable as a man s voice, and I have a kinsman 
 and brother ; God be thanked for it ! I could have wept 
 to read that speech ; the clear high melody of it went 
 tingling through my heart ; I said to my wife, There, 
 woman ! She read ; and returned, and charges me to 
 return for answer, that there had been nothing met with 
 like it since Schiller went silent. My brave Emerson ! 
 And all this has been lying silent, quite tranquil in him, 
 these seven years, and the vociferous platitude dinning 
 his ears on all sides, and he quietly answering no word ; 
 and a whole world of Thought has silently built itself in 
 
JEllERSOX, GOETHE, AXD CARLYLE. 415 
 
 these calm depths, and, the day being come, says quite 
 softly, as if it were a common thing, Yes, I ain here too. " 
 (Dec. 8, 1837.) 
 
 " I love your l Dial, and yet it is with a kind of shudder. 
 You seeni to me in danger of dividing yourselves from the 
 Fact of this present Universe, in which alone, ugly as it 
 is, can I find any anchorage, and soaring away after Ideas, 
 Beliefs, Revelations, and such like, into perilous alti 
 tudes, as I think ; beyond the curve of perpetual frost, for 
 one thing ! . . . Surely I could wish you returned into 
 your own poor nineteenth century, its follies and maladies, 
 its blind or half-blind, but gigantic toilings, its laughter 
 and its tears, and trying to evolve in some measure the 
 hidden Godlike that lies in it ; that means to me the kind 
 of feat for literary men. Alas, it is so easy to screw one s 
 self up into high and ever higher altitudes of Transcen 
 dentalism, and see nothing under one but the everlasting 
 snows of Himmalayah, the Earth shrinking to a Planet, 
 and the indigo firmament sowing itself with daylight stars ; 
 easy for you, for me : but whither does it lead 1 I dread 
 always, To inanity and mere injuring of lungs ! . . . 
 "Well I do believe, for one thing, a man has no right to 
 say to his own generation, turning quite away from it, 
 Be damned ! It is the whole Past and the whole 
 Future, this same cotton-spinning, dollar-hunting, cant 
 ing and shrieking, very wretched generation of ours. 
 Come back into it, I tell you!" (Aug. 29, 1842.) 
 
 And this passage is the most severe reassertion of 
 his stand-point as against that of Emerson : 
 
 "You are bountiful abundantly in your reception of 
 those Latter-Day Pamphlets ; and right in all you say 
 
416 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 of them ; and yet withal you are not right, my Friend, 
 but I am ! Truly it does behoove a man to know the 
 inmost resources of this universe, and, for the sake both 
 of his peace and of his dignity, to possess his soul in 
 patience, and look nothing doubting (nothing wincing 
 even, if that be his humor) upon all things. For it is 
 most indubitable there is good in all ; - and if you even 
 see an Oliver Cromwell assassinated, it is certain you may 
 get a cart-load of turnips from his carcass. Ah me, and I 
 suppose we had too much forgotten all this, or there had 
 not been a man like you sent to show it us so emphatically ! 
 Let us well remember it ; and yet remember too that it 
 is not good always, or ever, to be at ease in Zion ; good 
 often to be in fierce rage in Zion ; and that the vile 
 Pythons of this Mud- World do verily require to have sun- 
 arrows shot into them, and red-hot pokers struck through 
 them, according to occasion : woe to the man that car 
 ries either of these weapons, and does not use it in their 
 presence ! " (Nov. 14, 1850.) 
 
 " We read, at first, Tennyson s Idyls, with profound 
 recognition of the finely elaborated execution, and also 
 of the inward perfection of vacancy, and, to say truth, 
 with considerable impatience at being treated so very like 
 infants, though the lollipops were so superlative. We 
 gladly changed for one Emerson s English Traits, and 
 read that with increasing and ever-increasing satisfaction 
 every evening ; blessing Heaven that there were still Books 
 for grown-up people too ! That truly is a Book all full of 
 thoughts like winged arrows ! " (Jan. 27, 1867.) 
 
 Two paragraphs relative to the United States, written, 
 the one nearly forty years after the other, are pleasant 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AND CARLYLE. 417 
 
 reading to Americans, by reason of vivid memories of 
 words of a different tenor from the same source : 
 
 "And so here, looking over the Water, let me repeat once 
 more what I believe is already dimly the sentiment of all 
 Englishmen, Cisoceanic and Transoceanic, that we and 
 you are not two countries, and cannot for the life of us 
 be ; but only two parishes of one country, with such whole 
 some parish hospitalities, and dirty temporary parish feuds, 
 as we see ; both of which brave parishes Yivant ! vivant ! 
 And among the glories of both be Yankee-doodle-doo, and 
 the Felling of the Western Forest, proudly remembered ; 
 and for the rest, by way of parish constable, let each cheer 
 fully take such George Washington or George Guelph as it 
 can get, and bless Heaven ! I am weary of hearing it said, 
 "We love the Americans, We wish well, etc., etc. What 
 in God s name should we do else? " (Aug. 12, 1834.) 
 
 " And indeed I may confess to you that the doings in 
 that region are not only of a big character, but of a great ; 
 and that in my occasional explosions against Anarchy, 
 and my inextinguishable hatred of it, I privately whisper 
 to myself, Could any Friedrich Wilhelm, now, or Fried- 
 rich, or most perfect Governor you could hope to realize, 
 guide forward what is America s essential task at present 
 faster or more completely than " anarchic America " herself 
 is now doing 1 Such Anarchy has a great deal to say 
 for itself (would to Heaven ours of England had as 
 much!), and points towards grand Anti-Anarchies in the 
 future ; in fact, I can already discern in it huge quantities 
 of Auti- Anarchy in the impalpable-powder condition ; 
 and hope, with the aid of centuries, immense things from 
 it, in my private mind !" (June 4, 1871.) 
 
 27 
 
418 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 There is an interesting passage in " The Eepresen- 
 tative Men," in which Emerson criticises the literary 
 form of Goethe s works. It is suggested by the criti 
 cism that Carlyle makes on Emerson s style : 
 
 11 This law-giver [Goethe] of art is not an artist. "Was 
 it that he knew too much, that his sight was microscopic, 
 and interfered with the just perspective, the seeing of the 
 whole 1 He is fragmentary ; a writer of occasional poems, 
 and of an encyclopaedia of sentences. When he sits down 
 to write a drama or a tale, he collects and sorts his obser 
 vations from a hundred sides, and combines them into a 
 body as fitly as he can. A great deal refuses to incor 
 porate. This he adds loosely, as letters of the parties, 
 leaves from their journals, or the like. A great deal is 
 left that will not find any place. This the book-binder 
 alone can give any cohesion to ; and hence, notwithstand 
 ing the looseness of many of his works, we have volumes 
 of detached paragraphs, aphorisms, xenien, etc." 
 
 I have on another occasion discussed the mooted 
 question of the artistic unity of Emerson s prose essays, 
 endeavoring to show that the unity is of a high order, 
 and deserving to "be called " dialectic," or even " or 
 ganic " unity. 1 This topic is not of special interest on 
 this occasion. 
 
 In conclusion, I will refer to the " Song of Nature," 
 in which Emerson has given us the counterpart of 
 Goethe s speech of the Erd-Geist, an altogether 
 
 1 See "Atlantic Monthly" for August, 1882, and "Journal of 
 Speculative Philosophy" for April, 1884. 
 
EMERSON, GOETHE, AND CARLYLE. 419 
 
 noteworthy performance, by reason of its hopeful 
 look towards the future of man. There is commen 
 tary in it, too, for the poems called "The Test" and 
 the "Solution/ which we have already considered. I 
 quote the closing stanzas : 
 
 " Twice I have moulded an image, 
 And thrice outstretched my hand, 
 Made one of day, and one of night, 
 And one of the salt sea-sand. 
 
 " One in a Judsean manger, 
 And one by Avon stream, 
 One over against the mouths of Xile, 
 And one in the Academe. 
 
 "I moulded kings and saviours, 
 And bards o er kings to rule; 
 But fell the starry influence short, 
 The cup was never full. 
 
 " Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, 
 And mix the bowl again; 
 Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements, 
 Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain. 
 
 "Let war and trade and creeds and song 
 Blend, ripen race on race, 
 The sunburnt world a man shall breed 
 Of all the zones, and countless days. 
 
 "No ray is dimmed, no atom -worn, 
 My oldest force is good as new, 
 And the fresh rose on yonder thorn 
 Gives back the bending heavens in dew." 
 
420 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 XVI. 
 ION: A MONODY. 
 
 BY A. BRONSON ALCOTT. 
 
 WHY, oh, ye willows, and ye pastures bare, 
 Why will ye thus your blooms so late delay, 
 Wrap in chill weeds the sere and sullen day, 
 And cheerless greet me wandering in despair? 
 Tell me, ah, tell me ! ye of old could tell 
 Whither my vanished Ion now doth fare 
 Say, have ye seen him lately pass this way, 
 Ye who his wonted haunts did know full well ? 
 Heard ye his voice forth from the thicket swell, 
 Where midst the drooping ferns he loved to stray ? 
 Caught ye no glimpses of my truant there ? 
 Tell me, oh, tell me, whither he hath flown 
 Beloved Ion flown, and left ye sad and lone, 
 Whilst I through wood arid field his loss bemoan. 
 
 II. 
 
 Early through field and wood each Spring we sped, 
 Young Ion leading o er the reedy pass ; 
 
ION: A MONODY. 421 
 
 How fleet his footsteps and how sure his tread ! 
 
 His converse deep and weighty ; where, alas ! 
 
 Like force of thought with subtlest beauty wed ? 
 
 The bee and bird and flower, the pile of grass, 
 
 The lore of stars, the azure sky o erhead, 
 
 The eye s warm glance, the Fates of love and dread, 
 
 All mirrored were in his prismatic glass ; 
 
 For endless Being s myriad-minded race 
 
 Had in his thought their registry and place, 
 
 Bright with intelligence, or drugged with sleep, 
 
 Hid in dark cave, aloft on mountain steep, 
 
 In seas immersed, ensouled in starry keep. 
 
 in. 
 
 JSTow Echo answers lone from cliff and brake, 
 "Where we in springtime sauntering loved to go, 
 Or to the mossy bank beyond the lake, 
 On its green plushes oft ourselves did throw, 
 There from the sparkling wave, our thirst to slake, 
 Dipped in the spring that bubbled up below 
 Our hands for cups, and did with glee partake. 
 Next to the Hermit s cell our way we make, 
 Where sprightly talk doth hold the morning late. 
 Departed now ah, Hylas, too, is gone ! 
 Hylas, dear Ion s friend and mine, I all alone, 
 Alone am left by unrelenting fate, 
 Vanished my loved ones all, the good, the great, 
 "Why am I spared ? why left disconsolate ? 
 
422 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Slow winds our Indian stream through meadows green 
 By bending willows, tangled fen and brake, 
 Smooth field and farmstead doth its flow forsake : 
 T was in far woodpaths Ion, too, was seen, 
 But oftenest found at Walden s emerald lake 
 (The murmuring pines inverted in its sheen) ; 
 There in his skiff he rippling rhymes did make, 
 Its answering shore echoing the verse between. 
 Full-voiced the meaning of the wizard song, 
 For wood and wave and shore with kindred will, 
 Strophe, antistrophe, in turn prolong : 
 ]STow wave and shore and wood are mute and still, 
 Ion, melodious bard, hath dropt his quill, 
 His harp is silent and his voice is still. 
 
 v. 
 
 Blameless was Ion, beautiful to see, 
 
 With native genius, with rich gifts endowed, 
 
 He might of his descent be nobly proud, 
 
 .Yet meekly tempered was, spake modestly, 
 
 Nor sought the plaudits of the noisy crowd, 
 
 When duty called him in the thick to be. 
 
 His life flowed calmly clear, not hoarse nor loud ; 
 
 He wearied not of immortality, 
 
 Nor like Tithonus begged a time-spun shroud, 
 
 But life-long drank at fountains of pure truth, 
 
 The seer unsated of eternal youth. 
 
ION: A MONODY. 423 
 
 T is not for Ion s sake these tears I shed, 
 T is for the Age he nursed, his genius fed 
 Ion immortal is ; he is not dead. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Did e en the Ionian bard, Mrconides 
 
 (Blind minstrel, wandering out of Asia s night, 
 
 The Iliad of Troy s loves and rivalries 
 
 In strains forever tuneful to recite), 
 
 His raptured listeners the more delight ? 
 
 ISTor dropt learned Plato neath his olive-trees, 
 
 More star-bright wisdom in the world s full sight, 
 
 Well garnered in familiar colloquies, 
 
 Than did our harvester in fields of light ; 
 
 Nor spoke more charmingly young Charmides 
 
 Than our glad rhapsodist in his far flight 
 
 Across the continents, both new and old ; 
 
 His tale to studious thousands thus he told 
 
 In summer s solstice and midwinter s cold. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Shall from the shades another Orpheus rise 
 Sweeping with venturous hand the vocal string ; 
 Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise, 
 And wake to ecstasy each slumberous thing ; 
 Flash life and thought anew in wondering eyes, 
 As when our seer transcendent, sweet, and wise, 
 World-wide his native melodies did sing, 
 Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories ? 
 Ah, no ! his matchless lyre must silent lie. 
 
