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him it suffices that we feel the sublime emotion-WE OUGHT,—that, beyond all the mazes of doubtful disputation, the broad paths of virtue lie open, like a way of light, to the earnest seeker; and that he who pursues the True and the Good, has the aid of all nature to further his endeavours, and make his success enduring as her laws. To him the apparent success of the cheat and the swindler is illusion and appearance only. "In labor, as in life, there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself; the swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like paper-money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent-namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen." Unlike human laws, which are uncertain in overtaking the offender, ill-proportioned to the offence, and revengeful in their character, those which the All Father has given to nature, with a grand and unerring certainty, dispense impartial reward and punishment in every case. In his essay on 66 Compensation," he enlarges admirably

upon this point.

As Nature is his monitor and instructor, so also she appears to him the ever Beautiful and Sacred; soothing, consoling, and strengthening; the bringer of new faith, and hope, and light. For her simplest forms and humblest lessons, he has a fine observing eye, an open receptive soul. With him it is no holiday belief, but a deep religious conviction, that

"Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege
Through all the years of this, our life, to lead
From joy to joy."

Amid the woods and fields, under the clear sky, and with the fresh morning airs breathing life into him anew, the simple consciousness of existence carries with it an enjoyment so exalted and refined, that he hastens to give utterance to his emotions in language whose eloquence conveys them with unimpaired force and freshness to the reader.

A subject that frequently engages the attention of Emerson, is the position of the man of letters. Amid much admirable matter on this topic, there is one point that seems to him of much importance, and to which we have hitherto given little heed-namely, the advantage to the scholar of some degree of physical labor. He conceives truly, that there is an education of the hands, an experience of a high and valuable order, which the closet alone can never supply. In his oration on Man Thinking, he also draws an able and just distinction between the mere student, and MAN in the study: as between the mere farmer, whose thoughts are bounded by his acres, and man on the farm; man not dwarfed, or shorn, of the fair complement of his manhood, and reduced

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to a mere vegetable and plodding existence; but, reaping, not only his corn, but the moral education, which it should also bring. Among the multitude of scholars and authors," he observes, "we feel no hallowing presence; we are sensible of a knack and skill, rather than of inspiration. The talent is some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown member, so that their strength is a disease." Emerson is himself a scholar of no mean order. He possesses a wide acquaintance with classic lore, and evinces a familiarity with writers, hardly known by name to the general reader. He is also deeply read in our modern literature, more especially in the philosophers of Germany, and our own elder Dramatists; and even culls an occasional extract from the Orientals. Most catholic and hearty is his appreciation of that august brotherhood, who reveal to us the spirit of the past, and, from its grey twilight sky, shine down on us with so serene a lustre. We find him extending the hand of fellowship to the cold majestic Zeno and -Zoroaster the mystic devotee; to Confucius and-Thomas Carlyle; to the great doubting Goëthe and-the humble believing George Herbert. Alike, from ancient Mythology and modern Belief, from science and poetry, he draws materials to illustrate and embellish, to give force and precision, to his thought. Schiller, in his poems, has done much to de. velope again the spirit and grace of ancient fable, and give it a new interpretation and applicability. But we think, in this respect, Emerson surpasses him; less, indeed, by the formal and lengthened exposition of a few allegories, than by the apt and frequent use of many.

With a becoming reverence for the rich stores of knowledge, bequeathed to us by the past, he has no unwise tenderness for its errors. Nothing is too venerable, but it must render itself for judgment to the mind of the inquirer. The hoar of antiquity cannot in any degree make it credible; and consenting tradition confers no infallibility, no authority, that shall render further and fearless investigation unnecessary. His theory of books is noble. While with Channing, he too can "Bless God for books!" he perhaps more clearly estimates their exact value. "They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than be warped by it clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world of value, is the active soul-the soul free, sovereign active." This high estimate, however, of the all-absorbing importance of individual culture and elevation, occasionally runs to an exaggeration, that seems to despise all collective efforts, of whatever kind, to remove the wrongs of ages, and build up a goodlier social fabric. It is an error not unfrequent with great but solitary thinkers, to estimate either at too high, or too low a rate, the power of combined efforts, and amended institutions and circumstances, to effect a wide and lasting benefit. With Emerson, too,

