1843-1848. AET. 40-45.
"The Young American."--Address on the Anniversary of the Emancipation
of the Negroes in the British West Indies.[1]--Publication of the Second
Series of Essays.--Contents: The Poet.--Experience.--Character.
--Manners.--Gifts.--Nature.--Politics.--Nominalist and Realist.--New
England Reformers.--Publication of Poems.--Second Visit to England.
[Footnote 1: These two addresses are to be found in the first and
eleventh volumes, respectively, of the last collective edition of
Emerson's works, namely, "Nature, Addresses, and Lectures," and
"Miscellanies."]
Emerson was American in aspect, temperament, way of thinking, and
feeling; American, with an atmosphere of Oriental idealism; American, so
far as he belonged to any limited part of the universe. He believed in
American institutions, he trusted the future of the American race. In
the address first mentioned in the contents, of this chapter, delivered
February 7, 1844, he claims for this country all that the most ardent
patriot could ask. Not a few of his fellow-countrymen will feel the
significance of the following contrast.
"The English have many virtues, many advantages, and the proudest
history in the world; but they need all and more than all the
resources of the past to indemnify a heroic gentleman in that
country for the mortifications prepared for him by the system of
society, and which seem to impose the alternative to resist or to
avoid it.... It is for Englishmen to consider, not for us; we only
say, Let us live in America, too thankful for our want of feudal
institutions.... If only the men are employed in conspiring with the
designs of the Spirit who led us hither, and is leading us still, we
shall quickly enough advance out of all hearing of others' censures,
out of all regrets of our own, into a new and more excellent social
state than history has recorded."
Thirty years have passed since the lecture from which these passages are
taken was delivered. The "Young American" of that day is the more than
middle-aged American of the present. The intellectual independence of
our country is far more solidly established than when this lecture was
written. But the social alliance between certain classes of Americans
and English is more and more closely cemented from year to year, as the
wealth of the new world burrows its way among the privileged classes
of the old world. It is a poor ambition for the possessor of suddenly
acquired wealth to have it appropriated as a feeder of the impaired
fortunes of a deteriorated household, with a family record of which
its representatives are unworthy. The plain and wholesome language of
Emerson is on the whole more needed now than it was when spoken. His
words have often been extolled for their stimulating quality; following
the same analogy, they are, as in this address, in a high degree tonic,
bracing, strengthening to the American, who requires to be reminded of
his privileges that he may know and find himself equal to his duties.
On the first day of August, 1844, Emerson delivered in Concord an
address on the Anniversary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in the
British West India Islands. This discourse would not have satisfied the
Abolitionists. It was too general in its propositions, full of humane
and generous sentiments, but not looking to their extreme and immediate
method of action.
* * * * *
Emerson's second series of Essays was published in 1844. There are
many sayings in the Essay called "The Poet," which are meant for the
initiated, rather than for him who runs, to read:--
"All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is
the principal event in chronology."
Does this sound wild and extravagant? What were the political ups and
downs of the Hebrews,--what were the squabbles of the tribes with each
other, or with their neighbors, compared to the birth of that poet to
whom we owe the Psalms,--the sweet singer whose voice is still the
dearest of all that ever sang to the heart of mankind?
The poet finds his materials everywhere, as Emerson tells him in this
eloquent apostrophe:--
"Thou true land-bird! sea-bird! air-bird! Wherever snow falls, or
water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight,
wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars,
wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets
into celestial space, wherever is danger and awe and love, there is
Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou should'st
walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition
inopportune or ignoble."
"Experience" is, as he says himself, but a fragment. It bears marks of
having been written in a less tranquil state of mind than the other
essays. His most important confession is this:--
"All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having. I
would gladly be moral and keep due metes and bounds, which I dearly
love, and allow the most to the will of man; but I have set my
heart on honesty in this chapter, and I can see nothing at last, in
success or failure, than more or less of vital force supplied from
the Eternal."
The Essay on "Character" requires no difficult study, but is well worth
the trouble of reading. A few sentences from it show the prevailing tone
and doctrine.
"Character is Nature in the highest form. It is of no use to ape it,
or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance and of
persistence and of creation to this power, which will foil all
emulation."
"There is a class of men, individuals of which appear at long
intervals, so eminently endowed with insight and virtue, that they
have been unanimously saluted as _divine_, and who seem to be an
accumulation of that power we consider.