424 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 None hath the vanished minstrel s wondrous skill 
 To touch that instrument with art and will. 
 With him winged Poesy cloth droop and die, 
 While our dull age, left voiceless, with sad eye 
 Follows his flight to groves of song on high. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Come, then, Mnemosyne, and on me wait, 
 As if for Ion s harp thou gav st thine own ! 
 Recall the memories of Man s ancient state, 
 Ere to this low orb had his form dropt down, 
 Clothed in the cerements of his chosen fate ; 
 Oblivious here of heavenly glories flown, 
 Lapsed from the high, the fair, the blest estate, 
 Unknowing these, and by himself unknown : 
 Lo ! Ion, unfallen from his lordly prime, 
 Paused in his passing flight, and, giving ear 
 To heedless sojourners in weary time, 
 Sang his full song of hope and lofty cheer ; 
 Aroused them from dull sleep, from grisly fear, 
 And toward the stars their faces did uprear. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Why didst thou haste away, ere yet the green 
 Enamelled meadow, the sequestered dell, 
 The blossoming orchard, leafy grove, were seen 
 In the sweet season thou hadst sung so well ? 
 Why cast this shadow o er the vernal scene ? 
 No more its rustic charms of thee may tell, 
 
ION: A MONODY. 425 
 
 f 
 
 And so content us with their simple mien : 
 "Was it that memory s unrelinquished spell 
 (Ere men had stumbled here amid the tombs) 
 Eevived for thee that Spring s perennial blooms, 
 Those cloud-capped alcoves where we once did dwell ? 
 Translated wast thou in some rapturous dream ? 
 Our once familiar faces strange must seem 
 Whilst from thine own celestial smiles did stream ! 
 
 x. 
 
 I tread the marble leading to his door 
 
 (Allowed the freedom of a chosen friend), 
 
 He greets me not as was his wont before, 
 
 The Fates within frown on me as of yore ; 
 
 Could ye not once your offices suspend ? 
 
 Had Atropos her severing shears forbore, 
 
 Or Clotho stooped the sundered thread to mend ! 
 
 Yet why dear Ion s destiny deplore ? 
 
 What more had envious Time himself to give ? 
 
 His fame had reached the ocean s farthest shore. 
 
 Why prisoned here should Ion longer live ? 
 
 The questioning Sphinx declared him void of blame, 
 
 For wiser answer none could ever frame ; 
 
 Beyond all time survives his mighty name. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Now pillowed near loved Hylas lowly bed, 
 Beneath our aged oaks and sighing pines, 
 Pale Ion rests awhile his laurelled head ; 
 (How sweet his slumber as he there reclines ! ) 
 
426 THE GENIUS OF EMERSON. 
 
 Why weep for Ion here ? He is not dead, 
 Nought of him Personal that mound confines ; 
 The hues ethereal of the morning red 
 This clod embraces never, nor enshrines. 
 Away the mourning multitude hath sped, 
 And round us closes fast the gathering night ; 
 As from the drowsy dell the sun declines, 
 Ion hath vanished from our clouded sight. 
 But on the morrow, with the budding May, 
 A-field goes Ion, at first flush of day, 
 Across the pastures on his dewy way. 
 
 COXCOED, May, 1882. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX. 
 
 [For many subjects, referred to only therein, see Emerson s Books, Essays, 
 Poems, Poetic and Prose Quotations.] 
 
 ABBOTT, JACOB, publications, 42. 
 Abraham, incomparable, 142. (See 
 Bible.) 
 
 Adam: inward yoice, 140 ; possessions, 
 3ol. (See Bible.) 
 
 Adams, Samuel: public schools, 6 ; Tea 
 Party, 21, 
 
 Addison, Joseph, poetry, 180. 
 
 Advertiser. Boston, on Alcott s book, 49. 
 
 JEolian Harp, illustration, 20. 
 
 JEschylus : allusion, 1S2 ; an ideal, 331. 
 (See Greek.) 
 
 Africa, human interest, 338. 
 
 Agassiz, Louis : on materialism, 119 ; on 
 evolution, 135 ; companionship, 305. 
 
 Agnosticism, 134, 162, 314. (See Ethics, 
 Religion.) 
 
 Albee, John, allusion, 211. 
 
 Alcott, A. Bronson: a guest, 20; club, 
 22; relation to Emerson, 38-67 ; Dia 
 ries, 37-39, 41-67 ; American Insti 
 tute, studies, 40; Boston record, 42 ; 
 conception of life, 42, 43; order of 
 spiritual precedence, 44 ; trip to Con 
 cord, 44, 45 ; mob, 46 : religion, 47 ; 
 conversations on the Gospels, 43-50 ; 
 on Nature, 51, 52 ; estimate of Emer 
 son, 53-53; English experiences with 
 reformers, 58-65 ; FruStlands, 59, 65 ; 
 Wayside, 65 ; on Carlyle s Cromwell, 
 66, 67; advice from Emerson, 143; 
 Orphic rhapsodizings, 332; Tablets, 
 3G2, 330 ; poem of Ion, 420-426. 
 
 Allston, Washington: pupil, 31; an 
 evening, 37 : in Diary, 42, 44. 
 
 America: town-meetings, 8, 9 ; original 
 style, 56; peculiar origin, 69; Puri 
 tan colonies, 70 ; two Americas, 73 ; 
 
 fewer limitations, 78 : parasites, 79 ; 
 Independence, 80 ; majorities, 81 ; 
 quadrupedal age, John and Jonathan, 
 84 ; not causeless, 85 ; hill voices, 87 ; 
 the Land, 89; literature, 138; right 
 eousness, 143 ; rational religion, 235 ; 
 description of Christ, 243; a new re 
 ligion, 250; jubilees, 268; literary 
 interpreter, 313; faith in, 332; part 
 of universe, 337, 338; rulers, 410, 
 411. (See Ntw England, United 
 States.) 
 
 American Institute of Instruction, 40. 
 
 Americans : Emerson one, 68-91, 106, 
 107 ; born in other countries, 71 ; 
 early families, 72; typical, 88; Emer 
 son s nationality, 310; point of view, 
 314, 315 ; literature, 316, 320 ; writers, 
 317 ; literary independence, 318 ; char 
 acter and scenery, 319 ; future litera 
 ture, 333 ; two distinct ideas, 334-336. 
 
 Anarchy, 417. 
 
 Andrew, John Albion, anecdote, 17, 18. 
 
 Anne, Queen, epoch, 343. 
 
 Anselm, on belief and knowledge, 274. 
 
 Autislavery : Emerson s position, 25- 
 28 ; excitement in Boston, 45, 46 ; 
 slavery inward, 80; pride, 106; Con 
 cord tea-party, 307 ; a stand, 308. 
 
 Apollo : word, 167 ; how described, 243. 
 
 Appleton, Nathan, dinner, 288. 
 
 Arabia: Mahomet, 139; and America, 
 315 ; poets, 373, 3S1. 
 
 Architecture, different modes, 165. 
 
 Aristophanes, allusion, 152. (See Greet.) 
 
 Aristotle : Alcott s study, 47 ; on love, 
 200 ; poetic test, 201-203 ; on Homer, 
 210 ; on freedom, 268. 
 
430 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew : criticism, 52 ; a 
 French answer, 95 ; quotation, 112, 
 113; poetry criticised, 118 ; on Emer 
 son s style, 130 ; answered, 180 ; com 
 parisons, 181-184 ; hints, 185 ; defini 
 tion of poetry, 201-204; on Gray, 
 204-210 ; Mrs. Howe s reply, 301 ; lit 
 erary creation, 315. 
 
 Art and Life, 317. 
 
 Artists, painting their own portraits, 
 109. 
 
 Asia : travellers, 140 ; righteousness, 
 143; America not Asiatic, 312; a 
 corner, 332 ; philosophic inconsist 
 ency, 362; Plato in, 372; shepherd 
 races, 399. (See India, Oriental.) 
 
 Atheism : lecturer, 137 ; lamented, 284. 
 (See God, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Athens. Greece: fondness of Socrates 
 for, 2 ; Pericles, 12 ; panorama, 151. 
 
 Atlantic Monthly: papers, 22; inter 
 national, 63, 64 ; Brahma, 373 ; essays, 
 418. 
 
 Australia, gold, 142. 
 
 Azores, illustration, 112. 
 
 BAAL, allusion, 153. 
 Babel, confusion, 167. (See Bible. ) 
 
 Bacon, Francis : Alcott s study, 47 ; 
 French quotation on poetry, 94 ; on 
 verse, 179. 
 
 Balzac, Honore" de, his Breton gentle 
 man, 126. 
 
 Bancroft, Mrs. George, 40. 
 
 Baptists, their Tritheism, 153. 
 
 Barham. an English reformer, 63. 
 
 Bartol, Cyrus Augustus, Emerson s 
 religion, 109-145. 
 
 Bees, metaphor, 103, 104, 261. 
 
 Beethoven, Ludwig von: to be sur 
 passed, 125 ; gold, 142. 
 
 Behmen (Boehme), Jacob Christian : 
 symbol, 238 ; insights, 362. 
 
 Belleisle, Rene de Poyen : Essay, 92- 
 108 ; poem, 107, 108 ; town, 206. 
 
 Bellows, Henry Whitney, congratula 
 tions, 110. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, philosophy, 352. 
 
 Berlin, centre of Germany, 10. (See 
 Germany. ) 
 
 Bermudas, illustration, 112. 
 
 iBhagavat Gita: translation, 179, 374; 
 teaching, 370; episode, 378. (See 
 Hindoo, India, Vedas.) 
 
 Biber, George E., apostasy, 62. 
 
 Bible: in school, 6; Balaam s ass, 18; 
 Saul prophesies, 23 ; Alcott s study, 
 40 ; " voice of one," etc., 50 ; nations 
 born of flesh and spirit, 69 ; inspira 
 tion, 111 ; David and Paul, Joseph s 
 coat, 112 ; " Yea, yea ! 114 ; He 
 brew, 115; "an ear to hear," 116; 
 Paul and Moses in retirement, 117 ; 
 David s prayer, Adam, 118 ; Exodus, 
 not Genesis, 119 ; amanuenses, 130 ; 
 gall and vinegar, 133 ; star differing 
 from star, 135 ; " the way called her 
 esy," 136; "Thus saith the Lord," 
 146 ; letter and spirit, 148 ; collision, 
 239 ; with covers, 245 ; wrath of man, 
 385. (See Jews, Ileliyion, St. John, 
 etc.) 
 
 Bismarck, Baron von: quoted, 129; 
 rugged, 134. 
 
 Blackberries, anecdote, 137. 
 
 Blarney Groves, verses, 180, 181. 
 
 Bockshirmer, Alcott s study of, 42. 
 
 Boethius, Alcott s reading, 42. 
 
 Books, not finalities, 242. (See Litera 
 ture, Poetry, Shakspeare,etc.) 
 
 Borgias, the, manuring the Reforma 
 tion, 284. 
 
 Boston, Mass.: Emerson s birthplace, 
 1, 2; old landmarks, 4; prosperity, 
 5 ; public schools, 6 ; embargo, 7 ; 
 party spirit, Noddle s Island, 8 ; a 
 centre, 9 ; alliance with Cambridge, 
 11 ; Second Church, 12, 151 ; pulpit, 
 13, 152 ; North End places, 14 ; lec 
 tures, 15, 16 ; Bethel, 17 ; War meet 
 ing, 18; circle of souls, 19; social 
 gatherings, 20 ; Emancipation cele 
 bration, 21 ; Town and Country Club, 
 22; individuality, 23; Lyceum, 24; 
 Boston Parish, Athenaeum, 25 deeper 
 heart, 26-28; the Hub, 29; witch 
 craft, 30 ; six lectures, 31 ; in poetry, 
 32-35 ; Channing s pulpit, 37 ; Ma 
 sonic Temple, 38, 39 ; Institute of In 
 struction, 40 ; spirit of life, 42 ; Gar 
 rison mob, 45, 46; twelve lectures, 
 57; Bay, 70; Washington St., 71;- 
 dozen great men, 79 j Beacon Hill, 87 ; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 431 
 
 nearness, 122 ; First Church, 143 ; 
 Federal St. home, 150 ; Everett s lec 
 tures, 151; Chardon St. home, 151, 
 158 ; allusions, 15-1 ; Philistines, 157 ; 
 Milton lecture, 175; turning from, 
 287 ; Radical Club, 302 ; Woman s 
 Club, 301. 
 
 Bradford, George P., ride with Alcott, 
 44. 
 
 Brahmans, spirituality, 371, 372. (See 
 Emerson s Poems, Hindoos, India, 
 T edas.) 
 
