,illustration ,,the ,,last ,,harvest ,,by ,,john ,,burroughs ,,boston ,,and ,,new ,,york ,,houghton ,,mifflin ,,company ,the ,riverside ,press ,cambridge #aibb ,,copyright1 #aibb1 ,,by ,,houghton ,,mifflin ,,company 99 99 99 99 99 ,but who is he with modest looks ,and clad in homely russet brown8 ,he murmurs near the running brooks ,a music sweeter than their own4 ,he is retired as noontide dew1 ,or fountain in a noon-day grove2 ,and you must love him1 ere to you ,he will seem worthy of your love4 ,the outward shows of sky and earth1 ,of hill and valley1 he has viewed2 ,and impulses of deeper birth ,have come to him in solitude4 ,in common things that round us lie ,some random truths he can impart-- ,the harvest of a quiet eye ,that broods and sleeps on his own heart4 ,,wordsworth ,,preface ,most of the papers garnered here were written after fourscore years--after the heat and urge of the day--and are the fruit of a long life of observation and meditation4 ,the author's abiding interest in ,emerson is shown in his close and eager study of the ,journals during these later years4 ,he hungered for everything that concerned the ,concord ,sage1 who had been one of the most potent influences in his life4 ,although he could discern flies in the ,emersonian amber1 he could not brook slight or indifference toward ,emerson in the youth of to-day4 ,whatever flaws he himself detected1 he well knew that ,emerson would always rest secure on the pedestal where long ago he placed him4 ,likewise with ,thoreau3 ,if shortcomings were to be pointed out in this favorite1 he wished to be the one to do it4 ,and so1 before taking ,thoreau to task for certain inaccuracies1 he takes ,lowell to task for criticizing ,thoreau4 ,he then proceeds1 not without evident satisfaction1 to call attention to ,thoreau's slips as an observer and reporter of nature2 yet in no carping spirit1 but1 as he himself has said3 ,not that ,i love ,thoreau less1 but that ,i love truth more4 ,the ,short ,studies in ,contrasts1 the ,day by ,day notes1 ,gleanings1 and the ,sundown ,papers which comprise the latter part of this1 the last1 posthumous volume by ,john ,burroughs1 were written during the closing months of his life4 ,contrary to his custom1 he wrote these usually in the evening1 or1 less frequently1 in the early morning hours1 when1 homesick and far from well1 with the ceaseless pounding of the ,pacific in his ears1 and though incapable of the sustained attention necessary for his best work1 he was nevertheless impelled by an unwonted mental activity to seek expression4 ,if the reader misses here some of the charm and power of his usual writing1 still may he welcome this glimpse into what ,john ,burroughs was doing and thinking during those last weeks before the illness came which forced him to lay aside his pen4 ,,clara ,,barrus ,,woodchuck ,,lodge ,,roxbury-,,in-,,the-,,catskills ,,contents ,i4 ,,emerson ,,and ,,his ,,journals ,,ii4 ,,flies ,,in ,,amber ,,iii4 ,,another ,,word ,,on ,,thoreau ,,iv4 ,a ,,critical ,,glance ,,into ,,darwin ,v4 ,,what ,,makes ,a ,,poem8 ,,vi4 ,,short ,,studies ,,in ,,contrasts3 ,the ,transient and the ,permanent ,positive and ,negative ,palm and ,fist ,praise and ,flattery ,genius and ,talent ,invention and ,discovery ,town and ,country ,,vii4 ,,day ,,by ,,day ,,viii4 ,,gleanings ,,ix4 ,,sundown ,,papers3 ,re-reading ,bergson ,revisions ,bergson and ,telepathy ,meteoric ,men and ,planetary ,men ,the ,daily ,papers ,the ,alphabet ,the ,reds of ,literature ,the ,evolution of ,evolution ,following ,one's ,bent ,notes on the ,psychology of ,old ,age ,facing the ,mystery ,,index ,the frontispiece portrait is from a photograph by ,miss ,mabel ,watson taken at ,pasadena1 ,california1 shortly before ,mr4 ,burroughs's death4 ,,the ,,last ,,harvest ,i ,,emerson ,,and ,,his ,,journals ,i ,emerson's fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during his lifetime by the books he gave to the world4 ,his ,journals1 published over a quarter of a century after his death1 nearly or quite double the bulk of his writing1 and while they do not rank in literary worth with his earlier works1 they yet throw much light upon his life and character and it is a pleasure to me1 in these dark and troublesome times1#a and near the sun-down of my life1 to go over them and point out in some detail their value and significance4 ,footnote #a3 ,written during the ,world ,war4--,c4,b4 ,emerson was such an important figure in our literary history1 and in the moral and religious development of our people1 that attention cannot be directed to him too often4 ,he could be entirely reconstructed from the unpublished matter which he left4 ,moreover1 just to come in contact with him in times like ours is stimulating and refreshing4 ,the younger generation will find that he can do them good if they will pause long enough in their mad skirting over the surface of things to study him4 ,for my own part1 a lover of ,emerson from early manhood1 ,i come back to him in my old age with a sad but genuine interest4 ,i do not hope to find the ,emerson of my youth--the man of daring and inspiring affirmation1 the great solvent of a world of encrusted forms and traditions1 which is so welcome to a young man--because ,i am no longer a young man4 ,emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a formative1 idealistic age4 ,his is a voice from the heights which are ever bathed in the sunshine of the spirit4 ,i find that something one gets from ,emerson in early life does not leave him when he grows old4 ,it is a habit of mind1 a test of values1 a strengthening of one's faith in the essential soundness and goodness of creation4 ,he helps to make you feel at home in nature1 and in your own land and generation4 ,he permanently exalts your idea of the mission of the poet1 of the spiritual value of the external world1 of the universality of the moral law1 and of our kinship with the whole of nature4 ,there is never any despondency or infirmity of faith in ,emerson4 ,he is always hopeful and courageous1 and is an antidote to the pessimism and materialism which existing times tend to foster4 ,open anywhere in the ,journals or in the ,essays and we find the manly and heroic note4 ,he is an unconquerable optimist1 and says boldly1 ,nothing but ,god can root out ,god1 and he thinks that in time our culture will absorb the hells also4 ,he counts the dear old ,devil among the good things which the dear old world holds for him4 ,he saw so clearly how good comes out of evil and is in the end always triumphant4 ,were he living in our day1 he would doubtless find something helpful and encouraging to say about the terrific outburst of scientific barbarism in ,europe4 ,it is always stimulating to hear a man ask such a question as this1 even though he essay no answer to it3 ,is the world 7according to the old doubt7 to be criticized otherwise than as the best possible in the existing system1 and the population of the world the best that soils1 climate1 and animals permit8 ,i note that in #ahcg ,emerson wrote this about the ,germans2 ,i do not draw from them great influence4 ,the heroic1 the holy1 ,i lack4 ,they are contemptuous4 ,they fail in sympathy with humanity4 ,the voice of nature they bring me to hear is not divine1 but ghastly1 hard1 and ironical4 ,they do not illuminate me3 they do not edify me4 ,is not this the ,german of to-day8 ,if ,emerson were with us now he would see1 as we all see1 how the age of idealism and spiritual power in ,germany that gave the world the great composers and the great poets and philosophers--,bach1 ,beethoven1 ,wagner1 ,goethe1 ,schiller1 ,lessing1 ,kant1 ,hegel1 and others--has passed and been succeeded by the hard1 cruel1 and sterile age of materialism1 and the domination of an aggressive and conscienceless military spirit4 ,emerson was the poet and prophet of man's moral nature1 and it is this nature--our finest and highest human sensibilities and aspirations toward justice and truth--that has been so raided and trampled upon by the chief malefactor and world outlaw in the present war4 ,,ii ,men who write ,journals are usually men of certain marked traits--they are idealists1 they love solitude rather than society1 they are self-conscious1 and they love to write4 ,at least this seems to be true of the men of the past century who left ,journals of permanent literary worth--,amiel1 ,emerson1 and ,thoreau4 ,amiel's ,journal has more the character of a diary than has ,emerson's or ,thoreau's1 though it is also a record of thoughts as well as of days4 ,emerson left more unprinted matter than he chose to publish during his lifetime4 ,the ,journals of ,emerson and ,thoreau are largely made up of left-overs from their published works1 and hence as literary material1 when compared with their other volumes1 are of secondary importance4 ,you could not make another ,walden out of ,thoreau's ,journals1 nor build up another chapter on ,self-,reliance1 or on ,character1 or on the ,over-,soul1 from ,emerson's1 though there are fragments here and there in both that are on a level with their best work4 ,emerson records in #ahce that his brother ,charles wondered that he did not become sick at the stomach over his poor ,journal3 ,yet is obdurate habit callous even to contempt4 ,i must scribble on4444 ,charles evidently was not a born scribbler like his brother4 ,he was clearly more fond of real life and of the society of his fellows4 ,he was an orator and could not do himself justice with the pen4 ,men who write ,journals1 as ,i have said1 are usually men of solitary habits1 and their ,journal largely takes the place of social converse4 ,amiel1 ,emerson1 and ,thoreau were lonely souls1 lacking in social gifts1 and seeking relief in the society of their own thoughts4 ,such men go to their ,journals as other men go to their clubs4 ,they love to be alone with themselves1 and dread to be benumbed or drained of their mental force by uncongenial persons4 ,to such a man his ,journal becomes his duplicate self and he says to it what he could not say to his nearest friend4 ,it becomes both an altar and a confessional4 ,especially is this true of deeply religious souls such as the men ,i have named4 ,they commune1 through their ,journals1 with the demons that attend them4 ,amiel begins his ,journal with the sentence1 ,there is but one thing needful--to possess ,god1 and ,emerson's ,journal in its most characteristic pages is always a search after ,god1 or the highest truth4 ,after a day of humiliation and stripes1 he writes1 if ,i can write it down1 ,i am straightway relieved and can sleep well4 ,after a day of joy1 the beating heart is calmed again by the diary4 ,if grace is given me by all angels and ,i pray1 if then ,i can catch one ejaculation of humility or hope and set it down in syllables1 devotion is at an end4 ,i write my journal1 ,i deliver my lecture with joy1 but at the name of society all my repulsions play1 all my quills rise and sharpen4 ,he clearly had no genius for social intercourse4 ,at the age of thirty he said he had no skill to live with men2 that is1 such men as the world is made of2 and such as ,i delight in ,i seldom find4 ,again he says1 aged thirty-two1 ,i study the art of solitude2 ,i yield me as gracefully as ,i can to destiny1 and adds that it is from eternity a settled thing that he and society shall be nothing to each other4 ,he takes to his ,journal instead4 ,it is his house of refuge4 ,yet he constantly laments how isolated he is1 mainly by reason of the poverty of his nature1 his want of social talent1 of animal heat1 and of sympathy with the commonplace and the humdrum4 ,i have no animal spirits1 therefore when surprised by company and kept in a chair for many hours1 my heart sinks1 my brow is clouded1 and ,i think ,i will run for ,acton woods and live with the squirrels henceforth4 ,but he does not run away2 he often takes it out in hoeing in his garden3 ,my good hoe as it bites the ground revenges my wrongs1 and ,i have less lust to bite my enemies4 ,in smoothing the rough hillocks ,i smooth my temper4 ,in a short time ,i can hear the bobolinks sing and see the blessed deluge of light and color that rolls around me4 ,somewhere he has said that the writer should not dig1 and yet again and again we find him resorting to hoe or spade to help him sleep1 as well as to smooth his temper3 ,yesterday afternoon1 ,i stirred the earth about my shrubs and trees and quarrelled with the pipergrass1 and now ,i have slept1 and no longer am morose nor feel twitchings in the muscles of my face when a visitor is by4 ,we welcome these and many another bit of self-analysis3 ,i was born with a seeing eye and not a helping hand4 ,i can only comfort my friends by thought1 and not by love or aid4 ,i was made a hermit and am content with my lot4 ,i pluck golden fruit from rare meetings with wise men4 ,margaret ,fuller told him he seemed always on stilts3 ,it is even so4 ,most of the persons whom ,i see in my own house ,i see across a gulf4 ,i cannot go to them nor they come to me4 ,nothing can exceed the frigidity and labor of my speech with such4 ,you might turn a yoke of oxen between every pair of words2 and the behavior is as awkward and proud4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i would have my book read as ,i have read my favorite books1 not with explosion and astonishment1 a marvel and a rocket1 but a friendly and agreeable influence stealing like a scent of a flower1 or the sight of a new landscape on a traveller4 ,i neither wish to be hated and defied by such as ,i startle1 nor to be kissed and hugged by the young whose thoughts ,i stimulate4 ,here ,emerson did center in himself and never apologized4 ,his gospel of self-reliance came natural to him4 ,he was emphatically self1 without a trace of selfishness4 ,he went abroad to study himself more than other people--to note the effect of ,europe on himself4 ,he says1 ,i believe it's sound philosophy that wherever we go1 whatever we do1 self is the sole object we study and learn4 ,montaigne said himself was all he knew4 ,myself is much more than ,i know1 and yet ,i know nothing else4 ,in ,paris he wrote to his brother ,william1 ,a lecture at the ,sorbonne is far less useful to me than a lecture that ,i write myself2 and as for the literary society in ,paris1 though he thought longingly of it1 yet he said1 ,probably in years it would avail me nothing4 ,the ,journals are mainly a record of his thoughts and not of his days1 except so far as the days brought him ideas4 ,here and there the personal element creeps in--some journey1 some bit of experience1 some visitor1 or walks with ,channing1 ,hawthorne1 ,thoreau1 ,jones ,very1 and others2 some lecturing experience1 his class meetings1 his travels abroad and chance meetings with distinguished men4 ,but all the more purely personal element makes up but a small portion of the ten thick volumes of his ,journal4 ,most readers1 ,i fancy1 will wish that the proportion of these things were greater4 ,we all have thoughts and speculations of our own1 but we can never hear too much about a man's real life4 ,emerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of ,new ,england1 and of ,english literature generally1 as of another order4 ,he is a reversion to an earlier type1 the type of the bard1 the skald1 the poet-seer4 ,he is the poet and prophet of the moral ideal4 ,his main significance is religious1 though nothing could be farther from him than creeds and doctrines1 and the whole ecclesiastical formalism4 ,there is an atmosphere of sanctity about him that we do not feel about any other poet and essayist of his time4 ,his poems are the fruit of ,oriental mysticism and bardic fervor grafted upon the shrewd1 parsimonious1 ,new ,england puritanic stock4 ,the stress and wild1 uncertain melody of his poetry is like that of the wind-harp4 ,no writing surpasses his in the extent to which it takes hold of the concrete1 the real1 the familiar1 and none surpasses his in its elusive1 mystical suggestiveness1 and its cryptic character4 ,it is ,yankee wit and shrewdness on one side1 and ,oriental devoutness1 pantheism1 and symbolism on the other4 ,its cheerful and sunny light of the common day enhances instead of obscures the light that falls from the highest heaven of the spirit4 ,saadi or ,hafiz or ,omar might have fathered him1 but only a ,new ,england mother could have borne him4 ,probably more than half his poetry escapes the average reader2 his longer poems1 like ,initial1 ,dmonic1 and ,celestial ,love1 ,monadnoc1 ,merlin1 ,the ,sphinx1 ,the ,world-,soul1 set the mind groping for the invisible rays of the spectrum of human thought and knowledge1 but many of the shorter poems1 such as ,the ,problem1 ,each and ,all1 ,sea-,shore1 ,the ,snow-,storm1 ,musketaquid1 ,days1 ,song of ,nature1 ,my ,garden1 ,boston ,hymn1 ,concord ,hymn1 and others1 are among the most precious things in our literature4 ,as ,emerson was a bard among poets1 a seer among philosophers1 a prophet among essayists1 an oracle among ethical teachers1 so1 as ,i have said1 was he a solitary among men4 ,he walked alone4 ,he somewhere refers to his porcupine impossibility of contact with men4 ,his very thoughts are not social among themselves1 they separate4 ,each stands alone2 often they hardly have a bowing acquaintance2 over and over their juxtaposition is mechanical and not vital4 ,the redeeming feature is that they can afford to stand alone1 like shafts of marble or granite4 ,the force and worth of his page is not in its logical texture1 but in the beauty and truth of its isolated sentences and paragraphs4 ,there is little inductive or deductive reasoning in his books1 but a series of affirmations whose premises and logical connection the reader does not always see4 ,he records that his hearers found his lectures fine and poetical but a little puzzling4 ,one thought them as good as a kaleidoscope4 ,the solid men of business said that they did not understand them but their daughters did4 ,the lecture committee in ,illinois in #ahef told him that the people wanted a hearty laugh4 ,the stout ,illinoian1 not finding the laugh1 after a short trial walks out of the hall4 ,i think even his best ,eastern audiences were always a good deal puzzled4 ,the lecturer never tried to meet them halfway4 ,he says himself of one of his lectures1 ,i found when ,i had finished my new lecture that it was a very good house1 only the architect had unfortunately omitted the stairs4 ,the absence of the stairs in his house--of an easy entrance into the heart of the subject1 and of a few consecutive and leading ideas--will1 in a measure1 account for the bewilderment of his hearers4 ,when ,i heard ,emerson in #ahga before audiences in ,baltimore and ,washington1 ,i could see and feel this uncertainty and bewilderment in his auditors4 ,his lectures could not be briefly summarized4 ,they had no central thought4 ,you could give a sample sentence1 but not the one sentence that commanded all the others4 ,whatever he called it1 his theme1 as he himself confesses1 was always fundamentally the same3 ,in all my lectures ,i have taught one doctrine1 namely1 the infinitude of the private man4 ,this the people accept readily enough and even with loud commendations as long as ,i call the lecture ,art or ,politics1 or ,literature1 or the ,household1 but the moment ,i call it ,religion they are shocked1 though it be only the application of the same truth which they receive everywhere else to a new class of facts4 ,emerson's supreme test of a man1 after all other points had been considered1 was the religious test3 ,was he truly religious8 ,was his pole star the moral law8 ,was the sense of the ,infinite ever with him8 ,but few contemporary authors met his requirements in this respect4 ,after his first visit abroad1 when he saw ,carlyle1 ,landor1 ,coleridge1 ,wordsworth1 and others1 he said they were all second-or third-rate men because of their want of the religious sense4 ,they all looked backward to a religion of other ages1 and had no faith in a present revelation4 ,his conception of the divine will as the eternal tendency to the good of the whole1 active in every atom1 every moment1 is one of the thoughts in which religion and science meet and join hands4 ,,iii ,in ,emerson's ,journal one sees the ,emersonian worlds in their making--the essays1 the addresses1 the poems4 ,here are the nebul and star-dust out of which most of them came1 or in which their suggestion lies4 ,now and then there is quite as good stuff as is found in his printed volumes1 pages and paragraphs from the same high heaven of sthetic emotion4 ,the poetic fragments and wholes are less promising1 ,i think1 than the prose2 they are evidently more experimental1 and show the 'prentice hand more4 ,the themes around which his mind revolved all his life--nature1 ,god1 the soul--and their endless variations and implications1 recur again and again in each of the ten printed volumes of the ,journals4 ,he has new thoughts on ,character1 ,self-,reliance1 ,heroism1 ,manners1 ,experience1 ,nature1 ,immortality1 and scores of other related subjects every day1 and he presents them in new connections and with new images4 ,his mind had marked centrality1 and fundamental problems were always near at hand with him4 ,he could not get away from them4 ,he renounced the pulpit and the creeds1 not because religion meant less to him1 but because it meant more4 ,the religious sentiment1 the feeling of the ,infinite1 was as the sky over his head1 and the earth under his feet4 ,the whole stream of ,emerson's mental life apparently flowed through his ,journals4 ,they were the repository of all his thoughts1 all his speculations1 all his mental and spiritual experiences4 ,what a mlange they are6 ,wise sayings from his wide reading1 from intercourse with men1 private and public1 sayings from his farmer neighbors1 anecdotes1 accounts of his travels1 or his walks1 solitary or in the company of ,channing1 ,hawthorne1 or ,thoreau1 his gropings after spiritual truths1 and a hundred other things1 are always marked by what he says that ,macaulay did not possess--elevation of mind--and an abiding love for the real values in life and letters4 ,here is the prose origin of ,days3 ,the days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party1 but they say nothing1 and if we do not use the gifts they bring1 they carry them as silently away4 ,in this brief ,may entry we probably see the inception of the ,humble-,bee poem3 ,yesterday in the woods ,i followed the fine humble bee with rhymes and fancies free4 ,now and then we come upon the germ of other poems in his prose4 ,here is a hint of ,each and ,all in a page written at the age of thirty-one3 ,the shepherd or the beggar in his red cloak little knows what a charm he gives to the wide landscape that charms you on the mountain-top and whereof he makes the most agreeable feature1 and ,i no more the part my individuality plays in the ,all4 ,the poem1 his reader will remember1 begins in this wise3 ,little thinks1 in the field1 yon red-cloaked clown ,of thee from the hilltop looking down4 ,in a prose sentence written in #ahce he says3 ,nothing is beautiful alone4 ,nothing but is beautiful in the whole4 ,in the poem above referred to this becomes3 ,all are needed by each one2 ,nothing is fair or good alone4 ,in #ahef we find the first stanza of his 'beautiful ,two ,rivers1 written in prose form3 ,thy voice is sweet1 ,musketaquid2 repeats the music of the rain2 but sweeter rivers silent flit through thee as those through ,concord plain4 ,the substance of the next four stanzas is in prose form also3 ,thou art shut in thy banks2 but the stream ,i love1 flows in thy water1 and flows through rocks and through the air1 and through darkness1 and through men1 and women4 ,i hear and see the inundation and eternal spending of the stream1 in winter and in summer1 in men and animals1 in passion and thought4 ,happy are they who can hear it2 and so on4 ,in the poem these sentences become3 ,thou in thy narrow banks are pent3 ,the stream ,i love unbounded goes ,through flood and sea and firmament2 ,through light1 through life1 it forward flows4 ,i see the inundation sweet1 ,i hear the spending of the stream ,through years1 through men1 through ,nature fleet1 ,through love and thought1 through power and dream4 ,it is evident that ,emerson was a severe critic of his own work4 ,he knew when he had struck fire1 and he knew when he had failed4 ,he was as exacting with himself as with others4 ,his conception of the character and function of the poet was so high that he found the greatest poets wanting4 ,the poet is one of his three or four ever-recurring themes4 ,he is the divine man4 ,he is bard and prophet1 seer and savior4 ,he is the acme of human attainment4 ,verse devoid of insight into the method of nature1 and devoid of religious emotion1 was to him but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal4 ,he called ,poe the jingle man because he was a mere conjurer with words4 ,the intellectual content of ,poe's works was negligible4 ,he was a wizard with words and measures1 but a pauper in ideas4 ,he did not add to our knowledge1 he did not add to our love of anything in nature or in life1 he did not contribute to our contentment in the world--the bread of life was not in him4 ,what was in him was mastery over the architectonics of verse4 ,emerson saw little in ,shelley for the same reason1 but much in ,herbert and ,donne4 ,religion1 in his sense of the term1--the deep sea into which the streams of all human thought empty1--was his final test of any man4 ,unless there was something fundamental about him1 something that savored of the primordial deep of the universal spirit1 he remained unmoved4 ,the elemental azure of the great bodies of water is suggestive of