No More Learning

Fra Girolamo's word was powerful; yet now that the new
Cyrus had already been three months in Italy, and was not far
from the gates of Florence, his presence was expected there with
mixed feelings, in which fear and distrust certainly predominated.
At present it was not understood that he had redressed any
grievances; and the Florentines clearly had nothing to thank him
for. He held their strong frontier fortresses, which Piero de'
Medici had given up to him without securing any honorable terms
in return; he had done nothing to quell the alarming revolt of
Pisa, which had been encouraged by his presence to throw off
the Florentine yoke; and “orators,” even with a prophet at their
head, could win no assurance from him, except that he would
settle everything when he was once within the walls of Florence.
Still, there was the satisfaction of knowing that the exasperating
Piero de' Medici had been fairly pelted out for the ignominious
surrender of the fortresses, and in that act of energy the spirit
of the Republic had recovered some of its old fire.
The preparations for the equivocal guest were not entirely
those of a city resigned to submission. Behind the bright dra-
pery and banners symbolical of joy, there were preparations of
another sort made with common accord by government and
people. Well hidden within walls there were hired soldiers of
the Republic, hastily called in from the surrounding districts;
there were old arms duly furbished, and sharp tools and heavy
cudgels laid carefully at hand, to be snatched up on short notice;
there were excellent boards and stakes to form barricades upon


## p. 5411 (#587) ###########################################

GEORGE ELIOT
5411
occasion, and a good supply of stones to make a surprising hail
from the upper windows. Above all, there were people very
strongly in the humor for fighting any personage who might be
supposed to have designs of hectoring over them, they having
lately tasted that new pleasure with much relish. This humor
was not diminished by the sight of occasional parties of French-
men, coming beforehand to choose their quarters, with a hawk,
perhaps, on their left wrist, and metaphorically speaking, a piece
of chalk in their right hand to mark Italian doors withal; espe-
cially as creditable historians imply that many sons of France
were at that time characterized by something approaching to a
swagger, which must have whetted the Florentine appetite for a
little stone-throwing.
And this was the temper of Florence on the morning of the
17th of November, 1494.
The sky was gray, but that made little difference in the
Piazza del Duomo, which was covered with its holiday sky of
blue drapery, and its constellations of yellow lilies and coats of
arms. The sheaves of banners were unfurled at the angles of
the Baptistery, but there was no carpet yet on the steps of the
Duomo, for the marble was being trodden by numerous feet that
were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of the Advent ser-
mons, and the very same reasons which had flushed the streets
with holiday color were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo
could least of all be dispensed with.
But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the
steps. People of high and low degree were moving to and fro
with the brisk pace of men who had errands before them; groups
of talkers were thickly scattered, some willing to be late for the
sermon, and others content not to hear it at all.
The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was
not that of men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an
opening holiday. Some were in close and eager discussion; others
were listening with keen interest to a single spokesman, and yet
from time to time turned round with a scanning glance at any new
passer-by. At the corner looking towards the Via de' Cerrettani -
just where the artificial rainbow light of the Piazza ceased, and
the gray morning fell on the sombre stone houses — there was a
remarkable cluster of the working people, most of them bearing


## p. 5412 (#588) ###########################################

5412
GEORGE ELIOT
on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labor, and
almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which
might serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the gray
light of the street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments,
they made all the more striking the transition from the bright-
ness of the Piazza. They were listening to the thin notary, Ser
Cioni, who had just paused on his way to the Duomo. His bit-
ing words could get only a contemptuous reception two years and
a half before in the Mercato; but now he spoke with the more
complacent humor of a man whose party is uppermost, and who
is conscious of some influence with the people.
“Never talk to me,” he was saying in his incisive voice,
“never talk to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French infantry;
they might as well be in the narrow passes of the mountains as
in our streets; and peasants have destroyed the finest armies of
our condottieri in time past, when they had once got them
between steep precipices. I tell you, Florentines need be afraid
of no army in their own streets. ”
« That's true, Ser Cioni,” said a man whose arms and hands
were discolored by crimson dye, which looked like blood-stains,
and who had a small hatchet stuck in his belt; "and those French
cavaliers who came in squaring themselves in their smart doub-
lets the other day, saw a sample of the dinner we could serve
up for them. I was carrying my cloth in Ognissanti, when I
saw my fine Messeri going by, looking round as if they thought
the houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick of loadings
for them, and eyeing us Fiorentines, like top-knotted cocks as
they are, as if they pitied us because we didn't know how to
strut. Yes, my fine Galli, says I, stick out your stomachs;
I've got a meat-axe in my belt that will
go
inside
you all the
easier;' when presently the old cow lowed,* and I knew some-
thing had happened — no matter what. So I threw my cloth in
at the first doorway, and took hold of my meat-axe and ran
after my fine cavaliers towards the Vigna Nuova. And, 'What
is it, Guccio ? ) said I, when he came up with me. I think it's
the Medici coming back,' said Guccio. Bembè! I expected so!
And up we reared a barricade, and the Frenchmen looked be-
hind and saw themselves in a trap; and up comes a good swarın
1
i
*«La vacca muglia” was the phrase for the sounding of the great bell
in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.


## p. 5413 (#589) ###########################################

GEORGE ELIOT
5413
*
« San
of our Ciompi,* and one of them with a big scythe he had in his
hand mowed off one of the fine cavaliers' feathers: — it's true!
And the lasses peppered a few stones down to frighten them.
However, Piero de' Medici wasn't come after all; and it was a
pity; for we'd have left him neither legs nor wings to go away
with again. "
Well spoken, Oddo,” said a young butcher, with his knife
at his belt; "and it's my belief Piero will be a good while before
he wants to come back, for he looked as frightened as a hunted
chicken when we hustled and pelted him in the piazza. He's a
coward, else he might have made a better stand when he'd got
his horsemen. But we'll swallow no Medici any more, whatever
else the French king wants to make us swallow. ”
“But I like not those French cannon they talk of,” said Goro,
none the less fat for two years' additional grievances.
Giovanni defend us! If Messer Domeneddio means so well by
us as your Frate says he does, Ser Cioni, why shouldn't he have
sent the French another way to Naples ? ”
“Ay, Goro," said the dyer; “that's a question worth putting.
Thou art not such a pumpkin-head as I took thee for. Why,
they might have gone to Naples by Bologna, eh, Ser Cioni? - or
if they'd gone to Arezzo -- we wouldn't have minded their going
to Arezzo. ”
“Fools! It will be for the good and glory of Florence,” Ser
Cioni began. But he was interrupted by the exclamation, “Look
there! ” which burst from several voices at once, while the faces
were all turned to a party who were advancing along the Via
de' Cerretani.
“It's Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and one of the French noblemen
who are in his house,” said Ser Cioni, in some contempt at this
interruption. “He pretends to look well satisfied — that deep
Tornabuoni — but he's a Medicean in his heart; mind that. ”
The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for there was
not only the distinguished presence of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and
the splendid costume of the Frenchman with his elaborately dis-
played white linen and gorgeous embroidery; there were two
other Florentines of high birth, in handsome dresses donned
for the coming procession, and on the left hand of the French-
was a figure that was not to be eclipsed by any amount of
* The poorer artisans connected with the wool trade – wool-beaters, carders,
washers, etc.
man


