{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18903/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18903","id":"gutenberg_18903","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18903","summary":null,"tags":["American essays","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Nature/Gardening/Animals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n\n                           THE LAST HARVEST\n\n\n                                  BY\n\n\n                            JOHN BURROUGHS\n\n\n\n\n\n                         BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n\n                       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\n                    The Riverside Press Cambridge\n\n                                 1922\n\n\n\n             COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n    _But who is he with modest looks\n      And clad in homely russet brown?\n    He murmurs near the running brooks\n      A music sweeter than their own.\n\n    He is retired as noontide dew,\n      Or fountain in a noon-day grove;\n    And you must love him, ere to you\n      He will seem worthy of your love.\n\n    The outward shows of sky and earth,\n      Of hill and valley, he has viewed;\n    And impulses of deeper birth\n      Have come to him in solitude.\n\n    In common things that round us lie\n      Some random truths he can impart--\n    The harvest of a quiet eye\n      That broods and sleeps on his own heart._\n\nWORDSWORTH\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nMost of the papers garnered here were written after fourscore\nyears--after the heat and urge of the day--and are the fruit of a long\nlife of observation and meditation.\n\nThe author's abiding interest in Emerson is shown in his close and\neager study of the Journals during these later years. He hungered for\neverything that concerned the Concord Sage, who had been one of the\nmost potent influences in his life. Although he could discern flies in\nthe Emersonian amber, he could not brook slight or indifference toward\nEmerson in the youth of to-day. Whatever flaws he himself detected, he\nwell knew that Emerson would always rest secure on the pedestal where\nlong ago he placed him. Likewise with Thoreau: If shortcomings were to\nbe pointed out in this favorite, he wished to be the one to do it. And\nso, before taking Thoreau to task for certain inaccuracies, he takes\nLowell to task for criticizing Thoreau. He then proceeds, not without\nevident satisfaction, to call attention to Thoreau's \"slips\" as an\nobserver and reporter of nature; yet in no carping spirit, but, as he\nhimself has said: \"Not that I love Thoreau less, but that I love truth\nmore.\"\n\nThe \"Short Studies in Contrasts,\" the \"Day by Day\" notes,\n\"Gleanings,\" and the \"Sundown Papers\" which comprise the latter part\nof this, the last, posthumous volume by John Burroughs, were written\nduring the closing months of his life. Contrary to his custom, he\nwrote these usually in the evening, or, less frequently, in the early\nmorning hours, when, homesick and far from well, with the ceaseless\npounding of the Pacific in his ears, and though incapable of the\nsustained attention necessary for his best work, he was nevertheless\nimpelled by an unwonted mental activity to seek expression.\n\nIf the reader misses here some of the charm and power of his usual\nwriting, still may he welcome this glimpse into what John Burroughs\nwas doing and thinking during those last weeks before the illness came\nwhich forced him to lay aside his pen.\n\nCLARA BARRUS\n\nWOODCHUCK LODGE\n\nROXBURY-IN-THE-CATSKILLS\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI.      EMERSON AND HIS JOURNALS\n\nII.     FLIES IN AMBER\n\nIII.    ANOTHER WORD ON THOREAU\n\nIV.     A CRITICAL GLANCE INTO DARWIN\n\nV.      WHAT MAKES A POEM?\n\nVI.     SHORT STUDIES IN CONTRASTS:\n\n          The Transient and the Permanent\n\n          Positive and Negative\n\n          Palm and Fist\n\n          Praise and Flattery\n\n          Genius and Talent\n\n          Invention and Discovery\n\n          Town and Country\n\nVII.    DAY BY DAY\n\nVIII.   GLEANINGS\n\nIX.     SUNDOWN PAPERS:\n\n          Re-reading Bergson\n\n          Revisions\n\n          Bergson and Telepathy\n\n          Meteoric Men and Planetary Men\n\n          The Daily Papers\n\n          The Alphabet\n\n          The Reds of Literature\n\n          The Evolution of Evolution\n\n          Following One's Bent\n\n          Notes on the Psychology of Old Age\n\n          Facing the Mystery\n\n        INDEX\n\n\n     The frontispiece portrait is from a photograph by Miss Mabel\n     Watson taken at Pasadena, California, shortly before Mr.\n     Burroughs's death.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAST HARVEST\n\nI\n\nEMERSON AND HIS JOURNALS\n\nI\n\n\nEmerson's fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during\nhis lifetime by the books he gave to the world. His Journals,\npublished over a quarter of a century after his death, nearly or quite\ndouble the bulk of his writing, and while they do not rank in literary\nworth with his earlier works, they yet throw much light upon his life\nand character and it is a pleasure to me, in these dark and\ntroublesome times,[1] and near the sun-down of my life, to go over\nthem and point out in some detail their value and significance.\n\n[Footnote 1: Written during the World War.--C.B.]\n\nEmerson was such an important figure in our literary history, and in\nthe moral and religious development of our people, that attention\ncannot be directed to him too often. He could be entirely\nreconstructed from the unpublished matter which he left. Moreover,\njust to come in contact with him in times like ours is stimulating and\nrefreshing. The younger generation will find that he can do them good\nif they will pause long enough in their mad skirting over the surface\nof things to study him.\n\nFor my own part, a lover of Emerson from early manhood, I come back to\nhim in my old age with a sad but genuine interest. I do not hope to\nfind the Emerson of my youth--the man of daring and inspiring\naffirmation, the great solvent of a world of encrusted forms and\ntraditions, which is so welcome to a young man--because I am no longer\na young man. Emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a\nformative, idealistic age. His is a voice from the heights which are\never bathed in the sunshine of the spirit. I find that something one\ngets from Emerson in early life does not leave him when he grows old.\nIt is a habit of mind, a test of values, a strengthening of one's\nfaith in the essential soundness and goodness of creation. He helps to\nmake you feel at home in nature, and in your own land and generation.\nHe permanently exalts your idea of the mission of the poet, of the\nspiritual value of the external world, of the universality of the\nmoral law, and of our kinship with the whole of nature.\n\nThere is never any despondency or infirmity of faith in Emerson. He is\nalways hopeful and courageous, and is an antidote to the pessimism and\nmaterialism which existing times tend to foster. Open anywhere in the\nJournals or in the Essays and we find the manly and heroic note. He\nis an unconquerable optimist, and says boldly, \"Nothing but God can\nroot out God,\" and he thinks that in time our culture will absorb the\nhells also. He counts \"the dear old Devil\" among the good things which\nthe dear old world holds for him. He saw so clearly how good comes out\nof evil and is in the end always triumphant. Were he living in our\nday, he would doubtless find something helpful and encouraging to say\nabout the terrific outburst of scientific barbarism in Europe.\n\nIt is always stimulating to hear a man ask such a question as this,\neven though he essay no answer to it: \"Is the world (according to the\nold doubt) to be criticized otherwise than as the best possible in the\nexisting system, and the population of the world the best that soils,\nclimate, and animals permit?\"\n\nI note that in 1837 Emerson wrote this about the Germans; \"I do not draw\nfrom them great influence. The heroic, the holy, I lack. They are\ncontemptuous. They fail in sympathy with humanity. The voice of nature\nthey bring me to hear is not divine, but ghastly, hard, and ironical.\nThey do not illuminate me: they do not edify me.\" Is not this the German\nof to-day? If Emerson were with us now he would see, as we all see, how\nthe age of idealism and spiritual power in Germany that gave the world\nthe great composers and the great poets and philosophers--Bach,\nBeethoven, Wagner, Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Kant, Hegel, and\nothers--has passed and been succeeded by the hard, cruel, and sterile\nage of materialism, and the domination of an aggressive and\nconscienceless military spirit. Emerson was the poet and prophet of\nman's moral nature, and it is this nature--our finest and highest human\nsensibilities and aspirations toward justice and truth--that has been so\nraided and trampled upon by the chief malefactor and world outlaw in the\npresent war.\n\nII\n\nMen who write Journals are usually men of certain marked traits--they\nare idealists, they love solitude rather than society, they are\nself-conscious, and they love to write. At least this seems to be true\nof the men of the past century who left Journals of permanent literary\nworth--Amiel, Emerson, and Thoreau. Amiel's Journal has more the\ncharacter of a diary than has Emerson's or Thoreau's, though it is\nalso a record of thoughts as well as of days. Emerson left more\nunprinted matter than he chose to publish during his lifetime.\n\nThe Journals of Emerson and Thoreau are largely made up of left-overs\nfrom their published works, and hence as literary material, when\ncompared with their other volumes, are of secondary importance. You\ncould not make another \"Walden\" out of Thoreau's Journals, nor build\nup another chapter on \"Self-Reliance,\" or on \"Character,\" or on the\n\"Over-Soul,\" from Emerson's, though there are fragments here and there\nin both that are on a level with their best work.\n\nEmerson records in 1835 that his brother Charles wondered that he did\nnot become sick at the stomach over his poor Journal: \"Yet is obdurate\nhabit callous even to contempt. I must scribble on....\" Charles\nevidently was not a born scribbler like his brother. He was clearly\nmore fond of real life and of the society of his fellows. He was an\norator and could not do himself justice with the pen. Men who write\nJournals, as I have said, are usually men of solitary habits, and\ntheir Journal largely takes the place of social converse. Amiel,\nEmerson, and Thoreau were lonely souls, lacking in social gifts, and\nseeking relief in the society of their own thoughts. Such men go to\ntheir Journals as other men go to their clubs. They love to be alone\nwith themselves, and dread to be benumbed or drained of their mental\nforce by uncongenial persons. To such a man his Journal becomes his\nduplicate self and he says to it what he could not say to his nearest\nfriend. It becomes both an altar and a confessional. Especially is\nthis true of deeply religious souls such as the men I have named. They\ncommune, through their Journals, with the demons that attend them.\nAmiel begins his Journal with the sentence, \"There is but one thing\nneedful--to possess God,\" and Emerson's Journal in its most\ncharacteristic pages is always a search after God, or the highest\ntruth.\n\n\"After a day of humiliation and stripes,\" he writes, \"if I can write\nit down, I am straightway relieved and can sleep well. After a day of\njoy, the beating heart is calmed again by the diary. If grace is given\nme by all angels and I pray, if then I can catch one ejaculation of\nhumility or hope and set it down in syllables, devotion is at an end.\"\n\"I write my journal, I deliver my lecture with joy,\" but \"at the name\nof society all my repulsions play, all my quills rise and sharpen.\"\n\nHe clearly had no genius for social intercourse. At the age of thirty\nhe said he had \"no skill to live with men; that is, such men as the\nworld is made of; and such as I delight in I seldom find.\" Again he\nsays, aged thirty-two, \"I study the art of solitude; I yield me as\ngracefully as I can to destiny,\" and adds that it is \"from eternity a\nsettled thing\" that he and society shall be \"nothing to each other.\"\nHe takes to his Journal instead. It is his house of refuge.\n\nYet he constantly laments how isolated he is, mainly by reason of the\npoverty of his nature, his want of social talent, of animal heat, and\nof sympathy with the commonplace and the humdrum. \"I have no animal\nspirits, therefore when surprised by company and kept in a chair for\nmany hours, my heart sinks, my brow is clouded, and I think I will run\nfor Acton woods and live with the squirrels henceforth.\" But he does\nnot run away; he often takes it out in hoeing in his garden: \"My good\nhoe as it bites the ground revenges my wrongs, and I have less lust to\nbite my enemies.\" \"In smoothing the rough hillocks I smooth my temper.\nIn a short time I can hear the bobolinks sing and see the blessed\ndeluge of light and color that rolls around me.\" Somewhere he has said\nthat the writer should not dig, and yet again and again we find him\nresorting to hoe or spade to help him sleep, as well as to smooth his\ntemper: \"Yesterday afternoon, I stirred the earth about my shrubs and\ntrees and quarrelled with the pipergrass, and now I have slept, and no\nlonger am morose nor feel twitchings in the muscles of my face when a\nvisitor is by.\" We welcome these and many another bit of\nself-analysis: \"I was born with a seeing eye and not a helping hand. I\ncan only comfort my friends by thought, and not by love or aid.\" \"I\nwas made a hermit and am content with my lot. I pluck golden fruit\nfrom rare meetings with wise men.\" Margaret Fuller told him he seemed\nalways on stilts: \"It is even so. Most of the persons whom I see in my\nown house I see across a gulf. I cannot go to them nor they come to\nme. Nothing can exceed the frigidity and labor of my speech with\nsuch. You might turn a yoke of oxen between every pair of words; and\nthe behavior is as awkward and proud.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I would have my book read as I have read my favorite books, not with\nexplosion and astonishment, a marvel and a rocket, but a friendly and\nagreeable influence stealing like a scent of a flower, or the sight of\na new landscape on a traveller. I neither wish to be hated and defied\nby such as I startle, nor to be kissed and hugged by the young whose\nthoughts I stimulate.\"\n\nHere Emerson did center in himself and never apologized. His gospel of\nself-reliance came natural to him. He was emphatically self, without a\ntrace of selfishness. He went abroad to study himself more than other\npeople--to note the effect of Europe on himself. He says, \"I believe\nit's sound philosophy that wherever we go, whatever we do, self is the\nsole object we study and learn. Montaigne said himself was all he\nknew. Myself is much more than I know, and yet I know nothing else.\"\nIn Paris he wrote to his brother William, \"A lecture at the Sorbonne\nis far less useful to me than a lecture that I write myself\"; and as\nfor the literary society in Paris, though he thought longingly of it,\nyet he said, \"Probably in years it would avail me nothing.\"\n\nThe Journals are mainly a record of his thoughts and not of his days,\nexcept so far as the days brought him ideas. Here and there the\npersonal element creeps in--some journey, some bit of experience, some\nvisitor, or walks with Channing, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Jones Very, and\nothers; some lecturing experience, his class meetings, his travels\nabroad and chance meetings with distinguished men. But all the more\npurely personal element makes up but a small portion of the ten thick\nvolumes of his Journal. Most readers, I fancy, will wish that the\nproportion of these things were greater. We all have thoughts and\nspeculations of our own, but we can never hear too much about a man's\nreal life.\n\nEmerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of New\nEngland, and of English literature generally, as of another order. He\nis a reversion to an earlier type, the type of the bard, the skald,\nthe poet-seer. He is the poet and prophet of the moral ideal. His main\nsignificance is religious, though nothing could be farther from him\nthan creeds and doctrines, and the whole ecclesiastical formalism.\nThere is an atmosphere of sanctity about him that we do not feel about\nany other poet and essayist of his time. His poems are the fruit of\nOriental mysticism and bardic fervor grafted upon the shrewd,\nparsimonious, New England puritanic stock. The stress and wild,\nuncertain melody of his poetry is like that of the wind-harp. No\nwriting surpasses his in the extent to which it takes hold of the\nconcrete, the real, the familiar, and none surpasses his in its\nelusive, mystical suggestiveness, and its cryptic character. It is\nYankee wit and shrewdness on one side, and Oriental devoutness,\npantheism, and symbolism on the other. Its cheerful and sunny light of\nthe common day enhances instead of obscures the light that falls from\nthe highest heaven of the spirit. Saadi or Hafiz or Omar might have\nfathered him, but only a New England mother could have borne him.\nProbably more than half his poetry escapes the average reader; his\nlonger poems, like \"Initial, Daemonic, and Celestial Love,\" \"Monadnoc,\"\n\"Merlin,\" \"The Sphinx,\" \"The World-Soul,\" set the mind groping for the\ninvisible rays of the spectrum of human thought and knowledge, but\nmany of the shorter poems, such as \"The Problem,\" \"Each and All,\"\n\"Sea-Shore,\" \"The Snow-Storm,\" \"Musketaquid,\" \"Days,\" \"Song of\nNature,\" \"My Garden,\" \"Boston Hymn,\" \"Concord Hymn,\" and others, are\namong the most precious things in our literature.\n\nAs Emerson was a bard among poets, a seer among philosophers, a\nprophet among essayists, an oracle among ethical teachers, so, as I\nhave said, was he a solitary among men. He walked alone. He somewhere\nrefers to his \"porcupine impossibility of contact with men.\" His very\nthoughts are not social among themselves, they separate. Each stands\nalone; often they hardly have a bowing acquaintance; over and over\ntheir juxtaposition is mechanical and not vital. The redeeming feature\nis that they can afford to stand alone, like shafts of marble or\ngranite.\n\nThe force and worth of his page is not in its logical texture, but in\nthe beauty and truth of its isolated sentences and paragraphs. There\nis little inductive or deductive reasoning in his books, but a series\nof affirmations whose premises and logical connection the reader does\nnot always see.\n\nHe records that his hearers found his lectures fine and poetical but a\nlittle puzzling. \"One thought them as good as a kaleidoscope.\" The\nsolid men of business said that they did not understand them but their\ndaughters did.\n\nThe lecture committee in Illinois in 1856 told him that the people\nwanted a hearty laugh. \"The stout Illinoian,\" not finding the laugh,\n\"after a short trial walks out of the hall.\" I think even his best\nEastern audiences were always a good deal puzzled. The lecturer never\ntried to meet them halfway. He says himself of one of his lectures, \"I\nfound when I had finished my new lecture that it was a very good\nhouse, only the architect had unfortunately omitted the stairs.\" The\nabsence of the stairs in his house--of an easy entrance into the\nheart of the subject, and of a few consecutive and leading\nideas--will, in a measure, account for the bewilderment of his\nhearers. When I heard Emerson in 1871 before audiences in Baltimore\nand Washington, I could see and feel this uncertainty and bewilderment\nin his auditors.\n\nHis lectures could not be briefly summarized. They had no central\nthought. You could give a sample sentence, but not the one sentence\nthat commanded all the others. Whatever he called it, his theme, as he\nhimself confesses, was always fundamentally the same: \"In all my\nlectures I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the\nprivate man. This the people accept readily enough and even with loud\ncommendations as long as I call the lecture Art or Politics, or\nLiterature, or the Household, but the moment I call it Religion they\nare shocked, though it be only the application of the same truth which\nthey receive everywhere else to a new class of facts.\"\n\nEmerson's supreme test of a man, after all other points had been\nconsidered, was the religious test: Was he truly religious? Was his\npole star the moral law? Was the sense of the Infinite ever with him?\nBut few contemporary authors met his requirements in this respect.\nAfter his first visit abroad, when he saw Carlyle, Landor, Coleridge,\nWordsworth, and others, he said they were all second-or third-rate men\nbecause of their want of the religious sense. They all looked\nbackward to a religion of other ages, and had no faith in a present\nrevelation.\n\nHis conception of the divine will as _the eternal tendency to the good\nof the whole, active in every atom, every moment_, is one of the\nthoughts in which religion and science meet and join hands.\n\nIII\n\nIn Emerson's Journal one sees the Emersonian worlds in their\nmaking--the essays, the addresses, the poems. Here are the nebulae and\nstar-dust out of which most of them came, or in which their suggestion\nlies. Now and then there is quite as good stuff as is found in his\nprinted volumes, pages and paragraphs from the same high heaven of\naesthetic emotion. The poetic fragments and wholes are less promising,\nI think, than the prose; they are evidently more experimental, and\nshow the 'prentice hand more.\n\nThe themes around which his mind revolved all his life--nature, God,\nthe soul--and their endless variations and implications, recur again\nand again in each of the ten printed volumes of the Journals. He has\nnew thoughts on Character, Self-Reliance, Heroism, Manners,\nExperience, Nature, Immortality, and scores of other related subjects\nevery day, and he presents them in new connections and with new\nimages. His mind had marked centrality, and fundamental problems were\nalways near at hand with him. He could not get away from them. He\nrenounced the pulpit and the creeds, not because religion meant less\nto him, but because it meant more. The religious sentiment, the\nfeeling of the Infinite, was as the sky over his head, and the earth\nunder his feet.\n\nThe whole stream of Emerson's mental life apparently flowed through\nhis Journals. They were the repository of all his thoughts, all his\nspeculations, all his mental and spiritual experiences. What a\n_melange_ they are! Wise sayings from his wide reading, from\nintercourse with men, private and public, sayings from his farmer\nneighbors, anecdotes, accounts of his travels, or his walks, solitary\nor in the company of Channing, Hawthorne, or Thoreau, his gropings\nafter spiritual truths, and a hundred other things, are always marked\nby what he says that Macaulay did not possess--elevation of mind--and\nan abiding love for the real values in life and letters.\n\nHere is the prose origin of \"Days\": \"The days come and go like muffled\nand veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say\nnothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as\nsilently away.\" In this brief May entry we probably see the inception\nof the \"Humble-Bee\" poem: \"Yesterday in the woods I followed the fine\nhumble bee with rhymes and fancies free.\"\n\nNow and then we come upon the germ of other poems in his prose. Here\nis a hint of \"Each and All\" in a page written at the age of\nthirty-one: \"The shepherd or the beggar in his red cloak little knows\nwhat a charm he gives to the wide landscape that charms you on the\nmountain-top and whereof he makes the most agreeable feature, and I no\nmore the part my individuality plays in the All.\" The poem, his reader\nwill remember, begins in this wise:\n\n    \"Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown\n    Of thee from the hilltop looking down.\"\n\nIn a prose sentence written in 1835 he says: \"Nothing is beautiful\nalone. Nothing but is beautiful in the whole.\" In the poem above\nreferred to this becomes:\n\n    \"All are needed by each one;\n    Nothing is fair or good alone.\"\n\nIn 1856 we find the first stanza of his 'beautiful \"Two Rivers,\"\nwritten in prose form: \"Thy voice is sweet, Musketaquid; repeats the\nmusic of the rain; but sweeter rivers silent flit through thee as\nthose through Concord plain.\" The substance of the next four stanzas\nis in prose form also: \"Thou art shut in thy banks; but the stream I\nlove, flows in thy water, and flows through rocks and through the air,\nand through darkness, and through men, and women. I hear and see the\ninundation and eternal spending of the stream, in winter and in\nsummer, in men and animals, in passion and thought. Happy are they who\ncan hear it\"; and so on. In the poem these sentences become:\n\n    \"Thou in thy narrow banks are pent:\n    The stream I love unbounded goes\n    Through flood and sea and firmament;\n    Through light, through life, it forward flows.\n\n    \"I see the inundation sweet,\n    I hear the spending of the stream\n    Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,\n    Through love and thought, through power and dream.\"\n\nIt is evident that Emerson was a severe critic of his own work. He\nknew when he had struck fire, and he knew when he had failed. He was\nas exacting with himself as with others. His conception of the\ncharacter and function of the poet was so high that he found the\ngreatest poets wanting. The poet is one of his three or four\never-recurring themes. He is the divine man. He is bard and prophet,\nseer and savior. He is the acme of human attainment. Verse devoid of\ninsight into the method of nature, and devoid of religious emotion,\nwas to him but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. He called Poe\n\"the jingle man\" because he was a mere conjurer with words. The\nintellectual content of Poe's works _was_ negligible. He was a wizard\nwith words and measures, but a pauper in ideas. He did not add to our\nknowledge, he did not add to our love of anything in nature or in\nlife, he did not contribute to our contentment in the world--the\nbread of life was not in him. What was in him was mastery over the\narchitectonics of verse. Emerson saw little in Shelley for the same\nreason, but much in Herbert and Donne. Religion, in his sense of the\nterm,--the deep sea into which the streams of all human thought\nempty,--was his final test of any man. Unless there was something\nfundamental about him, something that savored of the primordial deep\nof the universal spirit, he remained unmoved. The elemental azure of\nthe great bodies of water is suggestive of the tone and hue Emerson\ndemanded in great poetry. He found but little of it in the men of his\ntime: practically none in the contemporary poets of New England. It\nwas probably something of this pristine quality that arrested\nEmerson's attention in Walt Whitman's \"Leaves of Grass.\" He saw in it\n\"the Appalachian enlargement of outline and treatment for service to\nAmerican literature.\"\n\nEmerson said of himself: \"I am a natural reader, and only a writer in\nthe absence of natural writers. In a true time I should never have\nwritten.\" We must set this statement down to one of those fits of\ndissatisfaction with himself, those negative moods that often came\nupon him. What he meant by a true time is very obscure. In an earlier\nage he would doubtless have remained a preacher, like his father and\ngrandfather, but coming under the influence of Goethe, Carlyle, and\nWordsworth, and other liberating influences of the nineteenth century,\nhe was bound to be a writer. When he was but twenty-one he speaks of\nhis immoderate fondness for writing. Writing was the passion of his\nlife, his supreme joy, and he went through the world with the writer's\neye and ear and hand always on duty. And his contribution to the\nliterature of man's higher moral and aesthetic nature is one of the\nmost valuable of the age in which he lived.\n\nIV\n\nApart from the account of his travels and other personal experiences,\nthe Journals are mainly made up of discussions of upwards of fifty\nsubjects of general and fundamental interest, ranging from art to war,\nand looked at from many and diverse points of view. Of these subjects\nthree are dominant, recurring again and again in each volume. These\nare nature, literature, and religion. Emerson's main interests\ncentered in these themes. Using these terms in their broadest sense,\nthis is true, I think, of all his published books. Emerson was an\nidealist, first, last, and all the time, and he was a literary artist,\nor aimed to be, first, last, and all the time, and in the same measure\nand to the same extent was he a devout religious soul, using the term\nreligion as he sometimes uses it, as a feeling of the Infinite.\n\nThere are one hundred and seventy-six paragraphs, long and short,\ngiven to literature and art, and one hundred and sixty given to\nreligious subjects, and over thirty given to nature. It is interesting\nto note that he devotes more paragraphs to woman than to man; and more\nto society than to solitude, though only to express his dislike of the\nformer and his love for the latter. There are more thoughts about\nscience than about metaphysics, more about war than about love, more\nabout poetry than about philosophy, more on beauty than on knowledge,\nmore on walking than on books. There are three times as many\nparagraphs on nature (thirty-three) as on the Bible, all of which is\nsignificant of his attitude of mind.\n\nEmerson was a preacher without a creed, a scholar devoted to\nsuper-literary ends, an essayist occupied with thoughts of God, the\nsoul, nature, the moral law--always the literary artist looking for\nthe right word, the right image, but always bending his art to the\nservice of religious thought. He was one of the most religious souls\nof his country and time, or of any country and time, yet was disowned\nby all the sects and churches of his time. He made religion too\npervasive, and too inclusive to suit them; the stream at once got out\nof its banks and inundated all their old landmarks. In the last\nanalysis of his thought, his ultimate theme was God, and yet he never\nallowed himself to attempt any definite statement about God--refusing\nalways to discuss God in terms of human personality. When Emerson\nwrote \"Representative Men\" he felt that Jesus was the Representative\nMan whom he ought to sketch, \"but the task required great\ngifts--steadiest insight and perfect temper; else the consciousness of\nwant of sympathy in the audience would make one petulant and sore in\nspite of himself.\"\n\nThere are few great men in history or philosophy or literature or\npoetry or divinity whose names do not appear more or less frequently\nin the Journals. For instance, in the Journal of 1864 the names or\nworks of one hundred and seventeen men appear, ranging from Zeno to\nJones Very. And this is a fair average. Of course the names of his\nfriends and contemporaries appear the most frequently. The name that\nrecurs the most often is that of his friend and neighbor Thoreau.\nThere are ninety-seven paragraphs in which the Hermit of Walden is the\nmain or the secondary figure. He discusses him and criticizes him, and\nquotes from him, always showing an abiding interest in, and affection\nfor, him. Thoreau was in so many ways so characteristically Emersonian\nthat one wonders what influence it was in the place or time that gave\nthem both, with their disparity of ages, so nearly the same stamp.\nEmerson is by far the more imposing figure, the broader, the wiser,\nthe more tolerant, the more representative; he stood four-square to\nthe world in a sense that Thoreau did not. Thoreau presented a pretty\nthin edge to the world. If he stood broadside to anything, it was to\nnature. He was undoubtedly deeply and permanently influenced by\nEmerson both in his mental habits and in his manner of life, yet the\nmain part of him was original and unadulterated Thoreau. His literary\nstyle is in many respects better than that of Emerson; its logical\ntexture is better; it has more continuity, more evolution, it is more\nflexible and adaptive; it is the medium of a lesser mind, but of a\nmind more thoroughly imbued with the influence of the classical\nstandards of modern literature. I believe \"Walden\" will last as long\nas anything Emerson has written, if not longer. It is the fruit of a\nsweeter solitude and detachment from the world than Emerson ever knew,\na private view of nature, and has a fireside and campside quality that\nessays fashioned for the lecture platform do not have. Emerson's pages\nare more like mosaics, richly inlaid with gems of thought and poetry\nand philosophy, while Thoreau's are more like a closely woven,\nmany-colored textile.\n\nThoreau's \"Maine Woods\" I look upon as one of the best books of the\nkind in English literature. It has just the right tone and quality,\nlike Dana's \"Two Years Before the Mast\"--a tone and quality that\nsometimes come to a man when he makes less effort to write than to\nsee and feel truly. He does not aim to exploit the woods, but to live\nwith them and possess himself of their spirit. The Cape Cod book also\nhas a similar merit; it almost leaves a taste of the salt sea spray\nupon your lips. Emerson criticizes Thoreau freely, and justly, I\nthink. As a person he lacked sweetness and winsomeness; as a writer he\nwas at times given to a meaningless exaggeration.\n\n     Henry Thoreau sends me a paper with the old fault of\n     unlimited contradiction. The trick of his rhetoric is soon\n     learned: it consists in substituting for the obvious word\n     and thought its diametrical antagonist. He praises wild\n     mountains and winter forests for their domestic air; snow\n     and ice for their warmth; villagers and wood-choppers for\n     their urbanity, and the wilderness for resembling Rome and\n     Paris. With the constant inclination to dispraise cities and\n     civilization, he yet can find no way to know woods and\n     woodmen except by paralleling them with towns and townsmen.\n     Channing declared the piece is excellent: but it makes me\n     nervous and wretched to read it, with all its merits.\n\n     I told Henry Thoreau that his freedom is in the form, but he\n     does not disclose new matter. I am very familiar with all\n     his thoughts,--they are my own quite originally drest. But\n     if the question be, what new ideas has he thrown into\n     circulation, he has not yet told what that is which he was\n     created to say. I said to him what I often feel, I only know\n     three persons who seem to me fully to see this law of\n     reciprocity or compensation--himself, Alcott, and myself:\n     and 't is odd that we should all be neighbors, for in the\n     wide land or the wide earth I do not know another who seems\n     to have it as deeply and originally as these three\n     Gothamites.\n\nA remark of Emerson's upon Thoreau calls up the image of John Muir to\nme: \"If I knew only Thoreau, I should think cooeperation of good men\nimpossible. Must we always talk for victory, and never once for truth,\nfor comfort, and joy?\" Then, after crediting Thoreau with some\nadmirable gifts,--centrality, penetration, strong understanding,--he\nproceeds to say, \"all his resources of wit and invention are lost to\nme, in every experiment, year after year, that I make to hold\nintercourse with his mind. Always some weary captious paradox to fight\nyou with, and the time and temper wasted.\"\n\nEmerson met John Muir in the Yosemite in 1871 and was evidently\nimpressed with him. Somewhere he gives a list of his men which begins\nwith Carlyle and ends with Muir. Here was another man with more\ncharacter than intellect, as Emerson said of Carlyle, and with the\nflavor of the wild about him. Muir was not too compliant and\ndeferential. He belonged to the sayers of No. Contradiction was the\nbreath of his nostrils. He had the Scottish chariness of bestowing\npraise or approval, and could surely give Emerson the sense of being\n_met_ which he demanded. Writing was irksome to Muir as it was to\nCarlyle, but in monologue, in an attentive company, he shone; not a\ngreat thinker, but a mind strongly characteristic. His philosophy\nrarely rose above that of the Sunday school, but his moral fiber was\nvery strong, and his wit ready and keen. In conversation and in daily\nintercourse he was a man not easily put aside. Emerson found him\ndeeply read in nature lore and with some suggestion about his look and\nmanner of the wild and rugged solitude in which he lived so much.\n\nEmerson was alive to everything around him; every object touched some\nspring in his mind; the church spire, the shadows on the windows at\nnight, the little girl with her pail of whortleberries, the passing\nbee, bird, butterfly, the clouds, the streams, the trees--all found\nhis mind open to any suggestion they might make. He is intent on the\nnow and the here. He listens to every newcomer with an expectant air.\nHe is full of the present. I once saw him at West Point during the\nJune examinations. How alert and eager he was! The bored and\nperfunctory air of his fellow members on the Board of Visitors\ncontrasted sharply with his active, expectant interest.\n\nV\n\nHe lived absolutely in his own day and generation, and no contemporary\nwriter of real worth escaped his notice. He is never lavish in his\npraise, but is for the most part just and discriminating. Walt\nWhitman is mentioned only thrice in the Journals, Lowell only twice,\nLongfellow once or twice, Matthew Arnold three times, but Jones Very\nis quoted and discussed sixteen times. Very was a poet who had no fast\ncolors; he has quite faded out in our day.\n\nOf Matthew Arnold Emerson says: \"I should like to call attention to\nthe critical superiority of Arnold, his excellent ear for style, and\nthe singular poverty of his poetry, that in fact he has written but\none poem, 'Thyrsis,' and that on an inspiration borrowed from Milton.\"\nFew good readers, I think, will agree with Emerson about the poverty\nof Arnold's poetry. His \"Dover Beach\" is one of the first-rate poems\nin English literature. Emerson has words of praise for Lowell--thinks\nthe production of such a man \"a certificate of good elements in the\nsoil, climate, and institutions of America,\" but in 1868 he declares\nthat his new poems show an advance \"in talent rather than in poetic\ntone\"; that the advance \"rather expresses his wish, his ambition, than\nthe uncontrollable interior impulse which is the authentic mark of a\nnew poem, and which is unanalysable, and makes the merit of an ode of\nCollins, or Gray, or Wordsworth, or Herbert, or Byron.\" He evidently\nthought little of Lowell's severe arraignment of him in a college poem\nwhich he wrote soon after the delivery of the famous \"Divinity School\nAddress.\" The current of religious feeling in Cambridge set so\nstrongly against Emerson for several years that Lowell doubtless\nmerely reflected it. Why did he not try to deflect it, or to check it?\nAnd yet, when Emerson's friends did try to defend him, it was against\nhis will. He hated to be defended in a newspaper: \"As long as all that\nis said is against me I feel a certain austere assurance of success,\nbut as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one\nthat lies unprotected before his enemies.\"\n\nNext to Thoreau, Emerson devotes to Alcott more space in his Journals\nthan to any other man. It is all telling interpretation, description,\nand criticism. Truly, Alcott must have had some extraordinary power to\nhave made such a lasting impression upon Emerson. When my friend Myron\nBenton and I first met Emerson in 1863 at West Point, Emerson spoke of\nAlcott very pointedly, and said we should never miss a chance to hear\nhis conversation, but that when he put pen to paper all his\ninspiration left him. His thoughts faded as soon as he tried to set\nthem down. There must have been some curious illusion about it all on\nthe part of Emerson, as no fragment of Alcott's wonderful talk worth\npreserving has come down to us. The waters of the sea are blue, but\nnot in the pailful. There must have been something analogous in\nAlcott's conversations, some total effect which the details do not\njustify, or something in the atmosphere which he created, that gave\ncertain of his hearers the conviction that they were voyaging with him\nthrough the celestial depths.\n\nIt was a curious fact that Alcott \"could not recall one word or part\nof his own conversation, or of any one's, let the expression be never\nso happy.\" And he seems to have hypnotized Emerson in the same way.\n\"He made here some majestic utterances, but so inspired me that even I\nforgot the words often.\" \"Olympian dreams,\" Emerson calls his\ntalk--moonshine, it appears at this distance.\n\n\"His discourse soars to a wonderful height,\" says Emerson, \"so\nregular, so lucid, so playful, so new and disdainful of all boundaries\nof tradition and experience, that the hearers seem no longer to have\nbodies or material gravity, but almost they can mount into the air at\npleasure, or leap at one bound out of this poor solar system. I say\nthis of his speech exclusively, for when he attempts to write, he\nloses, in my judgment, all his power, and I derive more pain than\npleasure from the perusal.\" Some illusion surely that made the effort\nto report him like an attempt to capture the rainbow, only to find it\ncommon water.\n\nIn 1842 Emerson devotes eight pages in his Journal to an analysis of\nAlcott, and very masterly they are. He ends with these sentences:\n\"This noble genius discredits genius to me. I do not want any more\nsuch persons to exist.\"\n\n\"When Alcott wrote from England that he was bringing home Wright and\nLane, I wrote him a letter which I required him to show them, saying\nthat they might safely trust his theories, but that they should put no\ntrust whatever in his statement of facts. When they all arrived\nhere--he and his victims--I asked them if he showed them the letter;\nthey answered that he did; so I was clear.\"\n\nAnother neighbor who greatly impressed Emerson, and of whom he has\nmuch to say, was Father Taylor, the sailor preacher of Boston. There\nis nothing better in the Journals than the pages devoted to\ndescription and analysis of this remarkable man. To Emerson he\nsuggested the wealth of Nature. He calls him a \"godly poet, the\nShakespear of the sailor and the poor.\" \"I delight in his great\npersonality, the way and sweep of the man which, like a frigate's way,\ntakes up for the time the centre of the ocean, paves it with a white\nstreet, and all the lesser craft 'do curtsey to him, do him\nreverence.'\" A man all emotion, all love, all inspiration, but, like\nAlcott, impossible to justify your high estimate of by any quotation.\nHis power was all personal living power, and could not be transferred\nto print. The livid embers of his discourse became dead charcoal when\nreported by another, or, as Emerson more happily puts it, \"A creature\nof instinct, his colors are all opaline and dove's-neck-lustre and can\nonly be seen at a distance. Examine them, and they disappear.\" More\nexactly they are visible only at a certain angle. Of course this is in\na measure true of all great oratory--it is not so much the words as\nthe man.\n\nSpeaking of Father Taylor in connection with Alcott, Emerson says that\none was the fool of his ideas, and the other of his fancy.\n\nAn intellectual child of Emerson's was Ellery Channing, but he seems\nto have inherited in an exaggerated form only the faults of his\nfather. Channing appears to have been a crotchety, disgruntled person,\nalways aiming at walking on his head instead of on his heels. Emerson\nquotes many of his sayings, not one of them worth preserving, all\nmarked by a kind of violence and disjointedness. They had many walks\ntogether.\n\nEmerson was so fond of paradoxes and extreme statements that both\nChanning and Thoreau seem to have vied with each other in uttering\nhard or capricious sayings when in his presence. Emerson catches at a\nvivid and picturesque statement, if it has even a fraction of truth in\nit, like a fly-catcher at a fly.\n\nA fair sample of Channing's philosophy is the following: \"He persists\nin his bad opinion of orchards and farming, declares that the only\nsuccess he ever had with a farmer was that he once paid a cent for a\nrusset apple; and farming, he thinks, is an attempt to outwit God with\na hoe; that they plant a great many potatoes with much ado, but it is\ndoubtful if they ever get the seed back.\" Channing seems to have\ndropped such pearls of wisdom as that all along the road in their\nwalks! Another sample of Channing's philosophy which Emerson thinks\nworthy of quoting. They were walking over the fields in November.\nChanning complained of the poverty of invention on the part of Nature:\n\"'Why, they had frozen water last year; why should they do it again?\nTherefore it was so easy to be an artist, because _they_ do the same\nthing always,' and therefore he only wants time to make him perfect in\nthe imitation.\"\n\nVI\n\nEmerson was occupied entirely with the future, as Carlyle was occupied\nentirely with the past. Emerson shared the open expectation of the new\nworld, Carlyle struggled under the gloom and pessimism of the old--a\ngreater character, but a far less lambent and helpful spirit. Emerson\nseems to have been obsessed with the idea that a new and greater man\nwas to appear. He looked into the face of every newcomer with an\nearnest, expectant air, as if he might prove to be the new man: this\nthought inspires the last stanzas of his \"Song of Nature\":\n\n    \"Let war and trade and creeds and song\n    Blend, ripen race on race,\n    The sunburnt world a man shall breed\n    Of all the zones and countless days.\n\n    \"No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,\n    My oldest force is good as new,\n    And the fresh rose on yonder thorn\n    Gives back the bending heavens in dew.\"\n\nEmerson was under no illusion as to the effect of distance. He knew\nthe past was once the present, and that if it seemed to be transformed\nand to rise into cloud-land behind us, it was only the enchantment of\ndistance--an enchantment which men have been under in all ages. The\neveryday, the near-at-hand, become prosaic; there is no room for the\nalchemy of time and space to work in. It has been said that all\nmartyrdoms looked mean in the suffering. Holy ground is not holy when\nwe walk upon it. The now and the here seem cheap and commonplace.\nEmerson knew that \"a score of airy miles will smooth rough Monadnoc to\na gem,\" but he knew also that it would not change the character of\nMonadnoc. He knew that the past and the present, the near and the far,\nwere made of one stuff. He united the courage of science with the\nsensibility of poetry. He would not be defrauded of the value of the\npresent hour, or of the thoughts which he and other men think, or of\nthe lives which they live to-day. \"I will tell you how you can enrich\nme--if you will recommend to-day to me.\" His doctrine of\nself-reliance, which he preached in season and out of season, was\nbased upon the conviction that Nature and the soul do not become old\nand outworn, that the great characters and great thoughts of the past\nwere the achievements of men who trusted themselves before custom or\nlaw. The sun shines to-day; the constellations hang there in the\nheavens the same as of old. God is as near us as ever He was--why\nshould we take our revelations at second hand? No other writer who has\nused the English language has ever preached such a heroic doctrine of\nself-trust, or set the present moment so high in the circle of the\nyears, in the diadem of the days.\n\nIt is an old charge against Emerson that he was deficient in human\nsympathy. He makes it against himself; the ties of association which\nmost persons find so binding seemed to hold him very lightly. There\nwas always a previous question with him--the moral value of one's\nassociations. Unless you sicken and die to some purpose, why such an\nado about it? Unless the old ruin of a house harbored great men and\ngreat women, or was the scene of heroic deeds, why linger around it?\nThe purely human did not appeal to him; history interested him only as\nit threw light upon to-day. History is a record of the universal mind;\nhence of your mind, of my mind--\"all the facts of history preexist in\nthe mind as laws.\" \"What Plato thought, every man may think. What a\nsaint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he\ncan understand.\" \"All that Shakespear says of the king, yonder slip of\na boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself\"; and so\non, seeing in history only biography, and interested in the past only\nas he can link it with the present. Always an intellectual interest,\nnever a human or an emotional one. His Journal does not reveal him\ngoing back to the old places, or lingering fondly over the memories of\nhis youth. He speaks of his \"unpleasing boyhood,\" of his unhappy\nrecollections, etc., not because of unkindness or hardships\nexperienced, but because of certain shortcomings or deficiencies of\ncharacter and purpose, of which he is conscious--\"some meanness,\" or\n\"unfounded pride\" which may lower him in the opinion of others. Pride,\nsurely, but not ignoble pride.\n\nEmerson's expectation of the great poet, the great man, is voiced in\nhis \"Representative Men\": \"If the companions of our childhood should\nturn out to be heroes, and their condition regal, it would not\nsurprise us.\" On the contrary, I think it would surprise most of us\nvery much. It is from the remote, the unfamiliar, that we expect great\nthings. We have no illusions about the near-at-hand. But with Emerson\nthe contrary seems to have been the case. He met the new person or\ntook up the new volume with a thrill of expectancy, a condition of\nmind which often led him to exaggerate the fact, and to give an undue\nbias in favor of the novel, the audacious, the revolutionary. His\noptimism carried him to great lengths. Many of the new stars in his\nliterary firmament have quite faded out--all of them, I think, but\nWalt Whitman. It was mainly because he was so full of faith in the\ncoming man that he gave, offhand, such a tremendous welcome to \"Leaves\nof Grass\"--a welcome that cooled somewhat later, when he found he had\ngot so much more of the unconventional and the self-reliant than he\nhad bargained for. I remember that when I spoke of Walt Whitman to him\nin Washington in 1871 or '72, he said he wished Whitman's friends\nwould \"quarrel\" with him more about his poems, as some years earlier\nhe himself had done, on the occasion when he and Whitman walked for\nhours on Boston Common, he remonstrating with Whitman about certain\npassages in \"Leaves of Grass\" which he tried in vain to persuade him\nto omit in the next edition. Whitman would persist in being Whitman.