the tone and hue ,emerson demanded in great poetry4 ,he found but little of it in the men of his time3 practically none in the contemporary poets of ,new ,england4 ,it was probably something of this pristine quality that arrested ,emerson's attention in ,walt ,whitman's ,leaves of ,grass4 ,he saw in it the ,appalachian enlargement of outline and treatment for service to ,american literature4 ,emerson said of himself3 ,i am a natural reader1 and only a writer in the absence of natural writers4 ,in a true time ,i should never have written4 ,we must set this statement down to one of those fits of dissatisfaction with himself1 those negative moods that often came upon him4 ,what he meant by a true time is very obscure4 ,in an earlier age he would doubtless have remained a preacher1 like his father and grandfather1 but coming under the influence of ,goethe1 ,carlyle1 and ,wordsworth1 and other liberating influences of the nineteenth century1 he was bound to be a writer4 ,when he was but twenty-one he speaks of his immoderate fondness for writing4 ,writing was the passion of his life1 his supreme joy1 and he went through the world with the writer's eye and ear and hand always on duty4 ,and his contribution to the literature of man's higher moral and sthetic nature is one of the most valuable of the age in which he lived4 ,,iv ,apart from the account of his travels and other personal experiences1 the ,journals are mainly made up of discussions of upwards of fifty subjects of general and fundamental interest1 ranging from art to war1 and looked at from many and diverse points of view4 ,of these subjects three are dominant1 recurring again and again in each volume4 ,these are nature1 literature1 and religion4 ,emerson's main interests centered in these themes4 ,using these terms in their broadest sense1 this is true1 ,i think1 of all his published books4 ,emerson was an idealist1 first1 last1 and all the time1 and he was a literary artist1 or aimed to be1 first1 last1 and all the time1 and in the same measure and to the same extent was he a devout religious soul1 using the term religion as he sometimes uses it1 as a feeling of the ,infinite4 ,there are one hundred and seventy-six paragraphs1 long and short1 given to literature and art1 and one hundred and sixty given to religious subjects1 and over thirty given to nature4 ,it is interesting to note that he devotes more paragraphs to woman than to man2 and more to society than to solitude1 though only to express his dislike of the former and his love for the latter4 ,there are more thoughts about science than about metaphysics1 more about war than about love1 more about poetry than about philosophy1 more on beauty than on knowledge1 more on walking than on books4 ,there are three times as many paragraphs on nature 7thirty-three7 as on the ,bible1 all of which is significant of his attitude of mind4 ,emerson was a preacher without a creed1 a scholar devoted to super-literary ends1 an essayist occupied with thoughts of ,god1 the soul1 nature1 the moral law--always the literary artist looking for the right word1 the right image1 but always bending his art to the service of religious thought4 ,he was one of the most religious souls of his country and time1 or of any country and time1 yet was disowned by all the sects and churches of his time4 ,he made religion too pervasive1 and too inclusive to suit them2 the stream at once got out of its banks and inundated all their old landmarks4 ,in the last analysis of his thought1 his ultimate theme was ,god1 and yet he never allowed himself to attempt any definite statement about ,god--refusing always to discuss ,god in terms of human personality4 ,when ,emerson wrote ,representative ,men he felt that ,jesus was the ,representative ,man whom he ought to sketch1 but the task required great gifts--steadiest insight and perfect temper2 else the consciousness of want of sympathy in the audience would make one petulant and sore in spite of himself4 ,there are few great men in history or philosophy or literature or poetry or divinity whose names do not appear more or less frequently in the ,journals4 ,for instance1 in the ,journal of #ahfd the names or works of one hundred and seventeen men appear1 ranging from ,zeno to ,jones ,very4 ,and this is a fair average4 ,of course the names of his friends and contemporaries appear the most frequently4 ,the name that recurs the most often is that of his friend and neighbor ,thoreau4 ,there are ninety-seven paragraphs in which the ,hermit of ,walden is the main or the secondary figure4 ,he discusses him and criticizes him1 and quotes from him1 always showing an abiding interest in1 and affection for1 him4 ,thoreau was in so many ways so characteristically ,emersonian that one wonders what influence it was in the place or time that gave them both1 with their disparity of ages1 so nearly the same stamp4 ,emerson is by far the more imposing figure1 the broader1 the wiser1 the more tolerant1 the more representative2 he stood four-square to the world in a sense that ,thoreau did not4 ,thoreau presented a pretty thin edge to the world4 ,if he stood broadside to anything1 it was to nature4 ,he was undoubtedly deeply and permanently influenced by ,emerson both in his mental habits and in his manner of life1 yet the main part of him was original and unadulterated ,thoreau4 ,his literary style is in many respects better than that of ,emerson2 its logical texture is better2 it has more continuity1 more evolution1 it is more flexible and adaptive2 it is the medium of a lesser mind1 but of a mind more thoroughly imbued with the influence of the classical standards of modern literature4 ,i believe ,walden will last as long as anything ,emerson has written1 if not longer4 ,it is the fruit of a sweeter solitude and detachment from the world than ,emerson ever knew1 a private view of nature1 and has a fireside and campside quality that essays fashioned for the lecture platform do not have4 ,emerson's pages are more like mosaics1 richly inlaid with gems of thought and poetry and philosophy1 while ,thoreau's are more like a closely woven1 many-colored textile4 ,thoreau's ,maine ,woods ,i look upon as one of the best books of the kind in ,english literature4 ,it has just the right tone and quality1 like ,dana's ,two ,years ,before the ,mast--a tone and quality that sometimes come to a man when he makes less effort to write than to see and feel truly4 ,he does not aim to exploit the woods1 but to live with them and possess himself of their spirit4 ,the ,cape ,cod book also has a similar merit2 it almost leaves a taste of the salt sea spray upon your lips4 ,emerson criticizes ,thoreau freely1 and justly1 ,i think4 ,as a person he lacked sweetness and winsomeness2 as a writer he was at times given to a meaningless exaggeration4 ,henry ,thoreau sends me a paper with the old fault of unlimited contradiction4 ,the trick of his rhetoric is soon learned3 it consists in substituting for the obvious word and thought its diametrical antagonist4 ,he praises wild mountains and winter forests for their domestic air2 snow and ice for their warmth2 villagers and wood-choppers for their urbanity1 and the wilderness for resembling ,rome and ,paris4 ,with the constant inclination to dispraise cities and civilization1 he yet can find no way to know woods and woodmen except by paralleling them with towns and townsmen4 ,channing declared the piece is excellent3 but it makes me nervous and wretched to read it1 with all its merits4 ,i told ,henry ,thoreau that his freedom is in the form1 but he does not disclose new matter4 ,i am very familiar with all his thoughts1--they are my own quite originally drest4 ,but if the question be1 what new ideas has he thrown into circulation1 he has not yet told what that is which he was created to say4 ,i said to him what ,i often feel1 ,i only know three persons who seem to me fully to see this law of reciprocity or compensation--himself1 ,alcott1 and myself3 and 't is odd that we should all be neighbors1 for in the wide land or the wide earth ,i do not know another who seems to have it as deeply and originally as these three ,gothamites4 ,a remark of ,emerson's upon ,thoreau calls up the image of ,john ,muir to me3 ,if ,i knew only ,thoreau1 ,i should think coperation of good men impossible4 ,must we always talk for victory1 and never once for truth1 for comfort1 and joy8 ,then1 after crediting ,thoreau with some admirable gifts1--centrality1 penetration1 strong understanding1--he proceeds to say1 all his resources of wit and invention are lost to me1 in every experiment1 year after year1 that ,i make to hold intercourse with his mind4 ,always some weary captious paradox to fight you with1 and the time and temper wasted4 ,emerson met ,john ,muir in the ,yosemite in #ahga and was evidently impressed with him4 ,somewhere he gives a list of his men which begins with ,carlyle and ends with ,muir4 ,here was another man with more character than intellect1 as ,emerson said of ,carlyle1 and with the flavor of the wild about him4 ,muir was not too compliant and deferential4 ,he belonged to the sayers of ,no4 ,contradiction was the breath of his nostrils4 ,he had the ,scottish chariness of bestowing praise or approval1 and could surely give ,emerson the sense of being met which he demanded4 ,writing was irksome to ,muir as it was to ,carlyle1 but in monologue1 in an attentive company1 he shone2 not a great thinker1 but a mind strongly characteristic4 ,his philosophy rarely rose above that of the ,sunday school1 but his moral fiber was very strong1 and his wit ready and keen4 ,in conversation and in daily intercourse he was a man not easily put aside4 ,emerson found him deeply read in nature lore and with some suggestion about his look and manner of the wild and rugged solitude in which he lived so much4 ,emerson was alive to everything around him2 every object touched some spring in his mind2 the church spire1 the shadows on the windows at night1 the little girl with her pail of whortleberries1 the passing bee1 bird1 butterfly1 the clouds1 the streams1 the trees--all found his mind open to any suggestion they might make4 ,he is intent on the now and the here4 ,he listens to every newcomer with an expectant air4 ,he is full of the present4 ,i once saw him at ,west ,point during the ,june examinations4 ,how alert and eager he was6 ,the bored and perfunctory air of his fellow members on the ,board of ,visitors contrasted sharply with his active1 expectant interest4 ,v ,he lived absolutely in his own day and generation1 and no contemporary writer of real worth escaped his notice4 ,he is never lavish in his praise1 but is for the most part just and discriminating4 ,walt ,whitman is mentioned only thrice in the ,journals1 ,lowell only twice1 ,longfellow once or twice1 ,matthew ,arnold three times1 but ,jones ,very is quoted and discussed sixteen times4 ,very was a poet who had no fast colors2 he has quite faded out in our day4 ,of ,matthew ,arnold ,emerson says3 ,i should like to call attention to the critical superiority of ,arnold1 his excellent ear for style1 and the singular poverty of his poetry1 that in fact he has written but one poem1 ',thyrsis1' and that on an inspiration borrowed from ,milton4 ,few good readers1 ,i think1 will agree with ,emerson about the poverty of ,arnold's poetry4 ,his ,dover ,beach is one of the first-rate poems in ,english literature4 ,emerson has words of praise for ,lowell--thinks the production of such a man a certificate of good elements in the soil1 climate1 and institutions of ,america1 but in #ahfh he declares that his new poems show an advance in talent rather than in poetic tone2 that the advance rather expresses his wish1 his ambition1 than the uncontrollable interior impulse which is the authentic mark of a new poem1 and which is unanalysable1 and makes the merit of an ode of ,collins1 or ,gray1 or ,wordsworth1 or ,herbert1 or ,byron4 ,he evidently thought little of ,lowell's severe arraignment of him in a college poem which he wrote soon after the delivery of the famous ,divinity ,school ,address4 ,the current of religious feeling in ,cambridge set so strongly against ,emerson for several years that ,lowell doubtless merely reflected it4 ,why did he not try to deflect it1 or to check it8 ,and yet1 when ,emerson's friends did try to defend him1 it was against his will4 ,he hated to be defended in a newspaper3 ,as long as all that is said is against me ,i feel a certain austere assurance of success1 but as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me ,i feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies4 ,next to ,thoreau1 ,emerson devotes to ,alcott more space in his ,journals than to any other man4 ,it is all telling interpretation1 description1 and criticism4 ,truly1 ,alcott must have had some extraordinary power to have made such a lasting impression upon ,emerson4 ,when my friend ,myron ,benton and ,i first met ,emerson in #ahfc at ,west ,point1 ,emerson spoke of ,alcott very pointedly1 and said we should never miss a chance to hear his conversation1 but that when he put pen to paper all his inspiration left him4 ,his thoughts faded as soon as he tried to set them down4 ,there must have been some curious illusion about it all on the part of ,emerson1 as no fragment of ,alcott's wonderful talk worth preserving has come down to us4 ,the waters of the sea are blue1 but not in the pailful4 ,there must have been something analogous in ,alcott's conversations1 some total effect which the details do not justify1 or something in the atmosphere which he created1 that gave certain of his hearers the conviction that they were voyaging with him through the celestial depths4 ,it was a curious fact that ,alcott could not recall one word or part of his own conversation1 or of any one's1 let the expression be never so happy4 ,and he seems to have hypnotized ,emerson in the same way4 ,he made here some majestic utterances1 but so inspired me that even ,i forgot the words often4 ,olympian dreams1 ,emerson calls his talk--moonshine1 it appears at this distance4 ,his discourse soars to a wonderful height1 says ,emerson1 so regular1 so lucid1 so playful1 so new and disdainful of all boundaries of tradition and experience1 that the hearers seem no longer to have bodies or material gravity1 but almost they can mount into the air at pleasure1 or leap at one bound out of this poor solar system4 ,i say this of his speech exclusively1 for when he attempts to write1 he loses1 in my judgment1 all his power1 and ,i derive more pain than pleasure from the perusal4 ,some illusion surely that made the effort to report him like an attempt to capture the rainbow1 only to find it common water4 ,in #ahdb ,emerson devotes eight pages in his ,journal to an analysis of ,alcott1 and very masterly they are4 ,he ends with these sentences3 ,this noble genius discredits genius to me4 ,i do not want any more such persons to exist4 ,when ,alcott wrote from ,england that he was bringing home ,wright and ,lane1 ,i wrote him a letter which ,i required him to show them1 saying that they might safely trust his theories1 but that they should put no trust whatever in his statement of facts4 ,when they all arrived here--he and his victims--,i asked them if he showed them the letter2 they answered that he did2 so ,i was clear4 ,another neighbor who greatly impressed ,emerson1 and of whom he has much to say1 was ,father ,taylor1 the sailor preacher of ,boston4 ,there is nothing better in the ,journals than the pages devoted to description and analysis of this remarkable man4 ,to ,emerson he suggested the wealth of ,nature4 ,he calls him a godly poet1 the ,shakespear of the sailor and the poor4 ,i delight in his great personality1 the way and sweep of the man which1 like a frigate's way1 takes up for the time the centre of the ocean1 paves it with a white street1 and all the lesser craft 'do curtsey to him1 do him reverence4' ,a man all emotion1 all love1 all inspiration1 but1 like ,alcott1 impossible to justify your high estimate of by any quotation4 ,his power was all personal living power1 and could not be transferred to print4 ,the livid embers of his discourse became dead charcoal when reported by another1 or1 as ,emerson more happily puts it1 ,a creature of instinct1 his colors are all opaline and dove's-neck-lustre and can only be seen at a distance4 ,examine them1 and they disappear4 ,more exactly they are visible only at a certain angle4 ,of course this is in a measure true of all great oratory--it is not so much the words as the man4 ,speaking of ,father ,taylor in connection with ,alcott1 ,emerson says that one was the fool of his ideas1 and the other of his fancy4 ,an intellectual child of ,emerson's was ,ellery ,channing1 but he seems to have inherited in an exaggerated form only the faults of his father4 ,channing appears to have been a crotchety1 disgruntled person1 always aiming at walking on his head instead of on his heels4 ,emerson quotes many of his sayings1 not one of them worth preserving1 all marked by a kind of violence and disjointedness4 ,they had many walks together4 ,emerson was so fond of paradoxes and extreme statements that both ,channing and ,thoreau seem to have vied with each other in uttering hard or capricious sayings when in his presence4 ,emerson catches at a vivid and picturesque statement1 if it has even a fraction of truth in it1 like a fly-catcher at a fly4 ,a fair sample of ,channing's philosophy is the following3 ,he persists in his bad opinion of orchards and farming1 declares that the only success he ever had with a farmer was that he once paid a cent for a russet apple2 and farming1 he thinks1 is an attempt to outwit ,god with a hoe2 that they plant a great many potatoes with much ado1 but it is doubtful if they ever get the seed back4 ,channing seems to have dropped such pearls of wisdom as that all along the road in their walks6 ,another sample of ,channing's philosophy which ,emerson thinks worthy of quoting4 ,they were walking over the fields in ,november4 ,channing complained of the poverty of invention on the part of ,nature3 ',why1 they had frozen water last year2 why should they do it again8 ,therefore it was so easy to be an artist1 because they do the same thing always1' and therefore he only wants time to make him perfect in the imitation4 ,,vi ,emerson was occupied entirely with the future1 as ,carlyle was occupied entirely with the past4 ,emerson shared the open expectation of the new world1 ,carlyle struggled under the gloom and pessimism of the old--a greater character1 but a far less lambent and helpful spirit4 ,emerson seems to have been obsessed with the idea that a new and greater man was to appear4 ,he looked into the face of every newcomer with an earnest1 expectant air1 as if he might prove to be the new man3 this thought inspires the last stanzas of his ,song of ,nature3 ,let war and trade and creeds and song ,blend1 ripen race on race1 ,the sunburnt world a man shall breed ,of all the zones and countless days4 ,no ray is dimmed1 no atom worn1 ,my oldest force is good as new1 ,and the fresh rose on yonder thorn ,gives back the bending heavens in dew4 ,emerson was under no illusion as to the effect of distance4 ,he knew the past was once the present1 and that if it seemed to be transformed and to rise into cloud-land behind us1 it was only the enchantment of distance--an enchantment which men have been under in all ages4 ,the everyday1 the near-at-hand1 become prosaic2 there is no room for the alchemy of time and space to work in4 ,it has been said that all martyrdoms looked mean in the suffering4 ,holy ground is not holy when we walk upon it4 ,the now and the here seem cheap and commonplace4 ,emerson knew that a score of airy miles will smooth rough ,monadnoc to a gem1 but he knew also that it would not change the character of ,monadnoc4 ,he knew that the past and the present1 the near and the far1 were made of one stuff4 ,he united the courage of science with the sensibility of poetry4 ,he would not be defrauded of the value of the present hour1 or of the thoughts which he and other men think1 or of the lives which they live to-day4 ,i will tell you how you can enrich me--if you will recommend to-day to me4 ,his doctrine of self-reliance1 which he preached in season and out of season1 was based upon the conviction that ,nature and the soul do not become old and outworn1 that the great characters and great thoughts of the past were the achievements of men who trusted themselves before custom or law4 ,the sun shines to-day2 the constellations hang there in the heavens the same as of old4 ,god is as near us as ever ,he was--why should we take our revelations at second hand8 ,no other writer who has used the ,english language has ever preached such a heroic doctrine of self-trust1 or set the present moment so high in the circle of the years1 in the diadem of the days4 ,it is an old charge against ,emerson that he was deficient in human sympathy4 ,he makes it against himself2 the ties of association which most persons find so binding seemed to hold him very lightly4 ,there was always a previous question with him--the moral value of one's associations4 ,unless you sicken and die to some purpose1 why such an ado about it8 ,unless the old ruin of a house harbored great men and great women1 or was the scene of heroic deeds1 why linger around it8 ,the purely human did not appeal to him2 history interested him only as it threw light upon to-day4 ,history is a record of the universal mind2 hence of your mind1 of my mind--all the facts of history prexist in the mind as laws4 ,what ,plato thought1 every man may think4 ,what a saint has felt1 he may feel2 what at any time has befallen any man1 he can understand4 ,all that ,shakespear says of the king1 yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself2 and so on1 seeing in history only biography1 and interested in the past only as he can link it with the present4 ,always an intellectual interest1 never a human or an emotional one4 ,his ,journal does not reveal him going back to the old places1 or lingering fondly over the memories of his youth4 ,he speaks of his unpleasing boyhood1 of his unhappy recollections1 etc41 not because of unkindness or hardships experienced1 but because of certain shortcomings or deficiencies of character and purpose1 of which he is conscious--some meanness1 or unfounded pride which may lower him in the opinion of others4 ,pride1 surely1 but not ignoble pride4 ,emerson's expectation of the great poet1 the great man1 is voiced in his ,representative ,men3 ,if the companions of our childhood should turn out to be heroes1 and their condition regal1 it would not surprise us4 ,on the contrary1 ,i think it would surprise most of us very much4 ,it is from the remote1 the unfamiliar1 that we expect great things4 ,we have no illusions about the near-at-hand4 ,but with ,emerson the contrary seems to have been the case4 ,he met the new person or took up the new volume with a thrill of expectancy1 a condition of mind which often led him to exaggerate the fact1 and to give an undue bias in favor of the novel1 the audacious1 the revolutionary4 ,his optimism carried him to great lengths4 ,many of the new stars in his literary firmament have quite faded out--all of them1 ,i think1 but ,walt ,whitman4 ,it was mainly because he was so full of faith in the coming man that he gave1 offhand1 such a tremendous welcome to ,leaves of ,grass--a welcome that cooled somewhat later1 when he found he had got so much more of the unconventional and the self-reliant than he had bargained for4 ,i remember that when ,i spoke of ,walt ,whitman to him in ,washington in #ahga or '#gb1 he said he wished ,whitman's friends would quarrel with him more about his poems1 as some years earlier he himself had done1 on the occasion when he and ,whitman walked for hours on ,boston ,common1 he remonstrating with ,whitman about certain passages in ,leaves of ,grass which he tried in vain to persuade him to omit in the next edition4 ,whitman would persist in being ,whitman4 ,now1 counseling such a course to a man in an essay on ,self-,reliance is quite a different thing from entirely approving of it in a concrete example4 ,in #ahdj ,emerson writes3 ,a notice of modern literature ought to include 7ought it not87 a notice of ,carlyle1 of ,tennyson1 of ,landor1 of ,bettina1 of ,sampson ,reed4 ,the first three names surely1 but who is ,bettina1 the girl correspondent of ,goethe1 that she should go in such a list8 ,reed1 we learn1 was a ,boston bank clerk1 and a ,swedenborgian1 who wrote a book on the growth of the mind1 from which ,emerson quotes1 and to which he often alludes1 a book that has long been forgotten2 and is not ,bettina forgotten also8 ,emerson found more in ,jones ,very than has any one else2 the poems of ,very that he included in ,parnassus have little worth4 ,a comparatively unknown and now forgotten ,english writer also moved ,emerson unduly4 ,listen to this3 ,in ,england1 ,landor1 ,de ,quincey1 ,carlyle1 three men of original literary genius2 but the scholar1 the catholic1 cosmic intellect1 ,bacon's own son1 the ,lord ,chief ,justice on the ,muse's ,bench is--who do you think1 in #ahdg8--,wilkinson6 ,garth ,wilkinson1 who wrote a book on the human body4 ,emerson says of him in ,english ,traits3 ,there is in the action of his mind a long ,atlantic roll1 not known except in deepest waters1 and only lacking what ought to accompany such powers1 a manifest centrality4 ,to bid a man's stock up like that may not1 in the long run1 be good for the man1 but it shows what a generous1 optimistic critic ,emerson was4 ,,vii ,in his published works ,emerson is chary of the personal element2 he says3 ,we can hardly speak