{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_19935/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_19935","id":"gutenberg_19935","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19935","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Biographies","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882"],"text":"Produced by Paul Murray, Graeme Mackreth and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCRITICAL\nMISCELLANIES\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\nVOL. I.\n\nEssay 5: Emerson\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n1904\n\n\n\n\nIntroductory                                                       293\n\nI.\n\nEarly days                                                         296\n\nTakes charge of an Unitarian Church in Boston (1829)               297\n\nResigns the charge in 1832                                         298\n\nGoes to Europe (1833)                                              299\n\nColeridge, Wordsworth, and Carlyle                                 300\n\nSettles in Concord (1834)                                          301\n\nDescription of Concord by Clough                                   301\n\nDeath of his first wife                                            302\n\nIncome                                                             303\n\nHawthorne                                                          305\n\nThoreau                                                            305\n\nViews on Solitude                                                  306\n\nEffect of his address in the Divinity School of Harvard\n(1838)                                                             307\n\nContributes to the _Dial_ (1840)                                   309\n\nFirst series of his Essays published in 1841                       310\n\nSecond series three years later                                    310\n\nSecond visit to England (1847), and delivers lectures on\n'Representative Men,' collected and published in 1850              310\n\nPoems first collected in 1847; final version made in 1876          310\n\nEssays and Lectures published in 1860, under general title\nof _The Conduct of Life_                                           310\n\nAnd the Civil War                                                  310\n\nGeneral retrospect of his life                                     312\n\nDied April 27, 1882                                                312\n\n\nII.\n\nStyle of his writings                                              313\n\nManner as a lecturer                                               314\n\nDr. Holmes                                                         314\n\nHis use of words                                                   314\n\nSincerity                                                          316\n\nAnd Landor                                                         316\n\nMr. Lowell                                                         316\n\nDescription of his library                                         317\n\nA word or two about his verses                                     319\n\n\nIII.\n\nHawthorne                                                          322\n\nAnd Carlyle                                                        323\n\nThe friends of Universal Progress in 1840                          323\n\nBossuet                                                            324\n\nRemarks on New England                                             325\n\nOne of the few moral reformers                                     327\n\nEssays on 'Domestic Life,' on 'Behaviour,' and on\n'Manners'                                                          329\n\nCompared to Franklin and Chesterfield                              330\n\nIs for faith before works                                          333\n\nA systematic reasoner                                              335\n\nThe Emersonian faith abundantly justified                          337\n\nCarlyle's letter to (June 4, 1871)                                 337\n\nOne remarkable result of his idealism                              341\n\nOn Death and Sin                                              342, 344\n\nConclusion                                                         346\n\n\n\n\nEMERSON.\n\n\nA great interpreter of life ought not himself to need interpretation,\nleast of all can he need it for contemporaries. When time has wrought\nchanges of fashion, mental and social, the critic serves a useful turn\nin giving to a poet or a teacher his true place, and in recovering ideas\nand points of view that are worth preserving. Interpretation of this\nkind Emerson cannot require. His books are no palimpsest, 'the prophet's\nholograph, defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's.' What he has\nwritten is fresh, legible, and in full conformity with the manners and\nthe diction of the day, and those who are unable to understand him\nwithout gloss and comment are in fact not prepared to understand what it\nis that the original has to say. Scarcely any literature is so entirely\nunprofitable as the so-called criticism that overlays a pithy text with\na windy sermon. For our time at least Emerson may best be left to be his\nown expositor.\n\nNor is Emerson, either, in the case of those whom the world has failed\nto recognise, and whom therefore it is the business of the critic to\nmake known and to define. It is too soon to say in what particular\nniche among the teachers of the race posterity will place him; enough\nthat in our own generation he has already been accepted as one of the\nwise masters, who, being called to high thinking for generous ends, did\nnot fall below his vocation, but, steadfastly pursuing the pure search\nfor truth, without propounding a system or founding a school or\ncumbering himself overmuch about applications, lived the life of the\nspirit, and breathed into other men a strong desire after the right\ngovernance of the soul. All this is generally realised and understood,\nand men may now be left to find their way to the Emersonian doctrine\nwithout the critic's prompting. Though it is only the other day that\nEmerson walked the earth and was alive and among us, he is already one\nof the privileged few whom the reader approaches in the mood of settled\nrespect, and whose names have surrounded themselves with an atmosphere\nof religion.\n\nIt is not particularly profitable, again, to seek for Emerson one of the\nlabels out of the philosophic handbooks. Was he the prince of\nTranscendentalists, or the prince of Idealists? Are we to look for the\nsources of his thought in Kant or Jacobi, in Fichte or Schelling? How\ndoes he stand towards Parmenides and Zeno, the Egotheism of the Sufis,\nor the position of the Megareans? Shall we put him on the shelf with the\nStoics or the Mystics, with Quietist, Pantheist, Determinist? If life\nwere long, it might be worth while to trace Emerson's affinities with\nthe philosophic schools; to collect and infer his answers to the\neverlasting problems of psychology and metaphysics; to extract a set of\ncoherent and reasoned opinions about knowledge and faculty, experience\nand consciousness, truth and necessity, the absolute and the relative.\nBut such inquiries would only take us the further away from the essence\nand vitality of Emerson's mind and teaching. In philosophy proper\nEmerson made no contribution of his own, but accepted, apparently\nwithout much examination of the other side, from Coleridge after Kant,\nthe intuitive, _a priori_ and realist theory respecting the sources of\nhuman knowledge, and the objects that are within the cognisance of the\nhuman faculties. This was his starting-point, and within its own sphere\nof thought he cannot be said to have carried it any further. What he did\nwas to light up these doctrines with the rays of ethical and poetic\nimagination. As it has been justly put, though Emersonian\ntranscendentalism is usually spoken of as a philosophy, it is more\njustly regarded as a gospel.[1] But before dwelling more on this, let us\nlook into the record of his life, of which we may say in all truth that\nno purer, simpler, and more harmonious story can be found in the annals\nof far-shining men.\n\n[Footnote 1: Frothingham's _Transcendentalism in New England: a\nHistory_--a judicious, acute, and highly interesting piece of criticism.]\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nRalph Waldo Emerson was born at Boston, May 25, 1803. He was of an\nancient and honourable English stock, who had transplanted themselves,\non one side from Cheshire and Bedfordshire, and on the other from Durham\nand York, a hundred and seventy years before. For seven or eight\ngenerations in a direct and unbroken line his forefathers had been\npreachers and divines, not without eminence in the Puritan tradition of\nNew England. His second name came into the family with Rebecca Waldo,\nwith whom at the end of the seventeenth century one Edward Emerson had\nintermarried, and whose family had fled from the Waldensian valleys and\nthat slaughter of the saints which Milton called on Heaven to avenge.\nEvery tributary, then, that made Emerson what he was, flowed not only\nfrom Protestantism, but from 'the Protestantism of the Protestant\nreligion.' When we are told that Puritanism inexorably locked up the\nintelligence of its votaries in a dark and straitened chamber, it is\nworthy to be remembered that the genial, open, lucid, and most\ncomprehensive mind of Emerson was the ripened product of a genealogical\ntree that at every stage of its growth had been vivified by Puritan sap.\n\nNot many years after his birth, Emerson's mother was left a widow with\nnarrow means, and he underwent the wholesome training of frugality in\nyouth. When the time came, he was sent to Harvard. When Clough visited\nAmerica a generation later, the collegiate training does not appear to\nhave struck him very favourably. 'They learn French and history and\nGerman, and a great many more things than in England, but only\nimperfectly.' This was said from the standard of Rugby and Balliol, and\nthe method that Clough calls imperfect had merits of its own. The pupil\nlost much in a curriculum that had a certain rawness about it, compared\nwith the traditional culture that was at that moment (1820) just\nbeginning to acquire a fresh hold within the old gray quadrangles of\nOxford. On the other hand, the training at Harvard struck fewer of those\nsuperfluous roots in the mind, which are only planted that they may be\npresently cast out again with infinite distraction and waste.