## p. 5414 (#590) ###########################################

5414
GEORGE ELIOT
intention or brocade - a figure we have often seen before. He
wore nothing but black, for he was in mourning; but the black
was presently to be covered by a red mantle, for he too was to
walk in procession as Latin Secretary to the Ten. Tito Melema
had become conspicuously serviceable in the intercourse with the
French guests, from his familiarity with Southern Italy and his
readiness in the French tongue, which he had spoken in his early
youth; and he had paid more than one visit to the French camp
at Signa. The lustre of good fortune was upon him; he was
smiling, listening, and explaining, with his usual graceful unpre-
tentious ease, and only a very keen eye bent on studying him
could have marked a certain amount of change in him which
was not to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months.
It was that change which comes from the final departure of
moral youthfulness — from the distinct self-conscious adoption of
a part in life.
The lines of the face were as soft as ever, the
eyes as pellucid; but something was gone — something as in-
definable as the changes in the morning twilight.
The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning cere-
monial before riding back to Signa, and now he was going to
have a final survey of the Piazza del Duomo, where the royal
procession was to pause for religious purposes. The distinguished
party attracted the notice of all eyes as it entered the Piazza,
but the gaze was not entirely cordial and admiring; there were
remarks not altogether allusive and mysterious to the French-
man's hoof-shaped shoes - delicate flattery of royal superfluity in
toes; and there was no care that certain snarlings at «Mediceans ”
should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Tornabuoni possessed
that power of dissembling annoyance which is demanded in a
man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural disposi-
tion to overcome ill-will by good-humor, had the unimpassioned
feeling of the alien towards names and details that move the
deepest passions of the native.
Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the
Duomo, the party paused. The festoons and devices placed over
the central doorway excited some demur, and Tornabuoni beck-
oned to Piero di Cosimo, who, as was usual with him at this
hour, was lounging in front of Nello's shop. There was soon an
animated discussion, and it became highly amusing from the
Frenchman's astonishment at Piero's odd pungency of statement,
which Tito translated literally. Even snarling onlookers became


## p. 5415 (#591) ###########################################

GEORGE ELIOT
5415
curious, and their faces began to wear the half-smiling, half-
humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of
the joke which is producing infectious laughter. It was a de-
lightful moment for Tito, for he was the only one of the party
who could have made so amusing an interpreter, and without
any disposition to triumphant self-gratulation he reveled in the
sense that he was an object of liking — he basked in approving
glances. The rainbow light fell about the laughing group, and
the grave church-goers had all disappeared within the walls. It
seemed as if the Piazza had been decorated for a real Florentine
holiday.
Meanwhile in the gray light of the unadorned streets there
were on-comers who made no show of linen and brocade, and
whose humor was far from merry. Here too the French dress
and hoofed shoes were conspicuous, but they were being pressed
upon by a large and larger number of non-admiring Florentines.
In the van of the crowd were three men in scanty clothing; each
had his hands bound together by a cord, and a rope was fastened
round his neck and body in such a way that he who held the
extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious move-
ment by the threat of throttling. The men who held the ropes
were French soldiers, and by broken Italian phrases and strokes
from the knotted end of the rope, they from time to time stim-
ulated their prisoners to beg. Two of them were obedient, and
to every Florentine they had encountered had held out their
bound hands and said in piteous tones:
« For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us some-
thing towards our ransom! We are Tuscans; we were made
prisoners in Lunigiana. ”
But the third man remained obstinately silent under all the
strokes of the knotted cord. He was very different in aspect
from his two fellow prisoners. They were young and hardy,
and in the scant clothing which the avarice of their captors had
left them, looked like vulgar, sturdy mendicants. But he had
passed the boundary of old age, and could hardly be less than
four or five and sixty. His beard, which had grown long in
neglect, and the hair which fell thick and straight round his
baldness, were nearly white. His thick-set figure was still firm
and upright, though emaciated, and seemed to express energy in
spite of age - an expression that was partly carried out in the
dark eyes and strong dark eyebrows, which had a strangely


## p. 5416 (#592) ###########################################

5416
GEORGE ELIOT
isolated intensity of color in the midst of his yellow, bloodless,
deep-wrinkled face with its lank gray hairs. And yet there was
something fitful in the eyes which contradicted the occasional
flash of energy; after looking round with quick fierceness at
windows and faces, they fell again with a lost and wandering
look. But his lips were motionless, and he held his hands reso-
lutely down.
He would not beg.
This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with grow-
ing exasperation. Many standing at their doors or passing
quietly along had at once given money -- some in half-automatic
response to an appeal in the name of God, others in that unques-
tioning awe of the French soldiery which had been created by
the reports of their cruel warfare, and on which the French
themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity in their acts of
insolence. But as the group had proceeded farther into the
heart of the city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, and
the soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop of
men and boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations sufficiently
intelligible to foreign ears without any interpreter. The soldiers
themselves began to dislike their position, for with a strong
inclination to use their weapons, they were checked by the
necessity for keeping a secure hold on their prisoners, and they
were now hurrying along in the hope of finding shelter in a
hostelry.
« French dogs! ” « Bullock-feet! » "Snatch their pikes from
them! « Cut the cords and make them run for their prisoners.
They'll run as fast as geese - don't you see they're web-footed ? "
These were the cries which the soldiers vaguely understood to
be jeers, and probably threats. But every one seemed disposed
to give invitations of this spirited kind rather than to act upon
them.
“Santiddio! here's a sight! ” said the dyer, as soon as he had
divined the meaning of the advancing tumult; "and the fools do
nothing but hoot. Come along! ” he added, snatching his axe
from his belt, and running to join the crowd, followed by the
butcher and all the rest of his companions except Goro, who
hastily retreated up a narrow passage.
The sight of the dyer, running forward with blood-red arms
and axe uplifted, and with his cluster of rough companions be-
hind him, had a stimulating effect on the crowd. Not that
he did anything else than pass beyond the soldiers and thrust