of our own experiences and the names of our friends sparingly enough4 ,in his books he would be only an impersonal voice2 the man ,emerson1 as such1 he hesitated to intrude4 ,but in the ,journals we get much more of the personal element1 as would be expected4 ,we get welcome glimpses of the man1 of his moods1 of his diversions1 of his home occupations1 of his self-criticism4 ,we see him as a host1 as a lecturer1 as a gardener1 as a member of a rural community4 ,we see him in his walks and talks with friends and neighbors--with ,alcott1 ,thoreau1 ,channing1 ,jones ,very1 ,hawthorne1 and others--and get snatches of the conversations4 ,we see the growth of his mind1 his gradual emancipation from the bondage of the orthodox traditions4 ,very welcome is the growth of ,emerson's appreciation of ,wordsworth4 ,as a divinity student he was severe in his criticism of ,wordsworth1 but as his own genius unfolded more and more he saw the greatness of ,wordsworth1 till in middle life he pronounced his famous ,ode the high-water mark of ,english literature4 ,yet after that his fondness for a telling1 picturesque figure allows him to inquire if ,wordsworth is not like a bell with a wooden tongue4 ,all this is an admirable illustration of his familiar dictum3 ,speak what you think now in hard words1 and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again1 though it contradict everything you say to-day4 ,in the ,journals we see ,emerson going up and down the country in his walks1 on his lecture tours in the ,west1 among his neighbors1 wherever and whenever he goes as alert and watchful as a sportsman4 ,he was a sportsman of a new kind2 his game was ideas4 ,he was always looking for hints and images to aid him in his writings4 ,he was like a bird perpetually building a nest2 every moment he wanted new material1 and everything that diverted him from his quest was an unwelcome interruption4 ,he had no great argument to build1 no system of philosophy to organize and formulate1 no plot1 like a novelist1 to work out1 no controversy on hand--he wanted pertinent1 concrete1 and striking facts and incidents to weave in his essay on ,fate1 or ,circles1 or ,character1 or ,farming1 or ,worship1 or ,wealth--something that his intuitive and disjointed habit of thought could seize upon and make instant use of4 ,we see him walking in free converse with his friends and neighbors1 receiving them in his own house1 friendly and expectant1 but always standing aloof1 never giving himself heartily to them1 exchanging ideas with them across a gulf1 prizing their wit and their wisdom1 but cold and reserved toward them personally1 destitute of all feeling of comradeship1 an eye1 an ear1 a voice1 an intellect1 but rarely1 or in a minor degree1 a heart1 or a feeling of fellowship--a giving and a taking quite above and beyond the reach of articulate speech4 ,when they had had their say1 he was done with them4 ,when you have found a man's limitations1 he says1 it is all up with him4 ,after your friend has fired his shot1 good-by4 ,the pearl in the oyster is what is wanted1 and not the oyster4 ,if ,i love you1 what is that to you8 is a saying that could have been coined only in ,concord4 ,it seems to me that the basis of all wholesome human attachment is character1 not intellect4 ,admiration and love are quite different things4 ,transcendental friendships seem to be cold1 bloodless affairs4 ,one feels as if he wanted to squeeze or shake ,emerson to see if he cannot get some normal human love out of him1 a love that looks for nothing beyond love1 a love which is its own excuse for being1 a love that is not a bargain--simple1 common1 disinterested human love4 ,but ,emerson said1 ,i like man but not men4 ,you would have me love you1 he writes in his ,journal4 ,what shall ,i love8 ,your body8 ,the supposition disgusts you4 ,what you have thought and said8 ,well1 whilst you were thinking and saying them1 but not now4 ,i see no possibility of loving anything but what now is1 and is becoming2 your courage1 your enterprise1 your budding affection1 your opening thought1 your prayer1 ,i can love--but what else8 ,can you not love your friend for himself alone1 for his kinship with you1 without taking an inventory of his moral and intellectual qualities2 for something in him that makes you happy in his presence8 ,the personal attraction which ,whitman felt between himself and certain types of men1 and which is the basis of most manly friendships1 ,emerson probably never felt4 ,one cannot conceive of him as caring deeply for any person who could not teach him something4 ,he says1 ,i speculate on virtue1 not burn with love4 ,again1 ,a rush of thoughts is the only conceivable prosperity that can come to me4 ,pure intellectual values seem alone to have counted with ,emerson and his followers4 ,with men his question was1 ,what can you teach me8 ,with ,nature1 ,what new image or suggestion have you got for me to-day8 ,with science1 ,what ethical value do your facts hold8 ,with natural history1 ,can ,i translate your facts and laws into my supernatural history8 ,with civil history1 ,will your record help me to understand my own day and land8 ,the quintessence of things was what he always sought4 ,we cannot forgive another for not being ourselves1 ,emerson wrote in #ahdb1 and then added1 ,we lose time in trying to be like others4 ,one is reminded of passages in the ,emerson-,carlyle correspondence1 wherein each tried to persuade the other to be like himself4 ,carlyle would have ,emerson become concrete and write in prose the straightest way1 would have him come down from his perilous altitude1 soliloquizing on the eternal mountain-tops only1 in vast solitude1 where men and their affairs lie all hushed in a very dim remoteness and only the man and the stars and the earth are visible--come down into your own poor ,nineteenth ,century1 its follies1 its maladies1 its blind1 or half-blind but gigantic toilings1 its laughter and its tears1 and try to evolve in some measure the hidden ,god-like that lies in it4 ,i wish you would take an ,american hero1 one whom you really love1 and give us a ,history of him--make an artistic bronze statue 7in good words7 of his ,life and him6 ,emerson's reply in effect is1 ,cremate your heroes and give me their ashes--give me the culled results1 the quintessence of private conviction1 a liber veritatis1 a few sentences1 hints of the final moral you draw from so much penetrating inquest into past and present men4 ,in reply to ,carlyle's criticism of the remote and abstract character of his work1 ,emerson says1 ,what you say now and heretofore respecting the remoteness of my writing and thinking from real life1 though ,i hear substantially the same criticism made by my countrymen1 ,i do not know what it means4 ,if ,i can at any time express the law and the ideal right1 that should satisfy me without measuring the divergence from it of the last act of ,congress4 ,,viii ,emerson's love of nature was one of his ruling passions4 ,it took him to the country to live1 it led him to purchase ,walden ,pond and the ,walden woods2 it led him forth upon his almost daily walks1 winter and summer1 to the fields and the woods4 ,his was the love of the poet and the idealist1 of the man who communes with ,nature1 and finds a moral and an intellectual tonic in her works4 ,the major part of his poetry is inspired by ,nature4 ,he complains of ,tennyson's poetry that it has few or no wood notes4 ,his first book1 ,nature1 is steeped in religious and poetic emotion4 ,he said in his ,journal in #ahda3 ,all my thoughts are foresters4 ,i have scarce a day-dream on which the breath of the pines has not blown1 and their shadows waved4 ,shall ,i not then call my little book ,forest ,essays8 ,he finally called it ,nature4 ,he loves the hermit birds that harbor in the woods4 ,i can do well for weeks with no other society than the partridge and the jay1 my daily company4 ,i have known myself entertained by a single dew-drop1 or an icicle1 by a liatris1 or a fungus1 and seen ,god revealed in the shadow of a leaf4 ,he says that going to ,nature is more than a medicine1 it is health4 ,as ,i walked in the woods ,i felt what ,i often feel1 that nothing can befall me in life1 no calamity1 no disgrace 7leaving me my eyes7 to which ,nature will not offer a sweet consolation4 ,standing on the bare ground with my head bathed by the blithe air1 and uplifted into the infinite space1 ,i became happy in my universal relations4 ,this sentiment of his also recalls his lines3 ,a woodland walk1 ,a quest of river-grapes1 a mocking thrush1 ,a wild-rose1 or rock-loving columbine1 ,salve my worst wounds4 ,if life were long enough1 among my thousand and one works should be a book of ,nature whereof ,howitt's ,seasons should not be so much the model as the parody4 ,it should contain the natural history of the woods around my shifting camp for every month in the year4 ,it should tie their astronomy1 botany1 physiology1 meteorology1 picturesque1 and poetry together4 ,no bird1 no bug1 no bud1 should be forgotten on his day and hour4 ,to-day the chickadees1 the robins1 bluebirds and song-sparrows sang to me4 ,i dissected the buds of the birch and the oak2 in every one of the last is a star4 ,the crow sat above as idle as ,i below4 ,the river flowed brimful1 and ,i philosophised upon this composite1 collective beauty which refuses to be analysed4 ,nothing is beautiful alone4 ,nothing but is beautiful in the whole4 ,learn the history of a craneberry4 ,mark the day when the pine cones and acorns fall4 ,i go out daily and nightly to feed my eyes on the horizon and the sky1 and come to feel the want of this scope as ,i do of water for my washing4 ,what learned ,i this morning in the woods1 the oracular woods8 ,wise are they1 the ancient nymphs2 pleasing1 sober1 melancholy truth say those untameable savages1 the pines4 ,he frequently went to ,walden ,pond of an afternoon and read ,goethe or some other great author4 ,there was an element of mysticism in ,emerson's love of nature as there is in that of all true nature-lovers4 ,none knew better than he that nature is not all birds and flowers4 ,his love of nature was that of the poet and artist1 and not that of the scientist or naturalist4 ,i tell you ,i love the peeping of the ,hyla in a pond in ,april1 or the evening cry of the whippoorwill1 better than all the bellowing of all the ,bulls of ,bashan1 or all the turtles of all ,palestine4 ,any personal details about his life which ,emerson gives us are always welcome4 ,we learn that his different winter courses of lectures in ,boston1 usually ten of them1 were attended on an average by about five hundred persons1 and netted him about five hundred dollars4 ,when he published a new volume1 he was very liberal with presentation copies4 ,of his first volume of poems1 published in #ahdf1 he sent eighty copies to his friends4 ,when ,may-,day was published in #ahfg1 he sent fifty copies to friends2 one of them went to ,walt ,whitman4 ,i saw it the day it came4 ,it was in a white dress 7silk1 ,i think72 very beautiful4 ,he sent a copy of his first volume of ,nature to ,landor4 ,one would like to know what ,landor said in reply4 ,the copy he sent to ,carlyle ,i saw in the ,scot's library1 in ,cheyne ,row1 in #ahga4 ,,ix ,emerson was so drawn to the racy and original that it seems as if original sin had a certain fascination for him4 ,the austere1 the ,puritanical ,emerson1 the heir of eight generations of clergy-men1 the man who did not like to have ,frederika ,bremer play the piano in his house on ,sunday1 seems at times to covet the swear-words of the common people4 ,they itch at his ears1 they have flavor and reality4 ,he sometimes records them in his ,journal2 for example1 this remark of the ,canadian wood-chopper who cut wood for his neighbor--he preferred to work by the job rather than by the day--the days were so damned long6 ,the mob1 ,emerson says1 is always interesting3 ,a blacksmith1 a truckman1 a farmer1 we follow into the bar-room and watch with eagerness what they shall say4 ,cannot the stinging dialect of the sailor be domesticated8 ,my page about ,consistency would be better written1 ',damn ,consistency4' ,but try to fancy ,emerson swearing like the men on the street6 ,once only he swore a sacred oath1 and that he himself records3 it was called out by the famous1 and infamous1 ,fugitive ,slave ,law which made every ,northern man hound and huntsman for the ,southern slave-driver4 ,this filthy enactment1 he says1 was made in the ,nineteenth ,century by men who could read and write4 ,i will not obey it1 by ,god6 ,evidently the best thing the laboring people had to offer ,emerson was their racy and characteristic speech4 ,when one of his former neighbors said of an eclipse of the sun that it looked as if a nigger was poking his head into the sun1 ,emerson recorded it in his ,journal4 ,his son reports that ,emerson enjoyed the talk of the stable-men and used to tell their anecdotes and boasts of their horses when he came home2 for example1 ,in the stable you'd take him for a slouch1 but lead him to the door1 and when he lifts up his eyes1 and looks abroad1--by thunder6 you'd think the sky was all horse4 ,such surprises and exaggerations always attracted him1 unless they took a turn that made him laugh4 ,he loved wit with the laugh taken out of it4 ,the genial smile and not uproarious laughter suited his mood best4 ,he was a lover of quiet1 twinkling humor4 ,such humor gleams out often in his ,journal4 ,it gleams in this passage about ,dr4 ,ripley3 ,dr4 ,ripley prays for rain with great explicitness on ,sunday1 and on ,monday the showers fell4 ,when ,i spoke of the speed with which his prayers were answered1 the good man looked modest4 ,there is another prayer-for-rain story that he enjoys telling3 ,dr4 ,allyne1 of ,duxbury1 prayed for rain1 at church4 ,in the afternoon the boys carried umbrellas4 ',why8' ',because you prayed for rain4' ',pooh6 boys6 we always pray for rain3 it's customary4' ,at ,west ,point he asked a lieutenant if they had morning prayers at college4 ,we have reveill beat1 which is the same thing4 ,he tells with relish the story of a ,german who went to hire a horse and chaise at a stable in ,cambridge4 ,shall ,i put in a buffalo8 inquired the livery-man4 ,my ,god6 no1 cried the astonished ,german1 put in a horse4 ,emerson1 ,i am sure1 takes pleasure in relating a characteristic story of ,dr4 ,ripley and a thunder-shower3 ,one ,august afternoon1 when ,i was in the hayfield helping him with his man to rake up his hay1 ,i well remember his pleading1 almost reproachful looks at the sky when the thunder gust was coming up to spoil the hay4 ,he raked very fast1 then looked at the clouds and said1 ',we are in the ,lord's hands1 mind your rake1 ,george6 we are in the ,lord's hands1' and seemed to say1 ',you know me1 the field is mine--,dr4 ,ripley's--thine own servant4' ,the stories ,emerson delighted in were all rich in this quiet humor4 ,i heard of one he used to tell about a man who1 when he went to his club at night1 often lingered too long over his cups1 and came home befuddled in the small hours1 and was frequently hauled over the coals by his wife4 ,one night he again came home late1 and was greeted with the usual upbraiding in the morning4 ,it was not late1 he said1 it was only one o'clock4 ,it was much later than that1 said the wife4 ,it was one o'clock1 repeated the man2 ,i heard it strike one three or four times6 ,another good ,emersonian story1 though ,i do not know that he ever heard it1 is that of an old woman who had a farm in ,indiana near the ,michigan line4 ,the line was resurveyed1 and the authorities set her farm in ,michigan4 ,the old lady protested--she said it was all she could do to stand the winters of ,indiana1 she could never stand those of ,michigan6 ,cannot one see a twinkle in ,emerson's eye when he quotes his wife as saying that it is wicked to go to church on ,sunday8 ,emerson's son records that his father hated to be made to laugh1 as he could not command his face well4 ,hence he evidently notes with approval another remark of his wife's3 ,a human being should beware how he laughs1 for then he shows all his faults4 ,what he thought of the loud1 surprising laugh with which ,carlyle often ended his bitter sentences1 ,i do not know that he records4 ,its meaning to ,carlyle was evidently1 ,oh6 what does it all matter8 ,if ,emerson himself did not smile when he wrote the sentence about a maiden so pure that she exchanged glances only with the stars1 his reader1 ,i am sure1 will4 ,emerson evidently enjoyed such a story as this which was told him by a bishop3 ,there was a dispute in a vestry at ,providence between two hot church-members4 ,one said at last1 ,i should like to know who you are-- ,who ,i am8 cried the other1--who ,i am6 ,i am a humble ,christian1 you damned old heathen1 you6 ,the minister whom he heard say that nobody enjoyed religion less than ministers1 as none enjoyed food so little as cooks1 must have provoked the broadest kind of a smile4 ,although one of ,emerson's central themes in his ,journals was his thought about ,god1 or his feeling for the ,infinite1 he never succeeded in formulating his ideas on the subject and could not say what ,god is or is not4 ,at the age of twenty-one he wrote in his ,journal1 ,i know that ,i know next to nothing4 ,a very unusual1 but a very promising frame of mind for a young man4 ,it is not certain that ,god exists1 but that ,he does not is a most bewildering and improbable ,chimera4 ,a little later he wrote3 ,the government of ,god is not a plan--that would be ,destiny1 or we may say ,calvinism1 it is extempore4 ,he quotes this from ,plotinus3 ,of the ,unity of ,god1 nothing can be predicated1 neither being1 nor essence1 nor life1 for it is above all these4 ,it was a bold saying of his that ,god builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religion4 ,a great deal of ,god in the universe1 he says1 but not available to us until we can make it up into a man4 ,but if asked1 what makes it up into a man8 why does it take this form8 he would have been hard put to it for an answer4 ,persons who assume to know all about ,god1 as if ,he lived just around the corner1 as ,matthew ,arnold said1 will not find much comfort in ,emerson's uncertainty and blind groping for adequate expression concerning ,him4 ,how can we put the ,all1 the ,eternal1 in words8 ,how can we define the ,infinite without self-contradiction8 ,our minds are cast in the mould of the finite2 our language is fashioned from our dealings with a world of boundaries and limitations and concrete objects and forces4 ,how much can it serve us in dealing with a world of opposite kind--with the ,whole1 the ,immeasurable1 the ,omnipresent1 and ,omnipotent8 ,of what use are our sounding-lines in a bottomless sea8 ,how are we to apply our conceptions of personality to the all-life1 to that which transcends all limitations1 to that which is everywhere and yet nowhere8 ,shall we assign a local habitation and a name to the universal energy8 ,as the sunlight puts out our lamp or candle1 so our mental lights grow pale in the presence of the ,infinite ,light4 ,we can deal with the solid bodies on the surface of the earth1 but the earth as a sphere in the heavens baffles us4 ,all our terms of over and under1 up and down1 east and west1 and the like1 fail us4 ,you may go westward around the world and return to your own door coming from the east4 ,the circle is a perpetual contradiction1 the sphere a surface without boundaries1 a mass without weight4 ,when we ascribe weight to the earth1 we are trying it by the standards of bodies on its surface--the pull of the earth is the measure of their weight2 but the earth itself--what pulls that8 ,only some larger body can pull that1 and the adjustment of the system is such that the centripetal and centrifugal forces balance each other1 and the globes float as lightly as any feather4 ,emerson said he denied personality to ,god because it is too little1 not too much4 ,if you ascribe personality to ,god1 it is perfectly fair to pester you with questions about ,him4 ,where is ,he8 ,how long has ,he been there8 ,what does ,he do8 ,personality without place1 or form1 or substance1 or limitation is a contradiction of terms4 ,we are the victims of words4 ,we get a name for a thing and then invent the thing that fits it4 ,all our names for the human faculties1 as the will1 the reason1 the understanding1 the imagination1 conscience1 instincts1 and so on1 are arbitrary divisions of a whole1 to suit our own convenience1 like the days of the week1 or the seasons of the year4 ,out of unity we make diversity for purposes of our practical needs4 ,thought tends to the one1 action to the many4 ,we must have small change for everything in the universe1 because our lives are made up of small things4 ,we must break wholes up into fractions1 and then seek their common multiple4 ,only thus can we deal with them4 ,we deal with ,god by limiting ,him and breaking ,him up into his attributes1 or by conceiving ,him under the figure of the ,trinity4 ,he is thus less baffling to us4 ,we can handle ,him the better4 ,we make a huge man of ,him and then try to dodge the consequences of our own limitations4 ,all these baffling questions pressed hard upon ,emerson4 ,he could not do without ,god in nature1 and yet1 like most of us1 he could not justify himself until he had trimmed and cut away a part of nature4 ,god is the ,all1 but the ,all is a hard mass to digest4 ,it means hell as well as heaven1 demon as well as seraph1 geology as well as biology1 devolution as well as evolution1 earthquake as well as earth tranquillity1 cyclones as well as summer breezes1 the jungle as well as the household1 pain as well as pleasure1 death as well as life4 ,how are you to reconcile all these contradictions8 ,emerson said that nature was a swamp with flowers and birds on the borders1 and terrible things in the interior4 ,shall we have one ,god for the fair things1 and another ,god for the terrible things8 ,nature is saturated with deity1 he says1 the terrific things as the beatific1 ,i suppose4 ,a great deal of ,god in the universe1 he again says1 but not valuable to us till we can make it up into a man4 ,and when we make it up into a man we have got a true compendium of nature2 all the terrific and unholy elements--fangs and poisons and eruptions1 sharks and serpents--have each and all contributed something to the make-up4 ,man is nature incarnated1 no better1 no worse4 ,but the majority of mankind who take any interest in the ,god-question at all will probably always think of the ,eternal in terms of man1 and endow ,him with personality4 ,one feels like combating some of ,emerson's conclusions1 or1 at least1 like discounting them4 ,his refusal to see any value in natural science as such1 ,i think1 shows his limitations4 ,natural history1 he says1 by itself has no value2 it is like a single sex2 but marry it to human history and it is poetry4 ,whole ,floras1 all ,linnus'1 and ,buffon's volumes contain not one line of poetry4 ,of course he speaks for himself4 ,natural facts1 scientific truth1 as such1 had no interest to him4 ,one almost feels as if this were idealism gone to seed4 ,shall ,i say that the use of ,natural ,science seems merely 'ancillary' to ,morals8 ,i would learn the law of the defraction of a ray because when ,i understand it1 it will illustrate1 perhaps suggest1 a new truth in ethics4 ,is the ethical and poetic value of the natural sciences1 then1 their main or only value to the lay mind8 ,their technical details1 their tables and formul and measurements1 we may pass by1 but the natural truths they disclose are of interest to the healthy mind for their own sake4 ,it is not the ethics of chemical reactions and combinations--if there be ethics in them--that arrests our attention1 but the light they throw on the problem of how the world was made1 and how our own lives go on4 ,the method of ,nature in the physical world no doubt affords clues to the method of ,nature in the non-physical1 or supersensuous world4 ,but apart from that1 it is incredible that a mind like ,emerson's took no interest in natural knowledge for its own sake4 ,the fact that two visible and inodorous gases like hydrogen and oxygen--one combustible and the other the supporter of combustion--when chemically combined produce water1 which extinguishes fire1 is intensely interesting as affording us a glimpse of the contradictions and paradoxes that abound everywhere in ,nature's methods4 ,if there is any ethics or any poetry in it1 let him have it who can extract it4 ,the great facts of nature1 such as the sphericity of the cosmic bodies1 their circular motions1 their mutual interdependence1 the unprovable ether in which they float1 the blue dome of the sky1 the master currents of the ocean1 the primary and the secondary rocks1 have an intellectual value1 but how they in any way illustrate the moral law is hard to see4 ,the ethics1 or right and wrong1 of attraction and repulsion1 of positive and negative1 have no validity outside the human sphere4 ,might is right in ,nature1 or1 rather1 we are outside the standards of right and wrong in her sphere4 ,scientific knowledge certainly has a poetic side to it1 but we do not go to chemistry or to geology or to botany for rules for the conduct of life4 ,we go to these things mainly for the satisfaction which the knowledge of ,nature's ways gives us4 ,so with natural history4 ,for my own part ,i find the life-histories of the wild creatures about me1 their ways of getting on in the world1 their joys1 their fears1 their successes1 their failures1 their instincts1 their intelligence1 intensely interesting without any ulterior considerations4 ,i am not looking for