\n\nWhen his schooling was over, Emerson began to prepare himself for the\nministrations of the pulpit, and in 1826 and 1827 he preached in divers\nplaces. Two years later he was ordained, and undertook the charge of an\nimportant Unitarian Church in Boston. It was not very long before the\nstrain of forms, comparatively moderate as it was in the Unitarian body,\nbecame too heavy to be borne. Emerson found that he could no longer\naccept the usual view of the Communion Service, even in its least\nsacramental interpretation. To him the rite was purely spiritual in\norigin and intent, and at the best only to be retained as a\ncommemoration. The whole world, he said, had been full of idols and\nordinances and forms, when 'the Almighty God was pleased to qualify and\nsend forth a man to teach men that they must serve him with the heart;\nthat only that life was religious which was thoroughly good; that\nsacrifice was smoke and forms were shadows. This man lived and died true\nto that purpose; and now with his blessed word and life before us,\nChristians must contend that it is a matter of vital importance, really\na duty, to commemorate him by a certain form, whether that form be\nagreeable to their understandings or not. Is not this to make vain the\ngift of God? Is not this to make men forget that not forms but\nduties--not names but righteousness and love--are enjoined?'\n\nHe was willing to continue the service with that explanation, and on\ncondition that he should not himself partake of the bread and wine. The\ncongregation would fain have kept one whose transparent purity of soul\nhad attached more than his heresy had alienated. But the innovation was\ntoo great, and Emerson resigned his charge (1832). For some five or six\nyears longer he continued occasionally to preach, and more than one\ncongregation would have accepted him. But doubts on the subject of\npublic prayer began to weigh upon his mind. He suspected the practice by\nwhich one man offered up prayer vicariously and collectively for the\nassembled congregation. Was not that too, like the Communion Service, a\nform that tended to deaden the spirit? Under the influence of this and\nother scruples he finally ceased to preach (1838), and told his friends\nthat henceforth he must find his pulpit in the platform of the\nlecturer. 'I see not,' he said, 'why this is not the most flexible of\nall organs of opinion, from its popularity and from its newness,\npermitting you to say what you think, without any shackles of\nproscription. The pulpit in our age certainly gives forth an obstructed\nand uncertain sound; and the faith of those in it, if men of genius, may\ndiffer so much from that of those under it as to embarrass the\nconscience of the speaker, because so much is attributed to him from the\nfact of standing there.' The lecture was an important discovery, and it\nhas had many consequences in American culture. Among the more\nundesirable of them has been (certainly not in Emerson's own case) the\nimportation of the pulpit accent into subjects where one would be\nhappier with out it.\n\nEarlier in the same year in which he retired from his church at Boston,\nEmerson had lost his young wife. Though we may well believe that he bore\nthese agitations with self-control, his health suffered, and in the\nspring of 1833 he started for Europe. He came to be accused of saying\ncaptious things about travelling. There are three wants, he said, that\ncan never be satisfied: that of the rich who want something more; that\nof the sick who want something different; and that of the traveller who\nsays, Anywhere but here. Their restlessness, he told his countrymen,\nargued want of character. They were infatuated with 'the rococo toy of\nItaly.' As if what was true anywhere were not true everywhere; and as\nif a man, go where he will, can find more beauty or worth than he\ncarries. All this was said, as we shall see that much else was said by\nEmerson, by way of reaction and protest against instability of soul in\nthe people around him. 'Here or nowhere,' said Goethe inversely to\nunstable Europeans yearning vaguely westwards, 'here or nowhere is thine\nAmerica.' To the use of travel for its own ends, Emerson was of course\nas much alive as other people. 'There is in every constitution a certain\nsolstice when the stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when\nthere is required some foreign force, some diversion or alteration, to\nprevent stagnation. And as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the\nbest.' He found it so in 1833. But this and his two other voyages to\nEurope make no Odyssey. When Voltaire was pressed to visit Rome, he\ndeclared that he would be better pleased with some new and free English\nbook than with all the glories of amphitheatre and of arch. Emerson in\nlike manner seems to have thought more of the great writers whom he saw\nin Europe than of buildings or of landscapes. 'Am I,' he said, 'who have\nhung over their works in my chamber at home, not to see these men in the\nflesh, and thank them, and interchange some thoughts with them?' The two\nEnglishmen to whom he owed most were Coleridge and Wordsworth; and the\nyounger writer, some eight years older than himself, in whom his\nliveliest interest had been kindled, was Carlyle. He was fortunate\nenough to have converse with all three, and he has told the world how\nthese illustrious men in their several fashions and degrees impressed\nhim.[2] It was Carlyle who struck him most. 'Many a time upon the sea,\nin my homeward voyage, I remembered with joy the favoured condition of\nmy lonely philosopher,' cherishing visions more than divine 'in his\nstern and blessed solitude.' So Carlyle, with no less cordiality,\ndeclares that among the figures that he could recollect as visiting his\nNithsdale hermitage--'all like Apparitions now, bringing with them airs\nfrom Heaven, or the blasts from the other region, there is not one of a\nmore undoubtedly supernal character than yourself; so pure and still,\nwith intents so charitable; and then vanishing too so soon into the\nazure Inane, as an Apparition should.'\n\n[Footnote 2: _English Traits_, 7-18. _Ireland_, 143-152. Froude's\n_Carlyle_, ii. 355-359.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn external incident Emerson's life was uneventful. Nothing could be\nsimpler, of more perfect unity, or more free from disturbing episodes\nthat leaves scars on men. In 1834 he settled in old Concord, the home of\nhis ancestors, then in its third century. 'Concord is very bare,' wrote\nClough, who made some sojourn there in 1852, 'and so is the country in\ngeneral; it is a small sort of village, almost entirely of wood houses,\npainted white, with Venetian blinds, green outside, with two white\nwooden churches. There are some American elms of a weeping kind, and\nsycamores, i.e. planes; but the wood is mostly pine--white pine and\nyellow pine--somewhat scrubby, occupying the tops of the low banks, and\nmarshy hay-land between, very brown now. A little brook runs through to\nthe Concord River.'[3] The brook flowed across the few acres that were\nEmerson's first modest homestead. 'The whole external appearance of the\nplace,' says one who visited him, 'suggests old-fashioned comfort and\nhospitality. Within the house the flavour of antiquity is still more\nnoticeable. Old pictures look down from the walls; quaint blue-and-white\nchina holds the simple dinner; old furniture brings to mind the\ngenerations of the past. At the right as you enter is Mr. Emerson's\nlibrary, a large square room, plainly furnished, but made pleasant by\npictures and sunshine. The homely shelves that line the walls are well\nfilled with books. There is a lack of showy covers or rich bindings, and\neach volume seems to have soberly grown old in constant service. Mr.\nEmerson's study is a quiet room upstairs.'\n\n[Footnote 3: Clough's _Life and Letters_, i. 185.]\n\nFate did not spare him the strokes of the common lot. His first wife\ndied after three short years of wedded happiness. He lost a little son,\nwho was the light of his eyes. But others were born to him, and in all\nthe relations and circumstances of domestic life he was one of the best\nand most beloved of men. He long carried in his mind the picture of\nCarlyle's life at Craigenputtock as the ideal for the sage, but his own\nchoice was far wiser and happier, 'not wholly in the busy world, nor\nquite beyond it.'\n\n'Besides my house,' he told Carlyle in 1838, 'I have, I believe, 22,000\ndollars, whose income in ordinary years is six per cent. I have no other\ntithe or glebe except the income of my winter lectures, which was last\nwinter 800 dollars. Well, with this income, here at home, I am a rich\nman. I stay at home and go abroad at my own instance, I have food,\nwarmth, leisure, books, friends. Go away from home, I am rich no longer.\nI never have a dollar to spend on a fancy. As no wise man, I suppose,\never was rich in the sense of _freedom to spend_, because of the\ninundation of claims, so neither am I, who am not wise. But at home I am\nrich--rich enough for ten brothers. My wife Lidian is an incarnation of\nChristianity,--I call her Asia,--and keeps my philosophy from\nAntinomianism; my mother, whitest, mildest, most conservative of ladies,\nwhose only exception to her universal preference for old things is her\nson; my boy, a piece of love and sunshine, well worth my watching from\nmorning to night;--these, and three domestic women, who cook and sew and\nrun for us, make all my household. Here I sit and read and write, with\nvery little system, and, as far as regards composition, with the most\nfragmentary result: paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an\ninfinitely repellent particle.\n\n'In summer, with the aid of a neighbour, I manage my garden; and a week\nago I set out on the west side of my house forty young pine trees to\nprotect me or my son from the wind of January. The ornament of the place\nis the occasional presence of some ten or twelve persons, good and wise,\nwho visit us in the course of the year.'\n\nAs time went on he was able to buy himself 'a new plaything'--a piece of\nwoodland, of more than forty acres, on the border of a little lake half\na mile wide or more, called Walden Pond. 'In these May days,' he told\nCarlyle, then passionately struggling with his _Cromwell_, with the\nslums of Chelsea at his back, 'when maples, poplars, oaks, birches,\nwalnut, and pine, are in their spring glory, I go thither every\nafternoon, and cut with my hatchet an Indian path through the thicket,\nall along the bold shore, and open the finest pictures' (1845).\n\nHe loved to write at 'large leisure in noble mornings, opened by prayer\nor by readings of Plato, or whatsoever else is dearest to the Morning\nMuse.' Yet he could not wholly escape the recluse's malady. He confesses\nthat he sometimes craves 'that stimulation which every capricious,\nlanguid, and languescent study needs.' Carlyle's potent concentration\nstirs his envy. The work of the garden and the orchard he found very\nfascinating, eating up days and weeks; 'nay, a brave scholar should shun\nit like gambling, and take refuge in cities and hotels from these\npernicious enchantments.'