Emerson has lately completed a course of readings on English Poetry
to an appreciative company in Boston. It is a variation of his method
of communicating with his companies, and not less becoming than even
his usual form of lecture. It matters not in his case; for such is the
charm of his manner, that wherever he appears, the cultured class will
delight in his utterances; and one may quote Socrates in Phædrus, where
Plato makes him say, "For as men lead hungry creatures by holding out a
green bough, or an apple, so you, Phædrus, it would seem, might lead me
about all Attica, and, indeed, wherever else you please, by extending
to me discourses out of your books." Not less aptly Goethe describes
him, in his letters to Schiller, where he calls the rhapsodist, "A
wise man, who, in calm thoughtfulness, shows what has happened; his
discourse aiming less to excite than to calm his auditors, in order
that they shall listen to him with contentment and long. He apportions
the interest equally, because it is not in his power to balance a too
lively impression. He grasps backwards and forwards at pleasure. He
is followed, because he has only to do with the imagination, which
of itself produces images, and which, up to a certain degree, is
indifferent what kind he calls up. He does not appear to his auditors,
but recites, as it were, behind a curtain; so there is a total
abstraction from himself, and it seems to them as though they heard
only the voice of the Muses."
See our Ion standing there, his audience, his manuscript before him,
himself also an auditor, as he reads, of the Genius sitting behind him,
and to whom he defers, eagerly catching the words,--the words,--as if
the accents were first reaching his ears too, and entrancing alike
oracle and auditor. We admire the stately sense, the splendor of
diction, and are charmed as we listen. Even his hesitancy between
the delivery of his periods, his perilous passages from paragraph to
paragraph of manuscript, we have almost learned to like, as if he were
but sorting his keys meanwhile for opening his cabinets; the spring of
locks following, himself seeming as eager as any of us to get sight
of his specimens as they come forth from their proper drawers, and we
wait willingly till his gem is out glittering; admire the setting, too,
scarcely less than the jewel itself. The magic minstrel and speaker,
whose rhetoric, voiced as by organ-stops, delivers the sentiment from
his breast in cadences peculiar to himself; now hurling it forth on the
ear, echoing; then, as his mood and matter invite, dying away, like
"Music of mild lutes,
Or silver-coated flutes,
Or the concealing winds that can convey
Never their tone to the rude ear of day."
He works his miracles with it, as Hermes did, his voice conducting
the sense alike to eye and ear by its lyrical movement and refraining
melody. So his compositions affect us, not as logic linked in
syllogisms, but as voluntaries rather, as preludes, in which one is not
tied to any design of air, but may vary his key or note at pleasure, as
if improvised without any particular scope of argument; each period,
paragraph, being a perfect note in itself, however it may chance chime
with its accompaniments in the piece, as a waltz of wandering stars,
a dance of Hesperus with Orion. His rhetoric dazzles by its circuits,
contrasts, antitheses; imagination, as in all sprightly minds, being
his wand of Power. He comes along his own paths, too, and in his own
fashion. What though he build his piers downwards from the firmament
to the tumbling tides, and so throw his radiant span across the
fissures of his argument, and himself pass over the frolic arches,
Ariel-wise,--is the skill less admirable, the masonry the less secure
for its singularity? So his books are best read as irregular writings,
in which the sentiment is, by his enthusiasm, transfused throughout the
piece, telling on the mind in cadences of a current undersong, giving
the impression of a connected whole,--which it seldom is,--such is the
rhapsodist's cunning in its structure and delivery.
The highest compliment we can pay the scholar is that of having
edified and instructed us, we know not how, unless by the pleasure
his words have given us. Conceive how much the lyceum owes to his
presence and teachings; how great the debt of many to him for their
hour's entertainment. His, if any one's, let the institution pass
into history, since his art, more than another's, has clothed it with
beauty, and made it the place of popular resort, our purest organ of
intellectual entertainment for New England and the Western cities.
And besides this, its immediate value to his auditors everywhere, it
has been serviceable in ways they least suspect; most of his works,
having had their first readings on its platform, were here fashioned
and polished, in good part, like Plutarch's morals, to become the more
acceptable to readers of his published books. Does it matter what topic
he touches? He adorns all with a severe sententious beauty, a freshness
and sanction next to that of godliness, if not that in spirit and
effect.
"The princely mind, that can
Teach man to keep a God in man;
And when wise poets would search out to see
Good men, behold them all in thee."
