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REMEMBRANCES of EMERSON

REMEMBRANCES of

EMERSON BY

JOHN ALBEE

t

NEW YORK

ROBERT GRIER COOKE 1903

TO

EBWARB WALDO EMERSON

—

•»>•

•»<

CONTENTS A Day

with Emerson

9

Emerson's Influence on the Toung

Men

of his Time

Emerson as Essayist

65

133

Âť^

=^(4^

PREFACE EMERSON'S

make

a large subject,

would have been

easily possible

of his books

and to

it

and the influence

life

have extended these pages to a

greater length

my

effort

;

but

I

much

preferred to limit

and to condense what

to say into a brief compass.

I

I

had

have an

aversion to long, laborious and usually frigid

Let them come

biographies.

from the heart and from sincere admiration, and who does not read them with sympathy ? I prefer Xenophon's affectionate memories of artless yet Socrates to the voluminous records of Plato.

It

osopher

less,

the

is

soldier,

not that

I

like the phil-

but the man, the citizen, the

humorist [3]

more.

I

Preface sometimes

Plato, never that of It

may be

portrayal

the

suspect

by

Xenophon.

anticipated

that

future

readers will be able to gather a clearer

man and

conception of the

the ideas

which he represented from the various brief personal narratives of Emerson's

contemporaries and witnesses of his actual influence

upon them than from the

more

distant

and conventional biogra-

phies.

It

seems to

me

also that the

spiritual history of the latter half

nineteenth century erson's

be happy

something to

moment when

if I

Em-

can contribute

memory and

his

nate in that this

tennial

reflected in

life.

I shall

a

is

of the

little it

fortu-

book reappears

at

can join in the cen-

commemorations of Emerson's

birthday.

The

following pages do not pretend

w

Preface

new

to be a

valuation of Emerson, but

a record of his influence

and

its effects

upon the thoughtful young men of Neither does

time.

much with

concern

it

his

itself

personal recollections, with

one exception which may be pardoned to the adventurous spirit of youth.

remembrance simply the known annals of his life and work in I

to

call

their relation to I

acquaintance with

elders

raries

Emerson.

and distinguished contempo-

were more fortunate than myself

in this respect

vent

generation.

have no claim to long or intimate

personal

My

my own

;

yet nothing could pre-

my sharing with them

his essays

his lectures,

and poems and the general in-

movement which acknowledged him as its leader. By a sort of tellectual

instinct, or I

did not

whatever

fail to

it

become [5]

may

be called,

possessed with

Preface the whole spirit and productions of that

movement. Thus one comes to the belief that it is indifferent where he dwells or what his fortune; if he have any center in himself there a circumference

is

for

him

also

with unnumbered radi-

ating lines from one to the other, on

whose paths all that toward which his nature most inclines may freely and prosperously pass.

Thus

believing and with no personal

assumption

I call

what

I

have written

Remembrances of Emerson.

[6]

A DAT JFITH EMERSON

•>

'<4*

A DAY WITH EMERSON |T

natural to wish for person-

is

al

communication with great

We are drawn to them as

men.

to a finer climate.

Young men

seek

them

with an instinctive hope of receiving

a

which will brighten themwith some beam of greatness

direct gift selves

older

men

divine that only so

they take with

The

away.

nobler if

them

much

as

will they carry

confidence

of youth

more inexperienced.

is

In go-

ing to celebrated persons results of a singular

them tion.

sort

are

disclosed

disappointment

Youth

mortifica-

recognizes enough

greatness to discover It finds that it

and

among

;

its

own

of

littleness.

cannot come very near [9]

Remembrances of Kmerson great man because as yet it has no

the

orbit of

At

own.

its

a distance all

is

At compensated by the imagination. a distance we figure a magnificence in and

presence

the

What

of genius.

affairs

chagrin to find that possibly

it

has dirty hands and big feet, eats with a

manners

many

with

knife,

mirer.

When

nant

retires to

we it

it

the predisposed ad-

balk

to

the genius its

cannot follow in

uncomfortable

cannot surprise

the act of being a genius

remain on the outside with or

flattering

shadow of

regret to see the

only

suggest

living

subject to

conditions

we

feel

a

man whose

the fairest

ideals

most of the vulgar

which

torment

Prudence hints that keep away.

;

its follies,

We

equalities.

pages

to

predomi-

adytum, whither

we

;

is

it

mankind.

would be wise

But we cannot [ID]

;

we

A Day with

Emerson

must embrace we must have speech with the being so like, so unUke, what ;

we

we

If

are.

god on

mountain,

his

him tending on

cannot approach the

his

we may

catch

sheep or frolicking

with his children.

all-fours

There was more congruity in the presence and conversation of Emerson with the ideal one naturally formed of

him than we

usually find in our per-

sonal intercourse with famous writers. I

think this

is

partly the cause of the

powerful impression he made upon his contemporaries. the

man

thought

his

expression.

life,

was

at

one with his

thought

at

one with

himself, ;

His manner of

its

There were no paradoxes,

none of the supposed

eccentricities of

genius, to furnish the intolerable ana for

future

literary

scavengers.

He

spoke of Nature not to add an elegant

Remembrances of Emerson ornament

to his pages

In meeting

her.

;

him

he lived near to the disappoint-

any there were, one found For he measured men so in himself. that they became aware of their own ments,

if

stature, not oppressively, but

ing,

by a

flash-

inward self-illumination, because

he placed something

their

to

credit

that could not stand the test of their

own audit. The little contribution I wish to make to the Emerson memorabilia concerns a time so remote that I may be pardoned a time

its

personalities.

which now seems

It

concerns

like a

dream

was the time when a cherished dream of youth was fulfilled. It

and yet

it

concerns a boy

who had

Emerson

he

of

sentative to tell

Men

until

" ;

who

never heard read " Repre-

could find none

him whether the book was by [12]

A Day with a living or

Emerson

dead writer, whether by an

American or EngHshman; and in vain did he seek for some one who had and could sympathize with

read

it

own

feeling

nately

regard to

in

Fortu-

it.

for if that little Puritan

;

his

com-

munity to which the boy belonged had known Emerson he would have been anathema, and the boy's troubles would have begun prematurely. Communities and churches now claim the dead sage formerly they would not ;

who much we

tolerate even those

How

silence.

before

we

and

are

How

change.

forget, forgive

read

him

in

changed often

we

what became the

at last praise

we once condemned.

It

fashion to listen to Emerson's lectures

and refer

to to

what they meant; or some one who professed

ask

understand

them.

to

to

The enchantment

[13]

Remembrances of Emerson of his voice and presence moved nearlyall

auditors to a state of exaltation like

and

music,

fine

music

it

was

the

like

effects

mood hard

a

of

to retain.

needed a frequent repetition, and

It

those

who

him

heard

oftenest

at

length became imbued with the spirit

of his teachings and could appropriate

much as belonged to them and some who doubtless carried away but as

;

were

little

they saw a

and

self-pleased

new

A

light.

of Concord told

me

thought

small farmer

proudly that he

had heard every one of Emerson's tures delivered in that

a I

moment's

hesitation

understood

him

;

'em,

for there

is

lec-

town and after he added, " And ;

too."

I

believed

something superior

to speech revealed to the ignorant. I

remember

a day

when

I

stood idly

over a counter looking at the backs of

[hJ

A Day with

Emerson

what seemed to be newly published books. I drew out one, bound in plain black muslin.

Men,"

Its title,

attracted

"Representative

me, because

I

had

just

been reading Plutarch's Lives, and for the first time had been aroused by the

Those Greek and Roman men moved my horizon some distance from its customary place. The titles of the books were at least cousins, and I wondered if there had been any representative men since Epaminondas and Scipio. I opened the volume at the beginning, " Uses of Great Men," and read a few pages, becoming more reading of any book.

and more agitated, no more. It was in

a

mirror

for

until I could read as if I

the

had looked

first

time.

I

some one had observed what had happened to me for a complete revelation was turned around, fearful

;

[15]

lest

Remembrances of Rmerson opened in those few pages, and I was no longer the same being that had These were the entered the shop. words

which

for

had been hungerThis was the educa-

I

ing and waiting. tion

I

wanted

—

made

the message that

education possible and study profitable,

and not a perpetual scafThese pages opened for me

a foundation

folding. a

opened

path, and

of

walls

ing

it

through

and

ignorance

the

solid

limit-

environment of a small country

academy. All that

is

now

far,

far

away, and

seems, indeed, an alien history

however much one dered

among famous

;

yet,

may have wanbooks,

it

would

be ungrateful not to remember the one

book which was the talisman fellows.

The

first

work we

to all

its

read with

an ardent mental awakening teaches us [1 6]

A Day with Emerson how

to read,

and gives

power

to us a

of divination in the choice of reading.

One by one we

grapple with

books, exhaust their

first

these

magical in-

fluence over us, and by these assimilations build I

up our own

structure.

should be glad to read Emerson's

volumes again for the

first

time

;

I

can-

not recover the old sensation.

I

open

them memorially.

I

may

Perchance,

am

like the author I

reading better

;

but

Emerson's generative power one recognizes in lived in

many

a successor.

and through

his

If you have

volumes you

never will be satiated while there in the

world a good book to be read or

to be written. tal appetite I

is still

Men"

but

I

create an

immor-

and expectation.

closed the

tive

They

volume of " Representa-

and put

it

could not leave

back in

it

[17]

its

place,

there, nor could

Remembrances of Kmerson I

afford to purchase

I

it,

inquired the

" Seventy-five cents," was the

price.

That was a princely sum to the poor student who, to eke out his schooling, received just that amount per answer.

week

for delivering a daily

newspaper

The

glance the

to sundry subscribers.

clerk gave

my

had measured the

shabby coat indicated he

my

poverty.

I

fingered

money reluctantly, yet not seeing any

other copy of the book and fearing that if I lost this

see

it

might never could no more resist the

opportunity

again, I

inclination to possess

it

I

than to drink

when thirsty. The money depends upon that

at

a spring

true value

of

for

which

you exchange it, as I have always found when it is exchanged for a good book. If you draw a mark of equality between "Representative cents

you

Men"

will see

and seventy-five

how much

[1 8]

richer

I

A Day with Emerson was with the book than with the money. This was the first volume that I bought

my own money, and none since has educated me so much and none now pleases me so well to see with its broken with

back and bent corners, its general look of shabbiness, worn with much packing and

travel,

and

its

scribblings

on the wide

margins made in the days when it

with ambitious zeal and began

I

read

to feel

wise and melancholy, and even to think I

could piece out Emerson's sentences

with

reflections of

much

out as time.

It

Youth

as there

seemed

is full

affinities.

is

I

was for

had drawn

me

at that

to be written for

me.

of remarkable discoveries

age, nor hints his

own.

read this book until

I

and

my

Nothing looks to fresh young

its

hoary

life

that

not a peculiar experience, but

is

merely one of the unnumbered coinci-

b9]

Remembrances of Rmerson dences in human existence otherwise we should be born old, or seeing the ;

monotonous revolution should not wish to live. We begin with an enormous appetite for the spectacle, and soon wish to become a part of thing

solicits us to

Every-

it.

be an actor, even our

did not comprehend " Repre-

dreams.

I

sentative

Men" in

the sense of mastering

the printed page; but what one finds in

books

is

not always a comprehension of

them; it is sometimes provocation, the winged impulse toward the light, toward mental activity and self-expression and a

communion with lovely.

To

this

all

that

is

strong and

end some books seem

to designate themselves

with an especial

character and emphasis. It

was not long before other of

erson's writings

came

to light;

cannot help remarking here [20]

Em-

and

how

I

an

A Day with Emerson ingenuous fated to

What

and instinctive appetite

find

its

is

congenial nutriment.

belongs to us

is

also seeking us.

Emerson was the prophet of young men, and his voice had the marvellous faculty of reaching them in the most obscure and unexpected places. Usually this vs^as

followed by some sort of personal

intercourse.

men

is

The

enterprise of

young

to possess the thing they love.

cools this ardor, and soon

Possession

enough we care the author,

for the

when we

book rather than can, unhindered

by the intoxicating personality, calmly

weigh

its

work.

I

believe

Emerson

meet those whom his books had reached and moved. He was always accessible and gracious. His rnanners how shall one speak justly of them They were those of the finest women one liked to

— !

has ever seen or heard, blended with those [21]

Remembrances of Kmerson magnificent

moments

cient sages and

demigods which make

human

the ideals of

in the lives of an-

They

intercourse.

were triumphant and just a ive in their novelty until

justed himself to them.

oppress-

little

one had ad-

His presence

and conversation were a few more pages out of the essays on Heroism, Poetry,

Love, Circles and Great

when you tered the

Men

arrived at his door

same house that you

so that

;

you en-

left

behind

in his books.

had read in Emerson for some had the boldness to write to him

After

time

I

I

and the good fortune

my

note

I

regard to

quote so " sonal :

had

to be answered. In

solicited his opinion in

college

education,

I

will

much of his reply as is not perTo a brave soul it really seems

indifferent

of college.

whether

its

tuition

And yet I confess

is

in or out

to a strong

A Day with Emerson of college.

bias in favor

I

tages

and he

;

who

it

advan-

goes to Cambridge

When

has free the best of that kind.

he has seen

we

think

many

cannot give ourselves too

he will

their little all

rate

very moderately beside that which he

brought thither. There are many things

much

better than a college

;

an explor-

ing expedition if one could join

it;

or

the living with any great master in one's

proper art

;

but in the

run of

no more than the

opportunities and with

common

common

propprtion of energy in our-

from

selves, a college is safest,

its liter-

ary tone and from the access to books it

gives

— mainly

to the best of if

you can

that

it

introduces you

your contemporaries.

easily

come

talk over the

whole

bank." [^3]

Concord and

to

spend an afternoon with

But

me we

case

by the

could river

Remembrances of Emerson I

had not then the courage nor the

opportunity to accept his friendly invi-

But the next year, being not far from Concord, at the Phillips Academy of Andover, I thought the time tation.

Life there had

had come.

become

in-

was ready to abandon college education unless encouraged by some other arguments than those I could supportable

;

I

draw from the character of the preparation.

My

only intimate at Andover,

William T. Harris, the philosopher, had been able to escape betimes and left me without a companion. pelled

me

to college.

contrived,

to

remain

Necessity com-

if I

wished to go

While Harris was there we amid a crowd of youth in all

stages of preparation for the ministry, to

maintain several starveling muses.

With

two flutes, a small telescope, much poetry and the beginnings of that philosophy

A Day with Emerson which Mr. Harris has didly fulfilled, tions

and

all

we

nourished our aspira-

the indefinable emotions

We

of youth.

since so splen-

found or made tunes to

many of Tennyson's

lyrical

poems and

sang them in our long walks together over the Andover

mer and

Virgil,

hills,

neglecting

whom we

Ho-

were not

taught to read for any purpose save the drill in

exceptions and construction.

had now a precise object and need I thought he could of seeing Emerson. advise me how to become educated and I

For the school offered nothing Its methods were brutal and I craved. monkish its regimen, that is, its dormitories and commons-table had barely kept some thousands of dyspeptic alumni where.

;

world (and had sent I know not many to the other), and maintained

in this

how

thereby the chief bulwark of a bad creed, [^5]

a

Remembrances of Kmerson bad digestion. One of its disciples

me

he got up in the morning a Unitarian, but toward night the gnawing in his stomach brought him back to Orthodoxy. I therefore set out one damp day confessed to

in

May, 1852,

that

in search of the oracle

was to answer

that

be to

me

my

questions and

trepidations and misgivings

conscious student

is

youth and

!

thinking what sort

of a figure he will cut his

What The self-

the voice of destiny.

;

he remembers

insignificance to any

its

but himself; and the greatness of the great

is

parison.

vastly exaggerated It

seemed

to

me

I

by the com-

was going

to

speak with a being, who, like the person in Plutarch's story, only conversed

with

men one

day in the year

;

the re-

mainder he spent with the nymphs and daemons; and that day, for the current [26]

A Day with Emerson year,

had been

fact

that

I

allotted

went

to

The

me.

clandestinely,

that

Emerson's name and books were never mentioned nor known by any one in

my

world, and that

I

was wholly un-

aware of the other members of his circle, called sometimes the Transcendenor

talists,

their

works and

influence,

probably added a certain zest to the ad-

At the gate of the well-known would have been easier to retreat than to enter. Such is the experience of those about to grasp what they have long awaited and desired. I went venture.

walk

it

on, however, as one in the end always does.

I

entered, and giving

was welcomed

in a

manner

my

name,

that at once

banished embarrassment.

Thoreau was already there. I think he had ended his experiment at Walden Pond some years before. Thoreau was [27]

Remembrances of Kmerson remember, in

dressed, I suit

a

plain, neat

of dark clothes, not quite black.

He

had a healthy, out-of-door appearance, and looked

He

man. spoke,

it

husband-

like a respectable

was rather silent when he was in either a critical or a

witty vein.

;

I

did not

what he was; and

I

know who

find in

my

or

old

diary of the day that I spelled his rare

name

phonetically, and heard afterward

that he

mit.

was a man

I

who had

been

observed that he was

home with Emerson; and

as

a her-

much he

at

re-

mained through the afternoon and evening, and I left him still at the fireside, he appeared to me to belong in some

way

to the household.

that

I

observed also

Emerson continually deferred

him and seemed

to

to anticipate his view,

preparing himself obviously for a quiet

laugh

at

Thoreau's negative and biting [28]

A Day with Emerson criticisms, especially in regard to educa-

tion and educational institutions.

He

was

but

whether in amusement,

human way,

a I

could not then

Dear, indeed, as

was Thoreau his

memory

of Thoreau;

fond

clearly

is

son's children

or as an

make

out.

have since learned,

I

to that household,

where

kept green, where Emerstill

speak of

him

as their

In the evening Thoreau

elder brother.

devoted himself wholly to the children

and the parching of corn by the open fire.

I

think he made himself very en-

tertaining to them.

ing to me, and

I

Emerson was

talk-

was only conscious of

Thoreau's presence

as

we

are of those

about us but not engaged with very pretty picture remains in

us.