 Bread, brown, illustration, 123. 
 
 Brown, John: sympathy with, 21; 
 cross, 134, 135. (See Antislavery , 
 Southern Rebellion.) 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, his English, 55. 
 
 Browning, Robert, his Bishop Blou- 
 gram, 127. 
 
 Brownson, Orestes A. : reasonings, 58; 
 urgency, 163. 
 
 Bryant, William Cullen : allusion, 316 ; 
 on American poetry, 318. 
 
 Buckminster, Joseph Stevens : preach 
 ing, 13 ; a hope, 317. 
 
 Buddhism : mysterious calmness, 370 ; 
 spirit, 374. (See India, Religion, 
 etc.) 
 
 Bulkeley, Peter: Emerson s ancestor, 
 147 ; sermons, 148. 
 
 Burke, Edmund : quoted, 141 ; nature, 
 327. 
 
 Burmah. (See Buddhism, India, etc. ) 
 
 Burn?, Robert, on the Daisy, 29. 
 
 Burroughs, John, in The Century, 105. 
 
 Byron, Lord: verdict, 210; nature, 
 327 ; and Goethe, 402. 
 
 CABOT, ELTOT, literary care, 154. 
 Cjesar, allusion, 361. (See Julius 
 Ccesar.) 
 
 Calderon, genius, 183. 
 
 California : students, 27 ; Golden Gate, 
 70 ; the Forty-niners, 79 ; Homeric, 
 88 ; Shasta, 89 ; Yosemite, 140 ; gold, 
 142. (Zee America.) 
 
 Calvinism: a little, 115; decline, 248; 
 a disease, 266. (See Religion, etc.) 
 
 Cambridge, Eng., scholarship, 185. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. : doubtful about Em 
 erson, 288 ; drill, 2S6. (See Harvard 
 University.) 
 
 Canaan, conquest, 148. (See Bible, 
 
 Jews, etc.) 
 Canada, students, 27. 
 Carlyle, Thomas : letters to, 3, 9, 10 ; 
 product of London, 9 ; merit, 23, 24 ; 
 not appreciated, 25, 27 ; Alcotfa 
 study, 40, 41 ; undertaking a maga 
 zine, 41 ; Sartor Resartus, 42 ; ideal 
 of Emerson, 45; on Emerson s first 
 Essays, 50 ; interest in reforms, 63 ; 
 Alcott s antagonism, 64 : letter, 65 ; 
 Cromwell, 66; hero-worship, 68; 
 thought and act, 120 ; irony, 127 ; 
 rugged, 134 ; absorption in, 151 ; re 
 ligious essence, 246, 247 ; spiritual 
 asphyxia, 277 ; feigned quotations, 
 362; stream of influence, 386; rela 
 tion to Emerson, 386-418 ; Wilhulm 
 Meister, 390-393 ; relation to Goethe, 
 402 ; worship of sorrow, 403 ; Corre 
 spondence, 404-406 : same doctrine, 
 406 ; fulminations, 407 ; labor-saving 
 machinery, 408 ; sociology, epic poem, 
 409 ; negative message, History of his 
 Life, 410 ; among the seers, 411 ; dis 
 paragement of America, 412, 413 ; 
 value of Emerson, 414-416 ; pleasanter 
 words on American affairs, 417. 
 
 Cathedral, face-wall illustration, 367. 
 (See Architecture.) 
 
 Century, The, on Emerson, 105. 
 
 Cerberus, soothed, 298. 
 
 Ceylon, religion, 370. (See Asia, In 
 dia, etc.) 
 
 Channing, Edward, professorship, 11. 
 
 Channing, William Ellery, the divine : 
 eloquence, 11 : discourses, 13 ; pulpit, 
 37 ; interviews, 33 ; anxiety about a 
 new magazine, 41, 42 : spiritual rank, 
 44 ; ethics, 58 ; parallel in England, 
 62 ; the breast a church, 114 ; a gift 
 of Unitarianism, 133; Miss Peabody s 
 interest, 152 ; influence declining, 
 248; pulpit, 293. (See Religion, 
 Unitarianism, etc.) 
 
 Channing, William Ellery, the poet: 
 Ode to~Emer?on, 216-222; to Emer 
 son s sop, 223, 224. 
 
 Channing, William Henry, Ode to, 299. 
 
 Character : always current, 143 ; build 
 ing, 246 ; nature s highest form, 254, 
 256. (See Ethics, Religion, etc.) 
 
432 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey : quotation, 54 ; criti 
 cised, 203. 
 
 Chelsea, Eng. : Carlyle s residence, 64 ; 
 letter, 65. 
 
 Cheney, Mrs. Ednah D., Emerson and 
 Boston, 1-35, 171. 
 
 Child, D. L., and wife, 39. 
 
 Child, Mrs. Lydia Maria: Emerson s 
 eyes, 16 ; in Diary, 42. 
 
 China : emigration, 71 ; human hopes, 
 333; religion, 370 ; ethics, 372. (See 
 Asia, .Buddhism, etc.) 
 
 Choate, Rufus, anecdote, 129. 
 
 Christian Examiner, in Diary, 42. 
 
 Christianity: an Eastern monarchy, 159 ; 
 the word dropped, 161 ; revelations, 
 178 ; different Christianities, 238 ; doc 
 trine, 239 ; aim, 246 ; essence, 247 ; 
 inner world, 388 ; four phases painted, 
 390 ; third religion, 391. (See Calvin 
 ism, Ethics, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Church : support of reforms, 62 ; free 
 dom, 66 ; a seceder from, 114 ; coun- 
 cils,115; not a finality, 116 ; fandango, 
 122, 123 ; corrupt, 126 ; artificial, 129 ; 
 supposed treason, 136 ; leadership, 
 152; attendance, 172 ; Emerson s atti 
 tude, 237-248; founded on science, 
 245, 246 ; decadence, 285 ; Dante. 339 ; 
 studied, 407. (See Ethics, Religion, 
 Worshij), etc.) 
 
 Cicero, poetry, 180. 
 
 Cities : man-made, 1-4 ; aid from li 
 brary, 5 ; cockneyism, 9 ; not prisons, 
 10,11; advantages, 408. (See Berlin, 
 Boston, New York, etc.) 
 
 Civilization: dependent on morality, 
 261, 276. 
 
 Clairvoyance, in art, 183. (See Sy- 
 monds.} 
 
 Clarke, James Freeman, in Diary, 42,44. 
 
 Clarke, Sarah, letter, 31-33. 
 
 Clubs, 304. (See Boston.) 
 
 Coins, illustration, 132. 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel LTaylor : republica- 
 tion, 42; Alcott s study, 47; defi 
 nition of poetry, 178 ; stream of 
 influence, 386. 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, discovery, 70, 
 85. (See America.) 
 
 Common-sense, basis of prose, 178. 
 (See Milton, Poetry, etc.) 
 
 Concord, Mass. : Emerson stock, 1 ; 
 pines, 2 ; town-meeting, 9 ; stars 
 shining, 11 ; Emerson s residence be 
 gun, 15 ; club, 21 ; war-meeting, 28 ; 
 Emerson day, 31; Ode in 1859, 32, 
 33 ; circle, 40 ; Alcott s first trip, 
 44-48 ; other visits, 48, 53, 54, 56 ; 
 abiding greatness, 64 ; Wayside, 65 ; 
 Mystic of, 66 ; monument, 86 ; Wai- 
 den, 89 ; reputation made, 90 ; near 
 ness, 122 ; discourse, 136 ; old fami 
 lies, 148 ; drives, 156; in poetry, 227 ; 
 School of Philosophy, 233 ; studious 
 home, 293; study, 303; tea-party, 
 307 ; part of the universe, 337, 338 ; 
 classic trees, 366. 
 
 Congregationalism, Tritheism, 153. 
 
 Conscience : inner light, 247 ; voice of 
 God, 269-272. (See Ethics, etc.) 
 
 Conservatism, stands on man s limita 
 tions, 83. (See Reliyion, etc.) 
 
 Constantinople, its appliances, 408. (See 
 Asia, Oriental, etc.) 
 
 Conventionalism, 319. (See Church, 
 Worship, etc.) 
 
 Conway, Moncure D., apotheosis, 150. 
 
 Cooke, George AVillis : French quota 
 tion, 97 ; Emerson s View of Nation 
 ality, 310-338. (See America.) 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore, first books, 
 316, 318. 
 
 Cord, untwisted, 137. 
 
 Corneille, Pierre, genius, 183. 
 
 Cousin, Victor, Modern Philosophy, 
 373. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver : Carlyle s Life, 66, 67; 
 war, 259 ; assassinated, 416. 
 
 Cupid, in poetry, 191, 196. (See Emer 
 son s Poems, Three Loves.) 
 
 DANA, RICHARD HENRY : in Di 
 ary, 44 ; on Emerson, 288. 
 Dante: love of Florence, 2; hell, 126; 
 verse and insight, 174 ; new verse, 
 185 ; on love, 200 ; poetry defined, 
 201 ; criticism of life, 203 ; creative 
 skill, 328 ; an ideal, 331 ; revelation, 
 388 ; great poem, 389 ; rank, 398, 400, 
 401 ; prophetic sorrow, 406. (See 
 Poetry, Swedenborg, etc.) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 433 
 
 Darwin, Charles, theories, 262-264. 
 (See Evolution.} 
 
 Davidson, Professor Thomas: on Aris 
 totle, 202 ; Jordan s Sigfridsage, 383. 
 
 Decalogue : original, 248 : echoed, 256- 
 (See Bible, Laics, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Demons, theory, 194-196. (See Emer 
 son s Poems, Daemonic Love.) 
 
 Dervishes, illustration, 124. (See Emer 
 son s Poems, Days.) 
 
 Devil, " dear old," 122. (See Goethe, 
 ^fep!listopheles, etc.) 
 
 Dial, The: begun, 42; on Reformers, 
 59-61 : discussed, 62 ; Orphic Sayings, 
 362; Carlyle-s opinion, 415. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, his Little Marchioness, 
 288. 
 
 Diodati, Charles, Milton s friend, 176. 
 
 Dorcas, incomparable, 142. (See Bible.) 
 
 Dryden, John, not a classic, 204. 
 
 EAST LEXINGTON: pulpit, 154, 
 156 ; Emerson understood, 157. 
 
 Eden, the Fall, 357. (See Bible, Man, 
 etc.) 
 
 Edinburgh, Scotland, a prayer, 25. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, menaces, 126. (See 
 Calvinism, Puritanism, etc.) 
 
 Egypt: vote of a prophet, 81 : architec 
 ture, 165 : traditions, 332 : Sphinx, 
 370 ; Plato in, 372 : mind, 380 ; civi 
 lization, 399. (See Emerson s Poems, 
 The Sphinx, Oriental, etc.) 
 
 Elias, inspiration, 242. (See Bible.) 
 
 Elijah, whirlwind, 156. (See Bible.) 
 
 Eliot, George, quoted, 321, 322. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, her era, 182-184, 248, 
 330. 
 
 Elliotson, John, meeting Alcott, 61. 
 
 Elsler, Fanny, anecdote, 306. (See Ful 
 ler.) 
 
 Emerson Family, settlement, 148. (See 
 Bulkeley, Concord, Haskins, etc.) 
 
 Emerson, Charles Chauncy : Ralph 
 Waldo s brother, 39 : talk with Al 
 cott, 45 ; law, 149 ; death, 169, 170. 
 
 Emerson, Edward Bliss, brother of Ralph 
 Waldo, 149. 
 
 Emerson, Edward Waldo, son of Ralph 
 Waldo, 175. 
 
 Emerson, Ellen Louisa (Tucker), Ralph 
 
 Waldo s first wife: marriage, 22; 
 death, 151 
 
 Emerson, George B., cousin of Ralph 
 Waldo, 150. 
 
 Emerson, Lydia Jackson, second wife of 
 Ralph Waldo: chat, 158, 159; emi 
 nently Christian, 172 ; hospitality, 
 307, 308. 
 
