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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014317105
TALKS WITH
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
TALKS WITH
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
BY
CHARLES
J.
WOODBURY
NEW YORK THE BAKER & TAYLOR
CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY
CHARLES
,
J.
WOODBURY.
TO THE YOUTH OF THE LAND
WHO I
BELIEVE you
ASPIRE.
will find herein the
him whom you have never
may have been
to
his
seen, but
who
you already a good genius,
and iaken an unshared
Take
person of
words to
place.
me
as what he would
have said to you.
CHARLES Oakland, Califoknia
J.
WOODBURY.
CONTENTS. PAGE
Meeting Counsel Criticism
—
•••
...
—
—
.-•
...
I
•••
•••
...
105
Transcendentalism ...
•.•
•"•
*"
119 >35
Method
Manhood
37
69
Concord
Presence
'9 ••
...
163
MEETING.
TALKS WITH RALPH WALDO EMERSON. MEETING. WiLLiAMSTOWN, Massachusetts, the home of Williams College, is an ideal village. Here one afternoon in the early autumn of 1865 arrived Ralph Waldo Emerson, unheralded by even so much as a paragraph in the county newspaper.,
As Mr. Emerson was
to lecture the
evening, the situation was awkward.
same
But he
soon was made aware that the group of students, to whose importunity he had listened in
coming, possessed enthusiasm, even
if
they
once there was a Within two hours, our most spacious stir. assembly-room, the Methodist meeting-house,
lacked experience
;
for at
was procured. Placards overflowed the regular student bulletin boards, and blistered every available place, even trespassing upon
TALKS^ WITH
4
preserves
respected
such
library doors
as
the
chapel,
and the fence about the
resi-
dence of Dr. Hopkins, president. Numbers of us ran from house to house notifywhile others rang ing their inhabitants ;
the college and church bells, unconsciously imitating Henry D. Thoreau on an occa-
somewhat similar, years before, in That night all seats were filled. The next morning we waited upon Mr. Emerson with a proposition to give us some more lectures. He consented; and so the sion
Concord.
acquaintance of a day was lengthened into
a week.
Afterward, lectures were under-
taken in North Adams,
When
nigh places.
Pittsfield,
and other
arranging for these, I
had been manner of our atoning for it was too declarative ; for the employment of either learned that, while our offence venial, the
a local agent or preliminary printer's ink was
not permitted. audiences at sions
;
for
all
Nor did
it
appear that his
suffered through these omis-
rumour of
to penetrate these
his nearness was quick neighbourhoods, and his
advent was like the avatar of a master to communion.
My
association
necessarily
threw
with
me
these
with
his
appearances
Mr. Emerson.
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. From
the
first
5
he had encouraged me, and
his
instruction substituted for the time that of
the College.
Nor
manner and
interest
did he abate his fatherly-
after I had achieved a beard, but was unalterably kind for the five years after that I occasionally
Thus much
for these external matters that
are but of interest to
From
met him.
show
my right
him, I have no right.
to speak.
Mr. Emerson
had never a thought of, and, a fortiori, gave no permission for this publication. And yet certain that I betray nothing
and violate Every intercourse carries experience and words that are not renewable. A few of Mr. Emerson's by their own weight and personality sought depths whence they could not emerge. These would it is
no
spirit
of confidence.
only gratify the inquisition of the curious, and
belong to the domain of silence.
It is
the
broad and human tone which makes the
uncommon man by
us.
interesting to us
Conspicuously was
Mr. Emerson, because habitually employed.
it
and desired
this the case with
was the tone he he was aware,
It is true
especially during our earlier association, that I was in the habit of preserving and once when I remarked that
his it
speech
ought
to
Talks with
6
have a larger public, he answered that there should be among all who would " ascend, a helpful companionship; and that which is really
This
a good for one will be so for more."
is illustrative
my
of his attitude which con-
I have written for and that of gratitude; and I believe he would have me give to others that which was most generous and helpful to me. The fact is, he had nothing to withhold, and generally addressed me as if I were stitutes
love's
sanction.
sake,
wholly impersonal, a sort of invisible audience (an absence from the spectrum wholly desirable
now)
exclusive,
;
and
it
provided
was not his
like
him
to
be
reproduction pre-
served accuracy and faithfulness.
About this, happily, there is little doubt. At one and twenty, the emotions are not encysted and so little was containment possible, that I found myself in the intervals of :
our meetings
reviving
their
transports.
I
was delighted to discover that his language came back to me without loss or change. It
seemed as if my pen was a reed, through which breathed upon the paper his monologue, with the
physical impression
accent, dress, gait, and manner.
And
of his so the
boy's journals are themselves a curiosity to
Ralph Waldo Emerson. the
unreceptive
man
Emerson always talked
hamhe
trick
of
forty-five.
and
Mr.
words of impressing themsel^'es which slowly,
his
belongs to happy s^elejÂąioiix,butit was mainly
because his speech was so wise and sincere,
and came from the depths of that
own
his
heart,
has sunken so dqepinJxuiiijie;___From
it
and from some such habit may it not have been that the two contemporary gospel writers were able to reproduce the words of Jesus ? It has been impossible, of course, to print
some such
cause,
of immediate revival,
and the subsequent records as they To do so would create confusion, for
these stand.
conversations are not methodical
;
and, in so
long a period and to an uninformed youth,
many
would be discoursed upon
subjects
more than
The reader, come upon the
once.
not expect to
therefore, will
statements in
their succession.
Moreover, I have attempted a slight arrangement of the subjects, which has neces-
and associations. But and no transposition has been permitted when to do so would affect the Someprimitive meaning and intention. times these are obscure, and once or twice sitated
this
the
is
separations
all
;
speaker
has
anticipated
or
quoted
-
Talks with
8
But even here, the words being
himself.
invariably authentic, I have refrained from let them would be his way. The address is to an audience which will come to just comparisons and conclu-
the annotating pencil, preferring to stand, bethinking myself that
and recognize
sions,
it
that the object
is less
give a bundle of reminiscences than a
view of the I
man
is
himself.
hope no reader will
transgress the
fore,
I
and not bring,
to
in
feel that the
Much
title.
unspoken, and yet
course,
to
new
is
that a
says
essentially his inter-
be suppressed.
the
contents
man
Where-
concluding chapters,
and manner such suggesaccompanied Mr. Emerson's words ; and the effects of his fine contagion on one who had neither theories or prepossessions. These immediate and memories
of. air
;
of personality as
tions
inevitable impressions, illustrated still
by
his
own
his breath in the
made by
his contact,
words, are they not lute,
still
his
silent
talks ?
It remains, perhaps, to explain the
date for these loitering memories.
they ushered so late or at will tell their
own
story
all ?
and
I
man-
Why
are
hope they
furnish adequate
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
g
But some word of apology seems
reason.
appropriate, especially
when
Edward Emerson has
delighted us with his
so recently Mr.
no other, and what be regarded the official and authentic life of Emerson (Cabot's) has been published a work beyond comparison, genuine, copious, satisfying, and which justifies the wise choice,of its subject. Conceived in his own society, it has been gift
obtainable from
must
ever
—
executed with marvellous
fidelity to his
wish
and reproduces with exactness his firm and sincere accent, impressive by contrast with the vague and extreme language of too many of his followers and interpreters and
spirit,
when speaking of him. One feels that the book would have his endorsement, and it could have no higher. The portrait is gladly and thankfully accepted as the most faithful of those which have been painted by
of
all
so
many
loving hands.
It
is,
portrait than a photograph.
perhaps, less a
The high
stature
and the lineaments, but are there not absent a colour and warmth ? Somehow it seems as if we miss the light that
is
present, the figure
drew us to him (but than ours that
it is
it
is
supplied)
less for his
—as
son we knew has been foreign
if
the
sake
Emer
to his bio-
Talks with
lo
and could not be gathered from posthumous papers. Though he was inapt to distinguish between
grapher, his
(being concerned mainly with
his hearers
own thought), yet it was not possible for him to be the same to his equals in age and
his
experience that he would be to a young of limited knowledge of
—
have given what they got education, example. But his still
He
stores, nurture,
gift to us,
while
embracing these, was something deeper. did not so
periences
much
bring facts and ex-
he became himself
as
experience to life,
man
His memoirists
life.
us,
and
fact
entering into the source of
and penetrating
at
once the region of
motive.
From
his
neighbourhood, one always with
turned reinvigorated,
and sometimes even
ecstacies,
re-
moods,
choice
which carried
those of extreme aesthetic sympathies and deficient ratiocinative feet.
He knew
prostrating
moments
destroy intellectual
powers quite off
well
the
that assault
life
their
and and often
wearying
at its very birth, the
haunting longing and aspirations, the vague unrest
and
insurrections which characterize
the passage forth from immaturity
;
condensed the vapour into
His pre-
rain.
and he
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
ii
sence broke the shards of the will and con-
Nothing came afterwards had come before and our
centrated the man. precisely as
new
it
;
eyes saw that things are not entitled to
It may be became obsolete, but With his coming, this could be corrected. He adolescence ended and virility began.
respect simply because they are. that too often the old
aroused the best elements of the soul, agitated it
to
its
depth, and precipitated
He
intellectual principle.
first
all
had of
it
taught us to
think, and_ who_can_.fQrget--th&-
openeF of
—
The dawn- of life to the mind is a greatgr„boon one human being can
that door ?
there
receixfeJioift another?
unto
it,
there one like
Is
dawn,of love to thp hpart
excepit the
?
Acquisitions, knowledge, training, even, can
only assume a place after
it.
Liberty radiated
Then every
his presence.
from
interview
was'an' emancipation. Especially, can any personality be imagined more irritating and urging to the young and arable mind
So
it is
son that that I
would give
I
am
?
a youth's experience of Mr. Emertoo
much
early associations
experiences ticularly to
may
them
;
to youth.
It
may be
tethered by these strong
and maturer he came par-
that foreign insist that
(as
each of Vishnu's sixteen
— Talks with
12
thousand wives believed the god was peculiarly hers alone)
plainer
but to
;
me
it
has grown
these years that there was a divine
all
appointment in the recording of these
talks
to a youth, that he belonged to the,:SBung
They were
men. spirit
;
the natural vehicle of his
largely made up _Jiis and replenished them when they^
they always
audiences,
were. low; they were ever ready to second him, soonest to greet and warinest to praise his
latest
they opened the him when elders would
deliverance
Divinity Schools for
;
held them closed ; they supported The Dial most eagerly, and gladly followed
have
further the brilliant heresiarch, his
not yet gray.
How many
own
hair
of his addresses
were delivered before colleges to which he was constantly summoned from New England
and Virginia
to the farther West, during the
years 1837 to 1879
Amusing
?
yet illustrative are the words of
the Worcester, Massachusetts, youth " We ought to go and hear such a that, just to
And
I
man
as
encourage him."
remember those winter
night rides
of the Harvard students to his open evenings.
So
all
young men heard him
greedily, insti-
gated and supported his Apprentices', Uni-
—
—
—
Ralph Waldo Emerson. versity, theological
at
home and
and
13
literary lecturing
both
abroad, finally culminating in
the invitation of the Independents of Glasgow-
him to accept the candidature for the Lord Rectorship, and polling for him five hundred votes. His spirit of kinship to all young manhood breathed from his person in public and
inviting
And he
recognized
vitalized his
page.
His
were invariably clear and just
feelings
"brave young men,"
to his
his
it.
"nigh starving
and "heroic boys," as he called " I cannot easily say no to them," he them. said and so he wrote from England to Miss youth,"
;
Hoar " I have, however,
spondents
young
—you
some youthful
know my
gentlemen,
in
failing
corre-
— friendly
different
parts
of
Britain."
And "
to
Miss Peabody parish is young
My special
their
men
inquiring
way of life."
And "As
to Carlyle usual, at this season of the year, I,
incorrigible spouting
Yankee,
am
writing
an
oration to deliver to the boys in one of the little
country colleges,
["The Method of
nine
days
hence.
Nature," before the Society
Talks with
14
of the Adelphi, Waterville College, Maine, August II, 1 84 1. J You will say I do not
Oh,
deserve the help of any Muse.
knew how places
!
natural
it
Besides, I
the hope of saying
you
if
me to run to these always am lured on by is
to
something which
shall
by the good boys." Even up to the confines of age, when he receded into the shadow of its eclipse, and when an increased desire to economize the time as it grew short, and to mint some of stick
the metal so slowly hoarded, interrupted the tranquillity with
tomed was
which he had been accus-
to give himself to all comers,
compelled
to
refuse
philosophers and savants,
and he
admittance
to
some of whom
had journeyed a long way to see him, he did not deny himself to young men. Then, as always,
he was
to
them,
uniformly open and kindly.
it
is
admitted,
He may
declined exhausting interviews with
have
manhood
and age coming to compare, to judge, or to criticize ; and with lotophagi whose dream he had no longer the energy to awaken. But to youth there was due this larger loyalty He knew what he was tc of sympathy. them. They held one another. So has he not come to all who have Life to seek, spirits
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
15
of the morning sort everywhere, and carried
them whither they would not have found the way? Well do
I
remember
his tender, shrewd,
saw it in that summer now so long ago that one might grow from child to manhood, which was not like any wise face, as I
other, because
it
first
brought
penury, and to translate
me to face my own my own enigmas.
Almost before we were alone he had made me forget in whose presence I stood. He was merely an old, quiet, modest gentleman, pressing me to a seat near him, and all at once talking about college matters, the new gymnasium, the Quarterly ; and from these about books and reading and writing ; and all as if he continually expected as much as I, wonted to the distance dehe gave. manded by the College Faculty, found it difficult to
a it
trait
of
understand
first
this.
I regarded
to disappear.
ways.
hills,
the
and comradry inspired so it was ever after no
cir-
heartiness
And
as
But the next day, on our
walk to Greylock and the Berkshire
same
it
meeting, and was prepared for
—
his
cumstances so varying, but, whether I saw bim- alone or in the presence of others, there was the ever ready welcome shining in
6
Talks with
1
his eyes, the
same manifest gentleness^and^
preference
persistent
of others,
s^xSQ.
hired
strangers.
remember one
I
day, visiting the Natural
Bridge near North Adams, Massachusetts, we
employed an old man who lived in the vicinity and I could not but notice how kind and gracious and ready to serve Mr. Emerson was the same flavour of look, accent, and phrase which I noticed in his as a guide,
—
conversation with the College Professors.
came from
were under the peculiar formation
"The Causeway,"
It
While we
the heart of the man.
called
I remarked, as indicative
my companion, how examined the quality and
of the radical nature of indefatigably he strata of the
age,
rock to determine
its
comparative
and the thoroughness with which he
studied every fissure, even
down
to the beryl
and emerald pools at the base of the cliff; as if, indeed, he were soon to be called upon to
make
a report about
it.
He
could not
But while he simple secrets, he
take even a walk superficially.
was mastering the bridge's
listened to the old guide's garrulous talk about his
own
needs, and was soon telling
person living two miles away
him of a
who probably
could furnish the desired occupation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. "You must know said
him," Mr.
17
Emerson
and, taking a slip of paper, he wrote a
;
note to his friend, and gave acquaintance,
who then
it
to our
new
expressed a desire
to see his benefactor after the presentation
of the note, fearful that the call might not
prove successful. " Very well," was the reply
you
;
"
my day is
for
one o'clock any time next week." so from others whom I have met, who
after
And
knew him,
have learned how many
I
piloted
thus
lives
to gift-bringing natures
;
he
how
constantly he_ followed this practice of ac-
quainting himself with the needs (not desires) -_of -persons, and then bringing them together for
mutual advantage.
my own
In heart
first.
case his kindly craft
The encouraging
won
the
eyes must have
seen during our earlier days together so many but he seemed unconscious of ill weeds ;
them. ing,
How
and
it was after our first greetwhat personal effluence in
long
after
gradual talk and delightful reminiscence that one day he fell to it ; and, beginning with a lecture
on composition, which was a clean instructions which the
departure from the
haibeen giving us for two years,-ended with -wÂŤds -which showed Professors oÂŁRhetoric
me
the hght of his
life
!
COUNSEL.
—
—
COUNSEL. [Although given here as one interview, the reader will understand that
it
was
not.
The
conversation
dealt with Counsel, but I have gathered here every-
thing
\!s\3X
Mr. Emerson said of that nature.]
It was in ray own room that, glancing up at some "Laws of Writing" * on the wall, he
began abruptly "
A sensibility
sion for
its
some men
to the beautiful and a pasforms cause such a stirring in
that they seek to reproduce
they have seen. It has various
This
is
modes of
expression.
art.
Paint-
statuary, music, translate readily.
ing,
what
the attitude of
The
• It these
may not be amiss to reproduce here' such of " Laws " as received Mr. Emerson's approval :
Write not at all unless you have something new. II. Write it, and not before, behind, and about it. I.
III.
Have nothing
secondly, or thirdly.
of plan visible
Show
—
^no firstly,
or
the body, not the liga-
ments. IV.
Do no
mologically.
violence to words.
Use them
ety-
Talks with
22 song
the
is
Composition arbitrary
and
and poem combined.
music is less
natural.
Its
symbols are
This makes
artificial
it
exact-
Composition should stand at the apex a pyramid of mental gymnastics.
ing.
in
"
The most interesting writing is
that which
does not quite satisfy the reader. leave a better writers
little
for is,
thinking for
The
both.
him ;
trouble
they spread too thin.
is
as quick as they
is
ready and waiting.
;
Try and
that will be
with
The
most reader
has got there before, and
A little
guessing does
him no harm, so I would assist him with no connections. If you can see how the harness fits, he can. But make sure that you see
it.
"
Then you should start with no skeleton The natural one will grow as you Knock away all scaffolding. Neither work. have exordium or peroration. What is it you are vreiting for, any way ? Because you have something new to say ? It is the test of the universities, and I am glad you have made it or plan.
yours.
We
don't want pulse with
no legumes.
To make anew and not from others is a grand thing. You can always tell when the thing is new it speaks for itself. And even ;
among
the unlettered,
it
declares well enough
Ralph Waldo Emerson. From
and strong enough.
23
this is the pro-
true, and make Without such sanction, no one
But add
jection of idioms.
sure of this.
should write. "
Then what
place.
Say
is it ?
Don't lead up to hearer down from
it
That
it.
&rjLitjwith
it
all
tiy to let
to
is
gooJ expressions. Speak
it
1
your
be common-
the grace
Be
you can, and stop.
Out with
!
Don't
!
and
force
familiar only with in your
own natural
Then, and_Jhen only, can you be Let your treatise be yourself, so Interesting. way.
your friends
will say,
" Expression
is
wrote
'
the
main
unweariedly for that which
You
be dissuaded. logically.
Yes, pull
is
that.'
fight.
Search
Do
exact.
not
know words etymothem apart; see how
say,
made; and use them only where Avoid adjectives^ J^ettiie noun they fit. da—iljework. The adj ectivemtroduces they are
sound,
gives
an unexpected
turn,
and so
often mars with an unintentional false note.
Most
fallacies
are
fallacies
of
language.
Definitions save a deal of debate. " Neit her concern yourself about sistency.
The moment you
con-
putty and plaster
hang together, y pur expresmcmaJQjnakethem you have begun a weakening process. Takq
Talks with
24 it
for granted the truths will
as for the falsities
and
harmonize ; and
mistakes, they will
\i you must be be clean and sharp as
speedily die of themselves. contradictory, let
it
'
the two blades _of scissors meetT^ " Are your theses given, oFSo you select ?
enough rarely for practice to treat on a suggested subject. But such writing is at its origin derived and a peril. Ou^_of_ It is well
your-owH-selfL.sheuld
come your theme
;
and
only thus can your genius be"yfflr friend. Eloquence, by which I mean a statement so
luminous as to render is
all
~
others unnecessary,
only possible on a self-originated subject.
"Don't run -aftei-ideas. them, and you
will
have
all
Save and nourish you should enter-
tain. They will come fast enough, and keep you busy. " Reading is closely related tj) writing. While the mind is plastic there shauld—be
care as to
should
its
inspiring, exact. less
impressions.
come from
nature,
Later in
The new fresh,
facts
buoyant,
lifiST-witeH-tiiere. is
danger of imitating those traits_o£_ex-
pression through which information has been
may be gleaned from^a^wjHer But now you shall not read these
received, facts field.
books "
—pointing—" Prescott~or Bancroft or
_
;
Ralph Waldo Motley.
Prescott
croft reads
is
Emerson^.
25
a thorough man.
Ban-
enormously, always understands
Motley
his subject.
is
painstaking, but too
So are they all. Their style Neither of them lifts himself off his They have no lilt in them. You
mechanical. slays. feet.
noticed the marble
remember
we have
that marble
lized limestone?