"The history of those gods and saints which the world has written,
and then worshipped, are documents of character. The ages have
exulted in the manners of a youth who owed nothing to fortune, and
who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who, by the pure quality
of his nature, shed an epic splendor around the facts of his death
which has transfigured every particular into an universal symbol
for the eyes of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest
fact."
In his Essay on "Manners," Emerson gives us his ideas of a gentleman:--
"The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions and
expressing that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner
dependent and servile either on persons or opinions or possessions.
Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes
good-nature or benevolence: manhood first, and then
gentleness.--Power first, or no leading class.--God knows that
all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door: but whenever used in
strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be found to point
at original energy.--The famous gentlemen of Europe have been of
this strong type: Saladin, Sapor, the Cid, Julius Caesar, Scipio,
Alexander, Pericles, and the lordliest personages. They sat very
carelessly in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to
value any condition at a high rate.--I could better eat with one
who did not respect the truth or the laws than with a sloven and
unpresentable person.--The person who screams, or uses the
superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms
to flight.--I esteem it a chief felicity of this country that it
excels in woman."
So writes Emerson, and proceeds to speak of woman in language which
seems almost to pant for rhythm and rhyme.
This essay is plain enough for the least "transcendental" reader.
Franklin would have approved it, and was himself a happy illustration of
many of the qualities which go to the Emersonian ideal of good manners,
a typical American, equal to his position, always as much so in the
palaces and salons of Paris as in the Continental Congress, or the
society of Philadelphia.
"Gifts" is a dainty little Essay with some nice distinctions and some
hints which may help to give form to a generous impulse:--
"The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me.
Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the
farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the
painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing."
"Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because
they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the
utilities of the world.--Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they
are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being
attached to them."
"It is a great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning
from one who has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very
onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally
wishes to give you a slap."
Emerson hates the superlative, but he does unquestionably love the
tingling effect of a witty over-statement.
We have recognized most of the thoughts in the Essay entitled "Nature,"
in the previous Essay by the same name, and others which we have passed
in review. But there are poetical passages which will give new pleasure.
Here is a variation of the formula with which we are familiar:--
"Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought
again, as ice becomes water and gas. The world is mind precipitated,
and the volatile essence is forever escaping again into the state of
free thought."
And here is a quaint sentence with which we may take leave of this
Essay:--
"They say that by electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from
the seed, whilst your fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of
our modern aims and endeavors,--of our condensation and acceleration
of objects; but nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's
life is but seventy salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow."
This is pretty and pleasant, but as to the literal value of the
prediction, M. Jules Verne would be the best authority to consult. Poets
are fond of that branch of science which, if the imaginative Frenchman
gave it a name, he would probably call _Onditologie_.
It is not to be supposed that the most sanguine optimist could be
satisfied with the condition of the American political world at the
present time, or when the Essay on "Politics" was written, some years
before the great war which changed the aspects of the country in so many
respects, still leaving the same party names, and many of the characters
of the old parties unchanged. This is Emerson's view of them as they
then were:--
"Of the two great parties, which, at this hour, almost share
the nation between them, I should say that one has the best
cause, and the other contains the best men. The philosopher, the
poet, or the religious man, will, of course, wish to cast his vote
with the democrat, for free trade, for wide suffrage, for the
abolition of legal cruelties in the penal code, and for facilitating
in every manner the access of the young and the poor to the sources
of wealth and power. But he can rarely accept the persons whom the
so-called popular party propose to him as representatives of these
liberties. They have not at heart the ends which give to the name of
democracy what hope and virtue are in it. The spirit of our American
radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no
ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and
selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of
the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is
timid, and merely defensive of property. It indicates no right, it
aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous
policy, it does not build nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor
foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, nor
emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the
immigrant. From neither party, when in power, has the world any
benefit to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate
with the resources of the nation."
The metaphysician who looks for a closely reasoned argument on the
famous old question which so divided the schoolmen of old will find
a very moderate satisfaction in the Essay entitled "Nominalism and
Realism." But there are many discursive remarks in it worth gathering
and considering. We have the complaint of the Cambridge "Phi Beta
Kappa Oration," reiterated, that there is no complete man, but only a
collection of fragmentary men.
As a Platonist and a poet there could not be any doubt on which side
were all his prejudices; but he takes his ground cautiously.
"In the famous dispute with the Nominalists, the Realists had a good
deal of reason. General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they
round and ennoble the most practical and sordid way of living.
