_May 6, '82._--We stand by Emerson's new-made grave without
sadness--indeed a solemn joy and faith, almost hauteur--our soul-benison
no mere
"Warrior, rest, thy task is done,"
for one beyond the warriors of the world lies surely symboll'd here.
A just man, poised on himself, all-loving, all-inclosing, and sane and
clear as the sun. Nor does it seem so much Emerson himself we are here
to honor--it is conscience, simplicity, culture, humanity's attributes
at their best, yet applicable if need be to average affairs, and
eligible to all. So used are we to suppose a heroic death can only
come from out of battle or storm, or mighty personal contest, or amid
dramatic incidents or danger, (have we not been taught so for ages by
all the plays and poems?) that few even of those who most sympathizingly
mourn Emerson's late departure will fully appreciate the ripen'd
grandeur of that event, with its play of calm and fitness, like evening
light on the sea.
How I shall henceforth dwell on the blessed hours when, not long since,
I saw that benignant face, the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth,
the form yet upright in its great age--to the very last, with so much
spring and cheeriness, and such an absence of decrepitude, that even the
term _venerable_ hardly seem'd fitting.
Perhaps the life now rounded and completed in its mortal development,
and which nothing can change or harm more, has its most illustrious
halo, not in its splendid intellectual or esthetic products, but as
forming in its entirety one of the few (alas! how few!) perfect and
flawless excuses for being, of the entire literary class.
We can say, as Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It is not we who come to
consecrate the dead--we reverently come to receive, if so it may be,
some consecration to ourselves and daily work from him.