## p. 5417 (#593) ###########################################

GEORGE ELIOT
5417
himself well among his fellow-citizens, flourishing his axe; but he
served as a stirring symbol of street-fighting, like the waving of
a well-known gonfalon. And the first sign that fire was ready
to burst out was something as rapid as a little leaping tongue of
flame; it was an act of the conjurer's impish lad Lollo, who was
dancing and jeering in front of the ingenuous boys that made
the majority of the crowd. Lollo had no great compassion for
the prisoners, but being conscious of an excellent knife which
was his unfailing companion, it had seemed to him from the first
that to jump forward, cut a rope, and leap back again before
the soldier who held it could use his weapon, would be an
amusing and dexterous piece of mischief. And now, when the
people began to hoot and jostle more vigorously, Lollo felt that
his moment was come: he was close to the eldest prisoner; in
an instant he had cut the cord.
“Run, old one! ” he piped in the prisoner's ear, as soon as the
cord was in two; and himself set the example of running as if
he were helped along with wings, like a scared fowl.
The prisoner's sensations were not too slow for him to seize
the opportunity; the idea of escape had been continually present
with him, and he had gathered fresh hope from the temper of
the crowd. He ran at once; but his speed would hardly have
sufficed for him if the Florentines had not instantaneously rushed
between him and his captor. He ran on into the Piazza, but he
quickly heard the tramp of feet behind him, for the other two
prisoners had been released, and the soldiers were struggling
and fighting their way after them, in such tardigrade fashion as
their hoof-shaped shoes would allow — impeded, but not very
resolutely attacked, by the people. One of the two younger
prisoners turned up the Borgo di San Lorenzo, and thus made a
partial diversion of the hubbub; but the main struggle was still
towards the Piazza, where all eyes
were turned it with
alarmed curiosity. The cause could not be precisely guessed,
for the French dress was screened by the impending crowd.
"An escape of prisoners,” said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, as he
and his party turned round just against the steps of the Duomo,
and saw a prisoner rushing by them. « The people are not con-
tent with having emptied the Bargello the other day. If there
is no other authority in sight they must fall on the sbirri and
secure freedom to thieves. Ah! there is a French soldier; that
is more serious. »
on


## p. 5418 (#594) ###########################################

5418
GEORGE ELIOT
The soldier he saw was struggling along on the north side of
the Piazza, but the object of his pursuit had taken the other
direction. That object was the eldest prisoner, who had wheeled
round the Baptistery and was running towards the Duomo, de-
termined to take refuge in that sanctuary rather than trust to
his speed. But in mounting the steps, his foot received a shock;
he was precipitated towards the group of signori, whose backs
were turned to him, and was only able to recover his balance as
he clutched one of them by the arm.
It was Tito Melema who felt that clutch. He turned his head,
and saw the face of his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close
to his own.
The two men looked at each other, silent as death: Baldas-
sarre, with dark fierceness and a tightening grip of the soiled
worn hands on the velvet-clad arm; Tito, with cheeks and lips
all bloodless, fascinated by terror. It seemed a long while to
them -- it was but a moment.
The first sound Tito heard was the short laugh of Piero di
Cosimo, who stood close by him and was the only person that
could see his face.
Ha, ha! I know what a ghost should be now.
“This is another escaped prisoner,” said Lorenzo Tornabuoni.
“Who is he, I wonder ? »
"Some madman, surely," said Tito.
He hardly knew how the words had come to his lips: there
are moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we
seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspira-
tion of crime, that in one instant does the work of premeditation.
The two men had not taken their eyes off each other, and it
seemed to Tito, when he had spoken, that some magical poison
had darted from Baldassarre's eyes, and that he felt it rushing
through his viens. But the next instant the grasp on his arm
had relaxed, and Baldassarre had disappeared within the church.
-


## p. 5419 (#595) ###########################################

GEORGE ELIOT
5419
«OH, MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE »
O"
H, MAY I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues.
So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order, that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonized,
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child, —
Poor anxious penitence,- is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air;
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burthen of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better — saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread for ever.
This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest 'heaven; be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony;
Enkindle generous ardor; feed pure love;
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty --


## p. 5420 (#596) ###########################################

5420
GEORGE ELIOT
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion even more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
1


## p. 5420 (#597) ###########################################



## p. 5420 (#598) ###########################################


R. W. EMERSON.
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## p. 5420 (#599) ###########################################

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## p. 5420 (#600) ###########################################




## p. 5420 (#601) ###########################################

5421
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(1803-1882)
BY RICHARD GARNETT
OTEWORTHY also,” says Carlyle, “and serviceable for the prog-
ress of this same Individual, wilt thou find his subdivision
into Generations. )
It is indeed the fact that the course of human history admits of
being marked off into periods, which, from their average duration and
the impulse communicated to them by those who enter upon adol-
escence along with them, may be fitly denominated generations, espe-
cially when their opening and closing are signalized by great events
which serve as historical landmarks. No such event, indeed, short of
the Day of Judgment or a universal deluge, can serve as an absolute
line of demarcation; nothing can be more certain than that history
and human life are a perpetual Becoming; and that, although the
progress of development is frequently so startling and unforeseen as
to evoke the poet's exclamation,-
(New endless growth surrounds on every side,
Such as we deemed not earth could ever bear,” -
this growth is but development after all. The association of histor-
ical periods with stages in the mental development of man is never-
theless too convenient to be surrendered; the vision is cleared and
the grasp strengthened by the perception of a well-defined era in
American history, commencing with the election of Andrew Jackson
to the Presidency in 1828 and closing with the death of Abraham
Lincoln in 1865,— a period exactly corresponding with one in English
history measured from the death of Lord Liverpool, the typical rep-
resentative of a bygone political era in the prime of other years,
and that of Lord Palmerston, another such representative, in the lat-
ter. The epoch thus bounded almost precisely corresponds to the
productive period of the two great men who, more than any contem-
poraries, have stood in the conscious attitude of teachers of their
age. With such men as Tennyson and Browning, vast as their influ-
ence has been, the primary impulse has not been didactic, but ar-
tistic; Herbert Spencer, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, and others,
have been chiefly operative upon the succeeding generation; Mill and
the elder Newman rather address special classes than the people at