\nNow, counseling such a course to a man in an essay on \"Self-Reliance\"\nis quite a different thing from entirely approving of it in a concrete\nexample.\n\nIn 1840 Emerson writes: \"A notice of modern literature ought to\ninclude (ought it not?) a notice of Carlyle, of Tennyson, of Landor,\nof Bettina, of Sampson Reed.\" The first three names surely, but who\nis Bettina, the girl correspondent of Goethe, that she should go in\nsuch a list? Reed, we learn, was a Boston bank clerk, and a\nSwedenborgian, who wrote a book on the growth of the mind, from which\nEmerson quotes, and to which he often alludes, a book that has long\nbeen forgotten; and is not Bettina forgotten also?\n\nEmerson found more in Jones Very than has any one else; the poems of\nVery that he included in \"Parnassus\" have little worth. A\ncomparatively unknown and now forgotten English writer also moved\nEmerson unduly. Listen to this: \"In England, Landor, De Quincey,\nCarlyle, three men of original literary genius; but the scholar, the\ncatholic, cosmic intellect, Bacon's own son, the Lord Chief Justice on\nthe Muse's Bench is\"--who do you think, in 1847?--\"Wilkinson\"! Garth\nWilkinson, who wrote a book on the human body. Emerson says of him in\n\"English Traits\": \"There is in the action of his mind a long Atlantic\nroll, not known except in deepest waters, and only lacking what ought\nto accompany such powers, a manifest centrality.\" To bid a man's stock\nup like that may not, in the long run, be good for the man, but it\nshows what a generous, optimistic critic Emerson was.\n\nVII\n\nIn his published works Emerson is chary of the personal element; he\nsays: \"We can hardly speak of our own experiences and the names of\nour friends sparingly enough.\" In his books he would be only an\nimpersonal voice; the man Emerson, as such, he hesitated to intrude.\nBut in the Journals we get much more of the personal element, as would\nbe expected. We get welcome glimpses of the man, of his moods, of his\ndiversions, of his home occupations, of his self-criticism. We see him\nas a host, as a lecturer, as a gardener, as a member of a rural\ncommunity. We see him in his walks and talks with friends and\nneighbors--with Alcott, Thoreau, Channing, Jones Very, Hawthorne, and\nothers--and get snatches of the conversations. We see the growth of\nhis mind, his gradual emancipation from the bondage of the orthodox\ntraditions.\n\nVery welcome is the growth of Emerson's appreciation of Wordsworth. As\na divinity student he was severe in his criticism of Wordsworth, but\nas his own genius unfolded more and more he saw the greatness of\nWordsworth, till in middle life he pronounced his famous Ode the\nhigh-water mark of English literature. Yet after that his fondness for\na telling, picturesque figure allows him to inquire if Wordsworth is\nnot like a bell with a wooden tongue. All this is an admirable\nillustration of his familiar dictum: \"Speak what you think now in hard\nwords, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again,\nthough it contradict everything you say to-day.\"\n\nIn the Journals we see Emerson going up and down the country in his\nwalks, on his lecture tours in the West, among his neighbors, wherever\nand whenever he goes as alert and watchful as a sportsman. He was a\nsportsman of a new kind; his game was ideas. He was always looking for\nhints and images to aid him in his writings. He was like a bird\nperpetually building a nest; every moment he wanted new material, and\neverything that diverted him from his quest was an unwelcome\ninterruption. He had no great argument to build, no system of\nphilosophy to organize and formulate, no plot, like a novelist, to\nwork out, no controversy on hand--he wanted pertinent, concrete, and\nstriking facts and incidents to weave in his essay on Fate, or\nCircles, or Character, or Farming, or Worship, or Wealth--something\nthat his intuitive and disjointed habit of thought could seize upon\nand make instant use of.\n\nWe see him walking in free converse with his friends and neighbors,\nreceiving them in his own house, friendly and expectant, but always\nstanding aloof, never giving himself heartily to them, exchanging\nideas with them across a gulf, prizing their wit and their wisdom, but\ncold and reserved toward them personally, destitute of all feeling of\ncomradeship, an eye, an ear, a voice, an intellect, but rarely, or in\na minor degree, a heart, or a feeling of fellowship--a giving and a\ntaking quite above and beyond the reach of articulate speech. When\nthey had had their say, he was done with them. When you have found a\nman's limitations, he says, it is all up with him. After your friend\nhas fired his shot, good-by. The pearl in the oyster is what is\nwanted, and not the oyster. \"If I love you, what is that to you?\" is a\nsaying that could have been coined only in Concord. It seems to me\nthat the basis of all wholesome human attachment is character, not\nintellect. Admiration and love are quite different things.\nTranscendental friendships seem to be cold, bloodless affairs.\n\nOne feels as if he wanted to squeeze or shake Emerson to see if he\ncannot get some normal human love out of him, a love that looks for\nnothing beyond love, a love which is its own excuse for being, a love\nthat is not a bargain--simple, common, disinterested human love. But\nEmerson said, \"I like man but not men.\"\n\n\"You would have me love you,\" he writes in his Journal. \"What shall I\nlove? Your body? The supposition disgusts you. What you have thought\nand said? Well, whilst you were thinking and saying them, but not now.\nI see no possibility of loving anything but what now is, and is\nbecoming; your courage, your enterprise, your budding affection, your\nopening thought, your prayer, I can love--but what else?\"\n\nCan you not love your friend for himself alone, for his kinship with\nyou, without taking an inventory of his moral and intellectual\nqualities; for something in him that makes you happy in his presence?\nThe personal attraction which Whitman felt between himself and certain\ntypes of men, and which is the basis of most manly friendships,\nEmerson probably never felt. One cannot conceive of him as caring\ndeeply for any person who could not teach him something. He says, \"I\nspeculate on virtue, not burn with love.\" Again, \"A rush of thoughts\nis the only conceivable prosperity that can come to me.\" Pure\nintellectual values seem alone to have counted with Emerson and his\nfollowers. With men his question was, \"What can you teach me?\" With\nNature, \"What new image or suggestion have you got for me to-day?\"\nWith science, \"What ethical value do your facts hold?\" With natural\nhistory, \"Can I translate your facts and laws into my supernatural\nhistory?\" With civil history, \"Will your record help me to understand\nmy own day and land?\" The quintessence of things was what he always\nsought.\n\n\"We cannot forgive another for not being ourselves,\" Emerson wrote in\n1842, and then added, \"We lose time in trying to be like others.\" One\nis reminded of passages in the Emerson-Carlyle correspondence, wherein\neach tried to persuade the other to be like himself. Carlyle would\nhave Emerson \"become concrete and write in prose the straightest\nway,\" would have him come down from his \"perilous altitude,\"\n\"soliloquizing on the eternal mountain-tops only, in vast solitude,\nwhere men and their affairs lie all hushed in a very dim remoteness\nand only _the man_ and the stars and the earth are visible--come down\ninto your own poor Nineteenth Century, its follies, its maladies, its\nblind, or half-blind but gigantic toilings, its laughter and its\ntears, and try to evolve in some measure the hidden God-like that lies\nin it.\" \"I wish you would take an American hero, one whom you really\nlove, and give us a History of him--make an artistic bronze statue (in\ngood words) of his Life and him!\" Emerson's reply in effect is,\nCremate your heroes and give me their ashes--give me \"the culled\nresults, the quintessence of private conviction, a _liber veritatis_,\na few sentences, hints of the final moral you draw from so much\npenetrating inquest into past and present men.\"\n\nIn reply to Carlyle's criticism of the remote and abstract character\nof his work, Emerson says, \"What you say now and heretofore respecting\nthe remoteness of my writing and thinking from real life, though I\nhear substantially the same criticism made by my countrymen, I do not\nknow what it means. If I can at any time express the law and the ideal\nright, that should satisfy me without measuring the divergence from it\nof the last act of Congress.\"\n\nVIII\n\nEmerson's love of nature was one of his ruling passions. It took him\nto the country to live, it led him to purchase Walden Pond and the\nWalden woods; it led him forth upon his almost daily walks, winter and\nsummer, to the fields and the woods. His was the love of the poet and\nthe idealist, of the man who communes with Nature, and finds a moral\nand an intellectual tonic in her works. The major part of his poetry\nis inspired by Nature. He complains of Tennyson's poetry that it has\nfew or no wood notes. His first book, \"Nature,\" is steeped in\nreligious and poetic emotion. He said in his Journal in 1841: \"All my\nthoughts are foresters. I have scarce a day-dream on which the breath\nof the pines has not blown, and their shadows waved. Shall I not then\ncall my little book Forest Essays?\" He finally called it \"Nature.\" He\nloves the \"hermit birds that harbor in the woods. I can do well for\nweeks with no other society than the partridge and the jay, my daily\ncompany.\"\n\n\"I have known myself entertained by a single dew-drop, or an icicle,\nby a liatris, or a fungus, and seen God revealed in the shadow of a\nleaf.\" He says that going to Nature is more than a medicine, it is\nhealth. \"As I walked in the woods I felt what I often feel, that\nnothing can befall me in life, no calamity, no disgrace (leaving me\nmy eyes) to which Nature will not offer a sweet consolation. Standing\non the bare ground with my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted\ninto the infinite space, I became happy in my universal relations.\"\nThis sentiment of his also recalls his lines:\n\n    \"A woodland walk,\n    A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush,\n    A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine,\n    Salve my worst wounds.\"\n\n     If life were long enough, among my thousand and one works\n     should be a book of Nature whereof Howitt's _Seasons_ should\n     not be so much the model as the parody. It should contain\n     the natural history of the woods around my shifting camp for\n     every month in the year. It should tie their astronomy,\n     botany, physiology, meteorology, picturesque, and poetry\n     together. No bird, no bug, no bud, should be forgotten on\n     his day and hour. To-day the chickadees, the robins,\n     bluebirds and song-sparrows sang to me. I dissected the buds\n     of the birch and the oak; in every one of the last is a\n     star. The crow sat above as idle as I below. The river\n     flowed brimful, and I philosophised upon this composite,\n     collective beauty which refuses to be analysed. Nothing is\n     beautiful alone. Nothing but is beautiful in the whole.\n     Learn the history of a craneberry. Mark the day when the\n     pine cones and acorns fall.\n\n     I go out daily and nightly to feed my eyes on the horizon\n     and the sky, and come to feel the want of this scope as I do\n     of water for my washing.\n\n     What learned I this morning in the woods, the oracular\n     woods? Wise are they, the ancient nymphs; pleasing, sober,\n     melancholy truth say those untameable savages, the pines.\n\nHe frequently went to Walden Pond of an afternoon and read Goethe or\nsome other great author.\n\nThere was an element of mysticism in Emerson's love of nature as there\nis in that of all true nature-lovers. None knew better than he that\nnature is not all birds and flowers. His love of nature was that of\nthe poet and artist, and not that of the scientist or naturalist.\n\n\"I tell you I love the peeping of the Hyla in a pond in April, or the\nevening cry of the whippoorwill, better than all the bellowing of all\nthe Bulls of Bashan, or all the turtles of all Palestine.\"\n\nAny personal details about his life which Emerson gives us are always\nwelcome. We learn that his different winter courses of lectures in\nBoston, usually ten of them, were attended on an average by about five\nhundred persons, and netted him about five hundred dollars.\n\nWhen he published a new volume, he was very liberal with presentation\ncopies. Of his first volume of poems, published in 1846, he sent\neighty copies to his friends. When \"May-Day\" was published in 1867, he\nsent fifty copies to friends; one of them went to Walt Whitman. I saw\nit the day it came. It was in a white dress (silk, I think); very\nbeautiful. He sent a copy of his first volume of \"Nature\" to Landor.\nOne would like to know what Landor said in reply. The copy he sent to\nCarlyle I saw in the Scot's library, in Cheyne Row, in 1871.\n\nIX\n\nEmerson was so drawn to the racy and original that it seems as if\noriginal sin had a certain fascination for him. The austere, the\nPuritanical Emerson, the heir of eight generations of clergy-men, the\nman who did not like to have Frederika Bremer play the piano in his\nhouse on Sunday, seems at times to covet the \"swear-words\" of the\ncommon people. They itch at his ears, they have flavor and reality. He\nsometimes records them in his Journal; for example, this remark of the\nCanadian wood-chopper who cut wood for his neighbor--he preferred to\nwork by the job rather than by the day--the days were \"so damned\nlong!\"\n\nThe mob, Emerson says, is always interesting: \"A blacksmith, a\ntruckman, a farmer, we follow into the bar-room and watch with\neagerness what they shall say.\" \"Cannot the stinging dialect of the\nsailor be domesticated?\" \"My page about Consistency would be better\nwritten, 'Damn Consistency.'\" But try to fancy Emerson swearing like\nthe men on the street! Once only he swore a sacred oath, and that he\nhimself records: it was called out by the famous, and infamous,\nFugitive Slave Law which made every Northern man hound and huntsman\nfor the Southern slave-driver. \"This filthy enactment,\" he says, \"was\nmade in the Nineteenth Century by men who could read and write. I will\nnot obey it, by God!\"\n\nEvidently the best thing the laboring people had to offer Emerson was\ntheir racy and characteristic speech. When one of his former neighbors\nsaid of an eclipse of the sun that it looked as if a \"nigger\" was\npoking his head into the sun, Emerson recorded it in his Journal. His\nson reports that Emerson enjoyed the talk of the stable-men and used\nto tell their anecdotes and boasts of their horses when he came home;\nfor example, \"In the stable you'd take him for a slouch, but lead him\nto the door, and when he lifts up his eyes, and looks abroad,--by\nthunder! you'd think the sky was all horse.\" Such surprises and\nexaggerations always attracted him, unless they took a turn that made\nhim laugh. He loved wit with the laugh taken out of it. The genial\nsmile and not uproarious laughter suited his mood best.\n\nHe was a lover of quiet, twinkling humor. Such humor gleams out often\nin his Journal. It gleams in this passage about Dr. Ripley: \"Dr.\nRipley prays for rain with great explicitness on Sunday, and on Monday\nthe showers fell. When I spoke of the speed with which his prayers\nwere answered, the good man looked modest.\" There is another\nprayer-for-rain story that he enjoys telling: \"Dr. Allyne, of Duxbury,\nprayed for rain, at church. In the afternoon the boys carried\numbrellas. 'Why?' 'Because you prayed for rain.' 'Pooh! boys! we\nalways pray for rain: it's customary.'\"\n\nAt West Point he asked a lieutenant if they had morning prayers at\ncollege. \"We have _reveille_ beat, which is the same thing.\"\n\nHe tells with relish the story of a German who went to hire a horse\nand chaise at a stable in Cambridge. \"Shall I put in a buffalo?\"\ninquired the livery-man. \"My God! no,\" cried the astonished German,\n\"put in a horse.\"\n\nEmerson, I am sure, takes pleasure in relating a characteristic story\nof Dr. Ripley and a thunder-shower: \"One August afternoon, when I was\nin the hayfield helping him with his man to rake up his hay, I well\nremember his pleading, almost reproachful looks at the sky when the\nthunder gust was coming up to spoil the hay. He raked very fast, then\nlooked at the clouds and said, 'We are in the Lord's hands, mind your\nrake, George! we are in the Lord's hands,' and seemed to say, 'You\nknow me, the field is mine--Dr. Ripley's--thine own servant.'\"\n\nThe stories Emerson delighted in were all rich in this quiet humor. I\nheard of one he used to tell about a man who, when he went to his club\nat night, often lingered too long over his cups, and came home\nbefuddled in the small hours, and was frequently hauled over the coals\nby his wife. One night he again came home late, and was greeted with\nthe usual upbraiding in the morning. \"It was not late,\" he said, \"it\nwas only one o'clock.\" \"It was much later than that,\" said the wife.\n\"It was one o'clock,\" repeated the man; \"I heard it strike one three\nor four times!\"\n\nAnother good Emersonian story, though I do not know that he ever heard\nit, is that of an old woman who had a farm in Indiana near the\nMichigan line. The line was resurveyed, and the authorities set her\nfarm in Michigan. The old lady protested--she said it was all she\ncould do to stand the winters of Indiana, she could never stand those\nof Michigan!\n\nCannot one see a twinkle in Emerson's eye when he quotes his wife as\nsaying that \"it is wicked to go to church on Sunday\"? Emerson's son\nrecords that his father hated to be made to laugh, as he could not\ncommand his face well. Hence he evidently notes with approval another\nremark of his wife's: \"A human being should beware how he laughs, for\nthen he shows all his faults.\" What he thought of the loud, surprising\nlaugh with which Carlyle often ended his bitter sentences, I do not\nknow that he records. Its meaning to Carlyle was evidently, \"Oh! what\ndoes it all matter?\" If Emerson himself did not smile when he wrote\nthe sentence about \"a maiden so pure that she exchanged glances only\nwith the stars,\" his reader, I am sure, will.\n\nEmerson evidently enjoyed such a story as this which was told him by a\nbishop: There was a dispute in a vestry at Providence between two hot\nchurch-members. One said at last, \"I should like to know who you\nare\"--\n\n\"Who I am?\" cried the other,--\"who I am! I am a humble Christian, you\ndamned old heathen, you!\"\n\nThe minister whom he heard say that \"nobody enjoyed religion less than\nministers, as none enjoyed food so little as cooks,\" must have\nprovoked the broadest kind of a smile.\n\nAlthough one of Emerson's central themes in his Journals was his\nthought about God, or his feeling for the Infinite, he never succeeded\nin formulating his ideas on the subject and could not say what God is\nor is not. At the age of twenty-one he wrote in his Journal, \"I know\nthat I _know_ next to nothing.\" A very unusual, but a very promising\nframe of mind for a young man. \"It is not certain that God exists, but\nthat He does not is a most bewildering and improbable Chimera.\"\n\nA little later he wrote: \"The government of God is not a plan--that\nwould be Destiny, [or we may say Calvinism,] it is extempore.\"\n\nHe quotes this from Plotinus: \"Of the Unity of God, nothing can be\npredicated, neither being, nor essence, nor life, for it is above all\nthese.\"\n\nIt was a bold saying of his that \"God builds his temple in the heart\non the ruins of churches and religion.\"\n\n\"A great deal of God in the universe,\" he says, \"but not available to\nus until we can make it up into a man.\"\n\nBut if asked, what makes it up into a man? why does it take this form?\nhe would have been hard put to it for an answer.\n\nPersons who assume to know all about God, as if He lived just around\nthe corner, as Matthew Arnold said, will not find much comfort in\nEmerson's uncertainty and blind groping for adequate expression\nconcerning Him. How can we put the All, the Eternal, in words? How can\nwe define the Infinite without self-contradiction? Our minds are cast\nin the mould of the finite; our language is fashioned from our\ndealings with a world of boundaries and limitations and concrete\nobjects and forces. How much can it serve us in dealing with a world\nof opposite kind--with the Whole, the Immeasurable, the Omnipresent,\nand Omnipotent? Of what use are our sounding-lines in a bottomless\nsea? How are we to apply our conceptions of personality to the\nall-life, to that which transcends all limitations, to that which is\neverywhere and yet nowhere? Shall we assign a local habitation and a\nname to the universal energy? As the sunlight puts out our lamp or\ncandle, so our mental lights grow pale in the presence of the Infinite\nLight. We can deal with the solid bodies on the surface of the earth,\nbut the earth as a sphere in the heavens baffles us. All our terms of\nover and under, up and down, east and west, and the like, fail us. You\nmay go westward around the world and return to your own door coming\nfrom the east. The circle is a perpetual contradiction, the sphere a\nsurface without boundaries, a mass without weight. When we ascribe\nweight to the earth, we are trying it by the standards of bodies on\nits surface--the pull of the earth is the measure of their weight; but\nthe earth itself--what pulls that? Only some larger body can pull\nthat, and the adjustment of the system is such that the centripetal\nand centrifugal forces balance each other, and the globes float as\nlightly as any feather.\n\nEmerson said he denied personality to God because it is too little,\nnot too much. If you ascribe personality to God, it is perfectly fair\nto pester you with questions about Him. Where is He? How long has He\nbeen there? What does He do? Personality without place, or form, or\nsubstance, or limitation is a contradiction of terms. We are the\nvictims of words. We get a name for a thing and then invent the thing\nthat fits it. All our names for the human faculties, as the will, the\nreason, the understanding, the imagination, conscience, instincts, and\nso on, are arbitrary divisions of a whole, to suit our own\nconvenience, like the days of the week, or the seasons of the year.\nOut of unity we make diversity for purposes of our practical needs.\nThought tends to the one, action to the many. We must have small\nchange for everything in the universe, because our lives are made up\nof small things. We must break wholes up into fractions, and then seek\ntheir common multiple. Only thus can we deal with them. We deal with\nGod by limiting Him and breaking Him up into his attributes, or by\nconceiving Him under the figure of the Trinity. He is thus less\nbaffling to us. We can handle Him the better. We make a huge man of\nHim and then try to dodge the consequences of our own limitations.\n\nAll these baffling questions pressed hard upon Emerson. He could not\ndo without God in nature, and yet, like most of us, he could not\njustify himself until he had trimmed and cut away a part of nature.\nGod is the All, but the All is a hard mass to digest. It means hell as\nwell as heaven, demon as well as seraph, geology as well as biology,\ndevolution as well as evolution, earthquake as well as earth\ntranquillity, cyclones as well as summer breezes, the jungle as well\nas the household, pain as well as pleasure, death as well as life. How\nare you to reconcile all these contradictions?\n\nEmerson said that nature was a swamp with flowers and birds on the\nborders, and terrible things in the interior. Shall we have one God\nfor the fair things, and another God for the terrible things?\n\n\"Nature is saturated with deity,\" he says, the terrific things as the\nbeatific, I suppose. \"A great deal of God in the universe,\" he again\nsays, \"but not valuable to us till we can make it up into a man.\" And\nwhen we make it up into a man we have got a true compendium of nature;\nall the terrific and unholy elements--fangs and poisons and eruptions,\nsharks and serpents--have each and all contributed something to the\nmake-up. Man is nature incarnated, no better, no worse.\n\nBut the majority of mankind who take any interest in the God-question\nat all will probably always think of the Eternal in terms of man, and\nendow Him with personality.\n\nOne feels like combating some of Emerson's conclusions, or, at least,\nlike discounting them. His refusal to see any value in natural science\nas such, I think, shows his limitations. \"Natural history,\" he says,\n\"by itself has no value; it is like a single sex; but marry it to\nhuman history and it is poetry. Whole Floras, all Linnaeus', and\nBuffon's volumes contain not one line of poetry.\" Of course he speaks\nfor himself. Natural facts, scientific truth, as such, had no interest\nto him. One almost feels as if this were idealism gone to seed.\n\n\"Shall I say that the use of Natural Science seems merely 'ancillary'\nto Morals? I would learn the law of the defraction of a ray because\nwhen I understand it, it will illustrate, perhaps suggest, a new truth\nin ethics.\" Is the ethical and poetic value of the natural sciences,\nthen, their main or only value to the lay mind? Their technical\ndetails, their tables and formulae and measurements, we may pass by,\nbut the natural truths they disclose are of interest to the healthy\nmind for their own sake. It is not the ethics of chemical reactions\nand combinations--if there be ethics in them--that arrests our\nattention, but the light they throw on the problem of how the world\nwas made, and how our own lives go on. The method of Nature in the\nphysical world no doubt affords clues to the method of Nature in the\nnon-physical, or supersensuous world. But apart from that, it is\nincredible that a mind like Emerson's took no interest in natural\nknowledge for its own sake. The fact that two visible and inodorous\ngases like hydrogen and oxygen--one combustible and the other the\nsupporter of combustion--when chemically combined produce water, which\nextinguishes fire, is intensely interesting as affording us a glimpse\nof the contradictions and paradoxes that abound everywhere in Nature's\nmethods. If there is any ethics or any poetry in it, let him have it\nwho can extract it. The great facts of nature, such as the sphericity\nof the cosmic bodies, their circular motions, their mutual\ninterdependence, the unprovable ether in which they float, the blue\ndome of the sky, the master currents of the ocean, the primary and the\nsecondary rocks, have an intellectual value, but how they in any way\nillustrate the moral law is hard to see. The ethics, or right and\nwrong, of attraction and repulsion, of positive and negative, have no\nvalidity outside the human sphere. Might is right in Nature, or,\nrather, we are outside the standards of right and wrong in her sphere.\nScientific knowledge certainly has a poetic side to it, but we do not\ngo to chemistry or to geology or to botany for rules for the conduct\nof life. We go to these things mainly for the satisfaction which the\nknowledge of Nature's ways gives us.\n\nSo with natural history. For my own part I find the life-histories of\nthe wild creatures about me, their ways of getting on in the world,\ntheir joys, their fears, their successes, their failures, their\ninstincts, their intelligence, intensely interesting without any\nulterior considerations. I am not looking for ethical or poetic\nvalues. I am looking for natural truths. I am less interested in the\nsermons in stones than I am in the life under the stones. The\nsignificance of the metamorphosis of the grub into the butterfly does\nnot escape me, but I am more occupied with the way the caterpillar\nweaves her cocoon and hangs herself up for the winter than I am in\nthis lesson. I had rather see a worm cast its skin than see a king\ncrowned. I had rather see Phoebe building her mud nest than the\npreacher writing his sermon. I had rather see the big moth emerge from\nher cocoon--fresh and untouched as a coin that moment from the\ndie--than the most fashionable \"coming out\" that society ever knew.\nThe first song sparrow or bluebird or robin in spring, or the first\nhepatica or arbutus or violet, or the first clover or pond-lily in\nsummer--must we demand some mystic password of them? Must we not love\nthem for their own sake, ere they will seem worthy of our love?\n\nTo convert natural facts into metaphysical values, or into moral or\npoetic values--in short, to make literature out of science--is a high\nachievement, and is worthy of Emerson at his best, but to claim that\nthis is their sole or main use is to push idealism to the extreme. The\npoet, the artist, the nature writer not only mixes his colors with his\nbrains, he mixes them with his heart's blood. Hence his pictures\nattract us without doing violence to nature.\n\nWe will not deny Emerson his right to make poetry out of nature; we\nbless him for the inspiration he has drawn from this source, for his\n\"Wood-notes,\" his \"Humble-Bee,\" his \"Titmouse,\" his \"May-Day,\" his\n\"Sea-Shore,\" his \"Snow-Storm,\" and many other poems. But we must\n\"quarrel\" with him a little, to use one of his favorite words, for\nseeming to undervalue the facts of natural science, as such, and to\nbelittle the works of the natural historian because he does not give\nus poetry and lessons in morals instead of botany and geology and\nornithology, pure and simple. \"Everything,\" he says, \"should be\ntreated poetically--law, politics, housekeeping, money. A judge and a\nbanker must drive their craft poetically, as well as a dancer or a\nscribe. That is, they must exert that higher vision which causes the\nobject to become fluid and plastic.\" \"If you would write a code, or\nlogarithms, or a cook-book, you cannot spare the poetic impulse.\" \"No\none will doubt that battles can be fought poetically who reads\nPlutarch or Las Casas.\"\n\nWe are interested in the wild life around us because the lives of the\nwild creatures in a measure parallel our own; because they are the\npartakers of the same bounty of nature that we are; they are fruit of\nthe same biological tree. We are interested in knowing how they get on\nin the world. Bird and bee, fish and man, are all made of one stuff,\nare all akin. The evolutionary impulse that brought man, brought his\ndog and horse. Did Emerson, indeed, only go to nature as he went to\nthe bank, to make a draft upon it? Was his walk barren that brought\nhim no image, no new idea? Was the day wasted that did not add a new\nline to his verse? He appears to have gone up and down the land\nseeking images. He was so firmly persuaded that there is not a passage\nin the human soul, perhaps not a shade of thought, but has its emblem\nin nature, that he was ever on the alert to discover these relations\nof his own mind to the external world. \"I see the law of Nature\nequally exemplified in bar-room and in a saloon of the philosopher. I\nget instruction and the opportunities of my genius indifferently in\nall places, companies, and pursuits, so only there be antagonisms.\"\n\nEmerson thought that science as such bereaved Nature of her charm. To\nthe man of little or no imagination or sensibility to beauty, Nature\nhas no charm anyhow, but if he have these gifts, they will certainly\nsurvive scientific knowledge, and be quickened and heightened by it.\n\nAfter we have learned all that the astronomers can tell us about the\nmidnight heavens, do we look up at the stars with less wonder and awe?\nAfter we have learned all that the chemist and the physicist can tell\nus about matter--its interior activities and its exterior laws and\nrelations--do we admire and marvel less? After the geologist has told\nus all he has found out about the earth's crust and the rocks, when we\nquarry our building-stone, do we plough and hoe and plant its soil\nwith less interest and veneration? No, science as the pursuit of truth\ncauses light to spring out of the abysmal darkness, and enhances our\nlove and interest in Nature. Is the return of the seasons less\nwelcome because we know the cause? Is an eclipse less startling\nbecause it occurs exactly on time? Science bereaves Nature of her\ndread and fearsomeness, it breaks the spell which the ignorance and\ncredulity of men have cast upon her.\n\nEmerson had little use for science except so far as it yielded him\nsymbols and parables for his superscience. The electric spark did not\nkindle his interest unless it held an ethical fact for him; chemical\nreactions were dull affairs unless he could trace their laws in mental\nreactions. \"Read chemistry a little,\" he said, \"and you will quickly\nsee that its laws and experiments will furnish an alphabet or\nvocabulary for all of your moral observations.\" He found a lesson in\ncomposition in the fact that the diamond and lampblack are the same\nsubstance differently arranged. Good writing, he said, is a chemical\ncombination, and not a mechanical mixture. That is not the noblest\nchemistry that can extract sunshine from cucumbers, but that which can\nextract \"honor from scamps, temperance from sots, energy from beggars,\njustice from thieves, benevolence from misers.\"\n\nThough mindful of the birds and flowers and trees and rivers in his\nwalks, it was mainly through his pressing need of figures and symbols\nfor transcendental use. He says, \"Whenever you enumerate a physical\nlaw, I hear in it a moral law.\" His final interest was in the moral\nlaw. Unless the scientific fact you brought him had some moral value,\nit made little impression upon him.\n\nHe admits he is more interested to know \"why the star form is so oft\nrepeated in botany, and why the number five is such a favorite with\nNature, than to understand the circulation of the sap and the\nformation of buds.\" His insight into Nature, and the prophetic\ncharacter of his genius, are seen in many ways, among others in his\nanticipation or poetic forecast of the Darwinian theory of the origin\nof species, in 1853.\n\n\"We want a higher logic to put us in training for the laws of\ncreation. How does the step forward from one species to a higher\nspecies of an existing genus take place? The ass is not the parent of\nthe horse; no fish begets a bird. But the concurrence of new\nconditions necessitates a new object in which these conditions meet\nand flower. When the hour is struck in onward nature, announcing that\nall is ready for the birth of higher form and nobler function, not one\npair of parents, but the whole consenting system thrills, yearns, and\nproduces. It is a favorable aspect of planets and of elements.\"\n\nIn 1840 he wrote, \"The method of advance in Nature is perpetual\ntransformation.\" In the same year he wrote:\n\n\"There is no leap--not a shock of violence throughout nature. Man\ntherefore must be predicted in the first chemical relation exhibited\nby the first atom. If we had eyes to see it, this bit of quartz would\ncertify us of the necessity that man must exist as inevitably as the\ncities he has actually built.\"\n\nX\n\nHow fruitful in striking and original men New England was in those\ndays--poets, orators, picturesque characters! In Concord, Emerson,\nThoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott; in Boston and Cambridge, Lowell,\nLongfellow, Norton, Holmes, Higginson, Father Taylor, Bancroft,\nEverett, and others, with Webster standing out like a Colossus on the\nNew Hampshire granite. This crop of geniuses seems to have been the\naftermath of the Revolution. Will our social and industrial revolution\nbring anything like another such a crop? Will the great World War\nproduce another? Until now too much prosperity, too much mammon, too\nmuch \"at ease in Zion\" has certainly prevailed for another band of\ngreat idealists to appear.\n\nEmerson could never keep his eyes off Webster. He was fairly\nhypnotized by the majesty and power of his mind and personality, and\nhe recurs to him in page after page of his Journal. Webster was of\nprimary stuff like the granite of his native hills, while such a man\nas Everett was of the secondary formation, like the sandstone rocks.\nEmerson was delighted when he learned that Carlyle, \"with those\ndevouring eyes, with that portraying hand,\" had seen Webster. And this\nis the portrait Carlyle drew of him: \"As a Logic-fencer, Advocate, or\nParliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight\nagainst all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous,\ncrag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows,\nlike dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be _blown_; the\nmastiff-mouth, accurately closed:--I have not traced as much of\n_silent Berserkir-rage_, that I remember of, in any other man.\"\n\nEmerson's description and praise and criticism of Webster form some of\nthe most notable pages in his Journal. In 1843, when Webster came to\nConcord as counsel in a famous case that was tried there, the fact so\nexcited Emerson that he could not sleep. It was like the perturbation\nof a planet in its orbit when a large body passes near it. Emerson\nseems to have spent much time at the court-house to hear and study\nhim: \"Webster quite fills our little town, and I doubt if I shall get\nsettled down to writing until he has well gone from the county. He is\na natural Emperor of men.\" He adjourned the court every day in true\nimperial fashion, simply by rising and taking his hat and looking the\nJudge coolly in the face, whereupon the Judge \"bade the Crier adjourn\nthe Court.\" But when Emerson finally came to look upon him with the\nsame feeling with which he saw one of those strong Paddies of the\nrailroad, he lost his interest in the trial and did not return to the\ncourt in the afternoon. \"The green fields on my way home were too\nfresh and fair, and forbade me to go again.\"\n\nIt was with profound grief that he witnessed the decline of Webster's\npolitical career, owing to his truckling to the Southern proslavery\nelement, and to his increasing intemperance. To see the placid,\ntranscendental Emerson \"fighting mad,\" flaring up in holy wrath, read\nhis criticisms of Webster, after Webster's defection--his moral\ncollapse to win the South and his support of the Fugitive Slave Law.\nThis got into Emerson's blood and made him think \"daggers and\ntomahawks.\" He has this to say of a chance meeting with Webster in\nBoston, at this period: \"I saw Webster on the street--but he was\nchanged since I saw him last--black as a thunder-cloud, and\ncareworn.... I did not wonder that he depressed his eyes when he saw\nme and would not meet my face.\"\n\nIn 1851 he said that some of Webster's late speeches and state papers\nwere like \"Hail Columbia\" when sung at a slave-auction; then he\nfollows with the terrible remark: \"The word _liberty_ in the mouth of\nMr. Webster sounds like the word _love_ in the mouth of a courtezan.\"\n\nThe prizes or fancied prizes of politics seem to have corrupted all\nthe great men of that day--Webster, Choate, Foote, Clay, Everett.\nTheir \"disgusting obsequiousness\" to the South fired Emerson's wrath.\n\nXI\n\nThe orthodox brethren of his time, and probably of our time also, I\nfancy, could make very little of Emerson's religion. It was the\nreligion of the spirit and not of the utilitarian and matter-of-fact\nunderstanding. It identified man with God and made all nature\nsymbolical of the spirit. He was never tired of repeating that all\ntrue prayers answered themselves--the spirit which the act of prayer\nbegets in one's self is the answer. Your prayer for humility, for\ncharity, for courage, begets these emotions in the mind. The devout\nasking comes from a perception of their value. Hence the only real\nprayers are for spiritual good. We converse with spiritual and\ninvisible things only through the medium of our own hearts. The\npreliminary attitude of mind that moves us to face in this direction\nis the blessing. The soldier who, on the eve of battle, prays for\ncourage, has already got what he asks for. Prayer for visible,\nmaterial good is infidelity to the moral law. God is within you, more\nyour better self than you are. Many prayers are a rattling of empty\nhusks. Emerson says the wise man in the storm prays God, not for\nsafety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.\n\nAlthough Emerson broke away from all religious forms, yet was there\nsomething back of them that he always respected, as do we all. He\nrelates that one night at a hotel a stranger intruded into his chamber\nafter midnight, claiming a share in it. \"But after his lamp had smoked\nthe chamber full, and I had turned round to the wall in despair, the\nman blew out his lamp, knelt down at his bedside, and made in low\nwhispers a long earnest prayer. Then was the relation entirely changed\nbetween us. I fretted no more, but respected and liked him.\"\n\nContrasting his own case with that of so many young men who owed their\nreligious training exclusively to Cambridge and other public\ninstitutions, he says: \"How much happier was my star which rained on\nme influence of ancestral religion. The depth of the religious\nsentiment which I knew in my Aunt Mary, imbuing all her genius and\nderived to her from such hoarded family traditions, from so many godly\nlives and godly deeds of sainted kindred of Concord, Maiden, York, was\nitself a culture, an education.\"\n\nXII\n\nA course of ten lectures which he delivered in Boston in February,\n1840, on the \"Present Age\" gave him little pleasure. He could not warm\nup, get agitated, and so warm and agitate others: \"A cold mechanical\npreparation for a delivery as decorous,--fine things, pretty things,\nwise things,--but no arrows, no axes, no nectar, no growling, no\ntranspiercing, no loving, no enchantment.\" Because he lacked\nconstitutional vigor, he could expend only, say, twenty-one hours on\neach lecture, if he would be able and ready for the next. If he could\nonly rally the lights and mights of sixty hours into twenty, he said,\nhe should hate himself less. Self-criticism was a notable trait with\nhim. Of self-praise he was never guilty. His critics and enemies\nrarely said severer things of him than he said of himself. He was\nalmost morbidly conscious of his own defects, both as a man and as a\nwriter. There are many pages of self-criticism in the Journals, but\nnot one of self-praise. In 1842 he writes: \"I have not yet adjusted my\nrelation to my fellows on the planet, or to my own work. Always too\nyoung, or too old, I do not justify myself; how can I satisfy others?\"\nLater he sighs, \"If only I could be set aglow!\" He had wished for a\nprofessorship, or for a pulpit, much as he reacted from the\nchurch--something to give him the stimulus of a stated task. Some\nfriend recommended an Abolition campaign to him: \"I doubt not a course\nin mobs would do me good.\"\n\nThen he refers to his faults as a writer: \"I think I have material\nenough to serve my countrymen with thought and music, if only it was\nnot scraps. But men do not want handfuls of gold dust but ingots.\"\n\nEmerson felt his own bardic character, but lamented that he had so few\nof the bardic gifts. At the age of fifty-nine he says: \"I am a bard\nleast of bards. I cannot, like them, make lofty arguments in stately,\ncontinuous verse, constraining the rocks, trees, animals, and the\nperiodic stars to say my thoughts,--for that is the gift of great\npoets; but I am a bard because I stand near them, and apprehend all\nthey utter, and with pure joy hear that which I also would say, and,\nmoreover, I speak interruptedly words and half stanzas which have the\nlike scope and aim:\"\n\n    \"What I cannot declare, yet cannot all withhold.\"\n\nThere is certainly no over-valuation in this sentence, made when he\nwas sixty-two: \"In the acceptance that my papers find among my\nthoughtful countrymen, in these days, I cannot help seeing how limited\nis their reading. If they read only the books that I do, they would\nnot exaggerate so wildly.\" Two years before that he had said, \"I often\nthink I could write a criticism of Emerson that would hit the white.\"\n\nEmerson was a narrow-chested, steeple-shouldered man with a tendency\nto pulmonary disease, against which he made a vigorous fight all his\ndays. He laments his feeble physical equipment in his poem,\n\"Terminus\":\n\n    \"Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,\n    Bad husbands of their fires,\n    Who, when they gave thee breath,\n    Failed to bequeath\n    The needful sinew stark as once,\n    The Baresark marrow to thy bones,\n    But left a legacy of ebbing veins,\n    Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,--\n    Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,\n    Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.\"\n\nAnd yet, looking back near the end of his life, he says that\nconsidering all facts and conditions he thinks he has had triumphant\nhealth.\n\nXIII\n\nEmerson's wisdom and catholicity of spirit always show in his\ntreatment of the larger concerns of life and conduct. How remarkable\nis this passage written in Puritanic New England in 1842:\n\n     I hear with pleasure that a young girl in the midst of rich,\n     decorous Unitarian friends in Boston is well-nigh persuaded\n     to join the Roman Catholic Church. Her friends, who are also\n     my friends, lamented to me the growth of this inclination.\n     But I told them that I think she is to be greatly\n     congratulated on the event. She has lived in great poverty\n     of events. In form and years a woman, she is still a child,\n     having had no experiences, and although of a fine, liberal,\n     susceptible, expanding nature, has never yet found any\n     worthy object of attention; has not been in love, nor been\n     called out by any taste, except lately by music, and sadly\n     wants adequate objects. In this church, perhaps, she shall\n     find what she needs, in a power to call out the slumbering\n     religious sentiment. It is unfortunate that the guide who\n     has led her into this path is a young girl of a lively,\n     forcible, but quite external character, who teaches her the\n     historical argument for the Catholic faith. I told A. that I\n     hoped she would not be misled by attaching any importance to\n     that. If the offices of the church attracted her, if its\n     beautiful forms and humane spirit draw her, if St. Augustine\n     and St. Bernard, Jesus and Madonna, cathedral music and\n     masses, then go, for thy dear heart's sake, but do not go\n     out of this icehouse of Unitarianism, all external, into an\n     icehouse again of external. At all events, I charged her to\n     pay no regard to dissenters, but to suck that orange\n     thoroughly.\n\nAnd this on the Church and the common people written the year before:\n\n     The Church aerates my good neighbors and serves them as a\n     somewhat stricter and finer ablution than a clean shirt or a\n     bath or a shampooing. The minister is a functionary and the\n     meeting-house a functionary; they are one and, when they\n     have spent all their week in private and selfish action, the\n     Sunday reminds them of a need they have to stand again in\n     social and public and ideal relations beyond\n     neighborhood,--higher than the town-meeting--to their fellow\n     men. They marry, and the minister who represents this high\n     public, celebrates the fact; their child is baptized, and\n     again they are published by his intervention. One of their\n     family dies, he comes again, and the family go up publicly\n     to the church to be publicised or churched in this official\n     sympathy of mankind. It is all good as far as it goes. It is\n     homage to the Ideal Church, which they have not: which the\n     actual Church so foully misrepresents. But it is better so\n     than nohow. These people have no fine arts, no literature,\n     no great men to boswellize, no fine speculation to entertain\n     their family board or their solitary toil with. Their talk\n     is of oxen and pigs and hay and corn and apples. Whatsoever\n     liberal aspirations they at any time have, whatsoever\n     spiritual experiences, have looked this way, and the Church\n     is their fact for such things. It has not been discredited\n     in their eyes as books, lectures, or living men of genius\n     have been. It is still to them the accredited symbol of the\n     religious Idea. The Church is not to be defended against any\n     spiritualist clamoring for its reform, but against such as\n     say it is expedient to shut it up and have none, this much\n     may be said. It stands in the history of the present time as\n     a high school for the civility and mansuetude of the people.\n     (I might prefer the Church of England or of Rome as the\n     medium of those superior ablutions described above, only\n     that I think the Unitarian Church, like the Lyceum, as yet\n     an open and uncommitted organ, free to admit the\n     ministrations of any inspired man that shall pass by: whilst\n     the other churches are committed and will exclude him.)\n\n     I should add that, although this is the real account to be\n     given of the church-going of the farmers and villagers, yet\n     it is not known to them, only felt. Do you not suppose that\n     it is some benefit to a young villager who comes out of the\n     woods of New Hampshire to Boston and serves his\n     apprenticeship in a shop, and now opens his own store, to\n     hang up his name in bright gold letters a foot long? His\n     father could not write his name: it is only lately that he\n     could: the name is mean and unknown: now the sun shines on\n     it: all men, all women, fairest eyes read it. It is a fact\n     in the great city. Perhaps he shall be successful and make\n     it wider known: shall leave it greatly brightened to his\n     son. His son may be head of a party: governor of the state:\n     a poet: a powerful thinker: and send the knowledge of this\n     name over the habitable earth. By all these suggestions, he\n     is at least made responsible and thoughtful by his public\n     relation of a seen and aerated name.\n\n     Let him modestly accept those hints of a more beautiful life\n     which he meets with; how to do with few and easily gotten\n     things: but let him seize with enthusiasm the opportunity of\n     doing what he can, for the virtues are natural to each man\n     and the talents are little perfections.\n\n     Let him hope infinitely with a patience as large as the sky.