A

my mem-

ory of Thoreau leaning over the

fire

on either side, which somehow did not comport with the subwith a

fair girl

[29]

Remembrances of Emerson sequent story

I

Parched

mit.

heard of his being a her-

had for

corn

him

a

beyond the prospect of someHe says in one of his eat.

fascination

thing to

books

that

some

dishes

recommend

themselves to our imaginations as well

" In parched corn, for in-

as palates.

stance, there

is

a manifest sympathy be-

tween the bursting seed and the more perfect developments of vegetable It

a perfect flower with

is

like the

my warm

its

life.

petals,

On

Houstonia or anemone.

hearth these cerealian blos-

soms expanded." I

never saw Thoreau again until

heard

him

deliver

in

Boston

I

Music

Hall his impassioned eulogy on John Brown. Meantime the " Week on the

Concord and Merrimac Rivers " had become one of my favorite books and ;

I

have atoned for

my [30]

youthful and un-

A Day with

Emerson

timely want of recognition by taking

from

my

ocean beach a smooth pebble

to his cairn at

Walden.

the

ancient

stone

in

manner, with the

spell

gathered the

I

pharmaceutical

of one of Tho-

reau's songs

"

My

sole

employment

and scrupulous

'tis

care

To

my

place

gains

beyond the reach of

tides

Each smoother more rare.

Which

pebble,

and

ocean kindly to

each

my

shell

hand con-

fides."

In the conversation of an afternoon

and evening all

that

was

it

said;

shall forget a

rable day

;

overlaid

in

is

impossible to relate

one thinks he never

word of such

but at length

memory and

the

a

it

chambers

only reappears [31]

memo-

becomes of

the

when un-

Remembrances of Kmerson called for. I find set down in my diary of the day

two

or three things

which a thousand observers have remarked that Emerson spoke in a mild, :

peculiar manner, justifying the text of

Thoreau, that you must be calm before

you can

oracles

utter

that

;

word, but

hesitated for a

right one he waited for

;

he often

was the

it

that

he some-

times expressed himself mystically, and like a book.

This meant,

that the style and subjects to

I

suppose,

were novel

me, being then only used to the

slang of schoolboys and the magisterial

manner of pedagogues.

He

seldom

looked the person addressed in the eye,

and rarely put

direct

questions.

I

fancy this was a part of his extreme delicacy of manner.

As soon problem

I

as I

could

came

to [32]

I

introduced the

propound

— what

A Day with Emerson man must

course a young

take to get

the best kind of education.

Emerson

pleaded always for the college

he himself entered

at fourteen.

aroused the wrath of Thoreau,

would not allow any good

And

said

;

This

who

to the col-

seemed to me Emerson said things on purpose to draw Thoreau's fire and to amuse lege course.

When

himself.

here

the

it

curriculum

at

Cambridge was alluded to, and Emerson casually remarked that most of the branches were taught there, Thoreau seized one of his opportunities and replied

and

:

" Yes, indeed,

none

of the

Emerson laughed

all

the branches

roots." heartily.

At

this

So with-

more light than of two representative

out

conclusions,

the

assertions

or

men

can give,

hour

my momentous

I

heard agitated for an question.

Remembrances of Kmerson At

that period

seemed to

and

they

position

Anybody could come persistent

to

men

by

to greatness

study and effort

be self-made

possessed.

—

we were

;

that

popular phrase of the time less

me men

by mere industry whatever

acquired talents

it

was the

—

regard-

of whether the Creator had done

little

or

nothing

for

us,

and

we

were constantly reminded of Benjamin Franklin and that the way to the

White

House

was

always

open

to

the sober and industrious young man. Sobriety

and

and

industry

frugality

were the three commandments of the farm and the shop and if the boy left ;

his father's field or

or a profession he

bench

for college

was enjoined

to ex-

emplify these principles in the exercise of his intellectual faculties

he had been trained

to

[34]

and functions

do

at

home.

as

A Day with Emerson was therefore somewhat confused

I

in

my

notions regarding education by

finding that Emerson,

who

as

I

then

had made himself a great man, was also college bred. Whether from desire to follow his example, or

believed

because I was already nearly prepared college,

for

tarily

I

found myself involun-

coinciding with Emerson's views

rather than Thoreau's whimsical opinions.

Yet Thoreau had been to colbut at some strange epoch in his

lege

;

life

he had broken with

many of live

and

the traditions and conventions

of his contemporaries. to

his past

He had resolved

according to nature

;

and had

the usual desire to publish the fact and

had never, however, the tone of apology and it is our good fortune that he was not explain the proceeding.

It

;

too singularly great to feel the need [35]

Remembrances of Kmerson of communicating himself to his kind.

Never has any writer so identified himself with nature and so constantlyused it as the symbol of his interior life.

It

is

sometimes

to dis-

difficult

Thoreau from his companions, the woods, the woodchucks and muskrats, the birds, the pond and the river. An inspired prescience foretold where to find the flower he wanted, and how to lure the little Musketaquid perch to his hand. Rare plants bloomed when he arrived at their secret hiding-places as if they had made an appointment with him and the birds knew their tinguish

;

and never mistook

lover's old cap

telescope

for

a

gun.

In

his

course with nature his pilot was

prophetic thought which led sure

instinct

ogon

in nature.

to

its

It

his

inter-

some

him by

sympathetic anal-

was

natural, there-

A Day with Emerson fore,

that to such a

man

systems of

education should seem hindrances

;

they

interposed another's will across the track

To

of one's native intuitions.

shake

off such substitutes with all their bag-

gage was his prime intention.

Emerson,

on the contrary, wished for every help and advantage offered by the world of men, books and institutions he proposed indeed, that man should go alone, but not necessarily on all-fours or on the stilts of pedantry. He was to give himself all the available advantages in order to measure himself with them, and that he might ;

not be dazzled or embarrassed by sions

concerning

them.

with nature and ended with

He it

;

illu-

began

between

there should lay a long succession of studies

and adventures which were

included in his idea of culture. [37]

to be

Remembrances of Emerson In his conversation with me, ever,

men and books He commended Adam

he spoke more of

than of nature.

Smith's " Moral Sentiments " St.

how-

;

also, J.

John's volume on " Greek Manners

and Customs." Doubtless he conformed himself to his visitor and became a

bit

Then he talked of Chaucer with great enthusiasm, and re-

of a pedagogue.

some lines in a tone and modulation which rendered their music perfectly. cited

" For him was lever have at his beddes heed Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed. Of Aristotle and his philosophye.

Than

robes riche,

—

And bisily gan for the soules pray Of hem that yaf him wher-with to scoleye."

What

a fine, obsolete

eye"; and it

back

lary

as

word

how much we

is

" scol-

need to get

an antidote to the vocabu-

of college

sports.

[38]

A Day with Emerson Emerson spoke of Plato that

it

was

whenhe

saying

also,

a great day in a man's life

firstread

glad to hear

"The Banquet."

him say

that,

because I

I

was

knew

there were such days, having had just

one in

my short life,

and eagerly

I

heard

there was a possibility of more.

He

brought forth some souvenirs of

and

literature

;

among them

physiognomy,

a daguer-

he spoke of

reotype of Carlyle;

men his

heavy eyebrows and

his

projecting base of the forehead, underset

by the heavy lower jaw and

which every

as

humbug was

The brow pierced it.

Emerson

under

lip

lip,

between

between millstones, he

sure to be pulverized. it,

said,

said,

the jowl crunched

Channing

whapper-jawed.

I

called his

asked

him

something about Carlyle's manner of speech, remembering to have read some-

where of a peculiar

refrain in his conver-

b9]

Remembrances of Emerson sation. Then he good-naturedly imitated it

for

me.

Emerson was an

mimic when he chose

excellent

He said

to be.

the conspicuous point in Carlyle's style

was

his strength

of statement.

who

this date those critics

I

think at

can never see

but one object at a time, and whose chief insight

a comparison of one creative

is

gift

with another, were

that

Emerson was only the

echo of Carlyle.

still

insisting

adulterated

848 they received a broadside from Mr. J. R. Lowell's " Fable for Critics," where he drew up In

1

form the resemblances and contrasts between Carlyle and Emerson. Mr. Lowell went on, however, to commit the same misin rather pedantic, antithetical

take in regard to supposed imitators of

Emerson

that already

had been made

in

regard to Carlyle's.

Among

his literary treasures

[40]

Emerson

A Day

with Emerson

showed me a folio copy of Montaigne which had once belonged to the library of Joseph Bonaparte.

It

had

graving of Montaigne

;

under

and the motto, "

scales

— What do

I

know

"As

site

This

?

I

the "

it

scais-je ?

took to be

Emerson when he

the volume before wrote,

^e

a fine en-

look at his effigy oppo-

I

the title-page,

I

seem

him

to hear

You may play old Poz, if you I you may rail and exaggerate, say.

will

—

here for truth, and will not, for

stand

all

the

and churches, and revenues, and

states,

personal reputations of Europe, overstate

the dry fact, as

mumble and tainly

know,

father,

my

see

I

;

prose about

I will

rather

what

I cer-

— my house and barn

wife and tenants;

my

lean, bald pate

;

what meats

eat;

prefer;

it

I

my

;

my old,

knives and forks

and what drinks

I

and a hundred straws just as ridic[41]

Remembrances of Emerson ulous,

— than

I

will write,

with a

fine

crow-quill, a fine romance."

Last he called single painting a

me

to

look

on the walls of his

We

copy of Angelo's Fates.

at it in silence.

would rather have chosen

to

}

the

study,

looked

What had youth

with those remorseless sisters his

at

to do

Youth

ornament

chamber-study (rent one dollar per

term) with pictures of Aphrodite and the Muses.

As

a matter of fact the

poor student's walls had not even paperhangings

—

only

endless

tapestries

of

amused myself in looking over the bookcases and Emerson took down a volume which he requested me to read and keep for a year. It was George Herbert's poems. When I returned the book, mentioning my profitable hours with it, Emerson wrote me a welcome letter in which he said, the unattainable.

I

;

[42]

A Day with Emerson alluding to Herbert, "

I

am glad you like

these old books ; or rather glad that

you

have " Eyes that the beam celestial view Which evermore makes all things new."

He

went on to say, " There is a super-Cadmean alphabet, which when one has once learned the character, he will find, as it

where he

were, secretly inscribed, look will,

temples but in

not only in books and waste places and in

all

the dust of the earth.

can read

it,

for

he

Happy he who

will never

or thoughtless again. a solid pleasure to find

be lonely

And yet there is those who know

same thing, the

and

like the

who

have recorded their interpretation

of the legend, and better friends

who

read as

authors,

far the living

we do and compare

notes with us."

George Herbert

recalls to

[43]

me Emer-

Remembrances of Emerson son's

remark

part

of the day for study,

must be

in regard to the

—

morning

Stoics in the

proper

we

that ;

that

it

would do to relax a little in the evening and his quoting in illustration a somewhat Orphic proverb from George Herbert's " Jacula Prudentum," " In ;

the morning, mountains

in the even-

;

ing, fountains."

Besides these fragments of the hours I

spent with Emerson,

memoranda

I

my

find in

that he held a light opin-

ion of things this side the water

Americans are solemn on perficial in the

no American is,

but

keeps

its

shop.

that

we

and su-

weighty; that there

literature

there

;

trifles

it is

his

;

'

Griswold

merchandise

is

says

— he

Had Emerson forgotten

the Rev. Cotton Mather's three hun-

dred and eighty- two works 'This was

in

1852.

[44]

.?

He

said

A Day with Emerson we needed some

great poets, orators.

He

was always looking out for them, and was sure the new generation of

young men would contain some. Thoreau here remarked he had found one, in the woods, but it had feathers and had not been to Harvard College. Still it had a voice and an aerial inclination, which was pretty much all that was " Let us cage it," said Emerneeded. " son. That is just the way the world always spoils its poets," responded Tho-

Then Thoreau,

reau. last

word; there was

for the

first

as usual,

a laugh, in

in to tea in right

fear that I

did not

which

time he joined heartily,

the perquisite of the victor.

went

had the

was invited

know how

of the house.

I

as

Then we

good humor.

I

to tea because I

to take myself out

remember not much of

the evening's talk.

Probably

[45]

my meas-

Remembrances of Emerson ure was full

;

it

was a peck, and here

However,

was

a bushel.

felt

that the silver cup

into

my

I

have always

somehow

got

tiny bag.

In subsequent pages

I shall

endeavor

summarize and convey what Emerson was to the young men of my time. By a natural affinity we who were his It was readers soon found each other.

to

under cover of a

ment

that

that

he

we

partial, general agree-

allowed ourselves to

women;

that he

feel

young men and

spoke for

was their champion,

in the fresh, mysterious impulses of a

new day

;

that

he expressed what they

were as yet only feeling, mingling poetry and philosophy in due proportions for budding minds

;

and that in per-

sonal intercourse with

them he acted the

their

part of a lover, intimating

that

they

were the wisdom and the inspiration of [46]

A Day with his thought;

all

Emerson them

deferring to

as

more newly arrived from the empyrean; while, in truth, they were indebted to him for a certain superior persons

beautiful exaltation of purpose and con-

duct which

fitted

them

to be his audi-

ence, and the object of his solicitude and

admiration.

Whoever

plants seeds and

afterward enjoys the flower

does not great

much remember

and his

fruit

toil, so

his joy, but gives the whole credit

is

to the soil, to the sun

and to the shower.

That Emerson was conscious of relation

to

the youth of his time

his is

shown in a letter to Elizabeth Peabody in which he says, " My special parish is young men inquiring their way in life."

And effect

year,

am

:

I,

to Carlyle

he writes to the same

" As usual

at this season

of the

incorrigible spouting Yankee,

writing an oration to deliver to the [47]

Remembrances of Emerson boys in one of the

little

(This was

leges nine days hence.

Method of Nature, of the

College,

You

will say

I

deserve the help of any Muse.

you knew

how

The

before the Society

Waterville

Adelphi,

Maine, 1841.)

country col-

natural

run to these places!

it

is

to

Besides, I

do not

Oh,

me am

if

to al-

ways lured by the hope of saying something which shall stick by the good boys."

Emerson's attitude of expectancy and generous recognition of the

possibilities

of youth were in part the source his intellectual

power.

Not

of

a descent

through seven generations of clergymen gave

it

to

him, but an ascent through

the long and broken lines of loftiest

genius of

all ages.

"Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend:

[48]

A Day with And

Emerson

being frank, she lends to those are free."

Since the days of Socrates no young

men have been more fortunate than those who came into the circle of his acquaintance

were

and

others, older

who wished

influence.

There

and more conserva-

some marketable fruit from this elm. There were those who wished to subsidize him to some school, party, or sect. I think that Emerson knew his interlocutor, his man, very well. He had not packed tive,

to gather

your trunk, but he divined

He

did not resist too

its

much

;

contents.

he did not

waste his force in vain disputation, but

obeyed the Greek verse: "

When

to be wise

is all

in vain,

be not wise

at all."

And

it

has been related that he went to

bed to escape argument. [49]

He punished

Remembrances of Rmerson Western men who pressed him

the

too

hard with question and objection, by reporting that the

Louis logicians

St.

him in the mud He knew his man well.

rolled

!

and

ness

tact

were never

His kind-

Some

at fault.

one has related that calling on him, he

fumbled about pear

Yes,

!

proffer

his

Pythian oracle

for

—

understood

came upon a men came only

suppliant

trivial

When

to

fortunes told, or to

dling

would

a ripe

when to and when ideas. The was ambiguous when the

he

pears

room

errand.

have their

know how their ped-

prosper, the response be-

came confused and diminished. It not know what to say. Then men it

They

silenced

ble

ac-

of obscurity and prevarication.

cused

them.

did

what should have silenced

It is easy to

demand.

be inspired

As long [50]

at a

no-

as there are sin-

A Day with Emerson cere, earnest seekers, so long will the or-

and continue divine. Emerson refused to dogmatize about what

acles continue

is

necessarily obscure at present.

So some

thought the obscurity lay in him. that

man

has achieved, and to

hopes, he was

all

To all man's

vividly responsive, and

maintained no doubtful position. In poetry and nature, wherein he was greatest, it is

to be considered that the most perfect

imaginative expression

is

so identified

with obj ects themselves as to share in their mystery, and to be capable of their

own

manifold interpretation.

H e discovered a

new method of thinking

about

man and

he endeavored to report what they said to him in their inmost being. Others have used them as symbols of life; nature;

he tried to penetrate the symbol itself. This gave an elevation to his style, so that error was glad to be vanquished by [51]

so

Remembrances of Emerson serene a voice, and to fall down with-

out noise or commotion. "

A gentle

death did Falsehood die,

Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words."

Emerson was nearing

when I when a man

birthday

first

age

is

yet bears

no marked

his forty-ninth

met him,

— an

no longer young, sign of years.

He

His comlooked well and vigorous. plexion was clear and wholesome. Long walks on country roads and through

his

favorite pine-woods, a simple diet,

and

more than

all

a placid, hopeful tempera-

ment, rendered him sound in body and intellect.

much

for

I

think he did not walk so

mere

exercise as for pleasure

and meditation.

His books take one

into the open air

more than

study

;

the sky is lofty over them, the path

strewn with symbols.

he

into the

treads,

He knows where

and he observes [52]

as

he saunters

A Day with He

along.

Burnerson

had good

legs

much body

walking and not too

them his

and feet for

He was tall

to carry.

for

and spare

head was high and narrow over the the occiput well built up, which

ears,

made nent.

his features I

doubt

seem

large and promi-

if a phrenologist

would

have found by any outward sign the ge-

The Del-

nius hidden in that head.

phic oracle might, books.

—

after

reading his

He was a simple, plainly dressed

country gentleman in general appear-

ance ily

;

unpretentious, unaggressive, read-

allowing to every one his

and functions.