## p. 5420 (#602) ###########################################




## p. 5421 (#603) ###########################################

5421
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(1803-1882)
BY RICHARD GARNETT
OTEWORTHY also,” says Carlyle, “and serviceable for the prog-
ress of this same Individual, wilt thou find his subdivision
into Generations. ”
It is indeed the fact that the course of human history admits of
being marked off into periods, which, from their average duration and
the impulse communicated to them by those who enter upon adol-
escence along with them, may be fitly denominated generations, espe-
cially when their opening and closing are signalized by great events
which serve as historical landmarks. No such event, indeed, short of
the Day of Judgment or a universal deluge, can serve as an absolute
line of demarcation; nothing can be more certain than that history
and human life are a perpetual Becoming; and that, although the
progress of development is frequently so startling and unforeseen as
to evoke the poet's exclamation,-
«New endless growth surrounds on every side,
Such as we deemed not earth could ever bear,” —
this growth is but development after all. The association of histor-
ical periods with stages in the mental development of man is never-
theless too convenient to be surrendered; the vision is cleared and
the grasp strengthened by the perception of a well-defined era in
American history, commencing with the election of Andrew Jackson
to the Presidency in 1828 and closing with the death of Abraham
Lincoln in 1865,- a period exactly corresponding with one in English
history measured from the death of Lord Liverpool, the typical rep-
resentative of a bygone political era in the prime of other years,
and that of Lord Palmerston, another such representative, in the lat-
ter. The epoch thus bounded almost precisely corresponds to the
productive period of the two great men who, more than any contem-
poraries, have stood in the conscious attitude of teachers of their
age. With such men as Tennyson and Browning, vast as their influ-
ence has been, the primary impulse has not been didactic, but ar-
tistic; Herbert Spencer, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, and others,
have been chiefly operative upon the succeeding generation; Mill and
the elder Newman rather address special classes than the people at


## p. 5422 (#604) ###########################################

5422
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
large; and Ruskin and Kingsley would have willingly admitted that
however eloquent the expression of their teaching, its originality
mainly consisted in the application of Carlyle's ideas to subjects
beyond Carlyle's range. Carlyle and Emerson, therefore, stand forth
like Goethe and Schiller as the Dioscuri of their period; the two men
to whom beyond others its better minds looked for guidance, and
who had the largest share in forming the minds from which the suc-
ceeding generation was to take its complexion. Faults and errors
they had; but on the whole it may be said that nations have rarely
been more fortunate in their instructors than the two great English-
speaking peoples during the age of Carlyle and Emerson. Of Carlyle
this is not the place to speak further; but writing on Emerson, it
will be necessary to exhibit what we conceive to have been the spe-
cial value of his teaching; and to attempt some description of the
man himself, in indication of the high place claimed for him.
It has been said of some great man of marked originality that he
was the sole voice among many echoes. This cannot be said of
Emerson; his age was by no means deficient in original voices. But
his may be said with truth to have been the chief verbal utterance
in an age of authorship. It is a trite remark, that many of the men
of thought whose ideas have most influenced the world have shown
little inclination for literary composition. The president of a London
freethinking club in Goldsmith's time supposed himself to be in pos-
session of the works of Socrates, no less than of those of “Tully and
Cicero,” but no other trace of their existence has come to light.
Had Emerson lived in any age but his own, it is doubtful whether,
any more than Socrates, he would have figured as an author.
write," he tells Carlyle, “with very little system, and as far as
regards composition, with most fragmentary result - paragraphs in-
comprehensible, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle. We
also hear of his going forth into the woods to hunt a thought as a
boy might hunt a butterfly, except that the thought had flown with
him from home, and that his business was not so much to capture it
as to materialize it and make it tangible. This peculiarity serves to
classify Emerson among the ancient sages, men like Socrates and
Buddha, whose instructions were not merely oral but unmethodical
and unsystematic; who spoke as the casual emergency of the day
dictated, and left their observations to be collected by their disciples.
An excellent plan in so far as it accomplishes the endowment of
the sage's word with his own individuality; exceptionable when a
doubt arises whether the utterance belongs to the master or the dis-
ciple, and in the case of diametrically opposite versions, whether
Socrates has been represented more truly by the prose of Xenophon
or the poetry of Plato. We may be thankful that the spirit of Emer-
son's age, and the exigencies of his own affairs, irresistibly impelled


## p. 5423 (#605) ###########################################

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
5423
him to write: nevertheless the fact remains that with him Man
Thinking is not so much Man Writing as Man Speaking, and that
although the omnipotent machinery of the modern social system
caught him too, and forced him into line with the rest, we have in
him a nearer approach to the voice, apart from the disturbing and
modifying habits of literary composition, than in any other eminent
modern thinker. This annuls one of the most weighty criticisms
upon Emerson, so long as he is regarded merely as an author,— his
want of continuity, and consequent want of logic.
Had he attempted
to establish a philosophical system, this would have been fatal.
But such an undertaking is of all things furthest from his thoughts.
He does not seek to demonstrate, he announces. Ideas have come to
him which, as viewed by the inward light, appear important and
| profitable. He brings these forward to be tested by the light of
other men. He does not seek to connect these ideas together, except
in so far as their common physiognomy bespeaks their common par-
entage. Nor does he seek to fortify them by reasoning, or subject
them to any test save the faculty by which the unprejudiced soul
discerns good from evil. If his jewel will scratch glass, it is suffi-
ciently evinced a diamond.
It follows that although Emerson did not write most frequently
or best in verse, he is, as regards the general constitution of his
intellect, rather to be classed with poets than with philosophers.
Poetry cannot indeed dispense with the accurate observation of
nature and mankind, but poetic genius essentially depends on intu-
ition and inspiration. There is no gulf between the philosopher and
the poet; some of the greatest of poets have also been among the
most powerful of reasoners; but their claim to poetical rank would
not have been impaired if their ratiocination had been ever so illogi-
cal. Similarly, a great thinker may have no more taste for poetry
than was vouchsafed to Darwin or the elder Mill, without any im-
peachment of his power of intellect. The two spheres of action are
fundamentally distinct, though the very highest geniuses, such as
Shakespeare and Goethe, have sometimes almost succeeded in making
them appear as one. To determine to which of them a man actually
belongs, we must look beyond the externalities of literary form, and
inquire whether he obtains his ideas by intuition, or by observation
and reflection. No mind will be either entirely intuitive or entirely
reflective, but there will usually be a decided inclination to one or
other of the processes; and in the comparatively few cases in which
thoughts and feelings seem to come to it unconsciously, as leaves to
a tree, we may consider that we have a poet, though perhaps not a
writer of poetry.
If indeed the man writes at all, he will very
probably write prose, but this prose will be impregnated with poetic