\n\n     Nothing is so young and untaught as time.\n\nHow wise is his saying that we do not turn to the books of the\nBible--St. Paul and St. John--to start us on our task, as we do to\nMarcus Aurelius, or the Lives of the philosophers, or to Plato, or\nPlutarch, \"because the Bible wears black clothes\"! \"It comes with a\ncertain official claim against which the mind revolts. The Bible has\nits own nobilities--might well be charming if left simply on its\nmerits, as other books are, but this, 'You must,' 'It is your duty,'\nin connection with it, repels. 'T is like the introduction of martial\nlaw into Concord. If you should dot our farms with picket lines, and I\ncould not go or come across lots without a pass, I should resist, or\nelse emigrate. If Concord were as beautiful as Paradise, it would be\nas detestable to me.\"\n\nIn his essays and letters Emerson gives one the impression of never\nusing the first words that come to mind, nor the second, but the third\nor fourth; always a sense of selection, of deliberate choice. To use\nwords in a novel way, and impart a little thrill of surprise, seemed\nto be his aim. This effort of selection often mars his page. He is\nrarely carried away by his thought, but he snares or captures it with\na word. He does not feel first and think second; he thinks first, and\nthe feeling does not always follow. He dearly loved writing; it was\nthe joy of his life, but it was a conscious intellectual effort. It\nwas often a kind of walking on stilts; his feet are not on the common\nground. And yet--and yet--what a power he was, and how precious his\ncontributions!\n\nHe says in his Journal, \"I have observed long since that to give the\nthought a full and just expression I must not prematurely utter it.\"\nThis hesitation, this studied selection robs him of the grace of\nfelicity and spontaneity. The compensation is often a sense of novelty\nand a thrill of surprise. Moreover, he avoids the commonplace and the\ncheap and tedious. His product is always a choice one, and is seen to\nhave a quality of its own. No page has more individuality than his,\nand none is so little like the page of the ordinary professional\nwriter.\n\n'Tis a false note to speak of Emerson's doctrines, as Henry James did.\nHe had no doctrines. He had leading ideas, but he had no system, no\nargument. It was his attitude of mind and spirit that was significant\nand original. He would have nothing to do with stereotyped opinions.\nWhat he said to-day might contradict what he said yesterday, or what\nhe might say to-morrow. No matter, the spirit was the same. Truth is a\nsphere that has opposite poles. Emerson more than any other writer\nstood for the contradictory character of spiritual truth. Truth is\nwhat we make it--what takes the imprint of one's mind; it is not a\ndefinite something like gold or silver, it is any statement that fits\nour mental make-up, that comes home to us. What comes home in one mood\nmay not come home in another.\n\nEmerson had no creed, he had no definite ideas about God. Personality\nand impersonality might both be affirmed of Absolute Being, and what\nmay not be affirmed of it in our own minds?\n\nThe good of such a man as Emerson is not in his doctrines, but in his\nspirit, his heroic attitude, his consonance with the universal mind.\nHis thought is a tremendous solvent; it digests and renders fluid the\nhard facts of life and experience.\n\nXIV\n\nEmerson records in his Journal: \"I have been writing and speaking what\nwere once called novelties, for twenty-five or thirty years, and have\nnot now one disciple. Why? Not that what I said was not true; not that\nit has not found intelligent receivers; but because it did not go from\nany wish in me to bring men to me, but to themselves. I delight in\ndriving them from me. What could I do, if they came to me?--they would\ninterrupt and encumber me. This is my boast that I have no school\nfollower. I should account it a measure of the impurity of insight, if\nit did not create independence.\"\n\nIt is never easy to stray far from the master in high moral, aesthetic,\nand literary matters and be on the safe side; we are only to try to\nescape his individual bias, to break over his limitations and \"brave\nthe landscape's look\" with our own eyes. We are to be more on guard\nagainst his affinities, his unconscious attractions and repulsions,\nthan against his ethical and intellectual conclusions, if one may make\nthat distinction, which I know is hazardous business. We readily\nimpose our own limitations upon others and see the world as old when\nwe are old.\n\nEmerson criticized Carlyle because Carlyle was not Emerson, just as\nCarlyle criticized Emerson because he was not Carlyle. We are all poor\nbeggars in this respect; each of us is the victim of his own demon.\nBeware of the predilection of the master! When his temperament impels\nhim he is no longer a free man.\n\nWe touch Emerson's limitations in his failure to see anything in\nHawthorne's work; they had \"no inside to them\"; \"it would take him and\nAlcott together to make a man\"; and, again, in his rather\ncontemptuous disposal of Poe as \"the jingle man\" and his verdict upon\nShelley as \"never a poet\"! The intellectual content of Shelley's work\nis not great; but that he was not a poet, in fact that he was anything\nelse but a poet, though not of the highest order, is contrary to the\ntruth, I think. Limitations like this are not infrequent in Emerson.\nYet Emerson was a great critic of men and of books. A highly\ninteresting volume showing him in this character could be compiled\nfrom the Journals.\n\nEmerson and Hawthorne were near neighbors for several years. Emerson\nliked the man better than his books. They once had a good long walk\ntogether; they walked to Harvard village and back, occupying a couple\nof days and walking about twenty miles a day. They had much\nconversation--talked of Scott and Landor and others. They found the\nbar-rooms at the inns cold and dull places. The Temperance Society had\nemptied them. Hawthorne tried to smoke a cigar in one of them, but\n\"was soon out on the piazza.\" Hawthorne, Emerson said, was more\ninclined to play Jove than Mercury. It is a pleasing picture--these\ntwo men, so unlike, but both typical of New England and both men of a\nhigh order of genius, walking in friendly converse along the country\nroads in the golden September days over seventy years ago. Emerson\nalways regretted that he never succeeded in \"conquering a friendship\"\nwith Hawthorne, mainly because they had so few traits in common. To\nthe satisfaction of silent intercourse with men Emerson was clearly a\nstranger. There must be an interchange of ideas; the feeling of\ncomradeship, the communion of congenial souls was not enough.\nHawthorne, shy, silent, rather gloomy, yet there must have been a\ncharm about his mere presence that more than made up for his want of\nconversation. His silence was golden. Emerson was a transcendental\nYankee and was always bent on driving sharp bargains in the\ninterchange of ideas with the persons he met. He did not propose to\nswap horses or watches or jack-knives, but he would swap ideas with\nyou day in and day out. If you had no ideas to swap, he lost interest\nin you.\n\nThe wisdom of a great creative artist like Hawthorne does not\nnecessarily harden into bright epigrammatic sayings or rules for the\nconduct of life, and the available intellectual content of his works\nto the Emersonian type of mind may be small; but his interior, his\nemotional and imaginative richness may much more than make it up. The\nscholar, the sayer of things, must always rank below the creator, or\nthe maker of things.\n\nPhilosophers contradict themselves like other mortals. Here and there\nin his Journals Emerson rails against good nature, and says \"tomahawks\nare better.\" \"Why should they call me good-natured? I, too, like\npuss, have a tractile claw.\" And he declares that he likes the sayers\nof No better than the sayers of Yes, and that he preferred hard\nclouds, hard expressions, and hard manners. In another mood, or from\nanother point of view, he says of a man, \"Let him go into his closet\nand pray the Divinity to make him so great as to be good-natured.\" And\nagain, \"How great it is to do a little, as, for instance, to deserve\nthe praise of good nature, or of humility, or of punctuality.\"\n\nEmerson's characterization of himself as always a painter is\ninteresting. People, he said, came to his lectures with expectation\nthat he was to realize the Republic he described, and they ceased to\ncome when they found this reality no nearer: \"They mistook me. I am\nand always was a painter. I paint still with might and main and choose\nthe best subject I can. Many have I seen come and go with false hopes\nand fears, and dubiously affected by my pictures. But I paint on.\" \"I\nportray the ideal, not the real,\" he might have added. He was a\npoet-seer and not a historian. He was a painter of ideas, as Carlyle\nwas a painter of men and events. Always is there an effort at vivid\nand artistic expression. If his statement does not kindle the\nimagination, it falls short of his aim. He visualizes his most subtle\nand abstract conceptions--sees the idea wedded to its correlative in\nthe actual world. A new figure, a fresh simile gave him a thrill of\npleasure. He went hawking up and down the fields of science, of trade,\nof agriculture, of nature, seeking them. He thinks in symbols, he\npaints his visions of the ideal with pigments drawn from the world all\nabout him. To call such men as Emerson and Carlyle painters is only to\nemphasize their artistic temperaments. Their seriousness, their\ndevotion to high moral and intellectual standards, only lift them, as\nthey do Whitman, out of the world of mere decorative art up to the\nworld of heroic and creative art where art as such does not obtrude\nitself.\n\nXV\n\nEmerson wonders why it is that man eating does not attract the\nimagination or attract the artist: \"Why is our diet and table not\nagreeable to the imagination, whilst all other creatures eat without\nshame? We paint the bird pecking at fruit, the browsing ox, the lion\nleaping on his prey, but no painter ever ventured to draw a man\neating. The difference seems to consist in the presence or absence of\nthe world at the feast. The diet is base, be it what it may, that is\nhidden in caves or cellars or houses.... Did you ever eat your bread\non the top of a mountain, or drink water there? Did you ever camp out\nwith lumbermen or travellers in the prairie? Did you ever eat the\npoorest rye or oatcake with a beautiful maiden in the wilderness? and\ndid you not find that the mixture of sun and sky with your bread gave\nit a certain mundane savour and comeliness?\"\n\nI do not think Emerson hits on the true explanation of why man feeding\nis not an attractive subject for the painter. It is not that the diet\nis base and is hidden in caves and cellars, or that the world is not\npresent at the feast. It is because eating is a purely selfish animal\noccupation; there is no touch of the noble or the idyllic or the\nheroic in it. In the act man confesses his animal nature; he is no\nlonger an Emerson, a Dante, a Plato--he is simply a physiological\ncontrivance taking in nutriment. The highest and the lowest are for\nthe moment on the same level. The lady and her maid, the lord and his\nlackey are all one. Eating your bread on a mountain-top or in the camp\nof lumbermen or with a beautiful maiden in the wilderness adds a new\nelement. Here the picture has all nature for a background and the\nimagination is moved. The rye and the oatcake now become a kind of\nheavenly manna, or, as Fitzgerald has it, under such conditions the\nwilderness is Paradise enow. The simple act of feeding does not now\nengross the attention. Associate with the act of eating any worthy or\nnoble idea, and it is at once lifted to a higher level. A mother\nfeeding her child, a cook passing food to the tramp at the door or to\nother hungry and forlorn wayfarers, or soldiers pausing to eat their\nrations in the field, or fishermen beside the stream, or the haymakers\nwith their lunch under a tree--in all such incidents there are\npictorial elements because the least part of it all to the looker-on\nis the act of eating.\n\nIn Da Vinci's \"Last Supper\" the mere animal act of taking food plays\nno part; the mind is occupied with higher and more significant things.\nA suggestion of wine or of fruit in a painting may be agreeable, but\nfrom a suggestion of the kitchen and the cook we turn away. The\nincident of some of Washington's officers during the Revolution\nentertaining some British officers (an historical fact) on baked\npotatoes and salt would appeal to the artistic imagination. All the\nplanting and reaping of the farmers is suggestive of our animal wants,\nas is so much of our whole industrial activity; but art looks kindly\nupon much of it, shows us more or less in partnership with primal\nenergies. People surrounding a table after all signs of the dinner\nhave been removed hold the elements of an agreeable picture, because\nthat suggests conversation and social intercourse--a feast of reason\nand a flow of soul. We are no longer animals; we have moved up many\ndegrees higher in the scale of human values.\n\nEmerson's deep love and admiration for Carlyle come out many times in\nthe Journals. No other literary man of his times moved and impressed\nhim so profoundly. Their correspondence, which lasted upwards of\nforty years, is the most valuable correspondence known to me in\nEnglish literature. It is a history of the growth and development of\nthese two remarkable minds.\n\nI lately reread the Correspondence, mainly to bring my mind again in\ncontact with these noble spirits, so much more exalted than any in our\nown time, but partly to see what new light the letters threw upon the\nlives of these two men.\n\nThere is little of the character of intimate and friendly letters in\nthese remarkable documents. It is not Dear Tom or Dear Waldo. It is\nDear Emerson or Dear Carlyle. They are not letters, they are epistles,\nlike Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, or to the Thessalonians, or to\nthe Romans. Each of them contains the fragments of a gospel that both\nwere preaching, each in his own way, but at bottom the same--the\nbeauty and majesty of the moral law. Let the heavens fall, the moral\nlaw and our duty to God and man will stand. These two men, so\ndifferent in character and temperament, were instantly drawn together\nby that magnet--the moral sentiment. Carlyle's works were occupied\nalmost entirely with men--with history, biography, political events,\nand government; Emerson's with ideas, nature, and poetry; yet the bed\nrock in each was the same. Both preached an evangel, but how\ndifferent!\n\nEmerson makes a note of the days on which he received a letter from,\nor wrote one to, his great Scottish friend. Both were important events\nwith him. It is evident that Emerson makes more of an effort to write\nhis best in these letters than does Carlyle. Carlyle tosses his off\nwith more ease and unconscious mastery. The exchange is always in\nfavor of the Scot. Carlyle was, of course, the more prodigious\npersonality, and had the advantage in the richness and venerableness\nof the Old World setting. But Emerson did not hesitate to discount him\nin his letters and in his Journals, very wisely sometimes, not so\nwisely at others.\n\n\"O Carlyle, the merit of glass is not to be seen, but to be seen\nthrough; but every crystal and lamina of the Carlyle glass is\nvisible.\" Of course Carlyle might reply that stained glass has other\nmerits than transparency, or he might ask: Why should an author's\nstyle be compared to glass anyhow, since it is impossible to\ndissociate it from the matter of his discourse? It is not merely to\nreveal truth; it is also to enhance its beauty. There is the charm and\nwitchery of style, as in Emerson's own best pages, as well as the\nworth of the subject-matter. Is it not true that in the description of\nany natural object or scene or event we want something more than to\nsee it through a perfectly transparent medium? We want the added charm\nor illusion of the writer's own way of seeing it, the hue of his own\nspirit.\n\nI think we may admit all this--doubtless Emerson would admit it--and\nyet urge that Carlyle's style had many faults of the kind Emerson\nindicated. It thrusts itself too much upon the reader's attention. His\nprose is at the best, as in the \"Life of Stirling,\" when it is most\ntransparent and freest from mannerisms. Carlyle's manner at its best\nis very pleasing; at its worst it becomes a wearisome mannerism. When\na writer's style gets into a rut his reader is not happy. Ease,\nflexibility, transparency, though it be colored transparency, are\namong the merits we want.\n\nThe most just and penetrating thing Emerson ever said about Carlyle is\nrecorded in his Journal in 1847: \"In Carlyle, as in Byron, one is much\nmore struck with the rhetoric than with the matter. He has manly\nsuperiority rather than intellectuality, and so makes good hard hits\nall the time. There is more character than intellect in every\nsentence, herein strongly resembling Samuel Johnson.\" Criticism like\nthis carries the force and conviction of a scientific analysis.\n\nThe Journals abound in similar illuminating bits of criticism directed\nto nearly all the more noted authors of English literature, past and\npresent. In science we do want an absolutely colorless, transparent\nmedium, but in literature the personality of the writer is everything.\nThe born writer gives us facts and ideas steeped in his own quality as\na man. Take out of Carlyle's works, or out of Emerson's, or out of\nArnold's, the savor of the man's inborn quality--the savor of that\nwhich acts over and above his will--and we have robbed them of their\ndistinctive quality. Literature is always truth of some sort, plus a\nman. No one knew this better than Emerson himself. Another remark of\nEmerson's, made when he was twenty-seven years old, has high literary\nvalue:\n\n\"There is no beauty in words except in their collocation.\"\n\nIt is not beautiful words that make beautiful poetry, or beautiful\nprose, but ordinary words beautifully arranged. The writer who hopes\nby fine language to invoke fine ideas is asking the tailor to turn him\nout a fine man. First get your great idea, and you will find it is\nalready fitly clothed. The image of the clothes in this connection is,\nof course, a very inadequate and misleading one, since language is the\nthought or its vital integument, and not merely its garment. We often\npraise a writer for his choice of words, and Emerson himself says in\nthe same paragraph from which I quote the above: \"No man can write\nwell who thinks there is no choice of words for him.\" There is always\na right word and every other than that is wrong. There is always the\nbest word, or the best succession of words to give force and vividness\nto the idea. All painters use the same colors, all musicians use the\nsame notes, all sculptors use the same marble, all architects use the\nsame materials and all writers use essentially the same words, their\narrangement and combination alone making the difference in the various\nproducts. Nature uses the same elements in her endless variety of\nliving things; their different arrangement and combinations, and some\ninterior necessity which we have to call the animating principle, is\nthe secret of the individuality of each.\n\nOf course we think in words or images, and no man can tell which is\nfirst, or if there is any first in such matters--the thought or the\nword--any more than the biochemist can tell us which is first in the\nliving body, the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and so on, or the living\nforce that weaves itself a corporeal garment out of these elements.\n\nXVI\n\nEmerson hungered for the quintessence of things, their last\nconcentrated, intensified meanings, for the pith and marrow of men and\nevents, and not for their body and bulk. He wanted the ottar of roses\nand not a rose garden, the diamond and not a mountain of carbon. This\nbent gives a peculiar beauty and stimulus to his writings, while at\nthe same time it makes the reader crave a little more body and\nsubstance. The succulent leaf and stalk of certain garden vegetables\nis better to one's liking than the more pungent seed. If Emerson\ncould only have given us the essence of Father Taylor's copious,\neloquent, flesh-and-blood discourses, how it would have delighted us!\nor if he could only have got the silver out of Alcott's bewitching\nmoonshine--that would have been worth while!\n\nBut why wish Emerson had been some other than he was? He was at least\nthe quintessence of New England Puritanism, its last and deepest\nmeaning and result, lifted into the regions of ethics and aesthetics.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nFLIES IN AMBER\n\n\nIt has been the fashion among our younger writers to speak slightingly\nand flippantly of Emerson, referring to him as outworn, and as the\napostle of the obvious. This view is more discreditable to the young\npeople than is their criticism damaging to Emerson. It can make little\ndifference to Emerson's fame, but it would be much more becoming in\nour young writers to garland his name with flowers than to utter these\nharsh verdicts.\n\nIt is undoubtedly true that Emerson entered into and influenced the\nlives of more choice spirits, both men and women, during the past\ngeneration than did any other American author. Whether he still does\nso would be interesting to know. We who have felt his tonic and\ninspiring influence can but hope so. Yet how impossible he seems in\ntimes like these in which we live, when the stars of the highest\nheaven of the spirit which illumine his page are so obscured or\nblotted out by the dust and the fog of our hurrying, materialistic\nage! Try to think of Emerson spending a winter going about the Western\nStates reading to miscellaneous audiences essays like those that now\nmake up his later volumes. What chance would he stand, even in\nuniversity towns, as against the \"movies\" (a word so ugly I hesitate\nto write it) in the next street?\n\nI once defended Emerson against a criticism of Matthew Arnold's. It is\ntrue, as Arnold says, that Emerson is not a great writer, except on\nrare occasions. Now and then, especially in his earlier essays, there\nis logical texture and cohesion in his pages; development, evolution,\ngrowth; one thing follows another naturally, and each paragraph\nfollows from what went before. But most of his later writings are a\nkind of patchwork; unrelated ideas are in juxtaposition; the\nincongruities are startling. All those chapters, I suppose, were read\nas lectures to miscellaneous audiences in which the attention soon\nbecame tired or blunted if required to follow a closely reasoned\nargument. Pictures and parables and startling affirmations suited\nbetter. Emerson did not stoop to his audience; there was no\ncondescension in him. The last time I heard him, which was in\nWashington in the early seventies, his theme was \"Manners,\" and much\nof it passed over the heads of his audience.\n\nCertain of Emerson's works must strike the average reader, when he\nfirst looks into them, as a curious medley of sense and wild\nextravagance, utterly lacking in the logical sequence of the best\nprose, and often verging on the futile and the absurd. Yet if one does\nnot get discouraged, one will soon see running through them veins of\nthe purest gold of the spirit, and insight into Nature's ways, that\nredeem and more than redeem them.\n\nI recall that when, as a young man, I looked into them the first time,\nI could make nothing of them. I was fresh from reading the standard\nessayists and philosophers of English literature--Addison, Steele,\nCowley, Johnson, Locke--and the poems of Pope, Young, and Cowper, all\nof ethical import and value, and sometimes didactic, but never\nmystical and transcendental, and the plunge into Emerson was a leap\ninto a strange world. But a few years later, when I opened his essays\nagain, they were like spring-water to parched lips. Now, in my old\nage, I go back to him with a half-sad pleasure, as one goes back to\nthe scenes of one's youth.\n\nEmerson taught us a mingled poetic and prophetic way of looking at\nthings that stays with us. The talented English woman Anne Gilchrist\nsaid we had outgrown Emerson; had absorbed all he had to give us; and\nwere leaving him behind. Of course he was always a teacher and\npreacher, in the thrall of his priestly inheritance, and to that\nextent we leave him behind as we do not leave behind works of pure\nliterature.\n\nAs to continuity, some of his essays have much more of it than others.\nIn his \"Nature\" the theme is unfolded, there is growth and evolution;\nand his first and second series of Essays likewise show it. The essays\non \"Character,\" on \"Self-Reliance,\" on the \"Over-Soul,\" meet the\nrequirements of sound prose. And if there is any sounder prose than\ncan be found in his \"Nature,\" or in his \"English Traits,\" or in his\nhistorical and biographical addresses, I do not know where to find it.\nHow flat and commonplace seem the works of some of the masters of\nprose to whom Arnold alludes--Cicero, Voltaire, Addison,\nSwift--compared with those of Emerson! A difference like that between\nthe prismatic hues of raindrops suspended from a twig or a trellis in\nthe sunlight and the water in the spring or the brook.\n\nBut in Emerson's later work there is, as geologists say, nonconformity\nbetween the strata which make up his paragraphs. There is only\njuxtaposition. Among his later papers the one on \"Wealth\" flows along\nmuch more than the one on \"Fate.\" Emerson believed in wealth. Poverty\ndid not attract him. It was not suited to his cast of mind. Poverty\nwas humiliating. Emerson accumulated a fortune, and it added to his\nself-respect. Thoreau's pride in his poverty must have made Emerson\nshiver.\n\nAlthough Arnold refused to see in Emerson a great writer, he did admit\nthat he was eminent as the \"friend and aider of those who would live in\nthe spirit\"; but Arnold apparently overlooked the fact that, devoid of\nthe merit of good literature, no man's writings could have high\nspiritual value. Strip the Bible of its excellence as literature, and\nyou have let out its life-blood. Literature is not a varnish or a\npolish. It is not a wardrobe. It is the result of a vital, imaginative\nrelation of the man to his subject. And Emerson's subject-matter at its\nbest always partakes of the texture of his own mind. It is admitted that\nthere are times when his writing lacks organization,--the vital\nties,--when his rhetoric is more like a rocking-horse or a\nmerry-go-round than like the real thing. But there are few writers who\ndo not mark time now and then, and Emerson is no exception; and I\ncontend that at his best his work has the sequence and evolution of all\ngreat prose. And yet, let me say that if Emerson's power and influence\ndepended upon his logic, he would be easily disposed of. Fortunately\nthey do not. They depend, let me repeat, upon his spiritual power and\ninsight, and the minor defects I am pointing out are only like flies in\namber.\n\nHe thought in images more strictly than any other contemporary writer,\nand was often desperately hard-put to it to make his thought wed his\nimage. He confessed that he did not know how to argue, and that he\ncould only say what he saw. But he had spiritual vision; we cannot\ndeny this, though we do deny him logical penetration. I doubt if\nthere ever was a writer of such wide and lasting influence as Emerson,\nin whom the logical sense was so feeble and shadowy. He had in this\nrespect a feminine instead of a masculine mind, an intuitional instead\nof a reasoning one. It made up in audacious, often extravagant,\naffirmations what it lacked in syllogistic strength. The logical mind,\nwith its sense of fitness and proportion, does not strain or\nover-strain the thread that knits the parts together. It does not jump\nto conclusions, but reaches them step by step. The flesh and blood of\nfeeling and sentiment may clothe the obscure framework of logic, but\nthe logic is there all the same. Emerson's mind was as devoid of\nlogical sense as are our remembered dreams, or as Christian Science is\nof science. He said that truth ceased to be such when polemically\nstated. Occasionally he amplifies and unfolds an idea, as in the\nessays already mentioned, but generally his argument is a rope of\nsand. Its strength is the strength of the separate particles. He is\nperpetually hooking things together that do not go together. It is\nlike putting an apple on a pumpkin vine, or an acorn on a hickory. \"A\nclub foot and a club wit.\" \"Why should we fear,\" he says, \"to be\ncrushed by the same elements--we who are made up of the same\nelements?\" But were we void of fear, we should be crushed much oftener\nthan we are. The electricity in our bodies does not prevent us from\nbeing struck by lightning, nor the fluids in our bodies prevent the\nwaters from drowning us, nor the carbon in our bodies prevent carbon\ndioxide from poisoning us.\n\nOne of Emerson's faults as a writer arose from his fierce hunger for\nanalogy. \"I would rather have a good symbol of my thought,\" he\nconfesses, \"than the suffrage of Kant or of Plato.\" \"All thinking is\nanalogizing, and it is the use of life to learn metonymy.\" His passion\nfor analogy betrays him here and there in his Journals, as in this\npassage: \"The water we wash with never speaks of itself, nor does fire\nor wind or tree. Neither does a noble natural man,\" and so forth. If\nwater and fire and wind and tree were in the habit of talking of\nanything else, this kind of a comparison would not seem so spurious.\n\nA false note in rhetoric like the above you will find in Emerson\noftener than a false note in taste. I find but one such in the\nJournals: \"As soon as a man gets his suction-hose down into the great\ndeep, he belongs to no age, but is an eternal man.\" That I call an\nignoble image, and one cannot conceive of Emerson himself printing\nsuch a passage.\n\nWe hear it said that Whittier is the typical poet of New England. It\nmay be so, but Emerson is much the greater poet. Emerson is a poet of\nthe world, while Whittier's work is hardly known abroad at all.\nEmerson is known wherever the English language is spoken. Not that\nEmerson is in any sense a popular poet, such as, for example, Burns or\nByron, but he is the poet of the choice few, of those who seek poetry\nthat has some intellectual or spiritual content. Whittier wrote many\nhappy descriptions of New England scenes and seasons. \"The Tent on the\nBeach\" and \"Snow-Bound\" come readily to mind; \"The Playmate\" is a\nsweet poem, full of tender and human affection, but not a great poem.\nWhittier had no profundity. Is not a Quaker poet necessarily narrow?\nWhittier gave voice to the New England detestation of slavery, but by\nno means so forcibly and profoundly as did Emerson. He had a theology,\nbut not a philosophy. I wonder if his poems are still read.\n\nIn his chapter called \"Considerations by the Way,\" Emerson strikes\nthis curious false note in his rhetoric: \"We have a right to be here\nor we should not be here. We have the same right to be here that Cape\nCod and Sandy Hook have to be there.\" As if Cape Cod or Cape Horn or\nSandy Hook had any \"rights\"! This comparison of man with inanimate\nthings occurs in both Emerson and Thoreau. Thoreau sins in this way at\nleast once when he talks of the Attic wit of burning thorns and\nbriars. There is a similar false note in such a careful writer as Dean\nSwift. He says to his young poet, \"You are ever to try a good poem as\nyou would a sound pipkin, and if it rings well upon the knuckle, be\nsure there is no flaw in it.\" Whitman compares himself with an\ninanimate thing in the line:\n\n    \"I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by.\"\n\nBut he claims no moral or human attributes or rights for his level; it\nsimply acts in obedience to the principle it embodies--the law of\ngravitation.\n\nThe lecturer \"gets away\" with such things better than the writer. An\naudience is not critical about such matters, but the reader takes note\nof them. Mosaics will do on the platform, or in the pulpit, but will\nnot bear the nearer view of the study.\n\nThe incongruities of Emerson are seen in such passages as this: \"Each\nplant has its parasites, and each created thing its lover and poet,\"\nas if there were any relation between the two clauses of this\nsentence--between parasites and lovers and poets! As if one should\nsay, \"Woodchucks are often alive with fleas, and our fruit trees bloom\nin May.\"\n\nEmerson was so emboldened by what had been achieved through the\nmastery of the earth's forces that he was led to say that \"a wise\ngeology shall yet make the earthquake harmless, and the volcano an\nagricultural resource.\" But this seems expecting too much. We have\nharnessed the lightnings, but the earthquake is too deep and too\nmighty for us. It is a steed upon which we cannot lay our hands. The\nvolcano we may draw upon for heat and steam, as we do upon the winds\nand streams for power, but it is utterly beyond our control. The\nbending of the earth's crust beneath the great atmospheric waves is\nsomething we cannot bridle. The tides by sea as by land are beyond us.\n\nEmerson had the mind of the prophet and the seer, and was given to\nbold affirmations. The old Biblical distinction between the scribes\nand the man who speaks with authority still holds. We may say of all\nother New England essayists and poets--Lowell, Whipple, Tuckerman,\nHolmes, Hillard, Whittier, Longfellow--that they are scribes only.\nEmerson alone speaks as one having authority--the authority of the\nspirit. \"Thus saith the Lord\"--it is this tone that gives him his\nauthority the world over.\n\nI never tire of those heroic lines of his in which he sounds a\nbattle-cry to the spirit:\n\n    \"Though love repine, and reason chafe,\n      There came a voice without reply,--\n    ''T is man's perdition to be safe,\n      When for the truth he ought to die.'\"\n\nThe last time I saw Emerson was at the Holmes seventieth-birthday\nbreakfast in 1879. The serious break in his health had resulted in a\nmarked aphasia, so that he could not speak the name of his nearest\nfriend, nor answer the simplest question. Yet he was as serene as\never. Let the heavens fall--what matters it to me? his look seemed to\nsay.\n\nEmerson's face had in it more of what we call the divine than had that\nof any other author of his time--that wonderful, kindly, wise\nsmile--the smile of the soul--not merely the smile of good nature, but\nthe smile of spiritual welcome and hospitality.\n\nEmerson had quality. A good Emersonian will recognize any passage from\nthe Sage in a book of quotations, even if no name is appended.\n\nWe speak of Emerson as outgrown, yet only yesterday I saw in J. Arthur\nThomson's recent Gifford Lectures on \"The System of Animate Nature,\"\nrepeated quotations from Emerson, mainly from his poetry. I think he\nis no more likely to be outgrown than are Wordsworth and Arnold. Yet I\ndo not set the same value upon his poetry that I do upon that of\nWordsworth at his best.\n\nEmerson is the last man we should expect to be guilty of\nmisinterpreting Nature, yet he does so at times. He does so in this\npassage: \"If Nature wants a thumb, she makes it at the cost of the\narms and legs.\" As if the arm were weaker or less efficient because of\nthe thumb. What would man's power be as a tool-using animal without\nhis strong, opposable thumb? His grasp would be gone.\n\nHe says truly that the gruesome, the disgusting, the repellent are not\nfit subjects for cabinet pictures. The \"sacred subjects\" to which he\nobjects probably refer to the Crucifixion--the nails through the hands\nand feet, and the crown of thorns. But to jump from that fact to the\nassertion that Nature covers up the skeleton on the same grounds, is\nabsurd. Do not all vertebrates require an osseous system? In the\nradiates and articulates she puts the bony system on the outside, but\nwhen she comes to her backbone animals, she perforce puts her osseous\nsystem beneath. She weaves her tissues and integuments of flesh and\nskin and hair over it, not to hide it, but to use it. Would you have a\nman like a jellyfish?\n\nThe same want of logic marks Carlyle's mind when he says: \"The drop by\ncontinually falling bores its way through the hardest rock. The hasty\ntorrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace\nbehind.\" But give the \"hasty torrent\" the same time you give the drop,\nand see what it will do to the rock!\n\nEmerson says, \"A little more or a little less does not signify\nanything.\" But it does signify in this world of material things. Is\none man as impressive as an army, one tree as impressive as a forest?\n\"Scoop a little water in the hollow of your palm; take up a handful of\nshore sand; well, these are the elements. What is the beach but acres\nof sand? what is the ocean but cubic miles of water? A little more or\na little less signifies nothing.\" It is the mass that does impress us,\nas Niagara does, as the midnight sky does. It is not as parts of this\n\"astonishing astronomy,\" or as a \"part of the round globe under the\noptical sky\"--we do not think of that, but the imagination is moved by\nthe vast sweep of the ocean and its abysmal depths, and its ceaseless\nrocking. In some cases we see the All in the little; the law that\nspheres a tear spheres a globe. That Nature is seen in leasts is an\nold Latin maxim. The soap bubble explains the rainbow. Steam from the\nboiling kettle gave Watt the key to the steam engine; but a tumbler of\nwater throws no light on the sea, though its sweating may help explain\nthe rain.\n\nEmerson quotes Goethe as saying, \"The beautiful is a manifestation of\nsecret laws of nature which, but for this appearance, had been forever\nconcealed from us.\" As if beauty were an objective reality instead of\na subjective experience! As if it were something out there in the\nlandscape that you may gather your arms full of and bring in! If you\nare an artist, you may bring in your vision of it, pass it through\nyour own mind, and thus embalm and preserve the beauty. Or if you are\na poet, you may have a similar experience and reproduce it, humanized,\nin a poem. But the beauty is always a distilled and re-created, or,\nshall we say, an incarnated beauty--a tangible and measurable\nsomething, like moisture in the air, or sugar in the trees, or quartz\nin the rocks. There is, and can be, no \"science of beauty.\" Beauty,\nlike truth, is an experience of the mind. It is the emotion you feel\nwhen in health you look from your door or window of a May morning. If\nyou are ill, or oppressed with grief, or worried, you will hardly\nexperience the emotion of the beautiful.\n\nEmerson said he was warned by the fate of many philosophers not to\nattempt a definition of beauty. But in trying to describe it and\ncharacterize it he ran the same risk. \"We ascribe beauty to that which\nis simple,\" he said; \"which has no superfluous parts; which exactly\nanswers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean\nof many extremes.\" Is a boot-jack beautiful? Is a crow-bar? Yet these\nare simple, they have no superfluous parts, they exactly serve their\nends, they stand related to all things through the laws of chemistry\nand physics. A flower is beautiful, a shell on the beach is beautiful,\na tree in full leaf, or in its winter nudity, is beautiful; but these\nthings are not very simple. Complex things may be beautiful also. A\nvillage church may be beautiful no less than a Gothic cathedral.\nEmerson was himself a beautiful writer, a beautiful character, and his\nworks are a priceless addition to literature.\n\n\"Go out of the house to see the moon,\" says Emerson, \"and it is mere\ntinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your\nnecessary journey.\" This is not true in my experience. The stars do\nnot become mere tinsel, do they, when we go out to look at the\noverwhelming spectacle? Neither does the moon. Is it not a delight in\nitself to look at the full moon--\n\n    \"The vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue,\"\n\nas Whitman says?\n\n    \"The moon doth look round her with delight when the heavens are bare,\"\n\nsays Wordsworth, and equally with delight do we regard the spectacle.\nThe busy farmer in the fields rarely sees the beauty of Nature. He has\nnot the necessary detachment. Put him behind his team and plough in\nthe spring and he makes a pleasing picture to look upon, but the mind\nmust be open to take in the beauty of Nature.\n\nOf course Emerson is only emphasizing the fact of the beauty of\nutility, of the things we do, of the buildings we put up for use, and\nnot merely for show. A hut, a log cabin in a clearing, a farmer's\nunpainted barn, all have elements of beauty. A man leading a horse to\nwater, or foddering his cattle from a stack in a snow-covered field,\nor following his plough, is always pleasing. Every day I pass along a\nroad by a wealthy man's estate and see a very elaborate stone wall of\ncobblestones and cement which marks the boundary of his estate on the\nhighway. The wall does not bend and undulate with the inequalities of\nthe ground; its top is as level as a foundation wall; it is an offense\nto every passer-by; it has none of the simplicity that should mark a\ndivision wall; it is studied and elaborate, and courts your\nadmiration. How much more pleasing a rough wall of field stone, or\n\"wild stone,\" as our old wall-layer put it, with which the farmer\nseparates his fields! No thought of looks, but only of utility. The\nshowy, the highly ornate castle which the multimillionaire builds on\nhis estate--would an artist ever want to put one of them in his\npicture? Beauty is likely to flee when we make a dead set at her.\n\nEmerson's exaggerations are sometimes so excessive as to be simply\namusing, as, when speaking of the feats of the imagination, he says,\n\"My boots and chair and candlestick are fairies in disguise, meteors\nand constellations.\" The baseball, revolving as it flies, may suggest\nthe orbs, or your girdle suggest the equator, or the wiping of your\nface on a towel suggest the absorption of the rain by the soil; but\ndoes the blacking of your shoes suggest anything celestial? Hinges and\nlevers and fulcrums are significant, but one's old hat, or old boots,\nhave not much poetic significance. An elm tree may suggest a\ncathedral, or a shell suggest the rainbow, or the sparkling frost\nsuggest diamonds, or the thread that holds the beads symbolize the law\nthat strings the spheres, but a button is a button, a shoestring a\nshoestring, and a spade a spade, and nothing more.\n\nI cherish and revere the name of Emerson so profoundly, and owe him\nsuch a debt, that it seems, after all, a pity to point out the flaws\nin his precious amber.\n\nLet us keep alive the Emersonian memories: that such a man has lived\nand wrought among us. Let us teach our children his brave and heroic\nwords, and plant our lives upon as secure an ethical foundation as he\ndid. Let us make pilgrimages to Concord, and stand with uncovered\nheads beneath the pine tree where his ashes rest. He left us an estate\nin the fair land of the Ideal. He bequeathed us treasures that thieves\ncannot break through and steal, nor time corrupt, nor rust nor moth\ndestroy.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: At the onset of the author's last illness he attempted to\nrearrange and improve this essay, but was even then unequal to it,\nand, after a little shifting and editing, gave it up. \"Do what you can\nwith it,\" he said; and when I asked him if he could not add a few\nwords to close it, he sat up in bed, and wrote the closing sentences,\nwhich proved to be the last he ever penned.--C. B.]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nANOTHER WORD ON THOREAU\n\nI\n\n\nAfter Emerson, the name of no New England man of letters keeps greener\nand fresher than that of Thoreau. A severe censor of his countrymen,\nand with few elements of popularity, yet the quality of his thought,\nthe sincerity of his life, and the nearness and perennial interest of\nhis themes, as well as his rare powers of literary expression, win\nrecruits from each generation of readers. He does not grow stale any\nmore than Walden Pond itself grows stale. He is an obstinate fact\nthere in New England life and literature, and at the end of his first\ncentennial his fame is more alive than ever.\n\nThoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, July, 1817, and passed\nmost of his life of forty-five years in his native town, minding his\nown business, as he would say, which consisted, for the most part, in\nspending at least the half of each day in the open air, winter and\nsummer, rain and shine, and in keeping tab upon all the doings of wild\nnature about him and recording his observations in his Journal.\n\nThe two race strains that met in Thoreau, the Scottish and the French,\ncome out strongly in his life and character. To the French he owes his\nvivacity, his lucidity, his sense of style, and his passion for the\nwild; for the French, with all their urbanity and love of art, turn to\nnature very easily. To the Scot he is indebted more for his character\nthan for his intellect. From this source come his contrariness, his\ncombativeness, his grudging acquiescence, and his pronounced\nmysticism. Thence also comes his genius for solitude. The man who in\nhis cabin in the woods has a good deal of company \"especially the\nmornings when nobody calls,\" is French only in the felicity of his\nexpression. But there is much in Thoreau that is neither Gallic nor\nScottish, but pure Thoreau.\n\nThe most point-blank and authoritative criticism within my knowledge\nthat Thoreau has received at the hands of his countrymen came from the\npen of Lowell about 1864, and was included in \"My Study Windows.\" It\nhas all the professional smartness and scholarly qualities which\nusually characterize Lowell's critical essays. Thoreau was vulnerable,\nboth as an observer and as a literary craftsman, and Lowell lets him\noff pretty easily--too easily--on both counts.\n\nThe flaws he found in his nature lore were very inconsiderable: \"Till\nhe built his Walden shack he did not know that the hickory grew near\nConcord. Till he went to Maine he had never seen phosphorescent\nwood--a phenomenon early familiar to most country boys. At forty he\nspoke of the seeding [_i. e._, flowering][3] of the pine as a new\ndiscovery, though one should have thought that its gold-dust of\nblowing pollen might have earlier caught his eye.\"\n\n[Footnote 3: See \"Walking\" in _Excursions_. He was under thirty-three\nwhen he made these observations (June, 1850).]\n\nAs regards his literary craftsmanship, Lowell charges him only with\nhaving revived the age of _concetti_ while he fancied himself going\nback to a preclassical nature, basing the charge on such a far-fetched\ncomparison as that in which Thoreau declares his preference for \"the\ndry wit of decayed cranberry-vines and the fresh Attic salt of the\nmoss-beds\" over the wit of the Greek sages as it comes to us in the\n\"Banquet\" of Xenophon--a kind of perversity of comparison all too\nfrequent with Thoreau.\n\nBut though Lowell lets Thoreau off easily on these specific counts, he\nmore than makes up by his sweeping criticism, on more general grounds,\nof his life and character. Here one feels that he overdoes the matter.\n\nIt is not true, in the sense which Lowell implies, that Thoreau's\nwhole life was a search for the doctor. It was such a search in no\nother sense than that we are all in search of the doctor when we take\na walk, or flee to the mountains or to the seashore, or seek to bring\nour minds and spirits in contact with \"Nature's primal sanities.\" His\nsearch for the doctor turns out to be an escape from the conditions\nthat make a doctor necessary. His wonderful activity, those long walks\nin all weathers, in all seasons, by night as well as by day, drenched\nby rain and chilled by frost, suggest a reckless kind of health. A\ndoctor might wisely have cautioned him against such exposures. Nor was\nThoreau a valetudinarian in his physical, moral, or intellectual\nfiber.\n\nIt is not true, as Lowell charges, that it was his indolence that\nstood in the way of his taking part in the industrial activities in\nwhich his friends and neighbors engaged, or that it was his lack of\npersistence and purpose that hindered him. It is not true that he was\npoor because he looked upon money as an unmixed evil. Thoreau's\npurpose was like adamant, and his industry in his own proper pursuits\nwas tireless. He knew the true value of money, and he knew also that\nthe best things in life are to be had without money and without price.\nWhen he had need of money, he earned it. He turned his hand to many\nthings--land-surveying, lecturing, magazine-writing, growing white\nbeans, doing odd jobs at carpentering, whitewashing, fence-building,\nplastering, and brick-laying.\n\nLowell's criticism amounts almost to a diatribe. He was naturally\nantagonistic to the Thoreau type of mind. Coming from a man near his\nown age, and a neighbor, Thoreau's criticism of life was an affront to\nthe smug respectability and scholarly attainments of the class to\nwhich Lowell belonged. Thoreau went his own way, with an air of\ndefiance and contempt which, no doubt, his contemporaries were more\ninclined to resent than we are at our distance. Shall this man in his\nhut on the shores of Walden Pond assume to lay down the law and the\ngospel to his elders and betters, and pass unrebuked, no matter on\nwhat intimate terms he claims to be with the gods of the woods and\nmountains? This seems to be Lowell's spirit.\n\n\"Thoreau's experiment,\" says Lowell, \"actually presupposed all that\ncomplicated civilization which it theoretically abjured. He squatted\non another man's land; he borrows an axe; his boards, his nails, his\nbricks, his mortar, his books, his lamp, his fish-hooks, his plough,\nhis hoe, all turn state's evidence against him as an accomplice in the\nsin of that artificial civilization which rendered it possible that\nsuch a person as Henry D. Thoreau should exist at all.\" Very clever,\nbut what of it? Of course Thoreau was a product of the civilization he\ndecried. He was a product of his country and his times. He was born in\nConcord and early came under the influence of Emerson; he was a\ngraduate of Harvard University and all his life availed himself, more\nor less, of the accumulated benefits of state and social\norganizations. When he took a train to Boston, or dropped a letter in,\nor received one through, the post office, or read a book, or visited a\nlibrary, or looked in a newspaper, he was a sharer in these benefits.