\n\nIn the doings of his neighbourhood he bore his part; he took a manly\ninterest in civil affairs, and was sensible, shrewd, and helpful in\nmatters of practical judgment. Pilgrims, sane and insane, the beardless\nand the gray-headed, flocked to his door, far beyond the dozen persons\ngood and wise whom he had mentioned to Carlyle. 'Uncertain, troubled,\nearnest wanderers through the midnight of the moral world beheld his\nintellectual fire as a beacon burning on a hill-top, and climbing the\ndifficult ascent, looked forth into the surrounding obscurity more\nhopefully than hitherto' (_Hawthorne_). To the most intractable of\nTranscendental bores, worst species of the genus, he was never\nimpatient, nor denied himself; nor did he ever refuse counsel where the\ncase was not yet beyond hope. Hawthorne was for a time his neighbour\n(1842-45). 'It was good,' says Hawthorne, 'to meet him in the\nwood-paths, or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure intellectual\ngleam diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining one; and\nhe so quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man\nalive as if expecting to receive more than he could impart.'\n\nThe most remarkable of all his neighbours was Thoreau, who for a couple\nof years lived in a hut which he had built for himself on the shore of\nWalden Pond. If he had not written some things with a considerable charm\nof style, Thoreau might have been wisely neglected as one of the crazy.\nBut Emerson was struck by the originality of his life, and thought it\nwell in time to edit the writings of one 'who was bred to no profession;\nnever married; lived alone; never went to Church; never voted; refused\nto pay a tax to the State; ate no flesh, drank no wine, never knew the\nuse of tobacco; had no temptations to fight against, no appetites, no\npassions, refused all invitations, preferred a good Indian to highly\ncultivated people, and said he would rather go to Oregon than to\nLondon.' The world has room for every type, so that it be not actively\nnoxious, and this whimsical egotist may well have his place in the\ncatalogue. He was, after all, in his life only a compendium, on a scale\nlarge enough to show their absurdity, of all those unsocial notions\nwhich Emerson in other manifestations found it needful to rebuke. Yet we\nmay agree that many of his paradoxes strike home with Socratic force to\nthe heart of a civilisation that wise men know to be too purely\nmaterial, too artificial, and too capriciously diffused.\n\nEmerson himself was too sane ever to fall into the hermit's trap of\nbanishment to the rocks and echoes. 'Solitude,' he said, 'is\nimpracticable, and society fatal.' He steered his way as best he could\nbetween these two irreconcilable necessities. He had, as we have seen,\nthe good sense to make for himself a calling which brought him into\nhealthy contact with bodies of men, and made it essential that he should\nhave his listeners in some degree in his mind, even when they were not\nactually present to the eye. As a preacher Emerson has been described as\nmaking a deep impression on susceptible hearers of a quiet mind, by 'the\ncalm dignity of his bearing, the absence of all oratorical effort, and\nthe singular simplicity and directness of a manner free from the least\ntrace of dogmatic assumption.' 'Not long before,' says this witness, 'I\nhad listened to a wonderful sermon by Chalmers, whose force and energy,\nand vehement but rather turgid eloquence, carried for the moment all\nbefore him--his audience becoming like clay in the hands of the potter.\nBut I must confess that the pregnant thoughts and serene self-possession\nof the young Boston minister had a greater charm for me than all the\nrhetorical splendours of Chalmers' (_Ireland_, 141).\n\nAt the lecturer's desk the same attraction made itself still more\neffectually felt. 'I have heard some great speakers and some\naccomplished orators,' Mr. Lowell says, 'but never any that so moved and\npersuaded men as he. There is a kind of undertone in that rich barytone\nof his that sweeps our minds from their foothold into deep waters with a\ndrift that we cannot and would not resist. Search for his eloquence in\nhis books and you will perchance miss it, but meanwhile you will find\nthat it has kindled all your thoughts.' The same effect was felt in its\ndegree wherever he went, and he took pains not to miss it. He had made a\nstudy of his art, and was so skilful in his mastery of it that it seemed\nas if anybody might do all that he did and do it as well--if only a\nhundred failures had not proved the mistake.\n\nIn 1838 Emerson delivered an address in the Divinity School of Harvard,\nwhich produced a gusty shower of articles, sermons, and pamphlets, and\nraised him without will or further act of his to the high place of the\nheresiarch. With admirable singleness of mind, he held modestly aloof.\n'There is no scholar,' he wrote to a friend, 'less willing or less able\nto be a polemic. I could not give account of myself if challenged. I\ndelight in telling what I think, but if you ask me how I dare say so, or\nwhy it is so, I am the most helpless of men,' The year before, his\noration on the American Scholar had filled Carlyle with delight. It was\nthe first clear utterance, after long decades of years, in which he had\n'heard nothing but infinite jangling and jabbering, and inarticulate\ntwittering and screeching.' Then Carlyle enjoined on his American friend\nfor rule of life, 'Give no ear to any man's praise or censure; know that\nthat is _not_ it; on the one side is as Heaven, if you have strength to\nkeep silent and climb unseen; yet on the other side, yawning always at\none's right hand and one's left, is the frightfullest Abyss and\nPandemonium' (Dec. 8, 1837). Emerson's temperament and his whole method\nmade the warning needless, and, as before, while 'vociferous platitude\nwas dinning his ears on all sides,' a whole world of thought was\n'silently building itself in these calm depths.' But what would those\ntwo divinities of his, Plato and Socrates, have said of a man who 'could\nnot give an account of himself if challenged'? Assuredly not every one\nwho saith Plato, Plato, is admitted to that ideal kingdom.\n\nIt was soon after this that the _Dial_ was projected. It had its origin\nin the Transcendental Club, a little knot of speculative students at\nBoston, who met four or five times a year at one another's houses to\ndiscuss questions mainly theological, from more liberal points of view\nthan was at that time common, 'the air then in America getting a little\ntoo close and stagnant.' The Club was first formed in 1836. The _Dial_\nappeared in 1840, and went on for four years at quarterly intervals.\nEmerson was a constant contributor, and for the last half of its\nexistence he acted as editor. 'I submitted,' he told Carlyle, 'to what\nseemed a necessity of petty literary patriotism--I know not what else to\ncall it--and took charge of our thankless little _Dial_ here, without\nsubscribers enough to pay even a publisher, much less any labourer; it\nhas no penny for editor or contributor, nothing but abuse in the\nnewspapers, or, at best, silence; but it serves as a sort of portfolio,\nto carry about a few poems or sentences which would otherwise be\ntranscribed or circulated, and we always are waiting until somebody\nshall come and make it good. But I took it, and it took me and a great\ndeal of good time to a small purpose' (July 1, 1842). On the whole one\nmust agree that it was to small purpose. Emerson's name has reflected\nlustre on the _Dial_, but when his contributions are taken out, and,\nsay, half a dozen besides, the residuum is in the main very poor stuff,\nand some of it has a droll resemblance to the talk between Mrs. Hominy\nand the Literary Ladies and the Honourable Elijah Pogram. Margaret\nFuller--the Miranda, Zenobia, Hypatia, Minerva of her time, and a truly\nremarkable figure in the gallery of wonderful women--edited it for two\nyears, and contributed many a vivid, dashing, exuberant, ebullient page.\nHer criticism of Goethe, for example, contains no final or valid word,\nbut it is fresh, cordial, and frank, and no other prose contributor,\nagain saving the one great name, has anything to say that is so\nreadable. Nearly all the rest is extinct, and the _Dial_ now finds\nitself far away from the sunshine of human interest.\n\nIn 1841 the first series of Emerson's Essays was published, and three\nyears later the second. The Poems were first collected in 1847, but the\nfinal version was not made until 1876. In 1847 Emerson paid his second\nvisit to England, and delivered his lectures on Representative Men,\ncollected and published in 1850. The books are said to have had a very\nslow sale, but the essays and lectures published in 1860, with the\ngeneral title of _The Conduct of Life_, started with a sale of 2,500\ncopies, though that volume has never been considered by the Emersonian\nadept to contain most of the pure milk of the Word.\n\nThen came that great event in the history of men and institutions, the\nCivil War. We look with anxiety for the part played by the serene\nthinker when the hour had struck for violent and heroic action. Emerson\nhad hitherto been a Free Soiler; he had opposed the extension of\nslavery; and he favoured its compulsory extinction, with compensation on\nthe plan of our own policy in the West Indies. He had never joined the\nactive Abolitionists, nor did he see 'that there was any particular\nthing for him to do in it then.' 'Though I sometimes accept a popular\ncall, and preach on Temperance or the Abolition of Slavery, I am sure to\nfeel, before I have done with it, what an intrusion it is into another\nsphere, and so much loss of virtue in my own' (_To Carlyle_, 1844). But\nhe missed no occasion of showing that in conviction and aim he was with\ngood men. The infirmities of fanatics never hid from him either the\ntranscendent purity of their motives or the grandeur of their cause.\nThis is ever the test of the scholar: whether he allows intellectual\nfastidiousness to stand between him and the great issues of his time.\n'Cannot the English,' he cried out to Carlyle, 'leave cavilling at petty\nfailures and bad manners and at the dunce part, and leap to the\nsuggestions and finger-pointings of the gods, which, above the\nunderstanding, feed the hopes and guide the wills of men?' These\nfinger-pointings Emerson did not mistake. He spoke up for Garrison. John\nBrown was several times in Concord, and found a hearty welcome in\nEmerson's house. When Brown made his raid at Harper's Ferry, and the\ncrisis became gradually sharper, Emerson felt that the time had come,\nand his voice was raised in clear tones. After the sword is drawn, it is\ndeeds not words that interest and decide; but whenever the word of the\nstudent was needed Emerson was ready to give the highest expression to\nall that was best in his countrymen's mood during that greatest ordeal\nof our time. The inward regeneration of the individual had ever been the\nkey to his teaching, and this teaching had been one of the forces that,\nlike central fire in men's minds, nourished the heroism of the North in\nits immortal battle.