No

own

place

romances, no mys-

teries attach

themselves to his personal-

ity or to his

memory.

neyed up the Nile in

When

he jour-

his last years,

was reported that the Sphinx

it

called to

out of her sands, "You are another!" The wit and the voice were

him

[53]

Remembrances of Rmerson ventriloquized from Concord, but fairly

represented the

common

opinion about

Emerson. I

have heard one pretty incident of

manhood, not romantic enough the modern Romeo, but sufficient

his early

for

and for Emerson.

for the time

He w^as

preaching in Concord, N. H., for a few Sundays, and became engaged to a beautiful

young woman of

that town.

Re-

turning to his boarding-place after an

evening with her, he opened the door

of the parlor where the boarders were usually gathered, and, pausing

gaged."

whom

on the

Let all

sang, and

friends, I

company exclaimed, " Praise

ber of the

God!

My

am enWhereupon some pious mem-

threshold, said, "

us sing, 'Praise

God, from

blessings flow.' " So said, so all

joined in the hymn.

How simple

and charming the man[54]

A Day with ners of those days

Emerson

unvexed by any knowl-

edge of the Sphinx or Brahma.

Emerson had an versation,

alert

look in con-

and on the lecture platform a

sidelong, bird-like poise of the head, as if

looking into the distance, and

listen-

ing.

His shoulders were not strongly

built,

and he leaned forward

He

walking.

was slow of speech,

and always waiting

flective,

a little in

for

re-

right

words; for he hated repetition and

cir-

cuitous expression forever returning up-

on

itself.

student,

He

who

once reminded a Harvard

read a composition to him,

fashioned in the usual periodic

style,

of

the Spartans' reproof of a too eloquent

and prolix ambassador, that they had forgotten the first half of his speech and

make nothing of the remainder. Whereupon the orator cut it down to could

four words

;

but the Spartan fathers said US']

Remembrances of Kmerson two would have

Yet Emerson

sufficed.

delighted in a copious and graphic vo-

He thought words sometimes

cabulary.

had the force of an action but they must be the ornathe thought must ment of thought, and he has himself recreate them so beautiful that they ;

—

;

vealed the secret of style,

—"

the best

thoughts run into the best words." a lecture he

would often

page, turning

it

linger over a

back and forth, seem-

ing to lose his place strong points he

In

;

suddenly

at

the

would come down with

tremendous emphasis, clenched hand, and a voice that thrilled his hearers to their in-

nermost being. Then a calm succeeded,

and the

relief of a rustle in the seats,

the subdued form of applause transcendental

audiences,

among

— when,

re-

covering themselves, they awaited the-

next brilliant outburst. [56]

His voice was

A Day with Emerson unmatchable by any

I

ever

heard

;

it

had the potency and effect of eloquence, with not a single one of the traditional characteristics. as

far

And

his matter

from the usual

was just

subjects of the

platform.

Emerson

is

invariably described as a

cheerful and optimistic man.

Do

you

think he had never suffered from those

blows of fortune that attend mankind,

and from which could not be a

little

;

rarely escapes

it

?

It

but he buried his sorrows

deeper than other men, and un-

covered no wounds for the sake of a

His habitual smile

cheap sympathy. disarmed inquiries

as to health, his for-

That serene smile guarded an inner chamber more securely If he had known povthan an army.

tune and his sorrows.

erty, this

poor orphan

who

drove his

mother's cow to pasture beyond Boston [57]

Remembrances of Kmerson

Common health

;

if

;

if

he had struggled with

he had

ill

suffered the sharpest

anguish of the heart,

—

the loss of his

youthful bride and then of a beloved child (the " hyacinthine boy ") if he ;

had endured for many years the derision and all but persecution of the so-called scholars, theologians, and critics of the country, he

made no

perturbation.

dents under a as

He

sign of anger or

buried

all

such acci-

magnanimous composure,

under a mantle of deep,

Such was the

man

as

soft

he appeared

There

private and public.

photographs of him

are

and several marble and

His son, E.

many

and crayon por-

life,

traits,

busts.

in

at different periods

of his

several

snow.

oil

W.

plaster

Emerson, thinks

the bust by the sculptor

Morse

is

the

most

faithful in portraying certain in-

ward

traits

of his being, his serenity and [58]

A Day with Emerson As

hopefulness.

know, there is Emerson. Har-

far as I

no public monument

to

vard University, after rejecting the better part of his

name

a building

country

as yet

him

Our

his honor.

in

for

about to

life, is

does not honor poets and

philosophers with public monuments.

Our heroes

stand in bronze and marble,

costumed in frock or

tail

coats

and high

on horses whose fore feet paw the upper air, in danger every mocollars, or sit

ment of disappearing into space horse some have already disapand rider, peared. Emerson builded his own monu;

—

ment, and pedestal,

it

is

not confined on any

for " the whole earth

monument of Not long after

illustrious

is

the

men."

the time of which

I

Concord became a many young men. There

have been writing, university to

we

sat

at

the feet of three or four \.S9\

Remembrances of Emerson masters,

made

Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau.

the

little

It

scholarship of Cambridge

There we learned how

insignificant.

what ideals to make our own what books to read how to find in nato live

;

;

ture

its

and in

identities

and symbols,

his divine part.

Optimism

poetry,

man

its

and a cheerful

Concord

air.

were rife in the Wonderful prophetic anspirit

ticipations of the future filled our youthful hearts.

" Beside us what glad comrades smiled and strove

Beyond us what dim

Nothing could be

visions rose to view."

in greater contrast

than this stimulating atmosphere compared with that of Cambridge, where every generous aspiration was

stifled

by

There was a smart saying Cambridge about us, that we

intolerance.

current in

entered mystics and graduated dyspep[60]

A Day with Emerson tics,

and

I

think there was a middle

term still more sharp, skeptics and

— skeptics. Mystics,

dyspeptics had the right

ring to please the mockers.

Dyspepsia

was no doubt the prevailing malady, but

more honorable than the

scars

athletic field, being in large

measure the

result of a Spartan diet,

of the

hard study and

a slender purse, the savings of a believ-

ing mother or toiling, unselfish

One

sister.

of our hungry, pale-faced compan-

ions, anticipating the

remedies and power

of mind-cure, advised not to

let

stomach know that you knew

it

your

had

dyspepsia.

Concord was the exchange

for all the

best things then being written or said,

on which you might hear Thoreau's laconic summation, Alcott's genial comment, or rendering into the Orphic philosophy, or Emerson's wise and concilia[6i]

Remembrances of Emerson wonder whether this generation of young men envy the opportunities of such an Academe. We tory interpretations.

I

did not go in crowds, nor often.

It

was

not a day-school, nor were the lessons set

and the professors prepared, and no-

body was ever graduated. The Concord term might last as long as you lived, and perhaps longer. Once or twice during a college term, and after graduation, an occasional pilgrimage was

enough

to replenish our enthusiasm.

my

whose youthful faith in Emerson has not wavered nor waned. Behold at length its consummation and approval in the genI

salute

you,

eral applause

brothers,

of the world.

[6a]

EMERSON'S INFLUENCE ON rHE YOUNG MEN OF HIS TIME

'»^^=^

•< <«

EMERSON'S INFLUENCE

ON THE YOUNG MEN OF HIS TIME [HE men whose

youth

fell

the decade preceding the

war and

who

in

civil

read books, es-

were deeply moved on The feeling first reading Emerson. we then had and the manner in which we variously expressed it would even now, in the completion of his life and fame, seem exaggerated to the world pecially poetry,

as

indeed

it

does to ourselves.

Youth

when comparisons are not made, when we admire without criticism, when the sense of proportion is dormant and we are wholly is

the happy time

[6S]

Remembrances of Emerson by the

possessed

of imitation.

spirit

There were very few of

who

us

did

not catch the style of his sentences, and his ideas

immediately became our own.

They were reproduced on occasions and

we

a

hundred

experienced a deep,

heartfelt pride in our superiority.

endeavored to form their

lives

Some

upon

ideals,

not unsuccessfully

their

pens in his inkstand with

usual

catastrophe.

which

his

name

;

fort

and convenience

we

we

realized

brious

;

a

a great

com-

to our critics

When

it

;

to

hurled

at us

meant something oppro-

but

when

there

was

reading Emerson's

an

mental quickening,

epithet

with

term was more than they

could do.

books

ease

the

lent itself to an adjec-

— Emersonian, — was

or

others to dip

The

tive,

define the

his

for

was good enough. [66]

mood, which no

exalted

Thus our

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

defensive position was difficult to hold

though we justified ourselves in it, and we became more or less concealed and silent except with sympathizers. I was looked upon with suspicion by my friends when it became known that I was a reader of Emerson, I knew they were ignorant of the contents of his books yet I felt conscious of something not quite respectable and per;

mitted.

and

One

sensitive persons can easily

to feel guilty least

learns later that innocent

we

;

and in

New

be made

England

at

had been made to believe so

long that nearly everything which was agreeable was sinful that

it

had grown

morbid sensibility to opinion. It was for many such prisoners that Emerson found a release. He freed us from the control of some ancient theointo a

logical tenets

and led us to the simpler [67]

Remembrances of Emerson and

still

more

ancient moral elements

of the universe.

think one of Emer-

I

countrymen

son's chief services to his is

and will continue to be

between forms of

ling the connection religion and ethics

ing prostrate

in disentang-

in once

;

man upon

more

his

plant-

feet

and

then uplifting his eyes to the spiritual

and

beauties

dignities

of

No

life.

matter what his topic, he everywhere

There

reaches that conclusion.

thread

throughout his

pages

this central

;

most

thought

unarticulated sentences.

is

this

illogical

unifies his

In general

it

may

be answered to literary objections,

that

when Emerson

a prophet, to

and

the canons

as

is

such

to

is

It is

pronounce upon

place in letters.

It

is

is

amenable only

which govern

ances of that kind. early

not a poet he

deliver-

perhaps too

Emerson's

uncertain whether

[68]

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

he belongs on the shelf with prophets or moralists.

poets,

When

poems he seems wholly poet

his

when

I

essays

read

I ;

and

read " Nature " and the earlier

he

also

seems a poet, escaped

temporarily into prose.

In these

latter

he keeps near unto the hedge of

his

"pleached garden" across which he constantly coquets with the Muse. As to his style no one has yet determined its value and durable quality.

A

genuine

therefore,

never wearies

style

and

many

as

much and

time,

generations

readers must settle this question.

change

;

of

Tastes

as often in litera-

ture as in other things and with surprising rapidity in our time is

something,

we

;

yet there

will not even

call it

that

which does not change. It is which is deeper, more permanent

than

taste, seated at

taste,

the center of man's

Remembrances of Kmerson being in all ages. There is much in Emerson's mode of expression which of

itself

immense from one

challenges attention. elevation

it

;

has

It

goes like a bird

tree-top to another

;

or as the

gods talk around the Olympian peaks. It is

almost too lofty

less rarified air

ground. sees

;

one gasps for

and longs

touch the

to

With Emerson one

anything

less

;

beyond that the Over Soul. distance,

a vast

All

;

and

at

is

in

perspective lined

they would be if they but

own worth

and

yes,

women

with majestic figures of men and as

never

than a vision, hears

no voice but that of the soul the

a

knew

their

the end a lofty

temple consecrated to the moral

senti-

ments.

In reading " English Traits "

I

cannot

divest myself of the feeling that I

reading of a people [70]

much

am

further re-

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

moved than England and

no way

in

related to our time and country

;

they

seem as distant and in truth as dead as Greeks or Romans, with such a cool, remote and contemplative pencil does he paint them. Is it his imagination that produces this effect, or

is

it

that

he sees things never before disclosed, and hence the illusion of distance and unfamiliarity qualities

?

The

essential, national

are there, but

abstracted

in

such a manner that they stand out like a scientific diagnosis so interesting

patient

is

;

the diagnosis

is

and acute that the poor

forgotten.

All of us in the days of our youth

—

as soon as Mr. Emersaw everything, son had seen it for us. Our experience

was precisely similar to his own with Montaigne. He says in one of the few revelations of his

own [71J

intellectual his-

Remembrances of Kmerson tory, that when he first read Montaigne he

felt as if

he had himself written the

we felt when we read Emerson, and we had in him a precedent which we much relied upon and often quoted. Long afterward I heard a

book.

So

religious

enthusiast

that

say

New

one had not written the

ment he should, and through

I

other books.

Often

the sympathetic

first

reader

in

later

lighted our

There was

in all this

it,

of

and

the volume,

is

and venerated the writer

life,

memory

youthful experience of

very dear to the heart

we have

regarding

happens to

as this

nothing can outwear the the

Testa-

understood him

feeling

similar

a

some

if

at

own

whose little

fires

torch.

seeming compre-

hension the usual amount of self-deception and illusion.

Emerson shot many ken some of

an arrow beyond our [72]

;

Emerson

s

which perhaps

it

ages to overtake

may

require several

but

we

;

flight

see the

mark, for youth

dent and credulous. still

beheld the

we

and thought

superb

and

Young Men

Influence on

could

both confi-

is

This

faith

kept

keeps some of us steady in our

allegiance to the Emersonian insights.

Having found an interpretation for some of our aspirations, we expected to in

We

due time.

arrive at all in

Emerson's discoveries

in his obscurities,

;

if

believed

you

will,

and in whatever

we

could put into his writing out of our

own writer

who

has stirred us as

what he has to

him.

first still

This belongs to the

thought.

It

as

actually written belongs is

his

germ which others

much

in

a

by virtue of that

originates others and

countless series.

A

good book is a book plus a good reader. Find what you may and own your debt, [73]

Remembrances of Emerson pay

it

and say

as

beUeved that

said to his

him if he meant what Shakespeare

when

children

Emerson

they asked

they found to praise in a certain sen" I think an author (or artist) tence :

has

right

a

to

anything

another can find in his

good work."

that

All

the interpretations and implications are his as

and

much

the limbs are the tree's

as

the twigs,

fruits are

We

is

n

Emerson

haunting

with

always right

invents exists."

ever

blossoms

and

Gautier

that

the limb's.

thought

" Genius

leaves,

whatever

;

We

listened to

said

with

expectation

it

what-

certain

a

seldom

disap-

must be confessed for a time we narrowed our world by having no ear for any one else so that pointed

;

and

it

;

we

appreciated keenly the witticism of

a gentleman

who, arriving [74]

just too late

Emerson to

hear

Kappa

s

Influence on

Young Men

Emerson's famous

Phi Beta

oration at Cambridge, in 1837,

remarked that

was better to miss hear anybody else.^

it

Emerson than to Emerson has been

a liberal education

and emancipation to a large number of

men and women for nearly two generations. One can only conjecture whether young men and women are reading him to-day with the enthusiasm of those who read forty years ago and under a certain

ban which made it the more intoxicating.

For some time past Emerson has been in fashion. It is doubtful whether an author who is in vogue has after all so deep an influence as one who has gained the concentrated and almost passionate devotion of a few readers. Ah, the critics will say, this is

the conceit of the obscure

and unrecognized.

But, I reply for their

comfort and enlightenment that [75]

this

very

Remembrances of Emerson narrow and ardent following is the cause of the enlargement of the writer's circle and is the way of a slow yet triumphant progress to an immortality of fame. is

Emerson was once

certainly true that

considered dangerous reading

who

followed

It

him

suffered

;

that

we

contempt

from some, reproach and suspicion from nearly all, and that we are now justified and compensated. It was a situation for which the liberality of modern opinion can furnish no parallel, there being but one reason at present for consigning a writer to the Index Expurgatorius, namely, the taint of flagrant immorality.

Old

beliefs

have been so rent by a suc-

cession of iconoclasts, have been so as-

saulted by the progress of scientific discoveries that

they have

assertiveness

lost their

dogmatic

and are no longer intolerant

of innovations in thought and custom. [76]

Emerson I

Young Men

Influence on

s

have said that readers of poetry were

welcoming Emwritings, the earliest of which

especially prepared for erson's

were in prose. Poetry emancipates young men from their inward and outward limitations it opens to them an ideal world and attaches them to truth and beauty. More than this, it quick;

ens the latent intellectual into choice phrase

much which to

have

felt,

through. relation

life

by putting

and melodious sound

they imagine themselves

thought and already lived certifies

It

and

establishes a

between their own incipient

consciousness and that of the matured

mind, and

lays the foundations of culture.

Emerson's prose it

much

is

like poetry

wants but the wide margins and cap-

ital letters.

good cal,

verse

;

It

has

it

is

sometimes

all

the surprises of

rhythmical, episodi-

austere, again

[77]

homely or

Remembrances of Emerson graceful and nearly always suggestive.

He

thinking

is

thought

such

;

merely

the

seems to v^hisper, " organ

the

;

The temptation among young men to

yours." great

expression for themselves to be

you have

his insinuating, flatter-

is

He

ing address.

am

over w^hat

;

it

idea

I is

then was try to find

turned out

merely repetition for the time

not only the thought but the language

was unapproachable.

The

hall-mark

could not be erased and another substituted.

However, Mr.

Lowell

suffi-

EmerIt is curious to remember now Emerson himself was arraigned for

ciently satirized the imitators of son.

that

an imitative style and even for borrowing his ideas. Plato was

;

But

who

and those

has not been

who

been are not remembered. " est

genius

is

?

have not

The

great-

the most indebted man." [78]

Emerson

An

s

Young Men

Influence on

aptitude for assimilation

is

one form

of genius, often mistaken for imitation

and plagiarism by those who forget that there is and can be no more material than there ever was and that

art alone

endures "

The The

bust outlasts the throne. coin Tiberius."

Emerson's poetry was more to imitate than his prose

difficult

yet they are

;

so essentially alike in tone and thought

that

whoever admires one

appreciate the other. that nearly all the

Emerson

will be apt to

It is safe to say

young men who took

for a master, either wrote or

soon began to write poetry.

man

finds

his true level

;

Here

a

he may be

equal to intelligent reading and

com-

when he may find

plete appreciation of poetry, but

he attempts

to

produce

himself truly empty. [79]

it

He discovers that

Remembrances of Emerson his effort

no more resembles the

which seemed

when he was

to

be actively present

reading the

work of

his left

careless also

was

hand resemble

most

his

right-handed autograph. a discipline for

the

formed

creative imagination than letters

with

self

This

which we were

much indebted to Emerson. Many paths must be tried and many must be abandoned ere one finds himself. Some of the Emersonian disciples have struggled

on with the muse and have added to the music of the world most became ;

silent

when

they entered into active

His verse rarely touches the

common

elements of the poetic domain little

sion

;

life.