ethical or poetic values4 ,i am looking for natural truths4 ,i am less interested in the sermons in stones than ,i am in the life under the stones4 ,the significance of the metamorphosis of the grub into the butterfly does not escape me1 but ,i am more occupied with the way the caterpillar weaves her cocoon and hangs herself up for the winter than ,i am in this lesson4 ,i had rather see a worm cast its skin than see a king crowned4 ,i had rather see ,phoebe building her mud nest than the preacher writing his sermon4 ,i had rather see the big moth emerge from her cocoon--fresh and untouched as a coin that moment from the die--than the most fashionable coming out that society ever knew4 ,the first song sparrow or bluebird or robin in spring1 or the first hepatica or arbutus or violet1 or the first clover or pond-lily in summer--must we demand some mystic password of them8 ,must we not love them for their own sake1 ere they will seem worthy of our love8 ,to convert natural facts into metaphysical values1 or into moral or poetic values--in short1 to make literature out of science--is a high achievement1 and is worthy of ,emerson at his best1 but to claim that this is their sole or main use is to push idealism to the extreme4 ,the poet1 the artist1 the nature writer not only mixes his colors with his brains1 he mixes them with his heart's blood4 ,hence his pictures attract us without doing violence to nature4 ,we will not deny ,emerson his right to make poetry out of nature2 we bless him for the inspiration he has drawn from this source1 for his ,wood-notes1 his ,humble-,bee1 his ,titmouse1 his ,may-,day1 his ,sea-,shore1 his ,snow-,storm1 and many other poems4 ,but we must quarrel with him a little1 to use one of his favorite words1 for seeming to undervalue the facts of natural science1 as such1 and to belittle the works of the natural historian because he does not give us poetry and lessons in morals instead of botany and geology and ornithology1 pure and simple4 ,everything1 he says1 should be treated poetically--law1 politics1 housekeeping1 money4 ,a judge and a banker must drive their craft poetically1 as well as a dancer or a scribe4 ,that is1 they must exert that higher vision which causes the object to become fluid and plastic4 ,if you would write a code1 or logarithms1 or a cook-book1 you cannot spare the poetic impulse4 ,no one will doubt that battles can be fought poetically who reads ,plutarch or ,las ,casas4 ,we are interested in the wild life around us because the lives of the wild creatures in a measure parallel our own2 because they are the partakers of the same bounty of nature that we are2 they are fruit of the same biological tree4 ,we are interested in knowing how they get on in the world4 ,bird and bee1 fish and man1 are all made of one stuff1 are all akin4 ,the evolutionary impulse that brought man1 brought his dog and horse4 ,did ,emerson1 indeed1 only go to nature as he went to the bank1 to make a draft upon it8 ,was his walk barren that brought him no image1 no new idea8 ,was the day wasted that did not add a new line to his verse8 ,he appears to have gone up and down the land seeking images4 ,he was so firmly persuaded that there is not a passage in the human soul1 perhaps not a shade of thought1 but has its emblem in nature1 that he was ever on the alert to discover these relations of his own mind to the external world4 ,i see the law of ,nature equally exemplified in bar-room and in a saloon of the philosopher4 ,i get instruction and the opportunities of my genius indifferently in all places1 companies1 and pursuits1 so only there be antagonisms4 ,emerson thought that science as such bereaved ,nature of her charm4 ,to the man of little or no imagination or sensibility to beauty1 ,nature has no charm anyhow1 but if he have these gifts1 they will certainly survive scientific knowledge1 and be quickened and heightened by it4 ,after we have learned all that the astronomers can tell us about the midnight heavens1 do we look up at the stars with less wonder and awe8 ,after we have learned all that the chemist and the physicist can tell us about matter--its interior activities and its exterior laws and relations--do we admire and marvel less8 ,after the geologist has told us all he has found out about the earth's crust and the rocks1 when we quarry our building-stone1 do we plough and hoe and plant its soil with less interest and veneration8 ,no1 science as the pursuit of truth causes light to spring out of the abysmal darkness1 and enhances our love and interest in ,nature4 ,is the return of the seasons less welcome because we know the cause8 ,is an eclipse less startling because it occurs exactly on time8 ,science bereaves ,nature of her dread and fearsomeness1 it breaks the spell which the ignorance and credulity of men have cast upon her4 ,emerson had little use for science except so far as it yielded him symbols and parables for his superscience4 ,the electric spark did not kindle his interest unless it held an ethical fact for him2 chemical reactions were dull affairs unless he could trace their laws in mental reactions4 ,read chemistry a little1 he said1 and you will quickly see that its laws and experiments will furnish an alphabet or vocabulary for all of your moral observations4 ,he found a lesson in composition in the fact that the diamond and lampblack are the same substance differently arranged4 ,good writing1 he said1 is a chemical combination1 and not a mechanical mixture4 ,that is not the noblest chemistry that can extract sunshine from cucumbers1 but that which can extract honor from scamps1 temperance from sots1 energy from beggars1 justice from thieves1 benevolence from misers4 ,though mindful of the birds and flowers and trees and rivers in his walks1 it was mainly through his pressing need of figures and symbols for transcendental use4 ,he says1 ,whenever you enumerate a physical law1 ,i hear in it a moral law4 ,his final interest was in the moral law4 ,unless the scientific fact you brought him had some moral value1 it made little impression upon him4 ,he admits he is more interested to know why the star form is so oft repeated in botany1 and why the number five is such a favorite with ,nature1 than to understand the circulation of the sap and the formation of buds4 ,his insight into ,nature1 and the prophetic character of his genius1 are seen in many ways1 among others in his anticipation or poetic forecast of the ,darwinian theory of the origin of species1 in #ahec4 ,we want a higher logic to put us in training for the laws of creation4 ,how does the step forward from one species to a higher species of an existing genus take place8 ,the ass is not the parent of the horse2 no fish begets a bird4 ,but the concurrence of new conditions necessitates a new object in which these conditions meet and flower4 ,when the hour is struck in onward nature1 announcing that all is ready for the birth of higher form and nobler function1 not one pair of parents1 but the whole consenting system thrills1 yearns1 and produces4 ,it is a favorable aspect of planets and of elements4 ,in #ahdj he wrote1 ,the method of advance in ,nature is perpetual transformation4 ,in the same year he wrote3 ,there is no leap--not a shock of violence throughout nature4 ,man therefore must be predicted in the first chemical relation exhibited by the first atom4 ,if we had eyes to see it1 this bit of quartz would certify us of the necessity that man must exist as inevitably as the cities he has actually built4 ,x ,how fruitful in striking and original men ,new ,england was in those days--poets1 orators1 picturesque characters6 ,in ,concord1 ,emerson1 ,thoreau1 ,hawthorne1 ,alcott2 in ,boston and ,cambridge1 ,lowell1 ,longfellow1 ,norton1 ,holmes1 ,higginson1 ,father ,taylor1 ,bancroft1 ,everett1 and others1 with ,webster standing out like a ,colossus on the ,new ,hampshire granite4 ,this crop of geniuses seems to have been the aftermath of the ,revolution4 ,will our social and industrial revolution bring anything like another such a crop8 ,will the great ,world ,war produce another8 ,until now too much prosperity1 too much mammon1 too much at ease in ,zion has certainly prevailed for another band of great idealists to appear4 ,emerson could never keep his eyes off ,webster4 ,he was fairly hypnotized by the majesty and power of his mind and personality1 and he recurs to him in page after page of his ,journal4 ,webster was of primary stuff like the granite of his native hills1 while such a man as ,everett was of the secondary formation1 like the sandstone rocks4 ,emerson was delighted when he learned that ,carlyle1 with those devouring eyes1 with that portraying hand1 had seen ,webster4 ,and this is the portrait ,carlyle drew of him3 ,as a ,logic-fencer1 ,advocate1 or ,parliamentary ,hercules1 one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world4 ,the tanned complexion1 that amorphous1 crag-like face2 the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows1 like dull anthracite furnaces1 needing only to be blown2 the mastiff-mouth1 accurately closed3--,i have not traced as much of silent ,berserkir-rage1 that ,i remember of1 in any other man4 ,emerson's description and praise and criticism of ,webster form some of the most notable pages in his ,journal4 ,in #ahdc1 when ,webster came to ,concord as counsel in a famous case that was tried there1 the fact so excited ,emerson that he could not sleep4 ,it was like the perturbation of a planet in its orbit when a large body passes near it4 ,emerson seems to have spent much time at the court-house to hear and study him3 ,webster quite fills our little town1 and ,i doubt if ,i shall get settled down to writing until he has well gone from the county4 ,he is a natural ,emperor of men4 ,he adjourned the court every day in true imperial fashion1 simply by rising and taking his hat and looking the ,judge coolly in the face1 whereupon the ,judge bade the ,crier adjourn the ,court4 ,but when ,emerson finally came to look upon him with the same feeling with which he saw one of those strong ,paddies of the railroad1 he lost his interest in the trial and did not return to the court in the afternoon4 ,the green fields on my way home were too fresh and fair1 and forbade me to go again4 ,it was with profound grief that he witnessed the decline of ,webster's political career1 owing to his truckling to the ,southern proslavery element1 and to his increasing intemperance4 ,to see the placid1 transcendental ,emerson fighting mad1 flaring up in holy wrath1 read his criticisms of ,webster1 after ,webster's defection--his moral collapse to win the ,south and his support of the ,fugitive ,slave ,law4 ,this got into ,emerson's blood and made him think daggers and tomahawks4 ,he has this to say of a chance meeting with ,webster in ,boston1 at this period3 ,i saw ,webster on the street--but he was changed since ,i saw him last--black as a thunder-cloud1 and careworn4444 ,i did not wonder that he depressed his eyes when he saw me and would not meet my face4 ,in #ahea he said that some of ,webster's late speeches and state papers were like ,hail ,columbia when sung at a slave-auction2 then he follows with the terrible remark3 ,the word liberty in the mouth of ,mr4 ,webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtezan4 ,the prizes or fancied prizes of politics seem to have corrupted all the great men of that day--,webster1 ,choate1 ,foote1 ,clay1 ,everett4 ,their disgusting obsequiousness to the ,south fired ,emerson's wrath4 ,,xi ,the orthodox brethren of his time1 and probably of our time also1 ,i fancy1 could make very little of ,emerson's religion4 ,it was the religion of the spirit and not of the utilitarian and matter-of-fact understanding4 ,it identified man with ,god and made all nature symbolical of the spirit4 ,he was never tired of repeating that all true prayers answered themselves--the spirit which the act of prayer begets in one's self is the answer4 ,your prayer for humility1 for charity1 for courage1 begets these emotions in the mind4 ,the devout asking comes from a perception of their value4 ,hence the only real prayers are for spiritual good4 ,we converse with spiritual and invisible things only through the medium of our own hearts4 ,the preliminary attitude of mind that moves us to face in this direction is the blessing4 ,the soldier who1 on the eve of battle1 prays for courage1 has already got what he asks for4 ,prayer for visible1 material good is infidelity to the moral law4 ,god is within you1 more your better self than you are4 ,many prayers are a rattling of empty husks4 ,emerson says the wise man in the storm prays ,god1 not for safety from danger1 but for deliverance from fear4 ,although ,emerson broke away from all religious forms1 yet was there something back of them that he always respected1 as do we all4 ,he relates that one night at a hotel a stranger intruded into his chamber after midnight1 claiming a share in it4 ,but after his lamp had smoked the chamber full1 and ,i had turned round to the wall in despair1 the man blew out his lamp1 knelt down at his bedside1 and made in low whispers a long earnest prayer4 ,then was the relation entirely changed between us4 ,i fretted no more1 but respected and liked him4 ,contrasting his own case with that of so many young men who owed their religious training exclusively to ,cambridge and other public institutions1 he says3 ,how much happier was my star which rained on me influence of ancestral religion4 ,the depth of the religious sentiment which ,i knew in my ,aunt ,mary1 imbuing all her genius and derived to her from such hoarded family traditions1 from so many godly lives and godly deeds of sainted kindred of ,concord1 ,maiden1 ,york1 was itself a culture1 an education4 ,,xii ,a course of ten lectures which he delivered in ,boston in ,february1 #ahdj1 on the ,present ,age gave him little pleasure4 ,he could not warm up1 get agitated1 and so warm and agitate others3 ,a cold mechanical preparation for a delivery as decorous1--fine things1 pretty things1 wise things1--but no arrows1 no axes1 no nectar1 no growling1 no transpiercing1 no loving1 no enchantment4 ,because he lacked constitutional vigor1 he could expend only1 say1 twenty-one hours on each lecture1 if he would be able and ready for the next4 ,if he could only rally the lights and mights of sixty hours into twenty1 he said1 he should hate himself less4 ,self-criticism was a notable trait with him4 ,of self-praise he was never guilty4 ,his critics and enemies rarely said severer things of him than he said of himself4 ,he was almost morbidly conscious of his own defects1 both as a man and as a writer4 ,there are many pages of self-criticism in the ,journals1 but not one of self-praise4 ,in #ahdb he writes3 ,i have not yet adjusted my relation to my fellows on the planet1 or to my own work4 ,always too young1 or too old1 ,i do not justify myself2 how can ,i satisfy others8 ,later he sighs1 ,if only ,i could be set aglow6 ,he had wished for a professorship1 or for a pulpit1 much as he reacted from the church--something to give him the stimulus of a stated task4 ,some friend recommended an ,abolition campaign to him3 ,i doubt not a course in mobs would do me good4 ,then he refers to his faults as a writer3 ,i think ,i have material enough to serve my countrymen with thought and music1 if only it was not scraps4 ,but men do not want handfuls of gold dust but ingots4 ,emerson felt his own bardic character1 but lamented that he had so few of the bardic gifts4 ,at the age of fifty-nine he says3 ,i am a bard least of bards4 ,i cannot1 like them1 make lofty arguments in stately1 continuous verse1 constraining the rocks1 trees1 animals1 and the periodic stars to say my thoughts1--for that is the gift of great poets2 but ,i am a bard because ,i stand near them1 and apprehend all they utter1 and with pure joy hear that which ,i also would say1 and1 moreover1 ,i speak interruptedly words and half stanzas which have the like scope and aim3 ,what ,i cannot declare1 yet cannot all withhold4 ,there is certainly no over-valuation in this sentence1 made when he was sixty-two3 ,in the acceptance that my papers find among my thoughtful countrymen1 in these days1 ,i cannot help seeing how limited is their reading4 ,if they read only the books that ,i do1 they would not exaggerate so wildly4 ,two years before that he had said1 ,i often think ,i could write a criticism of ,emerson that would hit the white4 ,emerson was a narrow-chested1 steeple-shouldered man with a tendency to pulmonary disease1 against which he made a vigorous fight all his days4 ,he laments his feeble physical equipment in his poem1 ,terminus3 ,curse1 if thou wilt1 thy sires1 ,bad husbands of their fires1 ,who1 when they gave thee breath1 ,failed to bequeath ,the needful sinew stark as once1 ,the ,baresark marrow to thy bones1 ,but left a legacy of ebbing veins1 ,inconstant heat and nerveless reins1-- ,amid the ,muses1 left thee deaf and dumb1 ,amid the gladiators1 halt and numb4 ,and yet1 looking back near the end of his life1 he says that considering all facts and conditions he thinks he has had triumphant health4 ,,xiii ,emerson's wisdom and catholicity of spirit always show in his treatment of the larger concerns of life and conduct4 ,how remarkable is this passage written in ,puritanic ,new ,england in #ahdb3 ,i hear with pleasure that a young girl in the midst of rich1 decorous ,unitarian friends in ,boston is well-nigh persuaded to join the ,roman ,catholic ,church4 ,her friends1 who are also my friends1 lamented to me the growth of this inclination4 ,but ,i told them that ,i think she is to be greatly congratulated on the event4 ,she has lived in great poverty of events4 ,in form and years a woman1 she is still a child1 having had no experiences1 and although of a fine1 liberal1 susceptible1 expanding nature1 has never yet found any worthy object of attention2 has not been in love1 nor been called out by any taste1 except lately by music1 and sadly wants adequate objects4 ,in this church1 perhaps1 she shall find what she needs1 in a power to call out the slumbering religious sentiment4 ,it is unfortunate that the guide who has led her into this path is a young girl of a lively1 forcible1 but quite external character1 who teaches her the historical argument for the ,catholic faith4 ,i told ,a4 that ,i hoped she would not be misled by attaching any importance to that4 ,if the offices of the church attracted her1 if its beautiful forms and humane spirit draw her1 if ,st4 ,augustine and ,st4 ,bernard1 ,jesus and ,madonna1 cathedral music and masses1 then go1 for thy dear heart's sake1 but do not go out of this icehouse of ,unitarianism1 all external1 into an icehouse again of external4 ,at all events1 ,i charged her to pay no regard to dissenters1 but to suck that orange thoroughly4 ,and this on the ,church and the common people written the year before3 ,the ,church arates my good neighbors and serves them as a somewhat stricter and finer ablution than a clean shirt or a bath or a shampooing4 ,the minister is a functionary and the meeting-house a functionary2 they are one and1 when they have spent all their week in private and selfish action1 the ,sunday reminds them of a need they have to stand again in social and public and ideal relations beyond neighborhood1--higher than the town-meeting--to their fellow men4 ,they marry1 and the minister who represents this high public1 celebrates the fact2 their child is baptized1 and again they are published by his intervention4 ,one of their family dies1 he comes again1 and the family go up publicly to the church to be publicised or churched in this official sympathy of mankind4 ,it is all good as far as it goes4 ,it is homage to the ,ideal ,church1 which they have not3 which the actual ,church so foully misrepresents4 ,but it is better so than nohow4 ,these people have no fine arts1 no literature1 no great men to boswellize1 no fine speculation to entertain their family board or their solitary toil with4 ,their talk is of oxen and pigs and hay and corn and apples4 ,whatsoever liberal aspirations they at any time have1 whatsoever spiritual experiences1 have looked this way1 and the ,church is their fact for such things4 ,it has not been discredited in their eyes as books1 lectures1 or living men of genius have been4 ,it is still to them the accredited symbol of the religious ,idea4 ,the ,church is not to be defended against any spiritualist clamoring for its reform1 but against such as say it is expedient to shut it up and have none1 this much may be said4 ,it stands in the history of the present time as a high school for the civility and mansuetude of the people4 7,i might prefer the ,church of ,england or of ,rome as the medium of those superior ablutions described above1 only that ,i think the ,unitarian ,church1 like the ,lyceum1 as yet an open and uncommitted organ1 free to admit the ministrations of any inspired man that shall pass by3 whilst the other churches are committed and will exclude him47 ,i should add that1 although this is the real account to be given of the church-going of the farmers and villagers1 yet it is not known to them1 only felt4 ,do you not suppose that it is some benefit to a young villager who comes out of the woods of ,new ,hampshire to ,boston and serves his apprenticeship in a shop1 and now opens his own store1 to hang up his name in bright gold letters a foot long8 ,his father could not write his name3 it is only lately that he could3 the name is mean and unknown3 now the sun shines on it3 all men1 all women1 fairest eyes read it4 ,it is a fact in the great city4 ,perhaps he shall be successful and make it wider known3 shall leave it greatly brightened to his son4 ,his son may be head of a party3 governor of the state3 a poet3 a powerful thinker3 and send the knowledge of this name over the habitable earth4 ,by all these suggestions1 he is at least made responsible and thoughtful by his public relation of a seen and arated name4 ,let him modestly accept those hints of a more beautiful life which he meets with2 how to do with few and easily gotten things3 but let him seize with enthusiasm the opportunity of doing what he can1 for the virtues are natural to each man and the talents are little perfections4 ,let him hope infinitely with a patience as large as the sky4 ,nothing is so young and untaught as time4 ,how wise is his saying that we do not turn to the books of the ,bible--,st4 ,paul and ,st4 ,john--to start us on our task1 as we do to ,marcus ,aurelius1 or the ,lives of the philosophers1 or to ,plato1 or ,plutarch1 because the ,bible wears black clothes6 ,it comes with a certain official claim against which the mind revolts4 ,the ,bible has its own nobilities--might well be charming if left simply on its merits1 as other books are1 but this1 ',you must1' ',it is your duty1' in connection with it1 repels4 ',t is like the introduction of martial law into ,concord4 ,if you should dot our farms with picket lines1 and ,i could not go or come across lots without a pass1 ,i should resist1 or else emigrate4 ,if ,concord were as beautiful as ,paradise1 it would be as detestable to me4 ,in his essays and letters ,emerson gives one the impression of never using the first words that come to mind1 nor the second1 but the third or fourth2 always a sense of selection1 of deliberate choice4 ,to use words in a novel way1 and impart a little thrill of surprise1 seemed to be his aim4 ,this effort of selection often mars his page4 ,he is rarely carried away by his thought1 but he snares or captures it with a word4 ,he does not feel first and think second2 he thinks first1 and the feeling does not always follow4 ,he dearly loved writing2 it was the joy of his life1 but it was a conscious intellectual effort4 ,it was often a kind of walking on stilts2 his feet are not on the common ground4 ,and yet--and yet--what a power he was1 and how precious his contributions6 ,he says in his ,journal1 ,i have observed long since that to give the thought a full and just expression ,i must not prematurely utter it4 ,this hesitation1 this studied selection robs him of the grace of felicity and spontaneity4 ,the compensation is often a sense of novelty and a thrill of surprise4 ,moreover1 he avoids the commonplace and the cheap and tedious4 ,his product is always a choice one1 and is seen to have a quality of its own4 ,no page has more individuality than his1 and none is so little like the page of the ordinary professional writer4 ',tis a false note to speak of ,emerson's doctrines1 as ,henry ,james did4 ,he had no doctrines4 ,he had leading ideas1 but he had no system1 no argument4 ,it was his attitude of mind and spirit that was significant and original4 ,he would have nothing to do with stereotyped opinions4 ,what he said to-day might contradict what he said yesterday1 or what he might say to-morrow4 ,no matter1 the spirit was the same4 ,truth is a sphere that has opposite poles4 ,emerson more than any other writer stood for the contradictory character of spiritual truth4 ,truth is what we make it--what takes the imprint of one's mind2 it is not a definite something like gold or silver1 it is any statement that fits our mental make-up1 that comes home to us4 ,what comes home in one mood may not come home in another4 ,emerson had no creed1 he had no definite ideas about ,god4 ,personality and impersonality might both be affirmed of ,absolute ,being1 and what may not be affirmed of it in our own minds8 ,the good of such a man as ,emerson is not in his doctrines1 but in his spirit1 his heroic attitude1 his consonance with the universal mind4 ,his thought is a tremendous solvent2 it digests and renders fluid the hard facts of life and experience4 ,,xiv ,emerson records in his ,journal3 ,i have been writing and speaking what were once called novelties1 for twenty-five or thirty years1 and have not now one disciple4 ,why8 ,not that what ,i said was not true2 not that it has not found intelligent receivers2 but because it did not go from any wish in me to bring men to me1 but to themselves4 ,i delight in driving them from me4 ,what could ,i do1 if they came to me8--they would interrupt and encumber me4 ,this is my boast that ,i have no school follower4 ,i should account it a measure of the impurity of insight1 if it did not create independence4 ,it is never easy to stray far from the master in high moral1 sthetic1 and literary matters and be on the safe side2 we are only to try to escape his individual bias1 to break over his limitations and brave the landscape's look with our own eyes4 ,we are to be more on guard against his affinities1 his unconscious attractions and repulsions1 than against his ethical and intellectual conclusions1 if one may make that distinction1 which ,i know is hazardous business4 ,we readily impose our own limitations upon others and see the world as old when we are old4 ,emerson criticized ,carlyle because ,carlyle was not ,emerson1 just as ,carlyle criticized ,emerson because he was not ,carlyle4 ,we are all poor beggars in this respect2 each of us is the victim of his own demon4 ,beware of the predilection of the master6 ,when his temperament impels him he is no longer a free man4 ,we touch ,emerson's limitations in his failure to see anything in ,hawthorne's work2 they had no inside to them2 it would take him and ,alcott together to make a man2 and1 again1 in his rather contemptuous disposal of ,poe as the jingle man and his verdict upon ,shelley as never a poet6 ,the intellectual content of ,shelley's work is not great2 but that he was not a poet1 in fact that he was anything else but a poet1 though not of the highest order1 is contrary to the truth1 ,i think4 ,limitations like this are not infrequent in ,emerson4 ,yet ,emerson was a great critic of men and of books4 ,a highly interesting volume showing him in this character could be compiled from the ,journals4 ,emerson and ,hawthorne were near neighbors for several years4 ,emerson liked the man better than his books4 ,they once had a good long walk together2 they walked to ,harvard village and back1 occupying a couple of days and walking about twenty miles a day4 ,they had much conversation--talked of ,scott and ,landor and others4 ,they found the bar-rooms at the inns cold and dull places4 ,the ,temperance ,society had emptied them4 ,hawthorne tried to smoke a cigar in one of them1 but was soon out on the piazza4 ,hawthorne1 ,emerson said1 was more inclined to play ,jove than ,mercury4 ,it is a pleasing picture--these two men1 so unlike1 but both typical of ,new ,england and both men of a high order of genius1 walking in friendly converse along the country roads in the golden ,september days over seventy years ago4 ,emerson always regretted that he never succeeded in conquering a friendship with ,hawthorne1 mainly because they had so few traits in common4 ,to the satisfaction of silent intercourse with men ,emerson was clearly a stranger4 ,there must be an interchange of ideas2 the feeling of comradeship1 the communion of congenial souls was not enough4 ,hawthorne1 shy1 silent1 rather gloomy1 yet there must have been a charm about his mere presence that more than made up for his want of conversation4 ,his silence was golden4 ,emerson was a transcendental ,yankee and was always bent on driving sharp bargains in the interchange of ideas with the persons he met4 ,he did not propose to swap horses or watches or jack-knives1 but he would swap ideas with you day in and day out4 ,if you had no ideas to swap1 he lost interest in you4 ,the wisdom of a great creative artist like ,hawthorne does not necessarily harden into bright epigrammatic sayings or rules for the conduct of life1 and the available intellectual content of his works to the ,emersonian type of mind may be small2 but his interior1 his emotional and imaginative richness may much more than make it up4 ,the scholar1 the sayer of things1 must always rank below the creator1 or the maker of things4 ,philosophers contradict themselves like other mortals4 ,here and there in his ,journals ,emerson rails against good nature1 and says tomahawks are better4 ,why should they call me good-natured8 ,i1 too1 like puss1 have a tractile claw4 ,and he declares that he likes the sayers of ,no better than the sayers of ,yes1 and that he preferred hard clouds1 hard expressions1 and hard manners4 ,in another mood1 or from another point of view1 he says of a man1 ,let him go into his closet and pray the ,divinity to make him so great as to be good-natured4 ,and again1 ,how great it is to do a little1 as1 for instance1 to deserve the praise of good nature1 or of humility1 or of punctuality4 ,emerson's characterization of himself as always a painter is interesting4 ,people1 he said1 came to his lectures with expectation that he was to realize the ,republic he described1 and they ceased to come when they found this reality no nearer3 ,they mistook me4 ,i am and always was a painter4 ,i paint still with might and main and choose the best subject ,i can4 ,many have ,i seen come and go with false hopes and fears1 and dubiously affected by my pictures4 ,but ,i paint on4 ,i portray the ideal1 not the real1 he might have added4 ,he was a poet-seer and not a historian4 ,he was a painter of ideas1 as ,carlyle was a painter of men and events4 ,always is there an effort at vivid and artistic expression4 ,if his statement does not kindle the imagination1 it falls short of his aim4 ,he visualizes his most subtle and abstract conceptions--sees the idea wedded to its correlative in the actual world4 ,a new figure1 a fresh simile gave him a thrill of pleasure4 ,he went hawking up and down the fields of science1 of trade1 of agriculture1 of nature1 seeking them4 ,he thinks in symbols1 he paints his visions of the ideal with pigments drawn from the world all about him4 ,to call such men as ,emerson and ,carlyle painters is only to emphasize their artistic temperaments4 ,their seriousness1 their devotion to high moral and intellectual standards1 only lift them1 as they do ,whitman1 out of the world of mere decorative art up to the world of heroic and creative art where art as such does not obtrude itself4 ,,xv ,emerson wonders why it is that man eating does not attract the imagination or attract the artist3 ,why is our diet and table not agreeable to the imagination1 whilst all other creatures eat without shame8 ,we paint the bird pecking at fruit1 the browsing ox1 the lion leaping on his prey1 but no painter ever ventured to draw a man eating4 ,the difference seems to consist in the presence or absence of the world at the feast4 ,the diet is base1 be it what it may1 that is hidden in caves or cellars or houses4444 ,did you ever eat your bread on the top of a mountain1 or drink water there8 ,did you ever camp out with lumbermen or travellers in the prairie8 ,did you ever eat the poorest rye or oatcake with a beautiful maiden in the wilderness8 and did you not find that the mixture of sun and sky with your bread gave it a certain mundane savour and comeliness8 ,i do not think ,emerson hits on the true explanation of why man feeding is not an attractive subject for the painter4 ,it is not that the diet is base and is hidden in caves and cellars1 or that the world is not present at the feast4 ,it is because eating is a purely selfish animal occupation2 there is no touch of the noble or the idyllic or the heroic in it4 ,in the act man confesses his animal nature2 he is no longer an ,emerson1 a ,dante1 a ,plato--he is simply a physiological contrivance taking in nutriment4 ,the highest and the lowest are for the moment on the same level4 ,the lady and her maid1 the lord and his lackey are all one4 ,eating your bread on a mountain-top or in the camp of lumbermen or with a beautiful maiden in the wilderness adds a new element4 ,here the picture has all nature for a background and the imagination is moved4 ,the rye and the oatcake now become a kind of heavenly manna1 or1 as ,fitzgerald has it1 under such conditions the wilderness is ,paradise enow4 ,the simple act of feeding does not now engross the attention4 ,associate with the act of eating any worthy or noble idea1 and it is at once lifted to a higher level4 ,a mother feeding her child1 a cook passing food to the tramp at the door or to other hungry and forlorn wayfarers1 or soldiers pausing to eat their rations in the field1 or fishermen beside the stream1 or the haymakers with their lunch under a tree--in all such incidents there are pictorial elements because the least part of it all to the looker-on is the act of eating4 ,in ,da ,vinci's ,last ,supper the mere animal act of taking food plays no part2 the mind is occupied with higher and more significant things4 ,a suggestion of wine or of fruit in a painting may be agreeable1 but from a suggestion of the kitchen and the cook we turn away4 ,the incident of some of ,washington's officers during the ,revolution entertaining some ,british officers 7an historical fact7 on baked potatoes and salt would appeal to the artistic imagination4 ,all the planting and reaping of the farmers is suggestive of our animal wants1 as is so much of our whole industrial activity2 but art looks kindly upon much of it1 shows us more or less in partnership with primal energies4 ,people surrounding a table after all signs of the dinner have been removed hold the elements of an agreeable picture1 because that suggests conversation and social intercourse--a feast of reason and a flow of soul4 ,we are no longer animals2 we have moved up many degrees higher in the scale of human values4 ,emerson's deep love and admiration for ,carlyle come out many times in the ,journals4 ,no other literary man of his times moved and impressed him so profoundly4 ,their correspondence1 which lasted upwards of forty years1 is the most valuable correspondence known to me in ,english literature4 ,it is a history of the growth and development of these two remarkable minds4 ,i lately reread the ,correspondence1 mainly to bring my mind again in contact with these noble spirits1 so much more exalted than any in our own time1 but partly to see what new light the letters threw upon the lives of these two men4 ,there is little of the character of intimate and friendly letters in these remarkable documents4 ,it is not ,dear ,tom or ,dear ,waldo4 ,it is ,dear ,emerson or ,dear ,carlyle4 ,they are not letters1 they are epistles1 like ,paul's ,epistle to the ,ephesians1 or to the ,thessalonians1 or to the ,romans4 ,each of them contains the fragments of a gospel that both were preaching1 each in his own way1 but at bottom the same--the beauty and majesty of the moral law4 ,let the heavens fall1 the moral law and our duty to ,god and man will stand4 ,these two men1 so different in character and temperament1 were instantly drawn together by that magnet--the moral sentiment4 ,carlyle's works were occupied almost entirely with men--with history1 biography1 political events1 and government2 ,emerson's with ideas1 nature1 and poetry2 yet the bed rock in each was the same4 ,both preached an evangel1 but how different6 ,emerson makes a note of the days on which he received a letter from1 or wrote one to1 his great ,scottish friend4 ,both were important events with him4 ,it is evident that ,emerson makes more of an effort to write his best in these letters than does ,carlyle4 ,carlyle tosses his off with more ease and unconscious mastery4 ,the exchange is always in favor of the ,scot4 ,carlyle was1 of course1 the more prodigious personality1 and had the advantage in the richness and venerableness of the ,old ,world setting4 ,but ,emerson did not hesitate to discount him in his letters and in his ,journals1 very wisely sometimes1 not so wisely at others4 ,o ,carlyle1 the merit of glass is not to be seen1 but to be seen through2 but every crystal and lamina of the ,carlyle glass is visible4 ,of course ,carlyle might reply that stained glass has other merits than transparency1 or he might ask3 ,why should an author's style be compared to glass anyhow1 since it is impossible to dissociate it from the matter of his discourse8 ,it is not merely to reveal truth2 it is also to enhance its beauty4 ,there is the charm and witchery of style1 as in ,emerson's own best pages1 as well as the worth of the subject-matter4 ,is it not true that in the description of any natural object or scene or event we want something more than to see it through a perfectly transparent medium8 ,we want the added charm or illusion of the writer's own way of seeing it1 the hue of his own spirit4 ,i think we may admit all this--doubtless ,emerson would admit it--and yet urge that ,carlyle's style had many faults of the kind ,emerson indicated4 ,it thrusts itself too much upon the reader's attention4 ,his prose is at the best1 as in the ,life of ,stirling1 when it is most transparent and freest from mannerisms4 ,carlyle's manner at its best is very pleasing2 at its worst it becomes a wearisome mannerism4 ,when a writer's style gets into a rut his reader is not happy4 ,ease1 flexibility1 transparency1 though it be colored transparency1 are among the merits we want4 ,the most just and penetrating thing ,emerson ever said about ,carlyle is recorded in his ,journal in #ahdg3 ,in ,carlyle1 as in ,byron1 one is much more struck with the rhetoric than with the matter4 ,he has manly superiority rather than intellectuality1 and so makes good hard hits all the time4 ,there is more character than intellect in every sentence1 herein strongly resembling ,samuel ,johnson4 ,criticism like this carries the force and conviction of a scientific analysis4 ,the ,journals abound in similar illuminating bits of criticism directed to nearly all the more noted authors of ,english literature1 past and present4 ,in science we do want an absolutely colorless1 transparent medium1 but in literature the personality of the writer is everything4 ,the born writer gives us facts and ideas steeped in his own quality as a man4 ,take out of ,carlyle's works1 or out of ,emerson's1 or out of ,arnold's1 the savor of the man's inborn quality--the savor of that which acts over and above his will--and we have robbed them of their distinctive quality4 ,literature is always truth of some sort1 plus a man4 ,no one knew this better than ,emerson himself4 ,another remark of ,emerson's1 made when he was twenty-seven years old1 has high literary value3 ,there is no beauty in words except in their collocation4 ,it is not beautiful words that make beautiful poetry1 or beautiful prose1 but ordinary words beautifully arranged4 ,the writer who hopes by fine language to invoke fine ideas is asking the tailor to turn him out a fine man4 ,first get your great idea1 and you will find it is already fitly clothed4 ,the image of the clothes in this connection is1 of course1 a very inadequate and misleading one1 since language is the thought or its vital integument1 and not merely its garment4 ,we often praise a writer for his choice of words1 and ,emerson himself says in the same paragraph from which ,i quote the above3 ,no man can write well who thinks there is no choice of words for him4 ,there is always a right word and every other than that is wrong4 ,there is always the best word1 or the best succession of words to give force and vividness to the idea4 ,all painters use the same colors1 all musicians use the same notes1 all sculptors use the same marble1 all architects use the same materials and all writers use essentially the same words1 their arrangement and combination alone making the difference in the various products4 ,nature uses the same elements in her endless variety of living things2 their different arrangement and combinations1 and some interior necessity which we have to call the animating principle1 is the secret of the individuality of each4 ,of course we think in words or images1 and no man can tell which is first1 or if there is any first in such matters--the thought or the word--any more than the biochemist can tell us which is first in the living body1 the carbon1 oxygen1 nitrogen1 and so on1 or the living force that weaves itself a corporeal garment out of these elements4 ,,xvi ,emerson hungered for the quintessence of things1 their last concentrated1 intensified meanings1 for the pith and marrow of men and events1 and not for their body and bulk4 ,he wanted the ottar of roses and not a rose garden1 the diamond and not a mountain of carbon4 ,this bent gives a peculiar beauty and stimulus to his writings1 while at the same time it makes the reader crave a little more body and substance4 ,the succulent leaf and stalk of certain garden vegetables is better to one's liking than the more pungent seed4 ,if ,emerson could only have given us the essence of ,father ,taylor's copious1 eloquent1 flesh-and-blood discourses1 how it would have delighted us6 or if he could only have got the silver out of ,alcott's bewitching moonshine--that would have been worth while6 ,but why wish ,emerson had been some other than he was8 ,he was at least the quintessence of ,new ,england ,puritanism1 its last and deepest meaning and result1 lifted into the regions of ethics and sthetics4 ,,ii ,,flies ,,in ,,amber ,it has been the fashion among our younger writers to speak slightingly and flippantly of ,emerson1 referring to him as outworn1 and as the apostle of the obvious4 ,this view is more discreditable to the young people than is their criticism damaging to ,emerson4 ,it can make little difference to ,emerson's fame1 but it would be much more becoming in our young writers to garland his name with flowers than to utter these harsh verdicts4 ,it is undoubtedly true that ,emerson entered into and influenced the lives of more choice spirits1 both men and women1 during the past generation than did any other ,american author4 ,whether he still does so would be interesting to know4 ,we who have felt his tonic and inspiring influence can but hope so4 ,yet how impossible he seems in times like these in which we live1 when the stars of the highest heaven of the spirit which illumine his page are so obscured or blotted out by the dust and the fog of our hurrying1 materialistic age6 ,try to think of ,emerson spending a winter going about the ,western ,states reading to miscellaneous audiences essays like those that now make up his later volumes4 ,what chance would he stand1 even in university towns1 as against the movies 7a word so ugly ,i hesitate to write it7 in the next street8 ,i once defended ,emerson against a criticism of ,matthew ,arnold's4 ,it is true1 as ,arnold says1 that ,emerson is not a great writer1 except on rare occasions4 ,now and then1 especially in his earlier essays1 there is logical texture and cohesion in his pages2 development1 evolution1 growth2 one thing follows another naturally1 and each paragraph follows from what went before4 ,but most of his later writings are a kind of patchwork2 unrelated ideas are in juxtaposition2 the incongruities are startling4 ,all those chapters1 ,i suppose1 were read as lectures to miscellaneous audiences in which the attention soon became tired or blunted if required to follow a closely reasoned argument4 ,pictures and parables and startling affirmations suited better4 ,emerson did not stoop to his audience2 there was no condescension in him4 ,the last time ,i heard him1 which was in ,washington in the early seventies1 his theme was ,manners1 and much of it passed over the heads of his audience4 ,certain of ,emerson's works must strike the average reader1 when he first looks into them1 as a curious medley of sense and wild extravagance1 utterly lacking in the logical sequence of the best prose1 and often verging on the futile and the absurd4 ,yet if one does not get discouraged1 one will soon see running through them veins of the purest gold of the spirit1 and insight into ,nature's ways1 that redeem and more than redeem them4 ,i recall that when1 as a young man1 ,i looked into them the first time1 ,i could make nothing of them4 ,i was fresh from reading the standard essayists and philosophers of ,english literature--,addison1 ,steele1 ,cowley1 ,johnson1 ,locke--and the poems of ,pope1 ,young1 and ,cowper1 all of ethical import and value1 and sometimes didactic1 but never mystical and transcendental1 and the plunge into ,emerson was a leap into a strange world4 ,but a few years later1 when ,i opened his essays again1 they were like spring-water to parched lips4 ,now1 in my old age1 ,i go back to him with a half-sad pleasure1 as one goes back to the scenes of one's youth4 ,emerson taught us a mingled poetic and prophetic way of looking at things that stays with us4 ,the talented ,english woman ,anne ,gilchrist said we had outgrown ,emerson2 had absorbed all he had to give us2 and were leaving him behind4 ,of course he was always a teacher and preacher1 in the thrall of his priestly inheritance1 and to that extent we leave him behind as we do not leave behind works of pure literature4 ,as to continuity1 some of his essays have much more of it than others4 ,in his ,nature the theme is unfolded1 there is growth and evolution2 and his first and second series of ,essays likewise show it4 ,the essays on ,character1 on ,self-,reliance1 on the ,over-,soul1 meet the requirements of sound prose4 ,and if there is any sounder prose than can be found in his ,nature1 or in his ,english ,traits1 or in his historical and biographical addresses1 ,i do not know where to find it4 ,how flat and commonplace seem the works of some of the masters of prose to whom ,arnold alludes--,cicero1 ,voltaire1 ,addison1 ,swift--compared with those of ,emerson6 ,a difference like that between the prismatic hues of raindrops suspended from a twig or a trellis in the sunlight and the water in the spring or the brook4 ,but in ,emerson's later work there is1 as geologists say1 nonconformity between the strata which make up his paragraphs4 ,there is only juxtaposition4 ,among his later papers the one on ,wealth flows along much more than the one on ,fate4 ,emerson believed in wealth4 ,poverty did not attract him4 ,it was not suited to his cast of mind4 ,poverty was humiliating4 ,emerson accumulated a fortune1 and it added to his self-respect4 ,thoreau's pride in his poverty must have made ,emerson shiver4 ,although ,arnold refused to see in ,emerson a great writer1 he did admit that he was eminent as the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit2 but ,arnold apparently overlooked the fact that1 devoid of the merit of good literature1 no man's writings could have high spiritual value4 ,strip the ,bible of its excellence as literature1 and you have let out its life-blood4 ,literature is not a varnish or a polish4 ,it is not a wardrobe4 ,it is the result of a vital1 imaginative relation of the man to his subject4 ,and ,emerson's subject-matter at its best always partakes of the texture of his own mind4 ,it is admitted that there are times when his writing lacks organization1--the vital ties1--when his rhetoric is more like a rocking-horse or a merry-go-round than like the real thing4 ,but there are few writers who do not mark time now and then1 and ,emerson is no exception2 and ,i contend that at his best his work has the sequence and evolution of all great prose4 ,and yet1 let me say that if ,emerson's power and influence depended upon his logic1 he would be easily disposed of4 ,fortunately they do not4 ,they depend1 let me repeat1 upon his spiritual power and insight1 and the minor defects ,i am pointing out are only like flies in amber4 ,he thought in images more strictly than any other contemporary writer1 and was often desperately hard-put to it to make his thought wed his image4 ,he confessed that he did not know how to argue1 and that he could only say what he saw4 ,but he had spiritual vision2 we cannot deny this1 though we do deny him logical penetration4 ,i doubt if there ever was a writer of such wide and lasting influence as ,emerson1 in whom the logical sense was so feeble and shadowy4 ,he had in this respect a feminine instead of a masculine mind1 an intuitional instead of a reasoning one4 ,it made up in audacious1 often extravagant1 affirmations what it lacked in syllogistic strength4 ,the logical mind1 with its sense of fitness and proportion1 does not strain or over-strain the thread that knits the parts together4 ,it does not jump to conclusions1 but reaches them step by step4 ,the flesh and blood of feeling and sentiment may clothe the obscure framework of logic1 but the logic is there all the same4 ,emerson's mind was as devoid of logical sense as are our remembered dreams1 or as ,christian ,science is of science4 ,he said that truth ceased to be such when polemically stated4 ,occasionally he amplifies and unfolds an idea1 as in the essays already mentioned1 but generally his argument is a rope of sand4 ,its strength is the strength of the separate particles4 ,he is perpetually hooking things together that do not go together4 ,it is like putting an apple on a pumpkin vine1 or an acorn on a hickory4 ,a club foot and a club wit4 ,why should we fear1 he says1 to be crushed by the same elements--we who are made up of the same elements8 ,but were we void of fear1 we should be crushed much oftener than we are4 ,the electricity in our bodies does not prevent us from being struck by lightning1 nor the fluids in our bodies prevent the waters from drowning us1 nor the carbon in our bodies prevent carbon dioxide from poisoning us4 ,one of ,emerson's faults as a writer arose from his fierce hunger for analogy4 ,i would rather have a good symbol of my thought1 he confesses1 than the suffrage of ,kant or of ,plato4 ,all thinking is analogizing1 and it is the use of life to learn metonymy4 ,his passion for analogy betrays him here and there in his ,journals1 as in this passage3 ,the water we wash with never speaks of itself1 nor does fire or wind or tree4 ,neither does a noble natural man1 and so forth4 ,if water and fire and wind and tree were in the habit of talking of anything else1 this kind of a comparison would not seem so spurious4 ,a false note in rhetoric like the above you will find in ,emerson oftener than a false note in taste4 ,i find but one such in the ,journals3 ,as soon as a man gets his suction-hose down into the great deep1 he belongs to no age1 but is an eternal man4 ,that ,i call an ignoble image1 and one cannot conceive of ,emerson himself printing such a passage4 ,we hear it said that ,whittier is the typical poet of ,new ,england4 ,it may be so1 but ,emerson is much the greater poet4 ,emerson is a poet of the world1 while ,whittier's work is hardly known abroad at all4 ,emerson is known wherever the ,english language is spoken4 ,not that ,emerson is in any sense a popular poet1 such as1 for example1 ,burns or ,byron1 but he is the poet of the choice few1 of those who seek poetry that has some intellectual or spiritual content4 ,whittier wrote many happy descriptions of ,new ,england scenes and seasons4 ,the ,tent on the ,beach and ,snow-,bound come readily to mind2 ,the ,playmate is a sweet poem1 full of tender and human affection1 but not a great poem4 ,whittier had no profundity4 ,is not a ,quaker poet necessarily narrow8 ,whittier gave voice to the ,new ,england detestation of slavery1 but by no means so forcibly and profoundly as did ,emerson4 ,he had a theology1 but not a philosophy4 ,i wonder if his poems are still read4 ,in his chapter called ,considerations by the ,way1 ,emerson strikes this curious false note in his rhetoric3 ,we have a right to be here or we should not be here4 ,we have the same right to be here that ,cape ,cod and ,sandy ,hook have to be there4 ,as if ,cape ,cod or ,cape ,horn or ,sandy ,hook had any rights6 ,this comparison of man with inanimate things occurs in both ,emerson and ,thoreau4 ,thoreau sins in this way at least once when he talks of the ,attic wit of burning thorns and briars4 ,there is a similar false note in such a careful writer as ,dean ,swift4 ,he says to his young poet1 ,you are ever to try a good poem as you would a sound pipkin1 and if it rings well upon the knuckle1 be sure there is no flaw in it4 ,whitman compares himself with an inanimate thing in the line3 ,i reckon ,i behave no prouder than the level ,i plant my house by4 ,but he claims no moral or human attributes or rights for his level2 it simply acts in obedience to the principle it embodies--the law of gravitation4 ,the lecturer gets away with such things better than the writer4 ,an audience is not critical about such matters1 but the reader takes note of them4 ,mosaics will do on the platform1 or in the pulpit1 but will not bear the nearer view of the study4 ,the incongruities of ,emerson are seen in such passages as this3 ,each plant has its parasites1 and each created thing its lover and poet1 as if there were any relation between the two clauses of this sentence--between parasites and lovers and poets6 ,as if one should say1 ,woodchucks are often alive with fleas1 and our fruit trees bloom in ,may4 ,emerson was so emboldened by what had been achieved through the mastery of the earth's forces that he was led to say that a wise geology shall yet make the earthquake harmless1 and the volcano an agricultural resource4 ,but this seems expecting too much4 ,we have harnessed the lightnings1 but the earthquake is too deep and too mighty for us4 ,it is a steed upon which we cannot lay our hands4 ,the volcano we may draw upon for heat and steam1 as we do upon the winds and streams for power1 but it is utterly beyond our control4 ,the bending of the earth's crust beneath the great atmospheric waves is something we cannot bridle4 ,the tides by sea as by land are beyond us4 ,emerson had the mind of the prophet and the seer1 and was given to bold affirmations4 ,the old ,biblical distinction between the scribes and the man who speaks with authority still holds4 ,we may say of all other ,new ,england essayists and poets--,lowell1 ,whipple1 ,tuckerman1 ,holmes1 ,hillard1 ,whittier1 ,longfellow--that they are scribes only4 ,emerson alone speaks as one having authority--the authority of the spirit4 ,thus saith the ,lord--it is this tone that gives him his authority the world over4 ,i never tire of those heroic lines of his in which he sounds a battle-cry to the spirit3 ,though love repine1 and reason chafe1 ,there came a voice without reply1-- '',t is man's perdition to be safe1 ,when for the truth he ought to die4' ,the last time ,i saw ,emerson was at the ,holmes seventieth-birthday breakfast in #ahgi4 ,the serious break in his health had resulted in a marked aphasia1 so that he could not speak the name of his nearest friend1 nor answer the simplest question4 ,yet he was as serene as ever4 ,let the heavens fall--what matters it to me8 his look seemed to say4 ,emerson's face had in it more of what we call the divine than had that of any other author of his time--that wonderful1 kindly1 wise smile--the smile of the soul--not merely the smile of good nature1 but the smile of spiritual welcome and hospitality4 ,emerson had quality4 ,a good ,emersonian will recognize any passage from the ,sage in a book of quotations1 even if no name is appended4 ,we speak of ,emerson as outgrown1 yet only yesterday ,i saw in ,j4 ,arthur ,thomson's recent ,gifford ,lectures on ,the ,system of ,animate ,nature1 repeated quotations from ,emerson1 mainly from his poetry4 ,i think he is no more likely to be outgrown than are ,wordsworth and ,arnold4 ,yet ,i do not set the same value upon his poetry that ,i do upon that of ,wordsworth at his best4 ,emerson is the last man we should expect to be guilty of misinterpreting ,nature1 yet he does so at times4 ,he does so in this passage3 ,if ,nature wants a thumb1 she makes it at the cost of the arms and legs4 ,as if the arm were weaker or less efficient because of the thumb4 ,what would man's power be as a tool-using animal without his strong1 opposable thumb8 ,his grasp would be gone4 ,he says truly that the gruesome1 the disgusting1 the repellent are not fit subjects for cabinet pictures4 ,the sacred subjects to which he objects probably refer to the ,crucifixion--the nails through the hands and feet1 and the crown of thorns4 ,but to jump from that fact to the assertion that ,nature covers up the skeleton on the same grounds1 is absurd4 ,do not all vertebrates require an osseous system8 ,in the radiates and articulates she puts the bony system on the outside1 but when she comes to her backbone animals1 she perforce puts her osseous system beneath4 ,she weaves her tissues and integuments of flesh and skin and hair over it1 not to hide it1 but to use it4 ,would you have a man like a jellyfish8 ,the same want of logic marks ,carlyle's mind when he says3 ,the drop by continually falling bores its way through the hardest rock4 ,the hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar1 and leaves no trace behind4 ,but give the hasty torrent the same time you give the drop1 and see what it will do to the rock6 ,emerson says1 ,a little more or a little less does not signify anything4 ,but it does signify in this world of material things4 ,is one man as impressive as an army1 one tree as impressive as a forest8 ,scoop a little water in the hollow of your palm2 take up a handful of shore sand2 well1 these are the elements4 ,what is the beach but acres of sand8 what is the ocean but cubic miles of water8 ,a little more or a little less signifies nothing4 ,it is the mass that does impress us1 as ,niagara does1 as the midnight sky does4 ,it is not as parts of this astonishing astronomy1 or as a part of the round globe under the optical sky--we do not think of that1 but the imagination is moved by the vast sweep of the ocean and its abysmal depths1 and its ceaseless rocking4 ,in some cases we see the ,all in the little2 the law that spheres a tear spheres a globe4 ,that ,nature is seen in leasts is an old ,latin maxim4 ,the soap bubble explains the rainbow4 ,steam from the boiling kettle gave ,watt the key to the steam engine2 but a tumbler of water throws no light on the sea1 though its sweating may help explain the rain4 ,emerson quotes ,goethe as saying1 ,the beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of nature which1 but for this appearance1 had been forever concealed from us4 ,as if beauty were an objective reality instead of a subjective experience6 ,as if it were something out there in the landscape that you may gather your arms full of and bring in6 ,if you are an artist1 you may bring in your vision of it1 pass it through your own mind1 and thus embalm and preserve the beauty4 ,or if you are a poet1 you may have a similar experience and reproduce it1 humanized1 in a poem4 ,but the beauty is always a distilled and re-created1 or1 shall we say1 an incarnated beauty--a tangible and measurable something1 like moisture in the air1 or sugar in the trees1 or quartz in the rocks4 ,there is1 and can be1 no science of beauty4 ,beauty1 like truth1 is an experience of the mind4 ,it is the emotion you feel when in health you look from your door or window of a ,may morning4 ,if you are ill1 or oppressed with grief1 or worried1 you will hardly experience the emotion of the beautiful4 ,emerson said he was warned by the fate of many philosophers not to attempt a definition of beauty4 ,but in trying to describe it and characterize it he ran the same risk4 ,we ascribe beauty to that which is simple1 he said2 which has no superfluous parts2 which exactly answers its end2 which stands related to all things2 which is the mean of many extremes4 ,is a boot-jack beautiful8 ,is a crow-bar8 ,yet these are simple1 they have no superfluous parts1 they exactly serve their ends1 they stand related to all things through the laws of chemistry and physics4 ,a flower is beautiful1 a shell on the beach is beautiful1 a tree in full leaf1 or in its winter nudity1 is beautiful2 but these things are not very simple4 ,complex things may be beautiful also4 ,a village church may be beautiful no less than a ,gothic cathedral4 ,emerson was himself a beautiful writer1 a beautiful character1 and his works are a priceless addition to literature4 ,go out of the house to see the moon1 says ,emerson1 and it is mere tinsel2 it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey4 ,this is not true in my experience4 ,the stars do not become mere tinsel1 do they1 when we go out to look at the overwhelming spectacle8 ,neither does the moon4 ,is it not a delight in itself to look at the full moon-- ,the vitreous pour of the full moon1 just tinged with blue1 as ,whitman says8 ,the moon doth look round her with delight when the heavens are bare1 says ,wordsworth1 and equally with delight do we regard the spectacle4 ,the busy farmer in the fields rarely sees the beauty of ,nature4 ,he has not the necessary detachment4 ,put him behind his team and plough in the spring and he makes a pleasing picture to look upon1 but the mind must be open to take in the beauty of ,nature4 ,of course ,emerson is only emphasizing the fact of the beauty of utility1 of the things we do1 of the buildings we put up for use1 and not merely for show4 ,a hut1 a log cabin in a clearing1 a farmer's unpainted barn1 all have elements of beauty4 ,a man leading a horse to water1 or foddering his cattle from a stack in a snow-covered field1 or following his plough1 is always pleasing4 ,every day ,i pass along a road by a wealthy man's estate and see a very elaborate stone wall of cobblestones and cement which marks the boundary of his estate on the highway4 ,the wall does not bend and undulate with the inequalities of the ground2 its top is as level as a foundation wall2 it is an offense to every passer-by2 it has none of the simplicity that should mark a division wall2 it is studied and elaborate1 and courts your admiration4 ,how much more pleasing a rough wall of field stone1 or wild stone1 as our old wall-layer put it1 with which the farmer separates his fields6 ,no thought of looks1 but only of utility4 ,the showy1 the highly ornate castle which the multimillionaire builds on his estate--would an artist ever want to put one of them in his picture8 ,beauty is likely to flee when we make a dead set at her4 ,emerson's exaggerations are sometimes so excessive as to be simply amusing1 as1 when speaking of the feats of the imagination1 he says1 ,my boots and chair and candlestick are fairies in disguise1 meteors and constellations4 ,the baseball1 revolving as it flies1 may suggest the orbs1 or your girdle suggest the equator1 or the wiping of your face on a towel suggest the absorption of the rain by the soil2 but does the blacking of your shoes suggest anything celestial8 ,hinges and levers and fulcrums are significant1 but one's old hat1 or old boots1 have not much poetic significance4 ,an elm tree may suggest a cathedral1 or a shell suggest the rainbow1 or the sparkling frost suggest diamonds1 or the thread that holds the beads symbolize the law that strings the spheres1 but a button is a button1 a shoestring a shoestring1 and a spade a spade1 and nothing more4 ,i cherish and revere the name of ,emerson so profoundly1 and owe him such a debt1 that it seems1 after all1 a pity to point out the flaws in his precious amber4 ,let us keep alive the ,emersonian memories3 that such a man has lived and wrought among us4 ,let us teach our children his brave and heroic words1 and plant our lives upon as secure an ethical foundation as he did4 ,let us make pilgrimages to ,concord1 and stand with uncovered heads beneath the pine tree where his ashes rest4 ,he left us an estate in the fair land of the ,ideal4 ,he bequeathed us treasures that thieves cannot break through and steal1 nor time corrupt1 nor rust nor moth destroy4#b ,footnote #b3 ,at the onset of the author's last illness he attempted to rearrange and improve this essay1 but was even then unequal to it1 and1 after a little shifting and editing1 gave it up4 ,do what you can with it1 he said2 and when ,i asked him if he could not add a few words to close it1 he sat up in bed1 and wrote the closing sentences1 which proved to be the last he ever penned4--,c4 ,b4 ,,iii ,,another ,,word ,,on ,,thoreau ,i ,after ,emerson1 the name of no ,new ,england man of letters keeps greener and fresher than that of ,thoreau4 ,a severe censor of his countrymen1 and with few elements of popularity1 yet the quality of his thought1 the sincerity of his life1 and the nearness and perennial interest of his themes1 as well as his rare powers of literary expression1 win recruits from each generation of readers4 ,he does not grow stale any more than ,walden ,pond itself grows stale4 ,he is an obstinate fact there in ,new ,england life and literature1 and at the end of his first centennial his fame is more alive than ever4 ,thoreau was born in ,concord1 ,massachusetts1 ,july1 #ahag1 and passed most of his life of forty-five years in his native town1 minding his own business1 as he would say1 which consisted1 for the most part1 in spending at least the half of each day in the open air1 winter and summer1 rain and shine1 and in keeping tab upon all the doings of wild nature about him and recording his observations in his ,journal4 ,the two race strains that met in ,thoreau1 the ,scottish and the ,french1 come out strongly in his life and character4 ,to the ,french he owes his vivacity1 his lucidity1 his sense of style1 and his passion for the wild2 for the ,french1 with all their urbanity and love of art1 turn to nature very easily4 ,to the ,scot he is indebted more for his character than for his intellect4 ,from this source come his contrariness1 his combativeness1 his grudging acquiescence1 and his pronounced mysticism4 ,thence also comes his genius for solitude4 ,the man who in his cabin in the woods has a good deal of company especially the mornings when nobody calls1 is ,french only in the felicity of his expression4 ,but there is much in ,thoreau that is neither ,gallic nor ,scottish1 but pure ,thoreau4 ,the most point-blank and authoritative criticism within my knowledge that ,thoreau has received at the hands of his countrymen came from the pen of ,lowell about #ahfd1 and was included in ,my ,study ,windows4 ,it has all the professional smartness and scholarly qualities which usually characterize ,lowell's critical essays4 ,thoreau was vulnerable1 both as an observer and as a literary craftsman1 and ,lowell lets him off pretty easily--too easily--on both counts4 ,the flaws he found in his nature lore were very inconsiderable3 ,till he built his ,walden shack he did not know that the hickory grew near ,concord4 ,till he went to ,maine he had never seen phosphorescent wood--a phenomenon early familiar to most country boys4 ,at forty he spoke of the seeding i4 e41 flowering#c of the pine as a new discovery1 though one should have thought that its gold-dust of blowing pollen might have earlier caught his eye4 ,footnote #c3 ,see ,walking in ,excursions4 ,he was under thirty-three when he made these observations 7,june1 #ahej74 ,as regards his literary craftsmanship1 ,lowell charges him only with having revived the age of concetti while he fancied himself going back to a preclassical nature1 basing the charge on such a far-fetched comparison as that in which ,thoreau declares his preference for the dry wit of decayed cranberry-vines and the fresh ,attic salt of the moss-beds over the wit of the ,greek sages as it comes to us in the ,banquet of ,xenophon--a kind of perversity of comparison all too frequent with ,thoreau4 ,but though ,lowell lets ,thoreau off easily on these specific counts1 he more than makes up by his sweeping criticism1 on more general grounds1 of his life and character4 ,here one feels that he overdoes the matter4 ,it is not true1 in the sense which ,lowell implies1 that ,thoreau's whole life was a search for the doctor4 ,it was such a search in no other sense than that we are all in search of the doctor when we take a walk1 or flee to the mountains or to the seashore1 or seek to bring our minds and spirits in contact with ,nature's primal sanities4 ,his search for the doctor turns out to be an escape from the conditions that make a doctor necessary4 ,his wonderful activity1 those long walks in all weathers1 in all seasons1 by night as well as by day1 drenched by rain and chilled by frost1 suggest a reckless kind of health4 ,a doctor might wisely have cautioned him against such exposures4 ,nor was ,thoreau a valetudinarian in his physical1 moral1 or intellectual fiber4 ,it is not true1 as ,lowell charges1 that it was his indolence that stood in the way of his taking part in the industrial activities in which his friends and neighbors engaged1 or that it was his lack of persistence and purpose that hindered him4 ,it is not true that he was poor because he looked upon money as an unmixed evil4 ,thoreau's purpose was like adamant1 and his industry in his own proper pursuits was tireless4 ,he knew the true value of money1 and he knew also that the best things in life are to be had without money and without price4 ,when he had need of money1 he earned it4 ,he turned his hand to many things--land-surveying1 lecturing1 magazine-writing1 growing white beans1 doing odd jobs at carpentering1 whitewashing1 fence-building1 plastering1 and brick-laying4 ,lowell's criticism amounts almost to a diatribe4 ,he was naturally antagonistic to the ,thoreau type of mind4 ,coming from a man near his own age1 and a neighbor1 ,thoreau's criticism of life was an affront to the smug respectability and scholarly attainments of the class to which ,lowell belonged4 ,thoreau went his own way1 with an air of defiance and contempt which1 no doubt1 his contemporaries were more inclined to resent than we are at our distance4 ,shall this man in his hut on the shores of ,walden ,pond assume to lay down the law and the gospel to his elders and betters1 and pass unrebuked1 no matter on what intimate terms he claims to be with the gods of the woods and mountains8 ,this seems to be ,lowell's spirit4 ,thoreau's experiment1 says ,lowell1 actually presupposed all that complicated civilization which it theoretically abjured4 ,he squatted on another man's land2 he borrows an axe2 his boards1 his nails1 his bricks1 his mortar1 his books1 his lamp1 his fish-hooks1 his plough1 his hoe1 all turn state's evidence against him as an accomplice in the sin of that artificial civilization which rendered it possible that such a person as ,henry ,d4 ,thoreau should exist at all4 ,very clever1 but what of it8 ,of course ,thoreau was a product of the civilization he decried4 ,he was a product of his country and his times4 ,he was born in ,concord and early came under the influence of ,emerson2 he was a graduate of ,harvard ,university and all his life availed himself1 more or less1 of the accumulated benefits of state and social organizations4 ,when he took a train to ,boston1 or dropped a letter in1 or received one through1 the post office1 or read a book1 or visited a library1 or looked in a newspaper1 he was a sharer in these benefits4 ,he made no claims to living independently of the rest of mankind4 ,his only aim in his ,walden experiment was to reduce life to its lowest terms1 to drive it into a corner1 as he said1 and question and cross-question it1 and see1 if he could1 what it really meant4 ,and he probably came as near cornering it there in his hut on ,walden ,pond as any man ever did anywhere1 certainly in a way more pleasing to contemplate than did the old hermits in the desert1 or than did ,diogenes in his tub1 though ,lowell says the tub of the old ,greek had a sounder bottom4 ,lowell seemed to discredit ,thoreau by attacking his philosophy and pointing out the contradictions and inconsistencies of a man who abjures the civilization of which he is the product1 overlooking the fact that man's theories and speculations may be very wide of the truth as we view it1 and yet his life be noble and inspiring4 ,now ,thoreau did not give us a philosophy1 but a life4 ,he gave us fresh and beautiful literature1 he gave us our first and probably only nature classic1 he gave us an example of plain living and high thinking that is always in season1 and he took upon himself that kind of noble poverty that carries the suggestion of wealth of soul4 ,no matter how much ,thoreau abjured our civilization1 he certainly made good use of the weapons it gave him4 ,no matter whose lands he squatted on1 or whose saw he borrowed1 or to whom or what he was indebted for the tools and utensils that made his life at ,walden possible1--these things were the mere accidents of his environment1--he left a record of his life and thoughts there which is a precious heritage to his countrymen4 ,the best in his books ranks with the best in the literature of his times4 ,one could wish that he had shown more tolerance for the things other men live for1 but this must not make us overlook the value of the things he himself lived for1 though with some of his readers his intolerance doubtless has this effect4 ,we cannot all take to the woods and swamps as ,thoreau did4 ,he had a genius for that kind of a life2 the most of us must stick to our farms and desks and shops and professions4 ,thoreau retired to ,walden for study and contemplation1 and because1 as he said1 he had a little private business with himself4 ,he found that by working about six weeks in the year he could meet all his living expenses1 and then have all his winter and most of his summers free and clear for study4 ,he found that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship1 but a pastime1 if one will live simply and wisely4 ,he said1 ,it is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow unless he sweats easier than ,i do4 ,was not his experiment worth while8 ,walden is a wonderful and delightful piece of brag1 but it is much more than that4 ,it is literature2 it is a ,gospel of the ,wild4 ,it made a small ,massachusetts pond famous1 and the ,mecca of many devout pilgrims4 ,lowell says that ,thoreau had no humor1 but there are many pages in ,walden that are steeped in a quiet but most delicious humor4 ,his humor brings that inward smile which is the badge of art's felicity4 ,his ,bean-,field is full of it4 ,i venture to say that never before had a hermit so much fun with a field of white beans4 ,both by training and by temperament ,lowell was disqualified from entering into ,thoreau's character and aims4 ,lowell's passion for books and academic accomplishments was as strong as was ,thoreau's passion for the wild and for the religion of ,nature4 ,when ,lowell went to ,nature for a theme1 as in his ,good ,word for ,winter1 his ,my ,garden ,acquaintance1 and the ,moosehead ,journal1 his use of it was mainly to unlock the treasures of his literary and scholarly attainments2 he bedecked and be jeweled ,nature with gems from all the literatures of the world4 ,in the ,journal we get more of the flavor of libraries than of the ,maine woods and waters4 ,no reader of ,lowell can doubt that he was a nature-lover1 nor can he doubt that he loved books and libraries more4 ,in all his nature writings the poverty of the substance and the wealth of the treatment are striking4 ,the final truth about ,lowell's contributions is that his mind was essentially a prose mind1 even when he writes poetry4 ,emerson said justly that his tone was always