You
just seen ?
nothing but crystal-
is
some
Well,
never
writers
ge airy. from you. Walk
get out of the limestone condition,
Let your characters breathe
upon the ground,J)ut,aot_tQ fine
power,
nently the French. in
sink.
Some men have
this.
How
it
a
It is it,
promi-
manifests itself
Montaigne, especially Cotton's translation,
and in Urquhart's Rabelais '
alone of the Germans has
Thoreau had
it;
'
it ;
!
Grimm almost Borrow had
and James Wilson
it
— some-
times.
"Keep close
torealitieSi^JDietiLyou accus-
tom yourself to getting facts at first hand. If we could get all our facts so, there would,bs but they give us no necessity ior books facta, if we know how to use them; they ;
are the granaries of thought as well.
"
Read those men who
are not lazy
;
who
putJhemselves into contact with the realities.. So you learn to look with your eyes too. ^^-i.
;
Talks with
26
And do
not forget the Persian, Parsee, and Hindoo religious books the Avesta, Vendidad, and the rest books of travel, too. And when you travel, describe what you see. That will teach you what to see. Read those who wrote about facts from a new point of
—
;
view.
The atmosphere
you, even
if
of such authors helps
the reasoning has been a mistake
such a book as 'Vestiges of Creation,' for instance.
"
For
later philosophical studies, I
would
recommend writers like Bacon and Berkeley. They have been friends to me. I see you have Sharon Turner. going man, and you
He may
is
a thorough-
trust
him, even
no authority save his own. Plutarch, of course, you know. And I am glad to see him here. there is Darwin And you must read George Borrow's book think he meant [I about the gypsies. " Lavengro."] He went among them, lived among them, and was a gypsy himself.
when he
talks with
!
There is nothing from second sources, nor any empiricism in his book. You can rely upon everything, and it is quaintly told. From such as he you learn not to stop until you encounter the fact with your own hand j to search by all shows, and learn just how it
—
Ralph Waldo Emerson. Though
stands.
27
the reward of the market
in the thing done, the true
reward
is
is
in the
doing.
" Avoid '
all
second-hand borrowing books
Collections of
,'
'
Beauties of
,'
etc.
you have some on your shelves. I would burn them. No one can select the
I see
beautiful passages of another for beautiful for
him
wedding your
—well
aspirations, will
of beauty to you.
"
Do
Do
yoa
It is
Another thought,
!
be the thing
your own quarrying.
not attempt to be a great reader, and
read for facts and not by the bookful.
You
must know about ownership in facts. What another sees and tells you is not yours, but his. If you had seen it, you would not have seen what he did, and, even less, what he tells.
Your only
can about lights.
ran
it,
Ke gp
relief is to find out all
and look
at
it
you
in all possible
your eyss_open_jaiid-see-all you
whpn
the right man, que^So learn to divine books, to feel those that you want-wit-hottt-wasting-muah time over them. Remember you must know only the excellent of all that has been presented. But often a chapter is enough. The glance reveals when the gaze obscures. Someti
;
pTiH
on him
ynii get
close.
where the author has hidden
his message.
— Talks with
28
Find-Jtj-and-skiy-the-paragrag hs that do jiot talk to you."
Upon my particular rarely
pressing
and
successful
—
avoided them
him
— he
for directions
hated
"Well, learn how to
and
details,
a moment's
he, after
continued as follows
tion,
more
a process which was
practical,
hesita-
:
from the begin-
tell
nings of the chapters and from glimpses of
need
sentences whether you
the
them
entirely through.
page,
keepi^
but not
read
to
So turn page a fter
the writer !s-thniight befoie-you,
tarrying
with him,
untiL-
he
—
^ha^
brought you to the thing you_axe_in_jear6h''' of; then^weliwith him,
you want. start
if so be heha^jvliat;;;^-' BuTTfeCOltecrjoi-eftly-Tead^ '
your own "teamT^
" Newspapers- have done breviate expression,
and so
much
to
to
improve
ab-
style.
They
are to occupy during your generation a
large
share
of attention.
[This was
if
said
It
was as
he saw ahead the blanket editions.]
And
nearly a quarter of a century ago.
most studious and engaged men can only neglect them at his cost. But have little to do with them. Learn how to get the
their best too, without their getting yours.
Do
not read them when the
mind
is
creative.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. And do
29
not read them thoroughly, column
by column.
RememBer
they are
made
everybodj;jjiid don't try to get what
meant for you. The miscellany,
for
isn't
for instance,
should not receive your attention.
There
is
a great secret in knowing what to keep out of the mind as well as what to put in. And
even
if
you find yourself interested in the you cannot use them, because the
selections,
original source
is
not of reference.
You
from a newspaper. Like some The insects, it died the day it was b'om. genuine news is what you want, and practice can't quote
quick searches for so
many minutes
it.
will learn to avoid the
anticipations,
Give yourself only
for the paper.
and the
who have nothing
Then you
premature reports and stuff
put in for people
to think.
" Readiiig_iong_at one time anything, no matter how.it. fascinates, destroys thought as completely as the- inflections forced by .
external causes.
Do
not permit
this.
Stop
you find yourself^ becoming absorbed, at even the first paragraph. Keep yourselLout and_watcil,^. your own impresaioJiS.. This if
one of the norms of thought. And you accumulate facts in proportion as you become a fact. Otherwise you will accumuis
will
Talks with
30
Information
late dreams.
man
is
nothing, but the ~
behind
"
it.
"So you cannot make too much of yourself.
How many do you made up mainly of fragments But follow your own star, and it
It is all there is of you.
know who of others
are
?
you to that which nonc-athet-ean is suicide. .You-ÂŤÂŤst4ake yourself for better or for worse as ^^aur-porwill lead
attaS tion.
Imitation
A man
.
can only
get,
an extemporized
half-possession of another's gift
came wholly
natural from
of the best grace and air
from the borrower.
him
;
and what
has, in spite
skill,
an impertinent
The
elder sentiment
not thus keep the elder fire. " I commiserate any one who is subject to
will
the misery of being overplaced.
stands over
what he
says.
Assist this tendency
nothing can defeat. all
What he
is
him and thunders, and denies which
Yield not one inch to
make you an That is the sin of dogmatism and Avoid them ; they build a fence
the forces which conspire to
echo. creeds.
about the intellect
"You know
are anxious about your career.
without
college boy
is.
yourself what
your
telling
me.
I
Every
You think you can study out you are best fitted for ? No.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
31
But you remember our stance with Professor over in the chemical laboratory yester-
,
day; how he took a substance and
tried
it
with others, one after another, until he dis-
So a man finds by what he can do best Each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do some-
covered the affinity? trying
Here on your
thing impossible to any other.
Who
shelf is Fdnflon.
can make his pale
Fenelonism but he ? " By working, doing
others
for
you make the greatest
gain.
simul-
own work,
taneously with the doing of your
That
generous giving or losing of your
life
is
the
which
Don't put
this^ aside until you are That is slow death. Have something practical on your hands, it makes
saves
more
it.
'
at liberty.
small matter what, at once. position to the it.
is
first
It is
of doing
right
you
thing that
all
dis-
Turn hand and do
comes
to
things thoroughly__JBy=and^by that_
he has_ done one thing
and soon it is plain one thing which he alone can do.
better tHan his mates
And
your
a great thing to get into the habit
one discovers that there
If
will sele t well.
is
;
actfoii is the natural
sion of thought, to be preferred.
its
and noble expres-
chef cTceuvre ;
Make
it is
certain that
always
you have
Talks with
32 yours
—not something, but your own.
remember the
Do you
among the legends of witch who was brewing
story
Arthur about the
the liquid which should open the eyes of the people
all
How some drops spattered into
?
the eyes of the serving-boy,
who thereupon
incontinently fled, divining that he was to be
Were
slain?
eyes anointed,
all
how many
would be kept on one's own pot ? So live in a clean and clear loyal ty to your own affair.
Do^ot
how ~ Then true and come_ to..ygUj andr-
anqther'Sj,jiojnatter
let
tempt you away.
attractive,
surprising
revelations, _
experiences resembling the manifestations.of
genius; the
first-
charaeteristie -of ~w-lMch-.is„„
veracity; the. ..second, -S,urpris£.;_the. -third,
spontaneity i„the_faujd;h,—sensibility— to—the
laws of the universe.— Xjeniuscan see the ..
event as well in front as behind_;,_it Jells
where the as after
city ought. to stand.aajKell_before built.
it is
"And
to
build
the
city
is
accomplishment, not to possess are so
many who
being
anything.
the it.
great
There
are content to be without
Opportunities
who use them.
approach
Even" thougKls cease "by^and-by to; visitrthe idle and "—after a pause " the perverse. But sudden and unonly those
—
— Ralph Waldo Emerson.
33
foreseen helps and continued encouragement are vouchsafed to the devout worker.
For
God
He
is
everywhere, having His
cannot be
His
as did
Him
baffled.
son.
will,
and
Make His business yours, The man who works with
constantly assured of achievement
is
and the
melioration
of
the
race.
Such
equipment the scholar needs.
"Be
choice in your friendships.
You can
have but few, and the number will dwindle Select minds who are as^_yoS-^rQW older. too strong and large to pretend to knowledge
and resources they do not really possess. They address you sincerely." As he rose to go, we saw from the little door of the Hermitage* the spire of the chapel in the gathering dark. " How many faiths are there
in
this
village?" he asked, as he descended the steps.
Before the
I
could reply, trying to
number of
call to
mind
churches, I heard his quiet
voice again * There was near the rear of Professor Albert Hopkins' garden an isolated, octagon-shaped, brick structure formerly used as n. magnetic observatory, but in my time known as the "Hermitage," and rented by the college to any student who would
occupy
it.
n
—
"
;;
Talks with
34
"Three thousand,
of Williamstown
village
hundred people;
five
hundred
three thousand, five
in the
faiths
yours
Let
!
not
come from tradition. Life is awry at best. The effort should be evermore to widen the circle,
so as to admit ventilation.
spirit,
and second
and
spirit,
third
Seek first and ever-
!
more spirit About poetry he uttered the following suggestions, occasioned by the criticism of some Class-day rhymes :
" I suppose you read your verses over after
they are written ÂŤ Generally."
?
"
" I suppose, then, after a
they grow
little
"
old to you ? " Indeed, they do."
"And
you continue to
If after a
write.
long time you look any of your lines over,
and you come to one, or a succession, and say to yourself, That is good,' it is good '
from which this must be withheld. The me is the judge, after all; and if a thing seems good I can symto me, it shall to my fellows. pathize with the desire for outward confirmabut
destroy
everything
verdict
tion
he
;
'
still,
shall
the poet
is
his
own
'
assurance
be conscious of himself.
If
you
— Ralph Waldo Emerson.
35
have a sensitive and poetic soul, thank God for it -It -is- not yours,, save as. a gift. The highest and truest utterances of the poet are
not
Po gtryT^TJihd here he
his.
lapsed into
manner of reverie as if all hearers were far away, "whether it comes in dreams or in gleams, is noble. It must serve no sordid that
uses
;
it is
Then,
of the above."
after
a pause
" Did I not see Montaigne
among your
books the other day? You shall not read Montaigne and be a poet. "You must keep some fact-books for poetry. I think that they are
Greek
much more nearly related
than rhyme or rhythm.
to poetry
Study
for expression; but the poetic /a<r^
half the battle.
is
Nature, gathered in by the
sensitive soul, forms the furniture of the poet.
Look out at this Indian summer. There something hygienic in the blue of it ; it the mountains' its
air.
From
own the
is is
EySQLEIJcs has
colour. locality
of Rome, for
instance, emanates such an air that the finest
men grow
inspired
by
it,
and want
to live
there always.
" Did you ever think about the logic of stimulus?
Nature supplies her own.
astonishing what she will do,
if
It is
you give her
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
"
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Talks with Emerson.
36
a chance.
how
In
a time will she
short
revive the over-tired brain
A breath under
!
the apple-tree, a siesta on the grass, a whiff
of wind, an interval of retirement, and the
balance and serenity are restored. creature
needs so
readily
There
!
is
A clean
and responds so
little
something as miraculous as
the gospels in it
Later in
comes a
Occasionally, the gentle
stimulus.
excitation of a
cup of
own
tea
is
life,
society be-
A mind
needed.
by which, without permanent injury, it makes rapid rallies and Conversation is an enjoys good moods. excitant, and the series of intoxications it But tobacco, tobacco creates is healthful. what rude crowbar is that with which to pry invents
its
tonics,
into the delicate tissues of the brain
!
met Mr. Emerson in the West, and mentioned in the conversation a bit of exciting experience among the Tennessee mountains, which drew from him the Years
after,
I
following
" What tonic can be more inspiriting and healthful than
an adventure ?
to the blood all
its
youth."
It gives
back
CRITICISM
CRITICISM.
A
GROUP of Students were in the habit of assembling in one of the larger college-rooms for
purposes of practice in debate
afternoon Mr. Emerson
came
and one
;
quietly in (but
not without having been solicited time and again).
He
refused to permit the discussion
on a sofa, he gave straight attention to the speakers. It was our custom to appoint at the beginning to stop, but, seating himself
of each session a
critic to
perform at
the duties indicated by the name.
abbreviated exercises intercession,
its
close
After the
were ended,
at
Mr. Emerson, from his
our seat,
some comment, ending in the announcement of certain laws of criticism which undoubtedly prescribed his own attitude and offered
method. I well his
remember the shrewd
opening words disclosed.
we were
to hear
listening that
How
surprised
him even repeat the names
of two or three (of previous acquaintance
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
!
Talks with
40
with him, however)
who had spoken
after
his arrival
"
Why
should not," he asked, "advantages like
commodities?
sufficient for all
your speeches
be bartered
little
B
fluency from
earnestness from
A
Let
rightly distributed.
,
If this
and B
and
the one a energy,
some
bit of
A
's
could be accom-
accuracy.
plished,
C
who might make a
good investment by securing a spare
they are
purchase a
and
,
X
You have if
C
exchange,
abundant you would have a most excellent little
logic for the other's
debate." After a few words more in the same humorous and good-natured strain, he continued more gravely "I was interested in your critic's report. But there are nine of you here ; then there
should be nine
critics.
It
is
possible that
you associate a wrong meaning with this word. I observed that your critic noted such minutiae as that a certain word was pronounced wrong ; that a plural verb followed a single
made
nominative
;
that a
gesture
was
with the index finger instead of the
open hand;
that a speaker stood with his
feet six inches apart instead
of two.
So you
Ralph Waldo Emerson. regard the speeches as so
many
You
ing these things
mensely more. to
and
targets,
listen to pick flaws, to find faults
inaccuracies.
41
and
little
gain something in mark-
but you lose
alone,
im-
Criticism should not imply
you such a watching
hostility of thought,
out, for that begets
a closing of the mind to
the natural impulsions of the speech,
lest it
be influenced by them; and indulgence
in
the silent rehearsing of premature rejoinders.
You
are chiefly here, I take
of method, manner, style
;
it,
for the study
then you should
project yourselves into sympathy
speaker
;
make
certain that
with the
you receive
his
and receive it well ; put yourself in his place ; try and see why he sees as he does ; and then proceed outward to investigate his sentiments and their expreseffort
;
receive
it all,
Remember,
sion.
isolated points
is
all
criticism dealing with
superficial.
The
prevailing
thought and disposition are your main care. " Then seek what is characteristicaL Get the method of the man ; the way in which he tries to develop and impress his idea. Attend closely to the quality of the matter presented. It is
an index of the speaker's originality and and therefore of his ability to impress
culture,
others.
"-
Talks with
42
"When
your attention is held without from yourself; when you are conscious of thoughtfulness, achange of opinion working effort
within
— then
all
fault,
The genuine
are the thoughts
it
intonation,
Lay hold of
emphasis, pronunciation. secret.
Your speaker
attend, attend.
Overlook
has power.
his
impressions of a speech
immediately arouses, and
these are the sources of true critical activity
!
do not think of Mr. Emerson as primarily His was not generally the posture a critic. indicated by the word. He was familiar with I
the laws that determine excellence of form,
but sincerity and the satisfaction of the moral '~
sense constituted his criterion.
—
and main attention of men to one another is to listen and be taught," he said ; " and we are continually surprised at
"The
first
the riches of our fellows."
For
this satisfaction,
of criticism,
and not
he accorded
full
as
a condition
reception,
and
and
so,
gave himself without reservation;
when he chose
to exercise
it
—and perhaps
there were few varieties of intellectual play
he enjoyed better— he had a large advantage in the feat of mere criticism ; for he contained he felt their limit and atmoshis subjects ;
phere, and
all
that he said
showed with a
Ralph Waldo Emerson. fine clarity that
he
and de-
fully interpreted
He had
fined them.
43
the habit of justice
;
was never the least equivocal, self-interested, or dictated to. His high moral intelligence enabled him to point out the real significance of prominent events. Of consequence, his criticism was of that rarest and order, creative rather than judicial his historical and biographical judgments have only been affected by the discovery of facts and perspective unknown to him. He always saw the good a rare trait it ;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
is
;
easy to point out defects.
He
was not capable of cynicism, nor was Even when provocation was great,
he acerb.
his satire
was so gentle and genial that
it
warmed even its object. He did not correct When he was slips made in his presence. less abstinent, the occasion plainly demanded it,
as when, with pleasant emphasis, he re-
minded a student who spoke of his to the
reference
/ÂŤÂŤseum that he accented the second
syllable instead of the
first.
Mr. Emerson talked apparently without reservation to
and
me
about his contemporaries
historical personages.
succeeding delightful
chapter I
comment
as
In
select
this
such
and the of
his
seems distinguished
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Talks with
44
of "his noble young
for the consideration
men."
remember one afternoon we were among the hills of Williamstown in the locality known as Bryant's Glen. At every little space, some new aspect of scenery I
walking
invited pause.
The landscape was one
to suggest to such a
eighteen the " Thanatopsis." little
apt
youth as Bryant was at
We
saw
at
a
distance across the sward the ravine
creeping out of the swath of sunshine between the ragged hills into
fragment of
forest.
its
own dark and tangled
In the immediate nook
where he wrote his poem the scattered trees are of shrunken shaft, like a life which ends without accomplishment.
"Yonder
is
a serious -jnaimta*ft^ said Mr.
Emerson, pointing to Greylock.
" I should
think this would be just the place to read
'The Excursion.'
The
hills
are very like
Here one can see the poet, standing on the shore and looking off on the wide sea-light, and backward on the glows of the mountains, and then recognizing those of Westmoreland.
the inner supernal light, the subjective, as he
framed that most_celebrated combination "
'
The The
light
which never was on sea or land, and the poet's dream.'
inspiration
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
45
"Wordsworth," he continued, pronouncing name as if it were spelled Waurdsworth, "is the poet of England. I see the Reader
the
acknowledges
lately
who comes up mannerism
in
him
He
it
is
the only one
high-water mark.
to
Other poets
!
start
No out
with a theory which dwarfs or distorts them
he was careful to have none.
have to
affect
Other writers
what to him, thus,
is
natural.
So they have what Arnold called simplism, His attorney wished him to he, simplicity. to recover his estate go to law with Lord of which that peer had defrauded him. Wordsworth refused, saying, No ; I must not ,
'
forget
And
it
my
is
profession to write poetry.'
so he went into the forest,
bread, and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;wrote
When
poetry.
and
He
lived
lived
on
very
came to see him he had him or wine, and so the novelist was wont to go to the village inn And one day as, in for his daily glass of ale. company with his host, he was walking by the inn, the landlord appeared and asked Sir Walter if he had come for his cracker and
plainly.
no
ale
mug
to
of ale
Scott
offer
!
Afterwards, I believe, the son
who had his gentleman, compounded
of the peer
estate,
with
who was the
a
Words-
worths, and restored to them their property.
Talks wii'h
4-6
" are
The
three books of
first
The
the best.
'
The Excursion' wonder-
teresting, but the adventures of the
always charm
Pedlar
ful
unin-
are
discussions
There
me.
is
sometimes an extreme even in Wordsworth.
What
that
is
horrible
'
in
line
'
Peter
'
Beir? " ' The long dry see-saw of this horrible " Fell
The is
ass
is
unpoetical
too childish, a
good.
They
transparent
are,
as
;
little.
bray.'
and perhaps Alice His sonnets are
indeed, as pure, chaste,
They
Milton's,
witchery of language.
He
is
are
the
the greatest
poet since Milton,"
What
is it
Bulwer says of Wordsworth ?
" Wordsworth's poetry
the
world
etherealize,
spondent
is
of
all
existing in
most calculated to to exalt j to offer most
the
refine,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
counterpoise
to
the
scale
corre-
that
inclines to earth."
Emerson could quote almost " Prelude
entirely the
and " Excursion," so much had he pondered them. I remember he was abundant in reminiscences of Wordsworth and Scott, and told me many anecdotes of them, one or two of which are identical with ''
those narrated in " English Traits," only
some
—
—
—
Ralph Waldo Emerson. way they seemed to be much
47
better told than
they are there.