'Tis over thirty years since his first book was printed. Then followed
volumes of essays, poems, orations, addresses; and during all the
intervening period, down to the present, he has read briefs of his
lectures through a wide range, from Canada to the Capitol; in most
of the Free States; in the large cities, East and West, before large
audiences; in the smallest towns, and to the humblest companies. Such
has been his appeal to the mind of his countrymen, such his acceptance
by them. He has read lectures in the principal cities of England
also. A poet, speaking to individuals as few others can speak, and to
persons in their privileged moments, he is heard as none others are.
The more personal he is, the more prevailing, if not the more popular.
'Tis everything to have a true believer in the world, dealing with men
and matters as if they were divine in idea and real in fact; meeting
persons and events at a glance directly, not at a millionth remove, and
so passing fair and fresh into life and literature.
Consider how largely our letters have been enriched by his
contributions. Consider, too, the change his views have wrought in our
methods of thinking; how he has won over the bigot, the unbeliever,
at least to tolerance and moderation, if not acknowledgment, by his
circumspection and candor of statement.
"His shining armor,
A perfect charmer;
Even the hornets of divinity
Allow him a brief space,
And his thought has a place
Upon the well-bound library's chaste shelves,
Where man of various wisdom rarely delves."
Poet and moralist, he has beauty and truth for all men's edification
and delight. His works are studies. And any youth of free senses and
fresh affections shall be spared years of tedious toil, in which
wisdom and fair learning are, for the most part, held at arm's-length,
planets' width, from his grasp, by graduating from this college. His
books are surcharged with vigorous thoughts, a sprightly wit. They
abound in strong sense, happy humor, keen criticisms, subtile insights,
noble morals, clothed in a chaste and manly diction, fresh with the
breath of health and progress.
We characterize and class him with the moralists who surprise us
with an accidental wisdom, strokes of wit, felicities of phrase,--as
Plutarch, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Saadi, Montaigne, Bacon,
Selden, Sir Thomas Browne, Cowley, Coleridge, Goethe,--with whose
delightful essays, notwithstanding all the pleasure they give us, we
still plead our disappointment at not having been admitted to the
closer intimacy which these loyal leaves had with their owners' mind
before torn from his note-books, jealous, even, at not having been
taken into his confidence in the editing itself.
We read, never as if he were the dogmatist, but a fair-speaking
mind, frankly declaring his convictions, and committing these to our
consideration, hoping we may have thought like things ourselves;
oftenest, indeed, taking this for granted as he wrote. There is nothing
of the spirit of proselyting, but the delightful deference ever to
our free sense and right of opinion. He might take for his motto
the sentiment of Henry More, where, speaking of himself, he says:
"Exquisite disquisition begets diffidence; diffidence in knowledge,
humility; humility, good manners and meek conversation. For my part,
I desire no man to take anything I write or speak upon trust without
canvassing, and would be thought rather to propound than to assert
what I have here or elsewhere written or spoken. But continually to
have expressed my diffidence in the very tractates and colloquies
themselves, had been languid and ridiculous."
Then he has chosen proper times and manners for saying his good things;
has spoken to almost every great interest as it rose. Nor has he let
the good opportunities pass unheeded, or failed to make them for
himself. He has taken discretion along as his constant attendant and
ally; has shown how the gentlest temper ever deals the surest blows.
His method is that of the sun against his rival for the cloak, and so
is free from any madness of those, who, forgetting the strength of the
solar ray, go blustering against men's prejudices, as if the wearers
would run at once against these winds of opposition into their arms for
shelter. What higher praise can we bestow on any one than to say of
him, that he harbors another's prejudices with a hospitality so cordial
as to give him for the time the sympathy next best to, if, indeed, it
be not edification in, charity itself? For what disturbs more, and
distracts mankind, than the uncivil manners that cleave man from man?
Yet, for whose amendment letters, love, Christianity, were all given!
* * * * *
There is a virtuous curiosity felt by readers of remarkable books to
learn something more of their author's literary tastes, habits, and
dispositions, than these ordinarily furnish. Yet to gratify this is a
task as difficult as delicate, requiring a diffidency akin to that with
which one would accost the author himself, and without which graceful
armor it were impertinent for a friend even to undertake it. We may
venture but a stroke or two here.