## p. 5424 (#606) ###########################################

5424
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
quality. From this point of view we are able to set Emerson much
higher than if we regarded him simply as a teacher. He is greater
as the American Wordsworth than as the American Carlyle. We
shall understand his position best by comparing him with other men
of genius who are poets too, but not pre-eminently so. In beauty of
language and power of imagination, John Henry Newman and James
Martineau, though they have written little in verse, yield to few
poets. But throughout all their writings the didactic impulse is
plainly the preponderating one, their poetry merely auxiliary and
ornamental; hence they are not reckoned among poets. With Emer-
son the case is reversed: the revealer is first in him, the reasoner
second; oral speech is his most congenial form of expression, and he
submits to appear in print because the circumstances of his age'
render print the most effectual medium for the dissemination of his
thought. It will be observed that whenever possible he resorts to
the medium of oration or lecture; it may be further remarked that
his essays, often originally delivered as lectures, are very like his
discourses, and his discourses very like his essays. In neither, so far
as regards the literary form of the entire composition, distinguished
from the force and felicity of individual sentences, can he be con-
sidered as a classic model. The essay need not be too severely logi-
cal, yet a just conception of its nature requires a more harmonious
proportion and more symmetrical construction, as well as a more
consistent and intelligent direction towards a single definite end, than
we usually find in Emerson. The orator is less easy to criticize
than the essayist, for oratory involves an element of personal mag-
netism which resists all critical analysis. Hence posterity frequently
reverses (or rather seems to reverse, for the decision upon a speech
mutilated of voice and action cannot be really conclusive) the verdicts
of contemporaries upon oratory. « What will our descendants think
of the Parliamentary oratory of our age? ” asked a contemporary of
Burke's, “when they are told that in his own time this man was
accounted neither the first, nor the second, nor even the third
speaker ? ” Transferred to the tribunal of the library, Burke's oratory
bears away the palm from Pitt and Fox and Sheridan; yet, unless we
had heard the living voices of them all, it would be unsafe for us to
challenge the contemporary verdict. We cannot say, with the lover
in Goethe, that the word printed appears dull and soulless, but it
certainly wants much which conduced to the efficacy of the word
spoken:
“Ach wie traurig sieht in Lettern,
Schwarz auf weiss, das Lied mich an,
Das aus deinem Mund vergöttern,
Das ein Herz zerreissen kann! »


## p. 5425 (#607) ###########################################

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
5425
Emerson's orations are no less delightful and profitable reading
than his essays, so long as they can be treated as his essays were
intended to be treated when they came into print; that is, read
deliberately, with travelings backward when needed, and frequent
pauses of thought. But if we consider them as discourses to be lis-
tened to, we shall find some difficulty in reconciling their popularity
and influence with their apparent disconnectedness, and some reason
to apprehend that, occasional flashes of epigram excepted, they must
speedily have passed from the minds of the hearers. The apparent
defect was probably remedied in delivery by the magnetic power of
the speaker; not that sort of power which “wields at will the fierce
democraty,” but that which convinces the hearer that he is listening
to a message from a region not as yet accessible to himself. The
impassioned orator usually provokes the suspicion that he is speaking
from a briefNot so Emerson: above all other speakers he inspires
the confidence that he declares a thing to be, not because he wishes,
but because he perceives it to be so. His quiet, unpretending, but
perfectly unembarrassed manner, as of a man with a message which
he simply delivers and goes away, must have greatly aided to supply
the absence of vigorous reasoning and skillful oratorical construction.
We could not expect a spirit commissioned to teach us to condescend
to such methods; and Emerson's discourse, whether in oration or
essay, though by no means deficient in human feeling nor of the
“blessed Glendoveer” order, frequently does sound like that of a
being from another sphere, simply because he derived his ideas
from a higher world; as must always be the case with the man of
spiritual, not of course with the man of practical genius. It mat-
ters nothing whether this is really so, or whether what wears the
aspect of imparted revelation is but a fortifying of the natural eye,
qualifying it to look a little deeper than neighboring eyes into things
around. In either case the person so endowed stands a degree nearer
to the essential truth of things than his fellows; and the conscious-
ness of the fact, transpiring through his personality, gives him a
weight which might otherwise seem inexplicable. Nothing can be
more surprising than the deference with which the learned and intel-
ligent contemporaries ‘of the humble and obscure Spinoza resort to
his judgment before he has so much as written a book.
This estimate of Emerson as an American Wordsworth, one who
like Wordsworth not merely enforced but practically demonstrated
the proposition that
«One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can,”
IX-340


## p. 5426 (#608) ###########################################

5426
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
is controverted by many who can see in him nothing but a polisher
and stringer of epigrammatic sayings. It is impossible to argue with
any who cannot recognize the deep vitality of Nature,' of the two
series of Essays first published, and of most of the early orations and
discourses; but it may be conceded that Emerson's fountain of inspira-
tion was no more perennial than Wordsworth's, and that in his latter
years his gift of epigrammatic statement enabled him to avoid both
the Scylla and the Charybdis of men of genius whose fount of
inspiration has run low. In some such cases, such as Wordsworth's,
the author simply goes on producing, with less and less geniality at
every successive effort. In others, such as Browning's, he escapes
inanity by violent exaggeration of his characteristic mannerisms.
Neither of these remarks applies to Emerson: he does not, in ceasing
to be original, become insipid, nor can it be said that he is any more
mannered at the last than at the first. This is a clear proof that his
peculiarity of speech is not mannerism but manner; that consequently
he is not an artificial writer, and that, since the treatment of his
themes as he has chosen to treat them admits of no compromise
between nature and rhetoric, he has the especial distinction of sim-
plicity where simplicity is difficult and rare. That such is the case
will appear from an examination of his earlier and more truly pro-
phetic writings.
Of these, the first in importance as in time is the tract Nature,'
commenced in 1833, rewritten, completed, and published in 1836.
Of all Emerson's writings this is the most individual, and the most
adapted for a general introduction to his ideas. These ideas are
not in fact peculiar to him; and yet the little book is one of the
most original ever written, and one of those most likely to effect an
intellectual revolution in the mind capable of apprehending it. The
reason is mainly the intense vitality of the manner, and the transla-
tion of abstract arguments into concrete shapes of witchery and
beauty. It contains scarcely a sentence that is not beautiful, — not
with the cold beauty of art, but with the radiance and warmth of feel-
ing. Its dominant note is rapture, like the joy of one who has found
an enchanted realm, or who has convinced himself that old stories
deemed too beautiful to be true are true indeed. Yet it is exempt
from extravagance, the splendor of the language is chastened by
taste, and the gladness and significance of the author's announce-
ments would justify an even more ardent enthusiasm. They may be
briefly summed up as the statements that Nature is not mechanical,
but vital; that the Universe is not dead, but alive; that God is not
remote, but omnipresent. There was of course no novelty in these
assertions, nor can Emerson bring them by a hair's-breadth nearer
demonstration than they had always been. He simply re-states them