" There are no books," he concluded, "
foi
poems of Sir Walter Scott. Every boy loves them if they are not put into his hands too late. 'Marmion,' 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' 'The Lady of the boys, like the
Lake;' they surpass reading
we
As an amusing tion,
everything for
boy-
have."
he referred
musical lines in
countryman of
instance of literary repetiin this
some
Scott's
connection to the elder
verses
of
a
:
" Make me thy wrack When I come back. But spare me when I go,"
by comparison with fifth
epigram
lines in Martial's twenty-
:
" Parcete dum propero^ Mergite
dum
redeo."
was uncommon to hear Mr. Emerson speak with such emphasis of any one as he At our first railroad restaurant, did of Plato. where, although there was plenty of time, everybody was eating as they do generally at travel-tables, Mr. Emerson leaned over ^t
toward me, and smile
said
humorously,
with a
— Talks with
48 " Wasn't architects
as
if
who
Plato
it
—
they,
'
—
and
they were immortal,
were to die instantly "
said of the citizens
you know, were colossal and eaters 'These people build
of Agrigentum
Read
Plato's
'
'
?
eat as
Republic
RepublieJj;_Read Plato's
!
Read_ Plato'a
'
J..R£.pubiic
toward .the divine, and- 1
hear that a
man
!
'" he
".He_
repeated, on anoffiS' occasion.
man
they
if
"
lifts,
]ike.it.,w]ieii I
reads Plato.
I
want to
meet thatjoan^ For_no man-xif -aeff-conceit can go through Plato." Carl yle, I believe^ confesses that he cannot read Plato. " I am glad you have so
many
of the
Greek Tragedies," continued Mr. Emerson. " Read them largely and swiftly in translation, to get their movement and flow; and then a
little
in the original every day.
FoLJhe The
Greek^_is_Jlie--ibuntain~Qf,JL£Uiguage.
Latin__h^__a-—definite_shQre-line, but _lhe Greek is without., bqutjds." Then, after a pause7~he~ added, half to himself, " Dead languages,
called
dead
because
they can
never die."
Of Gibbon he spoke "
He
is
strikingly, as follows
one of the best readers that ever
lived in England.
You know
his
custom of
— Ralph Waldo Emerson. examining himself both before and
49
after his
reading a book, to see what had been added to his mental experience?
contemporary footed
He
friars
in
All previous
historians
British
are
and
bare-
comparison with Gibbon.
was an admirable student, a tremendous
He
worker.
banished himself to a lonely
chAteau, just to
work harder; but he thought
He had — as also did whom I never could read
Aristo-
uncleanly.
on that account an imagination degraded and never assoiled, a low wit like that which defaces outbuildings. He was a disordered and coarse phanes,
—
spirit,
a mind without a shrine, but a great
example of diligence and antidote
"Locke was a
stalwart
to laziness.
He
thinker.
erected a school of philosophy which limited
everything to
utility.
But the
own .£yespiv4ii€h. are made Spirit of
soul,
has
illuminating
its
bylhe
God."
"With the same lofty accent he spoke of
Harriet Martineau, and compared her attitude with that of her brother " It was a grief to me
:
she had
become
pause he added, is all
"
when
materialist." lifting his
I
learned that After a long
head, "
God ?
It
God."
Read Chaucer," he
said
;
" in a day you
£
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
; ;; ;;
"
!
Talks with
50
will get into his
him.
like
language, and then you will
Humour
the lines a
little,
and
they are full of music. " I think I will recite a strain from his
'Good
Counsel,' and, were I you, I would
copy
and have
it
it
always with me.
It is a
scripture."
He
then delivered, without hesitation, but
very slowly and thoughtfully,
sinking
his
voice at the end of every line
" Flee from the
press
and dwell with soothfastness though it be small
Suffice thee thy good,
For hoard hath hate and climbing tickelness. Press hath envy and weal is blent over all, Savour no more than thee behove shall Rule well thyself that other folk canst rede, And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread.
" Pain
thee not each crooked to redress
In trust of her that turneth as a ball.
Great rest stands in little business Beware also to spurn against an awl, Strive not as doth a croke with a wall ;
Daunte
And
thyself that dauntest others deed.
truth thee shall deliver,
" That thee
The Here
is
it is
no dread.
sent receive in buxomness.
wrestling of this world asketh a
is
no home, here
Forth, pilgrim
!
is
fall
but wilderness.
forth, beast, out
of thy
stall
Look up on high and thanke God of all Waive thy lust and let thy ghost thee lead.
And
truth thee shall deliver,
it is
no dread
I
;
—
—
Ralph Waldo Emerson. He repeated the last two lines, word so
the last
pronouncing
rhyme with the and then
as to
the penultimate line,
51
last of
"I have seen an expurgated edition of Chaucer ; shun it Shun expurgated editions of any one, even Aphra Bene or Fran5ois !
They will be expurgating the Bible and Shakspeare next." Of Shakspeare he talked much, and always without a word of subtraction. Of no one else did he speak in a similar strain of encomium, excepting that imperial man, Villon.
Walter Savage
Emerson had
Landor
this
and of him Mr.
;
abatement, referring to his
conversation "
He
does not aspirate
a cockney.
He
I
;
drops his
cannot understand
h's like
it."
did not think that Shakspeare wrote
Wolsey's follows
it,
and the scene that on the ground that Shakspeare
soliloquy
always wrote so that the thought should publish
its
own rhythm, a
characteristic not
observable, he contended, in these passages.
"So
far as
we know," he
said,
"'The
Essays flL JV£oHtaigng_' is the only book Shakspeare owned. Like Aristophanes, Shakspeare had the care of the presentation of his plays, so they
were kept
practical.
It
has
"
Talks with
52
had much
do with
to
ever either got into
'
Whendown
their surviving.
the clouds,' he got
out of them as fast as he could. " But Shakspeare was a wonder. struck twelve every time
"We
pause,
America."
;
"
and
have not such
Somehow
He a
then, after
creatures
the words
and
in
his half
sad manner in uttering them, brought back to me old Nestor's lament, " For not at any
time have I seen such men, nor shall
I,
as
Perithous and Gyas, etc."
He
spoke of the songs of Ben Jonson as
" the finest in the English language.
They
and succulent and metery. Few men have that ^7onderful power of rhyming, especially double-rhyming, that he has ;" and he instanced " The Mask of Daedalus," and are rich
recited four stanzas of Jonson's
ode to him-
self in illustration.
I
was much interested in his words on and Blake. While he seemed hesi-
Shelley
tatingly
to
recognize and allow
the wide
gleams of truth the disciples of these mystics claim for them, he yet insisted that their visions were rather a curiosity than a dis-
covery, trait
and rebuked them strongly
of " obliteration
by natural
objects.
for their
of the imagination
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. "
I
said.
cannot read Shelley with comfort," he " His visions are not in accord with
the facts to
53
;
they are not accurate.
He
soars
From Blake he quoted """ The
sink."
Tiget"^ "Tiger,
tiger,
burning bright,"
over and over, almost the only thing
I ever
heard him quote that he put into the " Parnassus."
He criticized Tennyson as "factitious'' and a "posture-master,"'said that his inspiration is "scanty, and does not arrive at ex,
When I reminded him that in "English Traits" he says of Tennyson, " The colour of the dawn flows over the
tremities."
horizon from his pencil," he answered after a
moment "
And
that
He many and advised
is
true, too."
times referred to Leigh Hunt,
me
gentle friend to
to read him,
all
Of Matthew Arnold he stored with
"a
true
all critical faculties
said,
"
"
Have you
He
is
except humour,
but so far he shows little of that." Brownijig, " He is always a teacher.''
On my
and
men."
And
of
read any of Goethe?" he asked.
replying affirmatively as to " Wil-
helm Meister," he said
— Talks with
54
"Ah
yes, that is good.
read well
wants to be
It
contains the analysis of
it
;
life.
Wasson, in the Atlantic, some time ago had some excellent words upon it, more a panehave
But Wasson must
than a criticism.
gyric
come
just
to
We have
it.
loved Meister
He could not read nor endure Faust, but of Fichte he said, " He would use
a long time."
any weapon to convert a hearer. I think he if so he could pass
would trepan a person, his
own edacious conceptions In
brain."
into the bared
commended German professor who head when his audience thinned. connection he
this
the example of the
stood on his
I once asked his opinion of the novels of George Sand, and he answered as follows :
"
It
written
is
— everything But her
world.
them
;
wonderful the amount
I
;
do not read
turn a dozen
she seems to
stories
—
I
Dickens -withQUta yawn. to tell a
little
;
too
much
has
know
the
do not know about
stories.
pages _in
she
I jieyer
'Don
He
could
Quixote.' or
takes too long
of a reporter
who
must fill a column. Why read novels ? We meet stranger creatures than their heroes. What writer of stories would not be derided if he gave us creatures as impossible as Nero " or Alva or Joan of Arc ?
Ralph Waldo Emerson. He
55
frequently drew comparisons between
the authors
who ought
to write for the
who ought own good. As an
good
of the world and those
to write
merely for their
instance
of the
latter,
the fashion,
he mentioned a poet then rather
who had
recently appeared in
England. " I was surprised," he Review.
of the
said,
"
at the praise
The man had no sunâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
light like a star's. He had read and the Life Drama leaked out. must have been inspired by a headache,
a derived '
Festus,'
It
'
'
the delirium of the tripod without cination
;
its
vati-
the verses are not of the kind that
the people like
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;nothing hearty or happy
in
them."
he expected in all good in one of our earliest interviews how he spoke of a manuscript volume of poetical studies that had then This
writing.
just
last trait
I
remember
been sent him by
my
friend
Edward
King, " They are wonderful for a boy of seventeen,
but
they are
too
melancholy
He
seems to see nothing but the horrible. Now, the world is joyous. He paints everything in black, and yet he is a rosy-cheeked We cannot have the I wonder at it. boy.
Rembrandt
colour.
Melancholy
is
unen-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Talks with
56 durable; grief
is
it
Hugo
Victor
abnormal.
has written such a book.
have not read
I
I do not read the sad in literature." These w6r3s~wereTlie first seismic tremors my new heavens and new earth. They
;
in
my
set
wits a-swimming, troubled
me
with
apprehension of possible limitation in him,
and I
finally
coerced
me
into a collision which
regard as ridiculous enough now, but which
my
conscience
ceal,
object-lesson to the
me
not permit
will
because the experience
is
young men,
narrative primarily speaks
to
to con-
a valuable
whom
this
and because
;
it
Mr._ Emerson's peculiar and wholesome ways with his_ lo,vers, emancipating them byjaying theni even from himillustrates
self.
^Uthefreaders
will not
"these juvenile hysterics. in I
my
be interested in
After setting
down
journal his conversation for the day,
could not restrain the expression of my As they are necessary to a full un-
doubts.
derstanding of the situation, I will venture to transcribe the passage as follows " Mr. Emerson said to-day that
:
no one
I did ought to write as Hawthorne has. not ask him what he meant. This is of no
use with him.
He
talks
in
riddles,
or,
I
should say, rebuses, so perspicuous and pic-
;'
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
57
turesque are words, and one has to guess his
This
meaning.
and to-day
I
am
not
is
difficult
was
pretty sure he
to the nether side of
often
referring
human experience com-
memorated by Hawthorne, for he spoke in connection of King's meLmcholy verse, and said he would not read Les Miserables because the subjects and treatment are not '
It-ÂŁannat_be thathe, a guide in
cheerful.
morals, persistently shuts his eyes to of_facts
class
-the-
only
which makes morals neces-
sary?
"He logical
tells
me
long and starving
them them? ;
tomb.
is
calls thera
Ramadan have
Their inspiration
language of the grave there
Eastern theo-
to read the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; bibles, he
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and a had with but how can he have read and endorse
books
of
it, is
;
is
I
of the pall, their
their message,
what
covered with vapours of the
In Saadi, Hafiz, and the
he so warmly approves, what but the same tragic
story,
whom
rest,
else is there
lightened, per-
The whole know it, is an
haps, with sentiment and fancy ? oriental literature, so far as I elegy.
" In our Bible,
'
darkness broods
'
from
A bleak wind Genesis to Revelation. blows through all the History, the Kings,
Talks with
$8
Solomon and
the Judges, the dithyramb of lyrics of
David, Job's story of doubt and
Then
despair.
Their very word
there
the
are
prophets.
their thunburden derbolts echo from skies heavy and black, and the lofty Ideal their lightnings mois
mentarily disclose
a
is
'
;
a
'
Man
'
of sorrows,
and acquainted with grief.' When he comes Oh, the breath of Calvary How can a morality one shall to use Mr. Emerson's own word trust be built up and blink these facts of the dawn of !
'
'
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
religion
?
" Martyrs
manliest
and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
have given
life
;
so only did
Church its become brave
the it
saintly.
"If ever a literature respired 'the surely
Greek does
the
There Destiny fane
is
is
and
omnipresent.
the Its
sad,'
Latin.
misty
the only one in the countless tem-
whose crowd of unsacred divinities and gods makes a godless materialism that presents no obscure glimmer of hope, and
ples
is
the mantle of their followers' philosophy.
Lucretius,
thought as
and even Plato, trace their on sable shrouds. Where is
if
the classic tragedy that does not labour
under the
stress
and dirge of the unlifted
Ralph Waldo Emerson. cloud of Fate
makes even the com-
It
?
59
Anacreon knows well of shudder. " "Death, with his head wrapped in gloom
edies
;
Lesbia's and Sulpicia's kisses are
with sad
tears,' their
'
mingled
foreheads are
bowed
earthward with chaplets of cypress, and
even their laughter of
again after
the
all
From
Keats.
ephemeral, like that
is
Daphne, caught
Lalage and
Virgil's
years by the lips of
Tom
Tibullus to
Moore, the
jocund chansons are twined with the blossoms of the tomb. The worm of the grave He spoke trails over the page of Horace. approvingly of my portrait of Dante yonder
on the with
But what
wall.
features
is
They are born
?
He
it.
(Why did
I
the story of those of night
has brought
me
and
filled
to Chaucer.
not find him earlier?)
But
all
the pictures of this the father and mother spirit are
there
is
Then shaded with dark colours. Master, what has been
Shakspeare.
thy coined gold of speech, so chary with its But too faithful is he to hulargess, of him !
manity
how
conceal
transparent
sonnets " I
to
is
its
myriad miseries, and
his
own sorrow
in the
?
wonder
if
he would forbid the sights ? But what poems are
blind Milton saw
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 6o
Talks with
these
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
nistes/
"Ah
Paradise
'
Lost,'
'
Samson
Ago-
'
and
Penseroso no, Brother Moschus, you '
II
!
may
not
escape this cadence of the minor chord. vibration
" this
;
There must be something deeper than the
the
May it not be that the
unintelligible universe.
mystery of expression, elusive,
haunts with
itself
its
impenetrable and
tantalizing irony the
pursuit of the unutterable secret, necessarily in
The
in all
mind of man in inproblems of his being and tlie
effort of
vestigating the
Its
in all our literature.
is felt
and
wounded endeavour ?
next day,
full
of these
trist
results
Allans''
thoughts,
a struggle, but with a youth's told Mr. Emerson of my inability
at the cost of
temerity, I
to accept his statements
understood them.
watched then said
my
He
on
this
heard
matter as I
me
patiently,
quivering lips a moment, and
briefly,
but with beaming glance
'Ufery__weU;__JL_dQ_jiot^wish_disciples.''
And now I
see that the occurrence coricealed
a crisis in our affairs.
disappeared
in
his
For from
pupil
acquiescence, and
the
this
boyish
time
and
doubt not in the master the feeling of nausea it could not servile
but cause.
The
and made of
his friendship
I
release saved
me my
friend,
a greater blessing
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
*
6i
even as the vision came again and tarried
monk
with the
be worthy of
he had shown himself to
after
it.
This was a long step toward manhood the remarkable reply held for
but
;
me a still deeper
and one yet more psychologically
teaching,
formative,
in that
foolish habit I
it
had
my friend's And afterwards
myself with himself.
me
exhibited to
fallen into of
the
concerning
wares rather than
found myself
I
less
drawn by Mr. Emerson's opinions, advice, literary judgments, etc. Not that they did not interest me. One would have to be
and
less
more than human not
less or
to respond to
these unique and wise overflowings of insight
But now
and experience.
far richer gift aloof
I
saw there was a
from these and in reserve,
man
namely, the personality of the
And
would
to all youth I
in every great soul with
contact
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
wh^t he
the power that
is.
esoteric facts
you
more
and
ideas.
;
in his laches
his greatest gift that
to
survive
the
and
you come
his that
to
what he sayS,'and
ill
to say
It is
whom is
himself.
say, recognize this
you than
He in
in
made him his
all
conveys
it
to
what he omits
lapses
he has such
;
life
and
it
is
adequate
deadening and mechanical
processes through which he has been com-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; !
62
Talks with
pelled to
come
to you in his books and give
you himself.
Of American
contemporaries Mr. Emerson
spoke as follows
:
"The connecting link between England and America
is
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
acute-minded
man had been born in
If that
England,
they would never have tired of making
He
of him.
much
has the finest sensibility, and
which no and generous nature can be developed.
catholicity of taste without
that large
Everything interests him.
He
has phases
which make him welcome as well to Bacchus Minerva.
as
and
Open
to
Euphrosyne?
Yes,
to Eresicthon
M
is a man sot..; a man, of good inspirations, who can write^oems of wit and something better. It does one good to read him. He ,ias a good deal of self-consciousness, and never forgave Margaret Fuller and Thoreau for wounding it. " ' Leaves of Grass,' by Walt Whitman, is a â&#x20AC;&#x17E;
"Jaijies Russell Lowell
genial
It is wonhad great hopes of Whitman until he became Bohemian. He contrasts with Foe, who had an uncommon facility for Poe might have rhyme, a happy jingle. become much had he been capable of self-
''book you must certainly read. ^Srful.
I
— Ralph Waldo Emerson. direction.
York
to see
Thoreau was attracted Whitman."
to
63
New
Mr. Emerson said this as if it were at once a compHment and endorsement, and re-
marked upon the
attraction as being " psycho-
logical."
He spoke of Daniel Webster as " deformed. Every drop of his blood had eyes that looked He knew
downward.
the heroes of '76 well
he did not know the heroes of his own day when he met them on the streets.
enough
He
;
became
to
me
the type of decay.
gain his ambition, he gave
To
ease, pleasure,
and then added honour had a wonderful intellect;
happiness, wealth;
and
He
truth.
but of what importance
man
gone? consequences, and " of the
—
is
that
He
is
after
when
the rest
was oblivious of a pause " con-
—
sequently oblivion."
Of Forceythe regret
Willson he spoke with great
:
" There
we
were,''
said, " Lorigfellow,
he
Whittier, Channing, all of us, writing letters to our friends in Michigan, Indiana, every-
where, to find
who and where was
that was delighting us so lived in his
own
;
and
all
hermit-hut, not a
throw from Mr. Lowell's house
in
the poet
the time he stone's
Cambridge.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
Talks with
64
You remember passes
Poe
his parting
in his
he quoted slowly
song ?
It far sur-
most peculiar vein ; " and
:
" This is the burden of the heart, The burden that it always bore We live to love, we meet to part.
And
We
part to meet on earth no
more
;
clasp each other to the heart,
And
part to meet
on earth no more.
Of Hawthorne, Mr. Emerson spoke tatingly, as
if
He
of that tenebrous mind.
the account of Brook dale
he
hesi-
not fully aware of the quality
Farm
Romance " as "untrue."
said, " lived afar
from
us.
characterized
in the " Blithes-
"
Hawthorne,"
He was always
haunted by his ancestry, who spelt the name Hathorne. His gait and moods were of the
He had kinship to pirates and sailors. was it Channing wrote by inspiration What from him ? sea.
"
'
Unceasing
And
roll the
deep green waves,
crash their cannon
down
the sand.'
But his writings are of the terrible, the grotesque, and sombre.
joyous in them.
He
There resisted
is
nothing
the
light.
His genius was for the unhappy and nether side.
It is the
man ought
same way with Hugo.
to write so.
No
—
—
—
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. " Abbott wrote a leon
book about Napoman enough The best memoirs of
pitiful
but he was a wonderful
;
always
fell
British
well of
;
on
his feet.
those of Leuzier.
are
hira
65
Scott
too
is
O'Meara, the Irish surgeon, writes
him
—a
little
low, untutored, rough
but he had personal access, and Napoleon breathed through
What was
all
the
men
about him.
he said about making his His meanness, which generals out of mud ? could speak no chivalric word, spoke there, but
it
that
spoke fact"
Of Agassiz he quoted "Nature
:
some man, who
is
im-
pressionable, thoughtful, simple-hearted,
and
selects
conducts him softly to some one of her closets,
little
and bids him enter; and when he
comes back, the world stands still to know When a created what he learned there. thing gets an interpreter, it crowns him.'' And of Everett and Ticknor "Edward Everett and George Ticknor :
men
modern The golden time of Everett's was when he was Professor of Greek at
were
especially excellent in the
languages. life
Cambridge.