\nHe made no claims to living independently of the rest of mankind. His\nonly aim in his Walden experiment was to reduce life to its lowest\nterms, to drive it into a corner, as he said, and question and\ncross-question it, and see, if he could, what it really meant. And he\nprobably came as near cornering it there in his hut on Walden Pond as\nany man ever did anywhere, certainly in a way more pleasing to\ncontemplate than did the old hermits in the desert, or than did\nDiogenes in his tub, though Lowell says the tub of the old Greek had a\nsounder bottom.\n\nLowell seemed to discredit Thoreau by attacking his philosophy and\npointing out the contradictions and inconsistencies of a man who\nabjures the civilization of which he is the product, overlooking the\nfact that man's theories and speculations may be very wide of the\ntruth as we view it, and yet his life be noble and inspiring. Now\nThoreau did not give us a philosophy, but a life. He gave us fresh and\nbeautiful literature, he gave us our first and probably only nature\nclassic, he gave us an example of plain living and high thinking that\nis always in season, and he took upon himself that kind of noble\npoverty that carries the suggestion of wealth of soul.\n\nNo matter how much Thoreau abjured our civilization, he certainly made\ngood use of the weapons it gave him. No matter whose lands he squatted\non, or whose saw he borrowed, or to whom or what he was indebted for\nthe tools and utensils that made his life at Walden possible,--these\nthings were the mere accidents of his environment,--he left a record\nof his life and thoughts there which is a precious heritage to his\ncountrymen. The best in his books ranks with the best in the\nliterature of his times. One could wish that he had shown more\ntolerance for the things other men live for, but this must not make us\noverlook the value of the things he himself lived for, though with\nsome of his readers his intolerance doubtless has this effect. We\ncannot all take to the woods and swamps as Thoreau did. He had a\ngenius for that kind of a life; the most of us must stick to our farms\nand desks and shops and professions.\n\nThoreau retired to Walden for study and contemplation, and because, as\nhe said, he had a little private business with himself. He found that\nby working about six weeks in the year he could meet all his living\nexpenses, and then have all his winter and most of his summers free\nand clear for study. He found that to maintain one's self on this\nearth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if one will live simply and\nwisely. He said, \"It is not necessary that a man should earn his\nliving by the sweat of his brow unless he sweats easier than I do.\"\nWas not his experiment worth while?\n\n\"Walden\" is a wonderful and delightful piece of brag, but it is much\nmore than that. It is literature; it is a Gospel of the Wild. It made\na small Massachusetts pond famous, and the Mecca of many devout\npilgrims.\n\nLowell says that Thoreau had no humor, but there are many pages in\n\"Walden\" that are steeped in a quiet but most delicious humor. His\nhumor brings that inward smile which is the badge of art's felicity.\nHis \"Bean-Field\" is full of it. I venture to say that never before had\na hermit so much fun with a field of white beans.\n\nBoth by training and by temperament Lowell was disqualified from\nentering into Thoreau's character and aims. Lowell's passion for books\nand academic accomplishments was as strong as was Thoreau's passion\nfor the wild and for the religion of Nature. When Lowell went to\nNature for a theme, as in his \"Good Word for Winter,\" his \"My Garden\nAcquaintance,\" and the \"Moosehead Journal,\" his use of it was mainly\nto unlock the treasures of his literary and scholarly attainments; he\nbedecked and be jeweled Nature with gems from all the literatures of\nthe world. In the \"Journal\" we get more of the flavor of libraries\nthan of the Maine woods and waters. No reader of Lowell can doubt that\nhe was a nature-lover, nor can he doubt that he loved books and\nlibraries more. In all his nature writings the poverty of the\nsubstance and the wealth of the treatment are striking. The final\ntruth about Lowell's contributions is that his mind was essentially a\nprose mind, even when he writes poetry. Emerson said justly that his\ntone was always that of prose. What is his \"Cathedral\" but versified\nprose? Like so many cultivated men, he showed a talent for poetry, but\nnot genius; as, on the other hand, one may say of Emerson that he\nshowed more genius for poetry than talent, his inspiration surpassed\nhis technical skill.\n\nOne is not surprised when he finds that John Brown was one of\nThoreau's heroes; he was a sort of John Brown himself in another\nsphere; but one is surprised when one finds him so heartily approving\nof Walt Whitman and traveling to Brooklyn to look upon him and hear\nhis voice. He recognized at once the tremendous significance of\nWhitman and the power of his poetry. He called him the greatest\ndemocrat which the world had yet seen. With all his asceticism and his\nidealism, he was not troubled at all with those things in Whitman that\nare a stumbling-block to so many persons. Evidently his long\nintercourse with Nature had prepared him for the primitive and\nelemental character of Whitman's work. No doubt also his familiarity\nwith the great poems and sacred books of the East helped him. At any\nrate, in this respect, his endorsement of Whitman adds greatly to our\nconception of the mental and spiritual stature of Thoreau.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI can hold my criticism in the back of my head while I say with my\nforehead that all our other nature writers seem tame and insipid\nbeside Thoreau. He was so much more than a mere student and observer\nof nature; and it is this surplusage which gives the extra weight and\nvalue to his nature writing. He was a critic of life, he was a\nliterary force that made for plain living and high thinking. His\nnature lore was an aside; he gathered it as the meditative saunterer\ngathers a leaf, or a flower, or a shell on the beach, while he ponders\non higher things. He had other business with the gods of the woods\nthan taking an inventory of their wares. He was a dreamer, an\nidealist, a fervid ethical teacher, seeking inspiration in the fields\nand woods. The hound, the turtle-dove, and the bay horse which he said\nhe had lost, and for whose trail he was constantly seeking, typified\nhis interest in wild nature. The natural history in his books is quite\nsecondary. The natural or supernatural history of his own thought\nabsorbed him more than the exact facts about the wild life around\nhim. He brings us a gospel more than he brings us a history. His\nscience is only the handmaid of his ethics; his wood-lore is the foil\nof his moral and intellectual teachings. His observations are\nfrequently at fault, or wholly wide of the mark; but the flower or\nspecimen that he brings you always \"comes laden with a thought.\" There\nis a tang and a pungency to nearly everything he published; the\npersonal quality which flavors it is like the formic acid which the\nbee infuses into the nectar he gets from the flower, and which makes\nit honey.\n\nI feel that some such statement about Thoreau should precede or go\nalong with any criticism of him as a writer or as an observer. He was,\nfirst and last, a moral force speaking in the terms of the literary\nnaturalist.\n\nThoreau's prayer in one of his poems--that he might greatly disappoint\nhis friends--seems to have been answered. While his acquaintances went\ninto trade or the professions, he cast about to see what he could do\nto earn his living and still be true to the call of his genius. In his\nJournal of 1851 he says: \"While formerly I was looking about to see\nwhat I could do for a living, some sad experiences in conforming to\nthe wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I\nthought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I\ncould do, and its small profits might suffice, so little capital is\nrequired, so little distraction from my wonted thoughts.\" He could\nrange the hills in summer and still look after the flocks of King\nAdmetus. He also dreamed that he might gather the wild herbs and carry\nevergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods. But\nhe soon learned that trade cursed everything, and that \"though you\ntrade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to\nthe business.\" The nearest his conscience would allow him to approach\nany kind of trade was to offer himself to his townsmen as a\nland-surveyor. This would take him to the places where he liked to be;\nhe could still walk in the fields and woods and swamps and earn his\nliving thereby. The chain and compass became him well, quite as well\nas his bean-field at Walden, and the little money they brought him was\nnot entirely sordid.\n\nIn one of his happy moods in \"Walden\" he sets down in a\nhalf-facetious, half-mystical, but wholly delightful way, his various\navocations, such as his self-appointment as inspector of snow-storms\nand rain-storms, and surveyor of forest paths and all across-lot\nroutes, and herdsman of the wild stock of the town. He is never more\nenjoyable than in such passages. His account of going into business at\nWalden Pond is in the same happy vein. As his fellow citizens were\nslow in offering him any opening in which he could earn a living, he\nturned to the woods, where he was better known, and determined to go\ninto business at once without waiting to acquire the usual capital. He\nexpected to open trade with the Celestial Empire, and Walden was just\nthe place to start the venture. He thought his strict business habits\nacquired through years of keeping tab on wild Nature's doings, his\nwinter days spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the\nwind, and his early spring mornings before his neighbors were astir to\nhear the croak of the first frog, all the training necessary to ensure\nsuccess in business with the Celestial Empire. He admits, it is true,\nthat he never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but doubted\nnot that it was of the last importance only to be present at it. All\nsuch fooling as this is truly delightful. When he goes about his\nsylvan business with his tongue in his cheek and a quizzical,\ngood-humored look upon his face in this way, and advertises the hound,\nthe bay horse, and the turtle-dove he lost so long ago, he is the true\nThoreau, and we take him to our hearts.\n\nOne also enjoys the way in which he magnifies his petty occupations.\nHis brag over his bean-field is delightful. He makes one want to hoe\nbeans with him:\n\n     When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to\n     the woods and the sky and was an accompaniment to my labor\n     which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no\n     longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I\n     remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at\n     all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the\n     oratorios. The nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny\n     afternoons--for I sometimes made a day of it--like a mote in\n     the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling from time to time with\n     a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn at\n     last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope\n     remained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on\n     the ground on bare sand or rocks on the top of hills, where\n     few have found them; graceful and slender like ripples\n     caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised by the wind to\n     float in the heavens; such kindredship is in nature. The\n     hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and\n     surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to\n     the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea. Or sometimes I\n     watched a pair of hen-hawks circling high in the sky,\n     alternately soaring and descending, approaching and leaving\n     one another, as if they were the embodiment of my own\n     thoughts. Or I was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons\n     from this wood to that, with a slight quivering winnowing\n     sound and carrier haste; or from under a rotten stump my hoe\n     turned up a sluggish portentous and outlandish salamander, a\n     trace of Egypt and the Nile, yet our contemporary. When I\n     paused to lean on my hoe, these sounds and sights I heard\n     and saw anywhere in the row, a part of the inexhaustible\n     entertainment which the country offers.\n\nAll this is in his best style. Who, after reading it, does not long\nfor a bean-field? In planting it, too what music attends him!\n\n     Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the\n     brown thrasher--or red mavis, as some love to call him--all\n     the morning, glad of your society, that would find out\n     another farmer's field if yours were not here. While you are\n     planting the seed he cries,--\"Drop it, drop it,--cover it\n     up, cover it up,--pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.\" But\n     this was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as\n     he. You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini\n     performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with\n     your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or\n     plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I had\n     entire faith.\n\nWhat lessons he got in botany in the hoeing!\n\n     Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes\n     with various kinds of weeds,--it will bear some iteration in\n     the account, for there was no little iteration in the\n     labor,--disturbing their delicate organizations so\n     ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his\n     hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously\n     cultivating another. That's Roman worm-wood,--that's\n     pigweed,--that's sorrel,--that's pipergrass,--have at him,\n     chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him\n     have a fibre in the shade, if you do he'll turn himself t'\n     other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long\n     war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had\n     sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me\n     come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of\n     their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many\n     a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above\n     his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in\n     the dust.\n\n     I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when\n     the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an\n     old settler and original proprietor, who is reported to\n     have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with\n     pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new\n     eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful\n     evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things, even\n     without apples or cider,--a most wise and humorous friend,\n     whom I love much, who keeps himself more secret than ever\n     did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is thought to be dead,\n     none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too,\n     dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in\n     whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes,\n     gathering simples and listening to her fables; for she has a\n     genius of unequalled fertility, and her memory runs back\n     farther than mythology, and she can tell me the original of\n     every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the\n     incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old\n     dame, who delights in all weathers and seasons, and is\n     likely to outlive all her children yet.\n\nThoreau taxed himself to find words and images strong enough to\nexpress his aversion to the lives of the men who were \"engaged\" in the\nvarious industrial fields about him. Everywhere in shops and offices\nand fields it appeared to him that his neighbors were doing penance in\na thousand remarkable ways:\n\n     What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires\n     and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended,\n     with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the\n     heavens over their shoulders \"until it becomes impossible\n     for them to resume their natural position, while from the\n     twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the\n     stomach\"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a\n     tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the\n     breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops\n     of pillars,--even these forms of conscious penance are\n     hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which\n     I daily witness.... I see young men, my townsmen, whose\n     misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns,\n     cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily\n     acquired than got rid of.\n\nSurely this disciple of the Gospel of the Wild must have disappointed\nhis friends. It was this audacious gift which Thoreau had for making\nworldly possessions seem ignoble, that gives the tang to many pages of\nhis writings.\n\nThoreau became a great traveler--in Concord, as he says--and made\nWalden Pond famous in our literature by spending two or more years in\nthe woods upon its shore, and writing an account of his sojourn there\nwhich has become a nature classic. He was a poet-naturalist, as his\nfriend Channing aptly called him, of untiring industry, and the\ncountry in a radius of seven or eight miles about Concord was threaded\nby him in all seasons as probably no other section of New England was\never threaded and scrutinized by any one man. Walking in the fields\nand woods, and recording what he saw and heard and thought in his\nJournal, became the business of his life. He went over the same ground\nendlessly, but always brought back new facts, or new impressions,\nbecause he was so sensitive to all the changing features of the day\nand the season in the landscape about him.\n\nOnce he extended his walking as far as Quebec, Canada, and once he\ntook in the whole of Cape Cod; three or four times he made excursions\nto the Maine woods, the result of which gave the name to one of his\nmost characteristic volumes; but as habitually as the coming of the\nday was he a walker about Concord, in all seasons, primarily for\ncompanionship with untamed Nature, and secondarily as a gleaner in the\nfields of natural history.\n\nII\n\nThoreau was not a great philosopher, he was not a great naturalist, he\nwas not a great poet, but as a nature-writer and an original character\nhe is unique in our literature. His philosophy begins and ends with\nhimself, or is entirely subjective, and is frequently fantastic, and\nnearly always illogical. His poetry is of the oracular kind, and is\nonly now and then worth attention. There are crudities in his writings\nthat make the conscientious literary craftsman shudder; there are\nmistakes of observation that make the serious naturalist wonder; and\nthere is often an expression of contempt for his fellow countrymen,\nand the rest of mankind, and their aims in life, that makes the\njudicious grieve. But at his best there is a gay symbolism, a felicity\nof description, and a freshness of observation that delight all\nreaders.\n\nAs a person he gave himself to others reluctantly; he was, in truth, a\nrecluse. He stood for character more than for intellect, and for\nintuition more than for reason. He was often contrary and\ninconsistent. There was more crust than crumb in the loaf he gave us.\n\nHe went about the business of living with his head in the clouds, or\nwith an absolute devotion to the ideal that is certainly rare in our\nliterary history. He declared that he aimed to crow like chanticleer\nin the morning, if only to wake his neighbors up. Much of his writings\nhave this chanticleerian character; they are a call to wake up, to rub\nthe film from one's eyes, and see the real values of life. To this end\nhe prods with paradoxes, he belabors with hyperboles, he teases with\nirony, he startles with the unexpected. He finds poverty more\nattractive than riches, solitude more welcome than society, a sphagnum\nswamp more to be desired than a flowered field.\n\nThoreau is suggestive of those antibodies which modern science makes\nso much of. He tends to fortify us against the dry rot of business,\nthe seductions of social pleasures, the pride of wealth and position.\nHe is antitoxic; he is a literary germicide of peculiar power. He is\ntoo religious to go to church, too patriotic to pay his taxes, too\nfervent a humanist to interest himself in the social welfare of his\nneighborhood.\n\nThoreau called himself a mystic, and a transcendentalist, and a\nnatural philosopher to boot. But the least of these was the natural\nphilosopher. He did not have the philosophic mind, nor the scientific\nmind; he did not inquire into the reason of things, nor the meaning of\nthings; in fact, had no disinterested interest in the universe apart\nfrom himself. He was too personal and illogical for a philosopher. The\nscientific interpretation of things did not interest him at all. He\nwas interested in things only so far as they related to Henry Thoreau.\nHe interpreted Nature entirely in the light of his own idiosyncrasies.\n\nScience goes its own way in spite of our likes and dislikes, but\nThoreau's likes and dislikes determined everything for him. He was\nstoical, but not philosophical. His intellect had no free play outside\nhis individual predilection. Truth as philosophers use the term, was\nnot his quest but truth made in Concord.\n\nThoreau writes that when he was once asked by the Association for the\nAdvancement of Science what branch of science he was especially\ninterested in, he did not reply because he did not want to make\nhimself the laughing-stock of the scientific community, which did not\nbelieve in a science which deals with the higher law--his higher law,\nwhich bears the stamp of Henry Thoreau.\n\nHe was an individualist of the most pronounced type. The penalty of\nthis type of mind is narrowness; the advantage is the personal flavor\nimparted to the written page. Thoreau's books contain plenty of the\npepper and salt of character and contrariness; even their savor of\nwhim and prejudice adds to their literary tang. When his individualism\nbecomes aggressive egotism, as often happens, it is irritating; but\nwhen it gives only that pungent and personal flavor which pervades\nmuch of \"Walden,\" it is very welcome.\n\nThoreau's critics justly aver that he severely arraigns his countrymen\nbecause they are not all Thoreaus--that they do not desert their farms\nand desks and shops and take to the woods. What unmeasured contempt he\npours out upon the lives and ambitions of most of them! Need a\nnature-lover, it is urged, necessarily be a man-hater? Is not man a\npart of nature?--averaging up quite as good as the total scheme of\nthings out of which he came? Cannot his vices and shortcomings be\nmatched by a thousand cruel and abortive things in the fields and the\nwoods? The fountain cannot rise above its source, and man is as good\nas is the nature out of which he came, and of which he is a part. Most\nof Thoreau's harsh judgments upon his neighbors and countrymen are\nonly his extreme individualism gone to seed.\n\nAn extremist he always was. Extreme views commended themselves to him\nbecause they were extreme. His aim in writing was usually \"to make an\nextreme statement.\" He left the middle ground to the school committees\nand trustees. He had in him the stuff of which martyrs and heroes are\nmade. In John Brown he recognized a kindred soul. But his literary\nbent led him to take his own revolutionary impulses out in words. The\nclosest he came to imitation of the hero of Harper's Ferry and to\ndefying the Government was on one occasion when he refused to pay his\npoll-tax and thus got himself locked in jail overnight. It all seems a\npetty and ignoble ending of his fierce denunciation of politics and\ngovernment, but it no doubt helped to satisfy his imagination, which\nso tyrannized over him throughout life. He could endure offenses\nagainst his heart and conscience and reason easier than against his\nimagination.\n\nHe presents that curious phenomenon of a man who is an extreme product\nof culture and civilization, and yet who so hungers and thirsts for\nthe wild and the primitive that he is unfair to the forces and\nconditions out of which he came, and by which he is at all times\nnourished and upheld. He made his excursions into the Maine wilderness\nand lived in his hut by Walden Pond as a scholar and philosopher, and\nnot at all in the spirit of the lumbermen and sportsmen whose wildness\nhe so much admired. It was from his vantage-ground of culture and of\nConcord transcendentalism that he appraised all these types. It was\nfrom a community built up and sustained by the common industries and\nthe love of gain that he decried all these things. It was from a town\nand a civilization that owed much to the pine tree that he launched\nhis diatribe against the lumbermen in the Maine woods: \"The pine is no\nmore lumber than man is; and to be made into boards and houses no more\nits true and highest use than the truest use of man is to be cut down\nand made into manure.\" Not a happy comparison, but no matter. If the\npine tree had not been cut down and made into lumber, it is quite\ncertain that Thoreau would never have got to the Maine woods to utter\nthis protest, just as it is equally certain that had he not been a\nmember of a thrifty and industrious community, and kept his hold upon\nit, he could not have made his Walden experiment of toying and\ncoquetting with the wild and the non-industrial. His occupations as\nland-surveyor, lyceum lecturer, and magazine writer attest how much he\nowed to the civilization he was so fond of decrying. This is Thoreau's\nweakness--the half-truths in which he plumes himself, as if they were\nthe whole law and gospel. His Walden bean-field was only a pretty\npiece of play-acting; he cared more for the ringing of his hoe upon\nthe stones than for the beans. Had his living really depended upon the\nproduct, the sound would not have pleased him so, and the botany of\nthe weeds he hoed under would not have so interested him.\n\nThoreau's half-truths titillate and amuse the mind. We do not nod over\nhis page. We enjoy his art while experiencing an undercurrent of\nprotest against his unfairness. We could have wished him to have shown\nhimself in his writings as somewhat sweeter and more tolerant toward\nthe rest of the world, broader in outlook, and more just and\ncharitable in disposition--more like his great prototype, Emerson, who\ncould do full justice to the wild and the spontaneous without doing an\ninjustice to their opposites; who could see the beauty of the pine\ntree, yet sing the praises of the pine-tree State House; who could\narraign the Government, yet pay his taxes; who could cherish Thoreau,\nand yet see all his limitations. Emerson affirmed more than he denied,\nand his charity was as broad as his judgment. He set Thoreau a good\nexample in bragging, but he bragged to a better purpose. He exalted\nthe present moment, the universal fact, the omnipotence of the moral\nlaw, the sacredness of private judgment; he pitted the man of to-day\nagainst all the saints and heroes of history; and, although he decried\ntraveling, he was yet considerable of a traveler, and never tried to\npersuade himself that Concord was an epitome of the world. Emerson\ncomes much nearer being a national figure than does Thoreau, and yet\nThoreau, by reason of his very narrowness and perversity, and by his\nintense local character, united to the penetrating character of his\ngenius, has made an enduring impression upon our literature.\n\nIII\n\nThoreau's life was a search for the wild. He was the great disciple of\nthe Gospel of Walking. He elevated walking into a religious exercise.\nOne of his most significant and entertaining chapters is on \"Walking.\"\nNo other writer that I recall has set forth the Gospel of Walking so\neloquently and so stimulatingly. Thoreau's religion and his philosophy\nare all in this chapter. It is his most mature, his most complete and\ncomprehensive statement. He says:\n\n     I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my\n     life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking\n     walks--who had a genius, so to speak, for _sauntering_,\n     which word is beautifully derived \"from idle people who\n     roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked\n     charity, under pretence of going _a la Sainte Terre_,\" to\n     the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, \"There goes a\n     _Sainte-Terrer_,\"--a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who\n     never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend,\n     are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go\n     there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean....\n     For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter\n     the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land\n     from the hands of the Infidels.\n\nThoreau was the first man in this country, or in any other, so far as\nI know, who made a religion of walking--the first to announce a Gospel\nof the Wild. That he went forth into wild nature in much the same\nspirit that the old hermits went into the desert, and was as devout in\nhis way as they were in theirs, is revealed by numerous passages in\nhis Journal. He would make his life a sacrament; he discarded the old\nreligious terms and ideas, and struck out new ones of his own:\n\n     What more glorious condition of being can we imagine than\n     from impure to become pure? May I not forget that I am\n     impure and vicious! May I not cease to love purity! May I go\n     to my slumbers as expecting to arise to a new and more\n     perfect day! May I so live and refine my life as fitting\n     myself for a society ever higher than I actually enjoy!\n\n     To watch for and describe all the divine features which I\n     detect in nature! My profession is to be always on the alert\n     to find God in nature, to know his lurking-place, to attend\n     all the oratorios, the operas, in nature.\n\n     Ah! I would walk, I would sit, and sleep, with natural\n     piety. What if I could pray aloud or to myself as I went\n     along the brooksides a cheerful prayer like the birds? For\n     joy I could embrace the earth. I shall delight to be buried\n     in it.\n\n     I do not deserve anything. I am unworthy the least regard,\n     and yet I am made to rejoice. I am impure and worthless, and\n     yet the world is gilded for my delight and holidays are\n     prepared for me, and my path is strewn with flowers. But I\n     cannot thank the Giver; I cannot even whisper my thanks to\n     the human friends I have.\n\nIn the essay on \"Walking,\" Thoreau says that the art of walking \"comes\nonly by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from\nHeaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the\nWalkers.\" \"I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits,\nunless I spend four hours a day at least,--it is commonly more than\nthat,--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields,\nabsolutely free from all worldly engagements.\"\n\nThoreau made good his boast. He was a new kind of walker, a\nHoly-Lander. His walks yielded him mainly spiritual and ideal results.\nThe fourteen published volumes of his Journal are mainly a record of\nhis mental reactions to the passing seasons and to the landscape he\nsauntered through. There is a modicum of natural history, but mostly\nhe reaps the intangible harvest of the poet, the saunterer, the\nmystic, the super-sportsman.\n\nWith his usual love of paradox Thoreau says that the fastest way to\ntravel is to go afoot, because, one may add, the walker is constantly\narriving at his destination; all places are alike to him, his harvest\ngrows all along the road and beside every path, in every field and\nwood and on every hilltop.\n\nAll of Thoreau's books belong to the literature of Walking, and are as\ntrue in spirit in Paris or London as in Concord. His natural history,\nfor which he had a passion, is the natural history of the walker, not\nalways accurate, as I have pointed out, but always graphic and\ninteresting.\n\nWordsworth was about the first poet-walker--a man of letters who made\na business of walking, and whose study was really the open air. But he\nwas not a Holy-Lander in the Thoreau sense. He did not walk to get\naway from people as Thoreau did, but to see a greater variety of them,\nand to gather suggestions for his poems. Not so much the wild as the\nhuman and the morally significant were the objects of Wordsworth's\nquest. He haunted waterfalls and fells and rocky heights and lonely\ntarns, but he was not averse to footpaths and highways, and the\nrustic, half-domesticated nature of rural England. He was a\nnature-lover; he even calls himself a nature-worshiper; and he appears\nto have walked as many, or more, hours each day, in all seasons, as\ndid Thoreau; but he was hunting for no lost paradise of the wild; nor\nwaging a war against the arts and customs of civilization. Man and\nlife were at the bottom of his interest in Nature.\n\nWordsworth never knew the wild as we know it in this country--the\npitilessly savage and rebellious; and, on the other hand, he never\nknew the wonderfully delicate and furtive and elusive nature that we\nknow; but he knew the sylvan, the pastoral, the rustic-human, as we\ncannot know them. British birds have nothing plaintive in their\nsongs; and British woods and fells but little that is disorderly and\ncruel in their expression, or violent in their contrasts.\n\nWordsworth gathered his finest poetic harvest from common nature and\ncommon humanity about him--the wayside birds and flowers and\nwaterfalls, and the wayside people. Though he called himself a\nworshiper of Nature, it was Nature in her half-human moods that he\nadored--Nature that knows no extremes, and that has long been under\nthe influence of man--a soft, humid, fertile, docile Nature, that\nsuggests a domesticity as old and as permanent as that of cattle and\nsheep. His poetry reflects these features, reflects the high moral and\nhistoric significance of the European landscape, while the poetry of\nEmerson, and of Thoreau, is born of the wildness and elusiveness of\nour more capricious and unkempt Nature.\n\nThe walker has no axe to grind; he sniffs the air for new adventure;\nhe loiters in old scenes, he gleans in old fields. He only seeks\nintimacy with Nature to surprise her preoccupied with her own affairs.\nHe seeks her in the woods, the swamps, on the hills, along the\nstreams, by night and by day, in season and out of season. He skims\nthe fields and hillsides as the swallow skims the air, and what he\ngets is intangible to most persons. He sees much with his eyes, but he\nsees more with his heart and imagination. He bathes in Nature as in a\nsea. He is alert for the beauty that waves in the trees, that ripples\nin the grass and grain, that flows in the streams, that drifts in the\nclouds, that sparkles in the dew and rain. The hammer of the\ngeologist, the notebook of the naturalist, the box of the herbalist,\nthe net of the entomologist, are not for him. He drives no sharp\nbargains with Nature, he reads no sermons in stones, no books in\nrunning brooks, but he does see good in everything. The book he reads\nhe reads through all his senses--through his eyes, his ears, his nose,\nand also through his feet and hands--and its pages are open\neverywhere; the rocks speak of more than geology to him, the birds of\nmore than ornithology, the flowers of more than botany, the stars of\nmore than astronomy, the wild creatures of more than zooelogy.\n\nThe average walker is out for exercise and the exhilarations of the\nroad, he reaps health and strength; but Thoreau evidently impaired his\nhealth by his needless exposure and inadequate food. He was a\nHoly-Lander who falls and dies in the Holy Land. He ridiculed walking\nfor exercise--taking a walk as the sick take medicine; the walk itself\nwas to be the \"enterprise and adventure of the day.\" And \"you must\nwalk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates\nwhile walking.\"\n\nIV\n\nThoreau's friends and neighbors seem to have persuaded themselves that\nhis natural-history lore was infallible, and, moreover, that he\npossessed some mysterious power over the wild creatures about him that\nother men did not possess. I recall how Emerson fairly bristled up\nwhen on one occasion while in conversation with him I told him I\nthought Thoreau in his trips to the Maine woods had confounded the\nhermit thrush with the wood thrush, as the latter was rarely or never\nfound in Maine. As for Thoreau's influence over the wild creatures,\nEmerson voiced this superstition when he said, \"Snakes coiled round\nhis leg, the fishes swam into his hand, and he took them from the\nwater; he pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail, and took\nthe foxes under his protection from the hunters.\" Of course Thoreau\ncould do nothing with the wild creatures that you or I could not do\nunder the same conditions. A snake will coil around any man's leg if\nhe steps on its tail, but it will not be an embrace of affection; and\na fish will swim into his hands under the same conditions that it will\ninto Thoreau's. As for pulling a woodchuck out of its hole by the\ntail, the only trouble is to get hold of the tail. The 'chuck is\npretty careful to keep his tail behind him, but many a farm boy, aided\nby his dog, has pulled one out of the stone wall by the tail, much\nagainst the 'chuck's will. If Thoreau's friends were to claim that he\ncould carry _Mephitis mephitica_ by the tail with impunity, I can say\nI have done the same thing, and had my photograph taken in the act.\nThe skunk is no respecter of persons, and here again the trouble is to\nget hold of the tail at the right moment--and, I may add, to let go of\nit at the right moment.\n\nThoreau's influence over the wild creatures is what every man\npossesses who is alike gentle in his approach to them. Bradford Torrey\nsucceeded, after a few experiments, in so dispelling the fears of an\nincubating red-eyed vireo that she would take insect food from his\nhand, and I have known several persons to become so familiar with the\nchickadees that they would feed from the hand, and in some instances\neven take food from between the lips. If you have a chipmunk for a\nneighbor, you may soon become on such intimate terms with him that he\nwill search your pockets for nuts and sit on your knee and shoulder\nand eat them. But why keep alive and circulate as truth these animal\nlegends of the prescientific ages?\n\nThoreau was not a born naturalist, but a born supernaturalist. He was\ntoo intent upon the bird behind the bird always to take careful note\nof the bird itself. He notes the birds, but not too closely. He was at\ntimes a little too careless in this respect to be a safe guide to the\nbird-student. Even the saunterer to the Holy Land ought to know the\nindigo bunting from the black-throated blue warbler, with its languid,\nmidsummery, \"Zee, zee, zee-eu.\"\n\nMany of his most interesting natural-history notes Thoreau got from\nhis farmer friends--Melvin, Minott, Miles, Hubbard, Wheeler. Their\neyes were more single to the life around them than were his; none of\nthem had lost a hound, a turtle-dove, and a bay horse, whose trail\nthey were daily in quest of.\n\nA haunter of swamps and river marshes all his life, he had never yet\nobserved how the night bittern made its booming or pumping sound, but\naccepted the explanation of one of his neighbors that it was produced\nby the bird thrusting its bill in water, sucking up as much as it\ncould hold, and then pumping it out again with four or five heaves of\nthe neck, throwing the water two or three feet--in fact, turning\nitself into a veritable pump! I have stood within a few yards of the\nbird when it made the sound, and seen the convulsive movement of the\nneck and body, and the lifting of the head as the sound escaped. The\nbird seems literally to vomit up its notes, but it does not likewise\nemit water.\n\nEvery farmer and fox-hunter would smile if he read Thoreau's\nstatement, made in his paper on the natural history of Massachusetts,\nthat \"when the snow lies light and but five or six inches deep, you\nmay give chase and come up with the fox on foot.\" Evidently Thoreau\nhad never tried it. With a foot and a half, or two feet of snow on the\nground, and traveling on snowshoes, you might force a fox to take to\nhis hole, but you would not come up to him. In four or five feet of\nsoft snow hunters come up with the deer, and ride on their backs for\namusement, but I doubt if a red fox ever ventures out in such a depth\nof snow. In one of his May walks in 1860, Thoreau sees the trail of\nthe musquash in the mud along the river-bottoms, and he is taken by\nthe fancy that, as our roads and city streets often follow the early\ntracks of the cow, so \"rivers in another period follow the trail of\nthe musquash.\" As if the river was not there before the musquash was!\n\nAgain, his mysterious \"night warbler,\" to which he so often alludes,\nwas one of our common everyday birds which most school-children know,\nnamely, the oven-bird, or wood-accentor, yet to Thoreau it was a sort\nof phantom bird upon which his imagination loved to dwell. Emerson\ntold him he must beware of finding and booking it, lest life should\nhave nothing more to show him. But how such a haunter of woods escaped\nidentifying the bird is a puzzle.\n\nIn his walks in the Maine woods Thoreau failed to discriminate the\nsong of the hermit thrush from that of the wood thrush. The melody,\nno doubt, went to his heart, and that was enough. Though he sauntered\nthrough orchards and rested under apple trees, he never observed that\nthe rings of small holes in the bark were usually made by the\nyellow-bellied woodpecker, instead of by Downy, and that the bird was\nnot searching for grubs or insects, but was feeding upon the milky\ncambium layer of the inner bark.\n\nBut Thoreau's little slips of the kind I have called attention to\ncount as nothing against the rich harvest of natural-history notes\nwith which his work abounds. He could describe bird-songs and animal\nbehavior and give these things their right emphasis in the life of the\nlandscape as no other New England writer has done. His account of the\nbattle of the ants in Walden atones an hundred-fold for the lapses I\nhave mentioned.\n\nOne wonders just what Thoreau means when he says in \"Walden,\" in\ntelling of his visit to \"Baker Farm\": \"Once it chanced that I stood in\nthe very abutment of a rainbow's arch, which filled the lower stratum\nof the atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around, and dazzling\nme as if I looked through colored crystal.\" Is it possible, then, to\nreach the end of the rainbow? Why did he not dig for the pot of gold\nthat is buried there? How he could be aware that he was standing at\nthe foot of one leg of the glowing arch is to me a mystery. When I\nsee a rainbow, it is always immediately in front of me. I am standing\nexactly between the highest point of the arch and the sun, and the\nlaws of optics ordain that it can be seen in no other way. You can\nnever see a rainbow at an angle. It always faces you squarely. Hence\nno two persons see exactly the same bow, because no two persons can\noccupy exactly the same place at the same time. The bow you see is\ndirected to you alone. Move to the right or the left, and it moves as\nfast as you do. You cannot flank it or reach its end. It is about the\nmost subtle and significant phenomenon that everyday Nature presents\nto us. Unapproachable as a spirit, like a visitant from another world,\nyet the creation of the familiar sun and rain!\n\nHow Thoreau found himself standing in the bow's abutment will always\nremain a puzzle to me. Observers standing on high mountains with the\nsun low in the west have seen the bow as a complete circle. This one\ncan understand.\n\nWe can point many a moral and adorn many a tale with Thoreau's\nshortcomings and failures in his treatment of nature themes. Channing\nquotes him as saying that sometimes \"you must see with the inside of\nyour eye.\" I think that Thoreau saw, or tried to see, with the inside\nof his eye too often. He does not always see correctly, and many times\nhe sees more of Thoreau than he does of the nature he assumes to be\nlooking at. Truly it is \"needless to travel for wonders,\" but the\nwonderful is not one with the fantastic or the far-fetched. Forcible\nexpression, as I have said, was his ruling passion as a writer. Only\nwhen he is free from its thrall, which in his best moments he surely\nis, does he write well. When he can forget Thoreau and remember only\nnature, we get those delightful descriptions and reflections in\n\"Walden.\" When he goes to the Maine woods or to Cape Cod or to Canada,\nhe leaves all his fantastic rhetoric behind him and gives us sane and\nrefreshing books. In his walks with Channing one suspects he often let\nhimself go to all lengths, did his best to turn the world inside out,\nas he did at times in his Journals, for his own edification and that\nof his wondering disciple.\n\nTo see analogies and resemblances everywhere is the gift of genius,\nbut to see a resemblance to volcanoes in the hubs or gnarls on birch\nor beech trees, or cathedral windows in the dead leaves of the\nandromeda in January, or a suggestion of Teneriffe in a stone-heap,\ndoes not indicate genius. To see the great in the little, or the whole\nof Nature in any of her parts, is the poet's gift, but to ask, after\nseeing the andropogon grass, \"Are there no purple reflections from the\nculms of thought in my mind?\"--a remark which Channing quotes as very\nsignificant--is not to be poetical. Thoreau is full of these\nimpossible and fantastic comparisons, thinking only of striking\nexpressions and not at all about the truth. \"The flowing of the sap\nunder the dull rind of the trees\" is suggestive, but what suggestion\nis there in the remark, \"May I ever be in as good spirits as a\nwillow\"? The mood of the scrub oak was more habitual with him.\n\nThoreau was in no sense an interpreter of nature; he did not draw out\nits meanings or seize upon and develop its more significant phases.\nSeldom does he relate what he sees or thinks to the universal human\nheart and mind. He has rare power of description, but is very limited\nin his power to translate the facts and movements of nature into human\nemotion. His passage on the northern lights, which Channing quotes\nfrom the Journals, is a good sample of his failure in this respect:\n\n     Now the fire in the north increases wonderfully, not\n     shooting up so much as creeping along, like a fire on the\n     mountains of the north seen afar in the night. The\n     Hyperborean gods are burning brush, and it spread, and all\n     the hoes in heaven couldn't stop it. It spread from west to\n     east over the crescent hill. Like a vast fiery worm it lay\n     across the northern sky, broken into many pieces; and each\n     piece, with rainbow colors skirting it, strove to advance\n     itself toward the east, worm-like, on its own annular\n     muscles. It has spread into their choicest wood-lots. Now it\n     shoots up like a single solitary watch-fire or burning bush,\n     or where it ran up a pine tree like powder, and still it\n     continues to gleam here and there like a fat stump in the\n     burning, and is reflected in the water. And now I see the\n     gods by great exertions have got it under, and the stars\n     have come out without fear, in peace.\n\nI get no impression of the mysterious almost supernatural character of\nthe aurora from such a description in terms of a burning wood-lot or a\nhay-stack; it is no more like a conflagration than an apparition is\nlike solid flesh and blood. Its wonderful, I almost said its\nspiritual, beauty, its sudden vanishings and returnings, its spectral,\nevanescent character--why, it startles and awes one as if it were the\ndraperies around the throne of the Eternal. And then his mixed\nmetaphor--the Hyperborean gods turned farmers and busy at burning\nbrush, then a fiery worm, and then the burning wood-lots! But this is\nThoreau--inspired with the heavenly elixir one moment, and drunk with\nthe brew in his own cellar the next.\n\nV\n\nThoreau's faults as a writer are as obvious as his merits. Emerson hit\nupon one of them when he said, \"The trick of his rhetoric is soon\nlearned; it consists in substituting for the obvious word and thought,\nits diametrical antagonist.\" He praises wild mountains and winter\nforests for their domestic air, snow and ice for their warmth, and so\non. (Yet Emerson in one of his poems makes frost burn and fire\nfreeze.) One frequently comes upon such sentences as these: \"If I were\nsadder, I should be happier\"; \"The longer I have forgotten you, the\nmore I remember you.\" It may give a moment's pleasure when a writer\ntakes two opposites and rubs their ears together in that way, but one\nmay easily get too much of it. Words really mean nothing when used in\nsuch a manner. When Emerson told Channing that if he (Emerson) could\nwrite as well as he did, he would write a great deal better, one\nreadily sees what he means. And when Thoreau says of one of his\ncallers, \"I like his looks and the sound of his silence,\" the\ncontradiction pleases one. But when he tells his friend that hate is\nthe substratum of his love for him, words seem to have lost their\nmeaning. Now and then he is guilty of sheer bragging, as when he says,\n\"I would not go around the corner to see the world blow up.\"\n\nHe often defies all our sense of fitness and proportion by the degree\nin which he magnifies the little and belittles the big. He says of the\nsinging of a cricket which he heard under the border of some rock on\nthe hillside one mid-May day, that it \"makes the finest singing of\nbirds outward and insignificant.\" \"It is not so wildly melodious, but\nit is wiser and more mature than that of the wood thrush.\" His forced\nand meaningless analogies come out in such a comparison as this: \"Most\npoems, like the fruits, are sweetest toward the blossom end.\" Which\n_is_ the blossom end of a poem?