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and school-master, starts a new doctrine of Transcendentalism, declares all the old revelations superannuated and worn out, I and announces the approach of new revelations and prophecies. Garrison and the Non-resistant Abolitionists, Brownson and the Marat Democrats, phrenology and animal magnetism—all come in, furnishing each some plausible rascality as an ingredient for the bubbling caldron of religion and politics."

Of course it would be difficult to find a passage in all the writings of New England that contained more moral blindness, conceit and actual falsehood. But in reality this expresses the genius of the entire Adams brood or broods, from the famous "Sam" through different lines to this particular J. Q. A and. perhaps, to his children. But it also expresses the real and prevailing genius of New England as related to moral and spiritual truth from the hour the early Puritans sent Ann Hutchinson to her exile and death till the hour that Mr. Cabot, in these volumes, flung his poor condemnations at the supposed pessimism of Carlyle.

It states the real attitude of New England toward the real soul and meaning of Emerson to this hour; and in it there is a strange mixture of "Christian" hardness, insight and utter falsehood.

Mr. Adams thought the kingdom had almost come in Boston in 1840, but lie saw clearly that Abolitionism—now seen to have been the only word of Christ to that generation—was simply a "rascality."

John Q. Adams was as clear-headed as Judas, before he hanged himself, and his grandsons are very characteristic chips of the old Plymouth rock, yet, perliaps, in these very hours officers in some of New England's newest "Emerson Joints" and idolatrous Emerson societies, proving that your Puritan, well sifted, is a many-sided, questionable kind of man.

He never could bear the truth or endure any man who ever saw and uttered it.

Emerson was a vast improvement on the ancient or modern Puritan, but he, too, wanted very much be let alone; to say or sing as his mood pleased, and he took very charingly and only in a dim poetic way to Jesus, to Paul not at all and to Abolitionism or any acute moral energy only at a distance, smilingly and admiringly, if only it would not bother anybody or run counter to Judge Hoar.

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Mr. Adams was an excellent gentleman, fairly versed in -American politics, but he knew no more about religion than an old hen knows about swimming, and he only blundered, just where we all blunder, in talking loudest about the subjects we least understand. Mr. Emerson had not failed either as a teacher or a preacher; representative Abolitionists were never rascals; Non-resistant Quakers were always better Christians than the best New England Puritans; and J. Q. Adams was simply a mistaken, presumptuous old Pharisee. I ask his descendants' pardon.

I am not forgetting my text, and must now take Mr. Cabot's "further illustrations," in their order, and follow our hero from his early "scarcity of meal" to his final crowns of love and flowers.

It is generally understood that the Rev. William Emerson, minister of the First Church in Boston at the dawn of this century, and father of our Waldo, was the fourth or fifth or sixth generation of Emerson Puritan orthodox and heterodox preachers; hence, by law of nature and providence, that New England was more or less a debtor to this excellent family; and it is with a touch of bitterness that one reads in these volumes that after the Rev. William Emerson's death, his widow and children were often in need of and the recipients of friendly charity.

Had the Emersons been priests in the Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. William and the Rev. Waldo would have had a more thorough theological training than fell to their lot, and by other methods than universal suffrage must have been among the honored popes and cardinals of the future. Verily Protestantism is beautiful in some things, and in others it is very despicable.

I do not forget that Emerson said long afterward:

"I like a priest, I like a cowl,
I love a prophet of the soul,
« * * * *

But not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled bishop be."

But if he had enjoyed a more thorough theological training he might have sung in a higher key. And I do not easily forgive New England for the Emersonian "scarcity of meal."

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Mr. Cabot takes considerable pains to definitize the locality in Boston where Ralph Waldo Emerson was born, "May 25th. 1803," Sunday, and there is a quaint Emersonian humor in the Rev. William's entry in his diary for that day:

"Mr. Puffer preached his Election Sermon to great acceptance. This day, also, whilst I was at dinner at Governor Strong's, my son, Ralph Waldo, was born" (the father not at home at the time, it would seem, and no need of his being there). "Mrs. E. well. Club at Mr. Adams'." If Mr. Adams and Mr. William Emerson had been more religious, Waldo might have turned out better. Mr. Adams was partly to blame. There was no especial demonstration made over the appearance of the new Puritan star; no reports of angelic hosts at the club or elsewhere in Boston. The angels, in fact, had long since ceased to bother New England. The era of angels was going out, and the age of "clubs," at Mr. Adams' and elsewhere, \ras rapidly coming in. But the young Waldo had arrived, and, no doubt, then, as since, "his angels" were aware of the fact, and had the youngster in charge.