He
did more real good there
than as senator or governor.
He
had a
fine
conception of Greece, and a genius for the
66
Talks with Emerson.
Greek language. He returned from Europe, and was professor to the class above me when I was a student. As a college president he was not successful. He noticed little things too much, as whether an undergraduate touched his hat to him or not, and the students hated him. Therefore he resigned."
CONCORD.
;
CONCORD. Sacred
village,,
whose every bush burns with
iminortak have Jeft! Whither shall the devout pilgrim who would breathe
the
fire
its
the noblest inspirations with which the
World has
yet
And
thither?
been blessed
it
battlefield with tion,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the
that
like
not
ambitions and
with rare associations,
atmosphere
New
if
who would
the youth
for
nourish his soul with high electrify
turn,
of the
is
there any
revolutionary
Emerson's historic inscrip-
classic river that lisps as
it
flows
the hermit lake Walden; the eloquent cairn; " wood-lots,"
the
thorne all
toils
the scenes
domestic
Haw-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and
made
life
precious by the victories ?
Thoreau's faith was in :
is
in
Concord.
His
" Ne quid quasiveris extra
te
But Concord in a spiritual William EUery Channing's " Wan-
Concordiamgue.''
sense
shadowy,
through Sisyphean days,
they have witnessed
motto was
but
celebrated by
where the minute
:
Talks with
72
and those who cannot know directly inspirations will find them as nearly as
derer,'' its
such gracious influences can survive the bookmaking ordeal in that little volume. Mr. Channing erwandert Concord. The " old Virginia road " was familiar with his person.
He knew even better than Thoreautheuplands' every precinct and meadows, penetrated in all
woods and groves and ponds, and swam the With bright humour he alludes to his
directions
the
marshes, rowed the rivers.
experiences
:
"Fatigue, blazing sun, face par-
boiled, the pint
cup never scoured, shaving
unutterable, stockings dreary having taken to
His descriptions were made realistic by these daily exposures year after year, saturated, so to say, with the sunshine and the humidity of the Middlesex woods. As a friend said, " We saw his dripping hair and exhausted body, but he had found the laboratory of the gods, the earthly Alhambra." Mr. Emerson quoted to me from the " Sea Scene " (not a portion of " The Wanderer") peat."
" The purple kelp waves to and fro. The white gulls, curving, scream along They fear not thy funereal song. Nor the long surf that combs to snow."
Of Margaret
Fuller
he spoke much
at
;
one
—
——
"
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
73
time and another, but nothing that teaches, unless it is the following " I was amused with what :
Bettine Brentano— something
she
Only when
has not pride enough.
sure of myself would I pour out
'
:
I
She
am
soul at
In the assured soul
the feet of another. is
my
of
said
like this
it
kingly prodigality; in one which cannot
forbear,
He
it is
babyhood.'
repeated the word "kingly" with a
musing circumflex, as have used a
if
another
different gender,
woman would
and added
" But she would need be certain of her
—
which Bettine could There is something, too, in the lover. Margaret never met Goethe. " We all had to regret a single trait in Dr. Channing characteristically Margaret. referred to it once when she was a guest in his own house, somewhat in this wise " Miss Fuller, when I consider that you has so long are and have all that Miss wished for, and that you scorn her, and that
lover as well as herself
not be.
'
she
still
heaven
admires you,
will
be very
I
think her place in
high.'
" Margaret," Mr. Emerson concluded, " was a strange woman. Her eyes in some moods were visible at night, and her hair
—
"
Talks with
74
She had and could Vead the fortune in the human face. She What she Tyas most inspired when in pain. apparently lightened and darkened.
/unconscious clairvoyant
w^ote
me
is
instincts,
expressive of her deepest nature
'*
With the intellect I always have, always shall, overcome; but that is not the half The life, the life Oh, my of the work. God shall the life never be sweet ? '
!
'
!
The
flame was
in the heart of this dazzling
woman. If Emerson was the brain of the Concord circle, Margaret Fuller was its blood. Of this group the most conspicuous in its domain that has ever existed in America And Mr. Emerson was easily chief.
—
—
during his strongest years, perhaps he was
There was something "catching" No one could exactly explain or even understand it, but every one was sensible of it; so that his friends in England and America felt called upon to warn admirers that they must be on their guard, and if they sought a familiarity closer than more.
about him.
his
pocket edition, not be carried too
far,
he could not encourage an imitator. Amusing stories have been told of charac-
for
teristic
from
too
in the neighbourhood.
In-
exaggerations
much Emerson
resulting
Ralph Waldo Emerson. one
deed,
to remain
had to be more than human in
the presence of a nature so
orgasmic and not betray the not a
man
was
well to be loved
it
ThoTeau
mode
75
to be
felt
He
w^s
closely,
nor
fact.
approached
by him too
dearly.
the perilous singling until his
of speaking and tones caught the trick
men
of Emerson's so nearly that the two
could hardly be separated in conversation.
What wonder
that Channing, Bartol, Alcott,
and the
strong
than
rest,
that,
material
among
and
stately
men
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;more
the heavenliest bodies our
New World
has seen
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
felt
to
some
deflection of their orbit the uninten-
slight tional,
if
not unconscious attraction of the
mild Jupiter so near them! Margaret Fuller fled and saved herself. Hawthorne's rare
and
solitary genius
sought and held
own, and he tarried in
The
fact
is,
no
his
own
its
twilight.
one, meeting^ JEmerson
was
ever the-sam'e again;-- His-.natural force was so
resistless,
and so imperceptible that
commanded -men
before
they were
it
aware.
Leaders, scholars of high cultivation, theorists,
and men of thought de vieille
roche,
who visited
the lonely eminence where he dwelt apart,
noticed the contagion. others,
Then
there were
a curious throng, themselves often
Talks with
76 curiosities,
who came.
during Emerson's
light-house, shining far
ing
many
Concord contained years a great
solstitial
and wide, and show-
ships their goal, but covered with
the shreds of wrecked barks and birds of
imaginable shapes
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;which
all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and some unimaginable
had been attracted by its clear, How many, just saved from the fire, but the wax of their wings for ever melted, went hopping about the country with a bit of Emerson in their mouths, disseminating ordinariness and indistinctness, offering the mime for the Miracle Play Bo-tof ThflEeau, that hypethral and separated "man,- I cannot say enough. Of no. one did Mr. Emerson talk so often and tenderly. The relation between the two needs a clearer understarrdifig. Emerson made Thoreau he was'the-ehild of Emerson, as if of his own flesh. The elder took- the^ounger fresh from cpUege (rgther drowsy and he dozed after his return, but the woods and rivers of Concord were his college). Emerson woke him, gave him his start, and immediately and astonishingly nourished him. He lived cold, solitary flame.
!
;
I
j
;
much
at Emerson's house, kept the garden * and the home while their master * Mr, Emenson was a man of meditation for whom
:
Ralph Waldo Emerson. was absent
in
jj
Europe, and instructed him in
the mysteries of grafting and parsley.
Emerson called him "My Spartan-Buddhist, "My Henry Thoreau." With no one was he so intimate, until the disciple became as his master, adopting his accent and form, realizing his attractions and antipathies, and knowing his good and eviL The development of this sturdy bud into its Henry,"
sturdier flower
philosopher.
was a perpetual delight to the In Thoreau, he lived himself
over again. ,_ He said he liked Thoreau because " he had the courage of his convictions,"
but I think he meant his own convic-
tions.*
In both we mark the same features
as a severe and outre way of looking at events,
and a searching
for lessons in
them ; avoid-
ance of association; determination toward the expression of their ideals in their
life;
choice of straitened ways over broad ones, action
was too severe
;
and
his success at
garden
tending is suggested by the expostulation of his son, who, alarmed at certain gestures with the spade, cautioned as follows: "Look out, papal you'll dig
your leg." *
"I
told
H. T.
that his freedom
was in the form,
but he does not disclose new matter. I am familiar with all his thoughts ; they are mine, quite originally dressed " (Cabotl.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Talks with
78
and refusal to turn aside for livings, rewards, and comforts ; jealousy of domestic and local intellectual restraints, even to discontent with the pressure of the average public senti-
ment; intolerance of make-shifts; keeping away from court rooms, newspapers, and presidents' messages " reading, not the Times, ;
but the Eternities," as one said every
man
other said
alone on his
But the
much beyond Emerson was
these larger,
own
" Standing
;
peak," as the
similarity does not
go
Though Thoreau was the more limitations.
concentrated and sinewy of the two
;
and,
once beginning to carry out the parent's discipline and thought into his own life, he
was uncompromising ; and the end was not He ceased to seen, nor to be anticipated. be illustrator and personifier, or in any sense His movements, which had been derived. projectile,
a
recognition
of
the
elder's
thorough and wholesome methods, now went
beyond them ; and, thenceforward, this man advanced his own kinetic principles, and went his own way to his own As of himself he said life.
far
resolute
" But
after
And,
manned him
thereafter,
for his
own
stronghold."
though dwelling in Con-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Ralph Waldo Emerson. cord, he
a
in
lived
far country,
^g
and was
differentiated to almost a distinct species.
The
variations began soon,
him
plunged situations.
gusto Mr.
I
occasionally
his loyalty
into
dramatic
never forget with what
shall
Emerson
and
related to
me
the story
of Thoreau's constancy to his political reso-
by John Brown's execution, amusing week of incarceration was served with the writ of arrest on
lutions created
and
his
"
He
his
his
way
:
but he kept on,
to the shoe-shop;
shoe in his
to
pail,
have them both
mended." "
Henry was," continued Mr. Emerson, "homelyTn appearance, a rugged stone hewn from the all
men
cliff.
I believe
to be moderately
He
surpassed sex.
and an earnest look.
me -of~Massillon. thing~offhim.
is accorded to homely; but he
it
had a
beautiful- smile
His character reminds
One could jeopard
A limpid
man, a
realist
caustic eyes that looked through
all
any-
with
words
and shows and bearing with terrible percepHe.was a greater Stoic jthan Zenq or tion Scsevola or Xenophanes greater, because nothing of ijnpiirity clungJo_him, a man whosfe core and- whose breath was conscience ; !
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and not one of those
giants,
not one of
Talks with
8o
Europe's best, not Pitt or Burke or Grattan,
come to him and say, Peccavi. was that he brought nothing near heart ; he kept all influences toward
but could
His
fault
to his
Exaggerated moods we
his extremities.
have to suppress at least
;
for
some
all
amiability, or
reciprocity, are necessary to
make
But he thought and said that society is always diseased, and the best Men of note would come to talk mosj, so. society possible.
with him. "
'
I don't know,'
he would say ;
*
perhaps
a minute would be enough for both of us.' " But I come to walk with you when you '
take your exercise.'
" Ah, walking '
"
And
man.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;that
is
my
holy .tiineJ-
yet he was not a grave or austere
I
remember he made
us
all
laugh
with his accounts of what he sometimes saw in his walks.
What was
the young Irishman
that
whom he
he told
me
of
found kneeling
before his mother in the attitude of prayer
?
But, drawing nearer, he discovered that the
posture of the worshipper was merely in
order that his mother might remove a dust
from his eye with her tongue " His energy was exhausted in projecting a
particle
new
path.
!
He
could not follow an old one,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. even when
it
was
believed "things are
"
He
was
would stand
better
lies
an out
of
doors
for
which caused
suffered with a stoicism
and died
He
man.
These
excesses brought on an
similar
affection of the throat
He
are.
hours measuring
the increments in the growth of trees.
and other
He
him.
because words
snow
in the
for
8i
his end.
beyond the
race,
in great pain, nobly, refusing opiates,
yielding himself to
death during sleepless
nights and days.
" His ideas of living have been condemned,
A us remember he lived them out. gentleman English an Cholmondeley,* Mr. and graduate of Oxford, boarded while here but
let
with
his
mother
and,
;
much
becoming
attached to him, wished him to accompany himself to the mountains of the Yellowstone,
and afterwards to South America, engaging But not only to to defray all expenses. â&#x20AC;˘
Some
indication
as to the antecedents of this
gentleman may be gleaned from the following extracts from Horace Walpole's correspondence "My nephew, Lord Cholmondeley, the banker h " (Horace Walpole to la mode, has been demolished the Earl of Stafford, August 5, 1771). " I am very sensible of your lordship's kindness to my nephew, Mr. Cholmondeley " (The same to the :
same, October
3, 1788).
G
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
"
Talks with
82
those invitations, but also to another of a trip across
the States, Thoreau returned the
unvarying response " I think I had better stay in Concord.' " On one of these occasions, Cholmondeley '
Hamadryads among the about New Orleans, and
enlarged fancifully upon
would
that
be found
Druidical forests
the
lurking
the gorgeousness of the flora they would find
on the Amazon River, mentioning particularly the Victoria Regia.
" 'And
am
I
expecting to find some day
the Victoria Regia on Concord River,' he said."
The Victoria Regia for every man, he may have meant, is to be found in the duty at his own doorway a habit of thought
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
characteristically Emerson's.*
"He
refused on graduating from Harvard
take
to
dollars, *
his
he
When
degree
;
'
It
isn't
worth
five
said.
in
Naples (the
first
time) he wrote in his
diary longing for
" the
Of close, low pine-woods
in a river
fogs
town
;
and he informed his brother from Paris that his own study was the place for him ; and there was always more of fine society in his own little town than he could command.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Ralph Waldo Emerson. "
I
83
have always tliought that he did not do
justice
to
college in
the influence of his
forming him. "
Though
living in_ci3dlizaiionj-
he was the
keenest observer of external .nature. evgi^^een.
He had
I
hare
the trained sense of the
Indian, eyes that saw in the night, his
own
way of threading the woods and fields, so that he felt his path through them in the densest night, without delay or interruption.
He
would hear a partridge fly into a bush dawn, and guide you to the
in the dark of
spot after tiay unerringly. trail
by
The
and
tread
of wild creatures were apparent to him
sight, hearing, and, I believe, smell
;
for
he said that the mud-turtle obtained peculiar odour after spring has come,
like
its
other flowers''
Turtles were an object of contemplation to
Thoreau. Of them he wrote " I am affected by the thought that the
earth nurses their eggs.
:
They
are planted
and the earth takes care of them ; she is genial to them, and does not kill thera. This mother is not merely inanimate and inorganic. Though the immediate mother turtle abandons her offspring, The the earth and sun are kind to them. in the earth,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
"
Talks with
84 old turtle
on which the earth
rests takes
care of them, while the other waddles off."
He
"
was wont to assert that even in the woods one could see foreign phenomena, if always on the watch with direct eyes and the right perception. And so he insisted that he found revolutionary army cans and the red Polar snow near the ponds of oldest
Haven ; and the Labrador Lediiim, Kalmia Glauca, Canadian Lynx, a stormy Fair
and the
petrel,
little
meadow
the
in
of
auk with the tanager, Sudbury.
Perhaps he
idealized his vision, for he confessed
:
" There '
Itself,
is no power to see in the eye any more than in any other jelly we ;
we
cannot see anything
till
with the idea of
First,
it.
image of the plant occupies at length I surely see
it,
are possessed
the idea or the
my thoughts,
though
it
and
may seem
as foreign to this locality as Hudson's
Bay
is.'
I
As confirming Mr. Emerson's impression, might quote from Thoreau himself: " Fair
Haven pond, seen from
the moonlight,
boundless
man
;
is
the
cliffs
in
a sheeny lake, apparently a
primitive
forest,
untrodden
by
the windy surf sounding freshly and
wildly in the single
pine behind you, the
Ralph Waldo Emerson. hushed wolves
silence of
85
in the wilderness,
and, as you fancy, moose looking off from the shores of the lake
and
the stars of poetry
;
and unexplored nature looking down on the scene. This light and this history
hour take the
He
scape."
out of the land-
civilization all
was especially happy
He
casting spring.
noted
in fore-
of
earliest
all
the disappearance of that lover of winter, the prince's pine, and recognized
young
and vetches
grasses
the utricularia
and
the
as well
;
the
spirit-like
mayflower
the
autumn
ensigns,
broom and golden-rod
the
;
her
houstonia,
He knew
epigsea.
of the trailing arbutus;
first
the coming of
;
the yellow
red berries
the purplish-white
flowers of the Mikania scandens and polygonum, biding by stream-sides. He heard
the hyla in the marsh, the swamp-frog
first
and veery. Some years he was fortunate enough to detect in the morning twilights a peculiar roseate tongue or halo, the snood
of
Spring herself,
and
in the
peculiar
flected
from the higher
He
always
heat
even
of the hills
felt (insensible to
fluent
branches.
light
between
the
her
moon
outline as
re-
and mountains. us) the coming earth-crust
aiÂťd
Talks with
86 "
The
joints
her
fibre of nature was all through his and marrow, and through life he wore
livery.
away in
I don't
know how long
ago, far
he was descended from the Northman, Thorer the dog-footed), she planned him, measured him for his suit. "
his ancestry (he said
He will be blamed for his shortcomings in
natural science, of which he
made a profession;
but his early death should be remembered.
"
He understood the
not the rocks.
flora and the birds, but Out of doors he used instead
of a gun a spy-glass. '
gives
'A
gun,'
you the body, not the
he
said,
He
bird.'
would trace a fish-hawk to her nest; and then, examining the debris at the bottom, he would find out more about the nature of the fish-hawk than the veriest sportsman of them
He was a naturalist, but also a poet, and would have penetrated from all external all.
aspects of nature to the secrets of her heart.
She always gave him a quick home and shelter
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;always
just the tree at hand, with
low sloping branches ready roof,
for
and the boughs and
for the poles
foliage of spruce
a bed on which to cast his blanket.
sweeter sleeps than
those
its
and
!
He
himself with the growing wheat until he himself to be a bearded blade.
No
saturated
came
Ralph Waldo Emerson. "
His out of doors
within
life
made him
87
sensitive
he could endure the atmosphere of few houses. He used to say, by night every dweUing gives out bad air like doors, so that
a slaughter-house.
" Things happened
to him,
came
to
they will to lovers of the woods and
"I remember once a
him
as
fields.
friend accosted
him
while they were walking with a request for
an arrow-head,
if
how
lamenting
he should ever find one,
fruitlessly
he had searched
for one.
" '
They
are
rare,'
said Thoreau, stooping
and picking up a fragment of earth-covered substance he saw in the sod ; and now that you have an opportunity, you had better examine this And he presented a fine specimen from which he finished disengaging '
!
'
An accident ? I do not Sometimes I have thought the entire woods were a cache for him he had such secrets of hiding things and finding them again. His invention of a new^ lead pencil was quite characteristical. He could buy the earth-rust.
know.
;
none to
that
would
make some.
periment, he
suit
him, so he determined
After
close study
and
ex-
produced the most excellent
pencil I have ever seen, and manuYactured
Talks with
88
some hundreds of them, which he
among
A
his friends.
to a neighbouring city,
distributed
few found their way
and he was approached
by capitalists with hberal offers to manufacture them in quantities for commercial purposes. But he refused, with the remark that he merely wished to make a good pencil for his
own use; and
He
the
secret
died with him.
overflowed with ridicule for household
utensils, etc.,
such as the store-keepers
offer,
and the few such things he used he provided for himself, and they were much superior and more convenient. Did he want a portmanteau or box? Forthwith he produced it, stripping the bark off a tree, joining by dovetail without tack or nail, and chamfering and bottom. was a close student of a few books. Cholmonliked the ethnic scriptures.
the edges
"
He
He
deley had given him some rare and costly copies of the Bhagavad-Gita
His
style
and other
has been sometimes
bibles.
criticized as
opaque, but that
is
a quality frequently found
in the reader.
It
was a style that refused If the spirit man. chooses to descend upon
compromise
as did the
of poetry,' he said,
me
as I stand
'
still, it
not go in search of her.
'
is
well
;
if
Here, on
not, I will this
rugged
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. soil
of
take
Massachusetts, I
my brow
baring
89
my stand, my own of my own
to the breeze of
country and invoking the genius words.'
"
It is better to translate
inward
at the soul
earnest,
looked inward,
of things.
Conscientious,
he talked
superstitious,
him than Epictetus
He
or Marcus Antoninus.
in
plain words
and commanded
not to change a
Thus
line.
the
to
his publishers his
pages seem
He
profane and sometimes blasphemous.
did not hesitate at shocking any weather-
worn creed or sceptic
;
church.
to
belief.