All men love the country who love mankind with a wholesome love,
and have poetry and company in them. Our essayist makes good this
preference. If city bred, he has been for the best part of his life
a villager and countryman. Only a traveller at times professionally,
he prefers home-keeping; is a student of the landscape, of mankind,
of rugged strength wherever found; liking plain persons, plain ways,
plain clothes; prefers earnest people; shuns egotists, publicity; likes
solitude, and knows its uses. Courting society as a spectacle not less
than a pleasure, he carries off the spoils. Delighting in the broadest
views of men and things, he seeks all accessible displays of both for
draping his thoughts and works. And how is his page produced? Is it
imaginable that he conceives his piece as a whole, and then sits down
to execute his task at a heat? Is not this imaginable rather, and the
key to the construction of his works? Living for composition as few
authors can, and holding company, studies, sleep, exercise, affairs,
subservient to thought, his products are gathered as they ripen,
stored in his commonplaces; their contents transcribed at intervals,
and classified. It is the order of ideas, of imagination observed
in the arrangement, not of logical sequence. You may begin at the
last paragraph and read backwards. 'Tis Iris-built. Each period is
self-poised; there may be a chasm of years between the opening passage
and the last written, and there is endless time in the composition.
Jewels all! Separate stars. You may have them in a galaxy, if you like,
or view them separate and apart. But every one finds that, if he take
an essay, or verses, however the writer may have pleased himself with
the cunning workmanship, 'tis cloud-fashioned, and a blind pathway for
any one else. Cross as you can, or not cross, it matters not, you may
climb or leap, move in circles, turn somersaults;
"In sympathetic sorrow sweep the ground,"
like his swallow in Hermione. Dissolving views, prospects, vistas
opening wide and far, yet earth, sky,--realities all, not illusions.
Here is substance, sod, sun; much fair weather in the seer as in
his leaves. The whole quaternion of the seasons, the sidereal year,
has been poured into these periods. Afternoon walks furnished their
perspectives, rounded and melodized them. These good things have been
talked and slept over, meditated standing and sitting, read and
polished in the utterance, submitted to all various tests, and, so
accepted, they pass into print. Light fancies, dreams, moods, refrains,
were set on foot, and sent jaunting about the fields, along wood-paths,
by Walden shores, by hill and brook-sides, to come home and claim their
rank and honors too in his pages. Composed of surrounding matters,
populous with thoughts, brisk with images, these books are wholesome,
homelike, and could have been written only in New England, and by our
poet.
"Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And through my rock-like, solitary wont
Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.
For me, in showers, in sweeping showers, the spring
Visits the valley;--break away the clouds,--
I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air,
And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.
Sparrows far off, and nearer, April's bird,
Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree,
Courageous, sing a delicate overture
To lead the tardy concert of the year.
Onward and nearer rides the sun of May;
And wide around, the marriage of the plants
Is sweetly solemnized. Then flows amain
The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag,
Hollow and lake, hill-side, and pine arcade,
Are touched with Genius. Yonder ragged cliff
Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.
... The gentle deities
Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds,
The innumerable tenements of beauty,
The miracle of generative force,
Far-reaching concords of astronomy
Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;
Better, the linked purpose of the whole,
And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty
In the glad home plain-dealing nature gave.
The polite found me impolite; the great
Would mortify me, but in vain; for still
I am a willow of the wilderness,
Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts
My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk,
A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush,
A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds.
For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear:
'Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie?
Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass
Into the winter night's extinguished mood?
Canst thou shine now, then darkle,
And being latent feel thyself no less?
As, when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye,
The river, hill, stems, foliage, are obscure,
Yet envies none, none are unenviable.'"
I know of but one subtraction from the pleasure the reading of his
books--shall I say his conversation?--gives me,--his pains to be
impersonal or discrete, as if he feared any the least intrusion of
himself were an offence offered to self-respect, the courtesy due to
intercourse and authorship; thus depriving his page, his company, of
attractions the great masters of both knew how to insinuate into their
text and talk without overstepping the bounds of social or literary
decorum. What is more delightful than personal magnetism? 'Tis the
charm of good fellowship as of good writing. To get and to give the
largest measure of satisfaction, to fill ourselves with the nectar
of select experiences, not without some intertinctures of egotism so
charming in a companion, is what we seek in books of the class of his,
as in their authors. We associate diffidence properly with learning,
frankness with fellowship, and owe a certain blushing reverence to
both. For though our companion be a bashful man,--and he is the worse
if wanting this grace,--we yet wish him to be an enthusiast behind all
reserves, and capable of abandonment sometimes in his books. I know
how rare this genial humor is, this frankness of the blood, and how
surpassing are the gifts of good spirits, especially here in cold New
England, where, for the most part,
"Our virtues grow
Beneath our humors, and at seasons show."
And yet, under our east winds of reserve, there hides an obscure
courtesy in the best natures, which neither temperament nor breeding
can spoil. Sometimes manners the most distant are friendly foils for
holding eager dispositions subject to the measures of right behavior.