\n\nThoreau advised one of his correspondents when he made garden to plant\nsome Giant Regrets--they were good for sauce. It is certain that he\nhimself planted some Giant Exaggerations and had a good yield. His\nexaggeration was deliberate. \"Walden\" is from first to last a most\ndelightful sample of his talent. He belittles everything that goes on\nin the world outside his bean-field. Business, politics, institutions,\ngovernments, wars and rumors of wars, were not so much to him as the\nhumming of a mosquito in his hut at Walden: \"I am as much affected by\nthe faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour\nthrough my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door\nand windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame.\nIt was Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air,\nsinging its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical\nabout it.\" One wonders what he would have made of a blow-fly buzzing\non the pane.\n\nHe made Walden Pond famous because he made it the center of the\nuniverse and found life rich and full without many of the things that\nothers deem necessary. There is a stream of pilgrims to Walden at all\nseasons, curious to see where so much came out of so little--where a\nman had lived who preferred poverty to riches, and solitude to\nsociety, who boasted that he could do without the post office, the\nnewspapers, the telegraph, and who had little use for the railroad,\nthough he thought mankind had become a little more punctual since its\ninvention.\n\nAnother conspicuous fault as a writer is his frequent use of false\nanalogies, or his comparison of things which have no ground of\nrelationship, as when he says: \"A day passed in the society of those\nGreek sages, such as described in the Banquet of Xenophon, would not\nbe comparable with the dry wit of decayed cranberry-vines, and the\nfresh Attic salt of the moss-beds.\" The word \"wit\" has no meaning when\nthus used. Or again where he says: \"All great enterprises are\nself-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his\npoetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it\nmakes.\" Was there ever a more inept and untruthful comparison? To find\nany ground of comparison between the two things he compared, he must\nmake his poet sustain his body by the scraps and lines of his poem\nwhich he rejects, or else the steam planing-mill consume its finished\nproduct.\n\n\"Let all things give way to the impulse of expression,\" he says, and\nhe assuredly practiced what he had preached.\n\nOne of his tricks of self-justification was to compare himself with\ninanimate objects, which is usually as inept as to compare colors with\nsounds or perfumes: \"My acquaintances sometimes imply that I am too\ncold,\" he writes, \"but each thing is warm enough of its kind. Is the\nstone too cold which absorbs the heat of the summer sun and does not\npart with it during the night? Crystals, though they be of ice are not\ntoo cold to melt.... Crystal does not complain of crystal any more\nthan the dove of its mate.\"\n\nHe strikes the same false note when, in discussing the question of\nsolitude at Walden he compares himself to the wild animals around him,\nand to inanimate objects, and says he was no more lonely than the\nloons on the pond, or than Walden itself: \"I am no more lonely than a\nsingle mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or a sorrel,\nor a house-fly, or a humble-bee. I am no more lonely than the Mill\nBrook, or a weather-cock, or the North Star, or the South Wind, or an\nApril Shower, or a January Thaw, or the first spider in a new house.\"\nDid he imagine that any of these things were ever lonely? Man does get\nlonely, but Mill Brook and the North Star probably do not.\n\nIf he sees anything unusual in nature, like galls on trees and plants,\nhe must needs draw some moral from it, usually at the expense of the\ntruth. For instance, he implies that the beauty of the oak galls is\nsomething that was meant to bloom in the flower, that the galls are\nthe scarlet sins of the tree, the tree's Ode to Dejection, yet he\nmust have known that they are the work of an insect and are as healthy\na growth as is the regular leaf. The insect gives the magical touch\nthat transforms the leaf into a nursery for its young. Why deceive\nourselves by believing that fiction is more interesting than fact? But\nThoreau is full of this sort of thing; he must have his analogy, true\nor false.\n\nHe says that when a certain philosophical neighbor came to visit him\nin his hut at Walden, their discourse expanded and racked the little\nhouse: \"I should not dare to say how many pounds' weight there was\nabove the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its\nseams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to\nstop the consequent leak--but I had enough of that kind of oakum\nalready picked.\" At the beginning of the paragraph he says that he and\nhis philosopher sat down each with \"some shingles of thoughts well\ndried,\" which they whittled, trying their knives and admiring the\nclear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. In a twinkling the three\nshingles of thought are transformed into fishes of thought in a stream\ninto which the hermit and the philosopher gently and reverently wade,\nwithout scaring or disturbing them. Then, presto! the fish become a\nforce, like the pressure of a tornado that nearly wrecks his cabin!\nSurely this is tipsy rhetoric, and the work that can stand much of\nit, as \"Walden\" does, has a plus vitality that is rarely equaled.\n\nVI\n\nIn \"Walden\" Thoreau, in playfully naming his various occupations,\nsays, \"For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide\ncirculation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of\nmy contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my\nlabor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own\nreward.\" If he were to come back now, he would, I think, open his eyes\nin astonishment, perhaps with irritation, to see the whole bulk of\nthem at last in print.\n\nHis Journal was the repository of all his writings, and was drawn upon\nduring his lifetime for all the material he printed in books and\ncontributed to the magazines. The fourteen volumes, I venture to say,\nform a record of the most minute and painstaking details of what one\nman saw and heard on his walks in field and wood, in a single\ntownship, that can be found in any literature.\n\nIt seems as though a man who keeps a Journal soon becomes its victim;\nat least that seems to have been the case with Thoreau. He lived for\nthat Journal, he read for it, he walked for it; it was like a hungry,\nomnivorous monster that constantly called for more. He transcribed to\nits pages from the books he read, he filled it with interminable\naccounts of the commonplace things he saw in his walks, tedious and\nminute descriptions of everything in wood, field, and swamp. There are\nwhole pages of the Latin names of the common weeds and flowers. Often\nhe could not wait till he got home to write out his notes. He walked\nby day and night, in cold and heat, in storm and sunshine, all for his\nJournal. All was fish that came to that net; nothing was too\ninsignificant to go in. He did not stop to make literature of it, or\ndid not try, and it is rarely the raw material of literature. Its\nhuman interest is slight, its natural history interest slight also.\nFor upwards of twenty-five years Thoreau seemed to have lived for this\nJournal. It swelled to many volumes. It is a drag-net that nothing\nescapes. The general reader reads Thoreau's Journal as he does the\nbook of Nature, just to cull out the significant things here and\nthere. The vast mass of the matter is merely negative, like the things\nthat we disregard in our walk. Here and there we see a flower, or a\ntree, or a prospect, or a bird, that arrests attention, but how much\nwe pass by or over without giving it a thought! And yet, just as the\nreal nature-lover will scan eagerly the fine print in Nature's book,\nso will the student and enthusiast of Thoreau welcome all that is\nrecorded in his Journals.\n\nThoreau says that Channing in their walks together sometimes took out\nhis notebook and tried to write as he did, but all in vain. \"He soon\nputs it up again, or contents himself with scrawling some sketch of\nthe landscape. Observing me still scribbling, he will say that he\nconfines himself to the ideal, purely ideal remarks; he leaves the\nfacts to me. Sometimes, too, he will say, a little petulantly, 'I am\nuniversal; I have nothing to do with the particular and definite.'\"\nThe truth was Channing had no Journal calling, \"More, more!\" and was\nnot so inordinately fond of composition. \"I, too,\" says Thoreau,\n\"would fain set down something beside facts. Facts should only be as\nthe frame to my pictures; they should be material to the mythology\nwhich I am writing.\" But only rarely are his facts significant, or\ncapable of an ideal interpretation. Felicitous strokes like that in\nwhich he says, \"No tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an instep\nas the birch,\" are rare.\n\nThoreau evidently had a certain companionship with his Journal. It was\nlike a home-staying body to whom he told everything on his return from\na walk. He loved to write it up. He made notes of his observations as\nhe went along, night or day. One time he forgot his notebook and so\nsubstituted a piece of birch-bark. He must bring back something\ngathered on the spot. He skimmed the same country over and over; the\ncream he was after rose every day and all day, and in all seasons.\n\nHe evidently loved to see the pages of his Journal sprinkled with the\nLatin names of the plants and animals that he saw in his walk. A\ncommon weed with a long Latin name acquired new dignity. Occasionally\nhe fills whole pages with the scientific names of the common trees and\nplants. He loved also a sprinkling of Latin quotations and allusions\nto old and little known authors. The pride of scholarship was strong\nin him. Suggestions from what we call the heathen world seemed to\naccord with his Gospel of the Wild.\n\nThoreau loved to write as well as John Muir loved to talk. It was his\nruling passion. He said time never passed so quickly as when he was\nwriting. It seemed as if the clock had been set back. He evidently\nwent to Walden for subject-matter for his pen; and the remarkable\nthing about it all is that he was always keyed up to the writing\npitch. The fever of expression was always upon him. Day and night,\nwinter and summer, it raged in his blood. He paused in his walks and\nwrote elaborately. The writing of his Journal must have taken as much\ntime as his walking.\n\nOnly Thoreau's constant and unquenchable thirst for intellectual\nactivity, and to supply material for that all-devouring Journal, can,\nto me, account for his main occupation during the greater part of the\nlast two years of his life, which consisted in traversing the woods\nand measuring the trees and stumps and counting their rings.\nApparently not a stump escaped him--pine, oak, birch, chestnut, maple,\nold or new, in the pasture or in the woods; he must take its measure\nand know its age. He must get the girth of every tree he passed and\nsome hint of all the local conditions that had influenced its growth.\nOver two hundred pages of his Journal are taken up with barren details\nof this kind. He cross-questions the stumps and trees as if searching\nfor the clue to some important problem, but no such problem is\ndisclosed. He ends where he begins. His vast mass of facts and figures\nwas incapable of being generalized or systematized. His elaborate\ntables of figures, so carefully arranged, absolutely accurate, no\ndoubt, are void of interest, because no valuable inferences can be\ndrawn from them.\n\n\"I have measured in all eight pitch pine stumps at the Tommy Wheeler\nhollow, sawed off within a foot of the ground. I measured the longest\ndiameter and then at right angles with that, and took the average, and\nthen selected the side of the stump on which the radius was of average\nlength, and counted the number of rings in each inch, beginning at the\ncenter, thus:\" And then follows a table of figures filling a page. \"Of\nthose eight, average growth about one seventh of an inch per year.\nCalling the smallest number of rings in an inch in each tree one, the\ncomparative slowness of growth of the inches is thus expressed.\" Then\nfollows another carefully prepared table of figures. Before one is\ndone with these pages one fairly suspects the writer is mad, the\nresults are so useless, and so utterly fail to add to our knowledge of\nthe woods. Would counting the leaves and branches in the forest, and\nmaking a pattern of each, and tabulating the whole mass of figures be\nany addition to our knowledge? I attribute the whole procedure, as I\nhave said, to his uncontrollable intellectual activity, and the\nimaginary demands of this Journal, which continued to the end of his\nlife. The very last pages of his Journal, a year previous to his\ndeath, are filled with minute accounts of the ordinary behavior of\nkittens, not one item novel or unusual, or throwing any light on the\nkitten. But it kept his mind busy, and added a page or two to the\nJournal.\n\nIn his winter walks he usually carried a four-foot stick, marked in\ninches, and would measure the depth of the snow over large areas,\nevery tenth step, and then construct pages of elaborate tables showing\nthe variations according to locality, and then work out the\naverage--an abnormal craving for exact but useless facts. Thirty-four\nmeasurements on Walden disclosed the important fact that the snow\naveraged five and one sixth inches deep. He analyzes a pensile nest\nwhich he found in the woods--doubtless one of the vireo's--and fills\nten pages with a minute description of the different materials which\nit contained. Then he analyzes a yellow-bird's nest, filling two\npages. That Journal shall not go hungry, even if there is nothing to\ngive it but the dry material of a bird's nest.\n\nVII\n\nThe craving for literary expression in Thoreau was strong and\nconstant, but, as he confesses, he could not always select a theme. \"I\nam prepared not so much for contemplation as for forceful expression.\"\nNo matter what the occasion, \"forceful expression\" was the aim. No\nmeditation, or thinking, but sallies of the mind. All his paradoxes\nand false analogies and inconsistencies come from this craving for a\nforceful expression. He apparently brought to bear all the skill he\npossessed of this kind on all occasions. One must regard him, not as a\ngreat thinker, nor as a disinterested seeker after the truth, but as a\nmaster in the art of vigorous and picturesque expression. To startle,\nto wake up, to communicate to his reader a little wholesome shock, is\nhis aim. Not the novelty and freshness of his subject-matter concerns\nhim but the novelty and unhackneyed character of his literary style.\nThat throughout the years a man should keep up the habit of walking,\nby night as well as by day, and bring such constant intellectual\npressure to bear upon everything he saw, or heard, or felt, is\nremarkable. No evidence of relaxation, or of abandonment to the mere\npleasure of the light and air and of green things growing, or of\nsauntering without thoughts of his Journal. He is as keyed up and\nstrenuous in his commerce with the Celestial Empire as any tradesman\nin world goods that ever amassed a fortune. He sometimes wrote as he\nwalked, and expanded and elaborated the same as in his study. On one\noccasion he dropped his pencil and could not find it, but he managed\nto complete the record. One night on his way to Conantum he speculates\nfor nearly ten printed pages on the secret of being able to state a\nfact simply and adequately, or of making one's self the free organ of\ntruth--a subtle and ingenious discussion with the habitual craving for\nforceful expression. In vain I try to put myself in the place of a man\nwho goes forth into wild nature with malice prepense to give free\nswing to his passion for forcible expression. I suppose all\nnature-writers go forth on their walks or strolls to the fields and\nwoods with minds open to all of Nature's genial influences and\nsignificant facts and incidents, but rarely, I think, with the\nstrenuousness of Thoreau--grinding the grist as they go along.\n\nThoreau compares himself to the bee that goes forth in quest of honey\nfor the hive: \"How to extract honey from the flower of the world. That\nis my everyday business. I am as busy as the bee about it. I ramble\nover all fields on that errand and am never so happy as when I feel\nmyself heavy with honey and wax.\" To get material for his Journal was\nas much his business as it was the bee's to get honey for his comb. He\napparently did not know that the bee does not get honey nor wax\ndirectly from the flowers, but only nectar, or sweet water. The bee,\nas I have often said, makes the honey and the wax after she gets home\nto the swarm. She puts the nectar through a process of her own, adds a\ndrop of her own secretion to it, namely, formic acid, the water\nevaporates, and lo! the tang and pungency of honey!\n\nVIII\n\nThere can be little doubt that in his practical daily life we may credit\nThoreau with the friendliness and neighborliness that his friend Dr.\nEdward W. Emerson claims for him. In a recent letter to me, Dr. Emerson\nwrites: \"He carried the old New England undemonstrativeness very far. He\nwas also, I believe, really shy, prospered only in monologue, except in\na walk in the woods with one companion, and his difficulties increased\nto impossibility in a room full of people.\" Dr. Emerson admits that\nThoreau is himself to blame for giving his readers the impression that\nhe held his kind in contempt, but says that in reality he had\nneighborliness, was dutiful to parents and sisters, showed courtesy to\nwomen and children and an open, friendly side to many a simple,\nuncultivated townsman.\n\nThis practical helpfulness and friendliness in Thoreau's case seems to\ngo along with the secret contempt he felt and expressed in his Journal\ntoward his fellow townsmen. At one time he was chosen among the\nselectmen to perambulate the town lines--an old annual custom. One day\nthey perambulated the Lincoln line, the next day the Bedford line, the\nnext day the Carlisle line, and so on, and kept on their rounds for a\nweek. Thoreau felt soiled and humiliated. \"A fatal coarseness is the\nresult of mixing in the trivial affairs of men. Though I have been\nassociating even with the select men of this and adjoining towns, I\nfeel inexpressibly begrimed.\" How fragile his self-respect was! Yet he\nhad friends among the surrounding farmers, whose society and\nconversation he greatly valued.\n\nThat Thoreau gave the impression of being what country folk call a\ncrusty person--curt and forbidding in manner--seems pretty well\nestablished. His friend Alcott says he was deficient in the human\nsentiments. Emerson, who, on the whole, loved and admired him, says:\n\"Thoreau sometimes appears only as a _gendarme_, good to knock down a\ncockney with, but without that power to cheer and establish which\nmakes the value of a friend.\" Again he says: \"If I knew only Thoreau,\nI should think cooeperation of good men impossible. Must we always talk\nfor victory, and never once for truth, for comfort, and joy?\nCentrality he has, and penetration, strong understanding, and the\nhigher gifts,--the insight of the real, or from the real, and the\nmoral rectitude that belongs to it; but all this and all his resources\nof wit and invention are lost to me, in every experiment, year after\nyear, that I make, to hold intercourse with his mind. Always some\nweary captious paradox to fight you with, and the time and temper\nwasted.\" \"It is curious,\" he again says, \"that Thoreau goes to a house\nto say with little preface what he has just read or observed, delivers\nit in a lump, is quite inattentive to any comment or thought which any\nof the company offer on the matter, nay, is merely interrupted by it,\nand when he has finished his report departs with precipitation.\"\n\nIt is interesting in this connection to put along-side of these rather\ncaustic criticisms a remark in kind recorded by Thoreau in his Journal\nconcerning Emerson: \"Talked, or tried to talk, with R. W. E. Lost my\ntime--nay, almost my identity. He, assuming a false opposition where\nthere was no difference of opinion, talked to the wind--told me what I\nknew--and I lost my time trying to imagine myself somebody else to\noppose him.\"\n\nEvidently Concord philosophers were not always in concord.\n\nMore characteristic of Emerson is the incident Thoreau relates of his\ndriving his own calf, which had just come in with the cows, out of the\nyard, thinking it belonged to a drove that was then going by. From all\naccounts Emerson was as slow to recognize his own thoughts when Alcott\nand Channing aired them before him as he was to recognize his own\ncalf.\n\n\"I have got a load of great hardwood stumps,\" writes Thoreau, and\nthen, as though following out a thought suggested by them, he adds:\n\"For sympathy with my neighbors I might about as well live in China.\nThey are to me barbarians with their committee works and\ngregariousness.\"\n\nProbably the stumps were from trees that grew on his neighbors' farms\nand were a gift to him. Let us hope the farmers did not deliver them\nto him free of charge. He complained that the thousand and one\ngentlemen that he met were all alike; he was not cheered by the hope\nof any rudeness from them: \"A cross man, a coarse man, an eccentric\nman, a silent man who does not drill well--of him there is some hope,\"\nhe declares. Herein we get a glimpse of the Thoreau ideal which led\nhis friend Alcott to complain that he lacked the human sentiment. He\nmay or may not have been a \"cross man,\" but he certainly did not\n\"drill well,\" for which his readers have reason to be thankful.\nAlthough Thoreau upholds the cross and the coarse man, one would\nreally like to know with what grace he would have put up with\ngratuitous discourtesy or insult. I remember an entry in his Journal\nin which he tells of feeling a little cheapened when a neighbor asked\nhim to take some handbills and leave them at a certain place as he\npassed on his walk.\n\nA great deal of the piquancy and novelty in Thoreau come from the\nunexpected turn he gives to things, upsetting all our preconceived\nnotions. His trick of exaggeration he rather brags of: \"Expect no\ntrivial truth from me,\" he says, \"unless I am on the witness stand.\"\nHe even exaggerates his own tendency to exaggeration. It is all a part\nof his scheme to startle and wake people up. He exaggerates his likes,\nand he exaggerates his dislikes, and he exaggerates his indifference.\nIt is a way he has of bragging. The moment he puts pen to paper the\nimp of exaggeration seizes it. He lived to see the beginning of the\nCivil War, and in a letter to a friend expressed his indifference in\nregard to Fort Sumter and \"Old Abe,\" and all that, yet Mr. Sanborn\nsays he was as zealous about the war as any soldier. The John Brown\ntragedy made him sick, and the war so worked upon his feelings that in\nhis failing state of health he said he could never get well while it\nlasted. His passion for Nature and the wild carried him to the extent\nof looking with suspicion, if not with positive dislike, upon all of\nman's doings and institutions. All civil and political and social\norganizations received scant justice at his hands. He instantly\nespoused the cause of John Brown and championed him in the most public\nmanner because he (Brown) defied the iniquitous laws and fell a martyr\nto the cause of justice and right. If he had lived in our times, one\nwould have expected him, in his letters to friends, to pooh-pooh the\nWorld War that has drenched Europe with blood, while in his heart he\nwould probably have been as deeply moved about it as any of us were.\n\nThoreau must be a stoic, he must be an egotist, he must be illogical,\nwhenever he puts pen to paper. This does not mean that he was a\nhypocrite, but it means that on his practical human side he did not\ndiffer so much from the rest of us, but that in his mental and\nspiritual life he pursued ideal ends with a seriousness that few of us\nare equal to. He loved to take an air-line. In his trips about the\ncountry to visit distant parts, he usually took the roads and paths or\nmeans of conveyance that other persons took, but now and then he\nwould lay down his ruler on the map, draw a straight line to the\npoint he proposed to visit, and follow that, going through the meadows\nand gardens and door-yards of the owners of the property in his line\nof march. There is a tradition that he and Channing once went through\na house where the front and back door stood open. In his mental\nflights and excursions he follows this plan almost entirely; the hard\nfacts and experiences of life trouble him very little. He can always\nignore them or sail serenely above them.\n\nHow is one to reconcile such an expression as this with what his\nfriends report of his actual life: \"My countrymen are to me\nforeigners. I have but little more sympathy with them than with the\nmobs of India or China\"? Or this about his Concord neighbors, as he\nlooks down upon them from a near-by hill: \"On whatever side I look\noff, I am reminded of the mean and narrow-minded men whom I have\nlately met there. What can be uglier than a country occupied by\ngrovelling, coarse, and low-minded men?--no scenery can redeem it.\nHornets, hyenas, and baboons are not so great a curse to a country as\nmen of a similar character.\" Tried by his ideal standards, his\nneighbors and his countrymen generally were, of course, found wanting,\nyet he went about among them helpful and sympathetic and enjoyed his\nlife to the last gasp. These things reveal to us what a gulf there\nmay be between a man's actual life and the high altitudes in which he\ndisports himself when he lets go his imagination.\n\nIX\n\nIn his paper called \"Life without Principle,\" his radical idealism\ncomes out: To work for money, or for subsistence alone, is life\nwithout principle. A man must work for the love of the work. Get a man\nto work for you who is actuated by love for you or for the work alone.\nFind some one to beat your rugs and carpets and clean out your well,\nor weed your onion-patch, who is not influenced by any money\nconsideration. This were ideal, indeed; this suggests paradise.\nThoreau probably loved his lecturing, and his surveying, and his\nmagazine writing, and the money these avocations brought him did not\nseem unworthy, but could the business and industrial world safely\nadopt that principle?\n\nSo far as I understand him, we all live without principle when we do\nanything that goes against the grain, or for money, or for bread\nalone. \"To have done anything by which you earned money is to have\nbeen truly idle or worse.\" \"If you would get money as a writer or\nlecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.\"\nYet his neighbor Emerson was in much demand as a lecturer, and earned\na good deal of money in that way. Truly idealists like Thoreau are\nhard to satisfy. Agassiz said he could not afford to give his time to\nmaking money, but how many Agassiz are there in the world at any one\ntime? Such a man as our own Edison is influenced very little by the\ncommercial value of his inventions. This is as it should be, but only\na small fraction of mankind do or can live to ideal ends. Those who\nwork for love are certainly the lucky ones, and are exceptionally\nendowed. It is love of the sport that usually sends one a-fishing or\na-hunting, and this gives it the sanction of the Gospel according to\nThoreau. Bradford Torrey saw a man sitting on a log down in Florida\nwho told him, when he asked about his occupation, that he had no time\nto work! It is to be hoped that Thoreau enjoyed his surveying, as he\nprobably did, especially when it took him through sphagnum swamps or\nscrub-oak thickets or a tangle of briers and thorns. The more\ndifficult the way, the more he could summon his philosophy. \"You must\nget your living by loving.\" It is a hard saying, but it is a part of\nhis gospel. But as he on one occasion worked seventy-six days\nsurveying, for only one dollar a day, the money he received should not\nbe laid up against him.\n\nAs a matter of fact we find Thoreau frequently engaging in manual\nlabor to earn a little money. He relates in his Journal of 1857 that\nwhile he was living in the woods he did various jobs about\ntown--fence-building, painting, gardening, carpentering:\n\n     One day a man came from the east edge of the town and said\n     that he wanted to get me to brick up a fireplace, etc.,\n     etc., for him. I told him that I was not a mason, but he\n     knew that I had built my own house entirely and would not\n     take no for an answer. So I went.\n\n     It was three miles off, and I walked back and forth each\n     day, arriving early and working as late as if I were living\n     there. The man was gone away most of the time, but had left\n     some sand dug up in his cow-yard for me to make mortar with.\n     I bricked up a fireplace, papered a chamber, but my\n     principal work was whitewashing ceilings. Some were so dirty\n     that many coats would not conceal the dirt. In the kitchen I\n     finally resorted to yellow-wash to cover the dirt. I took my\n     meals there, sitting down with my employer (when he got\n     home) and his hired men. I remember the awful condition of\n     the sink, at which I washed one day, and when I came to look\n     at what was called the towel I passed it by and wiped my\n     hands on the air, and thereafter I resorted to the pump. I\n     worked there hard three days, charging only a dollar a day.\n\n     About the same time I also contracted to build a wood-shed\n     of no mean size, for, I think, exactly six dollars, and\n     cleared about half of it by a close calculation and swift\n     working. The tenant wanted me to throw in a gutter and\n     latch, but I carried off the board that was left and gave\n     him no latch but a button. It stands yet,--behind the Kettle\n     house. I broke up Johnny Kettle's old \"trow,\" in which he\n     kneaded his bread, for material. Going home with what nails\n     were left in a flower [_sic!_] bucket on my arm, in a rain,\n     I was about getting into a hay-rigging, when my umbrella\n     frightened the horse, and he kicked at me over the fills,\n     smashed the bucket on my arm, and stretched me on my back;\n     but while I lay on my back, his leg being caught under the\n     shaft, I got up, to see him sprawling on the other side.\n     This accident, the sudden bending of my body backwards,\n     sprained my stomach so that I did not get quite strong there\n     for several years, but had to give up some fence-building\n     and other work which I had undertaken from time to time.\n\n     I built the common slat fence for $1.50 per rod, or worked\n     for $1.00 per day. I built six fences.\n\nThese homely and laborious occupations show the dreamer and\ntranscendentalist of Walden in a very interesting light. In his\npractical life he was a ready and resourceful man and could set his\nneighbors a good example, and no doubt give them good advice. But what\nfun he had with his correspondents when they wrote him for practical\nadvice about the conduct of their lives! One of them had evidently\nbeen vexing his soul over the problem of Church and State: \"Why not\nmake a very large mud pie and bake it in the sun? Only put no Church\nnor State into it, nor upset any other pepper box that way. Dig out a\nwoodchuck--for that has nothing to do with rotting institutions. Go\nahead.\"\n\nDear, old-fashioned Wilson Flagg, who wrote pleasantly, but rather\ntamely, about New England birds and seasons, could not profit much\nfrom Thoreau's criticism: \"He wants stirring up with a pole. He should\npractice turning a series of summer-sets rapidly, or jump up and see\nhow many times he can strike his feet together before coming down.\nLet him make the earth turn round now the other way, and whet his wits\non it as on a grindstone; in short, see how many ideas he can\nentertain at once.\"\n\nExpect no Poor Richard maxims or counsel from Thoreau. He would tell\nyou to invest your savings in the bonds of the Celestial Empire, or\nplant your garden with a crop of Giant Regrets. He says these are\nexcellent for sauce. He encourages one of his correspondents with the\nstatement that he \"never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and\nrolled through a mud puddle; he comes out honor bright from behind\nevery storm.\"\n\nX\n\nAll Thoreau's apparent inconsistencies and contradictions come from\nhis radical idealism. In all his judgments upon men and things, and\nupon himself, he is an uncompromising idealist. All fall short. Add\nhis habit of exaggeration and you have him saying that the pigs in the\nstreet in New York (in 1843) are the most respectable part of the\npopulation. The pigs, I suppose, lived up to the pig standard, but the\npeople did not live up to the best human standards. Wherever the ideal\nleads him, there he follows. After his brother John's death he said he\ndid not wish ever to see John again, but only the ideal John--that\nother John of whom he was but the imperfect representative. Yet the\nloss of the real John was a great blow to him, probably the severest\nin his life. But he never allows himself to go on record as showing\nany human weakness.\n\n\"Comparatively,\" he says, \"we can excuse any offense against the\nheart, but not against the imagination.\" Thoreau probably lived in his\nheart as much as most other persons, but his peculiar gospel is the\nwork of his imagination. He could turn his idealism to practical\naccount. A man who had been camping with him told me that on such\nexpeditions he carried a small piece of cake carefully wrapped up in\nhis pocket and that after he had eaten his dinner he would take a\nsmall pinch of this cake. His imagination seemed to do the rest.\n\nThe most unpromising subject would often kindle the imagination of\nThoreau. His imagination fairly runs riot over poor Bill Wheeler, a\ncripple and a sot who stumped along on two clumps for feet, and who\nearned his grog by doing chores here and there. One day Thoreau found\nhim asleep in the woods in a low shelter which consisted of meadow hay\ncast over a rude frame. It was a rare find to Thoreau. A man who could\nturn his back upon the town and civilization like that must be some\ngreat philosopher, greater than Socrates or Diogenes, living perhaps\n\"from a deep principle,\" \"simplifying life, returning to nature,\"\nhaving put off many things,--\"luxuries, comforts, human society, even\nhis feet,--wrestling with his thoughts.\" He outdid himself. He\nout-Thoreaued Thoreau: \"Who knows but in his solitary meadow-hay bunk\nhe indulges, in thought, only in triumphant satires on men? [More\nsevere than those of the Walden hermit?] I was not sure for a moment\nbut here was a philosopher who had left far behind him the\nphilosophers of Greece and India, and I envied him his advantageous\npoint of view--\" with much more to the same effect.\n\nThoreau's reaction from the ordinary humdrum, respectable, and\ncomfortable country life was so intense, and his ideal of the free and\naustere life he would live so vivid, that he could thus see in this\nbesotted vagabond a career and a degree of wisdom that he loved to\ncontemplate.\n\nOne catches eagerly at any evidence of tender human emotions in\nThoreau, his stoical indifference is so habitual with him: \"I laughed\nat myself the other day to think that I cried while reading a pathetic\nstory.\" And he excuses himself by saying, \"It is not I, but Nature in\nme, which was stronger than I.\"\n\nIt was hard for Thoreau to get interested in young women. He once went\nto an evening party of thirty or forty of them, \"in a small room,\nwarm and noisy.\" He was introduced to two of them, but could not hear\nwhat they said, there was such a cackling. He concludes by saying:\n\"The society of young women is the most unprofitable I have ever\ntried. They are so light and flighty that you can never be sure\nwhether they are there or not.\"\n\nXI\n\nAs a philosopher or expositor and interpreter of a principle, Thoreau\nis often simply grotesque. His passion for strong and striking figures\nusually gets the best of him. In discussing the relation that exists\nbetween the speaker or lecturer and his audience he says, \"The\nlecturer will read best those parts of his lecture which are best\nheard,\" as if the reading did not precede the hearing! Then comes this\ngrotesque analogy: \"I saw some men unloading molasses-hogsheads from a\ntruck at a depot the other day, rolling them up an inclined plane. The\ntruckman stood behind and shoved, after putting a couple of ropes, one\nround each end of the hogshead, while two men standing in the depot\nsteadily pulled at the ropes. The first man was the lecturer, the last\nwas the audience.\" I suppose the hogshead stands for the big thoughts\nof the speaker which he cannot manage at all without the active\ncooeperation of the audience. The truth is, people assemble in a\nlecture hall in a passive but expectant frame of mind. They are ready\nto be pleased or displeased. They are there like an instrument to be\nplayed upon by the orator. He may work his will with them. Without\ntheir sympathy his success will not be great, but the triumph of his\nart is to win their sympathy. Those who went to scoff when the Great\nPreacher spoke, remained to pray. No man could speak as eloquently to\nempty seats, or to a dummy audience, as to a hall filled with\nintelligent people, yet Thoreau's ropes and hogsheads and pulling and\npushing truckmen absurdly misrepresent the true relation that exists\nbetween a speaker and his hearers. Of course a speaker finds it uphill\nwork if his audience is not with him, but that it is not with him is\nusually his own fault.\n\nThoreau's merits as a man and a writer are so many and so great that I\nhave not hesitated to make much of his defects. Indeed, I have with\nmalice aforethought ransacked his works to find them. But after they\nare all charged up against him, the balance that remains on the credit\nside of the account is so great that they do not disturb us.\n\nThere has been but one Thoreau, and we should devoutly thank the gods\nof New England for the precious gift. Thoreau's work lives and will\ncontinue to live because, in the first place, the world loves a writer\nwho can flout it and turn his back upon it and yet make good; and\nagain because the books which he gave to the world have many and very\nhigh literary and ethical values. They are fresh, original, and\nstimulating. He drew a gospel out of the wild; he brought messages\nfrom the wood gods to men; he made a lonely pond in Massachusetts a\nfountain of the purest and most elevating thoughts, and, with his\ngreat neighbor Emerson, added new luster to a town over which the muse\nof our colonial history had long loved to dwell.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nA CRITICAL GLANCE INTO DARWIN\n\nI\n\n\nIt is never safe to question Darwin's facts, but it is always safe to\nquestion any man's theories. It is with Darwin's theories that I am\nmainly concerned here. He has already been shorn of his selection\ndoctrines as completely as Samson was shorn of his locks, but there\nare other phases of his life and teachings that invite discussion.\n\nThe study of Darwin's works begets such an affection for the man, for\nthe elements of character displayed on every page, that one is slow in\nconvincing one's self that anything is wrong with his theories. There\nis danger that one's critical judgment will be blinded by one's\npartiality for the man.\n\nFor the band of brilliant men who surrounded him and championed his\ndoctrines--Spencer, Huxley, Lyall, Hooker, and others--one feels\nnothing more personal than admiration; unless the eloquent and\nchivalrous Huxley--the knight in shining armor of the Darwinian\ntheory--inspires a warmer feeling. Darwin himself almost disarms one\nby his amazing candor and his utter self-abnegation. The question\nalways paramount in his mind is, what is the truth about this matter?\nWhat fact have you got for me, he seems to say, that will upset my\nconclusion? If you have one, that is just what I am looking for.\n\nCould we have been permitted to gaze upon the earth in the middle\ngeologic period, in Jurassic or Triassic times, we should have seen it\nteeming with huge, uncouth, gigantic forms of animal life, in the sea,\non the land, and in the air, and with many lesser forms, but with no\nsign of man anywhere; ransack the earth from pole to pole and there\nwas no sign or suggestion, so far as we could have seen, of a human\nbeing.\n\nCome down the stream of time several millions of years--to our own\ngeologic age--and we find the earth swarming with the human species\nlike an ant-hill with ants, and with a vast number of forms not found\nin the Mesozoic era; and the men are doing to a large part of the\nearth what the ants do to a square rod of its surface. Where did they\ncome from? We cannot, in our day, believe that a hand reached down\nfrom heaven, or up from below, and placed them there. There is no\nalternative but to believe that in some way they arose out of the\nantecedent animal life of the globe; in other words that man is the\nresult of the process of evolution, and that all other existing forms\nof life, vegetable and animal, are a product of the same movement.\n\nTo explain how this came about, what factors and forces entered into\nthe transformation, is the task that Darwin set himself. It was a\nmighty task, and whether or not his solution of the problem stands the\ntest of time, we must yet bow in reverence before one of the greatest\nof natural philosophers; for even to have conceived this problem thus\nclearly, and to have placed it in intelligible form before men's\nminds, is a great achievement.\n\nDarwin was as far from being as sure of the truth of Darwinism as many\nof his disciples were, and still are. He said in 1860, in a letter to\none of his American correspondents, \"I have never for a moment doubted\nthat, though I cannot see my errors, much of my book [\"The Origin of\nSpecies\"] will be proved erroneous.\" Again he said, in 1862, \"I look\nat it as absolutely certain that very much in the 'Origin' will be\nproved rubbish; but I expect and hope that the framework will stand.\"\n\nIts framework is the theory of Evolution, which is very sure to stand.\nIn its inception his theory is half-miracle and half-fact. He assumes\nthat in the beginning (as if there ever was or could be a \"beginning,\"\nin that sense) God created a few forms, animal and vegetable, and then\nleft it to the gods of Evolution, the chief of which is Natural\nSelection, to do the rest. While Darwin would not admit any\npredetermining factors in Evolution, or that any innate tendency to\nprogressive development existed, he said he could not look upon the\nworld of living things as the result of chance. Yet in fortuitous, or\nchance, variation he saw one of the chief factors of Evolution.\n\nThe world of Chance into which Darwinism delivers us--what can the\nthoughtful mind make of it?\n\nThat life with all its myriad forms is the result of chance is,\naccording to Professor Osborn, a biological dogma. He everywhere uses\nthe word \"chance\" as opposed to law, or to the sequence of cause and\neffect. This, it seems to me, is a misuse of the term. Is law, in this\nsense, ever suspended or annulled? If one chances to fall off his\nhorse or his house, is it not gravity that pulls him down? Are not the\nlaws of energy everywhere operative in all movements of matter in the\nmaterial world? Chance is not opposed to law, but to design. Anything\nthat befalls us that was not designed is a matter of chance. The\nfortuitous enters largely into all human life. If I carelessly toss a\nstone across the road, it is a matter of chance just where it will\nfall, but its course is not lawless. Does not gravity act upon it?\ndoes not the resistance of the air act upon it? does not the muscular\nforce of my arm act upon it? and does not this complex of physical\nforces determine the precise spot where the stone shall fall? If, in\nits fall, it were to hit a bird or a mouse or a flower, that would be\na matter of chance, so far as my will was concerned. Is not a meteoric\nstone falling out of space acted upon by similar forces, which\ndetermine where it shall strike the earth? In this case, we must\nsubstitute for the energy of my arm the cosmic energy that gives the\nprimal impetus to all heavenly bodies. If the falling aerolite were to\nhit a person or a house, we should say it was a matter of chance,\nbecause it was not planned or designed. But when the shells of the\nlong-range guns hit their invisible target or the bombs from the\nairplanes hit their marks, chance plays a part, because all the\nfactors that enter into the problem are not and cannot be on the\ninstant accurately measured. The collision of two heavenly bodies in\nthe depth of space, which does happen, is, from our point of view, a\nmatter of chance, although governed by inexorable law.\n\nThe forms of inanimate objects--rocks, hills, rivers, lakes--are\nmatters of chance, since they serve no purpose: any other form would\nbe as fit; but the forms of living things are always purposeful. Is it\npossible to believe that the human body, with all its complicated\nmechanism, its many wonderful organs of secretion and excretion and\nassimilation, is any more matter of chance than a watch or a\nphonograph is? Though what agent to substitute for the word \"chance,\"\nI confess I do not know. The short cut to an omnipotent Creator\nsitting apart from the thing created will not satisfy the naturalist.\nAnd to make energy itself creative, as Professor Osborn does, is only\nto substitute one god for another. I can no more think of the course\nof organic evolution as being accidental in the Darwinian sense, than\nI can think of the evolution of the printing-press or the aeroplane as\nbeing accidental, although chance has played its part. Can we think of\nthe first little horse of which we have any record, the eohippus of\nthree or four millions of years ago, as evolving by accidental\nvariations into the horse of our time, without presupposing an equine\nimpulse to development? As well might we trust our ships to the winds\nand waves with the expectation that they will reach their several\nports.\n\nAre we to believe that we live in an entirely mechanical and\nfortuitous world--a world which has no interior, which is only a maze\nof acting, reacting, and interacting of blind physical forces?\nAccording to the chance theory, the struggle of a living body to exist\ndoes not differ from the vicissitudes of, say, water seeking an\nequilibrium, or heat a uniform temperature.\n\nChance has played an important part in human history, and in all\nlife-history--often, no doubt, the main part--since history began. It\nwas by chance that Columbus discovered America; he simply blundered\nupon it. He had set out on his voyage with something quite different\nin view. But his ship, and the crew, and the voyage itself, were not\nmatters of chance but of purpose.\n\nAccording to the selectionists' theory, chance gave the bird its\nwings, the fish its fins, the porcupine its quills, the skunk its\nfetid secretion, the cuttlefish its ink, the swordfish its sword, the\nelectric eel its powerful battery; it gave the giraffe its long neck,\nthe camel its hump, the horse its hoof, the ruminants their horns and\ndouble stomach, and so on. According to Weismann, it gave us our eyes,\nour ears, our hands with the fingers and opposing thumb, it gave us\nall the complicated and wonderful organs of our bodies, and all their\ncirculation, respiration, digestion, assimilation, secretion,\nexcretion, reproduction. All we are, or can be, the selectionist\ncredits to Natural Selection.\n\nTry to think of that wonderful organ, the eye, with all its marvelous\npowers and adaptations, as the result of what we call chance or\nNatural Selection. Well may Darwin have said that the eye made him\nshudder when he tried to account for it by Natural Selection. Why, its\nadaptations in one respect alone, minor though they be, are enough to\nstagger any number of selectionists. I refer to the rows of peculiar\nglands that secrete an oily substance, differing in chemical\ncomposition from any other secretion, a secretion which keeps the\neyelids from sticking together in sleep. \"Behavior as lawless as\nsnowflakes,\" says Whitman--a phrase which probably stuck to him from\nRousseau; but are snowflakes and raindrops lawless? To us creatures of\npurpose, they are so because the order of their falling is haphazard.\nThey obey their own laws. Again we see chance working inside of law.\n\nWhen the sower scatters the seed-grains from his hand, he does not and\ncannot determine the point of soil upon which any of them shall fall,\nbut there is design in his being there and in sowing the seed.\nAstronomy is an exact science, biology is not. The celestial events\nalways happen on time. The astronomers can tell us to the fraction of\na second when the eclipses of the sun and moon and the transit of the\ninferior planets across the sun's disk will take place. They know and\nhave measured all the forces that bring them about. Now, if we knew\nwith the same mathematical precision all the elements that enter into\nthe complex of forces which shapes our lives, could we forecast the\nfuture with the same accuracy with which the astronomers forecast the\nmovements of the orbs? or are there incommensurable factors in life?\n\nII\n\nHow are we to reconcile the obvious hit-and-miss method of Nature with\nthe reign of law, or with a world of design? Consider the seeds of a\nplant or a tree, as sown by the wind. It is a matter of chance where\nthey alight; it is hit or miss with them always. Yet the seeds, say,\nof the cat-tail flag always find the wet or the marshy places. If they\nhad a topographical map of the country and a hundred eyes they could\nnot succeed better. Of course, there are vastly more failures than\nsuccesses with them, but one success in ten thousand trials is enough.\nThey go to all points of the compass with the wind, and sooner or\nlater hit the mark. Chance decides where the seed shall fall, but it\nwas not chance that gave wings to this and other seeds. The hooks and\nwings and springs and parachutes that wind-sown seeds possess are not\nmatters of chance: they all show design. So here is design working in\na hit-and-miss world.\n\nThere are chance details in any general plan. The general forms which\na maple or an oak or an elm takes in the forest or in the field are\nfixed, but many of the details are quite accidental. All the\nindividual trees of a species have a general resemblance, but one\ndiffers from another in the number and exact distribution of the\nbranches, and in many other ways. We cannot solve the fundamental\nproblems of biology by addition and subtraction. He who sees nothing\ntranscendent and mysterious in the universe does not see deeply; he\nlacks that vision without which the people perish. All organic and\nstructural changes are adaptive from the first; they do not need\nnatural selection to whip them into shape. All it can do is to serve\nas a weeding-out process.