;

it

has

warmth, no sensuousness, no pasbut it does have wisdom, reflec-

tion, beautiful perceptions, clear, chaste

and often perfect expression, stanzas and lines that cling in the

[80]

memory with

the

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

When

sweetest and best.

I

say

little

warmth I mean in comparison with the more popular orders of poetry which celebrate the domestic affections, suffer-

ings and joys, the nursery, the grave,

the raptures of lovers with the attendant tragedy and

am

comedy of

reminded by a

passion.

But

I

and a more

friend,

competent judge than myself, that EmThat erson's poems have " sun-heat." description pleases

me more

than

my

own, and every reader will be able to compute for himself the distinctions between " sun-heat " and its innumerHis poems repeat a able substitutes. great deal that

another form.

is

in the

" Essays " in

Emerson's

taste for the

poetry of other poets was just a

he loved what we all love and I believe he was fond of beside.

peculiar a little

trifle

;

some books of poetry [8i]

for other things

Remembrances of Emerson than their poetry. One good word sometimes was sufficient to attract him.

He

gave a generous welcome to everything

which was

called itself verse.

This indeed

noblest intellectual

his

trait,

his

magnanimous recognition of the work of others and his open, faith in

came

it.

And

I

liberal praise

think no one ever

into personal contact with

without a renewed confidence in

own

and

him his

possibilities.

In his selection of poetry entitled

"Parnassus" there seems on a cursory nothing

glance

more

reading

very

distinctive;

carefully

one

but

finds here

and there the strangest and most unexpected evidences of his poetical proclivities.

I recall

an epigram on

this feature

of the collection:

Some

bards are here and some are not.

Either

unknown

or else forgot

[8.]

Emerson And some

s

Influence on

Young Men

are here elsewhere

unknown

Save to themselves and Emerson.

But with the immortals do not class us For an idle hour on Mount Parnassus.

The books with

a

man

likes are

of a piece

Emerson

his general sympathies.

was a wide, miscellaneous reader and had an eagle eye for what pleased him and made it his own. His quotations

When

are as striking as the text.

a line of poetry hitherto

known more

aptly

such royal position closes the Essay

It has

almost un-

chosen and as that

'tis

set

in

one which

on Montaigne

" If my bark sink

was

?

to another sea."

been quoted a hundred times

since, not

once before;

used even as

a

prose

I

have seen

sentence.

it

His

quotations incited one to good reading,

were gathered from the best Combooks of all ages and countries. since they

[83]

Remembrances of Kmerson ing to

them you found

Emerson

that

had often appropriated the only gem. Since both he and Thoreau found close at

hand much

great in the

was admirable, the

that

little,

the universe in the

Concord microcosm, ion

it

became the

fash-

among theTranscendentalists to hunt

for the obscure

and unrecognized, and I know not unknown geniuses

to proclaim a discovery.

how many

great but

arrived and departed each year at

Young men came from

cord.

all

Conparts

who could not who were nearer

of the world, and those

come made

— wrote!

frequent pilgrimages alone or in

companies. all

We

He

received us each and

with his unfailing suavity and def-

erence.

His manner toward young men

was wonderfully

manner

I

flattering;

know no word

it

was

a

for but ex-

pectancy; as if the world-problem was [84]

Emerson

now

s

Influence on

finally to

Young Men we were

be solved and

whom he had been faithfully waiting. Bursting with things we had locked up in our bosoms and which we thought it would the beardless CEdipuses for

be so easy to say, silence and vacuity be-

numbed

on arriving in the presence of the poet and prophet. His magnanimous spirit soothed and reassured us; and to the little we brought he added a us

full store, inserting, as I

have

said, a sil-

ver cup in our coarse sacks of grain, so that

common

we returned to our brethren

with gladness and praise. Yet what disappointments he must have suffered. trials

of patience and

self-restraints in

though

ing,

the

visits

fatal "devastators

^He once "

hospitality.

What What

of friendly

of the day."

protested against an introduction say-

Whom God

hath put asunder

join together."

[85]

let

no man

Remembrances of Emerson " To try our valor fortune sends a foe To try our equanimity a friend."

He

bore

all

with a gentle serenity

and doubtless extracted from

fools

and

some wise or witty thought. The nearest he ever came to dismissing a

bores

was when a strenuous Miller-

visitor

ite called

son to

and attempted to win Emer-

his

belief.

Urging

that the

world was surely about to come to an end Emerson replied, " Well, let it go we can get on just as well with;

out

it."

Yes, he could do very well without it

and must often have done

casionally visit;

spirits

man.

he paid the world

for the

most part like

a friendly all

great

he seems to have been a lonely

At death he entered upon no

uncertain experience.

what

Oc-

so.

shall

To our question,

we do without him? [86]

let

Emerson

s

himself answer there I

may be

" Great

:

men

exist that

men."

greater

have always wished to explain the

influence of

of

Young Men

Influence on

my

Emerson on the young men

time; and, since his active

life

covered the period which was, without

and

dispute, an intellectual, political ligious crisis, I

clude in

it

may be

permitted to in-

some account of the

and experiences of temporaries, too

re-

my

attitude

youthful con-

immature

for

actual

participation in affairs or the expression

of themselves in writing.

They were

in the plastic stage, tormented its

by

spir-

of discontent and fascinated by

ions of high ideals of like a flock of birds

life.

which

vis-

They were a

gun has

from an old haunt and who hover uncertain, perplexed where next I was myself one of such a to alight. flock and I remember well the gun and startled

[87]

Remembrances of Kmerson which frightened us and scattered us, some to Emerson, some to Theodore Parker, others to Garrison and Fourier while many, perhaps most, the flash

;

while to their former

returned in a

little

associations

yet never to be quite

;

A

they were before.

what

few reacted

so

violently as to entrench themselves only

more ity

firmly in the absolutism and final-

of the

existing

institutions

—

the

Bible as interpreted by the doctors of

theology

;

the Constitution as expounded

by Webster and Taney and Calhoun,

and they reasserted the claims of the of the

literature

The

last

centuries.

clocks of the churches had run

They no longer

down. ent hour

;

struck the pres-

the hands were fixed as

tionless as those

on the

the watchmakers. to the

two

We

Sunday service [88]

dummy

mo-

clocks of

wended our way

full

of doubts and

Emerson

Influence on

s

Young Men

returned more and more confirmed in

them.

The devil and

hell

and the Jews

were constant parables of our own sinful natures; and out of an indiscriminate indictment but

shown from is

path was

man

to his sal-

fall

of

Ever the path of salvation

vation.

man

the

one single

narrow, and

tary one.

There

it is is

a lone

and

for

soli-

no crowd there,

driven by fears or promises and marshalled by banners with a single inscription,

—

"this world or the other."

I

remember the weight of human depravity

term so

was summed up in that vague constantly on the lips of preach-

"the world." Listening to them I associated it with something monstrous, ers,

forbidden and

as fearful as

the darkness

and hobgoblins are to childhood. the concrete

is

As

ever the characteristic of

childish imagination, I at [89]

first

supposed

it

Remembrances of Emerson was some place beyond the Mendon

Hills,

Had

which then bounded

the preacher been there

he dare ?

Had

it

"world" of the

any

It

I

How did

was painted

and so overdrawn that

like Milton's Satan I felt it

?

real existence, this

pulpit?

in deepest colors

in

my horizon.

more

interest

than in the saints and their heaven.

had

a great curiosity, inspired by the

emphasis on the word and the

all

too

my-

attractive description, to see it for self.

As a Seeker

after this glittering, seduc-

tive iniquity for

many

been able to find

it

fruit as I

I

have never

in that absolute

pure estate postulated.

bidden

years

Such of

have plucked

its

I

and for-

have

found tolerably sweet and wholesome

and but

little

more than

a convenient

figure of speech for the exhorter.

Emerson had walked out of church [90]

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

with the utmost gentleness and deference and established his tabernacle by the Concord wayside.

There without

noise or violence he continued to preach

the

word which

liberated

me

and

my

contemporaries from our spiritual bond-

age and resolved our negations into

For the faith that was in employed no logic; we made

affirmations.

we when us

necessary

a

new

affirmation.

Thus without revolution or turmoil force came into the world which ere

a it

was aware had undermined the ancient New England error. There was a little controversy, and those who kept the shew-bread of Unitarianism bridge were

at

Cam-

an exclamation which sounded like " athe-

ism"; but

now the

at first startled into

it

subsided slowly and

a long time silent. first

is

Atheism was

alarm sounded and [91]

it

as

usual

Remembrances of Emerson

—

those came from the seats of learning, long and softly. seats where men sit too This fearful word was next softened into

German mysticism, Neo-Platonism and many other epithets

pantheism, then to ;

were experimented with by

clerical

literary reviewers, until

was

it

and

finally

mellowed into Transcendentalism, where their bewildered pens

found

rest.

The

Unitarian clergy were and have always

been a company

of cultivated

men,

rather independent thinkers, and already

without the pale of canonical churches, it

was easy for them

step.

One by one

to take a forward

they and their fol-

lowers accepted Emerson as the prophet

of a new of a

spirit in religion

new

prophet also

insight into nature, into his-

tory, into conduct, ideal in all ties.

;

human

Whether

and the poet of the relations

and

activi-

the Emersonian insights [92]

Emerson

s

and

were altogether new and orig-

ideals

inal

is

Influence on

From

immaterial.

to everlasting, truth

same.

Young Men everlasting

and beauty

exist the

They do become

dull and trite by reiteration in a traditional language and require from time to time a fresh

This Emerson gave us in a

statement.

rich and striking form,

by

unencumbered

He

prolixity, logic or authorities.

took the shorter way to men's minds, the road of the self-illuminated

spirit

speaking to the highest in other

selves.

Many

voices

in

time

messages and continue in their response press.

I

meet

from the

echoed his these days

pulpit and the

his sentences or verses as

the mottoes of books, on calendars and

Farmers' Almanacs, in private marginal annotations, and especially in

all

the

strange assortment of publications of the seekers after

new

light in psychology,

\3Z\

Remembrances of Bjmerson

On

metaphysics, science and socialism.

from Emerson's writings they provisioned to issue uniformed and It must found a new sect or school. be admitted that Emerson's sentences a sentence

separated

from

their fellows readily lend

themselves to every sort of propaganda. It is

the fate of

all

inspired utterance

is

deepest and most

founded on what

universal in experience.

But the

crit-

ique and corrective are in other sentences literal

;

for

Emerson never allows

a too

application of his oracular utter-

Although he has wings with which to soar, he loves also to plant his feet firmly upon the earth. I dare say it would have alarmed him had any body of men attempted to organize into civil or religious compact his more adances.

vanced

ideas.

the whole of

He

wished rather to

see

mankind moved forward [94]

Emerson

s

and upward

Influence on

Young Men

to higher ideals

through the

integrity of the individual and not

drawn

He did

apart into coteries of one idea.

not like the responsibilities of a founder

of

He

would have been the first to escape from his own fold, so jealous was he of his freedom of beliefs.

thought, the possibilities of the

morrow

and the dangers of consistent conservatism when one has joined or formed a

Growth ends with

party or creed.

Advance

birth of creeds.

often accounted heresy.

pilgrims from

all

is

the

then too

In his lifetime,

quarters of the earth

sought him out, having read in his

books something of which they claimed themselves

to

be the discoverers or

For this they laid hands upon him, demanding sympathy and, a sub-

apostles.

scription.

—

I

believe they usually got

both, but no more.

He remained Emer[95]

Remembrances of Burners on Come-outer, Swedenborgian,

son, not a

or Fourierite.

We who

were young

and without crotchets or

went

to

him

affihations

in quite another

way and

with quite other purposes; and

am

knowing

that

he liked us

bet-

than any other

class

of

even

happy ter

I

those

in

who were

themselves famous.'

It is true that

my

visitors,

many young men

of

time had broken with the churches

They

of their fathers and mothers.

had undergone the Sunday-schools, family prayers

and

remained

unconverted.

more

revivals, yet obstinately

They were

or less consciously seeking

some

other way, very ignorantly, blindly and '

I

think you say rightly that he liked the young

pilgrims better, though youth includes

over three score and ten. the

young

—

Note

by

persons liked

had bloom, the

ideal

in years best if they

and courage.

many

But of the young he

Edward Waldo

Emerson.

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

They were by no means

helplessly.

iconoclasts or heretics; yet they called

some cess

bad names. cases

it

It

hurt a

were

little;

in

darkened the road to suc-

and prosperity.

Quiet and inde-

pendent paths are always open to him

who

prefers them, or

whom

chance has

forbidden the thronged thoroughfare.

Nature which we had always loved and lived with

now became

doubly dear by

Emerson's celebration of

and symbols.

its

meanings

We were more than ever

convinced that the higher

life

could best

be cultivated in the country, in

retire-

ment, and in humble occupations where

was not absolutely necessary to cheat and be cheated. Thus were scattered it

over the rural parts of

New

England,

and no doubt in other portions of the land, a few men and many women who

were and continue

to be examples of

[97]

Remembrances of Emerson plain living and high thinking, the im-

pulse

toward which

came

originally

through the teaching of Emerson.

Such

models of domestic simplicity united with noble interests and purposes I have

met in the homes of some friends, where to abide a guest was to be in a temple consecrated to the Muses and the Graces, In this retirement some attempted

cultivate

to

literature,

venture the assertion that

and

more of it

I

has

sprung from the impulse of that early

awakening than from any other source. Here are some sentences from one of Emerson's

earlier addresses,

"

Man

the

Reformer," delivered in 1841, which illustrate his views and had great influence in turning the thoughts of his hearers

and readers toward a reform in ways

of living. " Our life

as

we

lead

[98]

it

is

common

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

and mean; some of those

offices

and

which we were mainly created are grown so rare in society that the memory of them is only kept alive in old books and in dim traditions. functions for

"

I

will not dissemble

whom

each person his

own

I

my

hope that

address has felt

call to cast aside all evil cus-

toms, timidities and limitations and to

be in

his

place

a

free

and helpful

man. " to

A

The manual labor of society ought be shared among all the members. man should have a farm or a

mechanical

craft for his culture.

We

must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our delicate entertain-

ments of poetry and philosophy in the

work of our

hands.

Manual

labor

the study of the external world.

is

The

advantage of riches remains with him [99]

Remembrances of Emerson

who

procured them, not with the

When spade

I

go into

my

and dig a bed

heir.

garden with a I

such an

feel

exhilaration and health that

I

discover

that I have been defrauding myself all this

time in letting others do for should have done with

me what

I

my own hands.

"I do not wish to overstate this doctrine of labor or insist that every

man

should be a farmer any more than that every

man

should be a lexicographer.

But the doctrine of the farm this, that

man ought

every

is

merely

to stand in

primary relations with the work of the world, ought to do

it

himself and not

to suffer the accidents

of his having a

purse in his pocket or his having been

bred to some dishonorable and injurious

craft

duties;

to

sever

and for

him from

those

this reason that labor

God's education. [loo]

is

Emerson "

I

think

any strong

Young Men

Influence on

s

man

if a

find in himself

bias to poetry, to art, to the

contemplative

life,

him

drawing

to

these things with a devotion incompatible with

good husbandry

ought to reckon

that

with

early

man

himself

and respecting the compensations of the universe ought to ransom himself

from the

duties of

tain rigor

For

privileges

him not him be

economy by

and privation so

stint to

rare

in his habits.

and grand

pay a great

tax.

a cenobite, a pauper,

need be celibate

also.

a cer-

let

Let

and

if

Let him learn

to eat his meals standing,

and to

relish

the taste for fair water and black bread.

He pone

must his

live in a

chamber and

self-indulgence,

post-

forewarned

and forearmed against that frequent misfortune of

men

of genius, the

for luxury. [lOl]

taste

Remembrances of Emerson " Why needs any man be rich ?

Why

must he have

horses, fine gar-

ments, handsome apartments, access to

pubHc houses and places of amusement? Only for want of thought. Give his mind a new image and he flees

to

into

enjoy

a

garden or garret

solitary

and

it,

dream than the

richer with

is

that

fee of a county could

make him. " Let

economy. grand

;

simple

Economy

is

when tastes,

it

a high,

when

sacrament,

a

office,

meaning

the

learn

us

when

it

is

of base origin and

sight. I

we

Much

see in houses

best kept out of

Parched corn eaten to-day that

may have

Sunday

is

is

practiced for

is

freedom, or love, or devotion. of the economy which

aim

prudence of

the

is

its

of

humane

is

roast

fowl

a baseness

;

[102]

to-

my

dinner on

but parched corn

Emerson and

a house

may be may be mind for is

s

Influence on

Young Men

with one apartment that

I

free of all perturbations, that I

serene and docile to

shall speak

and

girt

what the

and road-ready

the lowest mission of knowledge,

frugality for gods

and heroes."

Emerson may have had

a too master-

ful influence at first over these

ened

souls,

found their

but through

own

it

awak-

they finally

genius and entering

various paths with pen,

with ledger,

with sermon, in journalism, in teaching, in politics and law have every-

where

uplifted

our

civilization

and

given a higher tone to public opinion.

There are idealists in the stock exchange and on lonely New England farms whose pedigree can be traced to Concord.

Wisdom,

it

is

inheritance, and

said,

is

good with an

some men begin with [103]

Remembrances of Emerson the

How

their

for

latter

first

enterprise.

to interpose in everyday

affairs

the due admixture of philosophy, some

ambrosial

with

salad

and meat,

common

the problem of

is

bread

He

life.

who

keeps in

may

add, the practice of Emerson, has

some helps

mind

the precepts, and I

to that end.