'Tis not every New-Englander that dares venture upon the frankness, the
plain speaking, commended by the Greek poet.
"Caress me not with words, while far away
Thy heart is absent, and thy feelings stray;
But if thou love me with a faithful breast,
Be that pure love with zeal sincere exprest;
And if thou hate, the bold aversion show
With open face avowed, and known my foe."
Fortunate the visitor who is admitted of a morning for the high
discourse, or permitted to join the poet in his afternoon walks to
Walden, the cliffs, or elsewhere,--hours likely to be remembered as
unlike any others in his calendar of experiences. I may say for me
they have made ideas possible by hospitalities given to a fellowship
so enjoyable. Shall I describe them as sallies oftenest into the
cloud-lands, into scenes and intimacies ever new, none the less novel
or remote than when first experienced, colloquies, in favored moments,
on themes, perchance,
"Of Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;"
nor yet
"In wand'ring mazes lost,"
as in Milton's page;
But pathways plain through starry alcoves high,
Or thence descending to the level plains.
Interviews, however, bringing their trail of perplexing thoughts,
costing some days' duties, several nights' sleep oftentimes to restore
one to his place and poise for customary employment; half a dozen
annually being full as many as the stoutest heads may well undertake
without detriment. Certainly safer not to venture without the sure
credentials, unless one will have his pretensions pricked, his conceits
reduced to their vague dimensions.
"Fools have no means to meet
But by their feet."
But to the modest, the ingenuous, the gifted, welcome! Nor can any
bearing be more poetic and polite than his to all such, to youth and
accomplished women especially. I may not intrude further than to
say, that, beyond any I have known, his is a faith approaching to
superstition concerning admirable persons, the divinity of friendship
come down from childhood, and surviving yet in memory if not in
expectation, the rumor of excellence of any sort being like the arrival
of a new gift to mankind, and he the first to proffer his recognition
and hope. His affection for conversation, for clubs, is a lively
intimation of this religion of fellowship. He, shall we say, if any,
must have taken the census of the admirable people of his time, perhaps
numbering as many among his friends as most living Americans, while
he is recognized as the representative mind of his country, to whom
distinguished foreigners are especially commended on visiting us.
Of Emerson's books I am not here designing to speak critically, rather
of his genius and personal influence; yet, in passing, may remark that
his "English Traits" deserves to be honored as one in which England,
Old and New, may alike take national pride as being the liveliest
portraiture of British genius and accomplishments there is,--a book,
like Tacitus, to be quoted as a masterpiece of historical painting, and
perpetuating the New-Englander's fame with that of his race. 'Tis a
victory of eyes over hands, a triumph of ideas. Nor has there been for
some time any criticism of a people so characteristic and complete. It
remains for him to do like justice to New England. Not a metaphysician,
and rightly discarding any claims to systematic thinking; the poet in
spirit, if not always in form; the consistent idealist, yet the realist
none the less,--he has illustrated the learning and thought of former
times on the noblest themes, coming nearest of any to emancipating the
mind of his own from the errors and dreams of past ages.
* * * * *
Plutarch tells us that of old they were wont to call men [Greek:
phôta], which imports light, not only for the vehement desire man has
to know, but to communicate also. And the Platonists fancied that the
gods, being above men, had something whereof man did not partake,
pure intellect and knowledge, and they kept on their way quietly. The
beasts, being below men, had something whereof man had less, sense and
growth, so they lived quietly in their way. While man had something
in him whereof neither gods nor beasts had any trace, which gave him
all the trouble, and made all the confusion in the world,--and that was
egotism and opinion.
A finer discrimination of gifts might show that Genius ranges through
this threefold dominion, partaking in turn of their essence and degrees.
Was our poet planted so fast in intellect, so firmly rooted in the
mind, so dazzled with light, yet so cleft withal by duplicity of gifts,
that fated thus to traverse the mid-world of contrast and contrariety,
he was ever glancing forth from his coverts at life as reflected
through his dividing prism, the resident never long of the tracts he
surveyed, yet their persistent Muse nevertheless? And so housed in the
Mind, and sallying forth from thence in quest of his game, whether of
persons or things, he was the Mercury, the merchantman of ideas to his
century. Nor was he personally alone in his thinking. Beside him stood
his townsman, whose sylvan intelligence, fast rooted in Nature, was yet
armed with a sagacity, a subtlety and strength, that penetrated while
divining the essences of creatures and things he studied, and of which
he seemed Atlas and Head.
Forcible protestants against the materialism of their own, as of
preceding times, these masterly Idealists substantiate beyond all
question their right to the empires they sway,--the rich estates of an
original Genius.