Men
It
was curious how much
opinion was sought, considering
was derided.
it
him
called
but he was too conscientious to go
No
his
how much
sooner did any extra-
ordinary news arrive than every one must
know what Thoreau thought about the last happening. His poetry is of a new order. The poem on Smoke is instinct with the spirit
'
of Simonides
:
Light-winged Smoke Icarian bird, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight Lark without song, and messenger of dawn. Circling above the hamlets as thy nest Or else, departing dream and shadowy form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts !
;
'
Talks with
90 By
night star- veiling, and by day
Darkening the
light,
and blotting out the sun.
Go thou, my incense, upward from this hearth. And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.' "
He was penetrated with the elder classical
; he breathed the antique. Yet it was impossible for him to copy words or
influence
anything. " There was during his literary himself and
life
between
Mr. Ticknor an inequality of
temperament and taste, by which the publishmg house of that gentleman was always prevented from doing Thoreau justice. Consequently,
the
Atlantic
has published for
Thoreau, but not his best work.
was his most
influential
Mr. Greeley
publishing friend.
Thoreau has an always increasing number of readers, and the selectest class of any American in all Christendom. The 'Week on the Concord River is his noblest work, pervaded with dehghtful ideas. And you must have the Letters and Select Poems of his I have lately edited. I will give them '
'
to you.
"
He had
made no
a great
effort to
contempt
for those
who
gauge accurately their own
powers and weaknesses, and by no means spared himself, of
whom
he said that a
man
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
"
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
91
gathers materials to erect a palace, and finally
concludes to build a shantee with them.
'"You have
heard from a great many,' he
wrote to a friend in
Springfield.
'
How
long since you had a letter from yourself?' " '
You pay
yourself for your riches,' he
what becomes oA you 1 ; Others of Thoreau's ion mots, approved by '
wrote again
'
Mr. Emerson, I treasured " Occasion wears front hair.'' :
"A
poor man's cow, a rich man's child
dies.''
"Sleep
is
"
heart,
" â&#x20AC;˘'
its
half a dinner."
weak head."
Good What men
do, not what they promise.
People are
less careful to
avoid
evil
than
appearance."
"No
animal
is
so patient as the fretful
porcupine."
"Let the muse lead the muse. If the muse accompany, she is no muse, but an amusement." "
It is
the art of
world, and every one in
mankind
to polish the
who works
is
scrubbing
some part." " Could there be an accident so sad
as to
respected for something better than
be are?"
we
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Talks with
92
" If we made the true distinction, we should almost
house "
of us be seen to be in the alms-
all
for souls."
Who
is
whom
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
most dead
monument you
hero by whose
stand, or his descendants of
you never heard
?
"
" The farmer is an enchanted labourer.'' " Never, except in the case of women and children, act
on the supposition
that people's
regard for you can be higher than yours for
them." " Sometimes
who
we
are inclined to class those
are once-and-a-half witted with the half-
witted, because
we
appreciate only a third of
their wit."
And " I
from Saadi
Ketp
cannot
tell
small ware." " The cat herself a
:
the door to your
mouth
shut,
and
whether you deal in jewels or is
mouse
a tiger to the mouse, but
is
to the tiger."
"When you
determine to fight, be sure you are stronger than your adversary, or that you have a swifter pair of heels." that
"
Of a
truth
every one
tendency to Islamism, and
is it
is
born with a
owing to
his
parents his becoming a Jew, a Christian, or a
Majoosie."
— —
"
-
"
Ralph Waldo Emerson. "To
the
93
nymphs of paradise purgatory
would be hell, and ask the inhabitants of hell whether purgatory is not paradise." " O Lord of the World Those who are Zihids will not accept of money ; and they !
who have money
are not Zahids."
Emerson quoted not Thoreau the figure —
seldom
as
from
" When Autumn bleeds In
all
the maples
;
and said the following from Ennius was often on Thoreau's lips ' '
Ego deum genus did Sed
eos
et
dicam
ccelitum,
non curare^ opinor^ quid agat humanum
genus ;
Nam,
si curenf^ bene bonis sit,
male malis quod nunc
abesl."
And
this
from Shelley
" The day that dawns in fire will die Even though the noon be calm." It
in storms,
was Thoreau's theory that the universe
grows by destruction of
The
itself.
process
of development from the nebulous completes its
decay.
" And thefts from satellites and rings And broken stars I drew And out of spent and aged things ;
I
framed the world anew.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Talks wirtr
94 His belief
is
epitomized in Pindar's eighth
Olympic "
A man doing fit things Forgets Hades."
Nec quid hymen quid amor quid sint connubia curat.
The bark foundered it
sails
another sea
was not
It
too early, but surely
?
easy for
human
nature to
honour one who honoured not it, and so he lived in antagonism outward or inward with most of those he met traveller
on a
solitary
He was a forsaken roadway through the
Noman, and few there be that find it. Emerson referred to him the words " I can see no one who is able to fill the place he has left here, no causes at work to produce one who even has a tendency to fill land of
it."
To
Parker Pillsbury, who approached him
on the subject of his death,
religion the winter before
he replied gently, " One world at
a time," It
was a grim day that he was borne from
the village meeting-house to his grave near
Hawthorne in Sleepy Hollow. Only a little company of friends were present Mr.
Ralfh Waldo Emerson. Emerson spoke a few words
95
after the coffin
was lowered.
As Thoreau
Amos Bronson
so
Emerson the
exhibited
Alcott, a
recluse,
most benign,
and unworldly man when I knew him, was a joyous and buoyant embodiment of Mr. Emerson socially. For Emerson was not ; what one would, term " talkative " indeed, it is seldom one, meets a man more held in When he was duress by his own thought. saintly,
was mostly a which seemed and thoughtread widely addressed to a to be ful audience, and which always exacted much It is somewhat remarkable of the listener. surprised
into
monologue of
that a
utterance
it
oral reflections
man who
has given more movement
to thought than almost
any other since Plato, little sympathy
should have shown in habit so with this law by which receive ideas
!
But
I
men most
naturally
think he secretly found
the simplest conditions under which people
meef irksome. " Parties of pleasure, yes, parties 01
he once remarked.
And
again, "
entiut,
When one
;
meets his mate, society begins " expressions of a man who, although among us, is not of us.
And
yet I recall
no words about conversa-
"
Talks with
g6 tion
tions
than
better
rightly ;
;
" "
The
He
his.
he called
A
"
it,
apprehended
it
series of intoxica-
right metaphysical professor
;
"
The
"
We must be warmed by the fire of sympathy,
true school of philosophy
and be brought into the
;
"
and
right conditions
said,
and
angles of vision."
"When
you answer,"
it
was
his
maxim,
" address the meaning, not the words.'' his tenth beatitude was, " Blessed is
And
he who
giveth the answer that cannot be answered."
But he did not commonly exemplify this. The conspicuous illustration of it was Mr. Alcott, who had a much more extended adaptiveness. To him the meeting of human beings in converse was what the table
is
to
He
Christians.
communionfounded the
drawing-room conversation as a means of culture,
a more valuable
of the Lyceum. leader discourses
gift
than Emerson's
method, by which a
Its
upon some theme
at leisure,
answering questions which are farther
dis-
cussed in the freedom of informal exchange, is
more natural and probably more rewarding
than either lecturing or preaching, especially
among people where receptivity
prevail.
similar conditions of
Mr. Alcott's
limited, because his philosophy
field
was
was not often
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
97
vascular, so that, as Fichte said of himself,
he could only succeed with " brave good people." But who that met him in the con-
made
versazioni which he
get the experience
so popular can for-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the master's " solar
face,''
framed in that wealth of hair in which the white breath of his soul had been caught and kept
;
his pleasant fervours
hyperboles
;
his
irresistible
his colours, dilatations, magni-
;
loquence, glorious soarings to the great might
have been
sublime and ideal chimeras
;
;
the
winning wilfulness with which he presented a
sometimes
philosophy
erroneous
pictures, delicate
rather
somewhat bleached, as etiolated conditions
;
if
distinct,
his fugitive answerings,
orphic, subtle, like quicksilver, and, even
merely amoebsean, the
dropped
out,
his
;
and conceived amid
than
participants
when
having
and the ground beneath sound-
ing hollow to every ear but his, so surpassingly
complete and master-like, always satisfying the questioner,
who enjoyed
if
he could not
acquiesce.
Though
often
philosophical,
philodoxical rather
than
he was always in sympathy
with the highest motives that can elevate the
human
soul,
and received from God the
gift
of lofty inspirationSj singularly incommensur-
H
Talks with
98 able, from
which Emerson with others grate-
fully drank.
His sacred enthusiasms, which
penetrated his hearers as
if
they had drunken
sunbeams, buoyed his step to the
last, sounded an angelus, and dwelt in his they had lost their speech and
in his voice like
eyes long after feeling, vault.
and became otherwise rayless like a He had a soul of candour ; whatever
other expression his face wore, that never it,
and
his smile
melancholy a
had such
He
sin.
faith that
it
left
made
cherished a sweet
sense of the loyalty of friendship, and believed devoutly in the
Concord
No
saviours.
one circulated with more enthusiastic perversity west and east, with now and then a conscientious obolus from Emerson, the coin
of mutual gratulation, acceptable possibly to numismatists, but hardly current on Olympus.
He
possessed
never for a
groups
before
moment
manner
a
He knew
fatiguing.
the
by talk, and his demeanour at gatherings was always illuminated by a gentle politeness and interpretation of others. secret of teaching
He
understood
how
to
open the eyes of Children
people without contradicting them. especially
were susceptible to
the
What Landor makes the Greek child, say of Epicurus, reminds
me
charm.
Ternissa,
closely of
what
—
—
'
Ralph Waldo Emerson. the
99
an acquaintance said of Mr.
child of
Alcott " I love to hear :
him talk. He is so plain. and tel ls me so much I didn't know, fastening it on to^yrat-t-dtd-Ehow and~he-Jw,s-so ;
much
patience^ and-loQks-.aoJdBdlyrasTfTie' '"^ were waiting forTnore-questieas."— —
Of Mr.
Alcott Emerson said " Bronson Alcott is a man supremely
conscious.
Socrates
him and Commonwealth ought
to support
it
ought
;
His
!
life
Alcott thinks Boston to support ht7n is
full
of
Wordsworth should have come
He
origin of the Pedlar.
Once an admirer
wealth.
to
— and
beatitudes.
him
for the
has no regard for sent
him a twentyAbout a
gold piece from Boston.
dollar
week
self-
thought Athens ought
after,
a mendicant, passing his door,
asked alms. "
'
I
have nothing,' said Alcott, answering
from habit a minute
—
'
or yes, stay
;
I
have, too
wait
;
!
" And, running into his house, he returned
with the gold coin, which he handed to the beggar.
He
took
it
and vanished.
I
be-
a week or so afterwards he returned it to Mr. Alcott, with the remark that he found lieve
he was not able to
either
keep or spend
it.
Talks with
100 " Alcott
is
the best reader of Plato living.
He talks exquisitely. A reporter offered, goodnaturedly, to report his conversations, but he
reproduce the delicate inflections
failed to
and
He
tints
of thought which form their charm.
has a passion for writing, but he cannot
write,
he has no
anchylozed.
I
gift
He
anything to read to me. that Jesus spiritually
His pages are
that way.
always feel sad when he brings
used to say
was intensely feminine; always apprehensive and respondent to
the thought rather than
its
expression.
" His ways of teaching were new and unpopular.
He
was exposed to persecution on But they are sure to be
account of them.
adopted, because they are based on
human
nature.
"
He came
to
Concord from Germantown,
Pa., about forty years ago.
family was Alcox.
He
The name
changed
it
of the
to Alcott.
His wife was from one of the most excellent in Boston. There will never be
families
enough he and
credit given to that his daughters
woman
for
what
have done.
" Louisa was born about thirty-four years after her father, is
and on the same
a natural source of stories.
day.
When
She
she was
seven years old she was the delight of the com-
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
ioi
munity, writing dramas and buildin^ theatres
and the neighbours' houses. She composed a hymn while yet a girl ; wrote a book (which has been printed under the at her father's
name
Moods ') when
she was sixteen book of fables, before she was twenty. At nineteen the papers began buying her stories. She did not want to grow to womanhood. She went out as a governess, and wrote a story of her experiences for the of
'
another, a
Atlantic ; but they could not understand
and told her she had
better continue
as
it,
a
teacher.
" She never was sick until she went into the army as nurse, and has never been well since. She took a trip to Europe, which was an un-
doubted
benefit.
She produced her hospital
sketches in 1865, and lieve, '
now
is
(1868), I be-
bringing out what will be her best yet,
Little
Women.'
We
her publishing friend,
all
think this
who
write a girl's book, while
could not.
It is often
is
due to
told her she
she insisted
must she
the case that publishers
understand authors better than they do themselves.
children.
" ful
She
is, and She knows
May won
is
to be,
the
poet uf
their angels.
Ruskin's praise for her wonder-
copies of Turner, which were sold at great
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Talks with
102
But Mr. Alcott respected Louisa's it was original. May's pleasant room at home was much admired by our Concord folk. She had Thoreau's profit.
because
genius
The
genius with materials.
and
cover of the
and adornment of the furniture, were the work of her own hands. The mirror formed the farthest, inner walls
the finish
floor,
centre of successive frames of different woods, so that in
one's face was like a picture
it
perspective,
in
reached by courteous ap-
'
proaches,' as her father said."
Of Transcendentalism, the
Mr.
"It means that there
marked,
mind than
He was
enters
it
Alcott is
a great believer in heredity.
are
is
he
insisted,
"implies apostacy. is
in
When
What we
the result of our ancestors.
unsuUied soul
re-
through the senses."
the children did wrong, he said " It is the fault of the old folks.
And
more
Choice,"
The
pure,
above choice."
again, "
are taught from
Those who the
learn
heart,
by heart
a spontaneous
teacher."
His
conscientiousness,
like
Thoreau's,
him once to the inside of a jail, from which he was released by Mr. Hoar. He was a living rebuke to gross animal brought
Ralph Waldo Emerson. feeding.
Like
an eater of
all
103
Pythagoreans, he was not
flesh.
he or Mr. Emerson Charles Kingsley "Cousin Cramchild"? It would have been neither if Mr. Kingsley had known of Is
it
called
whom
he was speaking. Mr. Alcott's "St. John the Evangelist " is an utterance wholly after the heart of the great
Englishman.
TRANSCENDENTALISM.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
'
;
;
TRANSCENDENTALISM. " The Puritans came here," said Mr. Emerson one day, "in a revolt against forms. Why should they have kept any, then ? Why accept baptism and the bread and wine of the Supper, and refuse the foot-washing, which was at least as strongly emphasized? They were right, nobly; but they stopped short. Is any form necessary ? Do we need any gift or foreign force ? Can we not be self-sustaining ?
See
this divinity
Can we not be
of daisies
them ? That Jesus lived purely was his strong argument " Virgil said to Dante
around
us.
What need
'
there of miracles ?
is
" Let
level to
us not talk of these things
Let us look and pass on.
"But
must be an effort to merge and realize theology The for man's highest good is concerned. elimination of scholasticism and subtleties there
religion into literature,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
Talks with
io8
; and divine lives would become common." paused a moment, and I felt en-
would be healthful the
more hasten
He
to
couraged to ask
"What
is
Transcendentalism, Mr. Emer-
son?"
He was silent, and then said, with a humorous emphasis " Well, why do you ask me 1 It isn't, I suppose, a commodity or 'Plan of Salvation,' or anything concrete; not, surely, an '
established church
not
even
;
rather, unestablished
'
perhaps,
bread,
but
leaven
a
hidden.''
He
continued more seriously-^
" If us,
we
we
any of us
human
only see that which
will
shall see also above.
spirit to
is
God
but confront
always bear natural
itself
y-y
The
And
seen, are
the
down
soul
to
should
thus in the presence of the
suggest and express
revelations.
Transcendentalist sees everything
as Idealist.
is
it.
objects which
God, are His
from
is
look neither up to the universe nor it,
about
far
an equality of the the world's phenomena. We
There
?
Is
That
is, all
events, objects, etc.,
images to the consciousness.
the thought of them only one sees.
It
You
Ralph Waldo Emerson. shall find
the
God
universe,
and
in
the the
nature,
unchanged essence of
in the
the
the river, the
air,
unfolding
subjective
determination
name, no one knows who name."
private
As
for
and the
;
the
applied the
first
Once he mentioned Kant
leaf;
of your
the
of
everything of rehgion.
spirit,
109
Critik
of Pure Reason was, perhaps, a remote ancestor of Transcendentalism.
receive then the son's
could not
I
content of Mr. Emer-
full
words on Idealism.
Now, with the
commentaries of the years, they are plain; but it is not necessary to present the subject here,
it
having become
The
familiar.
impres-
sion of Transcendantalisra which his speech
conveyed was that he esteemed
less as
it
a
gospel or even revelation than as a rebuke of the temper which accepts mediators, incarnations,
and go-betweens
a protest, appeal,
;
aspiration for direct relations between
God
and man, unencroached upon by any " word." The Bible is a sacred book of all nations, of value as the record of a religion.
of nature (by which
is
intended
that have retained simplicity)
of God."
The Kingdom
of
comes with observation.
is
The book all
objects
the " word
Heaven As all
certainly
material
no
Talks with
forms necessarily lived before in Him, so we find
Him
in
them now. beyond
Literally, a passing
all
media
in
the approach to the Deity, Transcendentalism
contained an
mainly by a
effort to establish,
discipline of the intuitive faculty, direct inter-
" I am course between the soul and God. the door," said Jesus ; " no one cometh unto " Yet," pleaded the
the Father but by me."
Evangel, " are
new us come
we not
brothers
?
as thou earnest, to thy Father
Let
and
to our Father." It is often the fate
carried
farther
than
of a
new
doctrine to be
founder intended.
its
That the conservatives hastened
to
demand
the establishment of a chair of Apologetics in
the viewless Theological Seminary of Con-
cord was natural enough the philosopher
and
;
but the surprise of
his friends
was awakened
whose had been hurt by Apollo's quoits thrown wild. They announced theories, as they said, beyond Emerson, and yet called them his ; they even deified him as a being of mist and fire far in advance, and leading Though he did not deny that in the path.
by the
eccentricities of sundry fanatics
heads
he could not make
it
straight,
how
straight
were those of the accepted faith-bringers
i*
Ralph Waldo Emerson, And
hi
so they clambered their Emersonian
up the mountain
until
it
disappeared
atmospheres that would not support
trail
among
spiritual
There was much heroic even in these eccentrics. What though their inspiration
life.
of rarified air did create some excesses, before
which
it is an effort to keep the countenance and the sacred fire of their fane proved to be a spurious phlogiston, causing inflammation rather than flame, it is to be remembered ;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
that these were brave
something;
men
men who
stood for
not "to be killed
the bats as a bird, an.ong
the
among
birds as a
"
and a heart unstirred by their decold indeed. But the glory of the sunrise was in the eyes of those already in the immediate religious and intellectual neighbourhood and the number included some of the purest men and women and bat
;
votion
is
;
profoundest thinkers in the country. cared less for the
name than
They
for the ideas
around it. To them it was enough that the faith vindicated the freedom of the soul against all forms of fatalism, and pronounced man a being of eternity instead clustered
of a worm of the dust. From such a faith they would drink as from a stream of cold
refreshment, and be satisfied without inquiry
Talks with
112 as to whether
mountain doctrine
What
Omniscience. so
said
way? and
flowed from or toward the
it
of
many
true
other
words by the
no matter whither the way
so
led.
Their old
lilac
turn the pages within
covers
atmosphere nobility
was
concrete expression was the
first
To
Dial.
and
the
catholicity,
of
now those
creative
too
and
editor,
large
faded
days,
although
permit
to
their
Margaret Fuller
their heroisms.
first
its
to bring again the
is
her
a waste-
basket, admitted uninspired witnesses to the
uselessness
the
of Saviours and discussions of
universality
of the
Holy
Spirit
in
a
soprano key, yet so high was the motive and so strenuous the impulse of
its
founders, that
number contained expressions invaluable and quite equivalent to the propagaevery
tion
of themselves, despite stupidities and
delusions.
Mr. Emerson did manfully his
share, assuming
the
editorship, but
finally
work so unnatural to him. William Ellery Channing was perhaps its most delightful writer, with such opulent companions as Theodore Parker, J. Freeman Clarke, C. A. Dana, James Russell Lowell, Frederic Hedge, C. A. Bariol, J. C. Cabot, relinquishing a
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
113
C. P. Cranch, and others. The Dial was a horologe of the dawn, and should have marked the hours longer. All this was fifty years ago ; and the Dial's shadow now is only seen in Alcott's garden. One can hardly wander of an afternoon after summer is flown, here where the Concord
School of Philosophy holds festivals,
Plato,
in
the presence
of
its
intellectual
statuettes
of
Emerson, Harris, Howison, Thoreau,
and and grace
Voltaire, Pestalozzi, Mulford, Dr. Jones,
others which haunt the arbours
the walks of the parterres and grove of appletrees,
even to Hillside Chapel, where Web-
ster's
Dictionary
the only book in sight,
is
without feeling that he
in a hygienic
is
and sane
sphere, friendly to a larger
atmo-
liberty of
religious meditation.