## p. 5427 (#609) ###########################################

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
5427
1
in a manner entirely his own, and with a charm not perhaps sur-
passing that with which others had previously invested them, but
peculiar and dissimilar. Everything really Emersonian in Emerson's
teaching may be said to spring out of this little book: so copious,
however, were the corollaries deducible from principles apparently
so simple, that the flowers veiled the tree; and precious as the tract
is, as the first and purest draught of the new wine, it is not the most
practically efficient of his works, and might probably have passed
unperceived if it had not been reinforced by a number of auxiliary
compositions, some produced under circumstances which could not
fail to provoke wide discussion and consequent notoriety. The prin-
ciples unfolded in Nature' might probably have passed with civil
acquiescence if Emerson had been content with the mere statement;
but he insisted on carrying them logically out, and this could not be
done without unsettling every school of thought at the time prevalent
in America. The Divine omnipresence, for example, was admitted in
words by all except materialists and anti-theists; but if, as Emerson
maintained, this involved the conception of the Universe as a Divine
incarnation, this in its turn involved an optimistic view of the uni-
versal scheme totally inconsistent with the Calvinism still dominant
in American theology. If all existence was a Divine emanation, no
part of it could be more sacred than another part, — which at once
abolished the mystic significance of religious ceremonies so dear to the
Episcopalians; while the immediate contact of the Universe with the
Deity was no less incompatible with the miraculous interferences on
which Unitarianism reposed its faith. Such were some of the most
important negative results of Emerson's doctrines; in their positive
aspect, by asserting the identity of natural and spiritual laws, they
invested the former with the reverence hitherto accorded only to the
latter, and restored to a mechanical and prosaic society the piety
with which men in the infancy of history had defied the forces of
Nature. Substantially, except for the absence of any definite relation
to literary art, Emerson's mission was very similar to Wordsworth's;
but by natural temperament and actual situation he wanted the
thousand links which bound Wordsworth to the past, and eventually
made the sometime innovator the patron of a return towards the
Middle Ages.
Emerson had no wish to regress, and, almost alone among think-
ers who have reached an advanced age, betrays no symptom of
reaction throughout the whole of his career. The reason may be,
that his scrupulous fairness and frank conceptions to the Conserva-
tive cast of thought had left him nothing to retract or atone for.
He seems to have started on his journey through life with his Con-
servatism and Liberalism ready made up, taking with him just as
!


## p. 5428 (#610) ###########################################

5428
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
much of either as he wanted. This is especially manifest in the dis-
course (The Conservative' (1841), in which he deliberately weighs
conservative against progressive tendencies, impersonates each in an
imaginary interlocutor, and endeavors to display their respective just-
ification and shortcomings. Nothing can be more rigidly equitable
or more thoroughly sane than his estimate; and as the issues between
conservatism and reform have broadened and deepened, time has
only added to its value. It is a perfect manual for thoughtful citi-
zens, desirous of understanding the questions that underlie party
issues, and is especially to be commended to young and generous
minds, liable to misguidance in proportion to their generosity.
This celebrated discourse is one of a group including one still
more celebrated, the address to the graduating class of Divinity
College, Cambridge, published as "The Christian Teacher' (1838).
This, says Mr. Cabot, seems to have been struck off at a heat,
which perhaps accounts for its nearer approach than any of his other
addresses to the standard of what is usually recognized as eloquence.
Eloquent in a sense Emerson usually was, but here is something
which could transport a fit audience with enthusiasm. It also pos-
sessed the power of awakening the keenest antagonism; but censure
has long since died away, and nothing that Emerson wrote has been
more thoroughly adopted into the creed of those with whom external
observances and material. symbols find no place. Equally epoch-
making in a different way was the oration on Man Thinking, or
the American Scholar) (1837), entitled by Dr. Holmes our intellect-
ual Declaration of Independence, and of which Mr. Lowell says:
“We were socially and intellectually moored to English thought, till
Emerson cut the cable and gave us a chance at the dangers and
glories of blue water. ” In these three great discourses, and in a less
measure in 'The Transcendentalist' and Man the Reformer) (both
in 1841), America may boast of possessing works of the first class,
which could have been produced in no other country, and which
even though, in Emerson's own phrase, wider circles should come to
be drawn around them — will remain permanent landmarks in intel-
lectual history.
These discourses may be regarded as Emerson's public proclama-
tions of his opinions; but he is probably more generally known and
more intimately beloved by the two unobtrusive volumes of Essays,
originally prefaced for England by Carlyle. Most of these, indeed,
were originally delivered as lectures, but to small audiences, and
with little challenge to public attention. It may be doubted whether
they would have succeeded as lectures but for the personal magnet-
ism of the speaker; but their very defects aid them with the reader,
who, once fascinated by their beauty of phrase and depth of spiritual


## p. 5429 (#611) ###########################################

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
5429
insight, imbibes their spirit all the more fully for his ceaseless effort
to mend their deficient logic with his own. Like Love in Dante's son-
net, Emerson enters into and blends with the reader, and his influ-
ence will often be found most potent where it is least acknowledged.
Each of the twenty may be regarded as a fuller working out of
some subject merely hinted at in Nature,'— statues, as it were, for
niches left vacant in the original edifice. The most important and
pregnant with thought are History,' where the same claim is pre-
ferred for history as for the 'material world, that it is not dead but
alive; (Self-Reliance,' a most vigorous assertion of a truth which
Emerson was apt to carry to extremes, the majesty of the individual
soul; Compensation, an exposition of the universe as the incarnation
of unerring truth and absolute justice; Love,' full of beauty and
rapture, yet almost chilling to the young by its assertion of what is
nevertheless true, that even Love in its human semblance only sub-
serves ulterior ends; Circles, the demonstration that this circum-
stance is no way peculiar to Love, that there can be nothing ultimate,
final, or unrelated to ulterior purpose, - nothing around which, in
Emersonian phrase, you cannot draw a circle; (The Over-Soul, a
prose hymn dedicated to an absolutely spiritual religion; The Poet,
a celebration of Poetry as coextensive with Imagination, and in the
highest sense with Reason also; Experience and Character,' valu-
able essays, but evincing that the poetical impulse was becoming
spent, and that Emerson's mind was inore and more tending to ques-
tions of conduct. The least satisfactory of the essays is that on
(Art,' where he is only great on the negative side, Art's inevitable
limitations. The æsthetical faculty, which contemplates Beauty under
the restraints of Form, was evidently weak in him.
(Representative Men,' Emerson's next work of importance (1845),
shows that his parachute was descending; but he makes a highly suc-
cessful compromise by taking up original ideas as reflected in the
actions and thoughts of great typical men, one remove only from
originality of exposition on his own part.
The treatment is neces-
sarily so partial as to exercise a distorting influence on his represent-
ation of the themselves. Napoleon, for example, may have
been from a certain point of view the hero of the middle class, as
Emerson chooses to consider him; but he was much besides, which
cannot even be hinted at in a short lecture. The representation of
such a hero, nevertheless, whether the character precisely fitted Napo-
leon or not, is highly spirited and suggestive; and the same may be
said of the other lectures. That on Shakespeare is the least satisfy-
ing, the consummate art which is half Shakespeare's greatness making
little appeal to Emerson. He appears also at variance with himself
when he speaks of Shakespeare's existence as obscure and profane,”
men


