In the regions we call Nature, towering beyond all measurement, with
infinite spread, infinite depth and height--in those regions, including
Man, socially and historically, with his moral-emotional influences--how
small a part, (it came in my mind to-day,) has literature really
depicted--even summing up all of it, all ages. Seems at its best some
little fleet of boats, hugging the shores of a boundless sea, and never
venturing, exploring the unmapp'd--never, Columbus-like, sailing out for
New Worlds, and to complete the orb's rondure. Emerson writes frequently
in the atmosphere of this thought, and his books report one or two
things from that very ocean and air, and more legibly address'd to
our age and American polity than by any man yet. But I will begin by
scarifying him--thus proving that I am not insensible to his deepest
lessons. I will consider his books from a democratic and western point
of view. I will specify the shadows on these sunny expanses. Somebody
has said of heroic character that "wherever the tallest peaks are
present, must inevitably be deep chasms and valleys." Mine be the
ungracious task (for reasons) of leaving unmention'd both sunny expanses
and sky-reaching heights, to dwell on the bare spots and darknesses. I
have a theory that no artist or work of the very first class may be or
can be without them.
First, then, these pages are perhaps too perfect, too concentrated. (How
good, for instance, is good butter, good sugar. But to be eating nothing
but sugar and butter all the time! even if ever so good.) And though
the author has much to say of freedom and wildness and simplicity
and spontaneity, no performance was ever more based on artificial
scholarships and decorums at third or fourth removes, (he calls it
culture,) and built up from them. It is always a _make_, never an
unconscious _growth_. It is the porcelain figure or statuette of lion,
or stag, or Indian hunter--and a very choice statuette too--appropriate
for the rosewood or marble bracket of parlor or library; never the
animal itself, or the hunter himself. Indeed, who wants the real animal
or hunter? What would that do amid astral and bric-a-brac and tapestry,
and ladies and gentlemen talking in subdued tones of Browning and
Longfellow and art? The least suspicion of such actual bull, or Indian,
or of Nature carrying out itself, would put all those good people to
instant terror and flight.
Emerson, in my opinion, is not most eminent as poet or artist or
teacher, though valuable in all those. He is best as critic, or
diagnoser. Not passion or imagination or warp or weakness, or any
pronounced cause or specialty, dominates him. Cold and bloodless
intellectuality dominates him. (I know the fires, emotions, love,
egotisms, glow deep, perennial, as in all New Englanders--but the
façade, hides them well--they give no sign.) He does not see or take one
side, one presentation only or mainly, (as all the poets, or most of the
fine writers anyhow)--he sees all sides. His final influence is to
make his students cease to worship anything--almost cease to believe in
anything, outside of themselves. These books will fill, and well fill,
certain stretches of life, certain stages of development--are, (like
the tenets or theology the author of them preach'd when a young man,)
unspeakably serviceable and precious as a stage. But in old or nervous
or solemnest or dying hours, when one needs the impalpably soothing and
vitalizing influences of abysmic Nature, or its affinities in literature
or human society, and the soul resents the keenest mere intellection,
they will not be sought for.
For a philosopher, Emerson possesses a singularly dandified theory of
manners. He seems to have no notion at all that manners are simply the
signs by which the chemist or metallurgist knows his metals. To the
profound scientist, all metals are profound, as they really are. The
little one, like the conventional world, will make much of gold and
silver only. Then to the real artist in humanity, what are called bad
manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all. Suppose
these books becoming absorb'd, the permanent chyle of American general
and particular character--what a well-wash'd and grammatical, but
bloodless and helpless, race we should turn out! No, no, dear friend;
though the States want scholars, undoubtedly, and perhaps want ladies
and gentlemen who use the bath frequently, and never laugh loud, or talk
wrong, they don't want scholars, or ladies and gentlemen, at the expense
of all the rest. They want good farmers, sailors, mechanics, clerks,
citizens--perfect business and social relations--perfect fathers and
mothers. If we could only have these, or their approximations, plenty
of them, fine and large and sane and generous and patriotic, they might
make their verbs disagree from their nominatives, and laugh like volleys
of musketeers, if they should please. Of course these are not all
America wants, but they are first of all to be provided on a large
scale. And, with tremendous errors and escapades, this, substantially,
is what the States seem to have an intuition of, and to be mainly aiming
at. The plan of a select class, superfined, (demarcated from the rest,)
the plan of Old World lands and literatures, is not so objectionable in
itself, but because it chokes the true plan for us, and indeed is death
to it. As to such special class, the United States can never produce any
equal to the splendid show, (far, far beyond comparison or competition
here,) of the principal European nations, both in the past and at the
present day. But an immense and distinctive commonalty over our vast and
varied area, west and east, south and north--in fact, for the first time
in history, a great, aggregated, real PEOPLE, worthy the name, and made
of develop'd heroic individuals, both sexes--is America's principal,
perhaps only, reason for being. If ever accomplish'd, it will be at
least as much, (I lately think, doubly as much,) the result of fitting
and democratic sociologies, literatures and arts--if we ever get
them--as of our democratic politics.
At times it has been doubtful to me if Emerson really knows or feels
what Poetry is at its highest, as in the Bible, for instance, or Homer
or Shakspere. I see he covertly or plainly likes best superb verbal
polish, or something old or odd--Waller's "Go, lovely rose," or
Lovelace's lines "to Lucusta"--the quaint conceits of the old French
bards, and the like. Of _power_ he seems to have a gentleman's
admiration--but in his inmost heart the grandest attribute of God and
Poets is always subordinate to the octaves, conceits, polite kinks, and
verbs.
The reminiscence that years ago I began like most youngsters to have
a touch (though it came late, and was only on the surface) of
Emerson-on-the-brain--that I read his writings reverently, and address'd
him in print as "Master," and for a month or so thought of him as
such--I retain not only with composure, but positive satisfaction. I
have noticed that most young people of eager minds pass through this
stage of exercise.
The best part of Emersonianism is, it breeds the giant that destroys
itself. Who wants to be any man's mere follower? lurks behind every
page. No teacher ever taught, that has so provided for his pupil's
setting up independently--no truer evolutionist.