"Though the uninspired man certainly finds persons a conveniency in
household matters, the divine man does not respect them: he sees
them as a rack of clouds, or a fleet of ripples which the wind
drives over the surface of the water. But this is flat rebellion.
Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and
insults the philosopher in every moment with a million of fresh
particulars."
_New England Reformers_.--Would any one venture to guess how Emerson
would treat this subject? With his unsparing, though amiable radicalism,
his excellent common sense, his delicate appreciation of the ridiculous,
too deep for laughter, as Wordsworth's thoughts were too deep for tears,
in the midst of a band of enthusiasts and not very remote from a throng
of fanatics, what are we to look for from our philosopher who unites
many characteristics of Berkeley and of Franklin?
We must remember when this lecture was written, for it was delivered on
a Sunday in the year 1844. The Brook Farm experiment was an index of the
state of mind among one section of the Reformers of whom he was writing.
To remodel society and the world into a "happy family" was the aim
of these enthusiasts. Some attacked one part of the old system, some
another; some would build a new temple, some would rebuild the old
church, some would worship in the fields and woods, if at all; one was
for a phalanstery, where all should live in common, and another was
meditating the plan and place of the wigwam where he was to dwell apart
in the proud independence of the woodchuck and the musquash. Emerson had
the largest and kindliest sympathy with their ideals and aims, but he
was too clear-eyed not to see through the whims and extravagances of the
unpractical experimenters who would construct a working world with the
lay figures they had put together, instead of flesh and blood men and
women and children with all their congenital and acquired perversities.
He describes these Reformers in his own good-naturedly half-satirical
way:--
"They defied each other like a congress of kings; each of whom had a
realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert unprofitable.
What a fertility of projects for the salvation of the world! One
apostle thought all men should go to farming; and another that no
man should buy or sell; that the use of money was the cardinal evil;
another that the mischief was in our diet, that we eat and drink
damnation. These made unleavened bread, and were foes to the death
to fermentation. It was in vain urged by the housewife that God made
yeast as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he
does vegetation; that fermentation develops the saccharine element
in the grain, and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No,
they wish the pure wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment.
Stop, dear nature, these innocent advances of thine; let us
scotch these ever-rolling wheels! Others attacked the system of
agriculture, the use of animal manures in farming; and the tyranny
of man over brute nature; these abuses polluted his food. The ox
must be taken from the plough, and the horse from the cart, the
hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, and the man must walk
wherever boats and locomotives will not carry him. Even the insect
world was to be defended,--that had been too long neglected, and a
society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and mosquitoes
was to be incorporated without delay. With these appeared the adepts
of homoeopathy, of hydropathy, of mesmerism, of phrenology, and
their wonderful theories of the Christian miracles!"
We have already seen the issue of the famous Brook Farm experiment,
which was a practical outcome of the reforming agitation.
Emerson has had the name of being a leader in many movements in which he
had very limited confidence, this among others to which the idealizing
impulse derived from him lent its force, but for the organization of
which he was in no sense responsible.
He says in the lecture we are considering:--
"These new associations are composed of men and women of superior
talents and sentiments; yet it may easily be questioned whether such
a community will draw, except in its beginnings, the able and the
good; whether these who have energy will not prefer their choice of
superiority and power in the world to the humble certainties of the
association; whether such a retreat does not promise to become an
asylum to those who have tried and failed rather than a field to the
strong; and whether the members will not necessarily be fractions of
men, because each finds that he cannot enter into it without some
compromise."
His sympathies were not allowed to mislead him; he knew human nature too
well to believe in a Noah's ark full of idealists.
All this time he was lecturing for his support, giving courses of
lectures in Boston and other cities, and before the country lyceums in
and out of New England.
His letters to Carlyle show how painstaking, how methodical, how
punctual he was in the business which interested his distant friend. He
was not fond of figures, and it must have cost him a great effort to
play the part of an accountant.
He speaks also of receiving a good deal of company in the summer, and
that some of this company exacted much time and attention,--more than he
could spare,--is made evident by his gentle complaints, especially in
his poems, which sometimes let out a truth he would hardly have uttered
in prose.
In 1846 Emerson's first volume of poems was published. Many of the poems
had been long before the public--some of the best, as we have seen,
having been printed in "The Dial." It is only their being brought
together for the first time which belongs especially to this period,
and we can leave them for the present, to be looked over by and by in
connection with a second volume of poems published in 1867, under the
title, "May-Day and other Pieces."
In October, 1847, he left Concord on a second visit to England, which
will be spoken of in the following chapter.