It is well to

have been shown that while involved in the petty as in the

employments of dwell

can

do

this;

can

this life the soul

He

apart.

most imperial

who

is

fortunate

who

does not need

to

from the world to be trivialities and its boasted

separate himself

no part of

its

realities.

—

Here I must record a sorrowful fact, the dilemma in which I and many

of

my

companions

who

wished to

fol-

low the Emersonian ideas found ourselves when it was necessary to choose [104]

Emerson some

s

Influence on

definite career in

Young Men It

life.

was not

the Choice of Hercules, the absolute

good or

but one of subtle and over-

evil,

We had learned

refined discriminations.

only half of our lesson and bewildered

by the current rejection of Emerson as a guide and obstructed on every hand by the

stiff

literature

religion,

seemed

conservatism of the times in

to be

and

no place

politics

for

us.

there

The

half-digested lesson therefore impelled us to the

thought of separation and

tirement. It

would be

easy,

re-

we dreamed,

to follow ideals in solitude or in a spe-

We

cially selected, congenial society.

could

at

dividing

least

the

work with our

hands,

day between labor and

thought, and show the world the uselessness

From

of church and

state

and

riches.

these Arcadias and Utopias

we

were speedily driven, and compelled by [105]

Remembrances of Rmerson usual necessities of life, we drifted

the

common employments

back into the

and conditions of our fellows and learned length the other half of our wise

at

namely, to

lesson,

live

out

the ideal

amid our own affairs, however humble, and with the brethren of the common lot.

I for

live

one have been well

satisfied to

without the American ambitions,

in small, rustic communities, laboring

sometimes with

with

my

pen

The voices and

my in

hands and again

friendly

intimations of nature are

not absent from such also the records

literature can

obscurity.

retreats,

of the great

where

spirits

of

be gathered upon a few

shelves; nor are the affairs of the

little

community altogether without interest, which once a year are concentrated in that

imoressive

public [io6]

function,

the

Emerson

Town

Influence on

s

Young Men

For this

Meeting.'

the greatest respect

as

have

latter I

the oldest and

chiefest palladium of civilization founded

on freedom. citizen

is

There and there alone the

a recognizable unit

One

mostly a cipher. sons

I

;

elew^here,

of the best

have learned from Emerson, and

others before

me

confession,

to be faithful over a

is

things, beginning

more

les-

have made the same

first

with

things do not follow

few If

self.

it is

no

affair

There is nothing so alluring to most men as power and responsibility, but the ways to them are devious and of ours.

The

largely in the hands of fortune. '

My

there

Father delighted in town meetings

humbly

as

;

sat

an admiring learner, while the

farmer, the shoemaker and the squire

made

all

that

he delighted to read of Demosthenes, of Cato, of Burke, as true in Concord as in ancient

cities.

was he pleased if he could carry in an Note by E. W. Emerson. Englishman to see. Especially

—

[107]

Remembrances of Emerson slave is contented when unaware of chains; the free man in knowing Hmits.

but

life

A

small stage for small

his

men;

can be well lived even here, and

—

for the greater

"

hiis

much of that

I

think not

I

hear the roll of the ages."

or the less

:

was the same with the state and tendencies as with the church. The

It its

bonds of tradition and an ancient superstition

held

fast

men.

orders of

the various religious Slavery had paralyzed

The mutwere in the air, confined a few angry remonstrants

the moral sense of the

state.

terings of strife as

yet

to

against

the

North.

It

to life

apparent

apathy

of the

was in the North dangerous

and property

to speak publicly

against slavery ; in the South there

the tar-pot, the

rifle

were

and the jail on suspi-

cion of Abolitionism. [108]

But on

this sub-

Emerson

s

ject there

is

Influence on

Young Men

abundant history.

I

wish

to confine myself to the attitude of the

handful of young

men who, through

the influence of Emerson, had

become

emancipated from the conservatism, the

Whiggery and the dogmas of the

who with

the

impetuosity

times,

of youth

rushed into the other extreme of fanaticism, declaring war on their

own

ac-

count some years before Fort Sumter

was fired upon. At the Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1853—54, among two hundred students there were only three of known anti-slavery sentiments. There Prof. Moses Stuart had shown the Bible authority for slavery; and Daniel Webster

We

was the god of student idolatry. three however stood fast by our

colors in

many

a passionate argument

in dormitory and

campus; and when

Anthony Burns was about [109]

to be returned

Remembrances of Emerson from a Boston Court of we were on the point of march-

to his chains

Justice,

ing our

army of three

but

we had

alas,

consoled

to the rescue;

not a single gun.

with

ourselves

We

composing

speeches to be delivered for the inspiration of the rescuing I

mob.

One

of these

well remember, stuffed with apostro-

phes to the goddess of liberty and recon-

What a spectacle

dite classical all usions.

and

to gods

men

if delivered as

might have been

that

intended by the beardless

from the topmost step of the Boston Court House, adding that ridiculous element which sometimes makes stripling

tragedy more tragic. serious

and

We were intensely

in earnest.

However we

remained in our chambers and say found a

new

cero's Orations

I

dare

vigor and point in Ci-

from the tremendous

convulsion in our

own

[no]

bosoms.

We

Emerson studied

s

Young Men

Influence on

now with

and

a sort of fury

went about with the lean and hungry look of Cassius.

geance

we

felt

In a

called

spirit

upon

of ven-

to put our

pro-slavery classmates at the foot of the class if

we

could punish them in no

other way; and astic

we

and pedantic

succeeded, a schol-

which helped

justice,

and

to cool our blood,

to

remember and

it

most uncomfortable

it

delights

record. for

me

We

made

the

little

downy-bearded friends of the slaveholders at recitation, where we took especial pains to emphasize every liberal Cicero-

commonswe gave them

nian sentiment and at the table with gibe

and

satire

no peace. We had all the fine sentiments concerning freedom at our tongues' end, as well as

of the

cruelties

all

the pathetic stories

of African slavery.

It

was the custom of one or other of the [III]

Remembrances of Emerson commons club officers to preside at table

and either

the

to say grace himself or

upon some other member. It happened on a day that one of the proscribed three who was not religiously to call

inclined, presided and asked the blessing.

He

began, " O Lord, thou knowest the

contented slave

what

farther

a degraded

is

he intended

man,"

to say I

know

not; there was a clatter of knives and

came to a sudden and gloom overspread

forks and his grace

ending.

Silence

us during the remainder of breakfast and

everybody

felt

ugly and ready for a

fight.

Thereafter only church members, that those of the pro-slavery

is,

lowed

set,

were

al-

to say grace.

In a few years more our numbers

had suddenly and immensely increased.

To

hold anti-slavery sentiments was no

longer to be a marked man. [II.]

Sumner

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

had been struck down in the United States Senate by Preston Brooks, of South Carolina. We felt it was not a blow aimed at one man by another, but by one-half the nation against the other

The South

half.

hurled

the

bludgeon, the North received the blow.

As

1844 Emerson had very announced his views on slavery

early

clearly

as

from the first he had held any other. It was not in his

but

I

doubt

if

nature to be other than a lover of hu-

man

freedom.'

In

1856,

the

after

Sumner, he delivered a

upon short but imattack

pressive speech at an indignation meet-

ing of his fellow citizens in Concord. '

One

Father's

of the life

finest pieces

seems to

me

of character in

my

his entering the lists

with the black giant knight Webster, then the darling of the country, in the Free Soil campaign

of 1856.

— Note

by

E.

W.

Emerson.

[113]

Remembrances of Emerson Then followed the great reception and procession

Boston

in

Sumner upon to his home.

in

his recovery

The

honor

and return

procession was led

by the venerable Josiah Quincy.

companions and

I

of

were not

far

My

behind

on foot carrying good, heavy walking sticks, not unlike clubs, which we brandished about in defiance of an yet unchallenged.

enemy

Our blood was

as

up,

our tongues wildly loosened, although there were none present to engage in discussion with us.

or

dumb.

and other

They were converted

Even Andover, Cambridge seats

of learning that had held

the Biblical and Constitutional briefs for slavery

drew back

in fright

and repent-

ance.

In

1859, John

No man at that

Brown was hung.

or party could have been said

time to lead the opinion of the

["4]

Emerson North.

The

s

Influence on

was

It

trial

unanimous.

but

all

Brown

of Captain

more antagonism

Young Men

against

aroused

South

the

than years of anti-slavery agitation had

been able to produce. that

His speech on

became

occasion

a

rallying cry,

bringing into prominence once more the Scriptural teachings concerning sacrifice

self-

and the brotherhood of man

and again

we

beheld the penalty of

such words expiated upon a Virginia scaffold.

Emerson

During

this

appeared

on

stormy the

time

side

of

He made

two addresses on Captain Brown which are among his collected writings and they are the most impassioned words he ever delivhumanity.

ered.

We with

younger

still

action.

men

followed his lead

greater ardor.

We

wanted [115]

to

We

were

rescue

for

John

Remembrances of Emerson Brown and offered our services for

that

purpose to certain persons

whom we

were ready

to lead us.

privately heard

The

some three thousand picked men who were to renforce was to consist of

dezvous separately

at

Harper's Ferry.

More prudent counsels prevailed and we were left to nurse our wrath as best we could. The time soon came when there was ample scope for that wrath in a practicable direction.

of

New

The

England youth went

flower to

the

war and gave their lives for their faith. For four years they continued to fall on battlefield and in hospital. Those years lost their spring and their shadow still darkens and delays it. But war was better than peace at the price asked as Emerson said at its outbreak, " Sometimes gunpowder smells good." If it left the plough in the furrow, it ;

[1

1

6]

Emerson also

s

Young Men

Influence on

broke up yardsticks and consumed

selfishness in a flash

;

overthrew mouldy

made heroes

conventions and

of

out

pale students and dapper clerks.

For

Emerson's

lectures,

con-

and published

w^ritings

had

all this

versations

helped to blazon the way.

Young men

under his influence were prepared for

any enterprise that would bring in better day.

against

ideal

They took the

sides

with the opinions,

prevalent

customs and manners and often sacrifice

a

of worldly prosperity.

at the

They

sometimes carried individualism to ex-

and became recluse or eccentric. Yet to sum up, there has been no one cess

man

in our land

who

has exerted so

powerful an influence for spiritual, moral

and

intellectual

advancement

as

Emer-

son.

As

a

whole

his

["7]

ideas

fortunately

Remembrances of Emerson cannot be formulated into a philosophy or

creed

indeed

unless

constant

his

tropes be taken literally, and late for that

;

we have just

it

is

too

escaped the

long reign of literalism and shall not soon put our necks under the yoke of

Yet Emerson's views,

Asiatic symbols. ideal

and impossible

to be, will serve a

any of the

as

man

real issues

they very

of

may seem well when

life

are to be

There was never any question where those ideals would take Emerson himself, nor on which side he would be found when the opposing met.

forces of ress

freedom and

slavery,

of prog-

and conservatism should meet in

peace or war.

Some

internal magnet,

not to be deflected by public opinion, majorities, or popularity, pointed to the star

of his hopes and convictions.

I

am

impressed with the fact that he never [1

1

8]

Young Men

Emerson

s

made any

mistakes throughout his ca-

He

reer.

faced one

to face that

cant, to

Influence on

apologize.

He

way.

make

a

way and continued

new

Instead,

never had to re-

start, to

modify or

he went forward

with an even, undeviating

step,

applying

his leading thought, namely, the

im-

portance of the individual, his identity

with nature and nature with

itself,

and

on the moral point of view through every subject that he discussed from his first word to his last.

above

He

all

insisting

presents the unique

example of a

man who continuously surrendered himself to the

higher intuitions which he

himself termed the Over Soul, meaning

much the same thing as when the herdsman Amos wrote " God declareth unto man what is his thought." Unlike other moralists, religious teachers and prophets,

who

sometimes lapsed into [119]

Remembrances of Emerson complaints or denunciation of human Emerson steadfastly fixes his eyes upon the highest and recognizes only the divine in man. The result upon the reader is a wonderful exaltafrailties,

tion

and desire to realize that

would emphasize

ideal.

I

again, that this, with

the ever-present conviction and conclusion of

moral world

his writings, that there

all

to as

a

be drawn from the natural

well as from man's, makes

one of the great guides of society

is

now

life

him in a

breaking away from ancient

landmarks and

with a thousand

filled

demands With Emerson on discordant

for reorganization.

my

shelves,

I

feel

like saying as the doorkeeper of a rich

house

is

instructed to say to mendicants

and peddlers, " No, give,

—

we want

son brings with

we

have nothing to

nothing."

him

But Emer-

the best of goods

[120]

Emerson

s

Young Men

Influence on

and company and is not so exclusive that he cannot bear the presence of all the immortal books ever written,

chanced to read Emerson before

I

I

knew^

the others and have never ceased to be

thankful that

I

had such

a guide

and

such a light tow^ard the great masters

of thought.

my

seaside

of one stand:

In the various corners of

and mountain

story,

castles, castles

Emerson and

mates

a rather ragged regiment, w^ith

some missing who should be I

his

there ; but

take care that only his equals shall

be invited to share the shelves perrnanently.

There

is

one other explanation of

Emerson's influence over young men,

somewhat closer and more personal, which I must attempt to examine, although I fear I may not be able to make it

as clear as it lies in

[i.i]

my own

mind,

Remembrances of Kmerson inasmuch crisis

of

as life

it

pertains to an inward

when

it

is

passing from

childhood to consciousness, and therefore difficult to be

communicated or un-

derstood unless already experienced.

A boy's nature has and

tion

a healthy imagina-

spontaneous

expression.

does not calculate consequences

not backward nor

and

is

much

into

seldom introspective.

;

its

it

It

looks

future,

If the boy

declares he will be a sailor, a grocer or a soldier,

it

is

not because he has dis-

covered in himself a special

gift for those

occupations, but because of the physical attractions with which

So

at first all

he accredits them.

of his attractions and re-

pulsions are of an outward, objective

Nothing as yet has appealed to most inward nature with its faint,

kind. his

undefined longings.

Slowly, or

it

may

be suddenly, he awakens to the fact of [122]

Emerson his

own

s

Influence on

Young Men

personality, his ego, his inde-

pendent being; and he begins to note and measure its difference or sympathy

Ai

with other beings. riod

it is

what

this critical pe-

of momentous consequence in

drawn; what influences, material or spiritual, are thrown direction he

is

into the delicate balance of his quicken-

The new-found

ing tendencies.

being,

the exuberance of youth, usually draw

men

into self-enjoyment, into

compan-

ionship and society and ambitions, and

the integrity of the youthful, just awak-

ened soul

had

little

is

dissipated

and

lost.

One has

chance or encouragement to

keep hold of himself.

On the

contrary,

he is discouraged uncomfortable epithets ;

await him, egotist, peculiar, eccentric;

and

at

one time or another

name of some stitution.

it

bears the

discredited person or in-

All voices counsel the young [123]

Remembrances of Kmerson

man to be like other people to

keep step or to be

left

;

to

conform,

behind.

At an opportune moment Emerson met the dawning consciousness and intelligence,

to it

do

so,

and of

doubt not continues

I

many young men when

must be confessed they were

charged

with

self-importance

of

exaggerations

the ;

sur-

when

their

newly

dis-

covered powers were seething in inde-

He

terminate and nebulous disorder.

impressed the importance of a

man

to

himself and the necessity and dignity

of self-reliance.

Yet he directed

thought into such

lofty

this

meanings and

implications as to effect the cure of ego-

tism and pretension and open the perceptions to the required preparation for self-trust life.

and the incoming of higher

Moreover, he held out the hope

and the promise that only in being true [124]

Emerson to

Influence on

s

ourselves could

we

Young Men

arrive at a real

understanding of other men and discover our spiritual

affinity w^ith

with nature, which

is

them

best

as

well as

worth know-

ing of anything in the world.

This was a comfortable and elevated

which

from the obligation of trying to know and do the thing not in harmony with our own nature and its aspiration, so freed us from doctrine,

so released us

conformity and tradition that accepted

it.

and carried

we eagerly

some were overzealous the idea beyond its true scope If

they soon found the limitations, and

within them have quietly worked out their son's

own

Wherever Emerteachings have found welcome destiny.

among men

they have been followed

by saner living and nobler impulses. They have not been attended by organized institutions founded upon his name

Remembrances of Kmerson he wished have entered into the life and character of individuals, until the seed is now sown broadcast and bears fruit after its kind and writings, but

in

many

places.

as

sequestered as well as public

We

young men of Emerson's

time, realizing our

own

being and

its

potentialities,

and yet uninstructed, were

turning in

directions for help.

all

certain sense delivered

in a

Being

from the

trammels of outworn opinion, by our very aspirations which were prophetic

of a

new

day,

we found not

this help in

Although the of conduct were at hand, where

the writers of the past. rules

was the master could

fit

could lead us on,

himself to our special and per-

sonal need; a

who

who

could give us faith in

new thought and courage

to follow

and captivate us by the form of pression?

We

its

it

ex-

found him in Emerson. [126]

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

Such was the deep impression he made,

move his readers knew immediately this message

so profoundly did it

that each

was not for himself alone and at once was generated that sympathy which proof kindred

phesies

time

is

and in due

spirits

united with them.

Thus it was we came

into

ship and found our own.

companion-

We

formed

no school, but we did have a master. I see Emerson at our head, leading his extraordinary collection of boys; some over bold and opinionated, others facile and docile some with long locks, poetic and melancholy; others eager to apply ;

literally

and

at

once to

all

the Emersonian remedies. has hard

work

The

master

keep us in order, but

to

he allows a considerable idiosyncrasy and

existing evils

is

latitude

and

overflowing with con-

fidence in our future. [127]

At

last

he leads

Remembrances of Emerson Muses and

us smiling to the seat of the

introduces us as worthy of the palm, the oak, the olive or

more humble

By permission of the Prose Idyls

rendering

written

in

publishers of my

add here in conclusion of

I

these recollections bolic

parsley.

a condensed, sym-

of them which was

moment of

a

enthusiasm

when symbols and metaphors seemed best suited to shelter a personal experience.