\n\nThe exaltation of national character produced by the Civil War opened\nnew and wider acceptance for a great moral and spiritual teacher, and\nfrom the close of the war until his death in 1882, Emerson's ascendency\nwithin his own sphere of action was complete, and the public recognition\nof him universal. Of story, there is no more to tell. He pursued his old\nway of reading, meditating, conversing, and public lecturing, almost to\nthe end. The afternoon of his life was cloudless as the earlier day, and\nthe shades of twilight fell in unbroken serenity. In his last years\nthere was a partial failure of his memory, and more than one pathetic\nstory is told of this tranquil and gradual eclipse. But 'to the last,\neven when the events of yesterday were occasionally obscured, his memory\nof the remote past was unclouded; he would tell about the friends of his\nearly and middle life with unbroken vigour.' So, tended in his home by\nwarm filial devotion, and surrounded by the reverent kindness of his\nvillage neighbours, this wise and benign man slowly passed away (April\n27, 1882).[4]\n\n[Footnote 4: The reader who seeks full information about Emerson's life\nwill find it scattered in various volumes: among them are--\n\n_Ralph Waldo Emerson_; by George Willis Cooke (Sampson Low & Co.,\n1882)--a very diligent and instructive work.\n\n_R.W.E._; by Alexander Ireland (Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. 1882),\ndescribed by Carlyle, and known by others, as 'full of energy and broad\nsagacity and practicality; infinitely well affected to the man Emerson\ntoo,'--and full moreover of that intellectual enthusiasm which in his\nScotch countrymen goes so often with their practicalities.\n\n_Emerson, at Home and Abroad_; by Moncure D. Conway (Truebner & Co.,\n1883): the work of a faithful disciple, who knew Emerson well, and has\nhere recorded many interesting anecdotes and traits.]\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nIt cannot be truly said that Emerson is one of the writers who make\ntheir way more easily into our minds by virtue of style. That his\nwriting has quality and flavour none but a pure pedant would deny. His\nmore fervent votaries, however, provoke us with a challenge that goes\nfar beyond this. They declare that the finish, charm, and beauty of the\nwriting are as worthy of remark as the truth and depth of the thought.\nIt is even 'unmatchable and radiant,' says one. Such exaggerations can\nhave no reference to any accepted standard. It would in truth, have been\na marvel if Emerson had excelled in the virtues of the written page, for\nmost of his published work was originally composed and used for the\nplatform. Everybody knows how different are the speaker's devices for\ngaining possession of his audience, from the writer's means of winning,\npersuading, and impressing the attention of his reader. The key to the\ndifference may be that in the speech the personality of the orator\nbefore our eyes gives of itself that oneness and continuity of\ncommunication, which the writer has to seek in the orderly sequence and\narray of marshalled sentence and well-sustained period. One of the\ntraits that every critic notes in Emerson's writing, is that it is so\nabrupt, so sudden in its transitions, so discontinuous, so\ninconsecutive. Dislike of a sentence that drags made him unconscious of\nthe quality, that French critics name _coulant_. Everything is thrown in\njust as it comes, and sometimes the pell-mell is enough to persuade us\nthat Pope did not exaggerate when he said that no one qualification is\nso likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own\nthoughts.\n\nHis manner as a lecturer, says Dr. Holmes, was an illustration of his\nway of thinking. 'He would lose his place just as his mind would drop\nits thought and pick up another, twentieth cousin or no relation at all\nto it.' The same manner, whether we liken it to mosaic or to\nkaleidoscope, marks his writing. It makes him hard to follow, oracular,\nand enigmatical. 'Can you tell me,' asked one of his neighbour, while\nEmerson was lecturing, 'what connection there is between that last\nsentence and the one that went before, and what connection it all has\nwith Plato?' 'None, my friend, save in God!' This is excellent in a\nseer, but less so in the writer.\n\nApart from his difficult staccato, Emerson is not free from secondary\nfaults. He uses words that are not only odd, but vicious in\nconstruction; he is not always grammatically correct; he is sometimes\noblique, and he is often clumsy; and there is a visible feeling after\nepigrams that do not always come. When people say that Emerson's style\nmust be good and admirable because it fits his thought, they forget that\nthough it is well that a robe should fit, there is still something to be\nsaid about its cut and fashion.\n\nNo doubt, to borrow Carlyle's expression, 'the talent is not the chief\nquestion here: the idea--that is the chief question.' We do not profess\nto be of those to whom mere style is as dear as it was to Plutarch; of\nhim it was said that he would have made Pompey win the battle of\nPharsalia, if it could have given a better turn to a phrase. It would\nnot be worth while to speak of form in a thinker to whom our debt is so\nlarge for his matter, if there were not so much bad literary imitation\nof Emerson. Dr. Holmes mournfully admits that 'one who talks like\nEmerson or like Carlyle soon finds himself surrounded by a crowd of\nwalking phonographs, who mechanically reproduce his mental and oral\naccents. Emerson was before long talking in the midst of a babbling\nSimonetta of echoes.' Inferior writers have copied the tones of the\noracle without first making sure of the inspiration. They forget that a\nplatitude is not turned into a profundity by being dressed up as a\nconundrum. Pithiness in him dwindles into tenuity in them; honest\ndiscontinuity in the master is made an excuse for finical incoherencies\nin the disciples; the quaint, ingenious, and unexpected collocations of\nthe original degenerate in the imitators into a trick of unmeaning\nsurprise and vapid antithesis; and his pregnant sententiousness set the\nfashion of a sententiousness that is not fertility but only hydropsy.\nThis curious infection, which has spread into divers forms of American\nliterature that are far removed from philosophy, would have been\nimpossible if the teacher had been as perfect in expression as he was\npure, diligent, and harmonious in his thinking.\n\nYet, as happens to all fine minds, there came to Emerson ways of\nexpression deeply marked with character. On every page there is set the\nstrong stamp of sincerity, and the attraction of a certain artlessness;\nthe most awkward sentence rings true; and there is often a pure and\nsimple note that touches us more than if it were the perfection of\nelaborated melody. The uncouth procession of the periods discloses the\ntravail of the thought, and that too is a kind of eloquence. An honest\nreader easily forgives the rude jolt or unexpected start, when it shows\na thinker faithfully working his way along arduous and unworn tracks.\nEven at the roughest, Emerson often interjects a delightful cadence. As\nhe says of Landor, his sentences are cubes which will stand firm, place\nthem how or where you will. He criticised Swedenborg for being\nsuperfluously explanatory, and having an exaggerated feeling of the\nignorance of men. 'Men take truths of this nature,' said Emerson, 'very\nfast;' and his own style does no doubt very boldly take this capacity\nfor granted in us. In 'choice and pith of diction,' again, of which Mr.\nLowell speaks, he hits the mark with a felicity that is almost his own\nin this generation. He is terse, concentrated, and free from the\nimportant blunder of mistaking intellectual dawdling for meditation. Nor\nin fine does his abruptness ever impede a true urbanity. The accent is\nhomely and the apparel plain, but his bearing has a friendliness, a\ncourtesy, a hospitable humanity, which goes nearer to our hearts than\neither literary decoration or rhetorical unction. That modest and\nlenient fellow-feeling which gave such charm to his companionship\nbreathes in his gravest writing, and prevents us from finding any page\nof it cold or hard or dry.\n\nThough Emerson was always urgent for 'the soul of the world, clean from\nall vestige of tradition,' yet his work is full of literature. He at\nleast lends no support to the comforting fallacy of the indolent, that\noriginating power does not go with assimilating power. Few thinkers on\nhis level display such breadth of literary reference. Unlike Wordsworth,\nwho was content with a few tattered volumes on a kitchen shelf, Emerson\nworked among books. When he was a boy he found a volume of Montaigne,\nand he never forgot the delight and wonder in which he lived with it.\nHis library is described as filled with well-selected authors, with\ncurious works from the eastern world, with many editions in both Greek\nand English of his favourite Plato; while portraits of Shakespeare,\nMontaigne, Goethe, Dante, looked down upon him from the walls. Produce a\nvolume of Plato or of Shakespeare, he says somewhere, or '_only remind\nus of their names_,' and instantly we come into a feeling of longevity.\nThat is the scholar's speech. Opening a single essay at random, we find\nin it citations from Montesquieu, Schiller, Milton, Herodotus, Shelley,\nPlutarch, Franklin, Bacon, Van Helmont, Goethe. So little does Emerson\nlend himself to the idle vanity of seeking all the treasures of wisdom\nin his own head, or neglecting the hoarded authority of the ages. It is\ntrue that he held the unholy opinion that a translation is as good as\nthe original, or better. Nor need we suppose that he knew that pious\nsensation of the book-lover, the feel of a library; that he had any of\nthe collector's amiable foolishness about rare editions; or that he\nnourished festive thoughts of 'that company of honest old fellows in\ntheir leathern jackets in his study,' as comrades in a sober old-world\nconviviality. His books were for spiritual use, like maps and charts of\nthe mind of man, and not much for 'excellence of divertisement.' He had\nthe gift of bringing his reading to bear easily upon the tenor of his\nmusings, and knew how to use books as an aid to thinking, instead of\nletting them take the edge off thought. There was assuredly nothing of\nthe compiler or the erudite collegian in him. It is a graver defect that\nhe introduces the great names of literature without regard for true\nhistorical perspective in their place, either in relation to one\nanother, or to the special phases of social change and shifting time.\nStill let his admirers not forget that Emerson was in his own way\nScholar no less than Sage.