The Rev. William Emerson and his wife, like most genteel people, were disinclined to demonstrations of affection win their children; they gave them plenty of Scripture and Latin grammar, but not too many kisses. They were serious, still a deeply-humorous people for generations. And if parts, Poverty and Providence make the man, as philosophers will have it, our young Waldo came into the world well endowed. The Emersons were among the best representatives of the early Puritan aristocracy or spiritual talent and ecclesiastical position as opposed to our modern and contemptible aristocracy of money.

"They all believed in poverty, and would have nothing to do with Uncle John, of Topsfield, who had a grant of land and was rich."

Very likely, Uncle John, on his part, might have had a disinclination toward his poor and proud relations. It would have been most natural, and that phase of the theme is worth elucidating, but not here.

The references to Waldo's boyhood, found in Mr. Cabot's volumes, are contradictory, hence unsatisfactory, and there is no attempt at reconciliation. They are delightfully interesting-, but need the touch of a student's hand.

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Somewhere in his journals he" (Mr. Emerson) "speaks of a tlItle when Vie was a 'chubby boy' trundling a hoop in Chauncey Place, and spouting poetry from Scott and Campbell at the Latin School." But, plainly, Mr. Cabot does not like the chubby;" it does not suit his ideal of the young Waldo, and he is quick to add, "But I find no other evidence of play or chubbiness." Give me a year over Emerson's papers and I will find whole pages of evidence, all nodding and smiling in this direction.

The Rev. Dr. William H. Furness, of Philadelphia, a schoolmate of Waldo, and one of his choicest lifelong friends, comes much nearer to Mr. Cabot's heart and ideal. I have already said enough of Dr. Furness to indicate in what loving veneration I hold him, but for nearly twenty years I have seen that he, long since, had allowed his heart to color the sight of his eyes, so far as Ralph Waldo Emerson was concerned, not willingly or consciously, much less willfully. It is the fate and charm of all true love to idealize and glorify its own. I am fascinated with Dr. Furness' talk and memories of Waldo Emerson, but I do not see our hero through the eyes of his Philadelphia worshipper.

Dr. Furness says: "I can recall but one image of him as playing, and that was on the floor of my mother's chamber. I don't think he ever engaged in boys' plays, not because of any physical inability, but simply because, from his earliest years, he dwelt in a higher sphere."

The cool reader will catch the halo here. In the background bright wings already hover, and over against it, in the foreground, we will wTite Emerson's own "chubby boy," and bide our time.

Judge Loring was another school friend, and from him Mr. Cabot has a helping word toward a true picture of young Waldo.

"In school and college he was liked for his equable temper and firmness, but was not demonstrative enough to be eminently popular. ... He was not vigorous in body, and therefore not a champion in athletic sports; but I do not remember that he shunned play or boyish fun."

A somewhat delicate, dainty, conscious of poverty, conscious of genius and conscious of character sort of boy; a little above the average height, hair a dark-brown, not chestnut, but a shade darker than that; clear, meditative blue eyes; prominent nose, always close lips, hiding a latent smile; a face for thought, almost for dreams, but tending rather to shrewdness back of its shyness; facing an age and a world unlike itself and with other aims, the world's aims to be respected, but not openly sought, and with all, a boy and young man when in right company decidedly fond of a joke with a Scriptural turn, or a bearing upon the idiosyncrasies of other boys, women and men; not exactly dwelling in another sphere, but decidedly with chaste motives toward that sphere, and with feet and thoughts clothed with honor in their march thitherward.

His like there was not in all New England at that time, and Mr. Cabot's "further illustrations" are as welcome as April primroses or daffodils that come before the swallows dare and take the winds of March with beauty.

As a student, Waldo Emerson, alike in tastes and habits, belonged to the eclectic university methods, rather than to our common school, modern college, academy and cramming methods of education.

His aunt, Miss Mary Moody Emerson, is the strongest and most clearly and deeply religious American character touched in these pages, and though she loved and believed in Waldo from the day of his birth to the day of her death, she frequently complained of his lack of application and concentration, lack ot steadiness of purpose and fixedness of aim, lack of practical religious faith, and of his tendency to joking in boyhood and young manhood—decidedly not in another sphere, it would seem.

She says of herself: "I love to be a vessel of cumbersomeness to society." But that does not discredit her sight ol Waldo's moods and aims. It is folly to try to make a god of this man.

At one time she wrote him: "They (his circumstances) appeared too easy and rhyme-like; and she feared he might b« tempted to pause on the threshold of the ministry and give himself up to a mere literary life." And again: "Is the muse become faint and mean? Ah! well she may; and better, far better, she should leave you wholly till you have prepared for her a celestial abode. Poetry, that soul of all that pleases; the philosophy of the world of sense; the Iris, the bearer of the re

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