THE MIND CURER "

It would

be well," said the sage to

one day, " to go to college better to

of est

;

would be

it

go around the world

me

;

but best

go look everything thou meetwith in the face and ask of it some

all

to

question that

thou

is

in thine

own

heart.

If

art patient,

but withal importunate,

many

years thou wilt find the

then after

[128]

Emerson

s

Influence on

Young Men

answers written everywhere, in a pre-

Cadmean

alphabet," such were his very

words, " over

all

waste places and in the

dust under thy feet,"

Thus spoke

the sage, and

many

other

things of similar import, speaking like

the Pythoness across the centuries, regardless of age, time

As

and circumstances.

had gone

I

clandestinely,

had

hired a chaise and traveled twenty miles at the

expense of

all

my

consult the oracle, I held

substance to it

to be

mine

up for many years without comprehending it. Yet gen-

and

I

treasured

erally I felt

straining

it

it

like Socrates' dasmon, re-

me from many things.

I

know

not how, but the lofty words and their very vagueness elevated the soul and

made tions.

love,

it

expectant of wonderful revelaIf I sought honor, ease, riches,

something

said.

[129]

Seek them not

Remembrances of Rmerson and

length they palled before a

at

not mine, but whose existence

I

life,

could

As the astronomer knows of an unseen star by the perturbations of some divine.

other

visible,

higher tions

life

so

by the

conjectured

of a

agitations, the attrac-

and repulsions of

Thus did the

many

I

this.

sage and the master of

centuries cure the uncertain ado-

lescent

mind

follies or

ere yet

it

had reached

to

prevented the entrance of wis-

dom.

[130]

EMERSON AS ESSAYIST

<>=

EMERSON

AS ESSAYIST

[MERSON'S

Essays

are

the

almost unexampled instance of matter prepared for livery that has a place in vital

literature.

I

oral

de-

permanent and

know

of no other

compositions save his which have stood the test of reading in private equally

well with the effect of public delivery.

How

cold and tame seem orations and

addresses

when

read which were heard

with thunders of applause. This is partly due to the temporary or occa-

charm of voice and magnetism of the speaker which throw so illusive a glamour over the commonplace that it shall seem extraordinary and the trivial important. Each gensional topic, or to a

b33]

Remembrances of Fjmerson eration reads with disappointment the greatest efforts of oratory of a previous

one.

Here

the point

lies

which

distin-

guished Emerson from other speakers.

His topics were seldom transient they were the eternal ones of life and he ;

;

had an original manner of treatment and the literary skill which have made the

Essays

a

lasting

addition to the

instruction and elevation of

Dealing

as

mankind.

he did with the eternal

charged with a

mind became cosmical force which

he manifests in

his original style

principles of nature, his

and

in the

profound treatment of his sub-

jects.

He

penetrates to the essence of

things and lays bare the secret operations of

mind and

matter.

It is

obvi-

ous such themes are neither gilded by the

momentary enthusiasm accorded [134]

to

Emerson as Essayist the orator, nor can they be stripped

of their

imperishable

In their subsequent re-

read in print.

vision for publication

something per-

haps was added, but more, struck

when

qualities

The

out.

I

think, was

and close

concise

made more concise and the inadequate word or phrase

statement was close

;

gave place to the apposite. tions, adjuncts

He

Conjunc-

and adverbs disappeared.

retained, however, as his

most con-

venient bridge from one paragraph to another the adverb " while" or "whilst."

The metaphor was made stronger I

be

;

the condensation was extreme.

remember called,

a sentence, if so

which

it

of only two words, and

one of the most in

simpler and

it

may it is

effective in the essay

occurs.

He

the elision of the letter

/

venient Protean pronoun, [135]

was fond of in that conit

;

so that

Remembrances of Kmerson "

became a well-known earmark I do not in the Emersonian academe. wonder at his cutting the word, one could almost wish the elision had been 'tis"

complete.

Emerson trimmed and pared tences to the last limit

;

his sen-

and he

left to

the reader the pleasant task of supply-

ing joints and hinges and of finding or

making mortises lated tenons.

for his nicely articu-

He uses a figure of speech

where most writers would insert a logical demonstration, or argument or entreaty. As one reads it is equally convincing and a thousand times more agreeable

;

but

it

is

hard to keep the

connections, especially

where the page

sparkles with epigrammatic sentences.

He

is

never

satisfied unless

he attaches

the concrete to the most profound abstractions

;

until like the

dreams of the

Emerson as Essayist gods his visions and ideals are made real

by some natural image, some actual example. After the lecture dressed,

had been newly

the excisions, the com-

after

pressions, the polish, the

remained

file,

impersonal,

less

that I

can

still

the lecture

less

conven-

and academic

tionally literary, special

than in other English

something

essays.

I

think

faintly detect the air

room

;

of

the upturned faces,

expecting the sentence w^hich should cut clean, sound to the depths, soar to

the heights, and never disappointed that expectation.

There yet

lingers over the

Essays the direct address, the hortatory,

the call to me, to you,

them

He

so exciting

and

which makes

so revolutionary.

uses the first person a great deal

and one reciprocates the high compliment by believing himself alone ad[137]

Remembrances of Emerson dressed.

It

like a

is

personal inter-

view.'

A veritable presence does vitalize Emerson's

Essays;

it

a

is

soul

informed

with thought, with beauty, with experience, observation and conviction, speak-

ing to the soul.

what belonged did not.

to

and

it,

It dares to

all subjects

drawn

It has

cast out

be true to

and always.

to itself

what

itself in

It is as

impor-

tant to note the unvarying attitude of

Emerson's mind sion of '

—

the particular expres-

We do

it.

not

know what he

not necessary to assent to everything he

It is

says,

as

but

enough

all,

to be

even such as

moved

can understand

I,

to adoration and vv^orship of

the true, the beautiful and good. Ripley

to

One

Mary Moody Emerson person

observed

scarcely during the

whole

she

in

— Rev.

i8j8.

durst

lecture.

Samuel

not

breathe

Yet some were

displeased and thought the influence he exerted not

good.

— Same

to

same^ iSj8.

[138]

Emerson as Essayist may have

to deliver,

what

may

surprises

be in store under any of his rubrics, but

do know that Emerson will be

vv^e

there.

He is so self-consistent that never a doubt interferes

with our certainty

the

as to

position he will take on any public or

moralor literary question.'

We know that

he could not take any other than he

does.

There never was any writer so forbidden by his own genius to wander outside of its

own domain. He was almost

impris-

oned by it. In a hundred

subjects

and

di-

gressions there is a thread

which binds

all

and cannot be same.

He is everywhere the

lost.

Should a single page of Emerson

be exhumed from the future ruins of modern libraries tify '

it

him and

In praising a

would be enough

to iden-

testify to his genius.

of Sterling's Emerson

letter

" These were opinions so much), but the tone

(for

was

the

b29]

said,

which he did not care man."

Remembrances of Emerson Is

it

remarkable then that Emerson

who was

one in

so

all his

work should

have been so untiring a searcher identity in the history of

outward and

spiritual,

tions of nature tity

?

mankind, both

and in the opera-

He pursued

this iden-

not perhaps with the philosophical

intent of finding a ple,

after

which ends

system

;

first

cause, or princi-

often in

dogma and

but he was pleased, like a poet,

with the oneness of things; the correspondences between nature and man,

between matter and symbols, and saw

them

He

spirit.

as a

saw

never-end-

ing and interchangeable order.

He was

not content with seeing likeness in one place,

one time, or object, but always

and everywhere. nent

spirit

He

gave the imma-

pervading nature and

many names,

the loftiest of

the Over Soul.

It

was

[140]

his

man

which was key with

Emerson as Essayist which he opened

secret

sages to

man and

them

clearly as the

as

familiar.

It

at

and obscure pas-

nature,

and revealed

known and the once commanded a

larger thought and advanced his hearers

and readers into a new effect

of

it

was

The

life.

practical;

that

first it

is,

enticed the hearer or reader into a desire for

embodiment.

I assert this al-

though aware that it was an ideal life which was endeavored to be realized a ;

life as

yet without institutions to

and protect

it.

The

assist

singular elevation

of Emerson's vision enabled him to behold harmony, order and love a lower atmosphere

who

;

those in

could not bear

might yet, by his help, catch glimpses of the good and fair and here and there some solitary youth attempted to conform his living and thinkFor such ing to the Concord oracles. that high light

;

[141]

Remembrances of Emerson youth Emerson had

a great tenderness,

a great sympathy and hope, believing as

he did that

must

ideas

them-

realize

selves as surely as the acorn

becomes an

oak.

Emerson was an optimist because he was first an idealist that is, he believed ;

in the

triumph of thought over the

and brute forces

the world.

in

made "no account of

objections

evil

He

which

respect the actual state of the world at

the present moment." ideas is

"Put

trust in

and not in circumstances."

the ground

supports us."

we do And

"It

not tread upon that

must repeat here

I

the best saying of Emerson as illustrative

of

his habitual irony

toward

all

things

of matter-of-fact and practical importance: friends

"Excuse me," he said to some when called away by the appear-

ance of a load of wood in his yard, [142]

"we

Emerson as Essayist have to attend to these matters

just as if

they were real."

Some can

foreign as well as

critics

some Ameri-

of Emerson are ignorant of

upon the actual life of the men and women who were reading him when he was at his prime and they were in the eager and impressionable stage of youth. Although it is Matthew Arnold his influence

who

has so wisely said that poetry

who

criticism of life ;

influence on readers

forming the

many

also notes its

is

a

deep

of Wordsworth,

intellectual tendencies of

other poets and writers and hav-

ing a subtle, far-reaching effect over

and even government;

literature, society

yet he seems not to be aware of the similar

regard

facts in

poetry and prose.

They

to

Emerson's

are, it is true,

not so conspicuous, but they are just as real.

Perhaps more of the Emersonian [143]

Remembrances of Kmerson seed

fell

into unprepared ground, into a

more restless generation than in the case of Wordsworth and Carlyle, and displayed itself in more

younger

civilization, a

and eccentric forms. But his teaching must not be measured by the crude

foibles

of some of

noble tree has tree that

its

followers; every

parasitic growths.

its

large and vigorous

is

rectify

his

Wordsworth's

this.

weaker

disciples,

who

enough

Time

can sustain a good many.

A will

imitators,

thought sim-

ple themes and characters as

worthy of

poetry as great ones and yet were too unskilled to treat

them

into obscurity,

and only those capable of

holding

aloft

greatly,

have fallen

and passing on the light

they have received, remain and are re-

membered.

It

has been thus with every

great teacher, every original force; and so

it

will be with

Emerson.

[144]

Emerson as Essayist

When I

consider

points of view

I

Emerson from

am impatient

literary criticism

of him.

these

of merely

It

does not

compass his aims, his power and his

There is something in these you will not find when you only read Emerson's books as literature. There is already history in them that is, what effect.

;

they contain of suggestion and aspiration has been

put into the this will

more

life

of

or

less successfully

this age.

Whether

continue to be their fortune

is

an unimportant and also unanswerable question.

men

In the history of most great

there has been at

first

a personal

following, a band of disciples whose cir-

manEmerson what

cle has extended itself in a natural

ner.

There happened

usually happens literary leaders;

to all

to

eminent moral or

something calling

itself

the public began to criticise and sneer

[HS]

Remembrances of Emerson at those est

who were the earliest and warm-

of Emerson's admirers, reproaching

them with the intention of appropriating him exclusively to themselves, and with being blinded by their closeness to him.

Though

and in

fact

late

in discovering

it,

by no other means than the

observation of his influence and fame

among

a small band, this public found

out that there was an Emerson, a poet, essayist or philosopher,

sure which.

they were not

After this discovery the

next step was in accordance with the

most ancient precedents,

— mockery

of

the follower and praise of the master.

The

public took

its

view and mainly

its

expression from the follower; but cen-

sured

him as a mere satellite, from whom

they pretended they would rescue the

Emerson and show that he belonged a wider world than the Concord or

real

to

[146]

Emerson as Essayist other coterie.

who

those

This was the position of

slowly and grudgingly

mag-

Emerson in order to belittle such anticipated their discoveries. as had "We claim Emerson for a larger banquet than yours, too large for you go you to the foot of the table." This is nified

—

always said by those the

are

who

not

who come

late to

"But," said Themistocles,

feast.

"they

;

start

too late in the games

They

crowned."

Emerson when he began

accepted

to be famous,

not before; and they always found

it

more

easy to satirize the Emersonian?

than

to

Emerson.

understand

amused

for awhile,

away.

There

and then

it

This passed

are always brilliant wits

who know how

to present truth

and

opposite in such close proximity that is

its it

impossible to separate them, and only

safe to cut the

whole away and build on [147]

Remembrances of Emerson another and simpler foundation.

These

wits wish to be thought to follow no-

body; to stand

as

supreme

critics

and

representative of the cosmopolitan mind.

On

the contrary they remind one of

rows of pins on

a paper, all alike, very

small heads and very sharp points.

There

is

another

class

of

critics

who

endeavor without prejudice to estimate

Emerson

as a

writer and fix his place.

Yet in forming their estimate they do not take into account his influence, both personal and literary, over his contempo-

how

great was the awakening caused by his writings. I believe no one could know it who had not directly fallen under its immediate power. This which makes raries,

nor conceive

spiritual

Emerson

so dear to some, also renders

difficult for

those

who

are out of

it

sym-

pathy with his teachings to find any [148]

Emerson as Essayist Emerson at all, any greatness, any power. Although not a professedly religious teacher, we can only compare his influ-

He seldom enters

ence to that of one.

upon any piece of writing intellectual

exercise.

To

as a

follow

then from literary standpoints

Yet he was

his message.

special sense of that

term

purely

is

him

to miss

literary in the ;

he never de-

preciated the place of the intellect, and often upheld to

it.

He appears,

however,

have been very impatient of the

merely academic manner and to have subordinated both literary art and intellectual processes to a spiritual vision,

which was genius. his

pen

when

a natural gift

in

him,

his

He makes way for this always; falters

this does

and the essay not

hesitates

command him.

He

did not climb any height by the steps

of fact and argument, but he alighted [149]

Remembrances of Emerson there on the height, and descends by familiar paths, by

homely

illustration,

proverb, practical applications to

life,

were the usual order of Sometimes he stays on the thinking. summits, passing from one to another, as inverting as

it

the higher clouds touch in their flight

only the

loftiest

of Emerson's

mountain peaks.

All

greatness

and

intrinsic

power seem to me to come from the commanding place from which he begins to discuss every subject in the Es-

In other writings, as biographies

says.

annals and topics of the day, he measures

men,

nations, events

by lifting them in his

more

and reforms

to the plane from whence

abstract compositions he

accustomed to take his

is

flight.

Emerson's method, his intellectual or philosophical or spiritual

first

principles

are to be found at large in his writings, [150]

Emerson as Essayist

To

in the least as in the lengthiest.

every object in nature, to applies itself to

what

learn

the

life,

it

This meaning, idea or cause

mind

means. is

more

beautiful and of larger significance than

the particular example of it.

The mean-

ing of a flower as drawn out in a line or

poem is more impressive than the flower the source of electricity, if we could find ;

it,

would be more wonderful than

applications. fines

The

its

object too often con-

our attention

to

itself;

but

its

no limitations. The Essays of Emerson are an attempt to look into

idea has

certain subjects singly

;

to give to each

mind and to receive in reThe turn the whole truth of each. lines, the relations between them you do not get from Emerson in any capithe whole

tal

generalization

;

it is

found involved

in the prevailing texture of every essay.

[151]

Remembrances of Kmerson

Now this involved

generalization, never

formal, but a sort of reappearing, flash-

ing light, irregular and always surprising,

the very essence of Emerson's

is

genius.

It is

others

a clear light to

not clear at

it is

all.

some

It is

;

to

pecu-

Drink deep or All taste not the Emersonian Castalia. his work is colored by his natural genius and character. It was novel to us who had received no education for his ideas liar,

it

is

or style. ties

of

individual.

The Essays have all the qualinew and original thinking, and

therefore were not immediately and originally acceptable.

We

how

to accept

to read,

how

have to learn

and use

That we have learned so due to the continuity of Emer-

such writing. rapidly son's

is

work

;

to his frequent appearance

before the public in lyceums and re-

form

organizations; [152]

to

the

general

Emerson as Essayist steadiness of his character, so that in

time

became well known

it

he stood

due

;

also

to

what

for

engaging

his

manners, which sent every one to his

books

as

soon

as

he had chanced to

meet the man, and where the one interthese and some ridipreted the other ;

cule and denunciation exciting a certain

know

curiosity to

the object of them,

gave an earlier and wider fame to Emerson than has been usual with writers

who

have dealt with

However,

I

think there

high is

themes.

something in

the nature of illusion in the

common

tradition that great writers are not rec-

ognized in their

own

day.

We

flatter

ourselves and measure the beginning by

the end. that his

It

even makes us suspicious

no man can enjoy

own

a great

fame

lifetime, or immediately,

continue to have

it

thereafter.

bS2\

in

and

Remembrances of Kmerson Emerson found with a few readers

his place very early

in the

United

States,

and with here and there one in Europe, It is now said by an English critic that

Emerson has been accepted by our generation as one of

its

wise masters and in need of any

he does not stand interpretation, that he that

Then

positor. fifty

as

own

ex-

usual there follow

pages of exposition.

It is

more than

years since the

fifty

Essays were published

ume

his

is

the

;

first

vol-

84 1 , the second in 1 844. They contain what is most characteristic of in

1

Emerson and what,

in

one form or an-

other, appears throughout

sequent publications.

more read than

his

I

all

his sub-

think they are

other works,

al-

though in the beginning they had no sale in comparison with his later books. But when people began [154]

to

read the

Emerson as Essayist Conduct of

Life,

English Traits,

they turned back to the Essays. der whatever

title

separate

his

works appear, essays fit them most of them were prepared delivery.