\n\nA word or two must be said of Emerson's verses. He disclaimed, for his\nown part, any belief that they were poems. Enthusiasts, however, have\nbeen found to declare that Emerson 'moves more constantly than any\nrecent poet in the atmosphere of poesy. Since Milton and Spenser no\nman--not even Goethe--has equalled Emerson in this trait.' _The\nProblem_, according to another, 'is wholly unique, and transcends all\ncontemporary verse in grandeur of style.' Such poetry, they say, is like\nWestminster Abbey, 'though the Abbey is inferior in boldness.' Yet,\nstrangely enough, while Emerson's poetic form is symbolised by the\nflowing lines of Gothic architecture, it is also 'akin to Doric\nseverity.' With all the good will in the world, I do not find myself\nable to rise to these heights; in fact, they rather seem to deserve\nWordsworth's description, as mere obliquities of admiration.\n\nTaken as a whole, Emerson's poetry is of that kind which springs, not\nfrom excitement of passion or feeling, but from an intellectual demand\nfor intense and sublimated expression. We see the step that lifts him\nstraight from prose to verse, and that step is the shortest possible.\nThe flight is awkward and even uncouth, as if nature had intended feet\nrather than wings. It is hard to feel of Emerson, any more than\nWordsworth could feel of Goethe, that his poetry is inevitable. The\nmeasure, the colour, the imaginative figures, are the product of search,\nnot of spontaneous movements of sensation and reflection combining in a\nharmony that is delightful to the ear. They are the outcome of a\ndiscontent with prose, not of that high-strung sensibility which compels\nthe true poet into verse. This must not be said without exception. _The\nThrenody_, written after the death of a deeply loved child, is a\nbeautiful and impressive lament. Pieces like _Musquetaquid_, the\n_Adirondacs_, the _Snowstorm_, _The Humble-Bee_, are pretty and pleasant\nbits of pastoral. In all we feel the pure breath of nature, and\n\n                     The primal mind,\n   That flows in streams, that breathes in wind.\n\nThere is a certain charm of _naivete_, that recalls the unvarnished\nsimplicity of the Italian painters before Raphael. But who shall say\nthat he discovers that 'spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling,' which\na great poet has made the fundamental element of poetry? There are too\nfew melodious progressions; the melting of the thought with natural\nimages and with human feeling is incomplete; we miss the charm of\nperfect assimilation, fusion, and incorporation; and in the midst of all\nthe vigour and courage of his work, Emerson has almost forgotten that it\nis part of the poet's business to give pleasure. It is true that\npleasure is sometimes undoubtedly to be had from verse that is not above\nmediocrity, and Wordsworth once designed to write an essay examining why\nbad poetry pleases. Poetry that pleases may be bad, but it is equally\ntrue that no poetry which fails to please can be really good. Some one\nsays that gems of expression make Emerson's essays oracular and his\nverse prophetic. But, to borrow Horace's well-known phrase, 'tis not\nenough that poems should be sublime; _dulcia sunto_,--they must be\ntouching and sympathetic. Only a bold critic will say that this is a\nmark of Emerson's poems. They are too naked, unrelated, and cosmic; too\nlittle clad with the vesture of human associations. Light and shade do\nnot alternate in winning and rich relief, and as Carlyle found it, the\nradiance is 'thin piercing,' leaving none of the sweet and dim recesses\nso dear to the lover of nature. We may, however, well be content to\nleave a man of Emerson's calibre to choose his own exercises. It is best\nto suppose that he knew what he was about when he wandered into the\nfairyland of verse, and that in such moments he found nothing better to\nhis hand. Yet if we are bidden to place him among the poets, it is\nenough to open Keats at the _Ode to a Nightingale_, or Shelley at _The\nCloud_, the _Skylark_, or the _Sensitive Plant_, or Wordsworth at\n_Tintern Abbey_, or Goethe at _Das Goettliche_, or Victor Hugo in the\n_Contemplations_. Then in spite of occasional formality of rhythm and\nartifice in ornament, we cannot choose but perceive how tuneful is their\nmusic, how opulent the resources of their imagination, how various,\nsubtle, and penetrating their affinity for the fortunes and sympathies\nof men, and next how modest a portion of all these rare and exquisite\nqualifications reveals itself in the verse of Emerson.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nFew minds of the first order that have busied themselves in\ncontemplating the march of human fortunes, have marched forward in a\nstraight line of philosophic speculation unbroken to the end. Like\nBurke, like Coleridge, like Wordsworth, at a given point they have a\nreturn upon themselves. Having mastered the truths of one side, their\neyes open to what is true on the other; the work of revolution finished\nor begun, they experience fatigue and reaction. In Hawthorne's romance,\nafter Miles Coverdale had passed his spring and summer among the\nUtopians of Blithedale, he felt that the time had come when he must for\nsheer sanity's sake go and hold a little talk with the Conservatives,\nthe merchants, the politicians, 'and all those respectable old\nblockheads, who still in this intangibility and mistiness of affairs\nkept a death-grip on one or two ideas which had not come into vogue\nsince yesterday morning.' 'No sagacious man,' says Hawthorne, 'will long\nretain his sagacity if he lives exclusively among reformers and\nprogressive people, without periodically returning into the settled\nsystem of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old\nstand-point.' Yet good men rightly hoped that 'out of the very thoughts\nthat were wildest and most destructive might grow a wisdom, holy, calm,\nand pure, and that should incarnate itself with the substance of a noble\nand happy life.' Now that we are able to look back on the crisis of the\ntimes that Hawthorne describes, we perceive that it was as he expected,\nand that in the person of Emerson the ferment and dissolvency of thought\nworked itself out in a strain of wisdom of the highest and purest.\n\nIn 1842 Emerson told Carlyle, in vindication of the _Dial_ and its\ntranscendentalisms, that if the direction of their speculations was as\ndeplorable as Carlyle declared, it was yet a remarkable fact for history\nthat all the bright young men and young women in New England, 'quite\nignorant of each other, take the world so, and come and make confession\nto fathers and mothers--the boys, that they do not wish to go into\ntrade; the girls, that they do not like morning calls and evening\nparties. They are all religious, but hate the churches; they reject all\nthe ways of living of other men, but have none to offer in their stead.'\n\nIt is worth while to transcribe from the _Dial_ itself the scene at one\nof the many Bostonian Conventions of that date--the Friends of Universal\nProgress, in 1840:--'The composition of the Assembly was rich and\nvarious. The singularity and latitude of the summons drew together, from\nall parts of New England, and also from the Middle States, men of every\nshade of opinion, from the straightest orthodoxy to the wildest heresy,\nand many persons whose church was a church of one member only. A great\nvariety of dialect and of costume was noticed; a great deal of\nconfusion, eccentricity, and freak appeared, as well as of zeal and\nenthusiasm. If the Assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Madmen,\nmadwomen, men with beards, Dunkers, Muggletonians, Come-outers,\nGroaners, Agrarians, Seventh-day Baptists, Quakers, Abolitionists,\nCalvinists, Unitarians, and philosophers, all came successively to the\ntop, and seized their moment, if not their _hour_, wherein to chide or\npray or preach or protest. The faces were a study. The most daring\ninnovators, and the champions-until-death of the old cause, sat side by\nside. The still living merit of the oldest New England families, glowing\nyet after several generations, encountered the founders of families,\nfresh merit emerging and expanding the brows to a new breadth, and\nlighting a clownish face with sacred fire. The Assembly was\ncharacterised by the predominance of a certain plain sylvan strength and\nearnestness' (_Dial_, iii. 101).\n\nIf the shade of Bossuet could have looked down upon the scene, he would\nhave found fresh material for the sarcasms which a hundred and fifty\nyears before he had lavished on the Variations of the Protestant\nChurches. Yet this curious movement, bleak and squalid as it may seem to\nmen nurtured in the venerable decorum of ecclesiastical tradition, was\nat bottom identical with the yearning for stronger spiritual emotions,\nand the cravings of religious zeal, that had in older times filled\nmonasteries, manned the great orders, and sent wave upon wave of\npilgrims and crusaders to holy places. 'It is really amazing,' as was\nsaid by Franklin or somebody else of his fashion of utilitarianism,\n'that one of the passions which it is hardest to develop in man is the\npassion for his own material comfort and temporal well-being.'\n\nEmerson has put on record this mental intoxication of the progressive\npeople around him, with a pungency that might satisfy the Philistines\nthemselves.[5] From 1820 to 1844, he said, New England witnessed a\ngeneral criticism and attack on institutions, and in all practical\nactivities a gradual withdrawal of tender consciences from the social\norganisations. Calvinists and Quakers began to split into old school and\nnew school. Goethe and the Germans became known. Swedenborg, in spite of\nhis taint of craziness, by the mere prodigy of his speculations, began\n'to spread himself into the minds of thousands'--including in no\nunimportant degree the mind of Emerson himself.[6] Literary criticism\ncounted for something in the universal thaw, and even the genial\nhumanity of Dickens helped to break up the indurations of old theology.\nMost powerful of all was the indirect influence of science. Geology\ndisclosed law in an unsuspected region, and astronomy caused men to\napprehend that 'as the earth is not the centre of the Universe, so it is\nnot the special scene or stage on which the drama of divine justice is\nplayed before the assembled angels of heaven.'\n\n[Footnote 5: _New England Reformers: Essays_, ii. 511-519.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The Swedenborgians--'a sect which, I think, must contribute\nmore than all other sects to the new faith, which must come out of\nall.'--_To Carlyle_, 1834.]\n\nA temper of scrutiny and dissent broke out in every direction. In\nalmost every relation men and women asked themselves by what right\nConformity levied its tax, and whether they were not false to their own\nconsciences in paying it. 