 Emerson, Mary Moody, aunt of Ralph 
 Waldo : paper on, 22 ; a guest, 40 ; 
 reading a paper, 151 ; expression, 
 152. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo: Boston rela 
 tions, 1-35 ; birth, 1 . fondness for 
 cities, 2; on New York, 3; childhood, 
 4, 5 ; schools, 6, 7 ; orphaned youth, 
 8 : cockney spirit, 9 ; hailing from 
 Boston, 10 ; college, 11 ; preaching, 
 12: settlement and sacrament, 13; 
 sermon notes, 14 ; European trip, 15 ; 
 old admirers, portrait, 16 ; punctual 
 ity, 17 ; friendship for Father Taylor, 
 17, 18; patriotic indignation, 18; 
 flippantly misunderstood, 19, 20, 
 friendly influences not to be spared, 
 "The Common or Emerson, 20; 
 Music Hall occasions, localities, Free 
 dom s utterances, 21 ; clubs, mar 
 riage, 22; pride in Boston, 23; -the 
 Lyceum power, 24; theological tem 
 pest, 24, 25; reading Carlyle, 25; 
 looking below the surface, 26 ; peren 
 nial youth, 27; side of freedom, 28; 
 homely traits, 30 ; Greek and Puritan 
 blended, 30 ; note of authority, 31 ; 
 growth in favor, 32 ; intellect and 
 sentiment, 32-35; relations to Alcott, 
 36-67 ; loyalty in friendship, 36, 37 ; 
 Alcott s record, 37, 33; on Angelo, 
 38 ; Luther, 39 : gatherings, 39, 40 ; 
 educational lecture, 40 ; advanced 
 thought, 41 ; spiritual rank, 44 ; new 
 idea of life, 45 ; antislavery, 46 : topics 
 discussed, 47, 48 ; defence of Alcott, 
 49 ; comments, 50 ; as a lecturer, 51, 
 52; advice, 52, 53; characteristics, 
 53,54; on conscience, 54; style, 55; 
 qualities, 56; on politics, 57; pres 
 ent failure, 58 ; encouragement about 
 the foreign trip, 59 ; review of it, 60, 
 61 : two friends antipathetic, 64 ; 
 Wayside, 65; Americanism, 68-91; 
 
 28 
 
434 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 no hero-worshipper, 68-, catholic ac 
 ceptance of truth, 69; ancestry cleri 
 cal, Puritan, and American, 74 ; adi 
 pose tissue, 75 ; absence of system 
 and consistency, 76 ; nothing solved, 
 coherence, 77; cosmopolitan, 78; com 
 fortable words towards England, 79 ; 
 broad sympathies, 80 ; a questioner, 
 81, 82; Providence, 83; the funda 
 mentals illuminated, 84 ; foremost in 
 patriotism, 85, 86 ; nature s voices, 
 87-89 ; a champion, 89 ; making Con 
 cord s reputation, 90 ; an experi 
 menter, 91; French view, 92-108; 
 as a poet, 93, 94 ; not a philosopher, 
 95 ; a thinker, sage, and prophet, 96 ; 
 attitude towards God, 97, 98; sym 
 bolism of nature, 99 ; lyriques, 100 ; 
 first laws, 101 ; self-confidence, 102 ; 
 served by all materials, 103, 104 ; con 
 ception and treatment, 105 ; a re 
 former, 106 ; honor to the country, 
 107 ; Belleisle s tribute, 107, 108 ; 
 religion, 109-145 ; a volcano, own 
 portrait, 109 ; Christianity queried, 
 110 ; optimist and critic, 111 ; an 
 immigrant and interrogator, 112 ; 
 New Bedford installation, 113; the 
 Church, 114 ; Puritanism and par 
 ties, 115 ; a bidden guest, church- 
 going, 116 ; next door to truth, 117 ; 
 a cheerful Adam before the Fall, 118 ; 
 mind from matter, morality not the 
 whole of religion, 119 ; chant and 
 cant, 120; indecency repellent, 121; 
 old couplet translated, 122 ; humor 
 ous picture of the Church, 123; his 
 own forerunner, 124 ; severity towards 
 class and person, 125 ; majorities, a 
 mountain mind, 126 ; beat and mis 
 sion, 127 ; shielded from coarseness 
 and vanity, 128 ; atomic style, 129 ; 
 clarion oracle, 130 ; literary style, 131 ; 
 philanthropy and trickery, early ser 
 mons, 132 ; war against injustice, 
 expectance of God, 133 ; gownless 
 minister, ruggedness, 134; admira 
 tion of onslaught, 135 ; ecclesiastical 
 prejudice overcome, 136 ; " fair crea 
 ture," etc., 137; faith in immortal 
 ity, enduring books, 138 ; in the air, 
 139; his own company, 140; night- 
 
 flower of faith, reply when ill, 141 ; 
 in heaven, 142; understating, 143; 
 swallow flights, mystic sense, no one 
 great book, 144; a perceiver, 145; as 
 a preacher, 146-172; out of the pul 
 pit, 146 ; ancestry, 147 ; relations to 
 Concord explained, 148; brothers, 
 149 ; a fair pupil, 150 ; first trip to 
 Europe, wife s death, leaving the 
 Second Church, 151 ; studying under 
 Channing, 152 ; sermon on Mr. Samp 
 son, 153 ; East Lexington preaching, 
 154 ; two Divinity addresses, 155 ; 
 Concord home, 156 ; simple people s 
 appreciation, 157 ; transcendentalism, 
 denial of Christ, life-purpose, 158; 
 consulting the ladies, 159 ; Ware mis 
 understanding, unselfish courtesy, 
 160 ; silence about Christ, 161 ; hu 
 mility hopeful, agnosticism, 162 ; in 
 tuition of God, 163 ; reserve and 
 utterance, 164; poetic parables, 165, 
 166; tongue of fire, 167; deepest 
 secret, 168; bereavements, 169, 170; 
 apocalyptic chants, 171; church-going 
 resumed, 172; among the poets, 173- 
 214 ; feeling the impulse, 173 ; a poet 
 without verse, 174 ; parallel, 175 ; de 
 scription applied to self, 175-177 ; 
 perfect expression denied, 178 ; true 
 standard, 179, 180 ; resemblances, 181; 
 concentrating, 182 ; clairvoyance, en 
 vironment, 183 ; best poems, 185 ; 
 every line valuable, 186 ; homage to 
 love, 187; friendship, 188-190; a 
 poem analyzed, 191-197 ; mysticism, 
 197 ; ethical lesson, 198 ; extraordi 
 nary language, 199; commentaries 
 on love, 200, 201; wild rule, 202 ; sus 
 tained virtue, 204 ; comparison with 
 Gray, 205 ; epitaphs, 206-210 ; delight 
 in his own poetic expression, 211 ; 
 magic power, 212 ; poetic tributes, 
 215-232 ; ethics, 233-285 ; biography, 
 233 ; harmonizing idealism, 234 ; mo 
 rality the law of the universe, 235 ; 
 first and last religious utterances, 
 depth, 236 ; impatient of church doc 
 trines, 237, 238 ; present deity, 238- 
 245; future religion, 245-251; mo 
 rality and philosophy, 252 ; thinking 
 stones, 253; fundamental law, 255; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 435 
 
 subjective idealism, 257; will-con 
 formity, 258 ; superiority to Kant, 
 259 ; idea of right, 260 ; utilitarian 
 ism, 261, 262; evolution, 262-2-36 
 freedom and fate, 267, 268 ; obedi 
 ence, 269, 270 ; conscience, 271 ; work 
 er with God, 272; disaster of wrong 
 277 ; highest inspirations, 280 ; laws 
 alive, 281; talk with a missionary 
 282 ; immoral year, 284 ; relation to 
 society, 286-309; threescore, 287; 
 centric disturbers of peace, 288 ; elo 
 quent on foot, 239; seraph s armor, 
 Phi Beta Kappa oration, 290; coral 
 reefs, 291 ; politeness, 292 ; unwilling 
 ness to enter the pulpit, 293 ; critical 
 appreciation of England s aristocracy, 
 293-296 ; country host, 296 ; first 
 volume of verse, 297; child s death, 
 298; indignation, 299, 300 ; a tailor s 
 model, 301 ; Radical Club, 302 ; in his 
 study, 303; clubbable, 304; on the 
 comic, reading The Old Cove, 305 ; 
 stage-dancing, anecdotes, vulgar facts, 
 306 ; entertaining Mrs. Howe, 307 ; 
 nobility, 303 ; woman question, 
 inspiriting presence, 309; view of 
 nationality, 310-338 ; inheritance, 
 310 ; faith in the soul, 311 ; advance 
 ment of his country, 312 ; literary 
 field, 313 ; repugnant to agnosticism, 
 literary career, 314 ; two theories of 
 literary creation, 315, 316 ; going to 
 Nature direct, 317 ; promise of a new 
 world, 319, 320: pioneer, 321; out 
 growth of life, 326 ; imitation criti 
 cised, 327 ; diligent student, cosmo 
 politan, antagonistic tendencies, 328 : 
 a liberator, 329 , morning-glory, 330 ; 
 world - movements recognized, 331; 
 faith in America, 332; hopes, 333; 
 national qualities in his mind, 335 ; 
 garments of beauty woven, 336 ; broad 
 and human, 337; localism, 338 : phi 
 losophy of nature, 339-354 ; accept 
 ance of discoveries, 339 ; poet of the 
 future, 340; metaphors from modern 
 theories, 341; rhythmic transitions, 
 342 ; machine and frosted cake poe 
 try, 343; evolution in poetry, 344: ] 
 inventory of nature, 345; nobler 
 wants, 346, 347; transition to ideal- 
 
 ism, 348; central unity, 349; psy 
 chology, 350: ground of idealism, 352- 
 354; evolution, 354. 357; individuality, 
 355; surprising world theory, 356; 
 traditions, 358; comments on Ora 
 cles, 330; doctrine of the Lapse, 361, 
 382; seen from India, 365-371; Ar 
 cadian walks, 366 ; sense of childhood, 
 367 ; priestly functions, 358 : intro 
 spection in the West, 369 ; earnestness 
 of life, 370 ; manner of the man, 371 ; 
 Orientalism, 372-385; words about 
 Plato applied to self, 372 ; haunted by 
 the problem of evil, 373 ; analysis of 
 Brahma, 373-378, 382; summary of 
 the spirit of Indian mind, 379, 380 ; 
 Neoplatonism, 380 ; problem solved, 
 381 ; foundation of the universe, law 
 of return, 384, 385; relation to 
 Goethe and Emerson, 386-419; stream 
 of influence, 336; understanding Me- 
 phistopheles, 393-396 ; self-culture, 
 398; influenced by Swedenborg, 401, 
 402; sorrow-worship, 403; interpre 
 tation of Goethe, 404; Puritanism, 
 405 ; doctrine of the age, 406 ; solu 
 tion of individualism, 407; the Civil 
 War, 412-416 ; valued by Carlyle, 414 ; 
 English Traits preferred to Tennyson, 
 416 ; style criticised. 418 ; Alcott s 
 Monody, 420. 
 
 EMERSON S BOOKS : 
 
 English Traits: allusions, 78-80; shun 
 ning the shame, 121 ; critical ap 
 preciation, 293 ; value, 416. 
 
 Essays, first volume, 50. 
 
 First Philosophy in Boston, pro 
 jected, 23. 
 
 Nature: allusions, 10, 78; Alcott s 
 insight, 5^, 52 ; French allusions, 
 99, 106; first publication, 158, 236; 
 opening lines, 239 ; all things moral, 
 256; evolution, 262-265; quoted 
 and analyzed, 345-352; written in 
 India, 366. 
 
 Representative Men, 68, 372, 378,393, 
 394, 401, 418. 
 
 EMERSON S ESSAYS, LECTURES, SERMONS, 
 
 SPEECHES, etc. : 
 American Scholar, The, 312. 
 
436 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 EMERSON S ESSAYS, LECTURES, SERMONS 
 
 SPEECHES, etc. : 
 Aunt Mary Moody Emerson, 22. 
 Beauty, 99, 346, 347, 349. (See Emer 
 
 son s Poems.) 
 Commodity, 99, 346, 349. 
 Discipline, 99, 256, 348, 349. 
 Divinity School Address, 106, 155 
 
 156, 158, 235, 236, 244, 245. 
 Ethics, 54-56. 
 Eulogy on Parker, 247-250. 
 Fate, 266, 267. 
 
 Fortune of the Republic, 312. 
 Free Religious Association, address, 
 
 236. 
 friendship, 37. (See Emerson s 
 
 Poems.) 
 
 Historical Discourse, Concord, 136. 
 Idealism, 256, 257, 350-354. 
 Judgment Seat of Christ, 154. 
 Language, 99, 349. 
 Lapse, or Descent of the Soul, 356- 
 
 362. 
 
 Luther, 39. 
 Means of Inspiring a Taste for Eng 
 lish Literature, 40. 
 Memory, 19. 
 Method of Nature; 158. 
 Methods and Philosophy of History, 
 
 57, 58. 
 
 Michael Angelo, 33. 
 Milton, 39, 175-178. 
 Over-Soul, The, 73; among Brah- 
 
 mans, 376. 
 Plato, 251. 
 
 Poetry and Imagination, 345. 
 Preacher, The, 155, 156, 236, 245, 
 
 246, 251. 
 
 Progress of Culture, 106. 
 Prospects, 355. 
 Reformer, The, and Iranscendental- 
 
 ist, 408. 
 
 Sermon on Mr. Sampson, 153. 
 Soul, 347, 348. 
 Spirit, 353-356. 
 Sumner Outrage, 28. 
 Traditions, 358. 
 Unity, 349. 
 
 Wealth, 5. (See Emerson s Poems.) 
 Worship, 245, 251 (See Emerson s 
 
 Poems.) 
 
 EMERSON S POEMS : 
 
 Boston Hymn, 21, 32-35, 300, 307. 
 