\n\nAcquired characters are not inherited, but those organic changes which\nare the result of the indwelling impulse of development are inherited.\nSo dominant and fundamental are the results of this impulse that\ncross-breeding does not wipe them out.\n\nIII\n\nWhile I cannot believe that we live in a world of chance, any more\nthan Darwin could, yet I feel that I am as free from any teleological\ntaint as he was. The world-old notion of a creator and director,\nsitting apart from the universe and shaping and controlling all its\naffairs, a magnified king or emperor, finds no lodgment in my mind.\nKings and despots have had their day, both in heaven and on earth. The\nuniverse is a democracy. The Whole directs the Whole. Every particle\nplays its own part, and yet the universe is a unit as much as is the\nhuman body, with all its myriad of individual cells, and all its many\nseparate organs functioning in harmony. And the mind I see in nature\nis just as obvious as the mind I see in myself, and subject to the\nsame imperfections and limitations.\n\nIn following Lamarck I am not disturbed by the bogey of teleology, or\nthe ghost of mysticism. I am persuaded that there is something\nimmanent in the universe, pervading every atom and molecule in it,\nthat knows what it wants--a Cosmic Mind or Intelligence that we must\ntake account of if we would make any headway in trying to understand\nthe world in which we find ourselves.\n\nWhen we deny God it is always in behalf of some other god. We are\ncompelled to recognize something not ourselves from which we proceed,\nand in which we live and move and have our being, call it energy, or\nwill, or Jehovah, or Ancient of Days. We cannot deny it because we are\na part of it. As well might the fountain deny the sea or the cloud.\nEach of us is a fraction of the universal Eternal Intelligence. Is it\nunscientific to believe that our own minds have their counterpart or\ntheir origin in the nature of which we form a part? Is our own\nintelligence all there is of mind-manifestation in the universe? Where\ndid we get this divine gift? Did we take all there was of it?\nCertainly we did not ourselves invent it. It would require\nconsiderable wit to do that. Mind is immanent in nature, but in man\nalone it becomes self-conscious. Wherever there is adaptation of means\nto an end, there is mind.\n\nYet we use the terms \"guidance,\" \"predetermination,\" and so on, at the\nrisk of being misunderstood. All such terms are charged with the\nmeaning that our daily lives impart to them and, when applied to the\nprocesses of the Cosmos, are only half-truths. From our experience\nwith objects and forces in this world, the earth ought to rest upon\nsomething, and that object upon something, and the moon ought to fall\nupon the earth, and the earth fall into the sun, and, in fact, the\nwhole sidereal system ought to collapse. But it does not, and will\nnot. As nearly as we can put it into words, the whole visible universe\nfloats in a boundless and fathomless sea of energy; and that is all we\nknow about it.\n\nIf chance brought us here and endowed us with our bodies and our\nminds, and keeps us here, and adapts us to the world in which we live,\nis not Chance a good enough god for any of us? Or if Natural Selection\ndid it, or orthogenesis or epigenesis, or any other genesis, have we\nnot in any of these found a god equal to the occasion? Darwin goes\nwrong, if I may be allowed to say so, when he describes or\ncharacterizes the activities of Nature in terms of our own activities.\nMan's selection affords no clue to Nature's selection, and the best to\nman is not the best to Nature. For instance, she is concerned with\ncolor and form only so far as they have survival value. We are\nconcerned more with intrinsic values.\n\n\"Man,\" says Darwin, \"selects only for his own good; Nature only for\nthe good of the being which she tends.\" But Nature's good is of\nanother order than man's: it is the good of all. Nature aims at a\ngeneral good, man at a particular good to himself. Man waters his\ngarden; Nature sends the rain broadcast upon the just and the unjust,\nupon the sea as upon the land. Man directs and controls his planting\nand his harvesting along specific lines: he selects his seed and\nprepares his soil; Nature has no system in this respect: she trusts\nher seeds to the winds and the waters, and to beasts and birds, and\nher harvest rarely fails.\n\nNature's methods, we say, are blind, haphazard; the wind blows where\nit listeth, and the seeds fall where the winds and waters carry them;\nthe frosts blight this section and spare that; the rains flood the\ncountry in the West and the drought burns up the vegetation in the\nEast. And yet we survive and prosper. Nature averages up well. We see\nnothing like purpose or will in her total scheme of things, yet inside\nher hit-and-miss methods, her storms and tornadoes and earthquakes and\ndistempers, we see a fundamental benefaction. If it is not good-will,\nit amounts to the same thing. Our fathers saw special providences, but\nwe see only unchangeable laws. To compare Nature's selection with\nman's selection is like arguing from man's art to Nature's art.\nNature has no art, no architecture, no music. Her temples, as the\npoets tell us, are the woods, her harps the branches of the trees, her\nminstrels the birds and insects, her gardens the fields and\nwaysides--all safe comparisons for purposes of literature, but not for\npurposes of science.\n\nMan alone selects, or works by a definite method. Might we not as well\nsay that Nature ploughs and plants and trims and harvests? We pick out\nour favorites among plants and animals, those that best suit our\npurpose. We go straight to our object, with as little delay and waste\nas possible. Not so Nature. Her course is always a round-about one.\nOur petty economies are no concern of hers. Our choice selection of\nrich milkers, prolific poultry, or heavy-fleeced sheep is with her\nquickly sacrificed for the qualities of strength and cunning and\nspeed, as these alone have survival value. Man wants specific results\nat once. Nature works slowly to general results. Her army is drilled\nonly in battle. Her tools grow sharper in the using. The strength of\nher species is the strength of the obstacles they overcome.\n\nWhat is called Darwinism is entirely an anthropomorphic view of\nNature--Nature humanized and doing as man does. What is called Natural\nSelection is man's selection read into animate nature. We see in\nnature what we have to call intelligence--the adaptation of means to\nends. We see purpose in all living things, but not in the same sense\nin non-living things. The purpose is not in the light, but in the eye;\nin the ear, but not in the sound; in the lungs, and not in the air; in\nthe stomach, and not in the food; in the various organs of the body,\nand not in the forces that surround and act upon it. We cannot say\nthat the purpose of the clouds is to bring rain, or of the sun to give\nlight and warmth, in the sense that we can say it is the purpose of\nthe eyelid to protect the eye, of the teeth to masticate the food, or\nof the varnish upon the leaves to protect the leaves.\n\nThe world was not made for us, but we are here because the world was\nmade as it is. We are the secondary fact and not the primary. Nature\nis non-human, non-moral, non-religious, non-scientific, though it is\nfrom her that we get our ideas of all these things. All parts and\norgans of living bodies have, or have had, a purpose. Nature is blind,\nbut she knows what she wants and she gets it. She is blind, I say,\nbecause she is all eyes, and sees through the buds of her trees and\nthe rootlets of her plants as well as by the optic nerves in her\nanimals. And, though I believe that the accumulation of variations is\nthe key to new species, yet this accumulation is not based upon\noutward utility but upon an innate tendency to development--the push\nof life, or creative evolution, as Bergson names it; not primarily\nbecause the variations are advantages, but because the formation of a\nnew species is such a slow process, stretches over such a period of\ngeologic time, that the slight variations from generation to\ngeneration could have no survival value. The primary factor is the\ninherent tendency to development. The origin of species is on a scale\nof time of enormous magnitude. What takes place among our domestic\nanimals of a summer day is by no means a safe guide as to what befell\ntheir ancestors in the abysses of geologic time. It is true that\nNature may be read in the little as well as in the big,--_Natura in\nminimis existat_,--in the gnat as well as in the elephant; but she\ncannot be read in our yearly calendars as she can in the calendars of\nthe geologic strata. Species go out and species come in; the book of\nnatural revelation opens and closes at chance places, and rarely do we\nget a continuous record--in no other case more clearly than in that of\nthe horse.\n\nThe horse was a horse, from the first five-toed animal in Eocene\ntimes, millions of years ago, through all the intermediate forms of\nfour-toed and three-toed, down to the one-toed superb creature of our\nown day. Amid all the hazards and delays of that vast stretch of time,\none may say, the horse-impulse never faltered. The survival value of\nthe slight gains in size and strength from millennium to millennium\ncould have played no part. It was the indwelling necessity toward\ndevelopment that determined the issue. This assertion does not deliver\nus into the hands of teleology, but is based upon the idea that\nontogeny and phylogeny are under the same law of growth. In the little\neohippus was potentially the horse we know, as surely as the oak is\npotential in the acorn, or the bird potential in the egg, whatever\nelement of mystery may enter into the problem.\n\nIn fields where speed wins, the fleetest are the fittest. In fields\nwhere strength wins, the strongest are the fittest. In fields where\nsense-acuteness wins, the keenest of eye, ears, and nose are the\nfittest.\n\nWhen we come to the race of man, the fittest to survive, from our\nmoral and intellectual point of view, is not always the best. The\nlower orders of humanity are usually better fitted to survive than the\nhigher orders--they are much more prolific and adaptive. The tares are\nbetter fitted to survive than the wheat. Every man's hand is against\nthe weeds, and every man's hand gives a lift to the corn and the\nwheat, but the weeds do not fail. There is nothing like original sin\nto keep a man or a plant going. Emerson's gardener was probably better\nfitted to survive than Emerson; Newton's butler than Newton himself.\n\nMost naturalists will side with Darwin in rejecting the idea of Asa\nGray, that the stream of variation has been guided by a higher power,\nunless they think of the will of this power as inherent in every\nmolecule of matter; but guidance in the usual theological sense is not\nto be thought of; the principle of guidance cannot be separated from\nthe thing guided. It recalls a parable of Charles Kingsley's which he\nrelated to Huxley. A heathen khan in Tartary was visited by a pair of\nproselytizing moollahs. The first moollah said, \"O Khan, worship my\ngod. He is so wise that he made all things!\" Moollah Number Two said,\n\"O Khan, worship my god. He is so wise that he makes all things make\nthemselves!\" Number Two won the day.\n\nIV\n\nHow often it turns out that a man's minor works outlive his major!\nThis is true in both literature and science, but more often in the\nformer than in the latter. Darwin furnishes a case in the field of\nscience. He evidently looked upon his \"Origin of Species\" as his great\ncontribution to biological science; but it is highly probable that his\n\"Voyage of the Beagle\" will outlast all his other books. The \"Voyage\"\nis of perennial interest and finds new readers in each generation. I\nfind myself re-reading it every eight or ten years. I have lately read\nit for the fourth time. It is not an argument or a polemic; it is a\npersonal narrative of a disinterested yet keen observer, and is\nalways fresh and satisfying. For the first time we see a comparatively\nunknown country like South America through the eyes of a born and\ntrained naturalist. It is the one book of his that makes a wide appeal\nand touches life and nature the most closely.\n\nWe may say that Darwin was a Darwinian from the first,--a naturalist\nand a philosopher combined,--and was predisposed to look at animate\nnature in the way his works have since made us familiar with.\n\nIn his trip on the Beagle he saw from the start with the eyes of a\nborn evolutionist. In South America he saw the fossil remains of the\nToxodon, and observed, \"How wonderful are the different orders, at the\npresent time so well separated, blended together in the different\npoints of the structure of the Toxodon!\" All forms of life attracted\nhim. He looked into the brine-pans of Lymington and found that water\nwith one quarter of a pound of salt to the pint was inhabited, and he\nwas led to say: \"Well may we affirm that every part of the world is\nhabitable! Whether lakes of brine or those subterranean ones hidden\nbeneath volcanic mountains,--warm mineral springs,--the wide expanse\nand depth of the ocean,--the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even\nthe surface of perpetual snow,--all support organic beings.\"\n\nHe studies the parasitical habit of the cuckoo and hits on an\nexplanation of it. He speculates why the partridges and deer in South\nAmerica are so tame.\n\nHis \"Voyage of the Beagle\" alone would insure him lasting fame. It is\na classic among scientific books of travel. Here is a traveler of a\nnew kind: a natural-history voyager, a man bent on seeing and taking\nnote of everything going on in nature about him, in the non-human, as\nwell as in the human world. The minuteness of his observation and the\nsignificance of its subject-matter are a lesson to all observers.\nDarwin's interests are so varied and genuine. One sees in this volume\nthe seed-bed of much of his subsequent work. He was quite a young man\n(twenty-four) when he made this voyage; he was ill more than half the\ntime; he was as yet only an observer and appreciator of Nature, quite\nfree from any theories about her ways and methods. He says that this\nwas by far the most important event of his life and determined his\nwhole career. His theory of descent was already latent in his mind, as\nis evinced by an observation he made about the relationship in South\nAmerica between the extinct and the living forms. \"This relationship,\"\nhe said, \"will, I do not doubt, hereafter throw more light on the\nappearance of organic beings on our earth, and their disappearance\nfrom it, than any other class of facts.\"\n\nHe looked into the muddy waters of the sea off the coast of Chile, and\nfound a curious new form of minute life--microscopic animals that\nexploded as they swam through the water. In South America he saw an\nintimate relationship between the extinct species of ant-eaters,\narmadillos, tapirs, peccaries, guanacos, opossums, and so on, and the\nliving species of these animals; and he adds that the wonderful\nrelationship in the same continent between the dead and the living\nwould doubtless hereafter throw more light on the appearance of\norganic beings on our earth, and their disappearance from it, than any\nother class of facts.\n\nHis observation of the evidences of the rise and fall of thousands of\nfeet of the earth along the Cordilleras leads him to make this rather\nstartling statement: \"Daily it is forced home on the mind of the\ngeologist that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable\nas the level of the crust of the earth.\"\n\nThere is now and then a twinkle of humor in Darwin's eyes, as when he\nsays that in the high altitude of the Andes the inhabitants recommend\nonions for the \"puna,\" or shortness of breath, but that he found\nnothing so good as fossil shells.\n\nWater boils at such a low temperature in the high Andes that potatoes\nwill not cook if boiled all night. Darwin heard his guides discussing\nthe cause. \"They had come to the simple conclusion that 'the cursed\npot' (which was a new one) did not choose to boil potatoes.\"\n\nIn all Darwin's record we see that the book of nature, which ordinary\ntravelers barely glance at, he opened and carefully perused.\n\nV\n\nNatural Selection turns out to be of only secondary importance. It is\nnot creative, but only confirmative. It is a weeding-out process; it\nis Nature's way of improving the stock. Its tendency is to make\nspecies more and more hardy and virile. The weak and insufficiently\nendowed among all forms tend to drop out. Life to all creatures is\nmore or less a struggle, a struggle with the environment, with the\ninorganic forces,--storm, heat, cold, sterile land, and engulfing\nfloods,--and it is a struggle with competing forms for food and\nshelter and a place in the sun. The strongest, the most amply endowed\nwith what we call vitality or power to live, win. Species have come to\nbe what they are through this process. Immunity from disease comes\nthrough this fight for life; and adaptability--through trial and\nstruggle species adapt themselves, as do our own bodies, to new and\nsevere conditions. The naturally weak fall by the wayside as in an\narmy on a forced march.\n\nEvery creature becomes the stronger by the opposition it overcomes.\nNatural Selection gives speed, where speed is the condition of\nsafety, strength where strength is the condition, keenness and\nquickness of sense-perception where these are demanded. Natural\nSelection works upon these attributes and tends to perfect them. Any\ngroup of men or beasts or birds brought under any unusual strain from\ncold, hunger, labor, effort, will undergo a weeding-out process.\nPopulate the land with more animal life than it can support, or with\nmore vegetable forms than it can sustain, and a weeding-out process\nwill begin. A fuller measure of vitality, or a certain hardiness and\ntoughness, will enable some species to hold on longer than others,\nand, maybe, keep up the fight till the struggle lessens and victory is\nwon.\n\nThe flame of life is easily blown out in certain forms, and is very\ntenacious in others. How unequally the power to resist cold, for\ninstance, seems to be distributed among plants and trees, and probably\namong animals! One spring an unseasonable cold snap in May (mercury\n28) killed or withered about one per cent of the leaves on the lilacs,\nand one tenth of one per cent of the leaves of our crab-apple tree. In\nthe woods around Slabsides I observed that nearly half the plants of\nSolomon's-seal (_Polygonatum_) and false Solomon's-seal (_Smilacina_)\nwere withered. The vital power, the power to live, seems stronger in\nsome plants than in others of the same kind. I suppose this law holds\nthroughout animate nature. When a strain of any kind comes, these\nweaker ones drop out. In reading the stories of Arctic explorers, I\nsee this process going on among their dog-teams: some have greater\npower of endurance than others. A few are constantly dropping out or\nfalling by the wayside. With an army on a forced march the same thing\nhappens. In the struggle for existence the weak go to the wall. Of\ncourse the struggle among animals is at least a toughening process. It\nseems as if the old Indian legend, that the strength of the foe\novercome passes into the victor, were true. But how a new species\ncould arrive as the result of such struggle is past finding out.\nVariation with all forms of life is more or less constant, but it is\naround a given mean. Only those acquired characters are transmitted\nthat arise from the needs of the organism.\n\nA vast number of changes in plants and animals are superficial and in\nno way vital. It is hard to find two leaves of the same tree that will\nexactly coincide in all their details; but a difference that was in\nsome way a decided advantage would tend to be inherited and passed\nalong. It is said that the rabbits in Australia have developed a\nlonger and stronger nail on the first toe of each front foot, which\naids them in climbing over the wire fences. The aye-aye has a\nspecially adapted finger for extracting insects from their\nhiding-places. Undoubtedly such things are inherited. The snowshoes\nof the partridge and rabbit are inherited. The needs of the organism\ninfluence structure. The spines in the quills in the tails of\nwoodpeckers, and in the brown creeper, are other cases in point. The\nnuthatch has no spines on its tail, because it can move in all\ndirections, as well with head down as with head up. I have read of a\nserpent somewhere that feeds upon eggs. As the serpent has no lips or\ndistendable cheeks, and as its mechanism of deglutition acts very\nslowly, an egg crushed in the mouth would be mostly spilled. So the\neggs are swallowed whole; but in the throat they come in contact with\nsharp tooth-like spines, which are not teeth, but downward projections\nfrom the backbone, and which serve to break the shells of the eggs.\nRadical or vital variations are rare, and we do not witness them any\nmore than we witness the birth of a new species. And that is all there\nis to Natural Selection. It is a name for a process of elimination\nwhich is constantly going on in animate nature all about us. It is in\nno sense creative, it originates nothing, but clinches and toughens\nexisting forms.\n\nThe mutation theory of De Vries is a much more convincing theory of\nthe origin of species than is Darwin's Natural Selection. If things\nwould only mutate a little oftener! But they seem very reluctant to do\nso. There does seem to have been some mutation among plants,--De\nVries has discovered several such,--but in animal life where are the\nmutants? When or where has a new species originated in this way?\nSurely not during the historic period.\n\nFluctuations are in all directions around a center--the mean is always\nreturned to; but mutations, or the progressive steps in evolution, are\ndivergent lines away from the center. Fluctuations are superficial and\nof little significance; but mutations, if they occur, involve\ndeep-seated, fundamental factors, factors more or less responsive to\nthe environment, but not called into being by it. Of the four factors\nin the Darwinian formula,--variation, heredity, the struggle, and\nnatural selection,--variation is the most negligible; it furnishes an\ninsufficient handle for selection to take hold of. Something more\nradical must lead the way to new species.\n\nAs applied to species, the fittest to survive is a misleading term.\nAll are fit to survive from the fact that they do survive. In a world\nwhere, as a rule, the race is to the swift and the battle to the\nstrong, the slow and the frail also survive because they do not come\nin competition with the swift and the strong. Nature mothers all, and\nassigns to each its sphere.\n\nThe Darwinians are hostile to Lamarck with his inner developing and\nperfecting principle, and, by the same token, to Aristotle, who is\nthe father of the theory. They regard organic evolution as a purely\nmechanical process.\n\nVariation can work only upon a variable tendency--an inherent impulse\nto development. A rock, a hill, a stream, may change, but it is not\nvariable in the biological sense: it can never become anything but a\nrock, a hill, a stream; but a flower, an egg, a seed, a plant, a baby,\ncan. What I mean to say is that there must be the primordial tendency\nto development which Natural Selection is powerless to beget, and\nwhich it can only speed up or augment. It cannot give the wing to the\nseed, or the spring, or the hook; or the feather to the bird; or the\nscale to the fish; but it can perfect all these things. The fittest of\nits kind does stand the best chance to survive.\n\nVI\n\nAfter we have Darwin shorn of his selection theories, what has he\nleft? His significance is not lessened. He is still the most\nimpressive figure in modern biological science. His attitude of mind,\nthe problems he tackled, his methods of work, the nature and scope of\nhis inquiries, together with his candor, and his simplicity and\ndevotion to truth, are a precious heritage to all mankind.\n\nDarwin's work is monumental because he belongs to the class of\nmonumental men. The doctrine of evolution as applied to animate\nnature reached its complete evolution in his mind. He stated the\ntheory in broader and fuller terms than had any man before him; he\nmade it cover the whole stupendous course of evolution. He showed man\nonce for all an integral part of the zooelogic system. He elevated\nnatural history, or biology, to the ranks of the great sciences, a\nworthy member of the triumvirate--astronomy, geology, biology. He\ntaught us how to cross-question the very gods of life in their council\nchambers; he showed us what significance attaches to the simplest\nfacts of natural history.\n\nDarwin impresses by his personality not less than by his logic and his\nvast storehouse of observations. He was a great man before he was a\ngreat natural-history philosopher. His patient and painstaking\nobservation is a lesson to all nature students. The minutest facts\nengaged him. He studies the difference between the stamens of the same\nplant. He counted nine thousand seeds, one by one, from artificially\nfertilized pods. Plants from two pollens, he says, grow at different\nrates. Any difference in the position of the pistil, or in the size\nand color of the stamens, in individuals of the same species grown\ntogether, was of keen interest to him.\n\nThe best thing about Darwinism is Darwin--his candor, his patience,\nhis simplicity, his devotion to truth, and his power of observation.\nThis is about what Professor T. H. Morgan meant when he said: \"It is\nthe spirit of Darwinism, not its formulae, that we proclaim as our best\nheritage.\" He gave us a new point of view of the drama of creation; he\ngave us ideas that are applicable to the whole domain of human\nactivities. It is true, he was not a pioneer in this field: he did not\nblaze the first trail through this wilderness of biological facts and\nrecords; rather was he like a master-engineer who surveys and\nestablishes the great highway. All the world now travels along the\ncourse he established and perfected. He made the long road of\nevolution easy, and he placed upon permanent foundations the doctrine\nof the animal origin of man. He taught the world to think in terms of\nevolution, and he pointed the way to a rational explanation of the\ndiversity of living forms.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nWHAT MAKES A POEM?\n\n\nPope said that a middling poet was no poet at all. Middling things in\nart or in any field of human endeavor do not arouse our enthusiasm,\nand it is enthusiasm that fans the fires of life. There are all\ndegrees of excellence, but in poetry one is always looking for the\nbest. Pope himself holds a place in English literature which he could\nnot hold had he been only a middling poet. He is not a poet of the\nhighest order certainly, but a poet of the third or fourth order--the\npoet of the reason, the understanding, but not of the creative\nimagination. It is wit and not soul that keeps Pope alive.\n\nNearly every age and land has plenty of middling poets. Probably there\nwere never more of them in the land than there are to-day. Scores of\nvolumes of middling verse are issued from the press every week. The\nmagazines all have middling verse; only at rare intervals do they have\nsomething more. The May \"Atlantic,\" for instance, had a poem by a (to\nme) comparatively new writer, Olive Tilford Dargan, that one would\nhardly stigmatize as middling poetry. Let the reader judge for\nhimself. It is called \"Spring in the Study.\" I quote only the second\npart:\n\n    \"What is this sudden gayety that shakes the grayest boughs?\n    A voice is calling fieldward--'T is time to start the ploughs!\n    To set the furrows rolling, while all the old crows nod;\n    And deep as life, the kernel, to cut the golden sod.\n    The pen--let nations have it;--we'll plough a while for God.\n\n    \"When half the things that must be done are greater than our art,\n    And half the things that must be done are smaller than our heart,\n    And poorest gifts are dear to burn on altars unrevealed,\n    Like music comes the summons, the challenge from the weald!\n    'They tread immortal measures who make a mellow field!'\n\n    \"The planet's rather pleasant, alluring in its way;\n    But let the ploughs be idle and none of us can stay.\n    Here's where there is no doubting, no ghosts uncertain stalk,\n    A-traveling with the plough beam, beneath the sailing hawk,\n    Cutting the furrow deep and true where Destiny will walk.\"\n\nLafcadio Hearn spoke with deep truth when he said that \"the measure of\na poet is the largeness of thought which he can bring to any subject,\nhowever trifling.\" Certainly Mrs. Dargan brings this largeness of\nthought to her subject. Has the significance of the plough ever before\nbeen so brought out? She makes one feel that there should be a plough\namong the constellations. What are the chairs and harps and dippers in\ncomparison?\n\nThe poetry of mere talent is always middling poetry--\"poems distilled\nfrom other poems,\" as Whitman says. The work of a genius is of a\ndifferent order. Most current verse is merely sweetened prose put up\nin verse form. It serves its purpose; the mass of readers like it.\nNearly all educated persons can turn it off with little effort. I have\ndone my share of it myself--rhymed natural history, but not poetry.\n\"Waiting\" is my nearest approach to a true poem.\n\nWordsworth quotes Aristotle as saying that poetry is the most\nphilosophical of all writing, and Wordsworth agrees with him. There\ncertainly can be no great poetry without a great philosopher behind\nit--a man who has thought and felt profoundly upon nature and upon\nlife, as Wordsworth himself surely had. The true poet, like the\nphilosopher, is a searcher after truth, and a searcher at the very\nheart of things--not cold, objective truth, but truth which is its own\ntestimony, and which is carried alive into the heart by passion. He\nseeks more than beauty, he seeks the perennial source of beauty. The\npoet leads man to nature as a mother leads her child there--to instill\na love of it into his heart. If a poet adds neither to my knowledge\nnor to my love, of what use is he? For instance, Poe does not make me\nknow more or love more, but he delights me by his consummate art.\nBryant's long poem \"The Ages\" has little value, mainly because it is\ncharged with no philosophy, and no imaginative emotion. His \"Lines to\na Waterfowl\" will last because of the simple, profound human emotion\nthey awaken. The poem is marred, however, by the stanza that he tacks\non the end, which strikes a note entirely foreign to the true spirit\nof the poem. You cannot by tacking a moral to a poem give it the\nphilosophical breadth to which I have referred. \"Thanatopsis\" has a\nsolemn and majestic music, but not the unique excellence of the\nwaterfowl poem. Yet it may be generally said of Bryant that he has a\nbroad human outlook on life and is free from the subtleties and\ningenious refinements of many of our younger poets.\n\nI know of only three poets in this century who bring a large measure\nof thought and emotion to their task. I refer to William Vaughn Moody,\nto John Russell McCarthy (author of \"Out-of-Doors\" and \"Gods and\nDevils\"), and to Robert Loveman, best known for his felicitous \"Rain\nSong,\" a poem too well known to be quoted here. Any poet who has ever\nlived might have been proud to have written that poem. It goes as\nlightly as thistle-down, yet is freighted with thought. Its philosophy\nis so sublimated and so natural and easy that we are likely to forget\nthat it has any philosophy at all. The fifty or more stanzas of his\n\"Gates of Silence\" are probably far less well known. Let me quote a\nfew of them:\n\n    \"The races rise and fall,\n      The nations come and go,\n    Time tenderly doth cover all\n      With violets and snow.\n\n    \"The mortal tide moves on\n      To some immortal shore,\n    Past purple peaks of dusk and dawn,\n      Into the evermore.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"All the tomes of all the tribes,\n    All the songs of all the scribes,\n    All that priest and prophet say,\n    What is it? and what are they?\n\n    \"Fancies futile, feeble, vain,\n    Idle dream-drift of the brain,--\n    As of old the mystery\n    Doth encompass you and me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"Old and yet young, the jocund Earth\n      Doth speed among the spheres,\n    Her children of imperial birth\n      Are all the golden years.\n\n    \"The happy orb sweeps on,\n      Led by some vague unrest,\n    Some mystic hint of joys unborn\n      Springing within her breast.\"\n\nWhat takes one in \"The Gates of Silence,\" which, of course, means the\ngates of death, are the large, sweeping views. The poet strides\nthrough time and space like a Colossus and\n\n                              \"flings\n      Out of his spendthrift hands\n    The whirling worlds like pebbles,\n      The meshed stars like sands.\"\n\nLoveman's stanzas have not the flexibility and freedom of those of\nMoody and McCarthy, but they bring in full measure the largeness of\nthought which a true poem requires.\n\nSome of Moody's poems rank with the best in the literature of his time.\nHe was deeply moved by the part we played in the Spanish-American War.\nIt was a war of shame and plunder from the point of view of many of the\nnoblest and most patriotic men of the country. We freed Cuba from the\nSpanish yoke and left her free; but we seized the Philippines and\nsubdued the native population by killing a vast number of them--more\nthan half of them, some say. Commercial exploitation inspired our\npolicy. How eloquently Senator Hoar of Massachusetts inveighed against\nour course! We promised the Filipinos their freedom--a promise we have\nnot yet fulfilled.\n\nMoody's most notable poems are \"Gloucester Moors,\" \"An Ode in Time of\nHesitation\" (inspired by the Shaw Monument in Boston, the work of\nSaint-Gaudens), \"The Brute,\" \"The Daguerreotype,\" and \"On a Soldier\nFallen in the Philippines.\" In this last poem throb and surge the\nmingled emotions of pride and shame which the best minds in the\ncountry felt at the time--shame at our mercenary course, and pride in\nthe fine behavior of our soldiers. It is true we made some pretense of\nindemnifying Spain by paying her twenty million dollars, which was\nmuch like the course of a boy who throws another boy down and\nforcibly takes his jack-knife from him, then gives him a few coppers\nto salve his wounds. I remember giving Moody's poem to Charles Eliot\nNorton (one of those who opposed the war), shortly after it appeared.\nHe read it aloud with marked emotion. Let me quote two of its stanzas:\n\n          \"Toll! Let the great bells toll\n          Till the clashing air is dim.\n          Did we wrong this parted soul?\n          We will make it up to him.\n          Toll! Let him never guess\n          What work we set him to.\n          Laurel, laurel, yes;\n          He did what we bade him do.\n    Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought was good;\n    Never a word that the blood on his sword was his country's own\n              heart's-blood.\n\n          \"A flag for the soldier's bier\n          Who dies that his land may live;\n          O, banners, banners here,\n          That he doubt not nor misgive!\n          That he heed not from the tomb\n          The evil days draw near\n          When the nation, robed in gloom,\n          With its faithless past shall strive.\n    Let him never dream that his bullet's scream went wide of its island\n              mark,\n    Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled and sinned in\n              the dark.\"\n\nWhen I say that every true poet must have a philosophy, I do not mean\nthat he must be what is commonly called a philosophical poet; from\nsuch we steer clear. The philosophy in a poem must be like the iron in\nthe blood. It is the iron that gives color and vigor to the blood.\nReduce it and we become an anaemic and feeble race. Much of the popular\npoetry is anaemic in this respect. There is no virile thought in it.\nAll of which amounts to saying that there is always a great nature\nback of a great poem.\n\nThe various forms of verse are skillfully used by an increasing number\nof educated persons, but the number of true poets is not increasing.\nQuite the contrary, I fear. The spirit of the times in which we live\ndoes not favor meditation and absorption in the basic things out of\nwhich great poetry arises. \"The world is too much with us.\" Yet we\nneed not be too much discouraged. England has produced Masefield, and\nwe have produced John Russell McCarthy, who has written the best\nnature poetry since Emerson. The genius of a race does not repeat. We\nshall never again produce poets of the type of those that are gone,\nand we should not want to. All we may hope for is to produce poets as\noriginal and characteristic and genuine as those of the past--poets\nwho as truly express the spirit of their time, as the greater poets\ndid of theirs--not Emerson and Whitman over again, but a wide\ndeparture from their types.\n\nSpeaking of Whitman, may we not affirm that it is his tremendous and\nimpassioned philosophy suffusing his work, as the blood suffuses the\nbody, that keeps \"Leaves of Grass\" forever fresh? We do not go to\nWhitman for pretty flowers of poesy, although they are there, but we\ngo to him for his attitude toward life and the universe, we go to\nstimulate and fortify our souls--in short, for his cosmic philosophy\nincarnated in a man.\n\nWhat largeness of thought Tennyson brings to all his themes! There is\nplenty of iron in his blood, though it be the blood of generations of\nculture, and of an overripe civilization. We cannot say as much of\nSwinburne's poetry or prose. I do not think either will live. Bigness\nof words, and fluency, and copiousness of verse cannot make up for the\nwant of a sane and rational philosophy. Arnold's poems always have\nreal and tangible subject matter. His \"Dover Beach\" is a great stroke\nof poetic genius. Let me return to Poe: what largeness of thought did\nhe bring to his subjects? Emerson spoke of him as \"the jingle man,\"\nand Poe, in turn, spoke of Emerson with undisguised contempt. Poe's\npicture indicates a neurotic person. There is power in his eyes, but\nthe shape of his head is abnormal, and a profound melancholy seems to\nrest on his very soul. What a conjurer he was with words and meters\nand measures! No substance at all in his \"Raven,\" only shadows--a\nwonderful dance of shadows, all tricks of a verbal wizard. \"The\nBells,\" a really powerful poem, is his masterpiece, unique in English\nliterature; but it has no intellectual content. Its appeal is to the\neye and ear alone. It has a verbal splendor and a mastery over measure\nand rhythm far beyond anything in Shelley, or in any other poet of his\ntime. It is art glorified; it is full of poetic energy. No wonder\nforeign critics see in Poe something far beyond that found in any\nother American, or in any British poet!\n\nPoe set to work to write \"The Raven\" as deliberately as a mechanic\ngoes to work to make a machine, or an architect to build a house. It\nwas all a matter of calculation with him. He did not believe in long\npoems, hence decided at the outset that his poem should not be more\nthan one hundred lines in length. Then he asked himself, what is the\nlegitimate end and aim of a poem? and answered emphatically, Beauty.\nThe next point to settle was, what impression must be made to produce\nthat effect? He decided that \"melancholy is the most legitimate of all\npoetic tones.\" Why joy or gladness, like that of the birds, is not\nequally legitimate, he does not explain. Then, to give artistic\npiquancy to the whole, he decided that there must be \"some pivot upon\nwhich the whole structure might turn.\" He found that \"no one had been\nso universally employed as the refrain.\" The burden of the poem should\nbe given by the refrain, and it should be a monotone, and should have\nbrevity. Then his task was to select a single word that would be in\nkeeping with the melancholy at which he was aiming, and this he found\nin the word _nevermore_. He next invented a pretext for the frequent\nbut varying use of _nevermore_. This word could not be spoken in the\nright tone by a human being; it must come from an unreasoning\ncreature, hence the introduction of the raven, an ill-omened bird, in\nharmony with the main tone of the poem. He then considered what was\nthe most melancholy subject of mankind, and found it was death, and\nthat that melancholy theme was most poetical when allied to beauty.\nHence the death of a beautiful woman was unquestionably the most\npoetic topic in the world. It was equally beyond doubt that the lips\nbest suited for such topic were those of a bereaved lover. Thus he\nworked himself up, or rather back, to the climax of the poem, for he\nwrote the last stanza, in which the climax occurs, first. His own\nanalysis of the poem is like a chemist's analysis of some new compound\nhe has produced; it is full of technical terms and subtle\ndistinctions. Probably no other famous poem was turned out in just\nthat studied and deliberate architectural way--no pretense of\ninspiration, or of \"eyes in fine frenzy rolling\": just skilled\ncraftsmanship--only this and nothing more.\n\nArnold's dictum that poetry is a criticism of life is, in a large and\nflexible sense, true. The poet does not criticize life as the\nconscious critic does, but as we unconsciously do in our most exalted\nmoments. Arnold, I believe, did not appreciate Whitman, but one\nfunction of the poet upon which Whitman lays emphasis, is criticism of\nhis country and times.\n\n    \"What is this you bring, my America?\n    Is it uniform with my country?\n    Is it not something that has been better done or told before?\n    Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?\n    Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a pettiness?--is the good old cause\n              in it?\n    Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians,\n              literates of enemies, lands?\n    Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?\n    Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?\n    Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?\n    Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my\n              strength, gait, face?\n    Have real employments contributed to it?\n    Original makers, not mere amanuenses?\"\n\nSpeaking of criticism, it occurs to me how important it is that a\npoet, or any other writer, should be a critic of himself. Wordsworth,\nwho was a really great poet, was great only at rare intervals. His\nhabitual mood was dull and prosy. His sin was that he kept on writing\nduring those moods, grinding out sonnets by the hundred--one hundred\nand thirty-two ecclesiastical sonnets, and over half as many on\nliberty, all very dull and wooden. His mill kept on grinding whether\nit had any grist of the gods to grind or not. He told Emerson he was\nnever in haste to publish, but he seems to have been in haste to\nwrite, and wrote on all occasions, producing much dull and trivial\nwork. We speak of a man's work as being heavy. Let us apply the test\nliterally to Wordsworth and weigh his verse. The complete edition of\nhis poems, edited by Henry Reed and published in Philadelphia in 1851,\nweighs fifty-five ounces; the selection which Matthew Arnold made from\nhis complete works, and which is supposed to contain all that is worth\npreserving, weighs ten ounces. The difference represents the dead\nwood. That Wordsworth was a poor judge of his own work is seen in the\nremark he made to Emerson that he did not regard his \"Tintern Abbey\"\nas highly as some of the sonnets and parts of \"The Excursion.\" I\nbelieve the Abbey poem is the one by which he will longest be\nremembered. \"The Excursion\" is a long, dull sermon. Its didacticism\nlies so heavily upon it that it has nearly crushed its poetry--like a\nstone on a flower.\n\nAll poetry is true, but all truth is not poetry. When Burns treats a\nnatural-history theme, as in his verses on the mouse and the daisy,\nand even on the louse, how much more there is in them than mere\nnatural history! With what a broad and tender philosophy he clothes\nthem! how he identifies himself with the mouse and regards himself as\nits fellow mortal! So have Emerson's \"Titmouse\" and \"Humble-Bee\" a\nbetter excuse for being than their natural history. So have McCarthy's\n\"For a Bunny\" and \"The Snake,\" and \"To a Worm.\"\n\nTHE SNAKE\n\n    Poor unpardonable length,\n    All belly to the mouth,\n    Writhe then and wriggle,\n    If there's joy in it!\n\n    _My_ heel, at least, shall spare you.\n\n    A little sun on a stone,\n    A mouse or two,\n    And all that unreasonable belly\n    Is happy.\n\n    No wonder God wasn't satisfied--\n    And went on creating.\n\nTO A WORM\n\n    Do you know you are green, little worm,\n    Like the leaf you feed on?\n    Perhaps it is on account of the birds, who would like to eat you.\n    But is there any reason why they shouldn't eat you, little worm?\n\n    Do you know you are comical, little worm?\n    How you double yourself up and wave your head,\n    And then stretch out and double up again,\n    All after a little food.\n\n    Do you know you have a long, strange name, little worm?\n    I will not tell you what it is.\n    That is for men of learning.\n    You--and God--do not care about such things.\n\nWHAT MAKES A POEM?\n\n    You would wave about and double up just as much, and be just as\n              futile, with it as without it.\n    Why do you crawl about on the top of that post, little worm?\n    It should have been a tree, eh? with green leaves for eating.\n    But it isn't, and you have crawled about it all day, looking for a new\n              brown branch, or a green leaf.\n    Do you know anything about tears, little worm?\n\nOr take McCarthy's lines to the honey bee:\n\n    \"Poor desolate betrayer of Pan's trust,\n    Who turned from mating and the sweets thereof,\n    To make of labor an eternal lust,\n    And with pale thrift destroy the red of love,\n    The curse of Pan has sworn your destiny.\n    Unloving, unbeloved, you go your way\n    Toiling forever, and unwittingly\n    You bear love's precious burden every day\n    From flower to flower (for your blasphemy),\n    Poor eunuch, making flower lovers gay.\"\n\nOr this:\n\nGODLINESS\n\n    I know a man who says\n    That he gets godliness out of a book.\n\n    He told me this as we sought arbutus\n    On the April hills--\n    Little color-poems of God\n    Lilted to us from the ground,\n    Lyric blues and whites and pinks.\n    We climbed great rocks,\n    Eternally chanting their gray elegies,\n    And all about, the cadenced hills\n    Were proud\n    With the stately green epic of the Almighty.\n\n    And then we walked home under the stars,\n    While he kept telling me about his book\n    And the godliness in it.\n\nThere are many great lyrics in our literature which have no palpable\nor deducible philosophy; but they are the utterance of deep, serious,\nimaginative natures, and they reach our minds and hearts. Wordsworth's\n\"Daffodils,\" his \"Cuckoo,\" his \"Skylark,\" and scores of others, live\nbecause they have the freshness and spontaneity of birds and flowers\nthemselves.\n\nSuch a poem as Gray's \"Elegy\" holds its own, and will continue to hold\nit, because it puts in pleasing verse form the universal human emotion\nwhich all persons feel more or less when gazing upon graves.\n\nThe intellectual content of Scott's poems is not great but the human and\nemotional content in them is great. A great minstrel of the border\nspeaks in them. The best that Emerson could say of Scott was that \"he is\nthe delight of generous boys,\" but the spirit of romance offers as\nlegitimate a field for the poet as does the spirit of transcendentalism,\nthough yielding, of course, different human values.\n\nEvery poet of a high order has a deep moral nature, and yet the poet\nis far from being a mere moralist--\n\n    \"A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,\n    An intellectual all-in-all.\"\n\nEvery true poem is an offering upon the altar of art; it exists to no\nother end; it teaches as nature teaches; it is good as nature is\ngood; its art is the art of nature; it brings our spirits in closer\nand more loving contact with the universe; it is for the edification\nof the soul.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nSHORT STUDIES IN CONTRASTS\n\nTHE TRANSIENT AND THE PERMANENT\n\n\nThe clouds are transient, but the sky is permanent. The petals of a\nflowering plant are transient, the leaves and fruit are less so, and\nthe roots the least transient of all. The dew on the grass is\ntransient, as is the frost of an autumn morning. The snows and the\nrains abide longer. The splendors of summer and sunrise and sunset\nsoon pass, but the glory of the day lasts. The rainbow vanishes in a\nfew moments, but the prismatic effect of the drops of rain is a law of\noptics. Colors fade while texture is unimpaired.\n\nOf course change marks everything, living or dead. Even the pole star\nin astronomic time will vanish. But consider things mundane only. How\nthe rocks on the seacoast seem to defy and withstand the waves that\nbeat against them! \"Weak as is a breaking wave\" is a line of\nWordsworth's. Yet the waves remain after the rocks are gone. The sea\nknows no change as the land does. It and the sky are the two\nunchanging earth features.\n\nIn our own lives how transient are our moments of inspiration, our\nmorning joy, our ecstasies of the spirit! Upon how much in the world\nof art, literature, invention, modes, may be written the word\n\"perishable\"! \"All flesh is grass,\" says the old Book. Individuals,\nspecies, races, pass. Life alone remains and is immortal.\n\nPOSITIVE AND NEGATIVE\n\nPositive and negative go hand in hand through the world. Victory and\ndefeat, hope and despair, pleasure and pain. Man is positive, woman is\nnegative in comparison. The day is positive, the night is negative.\nBut it is a pleasure to remember that it is always day in the\nuniverse.\n\nThe shadow of the earth does not extend very far, nor the shadow of\nany other planet. Day is the great cosmic fact. The masses of men are\nnegative to the few master and compelling minds. Cold is negative,\nheat is positive, though the difference is only one of degree. The\nnegative side of life, the side of meditation, reflection, and\nreverie, is no less important than the side of action and performance.