'What a fertility of projects for the\nsalvation of the world! One apostle thought that all men should go to\nfarming; and another thought that no man should buy or sell--that use of\nmoney was the cardinal evil; another thought the mischief was in our\ndiet--that we eat and drink damnation. These made unleavened bread, and\nwere foes to the death to fermentation. Others attacked the system of\nagriculture, the use of animal manures in farming, and the tyranny of\nman over brute instinct. These abuses polluted his food. The ox must be\ntaken from the plough, and the horse from the cart; the hundred acres of\nthe farm must be spaded, and the man must walk wherever boats and\nlocomotives will not carry him.... Others assailed particular\nvocations.... Others attacked the institution of marriage as the\nfountain of social evils.... Who gave me the money with which I bought\nmy coat? Why should professional labour and that of the counting-house\nbe paid so disproportionately to the labour of the porter and the\nwoodsawer? Am I not too protected a person? Is there not a wide\ndisparity between the lot of me and the lot of thee, my poor brother, my\npoor sister?'\n\nOne of Emerson's glories is, that while wise enough to discern the peril\nand folly of these excesses, he was under no temptation to fall back. It\nwas giddy work, but he kept his eye on the fixed stars. Certainly\nEmerson was not assailed by the stress of mighty and violent events, as\nBurke and Wordsworth were in some sense turned into reactionaries by the\ncalamities of revolution in France. The 'distemper of enthusiasm,' as\nShaftesbury would have called it, took a mild and harmless form in New\nEngland: there the work in hand was not the break-up of a social system,\nbut only the mental evolution of new ideals, the struggle of an ethical\nrevival, and the satisfaction of a livelier spirit of scruple. In face\nof all delirations, Emerson kept on his way of radiant sanity and\nperfect poise. Do not, he warned his enthusiasts, expend all energy on\nsome accidental evil, and so lose sanity and power of benefit. '_It is\nof little moment that one or two or twenty errors of our social system\nbe corrected, but of much that the man be in his senses._ Society gains\nnothing whilst a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate things\naround him; he has become tediously good in some particular, but\nnegligent or narrow in the rest, and hypocrisy and vanity are often the\ndisgusting result. It is handsomer to remain in the establishment,\nbetter than the establishment, and conduct that in the best manner, than\nto make a sally against evil by some single improvement, without\nsupporting it by a total regeneration.'\n\nEmerson, then, is one of the few moral reformers whose mission lay in\ncalming men rather than in rousing them, and in the inculcation of\nserenity rather than in the spread of excitement. Though he had been\nardent in protest against the life conventional, as soon as the protest\nran off into extravagance, instead of either following or withstanding\nit with rueful petulancies, he delicately and successfully turned a\npassing agitation into an enduring revival. The last password given by\nthe dying Antonine to the officer of the watch was _AEquanimitas_. In a\nbrighter, wider, and more living sense than was possible even to the\nnoblest in the middle of the second century, this, too, was the\nwatchword of the Emersonian teaching. Instead of cultivating the\ntormenting and enfeebling spirit of scruple, instead of multiplying\nprecepts, he bade men not to crush their souls out under the burden of\nDuty; they are to remember that a wise life is not wholly filled up by\ncommandments to do and to abstain from doing. Hence, we have in Emerson\nthe teaching of a vigorous morality without the formality of dogma and\nthe deadly tedium of didactics. If not laughter, of which only\nShakespeare among the immortals has a copious and unfailing spring,\nthere is at least gaiety in every piece, and a cordial injunction to men\nto find joy in their existence to the full. Happiness is with him an aim\nthat we are at liberty to seek directly and without periphrasis.\nProvided men do not lose their balance by immersing themselves in their\npleasures, they are right, according to Emerson, in pursuing them. But\njoy is no neighbour to artificial ecstasy. What Emerson counsels the\npoet, he intended in its own way and degree for all men. The poet's\nhabit of living, he says beautifully, should be set on a key so low\nthat the commonest influences should delight him. 'That spirit which\nsuffices quiet hearts, which seems to come forth to such from every dry\nknoll of sere grass, from every pine-stump and half-embedded stone on\nwhich the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and hungry, and\nsuch as are of simple taste. If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New\nYork, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses\nwith wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in\nthe lonely waste of the pinewoods' (ii. 328).\n\nIt was perhaps the same necessity of having to guide men away from the\ndanger of transcendental aberrations, while yet holding up lofty ideals\nof conduct, that made Emerson say something about many traits of conduct\nto which the ordinary high-flying moralist of the treatise or the pulpit\nseldom deigns to stoop. The essays on Domestic Life, on Behaviour, on\nManners, are examples of the attention that Emerson paid to the right\nhandling of the outer conditions of a wise and brave life. With him\nsmall circumstances are the occasions of great qualities. The parlour\nand the counting-house are as fit scenes for fortitude, self-control,\nconsiderateness, and vision, as the senate or the battlefield. He\nre-classifies the virtues. No modern, for example, has given so\nremarkable a place to Friendship among the sacred necessities of\nwell-endowed character. Neither Plato nor Cicero, least of all Bacon,\nhas risen to so noble and profound a conception of this most strangely\ncommingled of all human affections. There is no modern thinker, again,\nwho makes Beauty--all that is gracious, seemly, and becoming--so\nconspicuous and essential a part of life. It would be inexact to say\nthat Emerson blended the beautiful with the precepts of duty or of\nprudence into one complex sentiment, as the Greeks did, but his theory\nof excellence might be better described than any other of modern times\nby the [Greek: kalokagathia], the virtue of the true gentleman, as set\ndown in Plato and Aristotle.\n\nSo untrue is it that in his quality of Sage Emerson always haunted the\nperilous altitudes of Transcendentalism, 'seeing nothing under him but\nthe everlasting snows of Himalaya, the Earth shrinking to a Planet, and\nthe indigo Firmament sowing itself with daylight stars.' He never thinks\nit beneath his dignity to touch a point of minor morals, or to say a\ngood word for what he somewhere calls subterranean prudence. Emerson\nvalues mundane circumspection as highly as Franklin, and gives to\nmanners and rules of daily behaviour an importance that might have\nsatisfied Chesterfield. In fact, the worldly and the selfish are\nmistaken when they assume that Common Sense is their special and\nexclusive portion. The small Transcendentalist goes in search of truth\nwith the meshes of his net so large that he takes no fish. His\nlandscapes are all horizon. It is only the great idealists, like\nEmerson, who take care not to miss the real.\n\nThe remedy for the break-down of the old churches would, in the mind of\nthe egotist, have been to found a new one. But Emerson knew well before\nCarlyle told him, that 'no truly great man, from Jesus Christ downwards,\never founded a sect--I mean wilfully intended founding one.' Not only\ndid he establish no sect, but he preached a doctrine that was positively\nincompatible with the erection of any sect upon its base. His whole hope\nfor the world lies in the internal and independent resources of the\nindividual. If mankind is to be raised to a higher plane of happiness\nand worth, it can only be by the resolution of each to live his own life\nwith fidelity and courage. The spectacle of one liberated from the\nmalign obstructions to free human character, is a stronger incentive to\nothers than exhortation, admonition, or any sum of philanthropical\nassociation. If I, in my own person and daily walk, quietly resist\nheaviness of custom, coldness of hope, timidity of faith, then without\nwishing, contriving, or even knowing it, I am a light silently drawing\nas many as have vision and are fit to walk in the same path. Whether I\ndo that or not, I am at least obeying the highest law of my own being.\n\nIn the appeal to the individual to be true to himself, Emerson does not\nstand apart from other great moral reformers. His distinction lies in\nthe peculiar direction that he gives to his appeal. All those\nregenerators of the individual, from Rousseau down to J.S. Mill, who\nderived their first principles, whether directly or indirectly, from\nLocke and the philosophy of sensation, experience, and acquisition,\nbegan operations with the will. They laid all their stress on the\nshaping of motives by education, institutions, and action, and placed\nvirtue in deliberateness and in exercise. Emerson, on the contrary,\ncoming from the intuitional camp, holds that our moral nature is\nvitiated by any interference of our will. Translated into the language\nof theology, his doctrine makes regeneration to be a result of grace,\nand the guide of conscience to be the indwelling light; though, unlike\nthe theologians, he does not trace either of these mysterious gifts to\nthe special choice and intervention of a personal Deity. Impulsive and\nspontaneous innocence is higher than the strength to conquer temptation.\nThe natural motions of the soul are so much better than the voluntary\nones. 'There is no such thing as manufacturing a strong will,' for all\ngreat force is real and elemental. In all this Emerson suffers from the\nlimitations that are inseparable from pure spiritualism in all its\nforms. As if the spiritual constitution were ever independent of the\nmaterial organisation bestowed upon the individual at the moment when he\nis conceived, or of the social conditions that close about him from the\ninstant of his birth. The reaction, however, against what was\nsuperficial in the school of the eighteenth century went to its extreme\nlength in Emerson, and blinded his eyes to the wisdom, the profundity,\nand the fruitfulness of their leading speculations. It is enough for us\nto note the fact in passing, without plunging into contention on the\nmerits. All thoughts are always ready, potentially if not actually. Each\nage selects and assimilates the philosophy that is most apt for its\nwants. Institutions needed regeneration in France, and so those thinkers\ncame into vogue and power who laid most stress on the efficacy of good\ninstitutions. In Emerson's America, the fortunes of the country made\nexternal circumstances safe for a man, and his chance was assured; so a\nphilosophy was welcomed which turned the individual inwards upon\nhimself, and taught him to consider his own character and spiritual\nfaculty as something higher than anything external could ever be.