## p. 5430 (#612) ###########################################

5430
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
an
such a healthy, homely, unambitious life being precisely what he else-
where extols as a model. The first lecture of the series, Uses of
Great Men,' would seem to have whispered the message more vocifer-
ously repeated by Walt Whitman.
Emerson was yet to write two books of worth, not illumed with
“the light that never was on sea or land,” but valuable complements
to his more characteristic work, and important to mankind as
indisputable proof that a teacher need not be distrusted in ordinary
things because he is a mystic and a poet. (The Conduct of Life
(1851), far inferior to his earlier writings in inspiration, is yet one
of the most popular and widely influential of his works because con-
descending more nearly to the needs and intelligence of the average
reader. It is not less truly Emersonian, less fully impregnated with
his unique genius; but the themes discussed are less interesting, and
the glory and the beauty of the diction are much subdued. Without
it, we should have been in danger of regarding Emerson too exclu-
sively as a transcendental seer, and ignoring the solid ground of
good sense and practical sagacity from which the waving forests of
his imagery drew their nutriment. It greatly promoted his fame and
influence by coming into the hands of successive generations of
readers who naturally inquired for his last book, found the author,
with surprise, so much nearer their own intellectual position than
they had been led to expect, and gradually extended the indorse-
ment which they could not avoid according to the book, to the author
himself. When the Reason and the Understanding have agreed to
legitimate the pretensions of a speculative thinker, these may be con-
sidered stable. Emerson insensibly took rank with the other Amer-
ican institutions; it seemed natural to all, that without the retractation
or modification of a syllable on his part, Harvard should in 1866 confer
her highest honors upon him whose address to her Divinity School had
aroused such fierce opposition in 1838. Emerson's views, being pure
intuitions, rarely admitted of alteration in essence, though supple-
ment or limitation might sometimes be found advisable. The Civil
War, for instance, could not but convince him that in his zeal for
the independence of the individual he had dangerously impaired
the necessary authority of government. His attitude throughout this
great contest was the ideal of self-sacrificing patriotism: in truth, it
might be said of him, as of so few men of genius, that you could not
find a situation for him, public or private, whose obligations he was
not certain to fulfill. He had previously given proof of his insight
into another nation by his 'English Traits,' mainly founded upon the
visit he had paid to England in 1847-48: a book to be read with equal
pleasure and profit by the nation of which and by the nation for
which it was written; while its insight, sanity, and kindliness justify


## p. 5431 (#613) ###########################################

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
5431
what has been said on occasion of another of Emerson's writings:
«The ideologist judges the man of action more shrewdly and justly
than the man of action judges the ideologist. ” This was the secret
of Napoleon's bitter animosity to “ideologists”: he felt instinctively
that the man of ideas could see into him and through him, and recog-
nize and declare his place in the scheme of the universe as an
astronomer might a planet's. He would have wished to be an incal-
culable, original, elemental force; and it vexed him to feel that he
was something whose course could be mapped and whose constitution
defined by a mere mortal like a Coleridge or a De Staël, who could
treat him like the incarnate Thought he was, and show him, as Em-
erson showed the banker, “that he also was a phantom walking and
working amid phantoms, and that he need only ask a question or
two beyond his daily questions to find his solid universe proving dim
and impalpable before his sense. ”
The later writings of Emerson, though exhibiting few or no traces
of mental decay, are in general repetitions or at least confirmations
of what had once been announcements and discoveries. This can
scarcely be otherwise when the mind's productions are derived from
its own stuff and substance. Emerson's contemporary Longfellow
could renovate and indeed augment his poetical power by resort in
his old age to Italy; but change of environment brings no reinforce-
ment of energy to the speculative thinker. Events however may
come to his aid; and when Einerson was called before the people by
a momentous incident like the death of President Lincoln, he rose
fully to the height of the occasion. His last verses, also, are among
his best. We have spoken of him as primarily and above all things
a poet; but his claim to that great distinction is to be sought rather
in the poetical spirit which informs all his really inspired writings,
than in the comparatively restricted region of rhyme and metre. It
might have been otherwise. Many of his detached passages are the
very best things in verse yet written in America: but though a
maker, he is not a fashioner. The artistic instinct is deficient in
him;Nhe is seldom capable of combining his thoughts into a harmoni-
ous whole. No one's expression is better when he aims at convey-
ing a single thought with gnomic terseness, as in the mottoes to his
essays; few are more obscure when he attempts continuous composi-
tion. Sometimes, as in the admirable sta zas on the Bunker Hill
dedication, the subject has enforced the due clearness and compression
of thought; sometimes, as in the glorious lines beginning Not from
a vain or shallow thought,” he is guided unerringly by a divine
rapture; in one instance at least, “The Rhodora,' where he is writing
of beauty, the instinct of beauty has given his lines the symmetry as
well as the sparkle of the diamond. Could he have always written


## p. 5432 (#614) ###########################################

5432
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
like this, he would have been supreme among American poets in
metre; as it is, comparison seems unfair both to him and to them.
What we have to learn from Emerson is chiefly the Divine imma-
nence in the world, with all its corollaries; no discovery of his, but
re-stated by him in the fashion most suitable to his age, and with a
cogency and attractiveness rivaled by no contemporary. If we tried
to sum up his message in a phrase, we might perhaps find this in
Keats's famous Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty'; only, while Keats
was evidently more concerned for Beauty than for Truth, Emerson
held an impartial balance. These are with him the tests of each
other: whatever is really true is also beautiful, whatever is really
beautiful is also true. Hence his especial value to a world whose
more refined spirits are continually setting up types of asthetic
beauty which must needs be delusive, as discordant with beauty con-
templated under the aspect of morality; while the mass never think
of bringing social and political arrangements to the no less infallible
test of conformity to an ideally beautiful standard. Hence the seem-
ing idealist is of all men the rnost practical; and Emerson's gospel
of beauty should be especially precious to a country like his own,
where circumstances must for so long tell in favor of the more ma-
terial phases of civilization. Even more important is that aspect of
his teaching which deals with the unalterableness of spiritual laws,
the impossibility of evading Truth and Fact in the long run, or of
wronging any one without at the same time wronging oneself.
Happy would it be for the United States if Emerson's essay on
Compensation in particular could be impressed upon the con-
science, where there is any, of every political leader; and interwoven
with the very texture of the mind of every one who has a vote to
cast at the polls!
The special adaptation of Emerson's teaching to the needs of
America is, nevertheless, far from the greatest obligation under
which he has laid his countrymen. His greatest service is to have
embodied a specially American type of thought and feeling. It is
the test of real greatness in a nation to be individual, to produce
something in the world of intellect peculiar to itself and indefeasi-
bly its own. Such intellectual growths were indeed to be found in
America' before Emerson's time, but they were not of the highest
class. Franklin was a great sage, but his wisdom was worldly wis-
dom. Emerson gives us, in his own phrase, morality on fire with emo-
tion,- the only morality which in the long run will really influence the
heart of man. Man is after all too noble a being to be permanently
actuated by enlightened selfishness; and when we compare Emer-
son with even so truly eminent a character as Franklin, we see, as
he saw when he compared Carlyle with Johnson, how great a stride