that of prose4 ,what is his ,cathedral but versified prose8 ,like so many cultivated men1 he showed a talent for poetry1 but not genius2 as1 on the other hand1 one may say of ,emerson that he showed more genius for poetry than talent1 his inspiration surpassed his technical skill4 ,one is not surprised when he finds that ,john ,brown was one of ,thoreau's heroes2 he was a sort of ,john ,brown himself in another sphere2 but one is surprised when one finds him so heartily approving of ,walt ,whitman and traveling to ,brooklyn to look upon him and hear his voice4 ,he recognized at once the tremendous significance of ,whitman and the power of his poetry4 ,he called him the greatest democrat which the world had yet seen4 ,with all his asceticism and his idealism1 he was not troubled at all with those things in ,whitman that are a stumbling-block to so many persons4 ,evidently his long intercourse with ,nature had prepared him for the primitive and elemental character of ,whitman's work4 ,no doubt also his familiarity with the great poems and sacred books of the ,east helped him4 ,at any rate1 in this respect1 his endorsement of ,whitman adds greatly to our conception of the mental and spiritual stature of ,thoreau4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i can hold my criticism in the back of my head while ,i say with my forehead that all our other nature writers seem tame and insipid beside ,thoreau4 ,he was so much more than a mere student and observer of nature2 and it is this surplusage which gives the extra weight and value to his nature writing4 ,he was a critic of life1 he was a literary force that made for plain living and high thinking4 ,his nature lore was an aside2 he gathered it as the meditative saunterer gathers a leaf1 or a flower1 or a shell on the beach1 while he ponders on higher things4 ,he had other business with the gods of the woods than taking an inventory of their wares4 ,he was a dreamer1 an idealist1 a fervid ethical teacher1 seeking inspiration in the fields and woods4 ,the hound1 the turtle-dove1 and the bay horse which he said he had lost1 and for whose trail he was constantly seeking1 typified his interest in wild nature4 ,the natural history in his books is quite secondary4 ,the natural or supernatural history of his own thought absorbed him more than the exact facts about the wild life around him4 ,he brings us a gospel more than he brings us a history4 ,his science is only the handmaid of his ethics2 his wood-lore is the foil of his moral and intellectual teachings4 ,his observations are frequently at fault1 or wholly wide of the mark2 but the flower or specimen that he brings you always comes laden with a thought4 ,there is a tang and a pungency to nearly everything he published2 the personal quality which flavors it is like the formic acid which the bee infuses into the nectar he gets from the flower1 and which makes it honey4 ,i feel that some such statement about ,thoreau should precede or go along with any criticism of him as a writer or as an observer4 ,he was1 first and last1 a moral force speaking in the terms of the literary naturalist4 ,thoreau's prayer in one of his poems--that he might greatly disappoint his friends--seems to have been answered4 ,while his acquaintances went into trade or the professions1 he cast about to see what he could do to earn his living and still be true to the call of his genius4 ,in his ,journal of #ahea he says3 ,while formerly ,i was looking about to see what ,i could do for a living1 some sad experiences in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity1 ,i thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries2 that surely ,i could do1 and its small profits might suffice1 so little capital is required1 so little distraction from my wonted thoughts4 ,he could range the hills in summer and still look after the flocks of ,king ,admetus4 ,he also dreamed that he might gather the wild herbs and carry evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods4 ,but he soon learned that trade cursed everything1 and that though you trade in messages from heaven1 the whole curse of trade attaches to the business4 ,the nearest his conscience would allow him to approach any kind of trade was to offer himself to his townsmen as a land-surveyor4 ,this would take him to the places where he liked to be2 he could still walk in the fields and woods and swamps and earn his living thereby4 ,the chain and compass became him well1 quite as well as his bean-field at ,walden1 and the little money they brought him was not entirely sordid4 ,in one of his happy moods in ,walden he sets down in a half-facetious1 half-mystical1 but wholly delightful way1 his various avocations1 such as his self-appointment as inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms1 and surveyor of forest paths and all across-lot routes1 and herdsman of the wild stock of the town4 ,he is never more enjoyable than in such passages4 ,his account of going into business at ,walden ,pond is in the same happy vein4 ,as his fellow citizens were slow in offering him any opening in which he could earn a living1 he turned to the woods1 where he was better known1 and determined to go into business at once without waiting to acquire the usual capital4 ,he expected to open trade with the ,celestial ,empire1 and ,walden was just the place to start the venture4 ,he thought his strict business habits acquired through years of keeping tab on wild ,nature's doings1 his winter days spent outside the town1 trying to hear what was in the wind1 and his early spring mornings before his neighbors were astir to hear the croak of the first frog1 all the training necessary to ensure success in business with the ,celestial ,empire4 ,he admits1 it is true1 that he never assisted the sun materially in his rising1 but doubted not that it was of the last importance only to be present at it4 ,all such fooling as this is truly delightful4 ,when he goes about his sylvan business with his tongue in his cheek and a quizzical1 good-humored look upon his face in this way1 and advertises the hound1 the bay horse1 and the turtle-dove he lost so long ago1 he is the true ,thoreau1 and we take him to our hearts4 ,one also enjoys the way in which he magnifies his petty occupations4 ,his brag over his bean-field is delightful4 ,he makes one want to hoe beans with him3 ,when my hoe tinkled against the stones1 that music echoed to the woods and the sky and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop4 ,it was no longer beans that ,i hoed1 nor ,i that hoed beans2 and ,i remembered with as much pity as pride1 if ,i remembered at all1 my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios4 ,the nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons--for ,i sometimes made a day of it--like a mote in the eye1 or in heaven's eye1 falling from time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent1 torn at last to very rags and tatters1 and yet a seamless cope remained2 small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare sand or rocks on the top of hills1 where few have found them2 graceful and slender like ripples caught up from the pond1 as leaves are raised by the wind to float in the heavens2 such kindredship is in nature4 ,the hawk is arial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys1 those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea4 ,or sometimes ,i watched a pair of hen-hawks circling high in the sky1 alternately soaring and descending1 approaching and leaving one another1 as if they were the embodiment of my own thoughts4 ,or ,i was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons from this wood to that1 with a slight quivering winnowing sound and carrier haste2 or from under a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish portentous and outlandish salamander1 a trace of ,egypt and the ,nile1 yet our contemporary4 ,when ,i paused to lean on my hoe1 these sounds and sights ,i heard and saw anywhere in the row1 a part of the inexhaustible entertainment which the country offers4 ,all this is in his best style4 ,who1 after reading it1 does not long for a bean-field8 ,in planting it1 too what music attends him6 ,near at hand1 upon the topmost spray of a birch1 sings the brown thrasher--or red mavis1 as some love to call him--all the morning1 glad of your society1 that would find out another farmer's field if yours were not here4 ,while you are planting the seed he cries1--,drop it1 drop it1--cover it up1 cover it up1--pull it up1 pull it up1 pull it up4 ,but this was not corn1 and so it was safe from such enemies as he4 ,you may wonder what his rigmarole1 his amateur ,paganini performances on one string or on twenty1 have to do with your planting1 and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster4 ,it was a cheap sort of top dressing in which ,i had entire faith4 ,what lessons he got in botany in the hoeing6 ,consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds1--it will bear some iteration in the account1 for there was no little iteration in the labor1--disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly1 and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe1 levelling whole ranks of one species1 and sedulously cultivating another4 ,that's ,roman worm-wood1--that's pigweed1--that's sorrel1--that's pipergrass1--have at him1 chop him up1 turn his roots upward to the sun1 don't let him have a fibre in the shade1 if you do he'll turn himself t' other side up and be as green as a leek in two days4 ,a long war1 not with cranes1 but with weeds1 those ,trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side4 ,daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe1 and thin the ranks of their enemies1 filling up the trenches with weedy dead4 ,many a lusty crest-waving ,hector1 that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades1 fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust4 ,i have occasional visits in the long winter evenings1 when the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood1 from an old settler and original proprietor1 who is reported to have dug ,walden ,pond1 and stoned it1 and fringed it with pine woods2 who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity2 and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things1 even without apples or cider1--a most wise and humorous friend1 whom ,i love much1 who keeps himself more secret than ever did ,goffe or ,whalley2 and though he is thought to be dead1 none can show where he is buried4 ,an elderly dame1 too1 dwells in my neighborhood1 invisible to most persons1 in whose odorous herb garden ,i love to stroll sometimes1 gathering simples and listening to her fables2 for she has a genius of unequalled fertility1 and her memory runs back farther than mythology1 and she can tell me the original of every fable1 and on what fact every one is founded1 for the incidents occurred when she was young4 ,a ruddy and lusty old dame1 who delights in all weathers and seasons1 and is likely to outlive all her children yet4 ,thoreau taxed himself to find words and images strong enough to express his aversion to the lives of the men who were engaged in the various industrial fields about him4 ,everywhere in shops and offices and fields it appeared to him that his neighbors were doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways3 ,what ,i have heard of ,bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun2 or hanging suspended1 with their heads downward1 over flames2 or looking at the heavens over their shoulders until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position1 while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach2 or dwelling1 chained for life1 at the foot of a tree2 or measuring with their bodies1 like caterpillars1 the breadth of vast empires2 or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars1--even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which ,i daily witness4444 ,i see young men1 my townsmen1 whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms1 houses1 barns1 cattle1 and farming tools2 for these are more easily acquired than got rid of4 ,surely this disciple of the ,gospel of the ,wild must have disappointed his friends4 ,it was this audacious gift which ,thoreau had for making worldly possessions seem ignoble1 that gives the tang to many pages of his writings4 ,thoreau became a great traveler--in ,concord1 as he says--and made ,walden ,pond famous in our literature by spending two or more years in the woods upon its shore1 and writing an account of his sojourn there which has become a nature classic4 ,he was a poet-naturalist1 as his friend ,channing aptly called him1 of untiring industry1 and the country in a radius of seven or eight miles about ,concord was threaded by him in all seasons as probably no other section of ,new ,england was ever threaded and scrutinized by any one man4 ,walking in the fields and woods1 and recording what he saw and heard and thought in his ,journal1 became the business of his life4 ,he went over the same ground endlessly1 but always brought back new facts1 or new impressions1 because he was so sensitive to all the changing features of the day and the season in the landscape about him4 ,once he extended his walking as far as ,quebec1 ,canada1 and once he took in the whole of ,cape ,cod2 three or four times he made excursions to the ,maine woods1 the result of which gave the name to one of his most characteristic volumes2 but as habitually as the coming of the day was he a walker about ,concord1 in all seasons1 primarily for companionship with untamed ,nature1 and secondarily as a gleaner in the fields of natural history4 ,,ii ,thoreau was not a great philosopher1 he was not a great naturalist1 he was not a great poet1 but as a nature-writer and an original character he is unique in our literature4 ,his philosophy begins and ends with himself1 or is entirely subjective1 and is frequently fantastic1 and nearly always illogical4 ,his poetry is of the oracular kind1 and is only now and then worth attention4 ,there are crudities in his writings that make the conscientious literary craftsman shudder2 there are mistakes of observation that make the serious naturalist wonder2 and there is often an expression of contempt for his fellow countrymen1 and the rest of mankind1 and their aims in life1 that makes the judicious grieve4 ,but at his best there is a gay symbolism1 a felicity of description1 and a freshness of observation that delight all readers4 ,as a person he gave himself to others reluctantly2 he was1 in truth1 a recluse4 ,he stood for character more than for intellect1 and for intuition more than for reason4 ,he was often contrary and inconsistent4 ,there was more crust than crumb in the loaf he gave us4 ,he went about the business of living with his head in the clouds1 or with an absolute devotion to the ideal that is certainly rare in our literary history4 ,he declared that he aimed to crow like chanticleer in the morning1 if only to wake his neighbors up4 ,much of his writings have this chanticleerian character2 they are a call to wake up1 to rub the film from one's eyes1 and see the real values of life4 ,to this end he prods with paradoxes1 he belabors with hyperboles1 he teases with irony1 he startles with the unexpected4 ,he finds poverty more attractive than riches1 solitude more welcome than society1 a sphagnum swamp more to be desired than a flowered field4 ,thoreau is suggestive of those antibodies which modern science makes so much of4 ,he tends to fortify us against the dry rot of business1 the seductions of social pleasures1 the pride of wealth and position4 ,he is antitoxic2 he is a literary germicide of peculiar power4 ,he is too religious to go to church1 too patriotic to pay his taxes1 too fervent a humanist to interest himself in the social welfare of his neighborhood4 ,thoreau called himself a mystic1 and a transcendentalist1 and a natural philosopher to boot4 ,but the least of these was the natural philosopher4 ,he did not have the philosophic mind1 nor the scientific mind2 he did not inquire into the reason of things1 nor the meaning of things2 in fact1 had no disinterested interest in the universe apart from himself4 ,he was too personal and illogical for a philosopher4 ,the scientific interpretation of things did not interest him at all4 ,he was interested in things only so far as they related to ,henry ,thoreau4 ,he interpreted ,nature entirely in the light of his own idiosyncrasies4 ,science goes its own way in spite of our likes and dislikes1 but ,thoreau's likes and dislikes determined everything for him4 ,he was stoical1 but not philosophical4 ,his intellect had no free play outside his individual predilection4 ,truth as philosophers use the term1 was not his quest but truth made in ,concord4 ,thoreau writes that when he was once asked by the ,association for the ,advancement of ,science what branch of science he was especially interested in1 he did not reply because he did not want to make himself the laughing-stock of the scientific community1 which did not believe in a science which deals with the higher law--his higher law1 which bears the stamp of ,henry ,thoreau4 ,he was an individualist of the most pronounced type4 ,the penalty of this type of mind is narrowness2 the advantage is the personal flavor imparted to the written page4 ,thoreau's books contain plenty of the pepper and salt of character and contrariness2 even their savor of whim and prejudice adds to their literary tang4 ,when his individualism becomes aggressive egotism1 as often happens1 it is irritating2 but when it gives only that pungent and personal flavor which pervades much of ,walden1 it is very welcome4 ,thoreau's critics justly aver that he severely arraigns his countrymen because they are not all ,thoreaus--that they do not desert their farms and desks and shops and take to the woods4 ,what unmeasured contempt he pours out upon the lives and ambitions of most of them6 ,need a nature-lover1 it is urged1 necessarily be a man-hater8 ,is not man a part of nature8--averaging up quite as good as the total scheme of things out of which he came8 ,cannot his vices and shortcomings be matched by a thousand cruel and abortive things in the fields and the woods8 ,the fountain cannot rise above its source1 and man is as good as is the nature out of which he came1 and of which he is a part4 ,most of ,thoreau's harsh judgments upon his neighbors and countrymen are only his extreme individualism gone to seed4 ,an extremist he always was4 ,extreme views commended themselves to him because they were extreme4 ,his aim in writing was usually to make an extreme statement4 ,he left the middle ground to the school committees and trustees4 ,he had in him the stuff of which martyrs and heroes are made4 ,in ,john ,brown he recognized a kindred soul4 ,but his literary bent led him to take his own revolutionary impulses out in words4 ,the closest he came to imitation of the hero of ,harper's ,ferry and to defying the ,government was on one occasion when he refused to pay his poll-tax and thus got himself locked in jail overnight4 ,it all seems a petty and ignoble ending of his fierce denunciation of politics and government1 but it no doubt helped to satisfy his imagination1 which so tyrannized over him throughout life4 ,he could endure offenses against his heart and conscience and reason easier than against his imagination4 ,he presents that curious phenomenon of a man who is an extreme product of culture and civilization1 and yet who so hungers and thirsts for the wild and the primitive that he is unfair to the forces and conditions out of which he came1 and by which he is at all times nourished and upheld4 ,he made his excursions into the ,maine wilderness and lived in his hut by ,walden ,pond as a scholar and philosopher1 and not at all in the spirit of the lumbermen and sportsmen whose wildness he so much admired4 ,it was from his vantage-ground of culture and of ,concord transcendentalism that he appraised all these types4 ,it was from a community built up and sustained by the common industries and the love of gain that he decried all these things4 ,it was from a town and a civilization that owed much to the pine tree that he launched his diatribe against the lumbermen in the ,maine woods3 ,the pine is no more lumber than man is2 and to be made into boards and houses no more its true and highest use than the truest use of man is to be cut down and made into manure4 ,not a happy comparison1 but no matter4 ,if the pine tree had not been cut down and made into lumber1 it is quite certain that ,thoreau would never have got to the ,maine woods to utter this protest1 just as it is equally certain that had he not been a member of a thrifty and industrious community1 and kept his hold upon it1 he could not have made his ,walden experiment of toying and coquetting with the wild and the non-industrial4 ,his occupations as land-surveyor1 lyceum lecturer1 and magazine writer attest how much he owed to the civilization he was so fond of decrying4 ,this is ,thoreau's weakness--the half-truths in which he plumes himself1 as if they were the whole law and gospel4 ,his ,walden bean-field was only a pretty piece of play-acting2 he cared more for the ringing of his hoe upon the stones than for the beans4 ,had his living really depended upon the product1 the sound would not have pleased him so1 and the botany of the weeds he hoed under would not have so interested him4 ,thoreau's half-truths titillate and amuse the mind4 ,we do not nod over his page4 ,we enjoy his art while experiencing an undercurrent of protest against his unfairness4 ,we could have wished him to have shown himself in his writings as somewhat sweeter and more tolerant toward the rest of the world1 broader in outlook1 and more just and charitable in disposition--more like his great prototype1 ,emerson1 who could do full justice to the wild and the spontaneous without doing an injustice to their opposites2 who could see the beauty of the pine tree1 yet sing the praises of the pine-tree ,state ,house2 who could arraign the ,government1 yet pay his taxes2 who could cherish ,thoreau1 and yet see all his limitations4 ,emerson affirmed more than he denied1 and his charity was as broad as his judgment4 ,he set ,thoreau a good example in bragging1 but he bragged to a better purpose4 ,he exalted the present moment1 the universal fact1 the omnipotence of the moral law1 the sacredness of private judgment2 he pitted the man of to-day against all the saints and heroes of history2 and1 although he decried traveling1 he was yet considerable of a traveler1 and never tried to persuade himself that ,concord was an epitome of the world4 ,emerson comes much nearer being a national figure than does ,thoreau1 and yet ,thoreau1 by reason of his very narrowness and perversity1 and by his intense local character1 united to the penetrating character of his genius1 has made an enduring impression upon our literature4 ,,iii ,thoreau's life was a search for the wild4 ,he was the great disciple of the ,gospel of ,walking4 ,he elevated walking into a religious exercise4 ,one of his most significant and entertaining chapters is on ,walking4 ,no other writer that ,i recall has set forth the ,gospel of ,walking so eloquently and so stimulatingly4 ,thoreau's religion and his philosophy are all in this chapter4 ,it is his most mature1 his most complete and comprehensive statement4 ,he says3 ,i have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of ,walking1 that is1 of taking walks--who had a genius1 so to speak1 for sauntering1 which word is beautifully derived from idle people who roved about the country1 in the ,middle ,ages1 and asked charity1 under pretence of going la ,sainte ,terre1 to the ,holy ,land1 till the children exclaimed1 ,there goes a ,sainte-,terrer1--a ,saunterer1 a ,holy-,lander4 ,they who never go to the ,holy ,land in their walks1 as they pretend1 are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds2 but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense1 such as ,i mean4444 ,for every walk is a sort of crusade1 preached by some ,peter the ,hermit in us1 to go forth and reconquer this ,holy ,land from the hands of the ,infidels4 ,thoreau was the first man in this country1 or in any other1 so far as ,i know1 who made a religion of walking--the first to announce a ,gospel of the ,wild4 ,that he went forth into wild nature in much the same spirit that the old hermits went into the desert1 and was as devout in his way as they were in theirs1 is revealed by numerous passages in his ,journal4 ,he would make his life a sacrament2 he discarded the old religious terms and ideas1 and struck out new ones of his own3 ,what more glorious condition of being can we imagine than from impure to become pure8 ,may ,i not forget that ,i am impure and vicious6 ,may ,i not cease to love purity6 ,may ,i go to my slumbers as expecting to arise to a new and more perfect day6 ,may ,i so live and refine my life as fitting myself for a society ever higher than ,i actually enjoy6 ,to watch for and describe all the divine features which ,i detect in nature6 ,my profession is to be always on the alert to find ,god in nature1 to know his lurking-place1 to attend all the oratorios1 the operas1 in nature4 ,ah6 ,i would walk1 ,i would sit1 and sleep1 with natural piety4 ,what if ,i could pray aloud or to myself as ,i went along the brooksides a cheerful prayer like the birds8 ,for joy ,i could embrace the earth4 ,i shall delight to be buried in it4 ,i do not deserve anything4 ,i am unworthy the least regard1 and yet ,i am made to rejoice4 ,i am impure and worthless1 and yet the world is gilded for my delight and holidays are