\nYouth is positive, age is negative. Age says No where it used to say\nYes. It takes in sail. Life's hurry and heat are over, the judgment is\ncalm, the passions subdued, the stress of effort relaxed. Our temper\nis less aggressive, events seem less imminent.\n\nThe morning is positive; in the evening we muse and dream and take our\nease, we see our friends, we unstring the bow, we indulge our social\ninstincts.\n\nOptimism is positive, pessimism is negative. Fear, suspicion,\ndistrust--are all negative.\n\nOn the seashore where I write[4] I see the ebbing tide, the exposed\nsand and rocks, the receding waves; and I know the sea is showing us\nits negative side; there is a lull in the battle. But wait a little\nand the mad assault of the waves upon the land will be renewed.\n\n[Footnote 4: La Jolla, California.]\n\nPALM AND FIST\n\nThe palm is for friendship, hospitality, and good will; the fist is to\nsmite the enemies of truth and justice.\n\nHow many men are like the clenched fist--pugnacious, disputatious,\nquarrelsome, always spoiling for a fight; a verbal fisticuff, if not a\nphysical one, is their delight. Others are more conciliatory and\npeace-loving, not forgetting that a soft answer turneth away wrath.\nRoosevelt was the man of the clenched fist; not one to stir up strife,\nbut a merciless hitter in what he believed a just cause. He always had\nthe fighting edge, yet could be as tender and sympathetic as any one.\nThis latter side of him is clearly shown in his recently published\n\"Letters to His Children.\" Lincoln was, in contrast, the man with the\nopen palm, tempering justice with kindness, and punishment with\nleniency. His War Secretary, Stanton, wielded the hard fist.\n\nPRAISE AND FLATTERY\n\n\"More men know how to flatter,\" said Wendell Phillips, \"than how to\npraise.\" To flatter is easy, to condemn is easy, but to praise\njudiciously and discriminatingly is not easy. Extravagant praise\ndefeats itself, as does extravagant blame. A man is rarely overpraised\nduring his own time by his own people. If he is an original, forceful\ncharacter, he is much more likely to be overblamed than overpraised.\nHe disturbs old ways and institutions. We require an exalted point of\nview to take in a great character, as we do to take in a great\nmountain.\n\nWe are likely to overpraise and overblame our presidents. Lincoln was\ngreatly overblamed in his day, but we have made it up to his memory.\nPresident Wilson won the applause of both political parties during his\nfirst term, but how overwhelmingly did the tide turn against him\nbefore the end of his second term! All his high and heroic service\n(almost his martyrdom) in the cause of peace, and for the league to\nprevent war, were forgotten in a mad rush of the populace to the other\nextreme. But Wilson will assuredly come to his own in time, and take\nhis place among the great presidents.\n\nA little of the Scottish moderation is not so bad; it is always safe.\nA wise man will always prefer unjust blame to fulsome praise. Extremes\nin the estimation of a sound character are bound sooner or later to\ncorrect themselves. Wendell Phillips himself got more than his share\nof blame during the antislavery days, but the praise came in due time.\n\nGENIUS AND TALENT\n\nThe difference between the two is seen in nothing more clearly than in\nthe fact that so many educated persons can and do write fairly good\nverse, in fact, write most of the popular newspaper and magazine\npoetry, while only those who have a genius for poetry write real\npoems. Could mere talent have written Bryant's lines \"To a Waterfowl\"?\nor his \"Thanatopsis\"? or \"June\"? Or the small volume of selections of\ngreat poetry which Arnold made from the massive works of Wordsworth?\n\nTalent could have produced a vast deal of Wordsworth's work--all the\n\"Ecclesiastical Sonnets\" and much of \"The Excursion.\" Could talent\nhave written Walt Whitman's \"Leaves of Grass\"? It could have produced\nall that Whitman wrote before that time--all his stories and poems.\nGive talent inspiration and it becomes genius. The grub is\nmetamorphosed into the butterfly.\n\n\"To do what is impossible to Talent is the mark of Genius,\" says\nAmiel.\n\nTalent may judge, Genius creates. Talent keeps the rules, Genius knows\nwhen to break them.\n\n\"You may know Genius,\" says the ironical Swift, \"by this sign: All the\ndunces are against him.\"\n\nThere is fine talent in Everett's oration at Gettysburg, but what a\ndifferent quality spoke in Lincoln's brief but immortal utterance on\nthe same occasion! Is anything more than bright, alert talent shown in\nthe mass of Lowell's work, save perhaps in his \"Biglow Papers\"? If he\nhad a genius for poetry, though he wrote much, I cannot see it. His\ntone, as Emerson said, is always that of prose. The \"Cathedral\" is a\n_tour de force_. The line of his so often quoted--\"What is so rare as\na day in June?\"--is a line of prose.\n\nThe lines \"To a Honey Bee\" by John Russell McCarthy are the true gold\nof poetry. \"To make of labor an eternal lust\" could never have been\nstruck off by mere talent.\n\nINVENTION AND DISCOVERY\n\nColumbus discovered America; Edison invented the phonograph, the\nincandescent light, and many other things. If Columbus had not\ndiscovered America, some other voyager would have. If Harvey had not\ndiscovered the circulation of the blood, some one else would have. The\nwonder is that it was not discovered ages before. So far as I know, no\none has yet discovered the function of the spleen, but doubtless in\ntime some one will. It is only comparatively recently that the\nfunctions of other ductless glands have been discovered. What did we\nknow about the thyroid gland a half-century ago? All the new\ndiscoveries in the heavens waited upon the new astronomic methods, and\nthe end is not yet. Many things in nature are still like an unexplored\nland. New remedies for the ills of the human body doubtless remain to\nbe found. In the mechanical world probably no new principle remains to\nbe discovered. \"Keely\" frauds have had their day. In the chemical\nworld, the list of primary elements will probably not be added to,\nthough new combinations of these elements may be almost endless. In\nthe biological world, new species of insects, birds, and mammals\ndoubtless remain to be discovered. Our knowledge of the natural\nhistory of the globe is far from being complete.\n\nBut in regard to inventions the case is different. I find myself\nspeculating on such a question as this: If Edison had never been born,\nshould we ever have had the phonograph, or the incandescent light? If\nGraham Bell had died in infancy, should we ever have had the\ntelephone? Or without Marconi should we have had the wireless, or\nwithout Morse, the telegraph? Or, to go back still farther, without\nFranklin should we ever have known the identity of lightning and\nelectricity? Who taught us how to control electricity and make it do\nour work? One of the questions of Job was, \"Canst thou send\nlightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?\" Yes, we\ncan. \"We are ready to do your bidding,\" they seem to say, \"to run your\nerrands, to carry your burdens, to grind your grist, to light your\nhouses, to destroy your enemies.\"\n\nThe new inventions that the future holds for us wait upon the new man.\nThe discovery of radium--what a secret that was! But in all\nprobability had not Curie and his wife discovered it, some other\ninvestigator would.\n\nShall we ever learn how to use the atomic energy that is locked up in\nmatter? Or how to use the uniform temperature of the globe? Or the\nsecret of the glow-worm and firefly--light without heat?\n\nThe laws of the conservation of energy and of the correlation of\nforces were discoveries. The art of aviation was both an invention and\na discovery. The soaring hawks and eagles we have always been familiar\nwith; the Wright brothers invented the machine that could do the\ntrick.\n\n\"Necessity is the mother of invention.\" As our wants increase, new\ndevices to meet them appear. How the diving-bell answered a real need!\nThe motor-car also, and the flying-machine. The sewing-machine is a\ngreat time-saver; the little hooks in our shoes in place of eyelets\nare great time-savers; pins, and friction matches, and rubber\novershoes, and scores on scores of other inventions answer to real\nneeds. Necessity did not call the phonograph into being, nor the\nincandescent light, but the high explosives, dynamite and T. N. T.\n(trinitrotoluol) met real wants.\n\nThe Great War with its submarines stimulated inventors to devise\nweapons to cope with them. Always as man's hand and eyes and ears have\nneeded reenforcing or extending, his wit has come to his rescue. In\nfact, his progress has been contingent upon this very fact. His\nnecessities and his power of invention react upon one another; the\nmore he invents, the more he wants, and the more he wants, the more he\ninvents.\n\nTOWN AND COUNTRY\n\nI was saying to myself, why do not all literary men go to the country\nto do their work, where they can have health, peace, and solitude?\nThen it occurred to me that there are many men of many minds, and that\nmany need to be in the thick of life; they get more stimulus out of\npeople than out of nature. The novelist especially needs to be in\ntouch with multitudes of men and women. But the poet and the\nphilosopher will usually prosper better in the country. A man like\nmyself, who is an observer and of a meditative cast, does better in\nthe country. Emerson, though city born and bred, finally settled in\nthe country. Whitman, on the other hand, loved \"populous pavements.\"\nBut he was at home anywhere under the stars. He had no study, no\nlibrary, no club, other than the street, the beach, the hilltop, and\nthe marts of men. Mr. Howells was country-born, but came to the city\nfor employment and remained there. Does not one wish that he had gone\nback to his Ohio boyhood home? It was easy for me to go back because I\ncame of generations of farmer folk. The love of the red soil was in my\nblood. My native hills looked like the faces of my father and mother.\nI could never permanently separate myself from them. I have always had\na kind of chronic homesickness. Two or three times a year I must\nrevisit the old scenes. I have had a land-surveyor make a map of the\nhome farm, and I have sketched in and colored all the different fields\nas I knew them in my youth. I keep the map hung up in my room here in\nCalifornia, and when I want to go home, I look at this map. I do not\nsee the paper. I see fields and woods and stone walls and paths and\nroads and grazing cattle. In this field I used to help make hay; in\nthis one I wore my fingers sore picking up stones for these stone\nwalls; in this I planted corn and potatoes with my brothers. In these\nmaple woods I helped make sugar in the spring; in these I killed my\nfirst ruffed grouse. In this field I did my first ploughing, with\nthoughts of an academy in a neighboring town at the end of every\nfurrow. In this one I burned the dry and decayed stumps in the April\ndays, with my younger brother, and a spark set his cap on fire. In\nthis orchard I helped gather the apples in October. In this barn we\nhusked the corn in the November nights. In this one Father sheared the\nsheep, and Mother picked the geese. My paternal grandfather cleared\nthese fields and planted this orchard. I recall the hired man who\nworked for us during my time, and every dog my father had, and my\nadventures with them, hunting wood-chucks and coons. All these things\nand memories have been valuable assets in my life. But it is well that\nnot all men have my strong local attachments. The new countries would\nnever get settled. My forefathers would never have left Connecticut\nfor the wilderness of the Catskills.\n\nAs a rule, however, we are a drifting, cosmopolitan people. We are\neasily transplanted; we do not strike our roots down into the geology\nof long-gone time.\n\nI often wonder how so many people of the Old World can pull\nthemselves up and migrate to America and never return. The Scots,\ncertainly a home-loving race, do it, and do not seem to suffer from\nhomesickness.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nDAY BY DAY\n\n\nWe often hear it said of a man that he was born too early, or too\nlate, but is it ever true? If he is behind his times, would he not\nhave been behind at whatever period he had been born? If he is ahead\nof his times, is not the same thing true? In the vegetable world the\nearly flowers and fruit blossoms are often cut off by the frost, but\nnot so in the world of man. Babies are in order at any time. Is a\npoet, or a philosopher, ever born too late? or too early? If Emerson\nhad been born a century earlier, his heterodoxy would have stood in\nhis way; but in that case he would not have been a heretic. Whitman\nwould have had to wait for a hearing at whatever period he was born.\nHe said he was willing to wait for the growth of the taste for\nhimself, and it finally came. Emerson's first thin volume called\n\"Nature\" did not sell the first edition of five hundred copies in ten\nyears, but would it have been different at any other time? A piece of\ntrue literature is not superseded. The fame of man may rise and fall,\nbut it lasts. Was Watt too early with his steam-engine, or Morse too\nearly with his telegraph? Or Bell too early with his telephone? Or\nEdison with his phonograph or his incandescent light? Or the Wright\nbrothers with their flying-machine? Or Henry Ford with his motor-car?\nBefore gasolene was discovered they would have been too early, but\nthen their inventions would not have materialized.\n\nThe world moves, and great men are the springs of progress. But no man\nis born too soon or too late.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA fadeless flower is no flower at all. How Nature ever came to produce\none is a wonder. Would not paper flowers do as well?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe most memorable days in our lives are the days when we meet a great\nman.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow stealthy and silent a thing is that terrible power which we have\nunder control in our homes, yet which shakes the heavens in thunder!\nIt comes and goes as silently as a spirit. In fact, it is nearer a\nspirit than anything else known to us. We touch a button and here it\nis, like an errand-boy who appears with his cap in his hand and meekly\nasks, \"What will you have?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA few days ago I was writing of meteoric men. But are we not all like\nmeteors that cut across the sky and are quickly swallowed up by the\ndarkness--some of us leaving a trail that lasts a little longer than\nothers, but all gone in a breath?\n\nOur great pulpit orator Beecher, how little he left that cold print\ndoes not kill! As a young man I used nearly to run my legs off to get\nto Plymouth Church before the doors were closed. Under his\ntrumpet-like voice I was like a reed bent by the wind, but now when in\na book made up of quotations I see passages from his sermons, they\nseem thin and flimsy. Beecher's oratory was all for the ear and not\nfor the eye and mind. In truth, is the world indebted to the pulpit\nfor much good literature? Robertson's sermons can be read in the\nlibrary, and there are others of the great English divines. But\noratory is action and passion. \"Great volumes of animal heat,\" Emerson\nnames as one of the qualities of the orator.\n\nThe speeches of Wendell Phillips will bear print because his oratory\nwas of the quiet, conversational kind. Webster's, of course, stand the\ntest of print, but do Clay's or Calhoun's? In our time oratory, as\nsuch, has about gone out. Rarely now do we hear the eagle scream in\nCongress or on the platform. Men aim to speak earnestly and\nconvincingly, but not oratorically. President Wilson is a very\nconvincing speaker, but he indulges in no oratory. The one who makes a\ngreat effort to be eloquent always fails. Noise and fury and\nover-emphasis are not eloquent. \"True eloquence,\" says Pascal,\n\"scorns eloquence.\"\n\nThere is no moral law in nature, but there is that out of which the\nmoral law arose. There is no answer to prayer in the heavens above, or\nin the earth beneath, except in so far as the attitude of sincere\nprayer is a prophecy of the good it pleads for. Prayer for peace of\nmind, for charity, for gratitude, for light, for courage, is answered\nin the sincere asking. Prayer for material good is often prayer\nagainst wind and tide, but wind and tide obey those who can rule them.\n\nOur ethical standards injected into world-history lead to confusion\nand contradiction. Introduced into the jungle, they would put an end\nto life there; introduced into the sea, they would put an end to life\nthere; the rule that it is more blessed to give than to receive would\nput an end to all competitive business. Our ethical standards are\nnarrow, artificial, and apply only to civilized communities. Nations\nhave rarely observed them till the present day.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf the world is any better for my having lived in it, it is because I\nhave pointed the way to a sane and happy life on terms within reach of\nall, in my love and joyous acceptance of the works of Nature about me.\nI have not tried, as the phrase is, to lead my readers from Nature up\nto Nature's God, because I cannot separate the one from the other. If\nyour heart warms toward the visible creation, and toward your fellow\nmen, you have the root of the matter in you. The power we call God\ndoes not sustain a mechanical or secondary relation to the universe,\nbut is vital in it, or one with it. To give this power human\nlineaments and attributes, as our fathers did, only limits and\nbelittles it. And to talk of leading from Nature up to Nature's God is\nto miss the God that throbs in every spear of grass and vibrates in\nthe wing of every insect that hums. The Infinite is immanent in this\nuniverse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"The faith that truth exists\" is the way that William James begins one\nof his sentences. Of course truth exists where the mind of man exists.\nA new man and there is new truth. Truth, in this sense, is a way of\nlooking at things that is agreeable, or that gives satisfaction to the\nhuman mind. Truth is not a definite fixed quantity, like the gold or\nsilver of a country. It is no more a fixed quantity than is beauty. It\nis an experience of the human mind. Beauty and truth are what we make\nthem. We say the world is full of beauty. What we mean is that the\nworld is full of things that give us the pleasure, or awaken in us the\nsentiment which we call by that name.\n\nThe broadest truths are born of the broadest minds. Narrow minds are\nso named from their narrow views of things.\n\nPilate's question, \"What is Truth?\" sets the whole world by the ears.\nThe question of right and wrong is another thing. Such questions refer\nto action and the conduct of our lives. In religion, in politics, in\neconomics, in sociology, what is truth to one man may be error to\nanother. We may adopt a course of action because it seems the more\nexpedient. Debatable questions have two sides to them. In the moral\nrealm that is true which is agreeable to the largest number of\ncompetent judges. A mind that could see further and deeper might\nreverse all our verdicts. To be right on any question in the moral\nrealm is to be in accord with that which makes for the greatest good\nto the greatest number. In our Civil War the South believed itself\nright in seceding from the Union; the North, in fighting to preserve\nthe Union. Both sections now see that the North had the larger right.\nThe South was sectional, the North national. Each of the great\npolitical parties thinks it has a monopoly of the truth, but the truth\nusually lies midway between them. Questions of right and wrong do not\nnecessarily mean questions of true and false. \"There is nothing either\ngood or bad,\" says Hamlet, \"but thinking makes it so.\" This may be\ngood Christian Science doctrine, but it is doubtful philosophy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYesterday, as I stood on the hill above Slabsides and looked over the\nlandscape dotted with farms just greening in the April sun, the\nthought struck me afresh that all this soil, all the fertile fields,\nall these leagues on leagues of sloping valleys and rolling hills came\nfrom the decay of the rocks, and that the chief agent in bringing\nabout this decay and degradation was the gentle rain from heaven--that\nwithout the rain through the past geologic ages, the scene I looked\nupon would have been only one wild welter of broken or crumpled rocky\nstrata, not a green thing, not a living thing, should I have seen.\n\nIn the Hawaiian Islands one may have proof of this before his eyes. On\none end of the island of Maui, the rainfall is very great, and its\ndeep valleys and high sharp ridges are clothed with tropical verdure,\nwhile on the other end, barely ten miles away, rain never falls, and\nthe barren, rocky desolation which the scene presents I can never\nforget. No rain, no soil; no soil, no life.\n\nWe are, therefore, children of the rocks; the rocks are our mother,\nand the rains our father.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the stream of life, through some favoring condition, breaks\nthrough its natural checks and bounds, and inundates and destroys\nwhole provinces of other forms, as when the locusts, the\nforest-worms, the boll-weevil, the currant-worm, the potato beetle,\nunduly multiply and devastate fields and forests and the farmer's\ncrops, what do we witness but Nature's sheer excess and intemperance?\nLife as we usually see it is the result of a complex system of checks\nand counter-checks. The carnivorous animals are a check on the\nherbivorous; the hawks and owls are a check on the birds and fowls;\nthe cats and weasels are a check on the small rodents, which are very\nprolific. The different species of plants and trees are a check upon\none another.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI think the main reason of the abundance of wealth in the country is\nthat every man, equipped as he is with so many modern scientific\nappliances and tools, is multiplied four or five times. He is equal to\nthat number of men in his capacity to do things as compared with the\nmen of fifty or seventy years ago. The farmer, with his\nmowing-machine, his horse-rake, his automobile, his tractor engine and\ngang ploughs or his sulky ploughs, his hay-loader, his corn-planter,\nand so on, does the work of many men. Machinery takes the place of\nmen. Gasolene and kerosene oil give man a great advantage. Dynamite,\ntoo,--what a giant that is in his service! The higher cost of living\ndoes not offset this advantage.\n\nThe condition in Europe at this time is quite different: there the\nenergies of men have been directed not to the accumulation of wealth,\nbut to the destruction of wealth. Hence, while the war has enriched\nus, it has impoverished Europe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy are women given so much more to ornaments and superfluities in\ndress and finery than men? In the animal kingdom below man, save in a\nfew instances, it is the male that wears the showy decorations. The\nmale birds have the bright plumes; the male sheep have the big horns;\nthe stag has the antlers; the male lion has the heavy mane; the male\nfirefly has wings and carries the lamp. With the barnyard fowl the\nmale has the long spurs and the showy comb and wattles. In the crow\ntribe, the male cannot be distinguished from the female, nor among the\nfly-catchers, nor among the snipes and plovers. But when we come to\nthe human species, and especially among the white races, the female\nfairly runs riot in ornamentation. If it is not to attract the male,\nwhat is it for? It has been pretty clearly shown that what Darwin\ncalls \"sexual selection\" plays no part. Woman wishes to excite the\npassion of love. She has an instinct for motherhood; the perpetuity of\nthe species is at the bottom of it all. Woman knows how to make her\ndress alluring, how to make it provocative, how much to reveal, how\nmuch to conceal. A certain voluptuousness is the ambition of all\nwomen; anything but to be skinny and raw-boned. She does not want to\nbe muscular and flat-chested, nor, on the other hand, to be\nover-stout, but she prays for the flowing lines and the plumpness that\nbelong to youth. A lean man does not repel her, nor a rugged, bony\nframe. Woman's garments are of a different texture and on a different\nscale than those of man, and much more hampering. Her ruffles and\nribbons and laces all play their part. Her stockings even are a vital\nproblem, more important than her religion. We do not care where she\nworships if her dress is attractive. Emerson reports that a lady said\nto him that a sense of being well-dressed at church gave a\nsatisfaction which religion could not give.\n\nWith man the male defends and safeguards the female. True that among\nsavage tribes he makes a slave of her, but in the white races he will\ndefend her with his life. She does not take up arms, she does not go\nto sea. She does not work in mines, or as a rule engage in the rough\nwork of the world. In Europe she works in the field, and we have had\nfarmerettes in this country, but I know of no feminine engineers or\ncarpenters or stone masons. There have been a few women explorers and\nAlpine climbers, and investigators in science, but only a few. The\ndiscovery of radium is chiefly accredited to a woman, and women have a\nfew valuable inventions to their credit. I saw a valuable and\ningenious machine, in a great automobile factory, that was invented by\na woman. Now that woman has won the franchise in this country, we are\nwaiting to see if politics will be purified.\n\nThe \"weaker sex,\" surely. How much easier do women cry than men! how\nmuch more easily are they scared! And yet, how much more pain they can\nendure! And how much more devoted are they to their children!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy does any extended view from a mountain-top over a broad landscape,\nno matter what the features of that landscape, awaken in us the\nemotion of the beautiful? Is it because the eye loves a long range, a\nbroad sweep? Or do we have a sense of victory? The book of the\nlandscape is now open before us, and we can read it page after page.\nAll these weary miles where we tramped, and where the distance, as it\nwere, was in ambush, we now command at a glance. Big views expand the\nmind as deep inhalations of air expand the lungs.\n\nYesterday I stood on the top of Grossmont,[5] probably a thousand feet\nabove the landscape, and looked out over a wide expanse of what seemed\nto be parched, barren country; a few artificial lakes or ponds of\nimpounded rains, but not a green thing in sight, and yet I was filled\nwith pleasurable emotion. I lingered and lingered and gazed and gazed.\nThe eye is freed at such times, like a caged bird, and darts far and\nnear without hindrance.\n\n[Footnote 5: In San Diego County, California.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"The wings of time are black and white,\n    Pied with morning and with night.\"\n\nThus do we objectify that which has no objective existence, but is\npurely a subjective experience. Do we objectify light and sound in the\nsame way? No. One can conceive of the vibrations in the ether that\ngive us the sensation of light, and in the air that give us sound.\nThese vibrations do not depend upon our organs. Time and tide, we say,\nwait for no man. Certainly the tide does not, as it has a real\nobjective existence. But time does not wait or hurry. It neither lags\nnor hastens. Yesterday does not exist, nor to-morrow, nor the Now, for\nthat matter. Before we can say the moment has come, it is gone. The\nonly change there is is in our states of consciousness. How the hours\nlag when we are waiting for a train, and how they hurry when we are\nhappily employed! Can we draw a line between the past and the present?\nCan you find a point in the current of the stream that is stationary?\nWe speak of being lavish of time and of husbanding time, of improving\ntime, and so on. We divide it into seconds and minutes, hours and\ndays, weeks, and months, and years. Civilized man is compelled to do\nthis; he lives and works by schedule, but it is his states of\nconsciousness that he divides and measures. \"Time is but a stream I go\nfishing in,\" says Thoreau. The stream goes by, but the fish stay. The\nriver of Time, the tooth of Time--happy comparisons.\n\n\"I wasted time and now time wastes me,\" says Shakespeare. \"I have no\ntime.\" \"You have all there is,\" replied the old Indian.\n\nIf time, like money, could be hoarded up, we could get all our work\ndone. Is there any time outside of man? The animals take no note of\ntime.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat is a good saying of Juvenal's, \"He who owns the soil, owns up to\nthe sky.\" So is this of Virgil's, \"Command large fields, but cultivate\nsmall ones.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCan there be any theory or doctrine not connected with our practical\nlives so absurd that it will not be accepted as true by many people?\nHow firmly was a belief in witchcraft held by whole populations for a\ngeneration! My grandfather believed in it, and in spooks and\nhobgoblins.\n\nThe belief in alchemy still prevails--that the baser metals, by the\naid of the philosopher's stone, can be transmuted into gold and\nsilver. Quite recently there was a school in a large town in\nCalifornia for teaching alchemy. As it was a failure, its professor\nwas involved in litigation with his pupils. I believe the pupils were\nchiefly women.\n\nThere is a sect in Florida that believe that we live on the inside of\na hollow sphere, instead of on the outside of a revolving globe. I\nvisited the community with Edison, near Fort Myers, several years ago.\nSome of the women were fine-looking. One old lady looked like Martha\nWashington, but the men all looked \"as if they had a screw loose\nsomewhere.\" They believe that the sun and moon and all the starry\nhosts of heaven revolve on the inside of this hollow sphere. All our\nastronomy goes by the board. They look upon it as puerile and\ncontemptible. The founder of the sect had said he would rise from the\ndead to confirm its truth. His disciples kept his body till the Board\nof Health obliged them to bury it.\n\nIf any one were seriously to urge that we really walk on our heads\ninstead of our heels, and cite our baldness as proof, there are\npersons who would believe him. It has been urged that flight to the\nmoon in an aeroplane is possible--the want of air is no hindrance! The\nbelief in perpetual motion is not yet dead. Many believe that snakes\ncharm birds. But it has been found that a stuffed snake-skin will\n\"charm\" birds also--the bird is hypnotized by its own fear.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat has become of the hermits?--men and women who preferred to live\nalone, holding little or no intercourse with their fellows? In my\nyouth I knew of several such. There was old Ike Keator, who lived in a\nlittle unpainted house beside the road near the top of the mountain\nwhere we passed over into Batavia Kill. He lived there many years. He\nhad a rich brother, a farmer in the valley below. Then there was Eri\nGray, who lived to be over one hundred years. He occupied a little\nhouse on the side of a mountain, and lived, it was said, like the pigs\nin the pen. Then there was Aunt Deborah Bouton, who lived in a little\nhouse by a lonely road and took care of her little farm and her four\nor five cows, winter and summer. Since I have lived here on the Hudson\nthere was a man who lived alone in an old stone house amid great filth\non the top of the hill above Esopus village.\n\nIn my own line of descent there was a Kelley who lived alone in a hut\nin the woods, not far from Albany. I myself must have a certain amount\nof solitude, but I love to hear the hum of life all about me. I like\nto be secluded in a building warmed by the presence of other persons.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I was a boy on the old farm, the bright, warm, midsummer days\nwere canopied with the mellow hum of insects. You did not see them or\ndistinguish any one species, but the whole upper air resounded like a\ngreat harp. It was a very marked feature of midday. But not for fifty\nyears have I heard that sound. I have pressed younger and sharper ears\ninto my service, but to no purpose: there are certainly fewer\nbumblebees than of old, but not fewer flies or wasps or hornets or\nhoney bees. What has wrought the change I do not know.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf the movements going on around us in inert matter could be magnified\nso as to come within range of our unaided vision, how agitated the\nworld would seem! The so-called motionless bodies are all vibrating\nand shifting their places day and night at all seasons. The rocks are\nsliding down the hills or creeping out of their beds, the stone walls\nare reeling and toppling, the houses are settling or leaning. All\ninert material raised by the hand of man above the earth's surface is\nslowly being pulled down to a uniform level. The crust of the earth is\nrising or subsiding. The very stars in the constellations are shifting\ntheir places.\n\nIf we could see the molecular and chemical changes and transformations\nthat are going on around us, another world of instability would be\nrevealed to us. Here we should see real miracles. We should see the\nodorless gases unite to form water. We should see the building of\ncrystals, catalysis, and the movements of unstable compounds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThink of what Nature does with varying degrees of temperature--solids,\nfluids, gases. From the bottom to the top of the universe means simply\nmore or less heat. It seems like a misuse of words to say that iron\nfreezes at a high temperature, that a bar of red-hot or white-hot iron\nis frozen. Water freezes at a high temperature, the air freezes at a\nvastly lower. Carbon dioxide becomes a solid at a very low\ntemperature. Hydrogen becomes a liquid at 252 deg. below zero centigrade,\nand a solid at 264 deg.. The gas fluorine becomes a liquid at 210 deg. below\nzero centigrade.\n\nIn a world of absolute zero everything would be as solid as the rocks,\nall life, all chemical reactions would cease. All forms of water are\nthe result of more or less heat. The circuit of the waters from the\nearth to the clouds and back again, which keeps all the machinery of\nlife a-going, is the work of varying degrees of temperature. The Gulf\nStream, which plays such a part in the climate of Europe, is the\nresult of the heat in the Gulf of Mexico. The glacial periods which\nhave so modified the surface of the earth in the past were the result\nof temperature changes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow habitually we speak of beauty as a positive thing, just as we do\nof truth! whereas what we call beauty is only an emotional experience\nof our own minds, just as light and heat are sensations of our bodies.\nThere is no light where there is no eye, and no sound where there is\nno ear. One is a vibration in the ether, and the other a vibration in\nthe air. The vibrations are positive. We do not all see beauty in the\nsame things. One man is unmoved where another is thrilled. We say the\nworld is full of beauty, when we mean that it is full of objects that\nexcite this emotion in our minds.\n\nWe speak of truth as if it, too, were a positive thing, and as if\nthere were a fixed quantity of it in the world, as there is of gold or\nsilver, or diamonds. Truth, again, is an intellectual emotion of the\nhuman mind. One man's truth is another man's falsehood--moral and\naesthetic truth, I mean. Objective truth (mathematics and science) must\nbe the same to all men.\n\nA certain mode of motion in the molecules of matter gives us the\nsensation of heat, but heat is not a thing, an entity in itself, any\nmore than cold is. Yet to our senses one seems just as positive as the\nother.\n\nNew truth means a new man. There are as many kinds of truth as there\nare human experiences and temperaments.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow adaptive is animal life! It adds a new touch of interest to the\nforbidding cactus to know that the cactus wren builds her nest between\nits leaves. The spines probably serve to protect the bird from her\nenemies. But are they not also a menace to her and to her young? But\nthis \"procreant cradle\" of a bird in the arms of the fanged desert\ngrowth softens its aspect a little.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe tree of forbidden fruit--the Tree of Knowledge--how copiously has\nmankind eaten of it during these latter generations!--and the chaotic\nstate of the world to-day is the result. We have been forcing Nature's\nhand on a tremendous scale. We have gained more knowledge and power\nthan we can legitimately use. We are drunk with the sense of power. We\nchallenge the very gods. The rapid increase of inventions and the\nharnessing of the powers of Nature have set all nations to\nmanufacturing vastly more goods than they can use and they all become\ncompetitors for world markets, and rivalries and jealousies spring up,\nand the seeds of war are planted. The rapid growth of towns and cities\nis one of the results. The sobering and humanizing influence of the\ncountry and the farm are less and less in evidence; the excitement,\nthe excesses, the intoxication of the cities are more and more. The\nfollies and extravagances of wealth lead to the insolence and\nrebellion of the poor. Material power! Drunk with this power, the\nworld is running amuck to-day. We have got rid of kings and despots\nand autocratic governments; now if we could only keep sober and make\ndemocracy safe and enjoyable! Too much science has brought us to\ngrief. Behold what Chemistry has done to put imperial power in our\nhands during the last decade!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe grand movements of history and of mankind are like the movements\nof nature, under the same law, elemental, regardless of waste and ruin\nand delays--not the result of human will or design, but of forces we\nwot not of. They are of the same order as floods, tornadoes,\nearthquakes, a release of human forces that have slumbered. The chaos\nof Europe to-day shows the play of such elemental forces, unorganized,\nat cross-purposes, antagonistic, fighting it out in the attempt to\nfind an equilibrium. The pain, the suffering, the waste, the delays,\ndo not trouble the gods at all. Since man is a part of nature, why\nshould not masses of men be ruled by natural law? The human will\nreaches but a little way.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nGLEANINGS\n\n\nI do not believe that one poet can or does efface another, as Arnold\nsuggests. As every gas is a vacuum to every other gas, so every new\npoet is a vacuum to every other poet. Wordsworth told Arnold that for\nmany years his poems did not bring him enough to buy his shoestrings.\nThe reading public had to acquire a taste for him. Whitman said, \"I am\nwilling to wait for the growth of the taste of myself.\" A man who\nlikes a poet of real worth is going to continue to like him, no matter\nwhat new man appears. He may not read him over and over, but he goes\nback to him when the mood is upon him. We listen to the same music\nover and over. We take the same walk over and over. We read\nShakespeare over and over, and we go back to the best in Wordsworth\nover and over. We get in Tennyson what we do not get in Wordsworth,\nand we as truly get in Wordsworth what we do not get in Tennyson.\nTennyson was sumptuous and aristocratic. Byron found his audience, but\nhe did not rob Wordsworth.\n\nIt seems to me that the preeminence of Wordsworth lies in the fact\nthat he deals so entirely with concrete things--men and objects in\nnature--and floods or saturates them with moral meanings. There is no\nstraining, no hair-splitting, no contortions of the oracle, but it all\ncomes as naturally as the sunrise or the sunset.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThings not beautiful in themselves, or when seen near at hand, may and\ndo give us the sense of beauty when seen at a distance, or in mass.\nWho has not stood on a mountain-top, and seen before him a wild,\ndisorderly landscape that has nevertheless awakened in him the emotion\nof the beautiful? or that has given him the emotion of the sublime?\nWordsworth's \"Daffodils,\" \"Three Years She Grew,\" \"The Solitary\nReaper,\" \"The Rainbow,\" \"The Butterfly,\" and many others are merely\nbeautiful. These lines from Whitman give one the emotion of the\nsublime:\n\n    \"I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,\n    And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of\n              the farther systems.\n\n    \"Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,\n    Outward and outward and forever outward.\n\n    \"My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels,\n    He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit,\n    And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.\"\n\nAll men may slake their thirst at the same spring of water, but all\nmen cannot be thrilled or soothed by beholding the same objects of\nnature. A beautiful child captivates every one, a beautiful woman\nravishes all eyes. On my way to the Imperial Valley, I recently drove\nacross a range of California mountains that had many striking\nfeatures. A lady asked me if I did not think them beautiful. I said,\n\"No, they are hideous, but the hideous may be interesting.\"\n\nThe snow is beautiful to many persons, but it is not so to me. It is\nthe color of death. I could stand our northern winters very well if I\ncould always see the face of the brown or ruddy earth. The snow, I\nknow, blankets the fields; and Emerson's poem on the snowstorm is\nfine; at the same time, I would rather not be obliged to look at the\nwhite fields.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe are the first great people without a past in the European sense. We\nare of yesterday. We do not strike our roots down deep into the\ngeology of long-gone ages. We are easily transplanted. We are a\nmixture of all peoples as the other nations of the world are not. Only\nyesterday we were foreigners ourselves. Then we made the first\nexperiment on a large scale of a democratic or self-governing people.\nThe masses, and not a privileged few, give the tone and complexion to\nthings in this country. We have not yet had time to develop a truly\nnational literature or art. We have produced but one poet of the\nhighest order. Whitman is autochthonous. He had no precursor. He is a\nnew type of man appearing in this field.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"What think ye of Whitman?\" This is the question I feel like putting,\nand sometimes do put, to each young poet I meet. If he thinks poorly\nof Whitman, I think poorly of him. I do not expect great things of\nhim, and so far my test holds good. William Winter thought poorly of\nWhitman, Aldrich thought poorly of him, and what lasting thing has\neither of them done in poetry? The memorable things of Aldrich are in\nprose. Stedman showed more appreciation of him, and Stedman wrote two\nor three things that will keep. His \"Osawatomie Brown ... he shoved\nhis ramrod down\" is sure of immortality. Higginson could not stand\nWhitman, and had his little fling at him whenever he got the chance.\nWho reads Higginson now? Emerson, who far outranks any other New\nEngland poet, was fairly swept off his feet by the first appearance of\n\"Leaves of Grass.\" Whittier, I am told, threw the book in the fire.\nWhittier's fame has not gone far beyond New England. The scholarly and\nacademic Lowell could not tolerate Whitman, and if Lowell has ever\nwritten any true poetry, I have not seen it. What Longfellow thought\nof him, I do not know. Thoreau saw his greatness at a glance and went\nto see him. In England, I am told, Tennyson used to read him aloud in\nselect company. I know that the two poets corresponded. We catch a\nglimpse of Swinburne's spasmodic insight in his first burst of\nenthusiasm over him, and then of his weakness in recanting.\nSwinburne's friend and house-mate, Watts Dunton, never could endure\nhim, but what has he done? So it has gone and still is going, though\nnow the acceptance of Whitman has become the fashion.\n\nI have always patted myself on the back for seeing the greatness of\nWhitman from the first day that I read a line of his. I was bewildered\nand disturbed by some things, but I saw enough to satisfy me of his\ngreatness.\n\nWhitman had the same faith in himself that Kepler had in his work.\nWhitman said:\n\n    \"Whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand, or ten million\n              years,\n    I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.\"\n\nKepler said: \"The die is cast; the book is written, to be read either\nnow or by posterity. I care not which. It may well wait a century for\na reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an observer like\nmyself.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJudging from fragments of his letters that I have seen, Henry James\nwas unquestionably hypersensitive. In his dislike of publicity he was\nextreme to the point of abnormality; it made him ill to see his name\nin print, except under just the right conditions. He wanted all things\nveiled and softened. He fled his country, abjured it completely. The\npublicity of it, of everything in America--its climate, its day, its\nnight, the garish sun, its fierce, blazing light, the manner of its\npeople, its politics, its customs--fairly made him cringe. During his\nlast visit here he tried lecturing, but soon gave it up. He fled to\nveiled and ripened and cushioned England--not to the country, but to\nsmoky London; and there his hypersensitive soul found peace and ease.\nHe became a British subject, washed himself completely of every\nvestige of Americanism. This predilection of his probably accounts for\nthe obscurity or tantalizing indirectness of his writings. The last\nstory I read of his was called \"One More Turn of the Screw,\" but what\nthe screw was, or what the turn was, or whether anybody got pinched or\nsqueezed, or what it was all about, I have not the slightest idea. He\nwrote about his visit here, his trip to Boston, to Albany, to New\nYork, but which town he was writing about you could not infer from the\ncontext. He had the gift of a rich, choice vocabulary, but he wove it\ninto impenetrable, though silken, veils that concealed more than they\nrevealed. When replying to his correspondents on the typewriter, he\nwould even apologize for \"the fierce legibility of the type.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe contrast between the \"singing-robes and the overalls of\nJournalism\" is true and striking. Good and true writing no magazine or\nnewspaper editor will blue-pencil. But \"fine\" writing is a different\nthing--a style that is conscious of itself, a style in which the\nthought is commonplace and the language studied and ornate, every\njudicious editor will blue-pencil. Downrightness and sententiousness\nare prime qualities; brevity, concreteness, spontaneity--in fact, all\nforms of genuine expression--help make literature. You know the\ngenuine from the spurious, gold from pinchbeck, that's the rub. The\nsecret of sound writing is not in the language, but in the mind or\npersonality behind the language. The dull writer and the inspired\nwriter use, or may use, the same words, and the product will be gold\nin the one and lead in the other.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDana's book [\"Two Years Before the Mast\"] is a classic because it took\nno thought of being a classic. It is a plain, unvarnished tale, not\nloaded up with tedious descriptions. It is all action, a perpetual\ndrama in which the sea, the winds, the seamen, the sails--mainsail,\nmain royal, foresail--play the principal parts.\n\nThere is no book depicting life on the sea to compare with it. Lately\nI have again tried to find the secret of its charm. In the first\nplace, it is a plain, unvarnished tale, no attempt at fine writing in\nit. All is action from cover to cover. It is full of thrilling,\ndramatic scenes. In fact, it is almost a perpetual drama in which the\nsea, the winds, the storms, the sails, and the sailors play their\nparts. Each sail, from the smallest to the greatest, has its own\ncharacter and its own part to play; sometimes many of them, sometimes\nfew are upon the stage at once. Occasionally all the canvas was piled\non at once, and then what a sight the ship was to behold! Scudding\nunder bare poles was dramatic also.\n\nThe life on board ship in those times--its humor, its tedium, its\ndangers, its hardships--was never before so vividly portrayed. The\ntyranny and cruelty of sea-captains, the absolute despotism of that\nlittle world of the ship's deck, stand out in strong relief. Dana had\na memory like a phonographic record. Unless he took copious notes on\nthis journey, it is incredible how he could have made it so complete,\nso specific is the life of each day. The reader craves more light on\none point--the size of the ship, her length and tonnage. In setting\nout on the homeward journey they took aboard a dozen sheep, four\nbullocks, a dozen or more pigs, three or four dozen of poultry,\nthousands of dressed and cured hides, as well as fodder and feed for\nthe cattle and poultry and pigs. The vessel seemed elastic; they could\nalways find room for a few thousand more hides, if the need arose. The\nhides were folded up like the leaves of a book, and they invented\ncurious machinery to press in a hundred hides where one could not be\nforced by hand. By this means the forty thousand hides were easily\ndisposed of as part of the home cargo.\n\nThe ship becomes a living being to the sailors. The Alert was so\nloaded, her cargo so _steved_ in, that she was stiff as a man in a\nstrait-jacket. But the old sailors said: \"Stand by. You'll see her\nwork herself loose in a week or two, and then she'll walk up to Cape\nHorn like a race-horse.\"\n\nIt is curious how the sailors can't work together without a song. \"A\nsong is as necessary to a sailor as the drum and fife are to the\nsoldier. They can't pull in time, or pull with a will, without it.\"\nSome songs were much more effective than others. \"Two or three songs\nwould be tried, one after the other, with no effect--not an inch could\nbe got upon the tackles, when a new song struck up seemed to hit the\nhumor of the moment and drove the tackles two blocks at once. 'Heave\nround, hearty!' 