## p. 5433 (#615) ###########################################

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
5433
forward his country had taken in the mean time. But he could do
for America what Carlyle could not do for Great Britain, for it was
done already: he could and did create a type of wisdom especially
national, as distinctive of the West as Buddha's of the East.
A. Gamett.
All the following citations from Emerson's works are reprinted by special
arrangement with, and the kind permission of, Mr. Emerson's family,
and Messrs. Houghton, Miffin & Co. , publishers, Boston, Mass.
THE TIMES
From the Lecture on (The Times, 1841
BT
UT the subject of the Times is not an abstract question. We
talk of the world, but we mean a few men and women.
If you speak of the age, you mean your own platoon of
people, as Dante and Milton painted in colossal their platoons,
and called them Heaven and Hell. In our idea of progress we
do not go out of this personal picture. We do not think the sky
will be bluer, or honey sweeter, or our climate more temperate,
but only that our relation to our fellows will be simpler and
happier. What is the reason to be given for this extreme attrac-
tion which persons have for us, but that they are the Age? They
are the results of the Past; they are the heralds of the Future.
They indicate — these witty, suffering, blushing, intimidating fig-
ures of the only race in which there are individuals or changes
- how far on the Fate has gone, and what it drives at. As
trees make scenery, and constitute the hospitality of the land-
scape, so persons are the world to persons.
These
are the pungent instructors who thrill the heart of each of us,
and make all other teaching formal and cold. How I follow
them with aching heart, with pining desire! I count myself
nothing before them. I would die for them with joy. They
can do what they will with me. How they lash us with those
tongues! How they make the tears start, make us blush and
turn pale, and lap us in Elysium to soothing dreams and castles
in the air! By tones of triumph, of dear love, by threats, by
pride that freezes, these have the skill to make the world look
•


## p. 5434 (#616) ###########################################

5434
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
bleak and inhospitable, or seem the nest of tenderness and joy.
I do not wonder at the miracles which poetry attributes to the
music of Orpheus, when I remember what I have experienced
from the varied notes of the human voice. They are an incal-
culable energy which countervails all other forces in nature, be-
cause they are the channel of supernatural powers. There is no
interest or institution so poor and withered but if a new strong
man could be born into it he would immediately redeem and
replace it. A personal ascendency,- that is the only fact much
worth considering. I remember, some years ago, somebody
shocked a circle of friends of order here in Boston, who sup-
posed that our people were identified with their religious denomi-
nations, by declaring that an eloquent man — let him be of what
sect soever — would be ordained at once in one of our metro-
politan churches, To be sure he would; and not only in ours
but in any church, mosque, or temple on the planet: but he
must be eloquent, able to supplant our method and classification
by the superior beauty of his own. Every fact we have was
brought here by some person; and there is none that will not
change and pass away before a person whose nature is broader
than the person whom the fact in question represents. And so
I find the Age walking about in happy and hopeful natures, in
strong eyes and pleasant thoughts, and think I read it nearer
and truer so than in the statute-book, or in the investments of
capital, which rather celebrate with mournful music the obse-
quies of the last age. In the brain of a fanatic; in the wild
hope of a mountain boy, called by city boys very ignorant, be-
cause they do not know what his hope has certainly apprised
him shall be; in the love-glance of a girl; in the hair-splitting
conscientiousness of some eccentric person who has found some
new scruple to embarrass himself and his neighbors withal,- is
to be found that which shall constitute the times to come, more
than in the now organized and accredited oracles. For whatever
is affirmative and now advancing contains it. I think that only
is real which men love and rejoice in; not what they tolerate,
but what they choose; what they embrace and avow, and not
the things which chill, benumb, and terrify them.
And so why not draw for these times a portrait gallery? Let
us paint the painters. Whilst the daguerreotypist, with camera-
obscura and silver plate, begins now to traverse the land, let us
set up our camera also, and let the sun paint the people. Let


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RALPH WALDO EMERSON
5435
us paint the agitator, and the man of the old school, and the mem-
ber of Congress, and the college professor, the formidable editor,
the priest, and reformer, the contemplative girl, and the fair
aspirant for fashion and opportunities, the woman of the world
who has tried and knows — let us examine how well she knows.
Could we indicate the indicators, indicate those who most accu-
rately represent every good and evil tendency of the general mind,
in the just order which they take on this canvas of time, so that
all witnesses should recognize a spiritual law, as each well-
known form flitted for a moment across the wall, we should have
a series of sketches which would report to the next ages the color
and quality of ours.
Certainly I think if this were done there would be much to
admire as well as to condemn; souls of as lofty a port as any in
Greek or Roman fame might appear; men of great heart, of
strong hand, and of persuasive speech; subtle thinkers, and men
of wide sympathy, and an apprehension which looks over all his-
tory and everywhere recognizes its own. To be sure, there will
be fragments and hints of men, more than enough; bloated prom-
ises, which end in nothing or little. And then, truly great men,
but with some defect in their composition which neutralizes their
whole force. Here is a Damascus blade, such as you may search
through nature in vain to parallel, laid up on the shelf in some
village to rust and ruin. And how many seem not quite avail-
able for that idea which they represent!
Now and then comes a
bolder spirit, I should rather say, a more surrendered soul, more
informed and led by God, which is much in advance of the rest,
quite beyond their sympathy, but predicts what shall soon be the
general fullness; as when we stand by the sea-shore, whilst the
tide is coming in, a wave comes up the beach far higher than
any foregoing one, and recedes; and for a long while none comes
up to that mark; but after some time the whole sea is there and
beyond it.
FRIENDSHIP
F
RIENDSHIP may be said to require natures so rare and costly,
each so well tempered and so happily adapted, and withal
so circumstanced (for even in that particular, a poet says,
love demands that the parties be altogether paired), that its
satisfaction can very seldom be assured. It cannot subsist in its


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5436
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
perfection, say some of those who are learned in this warm lore
of the heart, betwixt more than two. I am not quite so strict in
my terms, perhaps because I have never known so high a fellow-
ship as others. I please my imagination more with a circle of
godlike men and women variously related to each other, and be-
tween whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this law of
one to one peremptory for conversation, which is the practice and
consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. The
best mix as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and
cheering discourse at several times with two several men, but let
all three of you come together and you shall not have one new
and hearty word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three
cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and search-
ing sort.