 Brahma, 167; compared, 373-378, 
 382. 
 
 Concord Monument, Hymn, 32, 86. 
 
 Days, 186 ; (Day s Ration) 124. 
 
 Dirge, The, 149, 186, 205. 
 
 Discontented Poet, The, 210. 
 
 Each and All, 171, 297. 
 
 Earth Song, The, 86. 
 
 Emancipation Hymn, 32. 
 
 Epode, The, 208. (Voluntaries.) 
 
 Forerunners, The, 185. 
 
 Four th-of- July Ode, 32. (Concord 
 Hymn.) 
 
 Friendship, 37, 188-190. (See Emer 
 son s Essays.) 
 
 Hamatreya, 86, 171, 341. 
 
 Hermione ; 36, 37, 185, 187, 188. 
 
 Humble Bee, The, 120, 321, 366. 
 
 Initial, Daemonic, and Celestial Love, 
 191-201. (Three Loves.) 
 
 In Memoriam, 205, 206. 
 
 Lines to J. W., 171. 
 
 May-Day, 341. 
 
 Merlin, 185, 202, 211, 212, 342, 345. 
 (Merlin s Song.) 
 
 Monadnoc, 126. 
 
 Mountain and the Squirrel, 171. 
 
 My Garden, 341, 345. 
 
 Ode to Bacchus, 165-167, 212-214. 
 Ode to Beauty, 165, 185. (See Emer 
 son s Essays.) 
 Ode to Channing, 299. 
 Ode, The, 206, 207, 230. (Volun 
 taries.) 
 Problem, The, 2, 111, 113, 165, 271, 
 
 297. 
 
 Rhea, 171, 186, 190. 
 Rhodora, The, 104, 171, 341. 
 Saadi, 126, 139, 186, 270. 
 Sea-shore, 341, 345. 
 Solution, 396, 399, 400-402, 419. 
 Song of Nature, 418, 419. 
 Sphinx, The, 168, 185, 297. 
 Spiritual Laws, 384. 
 Tact, 300. 
 Terminus, 186. 
 Test, The, 143, 398, 399, 419. 
 Three Loves, The, 185. (Initial, Dae 
 monic, and Celestial.) 
 Threnody, 169-171, 186, 205, 298, 299. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 437 
 
 EMERSON S POEMS : 
 Titmouse, The, 186, 341. 
 Uriel, 165, 167, 185, 381-383. 
 Wealth, 363, 364. <,See Emerson s 
 
 Essays.) 
 Wood Notes, 166, 167, 185, 341, 343, 
 
 344. 
 Worship, 169. (See Emerson s 
 
 Essays.) 
 Voluntaries : When Duty whispers, 
 
 30, 206, 300. (Ode and Epode.) 
 
 EMERSON S POETRY : 
 
 (Brief quotations not referred to in 
 the previous section.) Politics, 3; 
 "The inevitable morning, 3, 4; 
 " We love the venerable house," 13, 
 14; "The being that lam," 28; 
 patriotic, 85,86; il A subtle chain." 
 100, 354 ; French translations, 101- 
 104 ; ears of stone, 105 ; eyes and 
 light, 109 ; vest, 110 ; good from 
 all, 111 ; an owl, 112 ; time coined, 
 113 : star-axis, conscious law, 114, 
 281 ; harvest, 116 ; beneath the 
 pines, 117 ; neighbor s creed, 121 ; 
 joy in remorse, 122 ; nine lives, 123 ; 
 mountain-measure, 129 ; science and 
 hurt, grief and balsam, 134 ; know 
 ing as known, 138 ; biding at home, 
 140; clothed eternity, old Niles, 
 142 ; loudest requiem, 164 ; un 
 sightly root and bright flower, 184, 
 185 : love, 189, 190 ; feeding men 
 262; rivers of God, 270: "The 
 fiend that man harries," 272, 298 ; 
 cheerfulness, 278 ; permanence ol 
 excellence, 281; "Good-by, proud 
 world," 287, 288; home content 
 297 ; omnipresence, 380 ; line in 
 nature, 382. 
 
 EMERSON S PROSE : 
 
 (Quotations on different subjects. 
 Cities, 4 ; wealth, 5 ; town-meet 
 ings, 9 ; Boston, 10 ; Everett, 12 
 a Thinker let loose, 13 : the Lyce 
 um, 24; young men, 26, 27; nc 
 demand, 27; Abolitionism, 28 
 quiet manners, 29; bulletin-boards 
 30, 31 ; The Transcendentaiist, 41 
 
 EMERSON S PROSE : 
 
 defence of Alcott, 49 ; advice to 
 him, 52, 53 ; his English trip, 59- 
 61 ; one Reason, 75 : dozen great 
 men, 79 ; angry bigot and Aboli 
 tionism, 81 ; sturdy New Hamp 
 shire lad, 88 ; the Land a sanative 
 influence, 89 ; gentle liberators, 90, 
 91 : experimenters, 91 ; divine per 
 sonality, 97 : externization of soul, 
 98 ; definition of poetry, imagi 
 nation, 99 ; fire from Etna, 100 ; 
 self-trust, 101 ; working with God, 
 101, 102 : fate, 102 ; promise of the 
 future, 106 ; converse aside, 110, 
 111 ; original relation to nature, 
 112 ; poppy and corn, 115, 116 ; 
 forsaking tasks, 116 ; censure tem 
 pered by acquaintance, 125 : black 
 berries, 137; egotism, 139: wrangle 
 and wonder, 144 ; moral sentiment, 
 156 ; friend of man, 158 ; silence 
 about Christ, 161 ; in the midst of 
 truth, 163: God s sensibility, 169; 
 death an absurdity, 170 : parish of 
 young men, 172; on Milton, 175- 
 178 ; poetry defined, 180 ; loqua 
 city, 182 ; new verse valuable, 185 ; 
 nature a hieroglyphic, 186; Shak- 
 speare s Phoenix, 200 : Byron mot, 
 210 ; new teacher looked for, 235 ; 
 foundation of belief, law of gravita 
 tion, 236, 252; mind not divided, 
 237 : creeds outgrown, Sweden- 
 borg s failure, and Behmen s, 238 ; 
 foregoing generations seeing nature 
 face to face, 239 ; miracles, 239. 240 ; 
 connection of Church and New 
 Testament, 241 ; traditions, false 
 theology, 242 ; Oriental pictures of 
 Jesus, 243: his character, 244; a 
 new Church, 245 ; founded on sci 
 ence and ethical laws, 246 ; essence 
 of Christianity, 247, 248: pure 
 ethics, 249 ; a new religion, 250 ; 
 laws alive, divine essence, mere 
 morality, 251 ; power, law in senti 
 ment, 252 : living stones, choral 
 life-song, live universe, 253 ; fate, 
 loaded dice, morals generated, the 
 side of right, nature s highest form, 
 254 : character, moral force of grav- 
 
438 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 EMERSON S PROSE : 
 
 ity, 255; all things moral, noble 
 doubt, 256 ; centre of nature, 257 ; 
 virtuous man, moral defined, 258 ; 
 moral discipline, impregnable prin 
 ciple, wagon and star, world s open 
 secret, 259 ; bee and hive, moral 
 institutions, 261 ; greatest good of 
 greatest number, low prudence, 
 
 262 ; source and tap, injustice, 
 snake-skin, eternal moral force, 
 
 263 ; melioration, a tropical swamp, 
 
 264 ; evil serving good, 265 ; human 
 culture unfinished, 265, 266; or 
 ganization behind, liberty before, 
 266, 267 ; huckabuck woven, 266 ; 
 razors and suicides, 267 ; obedience, 
 will-education, 268, 269 ; first ex 
 periences, 269 ; the moral senti 
 ment, 269, 270 ; soul of God in men, 
 270; genius and conscience, 271, 
 272; identity of law, one Reason, 
 273 ; love, perception, intellect, 
 morals, 273, 274 ; poetry and 
 wickedness, 275; crime and pun 
 ishment on one stem, 276; health 
 in every department, 277, 278 ; evil 
 and good unequal, 278; secret be 
 lief in law, Providence, 279 ; man 
 near to Nature, 280; God every 
 where, 281 ; immortality, 281, 282 ; 
 other-world questions, 282, 283; 
 moral interregnums, regenerated 
 conscience, 284; divine presence, 
 286 ; English hero, 294 ; talent and 
 manners, 296 ; Fanny Elsler anec 
 dote, 306 ; manhood all-important, 
 anthem of history, 310 ; new guides 
 for America, 312 ; higher national 
 life, 313; help from within, 314; 
 man and revolution, 315 ; writing 
 from the heart, 320 ; tasting the 
 same life, 326 ; provincialism, 327 ; 
 running backward in vain, 337 ; na 
 ture a vast trope, 345; aspects of 
 the world, 345, 346 ; mercenary 
 benefits, 346,- threefold vehicle of 
 thought, symbolism, poet-dreams, 
 shallow writers, 347 ; Nature s king 
 doms, moral aspects, 348 ; ultimate 
 unity, 349 ; absolute existence of 
 nature, 350 ; philosophy of nature, 
 
 s PROSE: 
 351 ; presuppositions of science, 
 351, 352 ; unity of religion with 
 ethics, personality of God, 352; 
 true position of nature, 353 ; ideal 
 ism, 353, 354; same spirit in earth 
 and man, 354 ; degeneracy, under 
 standing nature, 356, 357 , tradi 
 tions quoted, 358 ; miracles, ruin in 
 nature, nature fluid, 360 ; the world 
 for us, 361 ; Hindoo thought, 367 ; 
 the moon, 369; Plato, the East, 
 372 Krishna, doctrine of appear 
 ances, 379, 380 ; Faust and his 
 devil, 393, 394; Goethe criticised, 
 395, 396; Wilhelm Meister, 396, 
 398; Goethe s velvet life, Truth 
 born in a manger, 404.; accumu 
 lated property, 408 ; praise of Car- 
 lyle s Frederick, 411, 412 ; rebuk 
 ing Carlyle on the American War 
 question, 412, 413 ; unamiablo 
 Jonathan, 413, 414 ; perversities 
 of style, 414 ; Goethe s literary 
 form, 418. 
 
 Emerson, William, father of Ralph 
 Waldo, settlement in Boston, 1, 148, 
 149. 
 
 Emerson, William, brother of Ralph 
 Waldo : education, 149 ; school, 
 150. 
 
 Enchanted Princess, 295. 
 Endicott Family, in Massachusetts, 72. 
 
 (See New England, etc.) 
 England t characteristics, 9 ; critics, 
 27 ; traits, 29 ; Alcott s visit, 58-67 ; 
 "doleful daughters," 64; local lim 
 itations, 69 ; full of Americans, 71 ; 
 literature, 138 ; poetry, 182, 184 ; 
 dramatists, 204 ; lectures, 293 ; soci 
 ety, 295; scholarship, manners, 296; 
 literary models, 317 ; present litera 
 ture full of doubt, 323: traditions, 
 332; exportations to India, Young, 
 397; one with America, 417. (See 
 Alcott, America, Emerson, R. W., 
 Emerson s Books, English Traits, 
 Europe, etc.) 
 Episcopacy, Tritheism, 153. (See Uni- 
 
 tarianism.) 
 
 Epistles, in the original, 248. (See Bi 
 ble, St. Paul, etc.) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 439 
 
 Ethics: Essay, 233-285; different from 
 religion, 352; precocious, 409. (See 
 Conscience, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Europe : origin of nations, 69 ; full of 
 American ideas, 70 ; and people, 71 ; 
 precedents, 72 : travellers , 140 ; Ever 
 ett s return, 151 ; Emerson s, 153 ; 
 description of Christ, 243 ; America 
 not European, 312 ; pretentious soci 
 ety , 323 : traditions, 332 : genius, 372 ; 
 civilization, 387 ; history in Carlyle s 
 books, 409; rulers, 410; feudal, 413. 
 (See America, England, etc.) 
 
 Everett, Alexander H. , notice, 23. 
 
 Everett, Edward: his professorship, 11 ; 
 genius, 12; oratory, 150, 151. 
 
 Evolution : deals with structure, 119 ; 
 greeted, 135 : rational ground, 234 ; 
 sympathy, 262-264; in poetry, 344; 
 philosophy, 354, 355 ; natural selec 
 tion, 357 ; Hindoo, 368. (See Dar 
 win, Emerson s Prose Quotations, 
 etc.) 
 
 Experience, a disciple of, 47. 
 
 FAITH : lost in the city, 3; ground 
 work, 257. (See God, Religion, 
 
 Worship, etc.) 
 Family, freedom in, 66. 
 Fancy, in literature, 178. 
 Fate : loaded dice, 254 ; amelioration, 
 
 263. (See Emerson s Essays.) 
 Felton, Cornelius Conway, notice of 
 
 Emerson, 288. 
 