'Captain gone ashore!' and the like, might do for\ncommon pulls, but in an emergency, when we wanted a heavy,\nraise-the-dead pull, which would start the beams of the ship, there\nwas nothing like 'Time for us to go!' 'Round the corner,' or 'Hurrah!\nHurrah! my hearty bullies!'\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe mind of the professional critic, like the professional logical\nmind, becomes possessed of certain rules which it adheres to on all\noccasions. There is a well-known legal mind in this country which is\ntypical. A recent political opponent of the man says:\n\n     His is the type of mind which would have sided with King\n     John against granting the Magna Charta; the type of mind\n     which would have opposed the ratification of the\n     Constitution of the United States because he would have\n     found so many holes in it. His is the type of mind which\n     would have opposed the Monroe Doctrine on the ground that it\n     was dangerous. His is the type of mind which would have\n     opposed the Emancipation Proclamation on the ground of\n     taking away property without due process of law. His is the\n     type of mind which would have opposed Cleveland's Venezuela\n     message to England on the ground that it was unprecedented.\n     His is the type of mind which did its best in 1912 to oppose\n     Theodore Roosevelt's effort to make the Republican Party\n     progressive.\n\nSuch a mind would have no use for Roosevelt, for instance, because\nRoosevelt was not bound by precedents, but made precedents of his own.\nThe typical critical mind, such as Arnold's, would deny the title of\nphilosopher to a man who has no constructive talent, who could not\nbuild up his own philosophy into a system. He would deny another the\ntitle of poet because his verse has not the Miltonic qualities of\nsimplicity, of sensuousness, of passion. Emerson was not a great man\nof letters, Arnold said, because he had not the genius and instinct\nfor style; his prose had not the requisite wholeness of good tissue.\nEmerson's prose is certainly not Arnold's prose, but at its best it is\njust as effective.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a good idea of Santayana that \"the function of poetry is to\nemotionalize philosophy.\"\n\nHow absurd, even repulsive, is the argument of \"Paradise Lost\"! yet\nhere is great poetry, not in the matter, but in the manner.\n\n    \"Though fallen on evil days, on evil days though fallen.\"\n    \"To shun delights and live laborious days.\"\n\nCommon ideas, but what dignity in the expression!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCriticism is easy. When a writer has nothing else to do, he can\ncriticize some other writer. But to create and originate is not so\neasy. One may say that appreciation is easy also. How many persons\nappreciate good literature who cannot produce it!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe rash and the audacious are not the same. Audacity means boldness,\nbut to be rash often means to be imprudent or foolhardy. When a little\ndog attacks a big dog, as so often happens, his boldness becomes\nrashness. When Charles Kingsley attacked Newman, his boldness turned\nout to be rashness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLittle wonder that in his essay on \"Books\" Emerson recommends Thomas a\nKempis's \"Imitation of Christ.\" Substitute the word Nature for God and\nChrist and much of it will sound very Emersonian. Emerson was a kind\nof New England Thomas a Kempis. His spirit and attitude of mind were\nessentially the same, only directed to Nature and the modern world.\nHumble yourself, keep yourself in the background, and let the\nover-soul speak. \"I desire no consolation which taketh from me\ncompunction.\" \"I love no contemplation which leads to pride.\" \"For all\nthat which is high is not holy, nor everything that is sweet, good.\"\n\"I had rather feel contrition, than be skilled in the definition of\nit.\" \"All Scripture ought to be read in the spirit in which it was\nwritten.\" How Emersonian all this sounds!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn a fat volume of forty thousand quotations from the literature of\nall times and countries, compiled by some patient and industrious\nperson, at least half of it is not worth the paper on which it is\nprinted. There seem to be more quotations in it from Shakespeare than\nfrom any other poet, which is as it should be. There seem to be more\nfrom Emerson than from any other American poet, which again is as it\nshould be. Those from the great names of antiquity--the Bible, Sadi,\nCicero, AEschylus, Euripides, Aristotle, and others--are all worth\nwhile, and the quotations from Bacon, Newton, Addison, Locke, Chaucer,\nJohnson, Carlyle, Huxley, Tennyson, Goethe are welcome. But the\nquotations from women writers and poets,--Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney,\nJean Ingelow, and others,--what are they worth? Who would expect\nanything profound from J. G. Holland or Chapin, O. W. Holmes, or\nAlger, or Alcott, or Helps, or Dickens, or Lewes, or Froude, or\nLowell? I certainly should not.\n\nSuch a selection is good to leaf over. Your thought may be kindled or\nfanned here and there. The subjects are arranged alphabetically, and\nembrace nearly all themes of human interest from ability to zephyrs.\nThere is very little from Whitman, and, I think, only one quotation\nfrom Thoreau.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe death of Howells gave me a shock. I had known him long, though not\nintimately. He was my senior by only one month. It had been two years\nor more since I had seen him. Last December I read his charming paper on\n\"Eighty Years and After\" and enjoyed it greatly. It is a masterpiece. No\nother American man of letters, past or present, could have done that. In\nfact, there has been no other American who achieved the all-round\nliterary craftsmanship that Mr. Howells achieved. His equal in his own\nline we have never seen. His felicity on all occasions was a wonder. His\nworks do not belong to the literature of power, but to the literature of\ncharm, grace, felicity. His style is as flexible and as limpid as a\nmountain rill. Only among the French do we find such qualities in such\nperfection. Some of his writings--\"Their Wedding Journey,\" for\ninstance--are too photographic. We miss the lure of the imagination,\nsuch as Hawthorne gave to all his pictures of real things. Only one of\nHowells's volumes have I found too thin for me to finish--his \"London\nFilms\" was too filmy for me. I had read Taine's \"London Notes\" and felt\nthe force of a different type of mind. But Howells's \"Eighty Years and\nAfter\" will live as a classic. Oh, the felicity of his style! One of his\nlater poems on growing old (\"On a Bright Winter's Day\" it is called) is\na gem.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nSUNDOWN PAPERS\n\nRE-READING BERGSON\n\n\nI am trying again to read Bergson's \"Creative Evolution,\" with poor\nsuccess. When I recall how I was taken with the work ten or more years\nago, and carried it with me whenever I went from home, I am wondering\nif my mind has become too old and feeble to take it in. But I do not\nhave such difficulty with any other of my favorite authors. Bergson's\nwork now seems to me a mixture of two things that won't\nmix--metaphysics and natural science. It is full of word-splitting and\nconjuring with terms, and abounds in natural history facts. The style\nis wonderful, but the logic is not strong. He enlarges upon the\ninability of the intellect to understand or grasp Life. The reason is\nbaffled, but sympathy and the emotional nature and the intuitions\ngrasp the mystery.\n\nThis may be true, the heart often knows what the head does not; but is\nit not the intellect that tells us so? The intellect understands the\ngrounds of our inability. We can and do reason about the limitations\nof reason. We do not know how matter and spirit blend, but we know\nthey do blend. The animals live by instinct, and we live largely in\nour emotions, but it is reason that has placed man at the head of the\nanimal kingdom.\n\nBergson himself by no means dispenses with the logical faculty. Note\nhis close and convincing reasoning on the development of the\nvertebrate eye, and how inadequate the Darwinian idea of the\naccumulation of insensible variations is to account for it. A closer\nand more convincing piece of reasoning would be hard to find.\n\nBergson's conception of two currents--an upward current of spirit and\na downward current of matter--meeting and uniting at a definite time\nand place and producing life, is extremely fanciful. Where had they\nboth been during all the geologic ages? I do not suppose they had been\nany _where_. How life arose is, of course, one of the great mysteries.\nBut do we not know enough to see that it did not originate in this\nsudden spectacular way?--that it began very slowly, in unicellular\ngerms?\n\nAt first I was so captivated by the wonderful style of M. Bergson, and\nthe richness of his page in natural history, that I could see no flaws\nin his subject-matter, but now that my enthusiasm has cooled off a\nlittle I return to him and am looking closer into the text.\n\nIs not Bergson guilty of false or careless reasoning when he says\nthat the relation of the soul to the brain is like that of a coat to\nthe nail upon which it hangs? I call this spurious or pinchbeck\nanalogy. If we know anything about it, do we not know that the\nrelation of the two is not a mechanical or fortuitous one? and that it\ncannot be defined in this loose way?\n\n\"To a large extent,\" Bergson says, \"thought is independent of the\nbrain.\" \"The brain is, strictly speaking, neither an organ of thought,\nnor of feeling, nor of consciousness.\" He speaks of consciousness as\nif it were a disembodied something floating around in the air\noverhead, like wireless messages. If I do not think with my brain,\nwith what do I think? Certainly not with my legs, or my abdomen, or my\nchest. I think with my head, or the gray matter of my brain. I look\ndown at the rest of my body and I say, this is part of me, but it is\nnot the real me. With both legs and both arms gone, I should still be\nI. But cut off my head and where am I?\n\nHas not the intelligence of the animal kingdom increased during the\ngeologic ages with the increase in the size of the brain?\n\nREVISIONS\n\nI have little need to revise my opinion of any of the great names of\nEnglish literature. I probably make more strenuous demands upon him\nwho aspires to be a poet than ever before. I see more clearly than\never before that sweetened prose put up in verse form does not make\npoetry any more than sweetened water put in the comb in the hive makes\nhoney. Many of our would-be young poets bring us the crude nectar from\nthe fields--fine descriptions of flowers, birds, sunsets, and so\non--and expect us to accept them as honey. The quality of the man\nmakes all the difference in the world. A great nature can describe\nbirds and flowers and clouds and sunsets and spring and autumn\ngreatly.\n\nDean Swift quotes Sir Philip Sidney as saying that the \"chief life of\nmodern versifying consists in rhyme.\" Swift agrees with him. \"Verse\nwithout rhyme,\" he says, \"is a body without a soul, or a bell without\na clapper.\" He thinks Milton's \"Paradise Lost\" would be greatly\nimproved if it had rhyme. This, he says, would make it \"more heroic\nand sonorous than it is.\"\n\nUnobtrusive rhyme may be a help in certain cases, but what modern\nreader would say that a poem without rhyme is a body without a soul?\nThis would exclude many of the noblest productions of English\nliterature.\n\nBERGSON AND TELEPATHY\n\nBergson seems always to have been more than half-convinced of the\ntruth of spiritualism. When we are already half-convinced of a thing,\nit takes but little to convince us. Bergson argues himself into a\nbelief in telepathy in this wise: \"We produce electricity at every\nmoment; the atmosphere is continually electrified; we move among\nmagnetic currents. Yet for thousands of years millions of human beings\nhave lived who never suspected the existence of electricity.\"\n\nMillions of persons have also lived without suspecting the pull of the\nsun and moon upon us; or that the pressure of the atmosphere upon our\nbodies is fifteen pounds to the square inch; or that the coast of this\npart of the continent is slowly subsiding (the oscillations of the\nearth's crust); or without suspecting the incredible speed of the\nstars in the midnight sky; or that the earth is turning under our\nfeet; or that electrons are shooting off from the candle or lamp by\nthe light of which we are reading. There are assuredly more things in\nheaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy, many of which\nwe shall doubtless yet find out, and many more of which we shall never\nfind out. Wireless messages may be continually going through our\nhouses and our bodies, and through the air we breathe, and we never\nsuspect them. Shall we, then, infer that the air around us is full of\nspirits of our departed friends? I hope it is, but I fail to see any\nwarrant for the belief in this kind of reasoning. It does not lend\ncolor even to the probability, any more than it does to the\nprobability that we shall yet be able to read one another's thoughts\nand become expert mind-readers. Mind-reading seems to be a reality\nwith a few persons, with one in many millions. But I cannot therefore\nbelieve in spiritualism as I believe in the \"defeat of the Invincible\nArmada.\" Fleets have been defeated in all ages. Facts are amenable to\nobservation and experiment, but merely alleged facts do not stand the\nlaboratory tests.\n\nIf memory is not a function of the brain, of what is it a function? If\n\"judgment, reasoning, or any other act of thought\" are not functions\nof the brain, of what are they the functions? The scientific method is\nadequate to deal with all questions capable of proof or disproof. If\nwe apply the scientific or experimental method to miracles, where does\nit leave them? Ask Huxley. Thought-transference is possible, but does\nthis prove spiritualism to be true?\n\nI know of a man who can answer your questions if you know the answers\nyourself, even without reading them or hearing you ask them. He once\nread a chemical formula for Edison which nobody but Edison had ever\nseen. I am glad that such things are possible. They confirm our faith\nin the reality of the unseen. They show us in what a world of occult\nlaws and influences we live, but they tell us nothing of any other\nworld.\n\nMETEORIC MEN AND PLANETARY MEN\n\nThere are meteoric men and there are planetary men. The men who now\nand then flash across our intellectual heavens, drawing all eyes for\nthe moment, these I call meteoric men. What a contrast they present to\nthe planetary men, who are slow to attract our attention, but who\nabide, and do not grow dim! Poets like Emerson, Whitman, and\nWordsworth were slow to gain recognition, but the radiance of their\nnames grows. I call such a poet as Swinburne meteoric, a poet of a\ncertain kind of brilliant power, but who reads him now? Stephen\nPhillips with his \"Marpessa\" had a brief vogue, and then disappeared\nin the darkness. When I was a young man, I remember, a Scottish poet,\nAlexander Smith, published a \"Life Drama,\" which dazzled the literary\nworld for a brief period, but it is forgotten now. What attention\nKidd's \"Social Evolution\" attracted a generation or more ago! But it\nis now quite neglected. It was not sound. When he died a few years ago\nthere was barely an allusion to it in the public press. The same fate\nbefell that talented man, Buckle, with his \"Civilization in England.\"\nDelia Bacon held the ear of the public for a time with the\nBacon-Shakespeare theory. Pulpit men like Joseph Cook and Adirondack\nMurray blazed out, and then were gone. Half a century ago or more an\nEnglishman by the name of M. F. Tupper published a book called\n\"Proverbial Philosophy\" which had a brief season of popularity, and\nthen went out like a rush-light, or a blaze of tissue paper. Novels\nlike Miss Sprague's \"Earnest Trifler,\" Du Maurier's \"Trilby,\" and\nWallace's \"Ben Hur\" have had their little day, and been forgotten. In\nthe art world the Cubists' crazy work drew the attention of the public\nlong enough for it to be seen how spurious and absurd it was.\nBrownell's war poems turned out to be little more than brief\nfireworks. Joaquin Miller, where is he? Fifty years ago Gail Hamilton\nwas much in the public eye, and Grace Greenwood, and Fanny Fern; and\nin Bohemian circles, there were Agnes Franz and Ada Clare, but they\nare all quite forgotten now.\n\nThe meteoric men would not appreciate President Wilson's wise saying\nthat he would rather fail in a cause that in time is bound to succeed\nthan to succeed in a cause that in time is bound to fail. Such men\ncannot wait for success. Meteoric men in politics, like Elaine and\nConkling, were brilliant men, but were politicians merely. What\nfruitful or constructive ideas did they leave us? Could they forget\nparty in the good of the whole country? Are not the opponents of the\nLeague of Nations of our own day in the same case--without, however,\nshining with the same degree of brilliancy? To some of our\nPresidents--Polk, Pierce, Buchanan--we owe little or nothing.\nRoosevelt's career, though meteoric in its sudden brilliancy, will\nshine with a steady light down the ages. He left lasting results. He\nraised permanently the standard of morality in politics and business\nin this country by the gospel of the square deal. Woodrow Wilson,\nafter the mists and clouds are all dispelled, will shine serenely on.\nHe is one of the few men of the ages.\n\nTHE DAILY PAPERS\n\nProbably the worst feature of our civilization is the daily paper. It\nscatters crime, bad manners, and a pernicious levity as a wind\nscatters fire. Crime feeds upon crime, and the newspapers make sure\nthat every criminally inclined reader shall have enough to feed upon,\nshall have his vicious nature aroused and stimulated. Is it probable\nthat a second and a third President of the United States would ever\nhave been assassinated by shooting, had not such notoriety been given\nto the first crime? Murder, arson, theft, peculation, are as\ncontagious as smallpox.\n\nWho can help a pitying or a scornful smile when he hears of a school\nof journalism, a school for promoting crime and debauching the manners\nand the conscience of the people?--for teaching the gentle art of\nlying, for manufacturing news when there is no news? The pupils are\ntaught, I suppose, how to serve up the sweepings from the streets and\nthe gutters and the bar-rooms in the most engaging manner. They are\ntaught how to give the great Public what it wants, and the one thing\nthe great Public wants, and can never get enough of is any form of\nsensationalism. It clearly loves scandals about the rich, or anything\nabout the rich, because we all want and expect to be rich, to\nout-shine our neighbors, to cut a wide swath in society. Give us\nanything about the rich, the Public says; we will take the mud from\ntheir shoes; if we can't get that, give us the parings of their\nfinger-nails.\n\nThe inelastic character of the newspaper is a hampering factor--so\nmany columns must be filled, news or no news. And when there is a\ngreat amount of important news, see how much is suppressed that but\nfor this inelasticity would have been printed!\n\nThe professor at the school of journalism says: \"I try to hammer it\ninto them day after day that they have got to learn to get the\nnews--that, whatever else a reporter can or cannot do, he isn't a\nreporter till he has learned to get the news.\" Hence the invasion of\nprivate houses, the bribery, the stealing of letters, the listening at\nkey-holes, the craze for photographing the most sacred episodes, the\nbetrayals of confidence, that the newspapers are responsible for.\nThey must get what the dear Public most likes to hear, if they have to\nscale a man's housetop, and come down his chimney. And if they cannot\nget the true story, they must invent one. The idle curiosity of the\nPublic must be satisfied.\n\nNow the real news, the news the Public is entitled to, is always easy\nto get. It grows by the wayside. The Public is entitled to public\nnews, not to family secrets; to the life of the street and the mart,\nnot to life behind closed doors. In the dearth of real news, the paper\nis filled with the dust and sweepings from the public highways and\nbyways, from saloons, police courts, political halls--sordid,\nephemeral, and worthless, because it would never get into print if\nthere were real news to serve up.\n\nThen the advertising. The items of news now peep out at us from\nbetween flaming advertisements of the shopmen's goods, like men on the\nstreet hawking their wares, each trying to out-scream the other and\nmaking such a Bedlam that our ears are stunned.[6]\n\n[Footnote 6: This fragment is hardly representative of the attitude of\nMr. Burroughs toward our worthy dailies, and, could he have expanded\nthe article, it would have had in its entirety a different tone. He\nlived on the breath of the newspapers; was always eager for legitimate\nnews; and was especially outspoken in admiration of the superb work\ndone by many newspaper correspondents during the World War.\nFurthermore, he was himself always most approachable and friendly to\nthe reporters, complaining, however, that they often failed to quote\nhim when he took real pains to help them get things straight; while\nthey often insisted on emphasizing sensational aspects, and even put\nwords in his mouth which he never uttered. But the truth is, he valued\nthe high-class newspapers, though regarding even them as a two-edged\nsword, since their praiseworthy efforts are so vitiated by craze for\nthe sensational.--C. B.]\n\nTHE ALPHABET\n\nUntil we have stopped to think about it, few of us realize what it\nmeans to have an alphabet--the combination of a few straight lines and\ncurves which form our letters. When you have learned these, and how to\narrange them into words, you have the key that unlocks all the\nlibraries in the world. An assortment and arrangement of black lines\non a white surface! These lines mean nothing in themselves; they are\nnot symbols, nor pictures, nor hieroglyphics, yet the mastery of them\nis one of the touchstones of civilization. The progress of the race\nsince the dawn of history, or since the art of writing has been\ninvented, has gone forward with leaps and bounds. The prehistoric\nraces, and the barbarous races of our own times, had and have only\npicture language.\n\nThe Chinese have no alphabet. It is said that they are now accepting a\nphonetic alphabet. The Chinese system of writing comprises more than\nforty thousand separate symbols, each a different word. It requires\nthe memorizing of at least three thousand word-signs to read and write\ntheir language. The national phonetic script is made up of sixty\ndistinct characters that answer to our twenty-four. These characters\nembrace every verbal sound of the language, and in combination make up\nevery word. The progress of China has been greatly hampered by this\nwant of an alphabet.\n\nColeridge says about the primary art of writing: \"First, there is mere\ngesticulation, then rosaries, or wampum, then picture language, then\nhieroglyphics, and finally alphabetic letters,\"--the last an evolution\nfrom all that went before. But there is no more suggestion of an\nalphabet in the sign language of the North American Indian than there\nis of man in a crinoid.\n\nTHE REDS OF LITERATURE\n\nA class of young men who seem to look upon themselves as revolutionary\npoets has arisen, chiefly in Chicago; and they are putting forth the\nmost astonishing stuff in the name of free verse that has probably\never appeared anywhere. In a late number of \"Current Opinion,\" Carl\nSandburg, who, I am told, is their chosen leader, waves his dirty\nshirt in the face of the public in this fashion:\n\n    \"My shirt is a token and a symbol more than a cover from sun and rain,\n    My shirt is a signal and a teller of souls,\n    I can take off my shirt and tear it, and so make a ripping razzly\n              noise, and the people will say, 'Look at him tear his shirt!'\n\n    \"I can keep my shirt on,\n    I can stick around and sing like a little bird, and look 'em all in the\n              eye and never be fazed,\n    I can keep my shirt on.\"\n\nDoes not this resemble poetry about as much as a pile of dirty rags\nresembles silk or broadcloth? The trick of it seems to be to take\nflat, unimaginative prose and cut it up in lines of varying length,\nand often omit the capitals at the beginning of the lines--\"shredded\nprose,\" with no \"kick\" in it at all. These men are the \"Reds\" of\nliterature. They would reverse or destroy all the recognized rules and\nstandards upon which literature is founded. They show what Bolshevism\ncarried out in the field of poetry, would lead to. One of them who\nsigns himself H. D. writes thus in the \"Dial\" on \"Helios\":\n\n    \"Helios makes all things right--\n    night brands and chokes,\n    as if destruction broke\n    over furze and stone and crop\n    of myrtle-shoot and field-wort,\n    destroyed with flakes of iron,\n    the bracken-stone,\n    where tender roots were sown\n    blight, chaff, and wash\n    of darkness to choke and drown.\n\n    \"A curious god to find,\n    yet in the end faithful;\n    bitter, the Kyprian's feet--\n    ah, flecks of withered clay,\n    great hero, vaunted lord--\n    ah, petals, dust and windfall\n    on the ground--queen awaiting queen.\"\n\nWhat it all means--who can tell? It is as empty of intelligent meaning\nas a rubbish-heap. Yet these men claim to get their charter from\nWhitman. I do not think Whitman would be enough interested in them to\nfeel contempt toward them. Whitman was a man of tremendous\npersonality, and every line he wrote had a meaning, and his whole work\nwas suffused with a philosophy as was his body with blood.\n\nThese Reds belong to the same class of inane sensationalists that the\nCubists do; they would defy in verse what the Cubists defy in form.\n\nI have just been skimming through an illustrated book called \"Noa\nNoa,\" by a Frenchman, which describes, or pretends to describe, a\nvisit to Tahiti. There is not much fault to be found with it as a\nnarrative, but the pictures of the natives are atrocious. Many of the\nfigures are distorted, and all of them have a smutty look, as if they\nhad been rubbed with lampblack or coal-dust. There is not one simple,\nhonest presentation of the natural human form in the book. When the\nParisian becomes a degenerate, he is the most degenerate of all--a\nrefined, perfumed degenerate. A degenerate Englishman may be brutal\nand coarse, but he could never be guilty of the inane or the\noutrageous things which the Cubists, the Imagists, the Futurists, and\nthe other Ists among the French have turned out. The degenerate\nFrenchman is like our species of smilax which looks fresh, shining,\nand attractive, but when it blooms gives out an odor of dead rats.\n\nI recently chanced upon the picture of a kneeling girl, by one of the\nReds in art, a charcoal sketch apparently. It suggests the crude\nattempts of a child. The mouth is a black, smutty hole in the face,\nthe eyes are not mates, and one of them is merely a black dot. In\nfact, the whole head seems thrust up into a cloud of charcoal dust.\nThe partly nude body has not a mark of femininity. The body is very\nlong and the legs very short, and the knees, as they protrude from\nunder the drapery, look like two irregular blocks of wood.\n\nTo falsify or belie nature seems to be the sole aim of these\ncreatures. The best thing that could happen to the whole gang of them\nwould be to be compelled to go out and dig and spade the earth. They\nwould then see what things are really like.\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION\n\nIt is interesting to note that the doctrine of evolution itself has\nundergone as complete an evolution as has any animal species with\nwhich it deals. We find the germ of it, so to speak, in the early\nGreek philosophers and not much more. Crude, half-developed forms of\nit begin to appear in the eighteenth century of our era and become\nmore and more developed in the nineteenth, till they approximate\ncompletion in Darwin. In Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1795 there are\nglimpses of the theory, but in Lamarck, near the beginning of the\nnineteenth century, the theory is so fully developed that it\nanticipates Darwin on many points; often full of crudities and\nabsurdities, yet Lamarck hits the mark surprisingly often. In 1813 Dr.\nW. C. Wells, an Englishman, read a paper before the Royal Society in\nLondon that contains a passage that might have come from the pages of\nDarwin. In the anonymous and famous volume called \"Vestiges of\nCreation,\" published in 1844, the doctrine of the mutability of\nspecies is forcibly put. Then in Herbert Spencer in 1852 the evolution\ntheory of development receives a fresh impetus, till it matures in the\nminds of Darwin and Wallace in the late fifties. The inherent impulse\ntoward development is also in Aristotle. It crops out again in\nLamarck, but was repudiated by Darwin.\n\nFOLLOWING ONE'S BENT\n\nI have done what I most wanted to do in the world, what I was probably\nbest fitted to do, not as the result of deliberate planning or\ncalculation, but by simply going with the current, that is, following\nmy natural bent, and refusing to run after false gods. Riches and fame\nand power, when directly pursued, are false gods. If a man\ndeliberately says to himself, \"I will win these things,\" he has\nlikely reckoned without his host. His host is the nature within and\nwithout him, and that may have something to say on the subject. But if\nhe says, \"I will do the worthy work that comes to my hand, the work\nthat my character and my talent bring me, and I will do it the best I\ncan,\" he will not reap a barren harvest.\n\nSo many persons are disappointed in life! They have had false aims.\nThey have wanted something for nothing. They have listened to the call\nof ambition and have not heeded the inner light. They have tried short\ncuts to fame and fortune, and have not been willing to pay the price\nin self-denial that all worthy success demands. We find our position\nin life according to the specific gravity of our moral and\nintellectual natures.\n\nNOTES ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OLD AGE[7]\n\nThe physiology of old age is well understood--general sluggishness of\nall the functions, stiffness of the joints, more or less so-called\nrheumatism, loss of strength, wasting tissues, broken sleep, failing\nhearing and eyesight, capricious appetite, and so on. But the\npsychology of old age is not so easily described. The old man reasons\nwell, the judgment is clear, the mind active, the conscience alert,\nthe interest in life unabated. It is the memory that plays the old\nman tricks. His mind is a storehouse of facts and incidents and\nexperiences, but they do not hold together as they used to; their\nrelations are broken and very uncertain. He remembers the name of a\nperson, but perhaps cannot recall the face or presence; or he\nremembers the voice and presence, but without the name or face. He may\ngo back to his school-days and try to restore the faded canvas of\nthose distant days. It is like resurrecting the dead; he exhumes them\nfrom their graves: There was G----; how distinctly he recalls the name\nand some incident in his school life, and that is all. There was\nB----, a name only. There was R----, and the memory of the career he\nhad marked out for himself and his untimely death through a steamboat\naccident; but of his looks, his voice--not a vestige! It is a memory\nfull of holes, like a net with many of the meshes broken. He recalls\nhis early teachers, some of them stand out vividly--voice, look,\nmanner--all complete. Others are only names associated with certain\nincidents in school.\n\n[Footnote 7: These fragments, which Mr. Burroughs intended to expand\ninto an article, were among the very last things he wrote.--C. B.]\n\nNames and places with which one has been perfectly familiar all his\nlife suddenly, for a few moments, mean nothing. It is as if the belt\nslipped, and the wheel did not go round. Then the next moment, away it\ngoes again! Or, shall we call it a kind of mental anaesthesia, or\nmental paralysis? Thus, the other day I was reading something about\nGeorgetown, South America. I repeated the name over to myself a few\ntimes. \"Have I not known such a place some time in my life? Where is\nit? Georgetown? Georgetown?\" The name seemed like a dream. Then I\nthought of Washington, the Capital, and the city above it, but had to\nask a friend if the name was Georgetown. Then suddenly, as if some\nchemical had been rubbed on a bit of invisible writing, out it came!\nOf course it was Georgetown. How could I have been in doubt about it?\n(I had lived in Washington for ten years.)\n\nSo we say, old age may reason well, but old age does not remember\nwell. This is a commonplace. It seems as if memory were the most\nuncertain of all our faculties.\n\nPower of attention fails, which we so often mistake for deafness in\nthe old. It is the mind that is blunted and not the ear. Hence we\noctogenarians so often ask for your question over again. We do not\ngrasp it the first time. We do not want you to speak louder, we only\nneed to focus upon you a little more completely.\n\nOf course both sight and hearing are a little blunted in old age. But\nfor myself I see as well as ever I did, except that I have to use\nspectacles in reading; but nowadays the younger observers hear the\nfiner sounds in nature that sometimes escape me.\n\nSome men mellow with age, others harden, but the man who does not in\nsome way ripen is in a bad way. Youth makes up in sap and push what it\nlacks in repose.\n\nTo grow old gracefully is the trick.\n\nTo me one of the worst things about old age is that one has outlived\nall his old friends. The Past becomes a cemetery.\n\n\"As men grow old,\" said Rochefoucauld, \"they grow more foolish and\nmore wise\"--wise in counsel, but foolish in conduct. \"There is no fool\nlike an old fool,\" said Tennyson, but it is equally true that there is\nno fool like the young fool. If you want calm and ripe wisdom, go to\nmiddle age.\n\nAs an octogenarian, I have found it interesting to collate many wise\nsayings of many wise men on youth and age.[8]\n\n[Footnote 8: Here followed several pages of quotations from the\nancients and moderns.--C. B.]\n\nCicero found that age increased the pleasure of conversation. It is\ncertainly true that in age we do find our tongues, if we have any.\nThey are unloosed, and when the young or the middle-aged sit silent,\nthe octogenarian is a fountain of conversation. In age one set of\npleasures is gone and another takes its place.\n\nEmerson published his essay on \"Old Age\" while he was yet in the\nmiddle sixties, and I recall that in the \"Emerson-Carlyle\nCorrespondence\" both men began to complain of being old before they\nwere sixty. Scott was old before his time, and Macaulay too. Scott\ndied at sixty-one, Macaulay at fifty-nine, Tennyson at eighty-three,\nCarlyle at eighty-six, Emerson at seventy-nine, Amiel at sixty.\n\nI have heard it said that it is characteristic of old age to reverse\nits opinions and its likes and dislikes. But it does not reverse them;\nit revises them. If its years have been well spent, it has reached a\nhigher position from which to overlook life. It commands a wider view,\nand the relation of the parts to the whole is more clearly seen....\n\n\"Old age superbly rising\"--Whitman.\n\nAge without decrepitude, or remorse, or fear, or hardness of heart!\n\nFACING THE MYSTERY\n\nI wish there were something to light up the grave for me, but there is\nnot. It is the primal, unending darkness. The faith of all the saints\nand martyrs does not help me. I must see the light beyond with my own\neyes. Whitman's indomitable faith I admire, but cannot share. My torch\nwill not kindle at his great flame. From our youth up our associations\nwith the dead and with the grave are oppressive. Our natural animal\ninstincts get the better of us. Death seems the great catastrophe.\nThe silver cord is loosened, and the golden bowl is broken. The\nphysical aspects of death are unlovely and repellent. And the\nspiritual aspects--only the elect can see them. Our physical senses\nare so dominant, the visible world is so overpowering, that all else\nbecomes as dreams and shadows.\n\nI know that I am a part of the great cosmic system of things, and that\nall the material and all the forces that make up my being are as\nindestructible as the great Cosmos itself--all that is physical must\nremain in some form. But consciousness, the real Me, is not physical,\nbut an effect of the physical. It is really no more a thing than \"a\nchild's curlicue cut by a burnt stick in the night,\" and as the one is\nevanescent, why not the other?\n\nNature is so opulent, so indifferent to that we hold most precious,\nsuch a spendthrift, evokes such wonders from such simple materials!\nWhy should she conserve souls, when she has the original stuff of\nmyriads of souls? She takes up, and she lays down. Her cycles of\nchange, of life and death, go on forever. She does not lay up stores;\nshe is, and has, all stores, whether she keep or whether she waste. It\nis all the same to her. There is no outside, no beyond, to her\nprocesses and possessions. There is no future for her, only an\never-lasting present. What is the very bloom and fragrance of\nhumanity to the Infinite? In the yesterday of geologic time, humanity\nwas not. In the to-morrow of geologic time, it will not be. The very\nmountains might be made of souls, and all the stars of heaven kindled\nwith souls, such is the wealth of Nature in what we deem so precious,\nand so indifferent is she to our standards of valuation.\n\nThis I know, too: that the grave is not dark or cold to the dead, but\nonly to the living. The light of the eye, the warmth of the body,\nstill exist undiminished in the universe, but in other relations,\nunder other forms. Shall the flower complain because it fades and\nfalls? It has to fall before the fruit can appear. But what is the\nfruit of the flower of human life? Surely not the grave, as the loose\nthinking of some seem to imply. The only fruit I can see is in fairer\nflowers, or a higher type of mind and life that follows in this world,\nand to which our lives may contribute. The flower of life has improved\nthrough the ages--the geologic ages; from the flower of the brute, it\nhas become the flower of the man. You and I perish, but something goes\nout, or may go out, from us that will help forward a higher type of\nmankind. To what end? Who knows? We cannot cross-question the\nInfinite. Something in the universe has eventuated in man, and\nsomething has profited by his ameliorations. We must regard him as a\nlegitimate product, and we must look upon death as a legitimate part\nof the great cycle--an evil only from our temporary and personal point\nof view, but a good from the point of view of the whole.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAdaptation, 247, 248.\n\nAgassiz, Louis, 163.\n\nAlchemy, 242, 243.\n\nAlcott, Amos Bronson, in Emerson's Journals, 26-29;\n  on Thoreau, 156.\n\nAldrich, Thomas Bailey, 253.\n\nAlphabet, the, 275, 276.\n\nAmerican people, the, 252, 253.\n\nAmiel, Henri Frederic, 4-6;\n  quoted, 223.\n\nArnim, Elisabeth von, 34, 35.\n\nArnold, Matthew, 213, 250, 260;\n  in Emerson's Journals, 25;\n  on Emerson, 87, 89, 90;\n  his poetry, 209;\n  on poetry, 212.\n\nArt, recent \"isms\" in, 278, 279.\n\nAudacity, 261.\n\nAurora borealis, 140, 141.\n\n\nBatavia Kill, 244.\n\nBeauty, 98-101, 246, 247, 251, 252.\n\nBeecher, Henry Ward, 232.\n\nBent, following one's, 280, 281.\n\nBenton, Myron, 26.\n\nBergson, Henri, his \"Creative Evolution,\" revised estimate of, 264-66;\n  and telepathy, 267, 268.\n\nBettina, Goethe's, 34, 35.\n\nBittern, pumping, 135.\n\nBoldness, 261.\n\nBouton, Deborah, 244.\n\nBryant, William Cullen, his poetry, 203, 204, 222.\n\nBurns, Robert, 213.\n\nBurroughs, John, chronic homesickness, 227, 228.\n\n\nCactus, 248.\n\nCarlyle, Thomas, 34, 35, 43, 47, 97;\n  contrasted with Emerson, 30;\n  correspondence with Emerson, 39, 40, 61, 80, 81;\n  on Webster, 61;\n  as a painter, 76, 77;\n  Emerson's love and admiration for, 79-82;\n  his style, 82.\n\nChanning, William Ellery, 2d, 138-40;\n  in Emerson's Journals, 9, 29, 30, 142;\n  in Thoreau's Journal, 149.\n\nCity, the, 226, 227.\n\nColeridge, Samuel Taylor, quoted, 276.\n\nContrasts, 218-29.\n\nCountry, life in the, 226-28.\n\nCritic, the professional, 259, 260.\n\nCriticism, 260.\n\n\nD., H., quoted, 277.\n\nDana, Richard Henry, his \"Two Years before the Mast,\" 256-58.\n\nDargan, Olive Tilford, quoted, 201, 202.\n\nDarwin, Charles, criticism of his selection theories, 172-89, 193-98;\n  his \"Voyage of the Beagle,\" 189-93;\n  his significance, 198-200.\n\nDays, memorable, 231.\n\nDeath, thoughts on, 285-88.\n\nDe Vries, Hugo, his mutation theory, 196, 197.\n\nDiscovery, 223-25.\n\n\nEarly and late, 230, 231.\n\nEating, 77-79.\n\nEdison, Thomas A., 243, 269.\n\nElectricity, 231.\n\nEmerson, Charles, 5.\n\nEmerson, Dr. Edward W., on Thoreau, 155, 156.\n\nEmerson, Ralph Waldo, 136, 214, 227, 239;\n  Journals of, discussed, 1-85;\n  a new estimate of, 1-4;\n  and social intercourse, 6-8;\n  self-reliance, 8, 31, 32;\n  poet and prophet of the moral ideal, 9-11;\n  his lectures, 11, 12, 64, 65, 162;\n  his supreme test of men, 12, 13, 17;\n  his \"Days,\" 14;\n  his \"Humble-Bee,\" 14;\n  \"Each and All,\" 15;\n  \"Two Rivers,\" 15, 16;\n  on Poe, 16;\n  on Whitman's \"Leaves of Grass,\" 17;\n  as a reader and a writer, 17, 18;\n  his main interests, 18;\n  on Jesus as a Representative Man, 20;\n  on Thoreau, 22, 23, 141, 156, 157;\n  and John Muir, 23, 24;\n  alertness, 24;\n  on Matthew Arnold, 25;\n  on Lowell, 25, 26;\n  on Alcott, 26-29;\n  on Father Taylor, 28, 29;\n  occupied with the future, 30;\n  his \"Song of Nature,\" 30, 31;\n  near and far, past and present, 31, 32;\n  and human sympathy, 32, 33, 38, 39;\n  \"Representative Men,\" 33;\n  attitude towards Whitman, 34, 253;\n  literary estimates, 34, 35;\n  on Wordsworth, 36;\n  correspondence with Carlyle, 39, 40;\n  love of nature, 41-43;\n  his book \"Nature,\" 41, 43, 88, 89, 230;\n  his \"May-Day,\" 43;\n  feeling for profanity and racy speech, 44-48;\n  humor, 45-48;\n  thoughts about God, 48-52;\n  attitude towards science, 52-60;\n  on Webster, 60-63;\n  religion, 63, 64;\n  self-criticism, 65-67;\n  \"Terminus,\" 67;\n  catholicity, 67-70;\n  on the Bible, 70;\n  his selection of words, 70, 71;\n  ideas but no doctrines, 71, 72;\n  his limitations, 73-75;\n  and Hawthorne, 73-75;\n  a painter of ideas, 76, 77;\n  on eating and the artist, 77;\n  love and admiration for Carlyle, 79-82;\n  hungered for the quintessence of things, 84;\n  the last result of Puritanism, 85;\n  an estimate of, 86-92;\n  attitude towards poverty, 89;\n  weak in logic, 91;\n  passion for analogy, 92;\n  false notes in rhetoric, 92-94;\n  speaking with authority, 95;\n  at the Holmes breakfast, 95, 96;\n  his face, 96;\n  criticisms of, 96-101;\n  on beauty, 98, 99;\n  last words on, 102;\n  compared with Thoreau, 126;\n  intercourse with Thoreau, 156-58;\n  incident related by Thoreau, 158;\n  on Walter Scott, 216;\n  on oratory, 232;\n  a New England Thomas a Kempis, 261;\n  old age, 284, 285.\n\nEsopus, N. Y., 244.\n\nEthical standards, 233.\n\nEverett, Edward, 223.\n\nEvolution, and the Darwinian theory, 174-89, 193-98;\n  chance in, 175-81;\n  the mutation theory, 196, 197;\n  Bergson reread, 264-66;\n  evolution of the doctrine, 279, 280.\n\n\nFarm, the home, 227, 228.\n\nFist, the, 220, 221.\n\nFlagg, Wilson, Thoreau on, 165, 166.\n\nFlattery, 221, 222.\n\nFlowers, fadeless, 231.\n\nFort Myers, 243.\n\nFox, 135, 136.\n\nFuller, Margaret, 7.\n\n\nGenius, and talent, 222, 223.\n\nGeoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 280.\n\nGermans, the, 3, 4.\n\nGilchrist, Anne, on Emerson, 88.\n\nGod, Emerson's idea of, 48-52;\n  Nature's, 233, 234.\n\nGoethe, 98.\n\nGray, Eri, 244.\n\nGray, Thomas, his \"Elegy written in a Country Church-yard,\" 216.\n\nGrossmont, Cal., 240.\n\n\nH. D., quoted, 277.\n\nHawaiian Islands, 236.\n\nHawthorne, Nathaniel, and Emerson, 73-75.\n\nHearn, Lafcadio, quoted, 202.\n\nHeat, 246.\n\nHermits, 244.\n\nHigginson, Thomas Wentworth, 253.\n\nHistory, the grand movements of, 249.\n\nHomesickness, 227-29.\n\nHowells, William Dean, 227;\n  an estimate, 262, 263.\n\n\nInsects, hum of, 244, 245.\n\nInvention, 223-26.\n\n\nJames, Henry, his hypersensitiveness, 255, 256.\n\nJames, William, quoted, 234.\n\nJournals, 4, 5.\n\nJuvenal, quoted, 242.\n\n\nKeator, Ike, 244.\n\nKepler, Johann, quoted, 254.\n\nKidd, Benjamin, his \"Social Evolution,\" 270.\n\nKingsley, Charles, a parable of, 189;\n  and Newman, 261.\n\nKnowledge, the Tree of, 248.\n\n\nLamarck, 280.\n\nLandor, Walter Savage, Emerson and, 34, 35, 43.\n\nLife, the result of a system of checks and counter-checks, 236, 237.\n\nLincoln, Abraham, 220, 221, 223.\n\nLongfellow, Henry Wadsworth, in Emerson's Journals, 25.\n\nLoveman, Robert, his poetry, 204, 205;\n  quoted, 204, 205.\n\nLowell, James Russell, in Emerson's Journals, 25;\n  criticism of Thoreau, 104-11;\n  love of books and of nature, 110, 111;\n  possessed talent but not genius, 223;\n  and Whitman, 253.\n\n\nMcCarthy, John Russell, his poems, 204, 208, 223;\n  quoted, 214, 215, 223.\n\nMasefield, John, 208.\n\nMaui, 236.\n\nMeteoric men, 231, 232, 270-72.\n\nMilton, John, \"Paradise Lost,\" 260;\n  quoted, 260.\n\nMontaigne, 8.\n\nMoody, William Vaughn, his poetry, 204-07;\n  quoted, 207.\n\nMorgan, Thomas Hunt, on Darwin, 200.\n\nMovements, in inert matter, 245.\n\nMuir, John, 23.\n\nMutation theory, 196, 197.\n\n\nNatural history, and ethical and poetic values, 54-56.\n\nNatural selection, criticism of the theory, 178-89, 193-98.\n\nNewspapers, 272-74.\n\n\"Noa Noa,\" 278.\n\n\nOld age, the psychology of, 281-85.\n\nOratory, 232, 233.\n\nOsborn, Henry Fairfield, on chance in evolution, 175.\n\n\nPalm and fist, 220, 221.\n\nPascal, Blaise, quoted, 233.\n\nPermanent, and transient, 218, 219.\n\nPhillips, Stephen, 270.\n\nPhillips, Wendell, 222, 232;\n  quoted, 221.\n\nPoe, Edgar Allan, 203;\n  Emerson on, 16, 74;\n  his poetry, 209-11.\n\nPoets, do not efface one another, 250, 251.\n\nPoetry, only the best significant, 201;\n  a discussion of, 201-17;\n  B.'s own, 203;\n  and philosophy, 203, 204, 207-09, 260;\n  not sweetened prose put up in verse form, 267;\n  red revolution in, 276-78.\n\nPope, Alexander, 201.\n\nPositive and negative, 219, 220.\n\nPower, mankind drunk with, 248, 249.\n\nPraise, and flattery, 221, 222.\n\nPrayer, 233.\n\n\nQuotations, a book of, 261, 262.\n\n\nRain, creative function of, 236.\n\nRainbow, the, 137, 138.\n\nRashness, 261.\n\nReds of literature and art, the, 276-79.\n\nReed, Sampson, 34, 35.\n\nRhyme, 267.\n\nRipley, Rev. Dr. Ezra, 45, 46.\n\nRobertson, Frederick William, 232.\n\nRochefoucauld, quoted, 284.\n\nRoosevelt, Theodore, 220, 259, 272.\n\nRousseau, Jean-Jacques, 179.\n\n\nSandburg, Carl, quoted, 276, 277.\n\nSantayana, George, quoted, 260.\n\nScott, Sir Walter, his poems, 216.\n\nSea, the, 218.\n\nSect, a queer, 243.\n\nSexes, the, 238-40.\n\nShakespeare, William, quoted, 242.\n\nShelley, Percy Bysshe, 74.\n\nSidney, Sir Philip, quoted, 267.\n\nSmith, Alexander, 270.\n\nSnake, mechanism for crushing eggs, 196.\n\nSnow, 252.\n\nSpanish-American War, 206.\n\nSpencer, Herbert, 280.\n\nSpiritualism, 267-69.\n\nStanton, Edwin M., 221.\n\nStedman, Edmund Clarence, 253.\n\nStyle, 81-84, 256.\n\nSublime, the, 251.\n\nSwift, Jonathan, 93, 267;\n  quoted, 223.\n\nSwinburne, Algernon Charles, 209, 254.\n\n\nTalent, and genius, 222, 223.\n\nTaylor, Edward T., 28, 29, 85.\n\nTelepathy, 267-69.\n\nTennyson, Alfred, 41, 209, 250;\n  and Whitman, 254.\n\nTheories, absurd, 242, 243.\n\nThomas a Kempis, 261;\n  quoted, 261.\n\nThomson, J. Arthur, 96.\n\nThoreau, Henry D., Journal of, 4, 5;\n  in Emerson's Journals, 20, 29;\n  compared with Emerson, 20-22;\n  his \"Walden,\" 21;\n  \"The Maine Woods,\" 21, 22;\n  \"Cape Cod,\" 22;\n  Emerson on, 22, 23;\n  false notes in rhetoric, 93;\n  does not grow stale, 103;\n  ancestry, 104;\n  Lowell's criticism of, 104-11;\n  industry, 106;\n  philosophy and life, 108;\n  accomplishment, 109, 110;\n  his \"Walden,\" 110, 143, 147;\n  humor, 110;\n  approving of Whitman, 111, 112;\n  as a nature writer, 112-20;\n  his Journal quoted and criticized, 113, 128, 134-37, 139-61, 163-65,\n                                     169, 170;\n  \"Walden\" quoted, 114-19, 137, 143, 146, 147;\n  travels, 119, 120;\n  uniqueness, 120, 121;\n  and science, 122;\n  individualism, 122, 123;\n  an extremist, 123, 124;\n  and civilization, 124, 125;\n  compared with Emerson, 126;\n  as a walker, 127-32;\n  his \"Walking,\" 127-29;\n  his natural-history lore, 133-41;\n  faults as a writer, 141-46;\n  love of writing, 150;\n  literary activity, 153-55;\n  personality, 155-59;\n  and the Civil War, 159, 160;\n  and John Brown, 160;\n  inconsistencies, 160-62, 166;\n  his \"Life without Principle,\" 162;\n  idealism, 162-68;\n  manual labor, 163-65;\n  moralizing on Bill Wheeler, 167, 168;\n  and human emotions, 168;\n  and young women, 168, 169;\n  as a philosopher, 169, 170;\n  merits as a man and a writer, 170, 171;\n  quoted, 242.\n\nTime, 241, 242.\n\nTimeliness, 230, 231.\n\nTorrey, Bradford, 134, 163.\n\nTown and country, 226-28.\n\nTransient, and permanent, 218, 219.\n\nTruth, 234, 235, 247.\n\n\nVerse, free, 276-78.\n\nVery, Jones, in Emerson's Journals, 9, 25;\n  Emerson's high opinion of, 35.\n\n\"Vestiges of Creation,\" 280.\n\nViews, from mountain-tops, 240, 241.\n\nVirgil, quoted, 242.\n\n\nWalking, 127-32.\n\nWarbler, night, Thoreau's, 136.\n\nWealth, 237, 238.\n\nWebster, Daniel, Emerson on, 60-63;\n  Carlyle on, 61.\n\nWeismann, August, 178.\n\nWells, Dr. W. C., 280.\n\nWhitman, Walt, 94, 222, 227, 253, 278;\n  Emerson on \"Leaves of Grass,\" 17;\n  in Emerson's Journals, 25;\n  Emerson's attitude towards, 34;\n  receives \"May-Day\" from Emerson, 43;\n  quoted, 100, 179, 202, 212, 250, 251, 254, 285;\n  Thoreau's approval of, 111, 112;\n  his philosophy, 208, 209;\n  as a criterion, 253, 254;\n  his faith in himself, 254.\n\nWhittier, John G., 92, 93;\n  and Whitman, 253.\n\nWilkinson, Garth, 35.\n\nWilson, Woodrow, 221, 232, 271.\n\nWinter, William, 253.\n\nWomen, 238-40.\n\nWords, and style, 83, 84.\n\nWordsworth, William, 216, 250, 251;\n  Emerson's estimate of, 36;\n  quoted, 100, 218;\n  a poet-walker, 130, 131;\n  on poetry and philosophy, 203;\n  great only at rare intervals, 212, 213.\n\nWren, cactus, 248.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *","title":"The Last Harvest","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":71183}