There are those who believe that the ghost of Transcendentalism will rise again, and are
even waiting from this will
its
the stone rolled away
to see
sepulchre
;
but
may we
not accept
emancipation as inheritance, as
come out from
it
all
that
for the healing of the
nations?
Did he from whose
loins
pect more, a present faith I think not.
As he
it
was drawn ex-
?
desired to construct I
—
Talks with
114
no system of theology or moral
science,
never giving us a system nor completing his " Natural History of the Spirit or Intellect"
(sometimes called one and sometimes the so his Transcendentalism
other),
is
be
to
regarded as a fragment, existing less as a
much
religious idiosyncracy,
than as a
fashion,
force
general
in
lifting
religious
a passing
less
and
permanent
As a
culture.
modifying influence in thought, as an impulse toward a finer subtle
Its
which
stood
it
life, it
suggestions,
its
and
for
exultant, soaring spirit
its
it
symbolized
— these gave
ing to every elevated
Where
became a power. aspirations; that
it
drawn
soul
into
it
made
so far as literal fulfilment
made by Jehovah to the nn -
n
n.
life,
The
to the believer never insult
the purity of religious motive,
fiiiti
it.
touched the practical duties of
touch was recognized as honest.
promises
its
;
mean-
rnndllil; fff
is
and resemble,
concerned, those
fathers. tli
As-tailieJifc_
" r ipiritf ii n
ii
i
i
mil)
Mtt&nereogJiad-jieKerj, -flfmllt.. He trusted Vii s rnmple^f^l y and p.ven gajia— thtaw - a ,
.
feminine _credence in his relations with"f)ersons.
If
he had-aar
iiU'Ueisti1ae»-ifr
was Ais.
In"Siuaker-talk. he^said
" I do not pretend to any
commandment
—
Ralph Waldo Emerson. But
or Jarge_revelation.
if
115
at^n}r_time
I
conduct, I fin d, perhaps, a silentobstad«-in-
Very
my-TTiTTn4-<4wht—l^.<?a.n.nnt- ^rrnnnt- fnr.
well
;
I let it lie,
think
does not pass away, ask It
me is
it
may pass away
I yield to
to describe
I
it.
it,
obey
it
;
if it
You
cannot describe
it.
not an oracle, not an angel, not a
dream, not a law ; described
;
it is
But such as
it
is,
the contradiction of shakew'-'
is
it
too simple to be
but a grain of mustard-seed.^
He was
it
is— sometbing which
all
mankind could not
a pilgrim of the invisible,
and, both by heritage and growth, without the capacity of
phy was not a
sin.
Doubt by
his philoso-
positive exertion of the will,
but a suspense of the judgment, a negative Transcendentalism t o him fact merely. was, to be faithful to the revelations that _
comgTS' thejoul^_and^ are xecQgnizeii,by it Ohcein later years, and in his own asjrue. " Mr. Emerstudy, I ventured to ask him son, what of personal immortality ? " He turned gently some pages, and handed me one which read somewhat as follows :
:
"The youth puts off the illusions of the The man puts off the ignorance and child. tumultuous
fancies
of
youth;
thence, puts off the egotism of
proceeding
manhood, and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Talks with
Lt& becomes hence
a public and universal
at last
rising to great heights,
to realities, until the last falls
and he
is
garment of egotism
with God, shares the will and
immensity of the ''
soul,
but also rising
cause."
first
immediately as a declara-
I received this
tion of belief in the final absorption of all
which
entity
perhaps this
is
saw
in the
and active
original
continually
is
And
creative.
a form of immortality familiar
to his meditation. I
an
into
individualities
'
But afterwards
I
thought
statement not necessarily a pro-
jection of his
own
faith,
but (such was his
and moods of
habit of answering habits
thought rather than forms of expression) a
mild censure of the question deed, he had replied
:
Do
itself,
as
if,
not question
character and destiny are the same,
in-
;
for
and
ex-
cessive canvassing about being prolonged be-
weakness of self-conceit which de-
trays a
stroys the possibility.
To
such an attitude
the answer must be that the teleology of so far as
we can
follow
it,
is
life,
that of the type,
not the individual.
For
at
another time he wrote, and the
passage was inspired
"
I
have a house, a closet which holds
books, a stable, a garden, a field
;
my
are these,
Ralph Waldo Emerson. any or
117
a reason for refusing the angel
all,
who beckons me
away, as
if
there were
no
room
or skylight elsewhere that could repro-
duce
for
He
me
my
as
wants require ? "
spoke of Ciq^ varyingly; sometimes
almost
personally as
perfect
manliness,
spirit,
ofte n
synonymous with as an immanent
if
again
a s a pervasive
held faith rigidly to " It
so
fact,
(^^ He we can
?a'r "as
he
said- ta me, " to believe in opposition to the guidepost. We can only remember that it does
see
fact.
is.
not
force,
not travel the road
permitted-,-"
it
travel. it, -but that road,
We
can
In order
necessary to read the literature
it is
are
common
His evangel was
faith in
of his day, for his
property now.
man and man's of God.
!
Mr. Emerson's newness and
appreciate
to
revolution,
points out. "*
no other
doctrines
final victory, the incarnation
Almost
The_futiire-was serene.
thfiJastJ^ords-I
was^ver
-to
hear him utter
were with- a snulft and-, cheer regarding 4oubt (not his) he could not dispel. ,
'
So Carlyle
:
not go with you faith
go never so
worse
than
February
.a~
" A course wherein clear faith canmay be worse than none ; if clear slightly against
none"
3, 1835).
(Carlyle,
it,
then
letter
it is
to
certainly
Emerson,
Talks with Emerson.
ii8 " For
that,"
he
said, "
to-morrow morning."
" That great and grave
Which may
And
we must
wait until
By transition
not king or priest or conqueror spare, yet a babe can bear."
The morrow's morning
has
come
to him.
PRESENCE.
PRESENCE.
When
I recall Mr.
recognize that a
Emerson
man more
personally, J.
impersonal one
There was nothing proseldom meets. nounced about him. Presence (in one meaning)r-he 4mdr"BÂŽÂťe, because he was without the consciousness, self-esteem, and self-asserBut tion which go so far to constitute it there was that behind the withdrawn manner which took possession with an exclusiveness fascinations or magnetism could
no personal
equal or explain.
To
every comer he was
a fact and experience, undissuadable, pene-
and source of and from the first moment, his was the " morning light which shines more and more unto the perfect day.'' At the time of our first meeting, Mr. Emerson was sixty-two. His tall, slender figure had made slight obeisance to age ; but the earlier portraits of him I had been familiar with ill-prepared me for his changed trating to the region of motive volition
;
Talks with
122
The
expression.
aggressive physiognomy was
the^ delicate^severe^_Jips^_jrid
there;
still
But they rarely flashed now, and ;
p iercing ey es.
wearing instead an introspective grey the
were rather those of a seer than a
lips
The
poet.
hair
alone had kept
colour, like dark wine.
its
native
Both Rowse's and
Wyatt Eaton's rather than Griswold's portraits revive him faithfully as he was at this time, and during the few later years that I saw him.
Rowse
large
featuring of his face, with that wise,
especially has reproduced the
determined nose (called
the
like
straight,
Damascus road) which other Emersons have, and the tender, shrewd eyes, that until the very end kept so
much
sunshine in them.
And what
eyes they were
lookea
they looked into, and that
^lessly.
at,
!
Whatever they
Such^arenot^ ordinary eyes
divining rods.
I
effort-
they are
have noticed that most
successful in values, business order, have the
;
same
men
of the
inquisitive peer.
men first
Under
excitement his look was illuminated, and betrayed by turns the sagacity of the
man
of
and the " vision " of the clairvoyant. His more tranquil regard continually revealed
affairs
yourself to clear
pool
yourself like the limpidity of a
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
123
But the regnant feature of Mr. Emerson's personal contact was his voice agreeable, kindly, incisive,
it
:
in converse
was only to be
heard when everything was congruous and still.
But who that ever listened to
it
in
public has forgotten the healthful experience
Not resonant
like PhilUps',
fewer contrasts with
than Beecher's,
itself
seemed as neither of these rivers
carry gold, the
?
and presenting
speaker's soul
it
some
to carry, as
in
it.
Ajs^ the voice, like the soul, knew no falling
Palm
inflections.
anrt
thg J*"""-,
ffUlflblfii
logist
went on, the voice always
pense
aft er_gyspense, still inconclusive
.jaised,
the ^ij^itfltiflOkeilfor rest,.tbe.ib>£aie clear until
.thfi.
final jgause,
^SKJng
postponed empJiasiS-joLj^lg^
and that
the lesson of which
ponder, and
still
ail-.ppward pitch ;Jj
made me
puzzle
—
that
on all subjects we
discourse inadequately, and can never
As
if
and
appeared to be ethical
finally
rather than rhetorical
to a period.
sus—
wiiea
he should say
to stop, but not to finish.
There
come
It is
:
is
time
more
to
be added to complete the presentation, but it cannot be spoken now on account of something else which must follow.
So he always stood on the rostrum, having away all the tricks that orators hold
cast
;
Talks with
124
dear, gestureless, save
movement of
now and then a
slight
the hand, repelling as from the
cold pole of a magnet;
his eyes searching
his manuscript, or raised over all of us
and
gazing forward into space, sometimes in the
presence of a luminous expression, glowing like the lenses
uttering
accent of a
come
after
man who
statement, but
here
of some great light-gatherer
sentence
who
sentence, with the
on
insists
this present
believes that
we cannot
to the whole truth of the thing,
and shall never quite find the end of it. For the rest, so lifted and extraordinary was the elevation from which he approached the
subjects
he
discussed
so
;
clear
his
medium, and removed from lower currents and "occasions"; such was his insight, mastery,
and
moderation,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
he
soon
created in his audience a fine surprise, and,
without delay, his
own nerve and
spirit. Then, and solicitation, so liberated was the manner of his address from dogmatism and self-assertiveness, that his
such
was
his fairness
audience was fain to project him free of the local circumstance, and to identify his presence as
representative
material age of that
in
busy and and timeless
this
solitary
group of natures, the choice of
all
ages.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
125
But the completed benediction was
after
he descended from the enforced dignity of the platform, and apart from the exacting restraints of the study.
His bearing and
contact had the exquisite power of a moral
nature which has never been impaired by a Nobility character-
wilful transgression.
ized his deportment.
Elevating describe
to
serenity
is
the
a weak word with which influence
upon men
;
of
his
gentle
for even quite above
themselves were they lifted by his presence,
and found
their highest
common ones. The cause of this was and
life
that
moments
all his
were abreast of the Holy
his
thoughts
Spirit
and
by it, so that every phenomenon assumed its natural place, demanding attention, but at no moment throwing the soul out of its relation with the Unseen. Even in those days when he was disturbing the movement of all the intelligent forces around tried
and the entire atmosphere was in commotion because of him, there was one him,
point of absolute calm, the centre of the cyclone.
As has been and yet not
with less truth said of another,
entirely appropriately of him,
"He
;
Talks with
126 was beautifully other
men
although
;
unfit to
walk in the ways of
" not entirely appropriately, for,
solitary,
he was a welcoming man,
tendered a noble regard, meeting, every one with.8Ut.sli3:n«ss;.or.stiiaess, interesting
to
make
himself
the most of the occasion, so that his
presence was a continual
sohcitation
and
Although qu iet almost to reserve. (I
reward.
neverh£a£d_Jum
social bearing
l.^ugE)7"h'i's
wasjlistinguished. by^^anold-scHooTpoliteness,
with just enough polish to divert the suspicion retirement had
that his
and
made him
his slight, ha^^J'oreign e tiquette
rustic
was so
uphfted. by jthe_pres£nceu)Q£e moral sense,
thayus.Hjanners jatfitfi
f^elestiaL.
His conversation was always in the low tone of one accustomed to being listened to,
and presupposed a
philologist's
knowledge of
words, so that the language was followed doubtingly at and, anon,
zons
and
it
first, but soon companionably, was plain that he opened hori-
left
on
touched a remnant of
almost
everything
originality.
he
Moreover,
one had with him the perpetual delight of hearing a thing said in listened
now
and now to an touched
its
best way.
You
to a quaint anecdote or satire, epithet, comparison, or excerpt,
gently
or
sharply with
his
own
Ralph Waldo Emerson. criticism, until
127
you breathed the high atmo-
sphere where your companion dwelt, not as a spectator but as familiar
;
and, after parting,
you remembered, more even than talk, his
and the
diffused,
forgetfulness that
was an intent
One was
listener.
quite sure of his""appreciation
you were
American.
in the presence of our foremost
He
his vivid
simple ways, the home-like feeling he
if
deserved.
Bu| there was always in his personality a " certain resistance, "a familiar reropteness and even when his companionship was most gentle and encouraging, it was searching and pungent like the odour and flavour of certain His books are aromal flowers and herbs. with the same quality. He disliked odd people, and during his most useful yearFTie was compelled to meet a great many. Sometimes it seemed as if they would overrun him, even drawing from ;
him, apropos of introductions, the droll demur,
"WJiom God
man
join
patient,
and
? "
tried to free
peccant humours and
what was
why should But he was always
hagi^ puj^asuftder,
together
each one from his
triteness,
his advantage.
How
peripatetic philosopher without
own land
and discover often did the
honour
in his
find here the right royal arch for
—
— Talks with
128
his Spanish castle, the unappreciated poet
wings and a farriery for his limping palfrey,
and the reformer, too often one-sided, a
lar-
ger horizon with a yet stronger enthusiasm. Anything that excited remark in dress
and de«a«aBourrE£2^2[e21^iiistinct. I remember he returned fromTTew Yoit, and told me that Mr. Walt Whitman, by invitation dining with him at the Astor House,
The extremes had come without his coat met then, though undoubtedly he enjoyed the unrestrained man and democratic poet, despite the odour his verses perspire. Long enough after the occurrence to divert any !
suspicion of
a connection, JtIr._jEmerson
said
" Dress should reveal the are
men™sa JjruiaUy
ci.Yilization that
the .dhow.,
spirit.
There
•yyuIuTahd indilerentto
they remind one of the veldt,
and ,the
They ought. -to go
kraal.
about, their faces smeared with woad, in skins
of vwild- animals, - with, a booeiclub.. pjuiheK ,
shoulders and a sword of siaik tooth, beating
drums
offish skin."
And
again " Manners should hespeaL-liie. man, inde-
peudfiat-Qf-firrc-'dothiflg.
not need a
brilliant coatv"
The
general does
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
129
He
was a most salutary companion. His was an abstersion. To him, there was but one foundation of genuine rery nearness
courtesy as of genuine character, and that
was the moral sense, so that though he never preached against bad physical habits and morals, his presence did not permit them.
The
sobriety, directness, honesty,
and con-
scientiousness which he infused into a
man
were antiseptic, and eliminated slovenly and unfortunate habits of It
was taken
mind and body.*
for granted as a basis of
com-
panionship with him that one was living in constant obedience to the nature.
He
demands of his highest
believed that the intellect and
the moral sentiment should not be separated.
Crass instincts he could forgive, and he had
an almost divine patience with weakness and * Mr. Emerson said he smoked very (and we all spared that overworn word) rarely, and never until he was fifty. He was a punctual man. I remember one afternoon we were going to drive. As I came into his room, prompt to the moment, I saw that he was already waiting. Every book and manuscript were put out of reach, not even the newspaper before him ; but there he sat on the edge of the lounge, his coat on his arm, his hat in his hand. I never knew him a minute late at any appointment. The example of course caught me at
know how he
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
a cost,
I suppose, of years.
K
Talks with
I30
even indolenge* but none.witkdislMjaesqr-
He
Remusat as he of Darwin, and despised
anticipated the disclosures of
did the discoveries the
Bonaparte because he cheated at
first
" It
is one of those acts," he said me, " which only men of a certain kind can commit. _rf cannot Tie extenuated-."' "^ So his bearing had a certain translucency, and begat it. "When two persons," he remarked once in my hearing, " are not happy with one another, fence and parry with one another, in-
cards. to
stead of meeting, are not
all
sions a little impertinent
?
"
We
plicity,
of their expres" (out of place).
drop everything and arrive at simwhich is the perfection of manners."
Incompetence^jwfiakcessof
will, yacilla t-
ing motives, nay, even stupidity-, -m-igh4;..be, OYfixlaokÂŁii.;^-bii--tKi*t9-of-hypuis*isy, nuvL'l.
Less endurable to him than even the flippant and fungoid folk who thought to entertain
him with
their
theological
cavilling,
was the approach of these persons of superficial etiquette and attired manners who were too polite for good breeding, donning courtesies for the sake of
ment
or
flections
experi-
But even the genuof these toy-shop gentry, and the occasion.
—
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
131
deeper disease of dissimulating natures pretending
to
the
possession
sympathies they did not
of
tastes
own and
and
did not
care to own, he would strive to antidote, often
by pointed questions which would
close
to
these confecting people
state of things, or
dis-
the real
by a severe simplicity of
demeanour which aiforded uneasy
contrast.
" He was a friend, a more than friend, austere To make one Icnow one's self and make him fear.
He
gave that touch too noble to be kind, to life the mind within the mind."
To wake
But when the
affectations
were too pro-
nounced, his phrases grew quiet and brief;
be
became
passage
him
reticent
or
of Wordsworth
disappeared.
reminds
me
A of
:
•
" Plain
his garb,
Such as might suit a rustic sire, prepared For Sabbath duties ; yet he was a man Whom no one could have passed without remark. Active and nervous was his gait ; his limbs
And
whole figure breathed intelligence. the freshness of his cheek Into a narrower circle of deep red. But had not tamed his eye that, under brows Shaggy and gray, had meanings which he brought From years of growth like a being made his
Time had compressed
—
O' many beings." Excursion, " The Wanderer."
Talks with
132
But words do not touch nerves ; I would you might find herein
that they could, that
himself as well as his utterances, so that this
record might be, as Mr. Walt Whitman hoped of his " Leaves of Grass," a man and not
But I forbear,
a book. as
knew him
I
—
failing to recall
anticipating, breathing
him
mild-mannered,
genial,
an enchanted youth,
though already beyond the years when men begin to think about dying or are half dead. A word about the nest and its good lares
1
Emersfln.._rare ly spoke of himself, but
!M r.
he Jjadthe
passion
characteristic of all •
for
manly
home which natures,
and
me
is
tpld
His that he beUeved in large famihes. mother had twelve brothers and sisters five sisters and one brother older than herself, three sisters and three brothers younger and
— —
his father I
and mother had eight
children.
asked him once about his boyhood, but
the brief answer gave small glimpse of boyish spirits
and joys
;
and reading
house was probably sins.
Perhaps he was a
a boyhood aged.
;
And
I think it
in the meeting-
his nearest to
man who
a boy's
never had
must have been always
so not least
among
the marvels
he awakened, was the pleasant query how one who never was a boy himself could cherish
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
133
so subtle a sympathy with a boy's weakness
and work and gladness and troubles. But, notably from the mother, there was an atmosphere of charm and peace in the
home
that
no
for
could substitute.
jollity
through the child
All
the sweetness of living
life,
one another was exemplified. Through it was still the gentle
youth into manhood, order of the family.
William taught school
Waldo through college Waldo taught school to help Edward and Edward taught to help
;
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all graduating from Cambridge between 1818 and 1828. Simplicity and mutual deference and love were the law of the household
school to help Charles
METHOD.
;
METHOD. How exacting
is
aroused youth
without shame every sacrifice could,
would
lay
Out of
its
force.
What
man
twilight
and,
if
it
head by the face of God. some path it must find or
grace, then, in the inimitable
to shorten for a time to half-length the
arm by which and vouchsafe
how
the
its
It claims
!
;
his
neophyte has been held,
as to the what, the when,
precept, but simply by showing his
of course,
not,
and
wise disclosures, not by didactic
they
that
own ways
could
become
another's, but that so best could another get his
to
This
own.
these
last
rare
gift
I
seek in
two concluding chapters to pass on
the
new
generation,
trying
thereby to
render such return as the great giver would direct.
This
abstain
from
Such an
is
attitude
think of him.
my purpose, and to judgment and the like.
solely
all
is
foreign to
me when
I
Incompaiable^aQd- beyond
speech, incomniensurable ^_hg.;._
and .the
Talks with
138
greatest have been, his interpreters,.