 Fenelon, Bishop, influence, 248. 
 Feudalism: dead, 330; none in Amer 
 ica, 332. (See England, Europe, 
 
 etc.) 
 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb: tribute to 
 
 Christ, 242 ; thought, 251 ; on faith, 
 
 257. 
 
 Fields. James T., quoted, 123. 
 Firdusi, his poetry, 179. 
 Fisher, James, hospitality, 20. 
 Fiske, James, career, 86. 
 Florence, Italy: Dante s fondness for, 
 
 2 ; local prejudices yielded, 10. (See 
 
 Cities, Italy, etc.) 
 Follen, Charles : wife, 42 ; in Diary, 42, 
 
 44. 
 Forces, and powers, 292. 
 
 Fox, TV*. J. : dinner, 61 ; wife, 64. 
 France : character, 9 ; view of Emerson, 
 
 92-108; brilliant age, 184; heroes, 
 
 294 ; Revolution, 408,409. 
 Francis, Convers, in Diary, 42. 
 Franklin, Benjamin, Poor Richard, 5, 
 
 262. 
 
 Frederick the Great, 10. (See Carlyle.) 
 Freedom : in all departments, 66 ; of 
 
 man, 253 ; two great ideas, 334. 
 Free Religion : switching off, 114 : party 
 
 in error, 159. (See Ethics, Religion, 
 
 etc.) 
 
 Free Religious Association, address, 236. 
 Friendship : genius for, 36 ; love with 
 out wings, 1S9. (See Emerson s 
 
 Poems.) 
 
 Froebel, Friedrich, understood, 155. 
 Frothingham, Nathaniel L., in Diary, 
 
 44. 
 Froude, James Anthony : on morality, 
 
 261 ; on Carlyle, 410. 
 Fruitlands, Alcott s scheme, 59, 65. 
 Fuller, Margaret : allusion, 11 ; art- 
 clairvoyance, 183; in society, 289; 
 
 anecdote, 3U5, 306 ; influenced by 
 
 Emerson. 321. 
 Furness, William Henry : educational 
 
 paper, 40 : spiritual rank, 44. 
 Furies, converted, 266. 
 
 GARRISON, WILLIAM LLOYD: 
 mobbed, 45, 46 ; reforms, 58 ; 
 speaking, 62; church within, 114; 
 divergence, 134 ; Concord speech, 307. 
 (See Antislavery , John Eroicn, etc.) 
 
 George III., " George Guelph, 1 417. 
 
 German: words, 257 ; heroes, 294; the 
 dance, 301 ; language, 405. 
 
 Germany: central city, 9, 10 ; person 
 ified, 129 ; study inducing Radicalism, 
 149; tribute to Christ, 242; Lessing s 
 influence, 329. (See Goethe, Car 
 lyle, etc.) 
 
 Gibraltar, illustration, 260. 
 
 Gnosticism, the Lapse, 361. 
 
 God: heroes his instruments, 68 ; first 
 hand, 112; eating veal, 128; river, 
 131: out of hiding, 133; not to be 
 analyzed, 145 ; eternal relations, 152 ; 
 face to face, 153 ; incarnate, 160 ; 
 
440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 name translated, 163 ; beauty, 165 ; 
 love demanded, 196; seeing deity ( 
 245; pitiable, 251; thoughts, 272; 
 speaking to men, 329; personality, 
 352 ; Hindoo view, 367-371 ; Plato s 
 one, 372 ; serene genius, 280. (See 
 Bible, Brahma, Buddhism, Ethics 
 Religion, etc ) 
 
 Goethe: quoted, 117; man s business 
 120; Faust disagreeable, 121; rever 
 ence, 133; introspection, 137; on in 
 dividuality, 143 ; absorption in, 151; 
 unity, 174 ; on poetry, 275 ; relations 
 to Emerson, 336-419; arevealer, 3 
 world-poet, 390; Wilhelm Meister, 
 390-393 ; Mephistopheles, 393-3! 
 analysis, 395, 396 ; Meister analyzed, 
 396-398 ; view of the world, 398 ; By 
 ron, 402 ; adulation, 404; objections, 
 405; present age, 406; solution, 407; 
 French Revolution, 408, 409 ; law 
 giver, 418. (See Carlyle, Germany, 
 etc.) 
 
 Goodwin, H. B., Concord minister, 48. 
 Gordian Knot, of slavery, 134. (See 
 
 Antislavery, John Broivn, etc.) 
 Gospels, in the original, 248. (See Bible.} 
 Gould, Jay, typical, 86. (See America.} 
 Graham, Sylvester, dietetics, 58. (See 
 
 lie formers, etc. ) 
 Grand Man, of Swedenborg, 410. (See 
 
 Man, etc.) 
 Gray, Thomas, rank, quotations, 204- 
 
 210. 
 Greaves, Mr., his principles, 59, 62. (See 
 
 Reformers, etc.) 
 
 Greece: climate, etc. ,258; contact with 
 the East, -331; traditions, 332; the 
 Muse, 399. (See Pindar, etc. ) 
 Greek : perceptions, 29, 30 ; apogee, 88 ; 
 study, 150; architecture., 165; gods, 
 167 ; poetry, 179, 182 ; clairvoyance, 
 183; anthology, 186; chorus, 196; 
 dramatists, 201 ; description of 
 Christ. 243; professorship, 288; he 
 roes, 294 ; art, 315. 
 Greenough, Horatio, anecdote, 135. 
 
 HAFIZ: poetry, 179; new verse, 
 185. (See Persia, etc.) 
 Happiness, not the aim of the universe, 
 383. (See Ethics, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Harris, William T. : on evolution, 262; 
 Emerson s Philosophy of Nature, 
 339^364; Orientalism, 373-385; Em 
 erson s Relations to Goethe and Car 
 lyle, 386-419. 
 Harte, Bret, reporter of California, 86. 
 
 (See Homer.) 
 
 Harvard University: in 1817, 11, 12; 
 Divinity School, 19; Address, 24, 25, 
 113, 235, 236, 244; benefaction, 27; 
 prayer, 113 ; Observatory, 131 ; lob 
 bying, 132 ; overseer, 134 ; last word, 
 136, 137 , Emerson s graduation, 150 ; 
 two theological Addresses, 155, 156; 
 Greek professorship, 288. (See Cam 
 bridge, Emerson s Lectures, etc. ) 
 Harvard, Mass.; residence,!; commu 
 nity, 59. 
 
 Harwood, English reformer, 61. 
 Haskins Family, Emerson s mother, 
 
 149. 
 
 Hastings, battle .of, 294. 
 Hawthorne, Julian, Essay, 68-91. 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel : fellowship, 183 ; 
 
 nfluenced by Emerson, 321. 
 Heaven, not to be analyzed, 145. (See 
 
 Happiness, Religion, etc.) 
 Hebrew: oracle, 130; poetry, 179,340. 
 
 (See Bible, etc.) 
 Hedge, Frederic Henry : editorship, 41, 
 
 42 ; sermon, 44 ; conversation, 48. 
 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, a defi 
 nition, 163. 
 Heidelberg, the Devil in, 394. (See 
 
 Mephistopheles. ) 
 
 Heraud, John A.: Alcott s interviews, 
 59 ; apostasy, 62 ; evening, 63. (See 
 Reformers.} 
 
 lermes, quintessence, 304. 
 lerodotus, an ideal, 331. 
 lesiod: Alcott s study, 42 ; poetry, 123. 
 
 (See Greek. Homer, etc.) 
 ligginson, Thomas Wentworth, quoted, 
 
 106. 
 
 lillard, George Stillman, not under 
 standing Emerson, 19. 
 limmalayah, snows, 415. 
 lindoos: hushed devotion, 163; medi 
 tation, 365 ; geography, 366; kinship, 
 367 ; Vedas, 368 ; philosophy, 369 ; 
 deities, 370; Brahmans, 371; poets, 
 373 ; gods, 377, 378. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 History, defined, 202. 
 
 Hoar, Elizabeth, a guest, 40. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, the hub, 29. 
 
 Holy Ghost : Montanist opinion, 114 ; 
 conflict with world-spirit, 131 ; not 
 exhausted, 242. (See God, Jesus, 
 Religion, etc.) 
 
 Holy Land, of the soul, 140. 
 
 Homer : comparison, 24 ; excluded, 123 ; 
 hell, 125 ; genius, 143, 144 ; quoted, 
 173 ; verse, 174 ; allusions, 181 : crit 
 icism of life, 203 ; words, 210 ; one, 
 243 ; environment, 258 ; quintessence, 
 804 ; springs of power, 326 : creative 
 skill, 328 ; assimilated, 329 ; Troy 
 taken, 333 ; revelation, 387 ; rank, 
 398, 401. (See Greek-, Poetry, etc ) 
 
 Horace, quoted, 306. 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward, Emerson and So 
 ciety, 286-309. 
 
 Hugo, Victor : motto quoted, 92 ; God 
 bankrupt, 118, 119 ; unity, 174. 
 
 Humanity, Seer of, 2. (See Great 
 Man, Immortality, Jesus, etc.) 
 
 Hume, Joseph, heard, 62. 
 
 Huntington, Frederick D.,on character, 
 246. 
 
 IMAGINATION : makes the universe 
 one vast metaphor, 99 ; basis of 
 poetry, 178. 
 
 Immortality : Alcott s study, 43 ; in 
 poetry, 118 ; Emerson s assurance, 
 138 ; Whence ? 234 ; questions, 283 ; 
 in poem, 426. (See God, Heaven, 
 Jesus, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Independents : extremists, 137 ; Emer 
 son s ancestry, 147, 148. 
 
 India : Emerson as seen from, 365-371 ; 
 Brahma, 373 ; moral indifference, 375- 
 378 ; two orders of devotees, 370. 
 (See Emerson s Poems, Hindoos, 
 Vedas, etc.) 
 
 Indians, church among, 147, 148. 
 
 Individualism, doctrine of, 407. 
 
 Individuality : two great ideas, 334-336 ; 
 begins, 355. 
 
 Innocence, silver seat, 384. 385. 
 
 Inspiration : larger, 242 ; channels, 327. 
 (See Bible, Holy Ghost, etc.) 
 
 Instinct, spiritual, 359. 
 
 Ion, Alcotfs poem, 420-426. 
 
 Ireland, emigration, 72. 
 
 Irving, Washington, freshness, 318. 
 
 Isaiah, prophecies, 410. (See Bible, 
 etc.) 
 
 Italy : its centre, 10 ; local limitations, 
 69 ; poetry, 179 ; art-clairvoyance, 
 183 ; heroes, 294 ; query, 315 ; inspira 
 tion, 330 ; ideal men, 331 ; traditions, 
 332 ; the Muse, 399. (See Florence, 
 Michael Angelo, etc.) 
 
 JACKSON, ANDREW, anecdote, 135. 
 James, Henry, quoted, 134. 
 
 James. Henry, Jr. : Life of Hawthorne, 
 321 ; polish, 323. 
 
 James I., age, 183. 
 
 Japan, religion, 370. (See Buddhism, 
 Orient, etc.) 
 
 Jehovah, name sacred, 163. (See Brah 
 ma, God, etc.) 
 
 Jena, Fichte at, 251. 
 
 Jeremiah, prophecies, 410. (See Bible.) 
 
 Jerusalem, robbed, 142. (See Bible.) 
 
 Jesus : retirement and love of cities, 2 ; 
 Alcotfs study, 42, 46-48 ; person, 111 ; 
 pre-existence, 113 ; not a finality, 116 ; 
 wilderness, 117, 139; hell, 125 ; prayer 
 through, 128 ; Gethsemane, 134, 135 ; 
 incomparable, 142 ; judgment-seat, 
 154 ; realizing divinity, 155, 156 ; de 
 nial, enemy of man, 158 ; puppy crit 
 icism, 159 : preached by silence, 161; 
 bloodless victory, 163 ; parables, 164 ; 
 eclipsed, 167; secret, 168; why bet 
 ter, 240 ; Church doctrine, 242 ; ex 
 cellence, 243, 244; a prophet, 244, 
 245; environment, 258; grace and 
 truth. 260 : answers to queries, 283 ; 
 history, 360; aspects, 392. (See 
 Christianity, Ethics, God, Relig 
 ion, etc.) 
 
 Jews : their cultus, 238 ; teachers, 410. 
 (See Bible, Htbreic, Worship, etc.) 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, on rascality, 278. 
 
 Jonathan, fictitious personage, 413. 
 (See America, Xew England, etc.) 
 
 Jonson, Ben, poetry, 180. 
 
 Jordan s Sigfridsage, quoted, 383. 
 
 Journal of Speculative Philosophy, es 
 says, 418. 
 
 Jubbulpoor, hills, 366. (See India, 
 etc.) 
 
442 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Julius Caesar, genius, 144. (See Ccesar.) 
 Jupiter, Dyaus Pitar, 367. (See God, 
 
 Jehovah, etc.) 
 Justice ; comparison, 295 ; inelegant, 
 
 KANSAS, raids, 124. 
 Kant, Immanuel : constructive 
 
 genius, 95; ethics, 234; his Kritik, 
 
 258 ; inferiority, 259 ; theory, 260 ; 
 
 on freedom, 268; quintessence, 304. 
 Kearney, Denis, and the Chinese, 71. 
 