\n\nAgain to make a use which is not uninstructive of the old tongue,\nEmerson is for faith before works. Nature, he says, will not have us\nfret and fume. She does not like our benevolences, our churches, our\npauper-societies, much better than she likes our frauds and wars. They\nare but so many yokes to the neck. Our painful labours are unnecessary\nand fruitless. A higher law than that of our will regulates events. If\nwe look wider, things are all alike: laws and creeds and modes of living\nare a travesty of truth. Only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action\nare we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become\nstrong. Our real action is in our silent moments. Why should we be awed\nby the name of Action? 'Tis a trick of the senses.[7]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Essays_: Spiritual Laws, etc.]\n\nJustification by faith has had a savour of antinomianism and\nindifferency ever since the day when Saint Paul so emphatically denied\nthat he made void the law through faith, and said of certain\ncalumniators that their damnation was just. Emerson was open to the same\ncharge, and he knew it. In a passage already quoted, Emerson says\ngood-humouredly that his wife keeps his philosophy from running to\nantinomianism He could not mistake the tendency of saying that, if you\nlook wider, things are all alike, and that we are in the grasp of a\nhigher law than our own will. On that side he only paints over in\nrainbow colours the grim doctrine which the High Calvinist and the\nMaterialistic Necessarian hold in common.\n\nAll great minds perceive all things; the only difference lies in the\norder in which they shall choose to place them. Emerson, for good reason\nof his own, dwelt most on fate, character, and the unconscious and\nhidden sources, but he writes many a page of vigorous corrective. It is\nwholesome, he says, to man to look not at Fate, but the other way; the\npractical view is the other. As Mill says of his wish to disbelieve the\ndoctrine of the formation of character by circumstances--'Remembering\nthe wish of Fox respecting the doctrine of resistance to governments,\nthat it might never be forgotten by Kings nor remembered by subjects, I\nsaid that it would be a blessing if the doctrine of necessity could be\nbelieved by all _quoad_ the characters of others, and disbelieved in\nregard to their own.' So Emerson knew well enough that man's\nconsciousness of freedom, action, and power over outer circumstances\nmight be left to take care of itself, as the practical view generally\ncan. The world did not need him to tell it that a man's fortunes are a\npart of his character. His task was the more far-reaching one of drawing\nthem to recognise that love is the important thing, not benevolent\nworks; that only impure men consider life as it is reflected in events,\nopinions, and persons; that they fail to see the action until it is\ndone, whereas what is far better worth considering is that its moral\nelement prae-existed in the actor.\n\nIt would be easy to show that Emerson has not worked out his answers to\nthese eternal enigmas, for ever reproducing themselves in all ages, in\nsuch a form as to defy the logician's challenge. He never shrinks from\ninconsistent propositions. He was unsystematic on principle. 'He thought\nthat truth has so many facets that the best we can do is to notice each\nin turn, without troubling ourselves whether they agree.' When we\nremember the inadequateness of human language, the infirmities of our\nvision, and all the imperfections of mental apparatus, the wise men will\nnot disdain even partial glimpses of a scene too vast and intricate to\nbe comprehended in a single map. To complain that Emerson is no\nsystematic reasoner is to miss the secret of most of those who have\ngiven powerful impulses to the spiritual ethics of an age. It is not a\nsyllogism that turns the heart towards purification of life and aim; it\nis not the logically enchained propositions of a _sorites_, but the\nflash of illumination, the indefinable accent, that attracts masses of\nmen to a new teacher and a high doctrine. The teasing _ergoteur_ is\nalways right, but he never leads nor improves nor inspires.\n\nAny one can see how this side of the Emersonian gospel harmonised with\nthe prepossessions of a new democracy. Trust, he said, to leading\ninstincts, not to traditional institutions, nor social ordering, nor the\nformulae of books and schools for the formation of character; the great\nforce is real and elemental. In art, Mr. Ruskin has explained the\npalpable truth that semi-civilised nations can colour better than we do,\nand that an Indian shawl and China vase are inimitable by us. 'It is\ntheir glorious ignorance of all rules that does it; the pure and true\ninstincts have play, and do their work; and the moment we begin teaching\npeople any rules about colour, and make them do this or that, we crush\nthe instinct, generally for ever' (_Modern Painters_, iii. 91). Emerson\nsaid what comes to the same thing about morals. The philosophy of\ndemocracy, or the government of a great mixed community by itself, rests\non a similar assumption in politics. The foundations of a self-governed\nsociety on a great scale are laid in leading instincts. Emerson was\nnever tired of saying that we are wiser than we know. The path of\nscience and of letters is not the way to nature. What was done in a\nremote age by men whose names have resounded far, has no deeper sense\nthan what you and I do to-day. What food, or experience, or succour have\nOlympiads and Consulates for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, for the Kanaka\nin his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter? When he is\nin this vein Emerson often approaches curiously near to Rousseau's\nmemorable and most potent paradox of 1750, that the sciences corrupt\nmanners.[8]\n\n[Footnote 8: What so good, asks Rousseau, 'as a sweet and precious\nignorance, the treasure of a pure soul at peace with itself, which\nfinds all its blessedness in inward retreat, in testifying to itself\nits own innocence, and which feels no need of seeking a warped and\nhollow happiness in the opinion of other people as to its\nenlightenment?']\n\nMost men will now agree that when the great fiery trial came, the\nEmersonian faith and the democratic assumption abundantly justified\nthemselves. Even Carlyle wrote to Emerson at last (June 4, 1871): 'In my\noccasional explosions against Anarchy, and my inextinguishable hatred of\n_it_, I privately whisper to myself, \"Could any Friedrich Wilhelm now,\nor Friedrich, or most perfect Governor you could hope to realise, guide\nforward what is America's essential task at present, faster or more\ncompletely than 'Anarchic America' is now doing?\" Such \"Anarchy\" has a\ngreat deal to say for itself.'\n\nThe traits of comparison between Carlyle and Emerson may be regarded as\nhaving been pretty nearly exhausted for the present, until time has\nchanged the point of view. In wit, humour, pathos, penetration, poetic\ngrandeur, and fervid sublimity of imagination, Carlyle is the superior\nbeyond measure. But Emerson is as much his superior in that high and\ntransparent sanity, which is not further removed from midsummer madness\nthan it is from a terrene and grovelling mediocrity. This sanity, among\nother things, kept Emerson in line with the ruling tendencies of his\nage, and his teaching brings all the aid that abstract teaching can,\ntowards the solution of the moral problems of modern societies. Carlyle\nchose to fling himself headlong and blindfold athwart the great currents\nof things, against all the forces and elements that are pushing modern\nsocieties forward. Beginning in his earlier work with the same faith as\nEmerson in leading instincts, he came to dream that the only leading\ninstinct worth thinking about is that of self-will, mastery, force, and\nviolent strength. Emerson was for basing the health of a modern\ncommonwealth on the only real strength, and the only kind of force that\ncan be relied upon, namely, the honest, manly, simple, and emancipated\ncharacter of the citizen. This gives to his doctrine a hold and a prize\non the work of the day, and makes him our helper. Carlyle's perverse\nreaction had wrecked and stranded him when the world came to ask him for\ndirection. In spite of his resplendent genius, he had no direction to\ngive, and was only able in vague and turbid torrents of words to hide a\nshallow and obsolete lesson. His confession to Emerson, quoted above,\nlooks as if at last he had found this out for himself.\n\nIf Emerson stood thus well towards the social and political drift of\nevents, his teaching was no less harmoniously related to the new and\nmost memorable drift of science which set in by his side. It is a\nmisconception to pretend that he was a precursor of the Darwinian\ntheory. Evolution, as a possible explanation of the ordering of the\nuniverse, is a great deal older than either Emerson or Darwin. What\nDarwin did was to work out in detail and with masses of minute evidence\na definite hypothesis of the specific conditions under which new forms\nare evolved. Emerson, of course, had no definite hypothesis of this\nsort, nor did he possess any of the knowledge necessary to give it\nvalue. But it was his good fortune that some of his strongest\npropositions harmonise with the scientific theory of the survival of the\nfittest in the struggle for material existence. He connects his\nexhortation to self-reliance with the law working in nature for\nconservation and growth,--to wit, that 'Power is in nature the essential\nmeasure of right,' and that 'Nature suffers nothing to remain in her\nkingdom which cannot help itself.' The same strain is constantly\naudible. Nature on every side, within us and without, is for ever\nthrowing out new forms and fresh varieties of living and thinking. To\nher experiments in every region there is no end. Those succeed which\nprove to have the best adaptation to the conditions. Let, therefore,\nneither society nor the individual check experiment, originality, and\ninfinite variation. Such language, we may see, fits in equally well with\ndemocracy in politics and with evolution in science. If, moreover,\nmodern science gives more prominence to one conception than another, it\nis to that of the natural universe of force and energy, as One and a\nWhole. This too is the great central idea with Emerson, repeated a\nthousand times in prose and in verse, and lying at the very heart of his\nphilosophy. Newton's saying that 'the world was made at one cast'\ndelights him. 'The secret of the world is that its energies are\n_solidaires_.' Nature 'publishes itself in creatures, reaching from\nparticles and spicula, through transformation on transformation to the\nhighest symmetries. A little heat, that is, a little motion, is all that\ndifferences the bald dazzling white and deadly cold poles of the earth\nfrom the prolific tropical climates.' Not only, as Professor Tyndall\nsays, is Emerson's religious sense entirely undaunted by the discoveries\nof science; all such discoveries he comprehends and assimilates. 