Some

in their style

;

etc.,

Unprose

Yet

best.

for public

profess to observe this

but these are

among

survivors of his former audiences,

the

who

are unable to forget the tones of voice,

manner and the total effect of the For it certainly cannot be delivery. the

discovered by any resemblances to writ-

ing that

we do know was

public delivery,

prepared for

which has

for

its

pre-

vailing qualities nothing in the least like

the qualities of Emerson's page.

The

old lecture platform witnessed

every sort of performance with an impartial eye.

to nonsense

greatly

It listened

and

to eloquence,

to thought;

moved by any [155]

;

it

it

was not

was, perhaps,

Remembrances of Emerson made

more eager

a little

for the next

lecture,

which might demolish the

of the

last.

The

But

speakers.

audiences had their the

usually

favorites,

it is

ideas

more eloquent

painful to recall and

more so to read what went under the name of eloquence in Emerson's day that which was selected for school-

still

;

readers, spouted

by collegians and ad-

mired by everybody.'

I

remember now

with amusement the blank and con-

founded looks of three masters and two hundred boys when on declamation day '

It

is

remarkable

how

the love, he in

common

with the imaginative and thoughtful students of

his

college days had for eighteenth century eloquence,

always remained, and with what delight in reminiscence, often

woefully

disappointed

when he

found the passage, he told us of the college elo-

quence of

his day, imitating the

Everitt and

— Note

by

very tones of John

some of the southerners of

E.

W.

Emerson.

[156]

his

time.

Emerson as Essayist I

delivered the

das as

my

whole of Milton's Lyci-

The

part in the exercises.

boys winked and screwed their

faces,

the

masters shifted uneasily in their chairs,

was too chagrined to lift up my head again for a week. I knew I had committed a horrible sin against all the gods of oratory, forensic and Fourth of and

I

July.

Being so admired, eloquent writing

was the fashion;

The

last

it

crept into poetry.

generation of American poets

was more often eloquent than

The

poetic.

verses are sermon, oration or narra-

tive

with capital

was

a barbarian taste,

politics.

Its last

letters

and rhymes.

now

echo was

It

relegated to at the

con-

secration of the battlefield of Gettys-

burg, where a specimen of that kind of oratory was brought into striking

com-

parison with a few words of thought [157]

Remembrances of Kmerson inflamed by the heart of Lincoln. Every

one

who

felt that

oration

them both

either heard or read

the days of the conventional

had been numbered.

It

was the

beginning of an intellectual era in our history.

As we it

usually understand eloquence,

requires an occasion,

men

when

bodies of

and

feel elo-

are already excited

quently and create half the power of the

You

orator himself.

ture this opportunity;

cannot manufac-

you cannot

arise

before an audience and excite the prepossessions necessary to responsive feeling.

But the moral nature

in

men and

in a less degree the intellectual, are al-

ways a prepared

audience.

To

this

Emerson addressed himself; and he length secured to

it

its

attention.

He

at

offered

matter which, after having been

illuminated by his voice and literary [158]

'

Emers'on as Essayist was of that force and beauty to instruct and delight as much when read

style,

The

as

when when

it

one step farther,

as

heard. it

was

characteristics

essay

and

a lecture;

when

was

as

good

to follow

retained

it

still

its

it

took the form of

poetry; for often Emerson's poetry repeats his prose.

more and or

Nothing

in

Emerson

is

plain than the unity of his work,

its

title.

similarity under whatever

What he saw and

form

so constantly

reiterated as the secret of creation, the

relation of nature to to spirit

Identity

he discovered

man, and of man in his

being.

of being, under diversity of

form, was his constant is

own

the supreme analogist

ancient times.

It is

Emerson of modern or

text.

always the same,

whether sketching the history of Concord or the intuitions of the there be any narrowness in his

bS9\

soul.

mind

If

or

Remembrances of Kmerson fault in his expression it

of this majestic idea. table,

how

necessary,

are prophets of the vital

the repetition

is

how ineviit is that men who soul, who have a Yet

message to deliver, should proclaim

at all times their

one idea, one doctrine

in manifold forms

and

in every shape that

can appeal to the imagination or the interests

of mankind.

There was between the essay and lecture little to distinguish them save those things which belonged to the physical

A

presence of Emerson.

strong per-

sonality pervades the Essays.

It

pro-

duces even yet something of the eifect

The

of the living accents.

both was similar

;

it

effect

was not exactly

enthusiasm which they

elicited,

but an

inward excitation, almost a tumult

young and

in

They wished

serious minds.

to realize these fine ideas

[i6o]

of

;

they looked

Emerson as Essayist new

into nature with a tired

more from

eye

;

they re-

society, left off

going

to church, having experienced religion

and their

tastes in

reading became

won-

They sought

after

derfully changed.

At

books that contained thought. time most young writers

the

"

men who wished splendidly

regular,

icily

it

denied to it

so

was

cedents.

to be

null

Reviewers,

of Emerson was captivating

style

or was

that

were forming themselves upon

periods of the Edinburgh

The

;

style

him

I

?

style

ask because

and

said that to call

to forget all precepts I

some

and pre-

shall not enter into this, a

question for the

critics,

since

I

have

already taken the ground that the Essays

have a higher quality than the

Something there was in the sentences, often in the words themselves, which captivated the ear; merely

literary.

[i6i]

Remembrances of Emerson but examined

more

nearly,

it

was the

poetic or spiritual sense they conveyed.

Emerson proceeds by tal saltations.

He

a series of

men-

has the appearance

of neglecting the connecting links of

which most careful.

The

are studious and

writers

construction

is

asyndetic

;

the sentences approach but they do not

Commonplace and padding are omitted. One needs to take long breathings in reading the Essays, and make a fresh start at every new chapter. These touch.

thoughts are precious pearls of translucent, yet self-contained light. diate ideas are left out,

reader to discover

;

—

Interme-

left for

these are the

the

work

of the will, of the pen guided by examples

men

and the desire not only their ideas, but to

do

sary thinking about them,

to supply to

all

the neces-

draw

all

the

important deductions and leave no pas[1

6.]

Emerson as Essayist sage unfortified, in short, nothing for the

reader to do. But Emerson's view of men

was that they were wiser than they knew that it was not necessary to feed them forever on porridge and keep

To

and pupilage.

them in primer

reason, to explain, to

persuade was condescension, an implied superiority.

you will

As you appeal

find

them.

him

tuitions led

to

them, such

His doctrine of

to address

men as

if

in-

they

would respond

intuitively to the truth

and he spoke

them always from a lofty

ground.'

to

No

books take so

This

is

the

more remarkable when one remem-

bers that they were

towns and

first

read to audiences in country

prairie settlements

philistine audiences in cities. this

as well as to half

How well

it

taking people by their best handles,

illustrate in

of

for

show such ingenuous

granted in men, '

much

my memoir

Ma'am Bemis, who

of

my

worked,

I tried to

father by the story

understood no word, but got

the lesson from the tone and attitude of the

[163]

man,

Remembrances of Kmerson confiding of inmost thought and assume that they are open to all that

beautiful as Emerson's.

icent

compliment

;

It

is

great and

was a magnif-

was the manner of

it

Where

kings and princes to each other.

had he learned

it

In the royal com-

?

pany of the sages and and

of

all lands,

of woman.

in the heart

One woman

saints

at least,

Mary Moody

Emerson, had an immense influence over

him

in the formation of his youthful

conduct and

who had

She was

ideals.

a person

the strongest convictions and

the most courageous and wouldn't miss a

manner of

express-

The amazement

lecture.

and

puzzling of Carlyle and Sterling and others in England as to what kind of an audience such things

could be addressed to and find a response very amusing to me, as

they would have

is

made out of

— Note

by

always

E.

[164]

what

a Lowell, or Prairie

du Chien, or Harvard (Mass.) audience been present.

is

also the question

W.

if

Emerson.

they had

Emerson as Essayist ing

them

;

she neither argued nor per-

suaded, but affirmed and insisted and laid

commands upon her young

her high

nephew with the

absoluteness and con-

fidence of an inspired prophetess.

And

she was, in truth.

ful for the existence also

if

we

Such

are thank-

of Emerson

we must

be grateful that he had her for a guide

and exemplar.

He has himself acknowl-

edged his indebtedness in these words " It :

was the privilege of certain boys this

to

have

immeasurably high standard indi-

cated to their childhood a blessing which ;

nothing

else in

education could supply."

Here are some of the standards to which he refers " Scorn trifles." " Lift your aims." " Do what you are afraid :

to do."

" Sublimity of character must

come from I

the

sublimity of motive."'

See Emerson's sketch of Miss Emerson

poem " The Nun's

Aspiration."

[165]

;

also

Remembrances of Kmerson

He

had anticipated the cathode ray and looked into the hearts and heads of men.

He modestly claimed only to have " overheard things " in the woods and The same

fields.

makes

in his verse

:

" Listening behind

And

w^e all

Thoreau

confession

me

for

my

wit."

had the same experience

the days of the Great Av^akening

thought

we

;

in w^e

overheard things in nature

and in ourselves.

A man who had such faith in humanity

must have acquired

it

by finding in

himself a quick perception of the best in others.

He

had learned

it

negatively

also

by observing on what a low plane

men

address each other, especially in re-

ligion

and morals, referring everything

to sources selves.

and supports outside of them-

He

taught self-reliance and led [1 66]

Emerson as Essayist

He

the way.

believed in the guidance

of the intuitions, and that errors and in-

which might be sometimes the consequence of this beHef were from

consistencies

the very nature of their origin self-corrective.

It

was Burns's paradox

—

" the

light that led astray

light

from heaven."

Was

If Emerson, too, never falters in his

good hopes

for sinners,

how much more

confidence must he have in the honest, self-reliant

search for the right way.

Moreover, whatever wayward, irregular

might mark the track of man through life, he believed they were rounded in by a circle whose center was love, never forfeited, and whose circumference was law, all-reand contradictory

lines

straining. I

gather from Emerson that the chief

means

to intuitions

is

right living; keep

[167]

Remembrances of Emerson the senses clear and unperverted

own

with your

eyes, hear

see

;

with your

own ears. Man is an imitative animal commonly catch him if you can when ;

he

is

not,

and you will come nearer to

Man

his intrinsic nature.

uses a vast

quantity of paint and wears

many

ments in the

himself to

his

kind.

gether;

effort to unite

We

first

in

our lessons to-

learn

the

to

all this,

then

family,

Try

school, then in society.

through

whose prime

is

known, and wherein

for the soul to rest.

through

this

at

to pierce

object

do what has been done and to

what

gar-

it

is

know is fatal

Seek to advance

elementary

state,

which

is

only preparatory and defensive, like the

cocoon, but in which the wings never can expand.

Advance, and be a person,

and add something to

life.

If there be

anywhere another person, he can help [i68]

Emerson as Essayist you; even his record the poets and wise pictured,

men

have sung and

Do

that be.

not

ideals

let

the realms of fancy.

rest in

What

a help.

is

Ideals are

the prophetic shadows of the real, or the hallowed

been, of

memories of what has

what may be again

The

in and aspired after.

think will

come

to pass, because

self alone that desires

you

thing you

its

it is

not your-

and believes

moving stream

in

believed

dream of and never give up

of,

a great

if

;

it is

that has caught

currents and bears

upon

its

bosom the gifts you seek. Emerson states in many forms the ideal

and

wise doctor, he has tions

on

of

spiritual laws

left us

lesser matters

into true insights,

how

:

to

Like a

life.

many

how

to

direc-

come

employ them,

how to preserve them, and how to recognize them in others. On this latter [169]

Remembrances of Emerson point he

is

benefit of desire

and

voice in

very

full

human

and emphatic. The intercourse

effort to listen for

men

to challenge

is

in the

the higher

if possible to draw^ it out,

;

it,

to

show

it

courtesy and

honor; "to converse and to know^," Plato said.

Emerson's voice

at first

as

was

and remote, the voice of one His first escrying in the wilderness.

solitary

say, the little

volume

although in prose, as

is

entitled Nature,

pure poetry, and

is

unlike the literature of the time as

the Vedas.

At length having

speak the

to

thoughts

of

attained

his

more

thoughtful contemporaries, he received

from them many additions and illustrations which wonderfully enlarged the circle I

of his vision.

have in previous pages described his

personal as

that

manner toward a guest or friend of expectation. It was very [170]

Emerson as Essayist Rarely before had one been so encouraged to speak his inmost thought rather the effect of human inprovocative.

;

tercourse had been to silence

it

and sub-

what other men were thinking. My companions and myself felt that our education thus far was mere absorption stitute

of

lifeless

The

knowledge.

fruit

of

Emerson's receptive attitude toward his contemporaries, and

I

may

say,

toward

the intellectual legacies of the past

all

appears in the Essays.

wisdom, old

in

as

They

are rich

time; enriched and

refreshened with contributions such as

every

new age

furnishes, overlooked

by

the serene and penetrating eye of genius. It is

not easy to draw lines through

the Essays, or to classify his ideas. son's

mind was

excursive

;

and

Emerif there

be one definition more than another that fits

the vague

title

of essay,

[171]

it is

perhaps

Remembrances of Kmerson As Lowell

excursive.

Parker's

sermons —

" His hearers can't

tell

said of

Theodore

you on Sunday before-

hand If in that day's discourse you'll be Bibled or Koraned,"

Emerson you are not you will meet under the

so in the Essays of

what

sure titles

ideas

of History, Self-Reliance, Wealth,

Circles, etc.

It is

the surprises.

I

one of their charms,

suppose the professors

of English would not teach their pupils

manner.

They would

to cogitate

connections

to write in that

instruct

them

and logical order.

Emerson's page

often oracular and epigrammatic.

wisdom of

down

the ancients as

to us

it

has

seems fragmentary,

is

The come as

if

something had dropped out; in Emerson

it

appears voluntarily

what can be

said

after

[17a]

left out.

But

an epigram

?

Emerson as Essayist Nothing but another epigram. Anything else seems tame and dull. You are lifted up, and then you fall. Oh, for a glimpse of those links which mankind

make

persists in believing

a chain.

Emerson wrote from the imagination, from remembered gleams and visits of a spiritual vision;

and

it

is

said, largely

from notebooks containing miscellane-

To give form to these, to

ous thoughts.

make an sible

integral structure

without a

There

is

constructive

a place for

mind

resolves

its

faculty.

everything in a

A construct-

drama, an epic or novel. ive

was not pos-

materials.

Emer-

son got together vast collections, singly beautiful and

valuable;

happily wrought into forms. left for

It is

The

and some he

fair

and perfect

remainder he generously

we known how

us to assort as

could.

well

Goethe's col-

[173]

Remembrances of Kmerson lections overflowed,

beyond

his creative

power how he built a roof over some, a mere shed for storage; and others he thrust into various previously com;

—

all for

temporary conveni-

ence and lodgment.

Emerson appears

pleted houses,

to

me sometimes like a rich family with

magnificent furniture, but with no house in

which

to display

He

it.

was apt

move it about from one place to

to

another,

from one lecture to another, then into the essay; and some precious pieces he left

standing alone, like statues, with only

the light of heaven for their protection,

wonderful sentences, quite self-sub-

stantial, yet

how much more impressive if

placed in some noble temple.

wished that Emerson had ing and had created a

would have

him

I

I

left

have often

ofFpreach-

work of

itself preached.

art that

In reading

cannot admire variously enough [174]

Emerson as Essayist there

not sufficient opportunity for

is

beholding beauty, form, proportion in

They

the organization of his materials.

We long

are too abstract, too absolute.

some embracing, concrete form embodiment, for incarnation, so

for

;

for

that

through his mouth should have spoken a

asking for a mine

when

more jewels than

I

is

Am

hundred men and women.

true;

it

greatness in a

man

already have

can wear

true that

is

I

it

I

?

Yes,

when we

it

find

creates an appetite

for the greater.

There

are certain of Emerson's ear-

when

read

my-

lier

Essays that

self

an auditor in a vast temple, with one

I

I feel

voice resounding, distant and solemn,

and calling upon

me

to be a god.

Or,

Hamlet or Prometheus none but Hamlet and Prometheus should

it is as

speak.

if in

The

splendid sentences exhilar[175]

Remembrances of F^merson ate

and

fill

my own

me

with

a dazzling sense

possibilities.

I

second, and at the third

and pack

my

trunk

at

I

read one and a

am

intoxicated

once for Utopia.

Emerson mingles no water

in his wine.

His great soul never condescended qualify, to concede, to write is

difficult to

of

down.

to It

maintain the elevation so

easy to attain while reading Emerson's

page. is

The moment we

danger of a tumble.

and moderate morsel

leave

it

Therefore a wise at

one time

is

Like our prayers, we should come in the right

mood

a response of

The

more

;

there

best.

to

it

then there will be lasting effect.

study of the Essays

is

an excel-

lent preparation for reading the master-

pieces of all literatures.

prepares the kind.

mind

It

opens and

for greatness of every

In particular his admiration of

the noble actions of men, whether real [176]

Emerson as Essayist or those imagined by poets and dramatists,

is

was the

inspiring and contagious. literary as well as spiritual

for the excellent in every activities

;

ma-

He had a sure scent

gician of his time.

man's

He

department of

in biographies, in wars,

The mere enumeration of the names of great men and of heroic deeds is to us when young very

in science, in poetry.

enkindling; and

Emerson was fond of

repeating long

of these in an allusive

lists

and attractive way. rather the fashion

Transcendentalists.

regard to

all

In

fact,

among It

it

was

the original

was the same in

famous books.

I

suppose

no studious reader whose first impulse on hearing of one is not to procure and read it immediately; and we must credit Emerson with promoting the taste for the best literature and imthere

is

proving the whole literary tone of the [177]

Remembrances of Emerson country.

This, however, was only a

minor and incidental effect of his writing but it served to keep the somewhat sublimated thought and spiritual air of the time from becoming unhealthy and ;

narrow. It

seems sometimes

as

though Emer-

son in the Essays had set out to

distill

the essence of libraries into a

page;

pages into a sentence

;

the sentence into

a phrase, the phrase to a word.

design, this intellectual habit

is

This

the very

opposite of the creative and constructive

mind.