They
have- spread the" profound and conspicuous
elements -Š£. his character, and taken up arid
Their decisions
carri_edj)n hiaJoity.message.
are of record familiar wherever his
name
is
known, and history has given him his own place. Of so exalted a man my opinions and encomium are of no worth ; but, especially to those young hearts to whom is this address, my experiences have value in proportion to their
nearness
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; provided
are given with traits
always
which should always belong to
To omit
narrators.
a characteristic incident or
The
an unfortunate prejudgment.
when
ing fact only injures
they
that
and frankness;
faithfulness
mode
is
subtract-
suppressed.
It
would seem that a biographer literally takes a life when he takes from it that which alone
A
unites it with other lives. perfect hero with either his virtues or his vices " writ in
water,"
transhuman
is
;
and so valueless to
the world as an example, because
it
can find
no point d'appui in so much symmetry. I noticed Mr. Emerson invariably made these distinctions and expected them. No man ever lived observance. the
first
who
has
less
to
lose
by
their
Strangers_who_ sought Jiim for
time,
and found
his
contact
toi)
I
Ralph Waldo Emerson. arueiaicr-enflp.d
And may
b.y:-pmi-sing its
in his presence, the
give
way
.
139
spirituality.
most conscientious
to the natural
and honourable
impulse which compels us to praise without discrimination the great servers of mankind.
He -hdiexsd persistently
in thg,„practise of
expressing the thought with the pen. write," be-w-as
wont
to.
say tp.me
;
"Writer" "jhfiieisjB
no way to learn to write eaceftLbjimitJng/; His admiration was often too sanguine for the event. There was a young Rousseau knew him well who devoted years to the preparation of a psychological novel, which our Antinous had counselled writing out at length, though the result could not well be otherwise than it was a mass of worthless manuscript. Although he knew well how vast is the number of books brought to be
—
—
—
printed in comparison with the few that are, yet he never disgusted the would-be author
with such statistics or discouraged
..
effort,
but jj\yaj5„.jefliisiiiei£.4jthe_satisf action of expression a ""ffiiCAPTiJ; finaJ. rpgiilt. It is given to all men of letters to love the
Chermit vhabitj but Mr. Emerson's extreme solitariness was dictated from afar.
-
" I paths.
hope you
You
like
walks alone and in by-
find your best
muse
there," said
'
"
Talks with
I40
me and
the powers that conspired to
build him, the
manes of seven generations
he to
;
spoke in the expre ssion
He
avoide d
.
when
(^ies7 even
abroad,
seeking always, "WKen he could, some quiet
thorp wherein to disappear;
liked
not his
home, because it was a the statelarger village than Concord, and ment is veracious, not authentic was thankful wife's (Mrs. Lidian's)
—
—
when the inclemency of the weather assisted his own retirement Even thence he frequently He did some work on Monaddwelt apart nock, and in the Old
came from one of
Manse.
these
" Nature
remote,
hidden
studies.
"
Bu t
he "in some New York hotel or country inn, where no one knows or can find me. There one finds one's self" In his walks he was inquisitive, would interrupt the subject to remark upon anything I find_ _m^, best workiiig;„§plijude."
said to me,
uncommon;
especially objects
meretricious
or false rarely escaped his surveiUant eye. It
was a marvel that an attention so inward
could also be so outward. ing
made
blinds where were false
A
wooden
build-
to imitate brick or stone, painted
no
real ones, ashlar
facades, fences of
wood made
work, to re-
'
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. semble
iron,
141
any object suggestively untrue
annoyed him.
One d ay was
still
upo n him
I called
co2;^ingj_^ It
.
\
q fa;^ jiim
was necessary
for
some
purpose, he explained, that he should possess
some I
sixty pages of manuscript in duplicate.
offetg^JcjsUeKeJlJBi
;
J3JuyjÂŁ.saidhejnust
do, this, as be jy-as-fbtced tp dfl.|a;gry thing, for himself.
7~f>*â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
I like to recall such facts as these, because
continental critics have stated that he bor-
rowed Montaigne, imitated the Orientalists and Germans; and these are not the traits To me, Emerson's of a borrowing man. swift convictions, his sunniness and fidelity to the
homely
sincerities, are
not even of
like-
ness to Montaigne's pedantic and desultory earthliness,
and
unforsaken whims.
his
I
have
not seen any direct citations to substantiate They have never appeared in these charges. domestic latitudes, and could have been
I
do not think they
made by
persons acquainted
with Mr. Emerson, or familiar with his work for
he shrank from appropriating anything
not originally
his,
or that
assimilated by his
own mental
would rather be a
kitten
had
not been
character.
He
and cry " mew," and
Talks with
142 that
mew would
be Emerson's.
sought the Oriental the
Ramdyana
until
them here and
And who
he
did Carlyle
imported
for
it
Who among us knew of the Vedas
Americans. or
Emerson
German.
It is true
literature, as
he scattered the desire
for
there as a household treasure ?
has sought Saadi or Hafiz but has
encountered a disappointment of hopes based
on Emerson's richer page, to whom the imeven a moment's masquerade or carrying foreign colours for the most transient purposes was ancestral ? The same virility and rarity of organization which has made him so possibility of
eminent, has forced others of the same unreceptive blood into successes, as
marked
in
commercial and professional pursuits. His life and revealings were his own and explicit.
Openness
to
conversion
is,
perhaps,
as
admirable as firmness of conviction, but less of a severe individuality.
suggestive
Em£iSfln!§_methods were posi tive.
M^tr^
He did not _
den^zâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; That he never disclosed impatience positions were traversed led some to
when his
believe that he held his doctrines with a light
hand.
But once
statements
;
I
heard him defend assailed
and that occasion aiforded a
re-
markable instance of the tenacity with which lie
held his views, and the cogency with which
— Ralph Waldo Emerson. he could advocate them.
He
143
listened so well,
extended such appreciative consideration, and then there was such an apparent yielding in the fairness of his returns, that no one was pre-
pared for the discovery, until
it
was inevitable
from the larger view he presented, that confu-
He
sion must follow those who. withstood him.
did not compromise, nor did he proclaim
;
but
his quiet rejoinders concealed the dark fires of
volcanic regions which catch where they ace It was from his example a brief and gentle discussion a heated magnet loses and not abandoned until all saw its power that there was positively no hope of eliminat-
not^ seen.
—
—
ing from such pertinacity any position once
But the charm consisted in the
assumed.
quiet reappearance of the arraigned propositions
they
;
came
language, with
a new
force, I
identity.
clad
but
the
same
it
/
•
A
new
indestructible
much as to the Brahma lines
quite as
divinity of existence the old
/
in
gave them
can never remember the incident
without applying to
"
always
illustrations that
:
If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I
keep and pass and turn again," *
good instance
is
this
quatrain of Mr. Emer-
—
v
"
Talks with
144
But, marchom, dinate
I
touch a single subor long
too
feature
Eoleniicism was foreign
His opponents wove
for
_to^
his
faithfulness.
Mr. ..Emsrson.
sisal
into
fibres
when they were drawn tight he had escaped. All of him the attitude of ropes, but
hostility
could detain was the linen cloth
about the body. He woulinot-de-battle for hia_pi£cepts ; he did-'Horwish-follQffiers, nor
was he an
moved was
The images
iconoclast.
are re-
He
or burned after, not by him.
solicitous about the clay, but not
about
and womM^ conger e individ u even than the ]inowl«4ge"«)f— Moreover, he was deeply sensitive tiutbr to the many-sidedness of truth, and the the shape
ahsm
;
rather
impossibility of uttering in regard to
it
the
complete word.
How
and With what tempests of humour that, as Emerson said, " floated everything," the great Scotchman would sweep this
contrasts with the bold
stormy Carlyle
!
Compare Krishna's song Edwin Arnold's translation
son's resurrecting power. in the Bhagavad-Gita,
:
" He who shall say, 'Lo I have slain a He who shall think, Lo I am slain
man,'
!
'
Know
naught
slain
1
1
Life
!
cannot slay.
!
'
those both
Life
is
not
—
!
Ralph Waldo Emerson. away
pposition
;
quite as likely, with
or,
'hat electrical violence
They were
HS
he would destroy
it
always at war, their methods
ansversej,and-thdx_s£.paia]iaaa$i5iSeS«ced. 'arlyle!sL_adEantage. 1
And
arth.
was jn
force,
His^ feet were
insight.
Emerson|s
always on the
so he believed in the grandeur
f the masses and their self-originated adancement, while Carlyle's sympathies were ever democratic. "A great deep cliff," e said, " divides us, in our ways of praclooking
cally aid
me
this
at
world."
=z.
Both_
enccairaged—geftuine
know Goethe mch less for the American 5
cotchman.
Emerson
was impatient for him knowledge which did
that Carlyle
than for the
omers, but neither could tolerate insincerity,
hich they destroyedi~one™winr'lighJ.£ni^
nd the other with Jigbt. But I hasten to my vicissitudes with Mr. Emerson's literature
;
for they traversed mis-
nderstandings with his methods to which very
young and new reader is exposed, I saw him his pages
'or^many years before
semed 5
me
to
a Bible
;
immortal.
They-stirred
so completely (according to
me my
apacity) did I receive their revelation, so
eenly did I feel their bracing and severe
Talks with
146 climate
;
the fine exhilaration they create
iheir insight
;
their sententious
nobility of their character.
aspirations of
Then
my mind
;
wisdom ; the
So the highest
were met and
satis-
was disturbed by bruit of under-meanings and tones that I had not
fied.
caught. series
I
learned that I ought to find a
I
of sub-conscious, logical links, subtly
binding these inspirations into an integral
whole; and that they were inhabited by a double interior sense, like that attributed to
Swedenborg by his disciples. I had been for months passionately and patiently absorbed in the search when Mr. Emerson himself came upon the scene. "Now," I exclaimed, " that I can see the master, I shall be taught." Well do I remember the charmed afternoon that he put into my hands one of his personal collections, I do not know their
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
name; Emeisoniana, I _called..iljem,-^-atherings which had grovtn from -year to year _
until they
would
raake-a.,.vÂŁiluHÂťe-;r
brrgmal
and
pencil,
reflestians," extracts
with
pen
and even a gallery of words and brilliant and studious expressions; like Bacon's "Promus," anything and everything that had formed a mental experience for him. Here and there were isolated scraps, personal draughts,
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
147
quantities of manuscript, evidently denoting
what he had meditated, and studies of particular subjects with his
own commentaries.
He
obviously had sipped from books rather than read; and these repertories witnessed
he had obeyed his own maxim-to " shut book when your own thought comeg." seemed as if he had preserved everything,
that t he
It
whether in good form or not ; but this was a mistake; for he destroyed much that should
Many
have been spared.
of the passages I
once recognized as friends of the rostrum. In a moment it flashed upon me that I was at
in the presence of
sources yea, the
one of the manuscript
of the addresses, essays, treatises,
books themselves.
could realize
this, I
So soon
as
I
sought to pursue through
a few of the pages the theme on which they advertised to discourse.
became unable
But
I
very soon
to trace connections.
was the subject, looked looked into; but here, as
at,
well,
were others
remotely relevant or not relevant at
paragraphed adages,
bits
all,
and
of print, pen-illustrations,
criticisms,
ingenious
and
reflections obviously just as they
on anything
Here
looked about,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
delicate
came, and
then the subject again
appearing, like the uncalculated return of a
Talks with
148
The
comet. I
orbit
was long, and an
ellipse,
went back and over the ground again and with
again
but
scrutinizing eyes,
not be mistaken,
and
finally
I
gave
convinced that the wigwam was
lost,
could it
up,
not the
Indian.
Studying
closer into the construction
still
it became Emerson considered the him the limit of logical ex-
of the propositions themselves, plain
that
Mr.
paragraph for
He tried to crowd everything into an attempt which the following one exposed. These fragmentary and unrelated statements produced upon me an impression of isolation, and gave an air of incompleteWith their drastic quality and weight, ness. pression. it
;
they overpowered the narrative.
So since
have our gigantic Californian sequoias made
me
indifferent as to the trend or extent of
the forest
seemed
they constitute.
islanded,
he
as
The
said,
incompressible, each sentence an repellent
tion
:
particle.''
And
thoughts
"paragraphs infinitely
Carlyle's
descrip-
" By-the-by, I ought to say the sen-
tences are very brief,
and did
not,
in
my
sheet reading, always entirely cohere for me.
Pure genuine Saxon; strong and simple; of a clearness, of a beauty, but they did not
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. sometimes rightly
stick to their foregoers
their
the
followers
;
149
and
paragraphs not as a
beaten ingot, but as a beautiful bag of duck shot held together by canvas " (Carlyle Letter :
to Emerson,
November
3,
1844).
And one
remembers Theodore Parker's comparison of Mr. Emerson's sentences to an army all officers but they are advancing on a long
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
march.
And now
I thought I understood better
about the frequent lapse and hiatus in the
Lyceum appearances and which
published,
young
;
as
lectures
bewilder
the
Mr. Emerson sought not and determined not to write for
student.
occasions,
them
the
frequently
but in his position he could not avoid
bodily into them the work without some concession to time and place; and Bronson Alcott has drawn a picture of Mr. Emerson on his knees in his study, trying to piece
them, nor could he
lift
original fabric of his
together for such exigency sheets of written
matter with which the floor was carpeted.
But art is inflexible, and there were audacious chasms which even his carpentry could not join, and which had been abandoned in despair. fear,
This
must
be
physiological
accepted
connection,
rather
than
I
the
Talks with
I50 psychological
but^anjii Jogical-eomRtlction
;
whieh God never no longer wondered turning of leaves which had
wniild sever those-teadong j
oined together
So
.
at the hesitant
-
I
What trying lecturing. moments some of those pages must have
characterized the
occasioned
;
what temporary embarrassment,
incident upon extracting anything consecutive
from them
knew now why no lo, the theme and we got only one.
Well, I
!
lecture was twice alike; for,
occupied
many
hours,
Here before me was the out form, though I
original body, with-
almost see the
could
hand moving on the manuscript's As for a hidden sense, I said (and
creator's
face
!
conclusion
this
readers
who
Emerson; but they was found
in
one
the
unchanged),
remains
find
Faust
in
will find
it
may
in
cup
as the
Benjamin's sack, and by a
similar process.
The next
my
step toward possession of
author was a most important one, namely,
my
introduction to Plato
and Coleridge.
I
found myself returned by them to the same posture of attention excited.
while
The
Emerson had
originally
Socratic dialogues, especially,
apparently
lawless,
exhibited
that
nothing important was omitted in the ground
Ralph Waldo Emerson. gone over
151
and I discovered that there was same progress as if the manikin process had been pursued, and the argument ;
really the
These imaginary conversations, and Coleridge's discursive discussions, became anatomized.
me
to
object-lessons
Emerson's
disclosing
secret of advancing
by a natural instead oi the artificial order I had been trained in. Then I recalled what he _ba.d. J;a ught me ,
("
Counsel
to
appear^Mnd
"),
to permit fiototiocmative steps
saw how
I
foolisli it
had been
-iirme to suppose that he would permit them to apjjear himself "
Why
could
" that
he
which
is
it
not be,"
dispenses
a form
rather
I
asked myself, the
with
than proving, and performs his in
quiet, acquainting the reader
the epigrammatic results
syllogism,
of stating
;
and
proof
reasoning only with that
these
limited diversions, given with such excess
candor that they cause
by them,
me to
oi
be over-solicited
really exhibit the author's truth
by
the exhaustion of exits from it ? " Applying this dialectic to the " Essays," I was delighted to find that they were responsive to
displayed under
it
it,
and
the same intelligent plan
as that unquestioningly acknowledged in his
more concrete work,
like
"Nature," " English
;
Talks with
153
and his campaign march like a phalanx. From this point of view, there is one axis through the main portion of his writings and I regard them also as an exhibition of what, in the best sense, natural methods of composition can accomplish in the way of Traits,"
orations,
his
which
addresses,
the construction of which he never gave a thought, and so produced one entirely style, to
new and
fascinating, characterized
rather than
argument;
presenting them without the
common, of showing
by insight
seizing truths effort,
relations
and
hitherto
and connec-
tions.
That Mr. Emerson's friends have genernot been content with this accomplishment, and have sought to conform him to the old rules and ways, I regard as unfortunate. No new vogue gains permanent admiration ally
unless
it
necessity creator.
appears to his
is congenial to an unrecognized and the natural vehicle of its That adopted by Mr. Emerson
me
sagacity
to
and
be a vindication alike of his
conscientiousness.
~
It
was peculiarly adapted to the time of its man whose first work was to break the heavy equilibrium amid which he found himself; to agitate into life appearance, and to the
Ralph Waldo Emerson. New
the settled
England
torpor,
i53
and with
the intellectual activity to attain higher moral
There remained one
processes. in
determination
this
of
step farther
method.
The
reader of Mr. Emerson encounters (often
introduced by the formula, " I have heard," or,
" as a certain poet sang ") utterances that
are fragments of a sjiritual
pjulosnphy or which we have not the entire subThe altitude from which these stance. verities come is beyond that sought by the
vision of
thinker or poet the seer.
God
is
The
quite as
;
it is
in the region of that of
genesis of these thoughts of
much
the experiences of his
sinless life as the intuitions of his highest
and
tpiyatif
and prophetic moments, when
the univeraeJagcame self -revelatory.
The
themes forbids their approach by the methods of empirical spiritual character of these
logic
;
but in their presence there
is
a pro-
A found and central self-containment. large unity and integrity resembling that of Nature (within whose content are surprises and contrasts) is in all expressions of the Over-Soul or Supreme Reality, and they are in it " as the ocean is in the bucket and the bucket in the ocean." I submit this elementary record to the
Talks with
154
young and new reader of Emerson, in the hope that it may be of some help in determining the question whether his presentation is
wiihin scientific form.
An
organic philosophy he did not
His claunj&-that-there
The clement
is
offer.
nQthing_coinp1 Ptp.
Parcae in his study,
who were
ever spinning a fairer thread, presided over his mental attitude,
which always
objects are unknowable
Nothing
relativity.
is
be.
I utter the final
How
different this
instance,
said.
on account of
All
their
concluded here or can
word on no
subject.
from Beecher's study,
for
where the great circular work-wheel
and chair
in the centre
somehow always
pre-
sented positive and final declaration.
But Emerson would weave no completed fabric. Far be it from him to dogmatize or insist upon any pronouncement as complete or final. He said what he saw, and as far as he saw, without reasoning and without logical unfolding.
Fgf^ts, yes_^
hut p t-th fi yeoAex^n I
h is o wn ^ dreafping, and~.make-Jiia^\vii, completions.
solidarity
" it
Do
His reward does not depend on which
is
often
artificial.
not put hinges to your work to
make
cohere," he once said in substance to me.
And we must remember
that through such
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson. much
joints
world.
sophistry
has crept into
155 the
was Mr. Emerson's soul
Sincerity
and he unhesitatingly preferred
laclT ofTron-
tinuity to the least ambiguity regarding inten-
Classification for the sake of external
tion.
order and system was unnatural to him.
Nor
was he sensitive to their absence in Carlyle, whose writings are a congeries of magnificent contradictions.
ment
in
It
may be
that this tempera-
Mr. Emerson asserted
itself at
times
too strongly for his wish or his work, as certainly did his reluctance
from severe thought.
had once attained form and been passed upon, it must remain. If After his proposition
the next could be
made
to harmonize with
it,
must look out for itself; it, too, must be true, or it would not be here. These omissions and silences in Emerson's literature reward, and it is well to master its cipher. It is the way a poet writes. Emerson was essentially a poet, and the essays are
well
if
;
lyric
not, the next
and a solvent
discuss society
No one reads poetry,
"
and
A
by
it
force. is
When
even they
with a poet's insight.
them, any more than he would
quantity.
poet does not say to mankind. This,
this only, is true,
and you
will find
it
consistent with every other truth I proclaim.
He
says,
I feel this, at this
moment,
to
be
;
Talks with
iS6 true
;
much of the Kving world I can You ask sincerity of utterance
so
portray you.
from
the
poet,
Here and there
not
systematic
thinking.
mind unmis-
flash across the
takable truths or generous sentiments, which, surely,
it is
well to utter, though in a partial
and disjointed manner. There is a certain freedom of utterance allowed to the poet which is denied to the prose writer, for this very reasonâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; that he is not expected to follow out to
its
last
logical result
every opinion
and sentiment he expresses."
As regards
the poetic form, what fetter
Mr. Emerson's genius felt from the rules of art, or within what limits his temperament confined his inspirations,
but
we have from a most
we cannot know
conscientious
himself a poet, in regard of Mr.
critic,
Emerson the
judgment: "If he had been frequently sustained at heights he was capable of reaching, he would unquestionably have been one of the sovereign poets of the world."
But what
poet has inhabited such heights long ? To me the graces that transcend in Mr.