'By\nEmerson scientific conceptions are continually transmuted into the finer\nforms and warmer lines of an ideal world.'\n\nThat these transmutations are often carried by Emerson to the extent of\nvain and empty self-mystifications is hard to deny, even for those who\nhave most sympathy with the general scope of his teaching. There are\npages that to the present writer, at least, after reasonably diligent\nmeditation, remain mere abracadabra, incomprehensible and worthless.\nFor much of this in Emerson, the influence of Plato is mainly\nresponsible, and it may be noted in passing that his account of Plato\n(_Representative Men_) is one of his most unsatisfactory performances.\n'The title of Platonist,' says Mill, 'belongs by far better right to\nthose who have been nourished in, and have endeavoured to practise\nPlato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished only\nby the adoption of certain dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from the\nleast intelligible of his works.' Nothing is gained by concealing that\nnot every part of Emerson's work will stand the test of the Elenchus,\nnor bear reduction into honest and intelligible English.\n\nOne remarkable result of Emerson's idealism ought not to be passed over.\n'The visible becomes the Bestial,' said Carlyle, 'when it rests not on\nthe invisible.' To Emerson all rested on the invisible, and was summed\nup in terms of the invisible, and hence the Bestial was almost unknown\nin his philosophic scheme. Nay, we may say that some mighty phenomena in\nour universe were kept studiously absent from his mind. Here is one of\nthe profoundest differences between Emerson and most of those who, on as\nhigh an altitude, have pondered the same great themes. A small trait\nwill serve for illustration. It was well known in his household that he\ncould not bear to hear of ailments. 'There is one topic,' he writes,\n'peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals,\nnamely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept,\nor if you have headache, sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I\nbeseech you by all angels to hold your peace, and not pollute the\nmorning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts,\nby corruption and groans. Come out of the azure. Love the\nday'--(_Conduct of Life_, 159).\n\nIf he could not endure these minor perturbations of the fair and smiling\nface of daily life, far less did he willingly think of Death. Of nothing\nin all the wide range of universal topics does Emerson say so little as\nof that which has lain in sombre mystery at the very core of most\nmeditations on life, from Job and Solon down to Bacon and Montaigne.\nExcept in two beautiful poems, already mentioned, Death is almost\nbanished from his page. It is not the title or the subject of one of his\nessays, only secondarily even of that on Immortality. Love, Friendship,\nPrudence, Heroism, Experience, Manners, Nature, Greatness, and a score\nof other matters--but none to show that he ever sat down to gather into\nseparate and concentrated shape his reflections on the terrifying\nphantom that has haunted the mind of man from the very birth of time.\n\nPascal bade us imagine a number of men in chains and doomed to death;\nsome of them each day butchered in sight of the others; those who\nremained watching their own lot in that of their fellows, and awaiting\ntheir turn in anguish and helplessness. Such, he cried, is the pitiful\nand desperate condition of man. But nature has other cruelties more\nstinging than death. Mill, himself an optimist, yet declares the course\nof natural phenomena to be replete with everything which, when committed\nby human beings is most worthy of abhorrence, so that 'one who\nendeavoured in his actions to imitate the natural course of things would\nbe universally seen and acknowledged to be the wickedest of men.' To man\nhimself, moreover, 'the most criminal actions are not more unnatural\nthan most of the virtues.' We need not multiply from poets and divines,\nfrom moralists and sages, these grim pictures. The sombre melancholy,\nthe savage moral indignation, the passionate intellectual scorn, with\nwhich life and the universe have filled strong souls, some with one\nemotion and some with another, were all to Emerson in his habitual\nthinking unintelligible and remote. He admits, indeed, that 'the disease\nand deformity around us certify that infraction of natural,\nintellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on violation to breed\nsuch compound misery.' The way of Providence, he says in another place,\nis a little rude, through earthquakes, fever, the sword of climate, and\na thousand other hints of ferocity in the interiors of nature.\nProvidence has a wild rough incalculable road to its end, and 'it is of\nno use to try to white-wash its huge mixed instrumentalities, or to\ndress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth\nof a student of divinity.' But he only drew from the thought of these\ncruelties of the universe the practical moral that 'our culture must\nnot omit the arming of the man.' He is born into the state of war, and\nwill therefore do well to acquire a military attitude of soul. There is\nperhaps no better moral than this of the Stoic, but greater\nimpressiveness might have marked the lesson, if our teacher had been\nmore indulgent to the man's sense of tragedy in that vast drama in which\nhe plays his piteous part.\n\nIn like manner, Emerson has little to say of that horrid burden and\nimpediment on the soul, which the churches call Sin, and which, by\nwhatever name we call it, is a very real catastrophe in the moral nature\nof man. He had no eye, like Dante's, for the vileness, the cruelty, the\nutter despicableness to which humanity may be moulded. If he saw them at\nall, it was through the softening and illusive medium of generalised\nphrases. Nor was he ever shocked and driven into himself by 'the immoral\nthoughtlessness' of men. The courses of nature, and the prodigious\ninjustices of man in society, affect him with neither horror nor awe. He\nwill see no monster if he can help it. For the fatal Nemesis or terrible\nErinnyes, daughters of Erebus and Night, Emerson substitutes a\nfair-weather abstraction named Compensation. One radical tragedy in\nnature he admits--'the distinction of More and Less.' If I am poor in\nfaculty, dim in vision, shut out from opportunity, in every sense an\noutcast from the inheritance of the earth, that seems indeed to be a\ntragedy. 'But see the facts clearly and these mountainous inequalities\nvanish. Love reduces them, as the sun melts the iceberg in the sea. The\nheart and soul of all men being one, this bitterness of His and Mine\nceases. His is mine.' Surely words, words, words! What can be more idle,\nwhen one of the world's bitter puzzles is pressed on the teacher, than\nthat he should betake himself to an altitude whence it is not visible,\nand then assure us that it is not only invisible, but non-existent? This\nis not to see the facts clearly, but to pour the fumes of obscuration\nround them. When he comforts us by saying 'Love, and you shall be\nloved,' who does not recall cases which make the Jean Valjean of Victor\nHugo's noble romance not a figment of the theatre, but an all too actual\ntype? The believer who looks to another world to redress the wrongs and\nhorrors of this; the sage who warns us that the law of life is\nresignation, renunciation, and doing-without (_entbehren sollst\ndu_)--each of these has a foothold in common language. But to say that\nall infractions of love and equity are speedily punished--punished by\nfear--and then to talk of the perfect compensation of the universe, is\nmere playing with words, for it does not solve the problem in the terms\nin which men propound it. Emerson, as we have said, held the spirit of\nSystem in aversion as fettering the liberal play of thought, just as in\nmorals, with greater boldness, he rebelled against a minute and cramping\ninterpretation of Duty. We are not sure that his own optimistic doctrine\ndid not play him the same tyrannical trick, by sealing his eyes to at\nleast one half of the actualities of nature and the gruesome\npossibilities of things. It had no unimportant effect on Emerson's\nthought that he was born in a new world that had cut itself loose from\nold history. The black and devious ways through which the race has\nmarched are not real in North America, as they are to us in old Europe,\nwho live on the very site of secular iniquities, are surrounded by\nmonuments of historic crime, and find present and future entangled,\nembittered, inextricably loaded both in blood and in institutions with\ndesperate inheritances from the past.\n\nThere are many topics, and those no mean topics, on which the best\nauthority is not the moralist by profession, as Emerson was, but the man\nof the world. The world hardens, narrows, desiccates common natures, but\nnothing so enriches generous ones. For knowledge of the heart of man, we\nmust go to those who were closer to the passions and interests of actual\nand varied life than Emerson ever could have been--to Horace, Montaigne,\nLa Bruyere, Swift, Moliere, even to Pope. If a hostile critic were to\nsay that Emerson looked at life too much from the outside, as the\nclergyman is apt to do, we should condemn such a remark as a\ndisparagement, but we should understand what it is in Emerson that the\ncritic means. He has not the temperament of the great humorists, under\nwhatever planet they may have been born, jovial, mercurial, or\nsaturnine. Even his revolt against formalism is only a new fashion of\ncomposure, and sometimes comes dangerously near to moral dilettantism.\nThe persistent identification of everything in nature with everything\nelse sometimes bewilders, fatigues, and almost afflicts us. Though he\nwarns us that our civilisation is not near its meridian, but as yet only\nin the cock-crowing and the morning star, still all ages are much alike\nwith him: man is always man, 'society never advances,' and he does\nalmost as little as Carlyle himself to fire men with faith in social\nprogress as the crown of wise endeavour. But when all these deductions\nhave been made and amply allowed for, Emerson remains among the most\npersuasive and inspiring of those who by word and example rebuke our\ndespondency, purify our sight, awaken us from the deadening slumbers of\nconvention and conformity, exorcise the pestering imps of vanity, and\nlift men up from low thoughts and sullen moods of helplessness and\nimpiety.\n\n\n\n\nEND OF VOL. I.\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.","title":"Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5: Emerson","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":14479}