 (See California.) 
 Kennebec River, sojourn, 150. 
 Keshub Chunder Sen, last work, 367, 
 
 368. (See India, etc.) 
 Khayam, Omar, quoted, 117. (See 
 
 Persia ) 
 
 Kinney, Mrs. E. C,, Sonnets on Emer 
 son, 231, 232. 
 Kirkland, John Thornton, presidency, 
 
 11. 
 Knox, John, Carlyle s allusion, 405. 
 
 (See Calvinism, Puritanism, etc.) 
 Kossuth, Louis, shut out, 26. 
 Krishna, deity, 370, 378, 379. (See 
 
 Hindoos, Jehovah, etc.) 
 
 LALOR, MR. , Alcott s interview, 61. 
 Landseer, Thomas, anecdote, 306. 
 
 Lane, Charles, socialism, 59, 62. 
 
 Latin Poetry, 179. (See Greek, etc.) 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, a persecutor, 147. 
 (See Emerson family.) 
 
 Laws, alive, 251, 281. (See Ethics, etc.) 
 
 Lazarus, Emma, sonnet, 215. 
 
 Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, quoted, 
 378. 
 
 Lens, illustration, 137. 
 
 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, influence, 
 329. 
 
 Liberty, before us, 264, 267. 
 
 Life, theory of, 38, 39. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham: proclamation, 21; 
 lily, 133. (See America, etc.) 
 
 Literature, methods of creation in 
 America, 315-333 passim. (See Mil 
 ton, etc.) 
 
 London, Eng. : effect, 4; everywhere 
 known, 9 ; advantages, 408. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, com 
 panionship, 305. 
 
 Lord s Supper: refusal to administer, 
 13, 110 ; table and sideboard, 127 ; 
 Parker s view, 128 ; sermon, 152 ; at 
 titude, 172; scene, 392. 
 
 Louis XIV., era, 184. 
 
 Love, compared with friendship, 189. 
 (See Emerson s Poems.) 
 
 Lovelace, sympathy with, 80. 
 
 Lowell Family, in the War, 26, 27. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, pathos, 27. 
 
 Lucretius : higher meaning, 193 ; po 
 etry denned, 201. 
 
 Luther, Martin : principles, 66 ; prayer, 
 118 ; private judgment, 147. 
 
 Lyceum : Emerson s place, 24 ; pulpit, 
 157. 
 
 Lyman, Theodore, gift to Harvard, 151. 
 
 MAB, QUEEN, in poetry, 192. 
 Macdonald, George, Maurice s 
 apostle, 162. 
 
 Madonna, shrine, 247. (See Roman 
 Catholicism.) 
 
 Mahomet, in the desert, 139. 
 
 Man : as a study, 43 ; the universal, 45 ; 
 eternal relations, 152. (See Ethics, 
 Immortality, Great Man, etc.) 
 
 Marcus Antoninus, ethical sculpture, 
 274. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius : comparison, 181 ; on 
 morals, 258. 
 
 Marietta, Ohio, letter, 31-33. 
 
 Marlowe, Christopher, genius, 184. 
 
 Marston, a reformer, 62, 63. (See Al- 
 cott.) 
 
 Mason, Jeremiah, understanding Emer 
 son, 19. 
 
 Massachusetts, literary soil, 184. (See 
 New England.) 
 
 Materialism : science, 134 ; Western, 
 367. 
 
 Maurice, Frederick Dennison, on Chris 
 tianity, 161, 162. 
 
 May, Samuel Joseph: allusion, 39; in 
 Diary, 42. 
 
 Mead, Edwin D., Emerson s Ethics, 233- 
 285. 
 
 Mecca, Concord not one, 338. 
 
 Medicis Family, 284. (See Italy.) 
 
 Memory, in composition, 178. 
 
 Memphis, appliances, 408. (See Egypt.) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 443 
 
 Mephistopheles, meaning, 393-395. (See 
 Goethe, etc.) 
 
 Mercutio, allusions, 191-193, 200. (See 
 Emerson s Poems, Three Loves.) 
 
 Mermaid, illustrative fable, 71, 72. 
 
 Messiah, infancy a perpetual, 155, 359. 
 (See Jesus, etc.) 
 
 Methodism, its gift, 133. 
 
 Michael Angelo : allusion, 144 ; in 
 spired, 271. (See Emerson s Lec 
 tures.) 
 
 Microcosm, approached, 406. 
 
 Middle Ages : architecture in the, 165 ; 
 Goethe s study, 406. 
 
 Milan, and Rome, 10. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, essay, 260. 
 
 Milton, John : Satan routed, 125 ; mag 
 nificent fable, 163 ; verse and insight, 
 173-178 : ploughman, 185 ; poetic 
 test, 201; Paradise Lost, 333 ; Uriel, 
 381. 
 
 Miracles : disbelieved, 239-241 ; an 
 cient, 360. (See Ethics, Mature, 
 Religion, etc.) 
 
 Miriam, incomparable, 142. (See Bible.) 
 
 Mnemosyne, invoked, 424. 
 
 Moliere, Jean Baptiste Poquelin, liter 
 ary rank, 93. 
 
 Moloch, fire, 148. 
 
 Montaigne, Michel Eyquem : quoted, 
 
 103, 104 ; allusion, 115 ; on style, 201, 
 202. 
 
 Montanists, on the Holy Spirit, 114. 
 
 Montanus, Roman, 115. 
 
 Morality: 233-285 passim; defined, 
 235. (See Ethics, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Morgan, J. M., design, 62. 
 
 Morley, on Nature, 52. 
 
 Moses : incomparable, 142 : inspiration, 
 242 ; law, 260. (See Bible.} 
 
 Mozoomdar. Protap Chunder, Emerson 
 seen from India, 365-371. 
 
 Muses, the : converted, 266 ; fled, 339 : 
 answer, 399 ; favorites, 400. (See Em 
 erson s Poems, Test and Solution.) 
 
 "VfAPLES, Italy, yields to Rome, 10. 
 -L i Napoleon Bonaparte, genius, 144. 
 Narbudda River. 366. (See India.) 
 Nationality, Emerson s view, 310-338. 
 (See America, etc.) 
 
 Nature : a touch in old age. 1 ; poet of 
 outward, 2 ; town under the care of, 
 3 ; in Boston, 4 ; French allusions, 
 92-108 passim; nurse, 138; hermi 
 tage, 140; eternal relations, 152; a 
 hieroglyphic, 186; ally of religion, 
 256-259 ; independence, 317 ; new 
 world of, 319 ; man ? s place, 320 : trust 
 in, 333 ; Emerson s philosophy, 339- 
 364 ; disenchanted, 339 ; Greek view, 
 340 : temples, 368 ; Emerson s rela 
 tion to, 386 ; cathedral, 367. (See 
 Emerson s Books.) 
 
 Neander, Johann August Wilhelm, li 
 brary, 306. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar : allusion, 181 ; de 
 throned, 359. (See Bible.) 
 
 Neoplatonism : the Lapse, 361 ; inverse, 
 380. 
 
 Nepaul, Buddhism, 370. (See India, 
 etc.) 
 
 Neptune, statue, ISO. (See Blarney.) 
 
 New Bedford, Mass. : pulpit, 12 ; instal 
 lation, 113. 
 
 New England : its centre, 10 ; Everett 
 a classic, 12 ; youth, 25 ; best voice, 
 28 ; Van Buren s presidency, 58 ; so 
 cial reform, 61 ; Puritans, 70 ; influ 
 ence in Europe, 71 ; Mayflower, 72 ; 
 farmers, 86; lads, 88 ; literature, 184. 
 (See America, etc.) 
 
 New England Woman s Club, formed, 
 22. 
 
 New Testament, praise, 241. (See Bible. ) 
 
 New World, discovered, 330. 
 
 New York : letter about, 3, 4 ; Castle 
 Garden, 70 ; Broadway, 71 ; dozen 
 great men, 79; Fifth Ave., 89; lec 
 tures, 288; advantages, 408. 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, running hand, 129, 
 130. 
 
 Newspapers, not appreciative, 16. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, his laws, 266 
 
 Nicodemus, 180. (See Blarney.) 
 
 Nirvana, Hindoo, 370, 371. 
 
 Noah, his sons reverence, 121. (See 
 Bible.) 
 
 North American Review: on Milton, 
 
 39, 175 ; in Diary, 42. 
 I North Pole, travellers, 140, 145. 
 
 Norton, Andrews, hearing a sermon, 
 123, 124. 
 
444 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 OBSERVER, THE, in Diary, 42. 
 Occident : mysticism, 362 ; swing 
 ing towards, 372. (See Orient.) 
 
 O Connell, Daniel, heard, 62. 
 
 Oldham, his apostasy, 63. (See Alcott.) 
 
 Old Manse, The, window, 148. (See 
 Concord. ) 
 
 Olrnsted, Frederick Law, religion, 116. 
 
 Olympus, waiting in, 352. 
 
 Orient: spirit in Emerson,! 97 ; peculiar 
 religion, 238; Christ, 243; thought, 
 302; Lapse, 361, 362; swinging to 
 wards the, 372 ; Emerson s Oriental 
 ism, 372-385; precocious ethics, 409. 
 (See Brahma, India, Occident, etc.) 
 
 Orpheus, in poem, 423. 
 
 Orphic Poet: quoted, 359, 360; style, 
 362. 
 
 Osgood, J. R., & Co., 404. 
 
 Osiris, how described, 243. 
 
 Ovid, advice, 189. 
 
 Owen, Robert: denied, 62; Alcott s in 
 terview, 63 ; surgical smile, 135. 
 
 Oxford, Eng. : a prayer, 25 ; crushing 
 a flower, 185; drill, 296. (See Cam 
 bridge.) 
 
 PAGANISM: oracle, 130; philoso 
 phy, 243. 
 
 Paris, advantages, 408. (See France.) 
 
 Parker, Theodore : thanks, congrega 
 tion, 21 ; Lord s Supper, 128 ; friends 
 in college, 132; sword, 134; on con 
 science, 269; hammer, 291; pulpit, 
 293. 
 
 Parkman, Francis, woman s suffrage, 
 309. 
 
 Parliaments of the Times, 22. 
 
 Partitions, illustration, 141. 
 
 Pascal, Blaise: a new, 248 ; piety, 274. 
 
 Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer:- enthusi 
 asm, 11; reminiscences, 14; hospi 
 tality, 20 ; on a lecture, 38 ; in Diary, 
 42 ; on Emerson s preaching, 146- 
 172, on Bacchus, 212. 
 
 Peabody, Ephraim: in Diary, 42, 44; 
 sermon, 123, 124. 
 
 Peabody, Mary (Mrs. Mann), 40. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, letter, 63. 
 
 Pentateuch, translation, 163. (See Bi 
 ble, Moses, etc.) 
 
 PentecostalMuse,167. (See Holy Ghost.) 
 
 Pericles, eloquence, 12. 
 
 Persian : Muse, 167 ; poetry, 179, 182 ; 
 ethics, 372, 375 ; moral indifference, 
 375; Seyd, 381. (See Orient.) 
 
 Pestalozzi : a Connecticut, 37 ; a dis 
 ciple, 59. 
 
 Petrarch, love-advice, 189 ; ideal, 331. 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa oration, 290. (See 
 Harvard University.) 
 
 Philistines, in Boston, 157. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell : speaking, 62 ; diver 
 gence, 134; artillery, 291 ; tea-party, 
 307. 
 
 Phocion, environment, 258. 
 
 Pindar: allusion, 182 ; new Terse, 185; 
 definition of poetry, 201 ; environ 
 ment, 258. 
 
 Pine-tree, oracle, 343, 344. 
 
 Plato : Alcott s study, 40, 42, 47 ; con 
 structive ability, 95; pre-existence, 
 113 ; picture-book, 117 ; exercise of 
 intellect, 121, 122; Republic, 123; 
 the ideal, 125 ; childhood, 133 ; hit 
 ting the apple, 145 ; understood, 153; 
 allusions, 182 ; in Emerson, 197 ; Pla 
 tonic poet, 200 ; definition of poetry, 
 201; on freedom, 268; piety, 274; 
 quintessence, 304 ; how produced, 331 ; 
 Phaedrus, 362 ; in Asia, 372; contem 
 plation in religion, 378 ; poetic rank, 
 402; allusion in poem, 423. 
 
 Plotinus, Fourth Ennead, 356, 362, 
 
 Plutarch: statue, 180; comparison, 
 131, 132. 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, melodies, 198, 
 
 Poetry : French view, 92-105 ; basis, 
 178; defined, 201-204, rhythm, 342, 
 343; characteristics, 386, 387. 
 
 Poets, Emerson among the, 173-214. 
 (See Emerson s Poems, Shak- 
 speare, etc.) 
 