Perhaps some sentences from

Joubert, a French writer of Pensees, will best describe

one feature of Emerson

as

These sentences are from a chapter entitled by Joubert, " The author painted by himself." " It is my province to sow, but not a writer.

to build or found."

[178]

Emerson as Essayist "

I

am like an Aeolian

harp that gives

out certain fine tones but executes no air."

"

It will

subtlety.

be said that

This

is

I

speak with

sometimes the sole

means of penetrating that the intellect has in its power and this may arise from ;

the nature of the truth to which

it

would

from that of the opinions, or of the ignorance through which it is reduced painfully to open for itself a way." attain, or

" but

It is

not

my

my ideas.

I

periods that

pause until the drop of

light of which I stand in need

and

from

falls

This

last

I polish,

my

is

formed

pen."

expression seems to define

not only Emerson's literary habit, but also his

waiting upon the

spiration.

moment of in-

His will was exercised in the

work of preparing himself for this moment, in making his windows clear and [179]

Remembrances of Emerson leaving open his doors.

His

attitude to-

ward his own mind and perceptions was distinctly religious. " Our thought is a

The god

pious reception," he says.

of

thought, the Muse, will enter if you are not too impatient, if you will not stand in your

own

light, if

you do not wrap

yourself in creeds and customs.

come when it

me,"

pleases

pleases

it

" Ideas

them, not when

Emerson

said Rousseau.

taught this as literary ethics, and the Essays are an example of the fruits of practice.

its

He

listened for the

still

small voice, supposed hitherto to speak

only in Asia.

Hebrew and Greek and from

He

announced that

it

could be

heard in America and to-day, and that it

now

spoke English.

culty for us

and

still,

is

that

while

it

Its

chief

diffi-

continues to be small

we want

explosive.

[i8o]

the large and

Emerson as Essayist I

have said that Emerson constantly

inculcates right living as the tellectual

and

means to

spiritual insights.

in-

Perhaps

one-half of the Essays concerns the state-

ment of what forms of life

;

his highest ideals

and the other half of the conduct

necessary to realize them.

he descends

to

many

common

shows that

homely wisdom

In the latter

particulars,

and

sense and shrewd,

which he has been much praised. It made some of his later Essays almost popular. They were even

for

commended

in Boston

and

New

York, and by such reputable citizens as " Our Messrs. Hard and Long Head. daughters,

sir,

back

a long time

paid

much

we begin

have understood you for ;

we have never until lately now

but

attention

;

you comprehensible a good Yankee, too, and we hear you are a man of some property and of a to find

[i8i]

Remembrances of Emerson True, we are never first-rate family." allowed to forget that Emerson was de-

scended from seven isters,

New

England min-

while the remnant of us and our

ancestors kept shop or raised corn

;

yet

such was the force and circumstance of

New

England blood that however ethereal it became it was never quite alienated from the counter and the farm, or

however earthy, it had yet its Sabbath of transcendental moods. And what pleases the heart of the bourgeois most is that Emerson took care of his property and increased it. He was no crazy poet or reformer, living in the woods or an attic,

or worse,

upon

his friends.

One

is

allowed to preach almost any kind of destructive or lofty notion in land, provided

able

life,

he do

it

New

Eng-

behind a respect-

a house, a lineage, a black coat

and bank stock. [182]

Emerson as Essayist But

what were Emerson's be gathered from the Es-

let us see

maxims, to says, for

the

tellectual light

municate

it

senses, the

there

is

procure in-

life requisite to

and the power

to other

men.

to

com-

Respect the

avenues of much knowledge

;

an inevitable contest whether

the body shall possess the soul, or the soul the body

mand

man must know and com-

;

Live

the inclinations of each.

with nature

as

much

rects the social life.

and by the river

;

as possible

Walk

;

in the

it

cor-

woods

avoid the highways

they have a definite destination. sider the pine trees

;

Con-

and their Sibylline

voices.

Purify yourself with ideal medi-

tation.

Follow your instincts. Write " over your lintel, to humor the

"

whim

world

;

but do not believe

yourself.

Do

it

to be such

not conform, nor

laborious effort to be consistent [183]

;

make expect

Remembrances of Emerson to

be misunderstood for awhile. " Break

up the tiresome old heavens," quote oneof his best quotations,

— here — which I

expresses the effort of every master and

the unspoken heart of youth.

temperately uries

is

use indulgences and lux-

moderately

drain

of

;

it

it is

;

Eat, drink

;

taste the cup,

smoke half

a cigar.

do not

One end

stimulating and social, the other

narcotic and silencing.

Gratify, but

not like the beasts, your special appetites

and inclinations, be eaten.

— even

pie

was made

to

" Let the divine part be up-

ward, and the region of the beast below."

You

cannot always drive out the devil

at will

and

gains with affirm

;

at

once

Do

him.

the argument

the higher reason

much we ;

but

;

make no

bar-

not argue, but

may be sound, but

is

sounder.

Sleep

are born again in solid sleep,

and dreams teach us something. Use the [184]

Emerson as Essayist morning hour.

Prize

illuminations of your

the

transient

own mind, and

" thoughts of things which thoughts but tenderly touch."

Do

of gain or place.

Love the spot where

you

are,

and the friends

and be sure

them

God

has given,

to expect everything

Keep

.

not be ambitious

good of

the mind open and the heart

These things do and you may wait hopefully for the god of intuitions in yourself, and hear him more clearly For intuition is in your fellow beings. not that narrow doctrine of hearing only sincere.

what God

says to you, but the presence

God when he communicates himself through any human being. The dsmon in man, as described by of

Emerson, and

is

a

more

versatile spirit

which was only is

the

last fruit

active, -energizing

than that of Socrates,

restraining.

Emerson's

of the spirit of Christianity [185]

Remembrances of Bjmerson and the general wisdom of ancient and modern ages, affirming that there is something divine and immortal in man, and that

it

has a voice both corrective and

suggestive, heard not once for

all,

or

mediately, but always and by each person

He

for himself.

or

the only ancient

is

modern writer who continuously and

with emphasis has taught

some article of or building upon it a

without attaching to external faith,

this doctrine

it

system of formal philosophy.

His con-

tribution to our faith, the enlargement

and purifying of ethics

;

in the direction of

and to philosophy in the observa-

tion of the

The

it, is

working of

his

own mind.

question often recurs whether

what Emerson observed

in himself

delivered with such confidence for all

men.

inate his

is

and true

Time will sift and discrim-

work; happily there are ever [1 86]

Emerson as Essayist those

who

anticipate

its

His

verdict.

manner was oracular, and he affirmed more than he denied. IdeaHst and optimist as

he was,

his affirmations are in

their nature incomplete; but they are

dearest to the heart of

man, the

best

which we strive. Good and Beauty. Keep the eye fixed upon them and we grow into their likeguide, the end toward

His highest

ness.

act of faith

was in

believing that evil had no real existence.

In evolution the strongest survive; morals the best; in

beauty the

in

most

is

the means to this

end in the individual.

Consoling doc-

beautiful.

trine,

Culture

but requiring an almost godlike

repose and elevation.

The

essay

is

not one of the grand

forms of literature; the content that can give to is

a

it

is

all

value or beauty.

It

may

be,

plain roof, covering, [187]

it

Remembrances of Emerson emptiness or magnificent properties. brevity

is

convenient.

It is a

Its

way of

delivering yourself

when you do

know what

do with what you

else to

not

have, or possess no gift for invention or

In the essay you experi-

construction.

ment; you

fish

in

Mon-

any water.

taigne's net took in everything; Bacon's,

only the larger game, suitable to set before princes

and

men

of affairs.

son's style is like Bacon's in

Emer-

some respects;

yet not so colorless and strained of per-

on the other hand he is whimsical and not so discursive

sonality ; while

not so as

Montaigne.

what can be

In the essay you see not what must be said

said,

in order that a final

and prepared

effect

may be

produced,

novel.

You draw around the topic from

as in

the drama and

many sources things associated in your own mind, not in the general mind and [i88]

Emerson as Essayist Embellishment and

expectation. are

tration

reading

supplied by miscellaneous

but most of all

;

illus-

it is

a receptacle

for those scattered observations of

nature and experience

which want

thread and would be lost if

and unset.

a

singly

left

Pins and needles go to waste

Prepare a place for

without a cushion. things and things find

it.

Good

good housekeepers can

like

life,

find a use for everything,

writers

at

length

and do save

all.

on a temporary theme. One looks in vain to fix upon some points of departure and arrival, some im-

Emerson

rarely writes

maturity and maturity, some youth and age,

some greenness and ripening

in his

genius and productions. If these were in the

man

He

has no youthful

with the

they do not appear in his work.

style

manner

;

he began

and almost the grasp which [189]

Remembrances of Emerson

He began with

he retained throughout.

great and well-worn subjects; he began

with conciseness, with an imaginative treatment, with a style not formed on

models or by practice the transcript of a

accustomed to

but

;

mind

it

feel

it

so near to our

seems like

already long

inward and

a certain

lent expression of itself.

we

it

This

why

is

own experience

seems written out of the same.

When

he began to write and publish he behind him the

steps

gained his position.

si-

left

by which he had

As

far as his

mes-

sage had importance, his style any charm, or his

personality impressiveness, they

were the same at first as at last. It is vain to complain of want of complete-

want of logic and connection he what he is. We cannot say these are

ness, is

;

matters of indifference ; but that a

man must

observe [190]

we

can say

them no longer

-

Emerson as Essayist him and that the greatminds are superior to them, violate precedents and authorities and create the than they help

;

est

by which they are to be read. "When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge the book it is good and is the rules

;

work of a master-hand."

A

few sentences of unclassical Greek have moved and filled the world for eighteen centuries. ite passages

analysis,

Many

of the favor-

of literature will hardly bear

and none are more

easily

bur-

Emerson was a careful comlesqued. but it would appear that it exposer ;

tended not

much further than

make them another. And to

short,

so

it

to

Their connec-

has been wittily said, [191]

;

and then make

he adds thought

thought on the page. tion

sentences

is

to

be

Remembrances of Kmerson found in God,

— what

better place

In

!

the lecture-room he paid his audiences

the compliment of appearing to think

Old Sojourner Truth once

before them.

said to an anti-slavery convention before

which she come here say

;

and

I

arose to speak, " to hear

what

I

You have am going to

have come here for the same

purpose." This was something the same feeling one hesitated,

had when Emerson

seemed

arose,

to be totally unpre-

pared, to be fumbling for the right thing to say.

tainly

Was

this nature or art

was very exciting

?

It cer-

to a sympathetic

audience and doubled the effect of his master strokes. These always announced themselves beforehand. flash

of a cannon

;

it

Essays,

a

It

was

like the

was seen before

it

was heard. In the noble

certain

spirit colors all that is

[192]

fine

and

there writ-

Emerson as Essayist ten.

I

have often

felt it to

be like the

tone of his voice in the lecture-room, w^hich

commended

everything

it

deliv-

Whatever passages or verse of other writers he introduced seemed more beautiful than in their ovv^n place. As ered.

w^as said

a

of the Rev.

former famous

when

it

was

J. S.

Buckminster,

Boston

clergyman,

his turn to read the con-

tributions of a certain literary club of that city, all

— " when

Buckminster reads

the compositions are good."

Emerson was sense of that

a scholar in the general

title,

although he made no

additions to any special department.

But

he upheld the

and

celebrated

it

scholar's vocation,

much

in prose

and

verse.

His appreciation of the studies of other men in all fields of knowledge was generous and quick.

he chose

In the form in which

to express himself, the essay,

it

Remembrances of Emerson was easy and fitting to embody by illustration and reference the results of the up the

inter-

esting fragments of special studies.

He

labors of others, and to take

detected these, the universal element in particular discoveries, the

dom and

vv^it,

by an

His mind held an antidote and yet was

its

gems of

w^is-

infallible instinct.

to specialism,

best interpreter.

His pro-

phetic imagination was coincident with

some of the experimental revelations of modern science. The higher regions of science depend upon imagination as much as poetry and art depend upon it. Every law must be felt before it is arrived at by the understanding and evidence that

is

its

But undoubtedly

necessity.

you must be looking

intently

in

its

direction.

Morals would be for

as

appropriate a

Emerson's Essays [194]

title

as for Plutarch's;

Emerson as Essayist the actual contents covered by

it

being

similar, the search for the beautiful

the good.

The title is only

a little

loose and vague than the matter.

shows a man's reading

essay

but

in

there

is

what the

it is

and

more

The said

essayist appropriates

revealed the same characteris-

which is original. What he quotes is the same as what he invents. " Let them perish who have said the same things before." The points of tic as

light

in that

are refocused

and sent forward

again.

There is room in essay writing to say what comes into the head but then Emerson read there must be a head. more than he studied, and thought more than he wrote, so that there is great com;

pression and conciseness in the Essays.

They

are convenient to quote.

I fre-

quently see in the newspapers his phrases

Remembrances of Emerson and even whole sentences uncredited. Thus always language and literature are fed involuntarily from higher springs.

As on the platform Emerson seemed often to be searching for the right word or idea, almost admitting the hearer to

mental processes, so on the page of

his

the Essay there

is

revealed the active

He

principle of thought. leave out so

much that he

appears to

flatters us

merely making

the feeling that he

is

memoranda

to complete.

for

us

with

He

touched, but did not stay, on a thousand subjects

minated

;

;

but he

left

them

illu-

there are diamond-like gleams

on the pages, concentrations of wit and

wisdom, something for

all

moods and

experiences. I

think the obscurities, or what some

complain of logical

as a

want of cohesion and

sequence in Emerson's [196]

Essays

Emerson as Essayist may be partly explained as an impatience of the commonplace, of the smooth, facile style

round a until

it.

turns itself round and

subject, lingering over an idea

it is

is lost.

which

so

comminuted

It covers

There

is

that

the page,

it

tences.

no forv^ard movement betw^een

There

Their

quate for their indication. ;

;

it

are

brilliance, their pow^er

in these inter-

Ordinary punctuation

and think

fill

Emerson's sen-

and suggestion are often vals.

force

does not

begins but does not arrive.

long pauses

its

reflect as

he

is

is

inade-

Stop, reader,

doing

;

let

not

the stimulated imagination be embarrassed

by the w^ant of logic

this barrier

;

let it leap

and knov7 that the relations

of things can often be more truly seen in the mind's illumination than in that

of rhetorical order.

weary you with

all

Emerson does not that can be said in

[197]

Remembrances of Kmerson the spaces between his texts

;

but after

long thinking he writes another another bead on full will

the string

be hidden.

Should

seem weak, no matter

;

text,

which when it

break or

the beads are

the value, not the string.

The

verses

good out of it as in it. The brightest gems of all literatures are some oft-quoted sentences, lines, fragof the Bible are

as

ments of an enormous mass of material put together in structures that have nothing else save these to preserve them.

In his

way Emerson was

a writer very

form and style. I have heard that when he turned a lecture into an essay, or prepared any piece of writing for publication, he called it giving it a Greek dress. It is Greek, but selcareful about

dom

of Athens

;

it is

Spartan, Laconian.

As Sparta only permitted poetry songs, so Emerson's

is

[198]

strictly

in

war

confined

Emerson as Essayist

He knew that it was not

to the moral.

enough to have good thoughts that the gods must not be without suitable temples. He was conscious, like Plato, that ;

writing

the grave of thought

is

in the attempt at expression

sometimes altogether nothing

hand

in

it

illusive,

while before the pen

;

it

allures us

becomes and

flat is

taken

with the most beau-

Let us then put thought

tiful hopes.'

to the test

that

;

and what by ever intend-

;

ing, repeated effort will not take perfect

form,

let us reject.

Emerson observed

these principles of literary art, not in '

In a

letter to Sterling,

thoughts are holy us 'tis

in

floating

magical newness from the hidden

up to

life,

and

no wonder we are enamored and love-sick with

these until

and

Emerson wrote, " All

when they come

in

in

our devotion to particular beauties

our efforts at

somewhat of our

artificial

disposition

we

lose

universal sense and the sovereign

eye of Proportion."

b99]

Remembrances of Kmerson grand forms but in the polish and elaboration of the separate parts.

The

Essays contain the harvests of

Emerson's lifetime life,

rare fruit

The

idays.

plain food for daily

and dainties for

quality

the sun's light and is

;

is

hol-

product of

as the

warmth

life's

;

the form

spontaneous and simple, and every-

where

expressive of the

when he

felt

man.

inspired;

He wrote

when

he

not,

sought in right living and high thinking the renewal of the sources of inspiration.

The is

reserve of Emerson's Essays

one of their most notable and instruc-

tive characteristics.

he

is

says.

He

is

He sees more

than

like a general overlook-

ing the field of battle, determining the strategical points

forces

heed

and concentrating

upon them.

is

What he

his

does not

not important for a comprehen-

sion and complete grasp of the situation.

[aoo]

Emerson as Essayist Some have complained

might read the Essays as well backward as forward and with equal profit and unthat one

Then read them so, I advise. Either way it is impossible to miss their message. The reserves of Emerson derstanding.

are a tribute to the reader.

not put

empty lies

him

to sleep

He

periods.

with stirs

He

does

faultless

but

him with

sal-

An

of thought or wit or expression.

index to his writings would probably as

many volumes

the writings them-

some good thought in and memorable phrase on every

selves.

terse

He

as

has

subject that interests humanity.

may

connection

look out for

The

fill

stars

would

it

The

not be with each other in

your

own

;

thinking.

shine far apart, nor otherwise

their shining

impressive

;

yet

be so apparent and

who

can doubt the in-

terstellar spaces are also full

[aoi]

of light and

Remembrances of Rmerson beauty rise

?

So Emerson's sentences often

on our

glittering,

skies,

sometimes cold and

sometimes

ting, yet always

warm and

palpita-

reminders of the infinite

worlds beyond them, the worlds where the souls of

men

are one with the spirit

of truth, of beauty and holiness.

[202]

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