Emerson's
poetry
are,
with
this
spiritual
and infectious individualism that quality which constrained Carlyle to write him that his anonymous elevation,
its
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
allusiveness
Ralph Waldo Emerson. work was
at
once distinguishable in a mis-
cellaneous gathering of writings. as
poetry,
157
in
the
But
in the
the laissez faire
prose,
atmosphere, necessa.'ily noticeable, was found exasperating; and his critics crowded the columns of the Boston and New England press at times with attack, but
word
of
literary
answer.
found in them no
Even
the
Archons
of
opinion raised their deep and seldom
voices in vain.
He
was out and away from
the cry of the hounds.
One fronted
other of the deep lessons that con-
me
from those precious manuscript
pages of the master belongs here
;
and that
was the evidences of painstaking and labour, of careful reconsideration and retouching of the form which were everywhere.
of these
memoranda were pasted
together, the language until the
Countless or pinned
changed and rechanged
paper resembled palimpsist, and the
thoughts like sheet metal rolled and ham-
mered
to the smallest possible compass.
severer judge of himself never wrote.
A
What
who "throw off" Nothing that he on the spur of the moment Immense was the did was " thrown off." tributary study, deep and long the meditation, well brooded were all statements; but, more a rebuke to those writers
!
Talks with
158 than
all,
patience, especially
how
firmly,
with
what
infinite
was the expression manipulated, his fine use of the
in
common
which find
everyday words
on his page their apotheosis, and approve him a great Here and there on intermaster of English !
jected leaves
I
could even trace the history
of a sentence from the enunciation
through
first free
and mordant
modifications,
abate-
ments, and restrictions to narrower outline,
then tempered to the exact
and clear "River
fact,
and the clean
distinctions, the
to streamlet reducing,
and mountain
to slope
subduing."
Drop by drop the enchantment was distilled which changed the water into wine. It is this fine
and
full
control of his instrument
which confers such a subtle charm on
his
books, gives them their lucidity and surprise,
and makes of them English classics. Truly a sayer was Emerson. 'Sometimes the pemmican process has been too rigid, and one regrets the parsimony of words. But always, if you repeat what he says, it must be in his own language, even when he uses "reliable,"' "loan," as a verb, "isolate" as an adjective, " party " for individual," the three first," etc.
Indeed,
such
preferences
as
these
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
'
KAl.r^i
WALDO
JiMERSON.
59
1
purposed adoption of abbreviations even
in
his poetry, frequent disregard of precision
in the use of words, a certain intentional
raggedness of expression, the employment of colloquialisms,
and the
like
exclamatory sentences,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; distinguish
subtract from the
ary accomplishment. to
Emerson from
and in so far permanency of his liter-
the strictly literary writer
;
He
gives
thought by saying things in
startling
haps,
and was not always, per-
ways,
patient
impetus
new and
trust
to
his
unsurpassed
knowledge of words and form. He was subject to flow and departure of tide. There are passages in Emerson, many, many of them, where he is a veritable Adonais, beautiful and strong and luminous, where the thought has been apparelled in a way not to be surpassed for translucence and delicacy, and these are literature. There are other passages
been an
where,
as
intelligent
obviously,
there
and unhesitating
has
sacri-
seems to me, who is never for a moment other than purely literary. Mr. Emerson claimed that the best statement fice to
the dynamic.
Emerson
Here,
it
contrasts with Plato,
scanned and
cited, "
therej^as light."
L et there be liahtrand^-
And we know of the linesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
—" — Talks with
i&o "
I heard, or
Say,
seemed
Pilgrim,
'
why
to hear, the chiding sea
so late and slow to
come ?
'
that they were substantially originally written
Expression to him was a sensuous
as prose.
and so
delight,
his words.
Who
and
He
refreshing.
tasted
has said as perfectly those
things which are difficult to say at
f
keen of
his sentences are
flavour, delicious,
all ?
He
told me that he^^as notjgelL-ghen Jip rwiJd ' not write] and—rrr the^ study ha lud THImite
He
^palierrce;
and
it
even suspected
his fervours,
took him a long time to secure in his
spirited
paragraphs their wide, and at the
same time
their carefully distinctive
meaning.
This needful elaboration perhaps explains his epistolary defect
Any necessitated
taneity embarrassed him,
spon-
and he was forced
and search apparent ease in my room he said (jyi see you have many gathered volumes of correspondence of distinguished men and
to copy his letters
of/t^iposition.
Once
women. It. is,A.fortiH>e-to write goad-leltejs^ do not havejl„. I do not love—l€.tteii
I
^nling,
^d jdojjfit
So
few
his
addresses
JKiitfiuJetters readily.!!.-.
apparently
did not
come
occasions at least within
offhand
public
on two knowledge
pat, but
my
there was manuscript foundation.
He was
—
— Ralph Waldo Emerson.
i6i
not ^ equal to the exigent jistwaird, the im-
And
the~~genesrs~of thought in the presence
of an audience, revealing to them that they
were in some wise made Beecher and
the parent of
it,
which
Phillips, for instances, so
popular, was a perpetual surprise to him. ._!
cannot think of Emerson as envying anybut this extempore -i-naek—tempted So a friend relates of him that one day, coming out of a crowded audience which he had disappointed in the middle of his address by mislaying some pages of his manuscript (so distressing him that he took his seat), and which Phillips had immediately thing;
him.
delighted with his oration, Mr.
Emerson
said
" I would give a thousand shekels for that
man's secret."
So he said of Beecher, apropos of
his
oratory in England during the war
you do with an eloquent man? you laugh, and you cannot throw your egg." These statements disclose an estimate of eloquence coincident with the ordinary one, rather than with his definition given in " Counsel." Accepting that definition which was perhaps temperamental, he was almost incomparably eloquent.
"What
He makes
will
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 1
is
62
Talks with Emerson.
His conveyance in regard to the fine arts so excellent but slight that perhaps
they did not fully address him.
Neither
are the exact sciences represented as hav-
ing received attention. matics,
Indeed, of mathe-
Mr. EmerSSftk said to
me
,'
was long before thing"^ wrcjig
thein."
my
in
home "Some riiathematjcal works here, What hours of anelancholy mine cost ji
I learned that there is
with
X man's
brai u
""-
"""
\yli
o
too. !
It
some1oyi^~'
Such remarks as these emphasize that Mr.
Emerson hoped to help less by demonstration and reasoning than by breaking up apathy and imparting impulse and who that has brooded over Emerson's writings and felt ;
their fascination,
spontaneous as
improvisatore, salient with
all
if
from an
the qualities of
suggestiveness and motive-power, with imagi-
nation and intuition instead of syllogisms,
and words of a fine vitality coercing into new, strange, and eruptive moods, but has felt that he has before him an illustration of what
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the English language, unaided by action, can
achieve in moving the souls of
men ?
M
MANHOOD.
MANHOOD. This is the story of an enthusiasm. One who comes to the long leisure of youth in its arid but most auspicious days, concentrates its vague and restless aspirations and nourishes its
heart, takes possession with
an exclusive-
Not learnwisdom or personal appearance and fascinations create these profound and permanent impressions. When they are asked ness proportioned to the service. ing or
for,
the inquisition
is
deeper.
difiÂŁientiating_ substance,
and
the central
who
touch.
shadows
We
iÂŤ
the
the__inner quality,
essential character of the
man himself7^fox that we angel
What
conjure the invisible
has conquered us by his audacious
No
observations and calculations of
to
determine
can only know the
altitude
man by
will
avail.
the affections,
which, as Wordsworth says in a noble passage, are their
own
justification.
1
Talks with
66
So I knew him, and yet knew him not For that is the nobility of every great man, that he cannot be divined, but sends the seeker farther and farther into his own unsurveyed heavens. So he was incommensurable, and might have been taken for the pneuma Plato celebrated, who can see two sides of a thing ; only, so far from being simple, he was many-sided. His resemblances were of Socrates, Buddha, and Ben Franklin; but he continually surprised and eluded.
How
often as
ever seen him,
young men, before we had
we used
to gather about the
study table in those earlier days before his
coming, and create him mechanically from his
books
!
How
little
were our verbatim
imaginations prepared for the propensities
we encountered! We went out to see one who had forsworn all luxuries, a man of abstemious and austere habit and severest standard.
We
never found him.
remember now the anxious consultation and miserable misgivings over our Long we hesitated little banquet to him Well
I
!
over the items of the simple order to the village
caterer
1
afforded ice-cream
His
country
and comfits
!
resources
But had
not our guest in his published writings
for-
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
167
bidden them, except for those who dare not trust the
And
entertainment of their
own minds ?
I venture the guess that neither of us
have since experienced that pecuHar creep of surprise
us as
and rehef that gradually
we saw
stole over
(though, ignorantly, our repast
was offered at an hour when the stomach should be sacred of intrusion, three p.m.) our dainties disappear with an appetite we had supposed characteristic only of undergraduates.
on the road, when he would and inquire about the proprietors of certain estates, and praise their thrift and enterprise, remembering how I had kindled reading his eloquent advocacy of a So, again,
stop wayfarers
renunciation " of the premature comforts of
and barn
an
acre, house,
lit
deserts of truth " I
!
understand him
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to traverse the starfelt
that I did not
that, in boy's parlance, his
words meant one thing and he another. Of course this was the boy's stupidity.
Our
eyes,
myopic and
plinth, could
represented.
level
not take in what But,
after
all,
only to the it
upheld or
has not
the
blunder been shared by older and harder When the master's presence was heads? missed from the company of Pythagoreans
1
Talks with
68
and herb-eaters at Brook Farm and Fruitand when advocates of special reform, attracted by the encouraging hospitality of
lands,
his
writings, sought his espousal of their
schemes
was must take
in vain,
it
not apparent that
words as parole, and for themselves discover at the last that he was not a reformer, but a creator of rethey, too,
formers
his
?
Then
there are in his literature intuitions
which logic seems to continually overcome, positions which are easily shown to be apparently unreconcilable.
And
one
reminded of what he says of thinks he meant this, and another that. He said one thing in one place and the reverse of it in another place. He argues on this side and on that." (Emerson on Plato, but on himself as well.) Farthermore, he advertises of himself: " But lest I would mislead any, when I have my own head and obey my own whims, let Plato.
"
is
One man
me remind
the
experimenter.
reader that I
Do
am
only an
not set the least value on
what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not do, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. facts are to
me
I unsettle all things.
No '
sacred,
none are profane.
I
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
169
simply experiment, an endless seeker, with
no past
Now
my
at
back
" (" Circles ").
such words as these, and such ex-
periences as those just narrated, have served to puzzle
and deter new
But
seekers.
to the
true Emersonian, the facts indicated by these
words occasion no unrest. So
things,
He
them.
from having
He would unsettle That we should pursue have no sacred facts. Why ?
the master's inner all
far
they are recognized as being from
this effect,
self.
why ? will
That we should look all facts And this is the open secret of
in the face. his
Others give us themselves.
day.
power
He
to-
gives
and maintains to us ourselves, our best selves. do not seek him for knowledge, but for wisdom, and the best wisdom a new life.
We
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
And
it is
that
this universal search that indicates
seminal,
germinal,
which
is
self.
He comes
developing quality
the central essence of the
man
him-
immediately into the mind,
a revolutionary force, questioning, suggesting, destroying composure, provoking doubt
the order that
is,
destroying
of
gods whether
Penates or Empyrean, not with blows, but with
frost
and
fire,
emancipating thought,
sowing a sane discontent and elation stimulator, inspirer, liberator of power.
;
then
And
:
Talks with
170
with what other service
To
is
such serv'ce com-
temper he was ever conEven in his old age, which is not stant. seldom the obscuration of genius, when h s days became almost merely loitering and literary, he still kept this native bravery, parable
?
and I believe obeyed " The
And
He
this
refers to it
when he
says he
voice at eve obeyed at prime."
so to the heart of youth I would say
comes
especially to you.
You
will find
these days everybody quoting him, and not a
While he was too wise to seek
few praising.
the inculcation of an harmonized system of truth, yet no one has given us so many and such rare truths. No one in these congested days will yet guide you so well to those heights where are the jodel and the all
But not
edelweiss.
you.
It
him
that
is
you must meet.
in search of his
for this
does he come to
the invigorating, elevating soul of
it
;
You,
too, will
go
you, too, will be impelled by
words ; and you,
too, are called
forepoint at your peril
when they
upon
to
are born
of his imagination, his mood, his uplifting genius, his intuition, as well as
source
is
pects of you that
when
their
commonsense. He exyou will obey the placard,
his valid
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
171
"Private way, no thoroughfare," hung by verger over the turns of the quadrangle.
this
He,
himself, the
"
Musketaquit, goblin strong, Of shard and flint makes jewels gay. They lose their grief who hear his song, And where he winds is day of day."
His are the
loftiest
do the most
to
conceptions, those which
make
us discontented with the
ordinary and commonplace, and by that token are
essentially
incapable of being
literally
translated into speech or personified in action.
So you true.
^
will find his
words always
logically
from the
first
manifestation of his
yet come to the gosCj^ sity
wise, always
Follow Emerson's utterances chronoobscure but stimulative
when he had not knowledge of his pur-
spirit,
full
but was conscious mainly of the neces-
of-thawtng out the climate, through to
his later lifetime,
when
an unbroken fringe
his philosophy forms
falling in separate
of beauty and use that touch at
all
threads points
and sanely our humanity. I read a portion of the essays to an old farmer. He clapped his hands, and exclaimed that whoever wrote that book knew how to "farm it" Yet the characteristic admired wisely
was merely that of practically a holding to
Talks with
172
the fact by prehensility of trait
that
the
even it
would not gospel
first
is
tail
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
valuable
so
common
but one
simial,
if
distinguish.
The
necessary to
lift
soar of
the
last.
Those primal pages are to be reverently treasured by the Emersonian because they first drew us to him. Indeed, the earlier idealism, the era of the doctrine of Trans-
cendentalism and tions, finds
accompanying intima-
its
interpretation
its
warmer, and riper work; traveller's
will
earlier
own time became
How much
audible
to us has
been be ever the high sentences of that
after-days.
and
later,
the Arctic
mythus, the speech congealed to
the hearers of his in
the
in
as, in
manhood, and
form, which was
to
his
inability to con-
the Jews a stumbling-
block and to the Greeks foolishness We would not miss the records of him in the !
matter of the Lord's Supper, Public Prayer, Christening, etc., even though later in
may be
life it
he would not have called these forms sensualizing, nor have failed to find some hands other than Channing's pure enough to touch the f^r^head of t hft "hyathat
cinthin,e.,bo4ÂŁÂŤI!.,
The moral less
its
quality of his genius
unfailing
characteristic.
was not
The man
;
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
173
stood behind or abreast of his every state-
ment, and
it
his sincerity.
At
came clothed with dignity from Great events moved him deeply. and
their approach, his other worldliness
pure speculations were put one side; and all
low motives, considerations of mere ex-
if
the
vanished in his strong presence
question, as
been mixed with
had
pediency that
themselves purely speculative.
his earliest
advocacy of
expostulations
political
President van
with
Witness
reform
;
his
Burenj
and in the Bell-Everett matter his voice, which was the conscience of New England his and his foremo^f^ abolition pulpit ; William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery apostleship
;
his
noble address at Concord on the
death of Lincoln with
;
his
t1iÂŁJj )f)va-fij.g^
of the over-soul, his
emancipation speeches,
In these was the voice
God
through him.
We
have no more mgnientous_ manifestation of the national spirit
more
free
from the ferocity
of his colleague's, more timely and weighty. befitted an epoch-originating man, he was above the atmospheric envelope, and not affected by its disturbances, but spoke
As
from the calm heights where gathered and for ever will gather with him the noble and victorious of all eras.
The
tone of loyalty to
"
Talks with
174
commonwealth always commanded his Once, and forbade his criticism. friend was which a when an audience at into an listen compelled to was present, dividual who persisted in reading some screed on national politics, Mr. Emerson broke the the
respect
silence that followed the infliction with the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
!
one word of praise " Patriotic But this recognizing the best possible was a quality always transparent in him. His preference was persistent for only the good
human life around him, and he would have nothing to do with its lemurs. MelanHe choly- was a, chimpanzee traij^toJu^. rejoiced in Fuller's- maxisr,"" An ounce of
in the
cheerfulness
serve
God
is
worth a pound of sadness to
with."
He
had not the capacity
to form even a recognizing acquaintance with
the darker facts in
doubtedly,
his
He
extreme.
faith
human in
character.
its
reactions
perhaps gifted
it
Unwas
with some
did not possess ; and it may be some chasms he walked over with buoyant step because with bandaged eyes;
qualities
it
there were
or was
it
that they were too intently fixed
on the zenith
He
to see the nadir?
fought with the bright battalions.
And
Ralph Waldo Emerson. their allies of the graver faiths
175
have proclaimed
that his serenityof_ogtiimsm invalidated his
authority aS-ajjjagtiQaUnQr4ÂŁxp.on
;
while
even many of his friends have feared that the natural enamel was too protective which
kept him so stainless.
His Greek absorption
of the beautiful and the organization
spiritual
delicacy of
toward a sanction which with sought in his
and
processes
own
his
may go some way difficulty is
instructor, Nature,
whose
penalties are darkly luminous
with the presence of a principle very like that
of
on
Whether here the linden
evil.
Siegfried
answer.
I
is
leaf
fell
a question which time will
believe that his changeless dis-
regard of the vast
power of the
the ideal nature in
man
has
will to
destroy
source in the
its
great hope which inspired that noble question,
"Who
can
set limits to the
of the Spirit ? "
What
voice,
remedial force
even to an age
so facilely incurious of its own dark problems and so unconscious of sin as this, has a stronger moral imperative and from a higher
plane of religious motive than that of him
who beyond
question was the greatest vindi-
cator and exalter of the soul the
has seen
new world
?
There are those who believe
that
he saw
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Talks with
176
clearly because he did not feel keenly that
within he was emotion]ess,_his_sympathies
But
bei ng rather wijix-abstr-act-humanity. that is noble in the
by,
and
in the
greets him.
man
;
human
heart
His love was
is
for the
man
an44hatlave,jsdtkjiis.instinetive--
knpjs4eage^rEhe-eentraJ.,aecrets of being,
From
the source of his power. fi
all
accosted
was
his in-
it
:ence~"exhared as perfume from a flower.
But the inner tenderness
is
disclosed in such
expression as the following to Carlyle
"I
write to implore
your health.
whom you
You
you to be
are
:
careful of
the property of
all
and soul, and you must not deal with your body as your own. O my friend, if you would come here, and let me nurse you and pasture you in my nook rejoice in heart
of this long continent, I will thank
^
God and
you therefor morning and evening, and doubt not to give you, in a quarter of a year, sound eyes, round cheeks, and joyful spirits."
And how Mrs. who us,
Carlyle wrote
him
:
" Friend,
years ago, in the Desert, descended
out of the clouds as
it
were, and
on
made
one day there look like enchantment for us, and left me weeping that it was only one day." It
is
because these memories and such
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
177
unpermitted memories as these are so near the heart, because his volitions were so pure
and
demeanour so lowly, that we return and, remembering him less as a man of unmatched originality, an unhis
to these things
;
failing fountain
of delightful ideas, a moral
genius of extraordinary insight and mastery,
an architect of new horizons, a generative
and elemental power even, than as
anjj in-
heritance of the divine presence, think of lastingly
and
lovingly
with
"Soine,shall-notÂŤleep,_but be changed."
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This book contains a series of selected addresses delivered before the General Christian Conference held at Washington, D. C, Dec. 7-g, 1887, under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance.
ROSS-VOICE-CULTURE AND ELOCUTION. By William
New
T. Ross.
and Revised Edition.
cloth
i2mo, |i 25
A thorough, practical, and progressive work on the art of vocal and physic^ expression. It treats of calisthenics and the organs of speech, and covers the whole field of elocution. "The nearest perfect of any book intended for the use of students of elocution." Lois A Bangs^ Packer Institute^ Brooklyn. .
RUSSELL—WHAT JESUS SAYS.
Beingan arrangeof the words of our Saviour, under appropriate By Rev. Frank Russell, headings, with a full index. D.D. i2mo, cloth $1 25
ment
*'
The
idea of the book
is
original
;
the execution
is excellent,
and
cannot fail to be very helpful to all who desire to know exactly just what our Lord has said. His simple words are so covered up with glosses and commentaries that we are almost unable to consider their natural meaning. In accomplishing this most desirable result of listening to Christ alone, this work is most serviceable to us all." y. B. Angell., LL.D.^ Pres. Michigan University.
SCOTT—THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.
By Sir Centenary Edition. In 25 vols., illustrated with 158 Steel Plates, and containing additional Copyright Notes from the author's pen not hitherto published, besides others by the editor, the late David Laing,
Walter
Scott.