there is another reason of some weight. "The Reformers affirm the inward life, but they do not trust it, but use outward and vulgar means." It has been remarked of Goëthe, that his mind was too large and liberal, to accept the shackles of party, on any of the great questions of human interest. The reader who would determine whether or no Emerson believes thus and thus, in relation to the prevailing divisions of opinion, will find himself in a similar difficulty to the Germans with Goëthe; and will possibly end his inquiry by terming Emerson, also, the "all-sided." Truth is to him, not the monopoly of one class, or of many. It is present in all systems and dogmas, in greater or lesser proportion: complete in none. But this view neither leads him to the indifference of the sceptic, nor the eclecticism of the modern French school, which, by carefully placing all systems in an alembic, can so easily distil the true philosophy. We find him in one lecture, admirably expounding the argument for Conservatism; in another, asserting the imprescriptible rights of the individual, against the oppression of a class, and rejoicing in the decay of kingly and aristocratic power: at one time he lingers with awe amid the fanes of an earlier religion, and would hear the oracle; and anon he expands and warms in the benign influences of Christian philanthropy, and finds in its humility, in its estimate of the great worth of the human soul, in the filial and affectionate nature of its piety, and in its exaltation of inward purity above mere externals, a faith "worthy of all acceptation." Now he loves to dwell on the dim pages of the past, and then begins to prophesy of a new literature, that, Titan-like, will yet arise, to hallow with its genius that mighty continent, where the enterprise of the Anglo-American has already conceived, and carried out, designs of commensurate vastness, for his commerce and physical well-being, but where he has yet to create for himself, in worthy spirit and form, a philosophy and history, that shall animate him to a noble and true life; and has yet to sing his poetry in no weak and imitative strain.

And to that new literature Emerson himself brings the noblest, the most original, and profound contribution, that has yet proceeded from an American pen. He has a sturdy independence, both of thought and style, that gains, in freshness and vigour, what it wants in conformity to European standards, and a smooth mediocrity. He finds a music in the ring of the woodman's axe in the primeval forest, and a rude virtue and promise in the Backwood settler; and a charm in a republican simplicity and earnestness of life, speech, and behaviour, which he would not exchange for the luxury and hollow courtesy of the city drawing-room. He would not underrate civilization, but exalt the man, and assert the sacredness and supreme value of the present hour and place, to a great soul. Others may long to see Rome, Paris, and the

Alps for him Concord, Boston, and the Alleghanies, suffice; for these, too, have been hallowed by the presence of noble men, and their teachings are of as high a strain.

Such sentiments, proceeding from a man of genius, cannot fail to impart additional strength and dignity to a yet infant literature.

Emerson, it has been remarked, much resembles Thomas Carlyle, but mostly with a difference. Carlyle excels in his biographies, and depicts action and costume with great power and effect. Emerson loses sight of the individual and external, in speculating on the spiritual and universal. Carlyle is unequal; now tame and obscure, and again bursting forth into a vehement eloquence and grandeur. Emerson, amid seeming diversities, has unity, symmetry, and repose. Both preach the same gospel-Know thy work, and do it. Both see the hollowness and degradation of much that surrounds us. But to the soul, sinking in the struggle, or that, weary at work, would seek some ray of light to cheer it on, some glimpse of those fair and noble issues to which man advances, and which its humble efforts contribute to upbuild, to such an one the Future of Carlyle presents only "shadows, doubts, and darkness;" but Emerson ever joys in the faith, that "one day all men will be lovers, and every calamity will be dissolved in the universal sunshine."

Much of the charm of Emerson's writings lies in the exceedingly picturesque, and often beautiful language, in which he clothes his ideas. Many passages might be quoted, in which he rises into the region of poetry. His style abounds in illustration and imagery. Though he does not cast about to express his convictions in polished phrase that shall win the general ear, but in words, forcible and strong as the thought he would utter, yet there is not unfrequently a certain measured and stately music in the structure of his sentences. In many places he combines, in a high degree, a poetical warmth and cultivated fancy, as when in describing a sunrise he concludes thus: "How does nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sunset and moonrise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of Faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams !"

We cannot disguise the fact, that on a first perusal, Emerson offers many difficulties. His writings must not be lightly read, but severely Sometimes we fail to seize his meaning, from

and attentively studied. a looseness of language; sometimes, from his omitting a link in the idea, in his haste to give it utterance, in the completed form; and often, because he is within the threshold of some of those higher speculations,

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to which we recur again and again, but to feel, as we retire baffled from the inquiry, that in the human soul there are more mysteries than can be fathomed by its philosophy. Sometimes his language will appear exaggerated. As he himself observes, it is difficult to state any one truth strongly, without seeming to belie some other truth.

But despite these drawbacks, he who approaches the study of the writings of Emerson, in that spirit of patient and reverent investigation which the utterances of one sincere and thoughtful mind demands of another, will be well rewarded. Difficulties will disappear; and if a dimness seems to rest on the outlines of that calm colossal soul, we still discern enough to estimate aright its broad and noble proportions. And when we are compelled to dissent from his views, as dissent we sometimes must, we shall do it with respect for the convictions of another, so temperately stated.

In conclusion, we would repeat it, the writings of Emerson have a tendency most elevating, spiritual, and catholic. They are pervaded by a deep piety-by a love of all genial and healthy feelings-of all brave souls and heroic deeds of all free and earnest thought and endeavour— of every movement that can aid the cause of human progress, which ever lies nearest his heart. And if we would in one sentence express what seems to us the chief excellence of Emerson, it would be, by quoting, as referable to his writings in a peculiar degree, these words, in which he so beautifully speaks of the "souls who made our souls wiser." "We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had in the dreary days of routine and of sin, with those souls who made our souls wiser; that spoke what we thought; that told us what we knew; that gave us leave to be what we inly were. Discharge to men the priestly office, and, present or absent, you shall be followed by their love as by an angel."

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