 Politics : universal theme, 8 ; degraded, 
 25 ; parties in 1884, 71. 
 
 Pons, Capdueil, couplet, 275. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, criticised, 204. 
 
 Power, unity, 252. 
 
 Pray ere approved at Harvard, 134 ; 
 allusion, 360 
 
 Preaching, Essay on Emerson s, 146-172. 
 
 Princeton Review, on evolution, 262. 
 
 Prometheus, enduring, 394. 
 
 Prophets; Jesus one, 244, 245; dream 
 
INDEX. 
 
 445 
 
 of brotherhood, 313. (See Bible, In 
 spiration, etc.) 
 
 Prose, basis, 178. (See Emerson s 
 Prose.) 
 
 Protestantism : in 1846, 66 ; service a 
 reminder, 128. 
 
 Provencal ministry, 315. 
 
 Psychology, idealistic view. 350. 
 
 Punratory : in the Orient, 383 ; Danteis, 
 389. 
 
 Puritanism : blending, 30 ; in New Eng 
 land, 70 ; ancestry, 74, 115, 175, 404 ; 
 not to be confounded with Indepe n- 
 dence, 147, 148 ; Milton amidst, 176 ; 
 conscience, 302 ; Carlyle s, 405. (See 
 Calvinism, etc.) 
 
 Putnam, Dr., conversation, 366. 
 
 Pyramids, wheat-grains, 116. 
 
 QUAKERISM : its gift, 1S3 ; Lord s 
 Supper.. 172. 
 
 Quincy, Josiah : on town-meetings, 8 ; 
 classmate, 11. 
 
 T> ABBJ, title, 152. 
 
 JA/ Radical Club, 302, 304. (See 
 
 free Religion, etc.) 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, genius, 184. 
 Raphael : Marriage of the Virgin, 132 ; 
 
 ideal, 331. 
 
 Reason, basis of poetry, 178. 
 Reformation, the manure of the, 284. 
 Reformers: in England, 59-65; En*er- 
 
 son as one, 106. 
 Reforms : long lists, 60-62 : relying on 
 
 infinitude, 83. (See Alcott, etc.) 
 Religion : in old age, 1 ; Alcott s Diary, 
 
 43; French view, 94, 95; one that 
 
 degrades not, 122; architecture, 127 ; 
 
 Emerson s, 109-145 ; ethical side, 233- 
 
 285; defined, 255; ally of nature, 256 ; 
 
 different from ethics, 352; heathen, 
 
 391. (See God, Jesus, etc.) 
 Renaissance : art-clairvoyance, 183 j 
 
 pathfinders, 329. 
 
 Revolutionary War, chaplaincy, 148. 
 Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich, on faith, 
 
 141. 
 
 Ripley, George, in Diary, 42, 43. 
 Rivers, historic, 303. 
 Roman Catholicism, mass a reminder, 
 
 128. 
 
 Rome : architecture, 165 ; traditions, 
 
 332 ; achievements, 408. 
 Rubinstein, Anton : secret of worship, 
 
 109; advice, 124, 125; piano recital, 
 
 143; quoted, 145. 
 Russia, her exiles, 71. 
 
 SAADI : a line, 139 ; poetry, 179. 
 (See Emerson s Poems.) 
 
 Sabbath, observance compulsory, 147. 
 
 Sadduceeism, desolating, 128. 
 
 Saint Augustine, triumphs, 115. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, quoted, 
 105. 
 
 Saint John : gospel, 151 ; reporting 
 Jesus, 161. (See Bible.) 
 
 Saint Paul: his Arabia, 139; incom 
 parable, 142 ; inspiration, 242. 
 
 Salem witchcraft, 30. 
 
 Salter, his philosophy, 250. 
 
 Sampson, the ideal merchant, 153, 154. 
 
 Sanborn, Frank B. : Essays, 3*3-67, 
 173-214; quoted, 118; invitation to 
 Miss Peabody, 146; Ode of 1882, 
 224-231. 
 
 Sand, George, her Consuelo, 397. 
 
 Sanscrit poetry, 179. (See India, 
 Vedas, etc.) 
 
 Saturday Club, 22. (See Boston.) 
 
 Saturday Morning Club, 305. 
 
 Saturn, devouring, 134. 
 
 Saxon, in Emerson s diction, 55. 
 
 Scepticism, of this age, 340. 
 
 Schiller: on religion, 116 ; silence, 414. 
 
 School-ship, boys, 16, 17. 
 
 Science, an idol, 117. 
 
 Scientists, weary, 119. 
 
 Scott, David, portrait of Emerson, 16. 
 
 Scribes, authority, 186. 
 
 Septuagint, translation, 163. (See Bible.) 
 
 Seyd, Sultan, poet, 381. 
 
 Shakspeare: " green fields," 1 ; bold 
 ness, 51 ; his English, 55 ; his name 
 everywhere, 93 ; Sonnets, 99, 185, 200, 
 351 ; Seven Ages, 124 ; genius, 144 j 
 verse and insight, 174, 175, 178 ; 
 knowledge, 182 ; imperishable genius, 
 183, 184; love-advice, 189; Romeo, 
 love, Phoenix and Turtle, 200 ; test of 
 poetry, 201; criticism of life, 203; 
 era, 204 ; one, 243 ; springs of power, 
 
446 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 326 ; lyrics of nature, 341 ; quoted 
 342 ; human institutions, 388 ; Ham 
 let, 396 ; wit, rank, 400. 
 
 Shaw, Colonel, Ode to, 206. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip: his English, 55; 
 blossoming, 184. 
 
 Sigfridsage, 383. 
 
 Silence, anecdote, 160-162. 
 
 Sinai, the Kantian, 260. 
 
 Smith, Sydney : heard, 62 ; anecdote, 
 306. 
 
 Society, Emerson s relations, 286-309. 
 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know 
 ledge, 38. 
 
 Society for Ethical Culture, 250. 
 
 Socrates : love of Athens, 2 ; compari 
 son, 22, 24; a new, 248; surround 
 ings, 258. 
 
 Solitude, benefits, 30, 31. 
 
 Sophocles, creations, 183. 
 
 Soul, origin and destiny, 234. (See 
 Ethics, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Southern Rebellion : Emerson indig 
 nant, 18-20, 26-28, 73, 74 ; Har 
 per s Ferry, 134 ; Carlyle letters, 412, 
 413. (See Antislavery, Emerson s 
 Poetry, etc.) 
 
 Sparks, Jared, historic mission, 59. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert : ethics, 234 ; theory, 
 260; Data of Ethics, 263. 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, blossoming, 184. 
 
 Sphinx: its calmness, 370; riddle, 380 ; 
 in poem, 425. (See Emerson s Poems.) 
 
 Spinoza, constructive ability, 95. 
 
 Spiritual Intelligence, life of the world, 
 333. (See God, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Stoics, pain no evil, 118. 
 
 Storm, privacy of, 140. 
 
 Sturge, Joseph, once heard, 62. (See 
 Alcott.) 
 
 Sumner, Charles, outrage, 28 . (See Anti- 
 slavery, Southern Rebellion, etc.) 
 
 Sun, Emerson his own, 139. 
 
 Swedenborg, Emanuel : keenness, 144 ; 
 Christian symbol, 238 ; waning influ 
 ence, 248 ; on piety, 274; poetic rank, 
 400-402 ; sect, 410. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan : suggests Sartor Resar- 
 tus, 127; poetry , 180; comparison, 
 181 ; Liliput, 303. 
 
 Symonds, an English critic, 182-184. 
 (See Clairvoyance.) 
 
 Syria, ancient, 148. 
 
 System, lacking in Emerson, 75-77. 
 
 mALLEYRAND, his mot, 301. 
 JL Taylor, Edward: Bethel, 14; po 
 etic insight, 17 ; bon mot, 18 ; in Di 
 ary, 42 ; tacking, 111 ; a gift from 
 Methodism, 133 ; estimate of Emer 
 son, 136. 
 
 Teleology, 263, 264. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred : poetry, 323 ; Idyls, 
 416. 
 
 Thayer, James B., quoted, 156. 
 
 Thibet. (See Buddhism.) 
 
 Thompson, George; antislavery elo 
 quence, 45, 46; Alcott s interview, 
 62. 
 
 Thomson, J. Cockburn, translation, 
 374. 
 
 Thoreau, Henry D. : definition of a 
 philosopher, 96; making a pencil, 
 137 ; a wise word, 282 ; influenced by 
 Emerson, 321. 
 
 Tiberius, a gymnasium, 284. 
 
 Ticknor, George, professorship, 11. 
 
 Titus, Emperor, stolen candlestick, 142. 
 
 Traditions, not authoritative, 242. 
 
 Tramps, illustration, 139. 
 
 Transcendentalism: disciples, 46; spring 
 time, 49 ; main track, 115 ; its gift, 
 133 ; hell for its disciples, 157 ; in Bos 
 ton, 158; age, 184; reformers, 407; 
 altitudes, 415. 
 
 Transcendentalist, The, new, 41. (See 
 Alcott.) 
 
 Truth: in the midst of, 163, 164; infi 
 nite, 165 ; at its source, 368. 
 
 Turin, Italy, precedence of Rome, 10. 
 
 Tyndall, John, on Emerson, 339. 
 
 TTNITARIANISM : ministry, 14 ; 
 \J American Association, 62 ; pale 
 negations, 115 ; great gift, 133 ; pro 
 test, 149; leaders, 153; physical, 266. 
 (See Puritanism, Religion, etc.) 
 
 United States, Carlyle correspondence, 
 416, 417. (See America.) 
 
 Upham, T. C., Alcott s reading, 42. 
 
 Utilitarianism, discussed, 261, 262. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 447 
 
 YAN BUREX, MARTIN, presidency, 
 58. (See JVew Enyland.) 
 
 Van Helmont, on piety, 274. 
 
 Yaughan, Henry, bird metaphor, 118. 
 
 Vedas, Hindoo, 368, 370, 376, 377. (See 
 Bhagavat Gita, India, etc. ) 
 
 Venus, in poetry, 191, 192. (See Emer 
 son s Poems.) 
 
 Vienna, Austria: life in, 394; advan- j 
 tages, 408. 
 
 Villon, French scamp-poet, 204. 
 
 Violin, illustration, 124. 
 
 Vishnu, deity, 379. (See Hindoos, etc. ) j 
 
 Voltaire : poetry, 180 j comparison, 181. 
 
 Vyasa, philosophy, 352. 
 
 TTTAAGEX, GUSTAV FRIEDRICH, 
 
 TT art-mission, 59. 
 Wachusett Mountain, 337. 
 Walden Pond, 422. (See Concord, and 
 
 Thoreau.) 
 Walker, James: in Diary, 42, 44; dull j 
 
 sermon, 123, 
 
 Ward s English Poets, introduction, 203. 
 Ware, Henry, Jr.: colleague, 12 j in 
 
 Diary, 42 ; sermon controversy, 160. 
 War of 1812, disastrous effect, 7. 
 Washington, George: prayers, 109; 
 
 rank, 133 ; allusion, 417. 
 Watches, illustration. 131. 
 Waterston, Robert Cassie, in Diary, 42 
 Vatt, James, illustration of politics, 81. 
 Wayside, Concord, Alcott s residence, 
 
 65. 
 
 Webster, Daniel: blood, 111 : logic, 135, 
 Webster, Noah, appeal, 317. 
 Wesley, John, waning influence, 248. 
 
 (See Methodism.") 
 
 White Hills, travellers, 140. 
 
 Whitman, Walt-, estimate of him, 121, 
 135; rugged verse, 322. 
 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, the gift of 
 Quakerism, 133. 
 
 Williams, Sir William, epitaph, 206. 
 (See Gray.) 
 
 William the Conqueror, followers, 294. 
 (See Emerson s Hooks, English 
 Traits.) 
 
 Winthrop Family, in Xew England, 72. 
 
 Wit, in authorship, 178. 
 
 Woman: clubs, 22; suffrage conven 
 tion, 307, 309. 
 
 Woman s Club, 304. 
 
 Words, woven, 130. (See Emerson s 
 Essays, Language.) 
 
 Wordsworth, William: French view, 
 93; insight into nature, 104; light, 
 110 ; prayer, 118 ; blessings, 122 ; in 
 sight and verse, 174 ; poetry, 323, 324 ; 
 stream of influence, 386. 
 
 Worship: Bartol s paper, 109-145 pas 
 sim ; Miss Peabody s essay, 146-172 
 passim; Mead s essay, 238-250 pas 
 sim; of sorrow, 393, 403. (See 
 Church, Religion, etc.) 
 
 Wright, Henry C. : association with 
 Alcott, 59-64. 
 
 TTOGA, Hindoo religion, 367, 
 JL Yogin, in India, 378. 
 
 ZEXO: a new, 248 ; allusion, 403. 
 Zion, Scriptural allusions, 416. 
 Zoology, the Fourth-of-July of, 140. 
 Zoroaster: on poetry, 179, elevation, 
 375. 
 
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