prepared for me1 and my path is strewn with flowers4 ,but ,i cannot thank the ,giver2 ,i cannot even whisper my thanks to the human friends ,i have4 ,in the essay on ,walking1 ,thoreau says that the art of walking comes only by the grace of ,god4 ,it requires a direct dispensation from ,heaven to become a walker4 ,you must be born into the family of the ,walkers4 ,i think that ,i cannot preserve my health and spirits1 unless ,i spend four hours a day at least1--it is commonly more than that1--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields1 absolutely free from all worldly engagements4 ,thoreau made good his boast4 ,he was a new kind of walker1 a ,holy-,lander4 ,his walks yielded him mainly spiritual and ideal results4 ,the fourteen published volumes of his ,journal are mainly a record of his mental reactions to the passing seasons and to the landscape he sauntered through4 ,there is a modicum of natural history1 but mostly he reaps the intangible harvest of the poet1 the saunterer1 the mystic1 the super-sportsman4 ,with his usual love of paradox ,thoreau says that the fastest way to travel is to go afoot1 because1 one may add1 the walker is constantly arriving at his destination2 all places are alike to him1 his harvest grows all along the road and beside every path1 in every field and wood and on every hilltop4 ,all of ,thoreau's books belong to the literature of ,walking1 and are as true in spirit in ,paris or ,london as in ,concord4 ,his natural history1 for which he had a passion1 is the natural history of the walker1 not always accurate1 as ,i have pointed out1 but always graphic and interesting4 ,wordsworth was about the first poet-walker--a man of letters who made a business of walking1 and whose study was really the open air4 ,but he was not a ,holy-,lander in the ,thoreau sense4 ,he did not walk to get away from people as ,thoreau did1 but to see a greater variety of them1 and to gather suggestions for his poems4 ,not so much the wild as the human and the morally significant were the objects of ,wordsworth's quest4 ,he haunted waterfalls and fells and rocky heights and lonely tarns1 but he was not averse to footpaths and highways1 and the rustic1 half-domesticated nature of rural ,england4 ,he was a nature-lover2 he even calls himself a nature-worshiper2 and he appears to have walked as many1 or more1 hours each day1 in all seasons1 as did ,thoreau2 but he was hunting for no lost paradise of the wild2 nor waging a war against the arts and customs of civilization4 ,man and life were at the bottom of his interest in ,nature4 ,wordsworth never knew the wild as we know it in this country--the pitilessly savage and rebellious2 and1 on the other hand1 he never knew the wonderfully delicate and furtive and elusive nature that we know2 but he knew the sylvan1 the pastoral1 the rustic-human1 as we cannot know them4 ,british birds have nothing plaintive in their songs2 and ,british woods and fells but little that is disorderly and cruel in their expression1 or violent in their contrasts4 ,wordsworth gathered his finest poetic harvest from common nature and common humanity about him--the wayside birds and flowers and waterfalls1 and the wayside people4 ,though he called himself a worshiper of ,nature1 it was ,nature in her half-human moods that he adored--,nature that knows no extremes1 and that has long been under the influence of man--a soft1 humid1 fertile1 docile ,nature1 that suggests a domesticity as old and as permanent as that of cattle and sheep4 ,his poetry reflects these features1 reflects the high moral and historic significance of the ,european landscape1 while the poetry of ,emerson1 and of ,thoreau1 is born of the wildness and elusiveness of our more capricious and unkempt ,nature4 ,the walker has no axe to grind2 he sniffs the air for new adventure2 he loiters in old scenes1 he gleans in old fields4 ,he only seeks intimacy with ,nature to surprise her preoccupied with her own affairs4 ,he seeks her in the woods1 the swamps1 on the hills1 along the streams1 by night and by day1 in season and out of season4 ,he skims the fields and hillsides as the swallow skims the air1 and what he gets is intangible to most persons4 ,he sees much with his eyes1 but he sees more with his heart and imagination4 ,he bathes in ,nature as in a sea4 ,he is alert for the beauty that waves in the trees1 that ripples in the grass and grain1 that flows in the streams1 that drifts in the clouds1 that sparkles in the dew and rain4 ,the hammer of the geologist1 the notebook of the naturalist1 the box of the herbalist1 the net of the entomologist1 are not for him4 ,he drives no sharp bargains with ,nature1 he reads no sermons in stones1 no books in running brooks1 but he does see good in everything4 ,the book he reads he reads through all his senses--through his eyes1 his ears1 his nose1 and also through his feet and hands--and its pages are open everywhere2 the rocks speak of more than geology to him1 the birds of more than ornithology1 the flowers of more than botany1 the stars of more than astronomy1 the wild creatures of more than zology4 ,the average walker is out for exercise and the exhilarations of the road1 he reaps health and strength2 but ,thoreau evidently impaired his health by his needless exposure and inadequate food4 ,he was a ,holy-,lander who falls and dies in the ,holy ,land4 ,he ridiculed walking for exercise--taking a walk as the sick take medicine2 the walk itself was to be the enterprise and adventure of the day4 ,and you must walk like a camel1 which is said to be the only beast which ruminates while walking4 ,,iv ,thoreau's friends and neighbors seem to have persuaded themselves that his natural-history lore was infallible1 and1 moreover1 that he possessed some mysterious power over the wild creatures about him that other men did not possess4 ,i recall how ,emerson fairly bristled up when on one occasion while in conversation with him ,i told him ,i thought ,thoreau in his trips to the ,maine woods had confounded the hermit thrush with the wood thrush1 as the latter was rarely or never found in ,maine4 ,as for ,thoreau's influence over the wild creatures1 ,emerson voiced this superstition when he said1 ,snakes coiled round his leg1 the fishes swam into his hand1 and he took them from the water2 he pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail1 and took the foxes under his protection from the hunters4 ,of course ,thoreau could do nothing with the wild creatures that you or ,i could not do under the same conditions4 ,a snake will coil around any man's leg if he steps on its tail1 but it will not be an embrace of affection2 and a fish will swim into his hands under the same conditions that it will into ,thoreau's4 ,as for pulling a woodchuck out of its hole by the tail1 the only trouble is to get hold of the tail4 ,the 'chuck is pretty careful to keep his tail behind him1 but many a farm boy1 aided by his dog1 has pulled one out of the stone wall by the tail1 much against the 'chuck's will4 ,if ,thoreau's friends were to claim that he could carry ,mephitis mephitica by the tail with impunity1 ,i can say ,i have done the same thing1 and had my photograph taken in the act4 ,the skunk is no respecter of persons1 and here again the trouble is to get hold of the tail at the right moment--and1 ,i may add1 to let go of it at the right moment4 ,thoreau's influence over the wild creatures is what every man possesses who is alike gentle in his approach to them4 ,bradford ,torrey succeeded1 after a few experiments1 in so dispelling the fears of an incubating red-eyed vireo that she would take insect food from his hand1 and ,i have known several persons to become so familiar with the chickadees that they would feed from the hand1 and in some instances even take food from between the lips4 ,if you have a chipmunk for a neighbor1 you may soon become on such intimate terms with him that he will search your pockets for nuts and sit on your knee and shoulder and eat them4 ,but why keep alive and circulate as truth these animal legends of the prescientific ages8 ,thoreau was not a born naturalist1 but a born supernaturalist4 ,he was too intent upon the bird behind the bird always to take careful note of the bird itself4 ,he notes the birds1 but not too closely4 ,he was at times a little too careless in this respect to be a safe guide to the bird-student4 ,even the saunterer to the ,holy ,land ought to know the indigo bunting from the black-throated blue warbler1 with its languid1 midsummery1 ,zee1 zee1 zee-eu4 ,many of his most interesting natural-history notes ,thoreau got from his farmer friends--,melvin1 ,minott1 ,miles1 ,hubbard1 ,wheeler4 ,their eyes were more single to the life around them than were his2 none of them had lost a hound1 a turtle-dove1 and a bay horse1 whose trail they were daily in quest of4 ,a haunter of swamps and river marshes all his life1 he had never yet observed how the night bittern made its booming or pumping sound1 but accepted the explanation of one of his neighbors that it was produced by the bird thrusting its bill in water1 sucking up as much as it could hold1 and then pumping it out again with four or five heaves of the neck1 throwing the water two or three feet--in fact1 turning itself into a veritable pump6 ,i have stood within a few yards of the bird when it made the sound1 and seen the convulsive movement of the neck and body1 and the lifting of the head as the sound escaped4 ,the bird seems literally to vomit up its notes1 but it does not likewise emit water4 ,every farmer and fox-hunter would smile if he read ,thoreau's statement1 made in his paper on the natural history of ,massachusetts1 that when the snow lies light and but five or six inches deep1 you may give chase and come up with the fox on foot4 ,evidently ,thoreau had never tried it4 ,with a foot and a half1 or two feet of snow on the ground1 and traveling on snowshoes1 you might force a fox to take to his hole1 but you would not come up to him4 ,in four or five feet of soft snow hunters come up with the deer1 and ride on their backs for amusement1 but ,i doubt if a red fox ever ventures out in such a depth of snow4 ,in one of his ,may walks in #ahfj1 ,thoreau sees the trail of the musquash in the mud along the river-bottoms1 and he is taken by the fancy that1 as our roads and city streets often follow the early tracks of the cow1 so rivers in another period follow the trail of the musquash4 ,as if the river was not there before the musquash was6 ,again1 his mysterious night warbler1 to which he so often alludes1 was one of our common everyday birds which most school-children know1 namely1 the oven-bird1 or wood-accentor1 yet to ,thoreau it was a sort of phantom bird upon which his imagination loved to dwell4 ,emerson told him he must beware of finding and booking it1 lest life should have nothing more to show him4 ,but how such a haunter of woods escaped identifying the bird is a puzzle4 ,in his walks in the ,maine woods ,thoreau failed to discriminate the song of the hermit thrush from that of the wood thrush4 ,the melody1 no doubt1 went to his heart1 and that was enough4 ,though he sauntered through orchards and rested under apple trees1 he never observed that the rings of small holes in the bark were usually made by the yellow-bellied woodpecker1 instead of by ,downy1 and that the bird was not searching for grubs or insects1 but was feeding upon the milky cambium layer of the inner bark4 ,but ,thoreau's little slips of the kind ,i have called attention to count as nothing against the rich harvest of natural-history notes with which his work abounds4 ,he could describe bird-songs and animal behavior and give these things their right emphasis in the life of the landscape as no other ,new ,england writer has done4 ,his account of the battle of the ants in ,walden atones an hundred-fold for the lapses ,i have mentioned4 ,one wonders just what ,thoreau means when he says in ,walden1 in telling of his visit to ,baker ,farm3 ,once it chanced that ,i stood in the very abutment of a rainbow's arch1 which filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere1 tinging the grass and leaves around1 and dazzling me as if ,i looked through colored crystal4 ,is it possible1 then1 to reach the end of the rainbow8 ,why did he not dig for the pot of gold that is buried there8 ,how he could be aware that he was standing at the foot of one leg of the glowing arch is to me a mystery4 ,when ,i see a rainbow1 it is always immediately in front of me4 ,i am standing exactly between the highest point of the arch and the sun1 and the laws of optics ordain that it can be seen in no other way4 ,you can never see a rainbow at an angle4 ,it always faces you squarely4 ,hence no two persons see exactly the same bow1 because no two persons can occupy exactly the same place at the same time4 ,the bow you see is directed to you alone4 ,move to the right or the left1 and it moves as fast as you do4 ,you cannot flank it or reach its end4 ,it is about the most subtle and significant phenomenon that everyday ,nature presents to us4 ,unapproachable as a spirit1 like a visitant from another world1 yet the creation of the familiar sun and rain6 ,how ,thoreau found himself standing in the bow's abutment will always remain a puzzle to me4 ,observers standing on high mountains with the sun low in the west have seen the bow as a complete circle4 ,this one can understand4 ,we can point many a moral and adorn many a tale with ,thoreau's shortcomings and failures in his treatment of nature themes4 ,channing quotes him as saying that sometimes you must see with the inside of your eye4 ,i think that ,thoreau saw1 or tried to see1 with the inside of his eye too often4 ,he does not always see correctly1 and many times he sees more of ,thoreau than he does of the nature he assumes to be looking at4 ,truly it is needless to travel for wonders1 but the wonderful is not one with the fantastic or the far-fetched4 ,forcible expression1 as ,i have said1 was his ruling passion as a writer4 ,only when he is free from its thrall1 which in his best moments he surely is1 does he write well4 ,when he can forget ,thoreau and remember only nature1 we get those delightful descriptions and reflections in ,walden4 ,when he goes to the ,maine woods or to ,cape ,cod or to ,canada1 he leaves all his fantastic rhetoric behind him and gives us sane and refreshing books4 ,in his walks with ,channing one suspects he often let himself go to all lengths1 did his best to turn the world inside out1 as he did at times in his ,journals1 for his own edification and that of his wondering disciple4 ,to see analogies and resemblances everywhere is the gift of genius1 but to see a resemblance to volcanoes in the hubs or gnarls on birch or beech trees1 or cathedral windows in the dead leaves of the andromeda in ,january1 or a suggestion of ,teneriffe in a stone-heap1 does not indicate genius4 ,to see the great in the little1 or the whole of ,nature in any of her parts1 is the poet's gift1 but to ask1 after seeing the andropogon grass1 ,are there no purple reflections from the culms of thought in my mind8--a remark which ,channing quotes as very significant--is not to be poetical4 ,thoreau is full of these impossible and fantastic comparisons1 thinking only of striking expressions and not at all about the truth4 ,the flowing of the sap under the dull rind of the trees is suggestive1 but what suggestion is there in the remark1 ,may ,i ever be in as good spirits as a willow8 ,the mood of the scrub oak was more habitual with him4 ,thoreau was in no sense an interpreter of nature2 he did not draw out its meanings or seize upon and develop its more significant phases4 ,seldom does he relate what he sees or thinks to the universal human heart and mind4 ,he has rare power of description1 but is very limited in his power to translate the facts and movements of nature into human emotion4 ,his passage on the northern lights1 which ,channing quotes from the ,journals1 is a good sample of his failure in this respect3 ,now the fire in the north increases wonderfully1 not shooting up so much as creeping along1 like a fire on the mountains of the north seen afar in the night4 ,the ,hyperborean gods are burning brush1 and it spread1 and all the hoes in heaven couldn't stop it4 ,it spread from west to east over the crescent hill4 ,like a vast fiery worm it lay across the northern sky1 broken into many pieces2 and each piece1 with rainbow colors skirting it1 strove to advance itself toward the east1 worm-like1 on its own annular muscles4 ,it has spread into their choicest wood-lots4 ,now it shoots up like a single solitary watch-fire or burning bush1 or where it ran up a pine tree like powder1 and still it continues to gleam here and there like a fat stump in the burning1 and is reflected in the water4 ,and now ,i see the gods by great exertions have got it under1 and the stars have come out without fear1 in peace4 ,i get no impression of the mysterious almost supernatural character of the aurora from such a description in terms of a burning wood-lot or a hay-stack2 it is no more like a conflagration than an apparition is like solid flesh and blood4 ,its wonderful1 ,i almost said its spiritual1 beauty1 its sudden vanishings and returnings1 its spectral1 evanescent character--why1 it startles and awes one as if it were the draperies around the throne of the ,eternal4 ,and then his mixed metaphor--the ,hyperborean gods turned farmers and busy at burning brush1 then a fiery worm1 and then the burning wood-lots6 ,but this is ,thoreau--inspired with the heavenly elixir one moment1 and drunk with the brew in his own cellar the next4 ,v ,thoreau's faults as a writer are as obvious as his merits4 ,emerson hit upon one of them when he said1 ,the trick of his rhetoric is soon learned2 it consists in substituting for the obvious word and thought1 its diametrical antagonist4 ,he praises wild mountains and winter forests for their domestic air1 snow and ice for their warmth1 and so on4 7,yet ,emerson in one of his poems makes frost burn and fire freeze47 ,one frequently comes upon such sentences as these3 ,if ,i were sadder1 ,i should be happier2 ,the longer ,i have forgotten you1 the more ,i remember you4 ,it may give a moment's pleasure when a writer takes two opposites and rubs their ears together in that way1 but one may easily get too much of it4 ,words really mean nothing when used in such a manner4 ,when ,emerson told ,channing that if he 7,emerson7 could write as well as he did1 he would write a great deal better1 one readily sees what he means4 ,and when ,thoreau says of one of his callers1 ,i like his looks and the sound of his silence1 the contradiction pleases one4 ,but when he tells his friend that hate is the substratum of his love for him1 words seem to have lost their meaning4 ,now and then he is guilty of sheer bragging1 as when he says1 ,i would not go around the corner to see the world blow up4 ,he often defies all our sense of fitness and proportion by the degree in which he magnifies the little and belittles the big4 ,he says of the singing of a cricket which he heard under the border of some rock on the hillside one mid-,may day1 that it makes the finest singing of birds outward and insignificant4 ,it is not so wildly melodious1 but it is wiser and more mature than that of the wood thrush4 ,his forced and meaningless analogies come out in such a comparison as this3 ,most poems1 like the fruits1 are sweetest toward the blossom end4 ,which is the blossom end of a poem8 ,thoreau advised one of his correspondents when he made garden to plant some ,giant ,regrets--they were good for sauce4 ,it is certain that he himself planted some ,giant ,exaggerations and had a good yield4 ,his exaggeration was deliberate4 ,walden is from first to last a most delightful sample of his talent4 ,he belittles everything that goes on in the world outside his bean-field4 ,business1 politics1 institutions1 governments1 wars and rumors of wars1 were not so much to him as the humming of a mosquito in his hut at ,walden3 ,i am as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn1 when ,i was sitting with door and windows open1 as ,i could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame4 ,it was ,homer's requiem2 itself an ,iliad and ,odyssey in the air1 singing its own wrath and wanderings4 ,there was something cosmical about it4 ,one wonders what he would have made of a blow-fly buzzing on the pane4 ,he made ,walden ,pond famous because he made it the center of the universe and found life rich and full without many of the things that others deem necessary4 ,there is a stream of pilgrims to ,walden at all seasons1 curious to see where so much came out of so little--where a man had lived who preferred poverty to riches1 and solitude to society1 who boasted that he could do without the post office1 the newspapers1 the telegraph1 and who had little use for the railroad1 though he thought mankind had become a little more punctual since its invention4 ,another conspicuous fault as a writer is his frequent use of false analogies1 or his comparison of things which have no ground of relationship1 as when he says3 ,a day passed in the society of those ,greek sages1 such as described in the ,banquet of ,xenophon1 would not be comparable with the dry wit of decayed cranberry-vines1 and the fresh ,attic salt of the moss-beds4 ,the word wit has no meaning when thus used4 ,or again where he says3 ,all great enterprises are self-supporting4 ,the poet1 for instance1 must sustain his body by his poetry1 as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes4 ,was there ever a more inept and untruthful comparison8 ,to find any ground of comparison between the two things he compared1 he must make his poet sustain his body by the scraps and lines of his poem which he rejects1 or else the steam planing-mill consume its finished product4 ,let all things give way to the impulse of expression1 he says1 and he assuredly practiced what he had preached4 ,one of his tricks of self-justification was to compare himself with inanimate objects1 which is usually as inept as to compare colors with sounds or perfumes3 ,my acquaintances sometimes imply that ,i am too cold1 he writes1 but each thing is warm enough of its kind4 ,is the stone too cold which absorbs the heat of the summer sun and does not part with it during the night8 ,crystals1 though they be of ice are not too cold to melt4444 ,crystal does not complain of crystal any more than the dove of its mate4 ,he strikes the same false note when1 in discussing the question of solitude at ,walden he compares himself to the wild animals around him1 and to inanimate objects1 and says he was no more lonely than the loons on the pond1 or than ,walden itself3 ,i am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture1 or a bean leaf1 or a sorrel1 or a house-fly1 or a humble-bee4 ,i am no more lonely than the ,mill ,brook1 or a weather-cock1 or the ,north ,star1 or the ,south ,wind1 or an ,april ,shower1 or a ,january ,thaw1 or the first spider in a new house4 ,did he imagine that any of these things were ever lonely8 ,man does get lonely1 but ,mill ,brook and the ,north ,star probably do not4 ,if he sees anything unusual in nature1 like galls on trees and plants1 he must needs draw some moral from it1 usually at the expense of the truth4 ,for instance1 he implies that the beauty of the oak galls is something that was meant to bloom in the flower1 that the galls are the scarlet sins of the tree1 the tree's ,ode to ,dejection1 yet he must have known that they are the work of an insect and are as healthy a growth as is the regular leaf4 ,the insect gives the magical touch that transforms the leaf into a nursery for its young4 ,why deceive ourselves by believing that fiction is more interesting than fact8 ,but ,thoreau is full of this sort of thing2 he must have his analogy1 true or false4 ,he says that when a certain philosophical neighbor came to visit him in his hut at ,walden1 their discourse expanded and racked the little house3 ,i should not dare to say how many pounds' weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch2 it opened its seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent leak--but ,i had enough of that kind of oakum already picked4 ,at the beginning of the paragraph he says that he and his philosopher sat down each with some shingles of thoughts well dried1 which they whittled1 trying their knives and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine4 ,in a twinkling the three shingles of thought are transformed into fishes of thought in a stream into which the hermit and the philosopher gently and reverently wade1 without scaring or disturbing them4 ,then1 presto6 the fish become a force1 like the pressure of a tornado that nearly wrecks his cabin6 ,surely this is tipsy rhetoric1 and the work that can stand much of it1 as ,walden does1 has a plus vitality that is rarely equaled4 ,,vi ,in ,walden ,thoreau1 in playfully naming his various occupations1 says1 ,for a long time ,i was reporter to a journal1 of no very wide circulation1 whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions1 and1 as is too common with writers1 ,i got only my labor for my pains4 ,however1 in this case my pains were their own reward4 ,if he were to come back now1 he would1 ,i think1 open his eyes in astonishment1 perhaps with irritation1 to see the whole bulk of them at last in print4 ,his ,journal was the repository of all his writings1 and was drawn upon during his lifetime for all the material he printed in books and contributed to the magazines4 ,the fourteen volumes1 ,i venture to say1 form a record of the most minute and painstaking details of what one man saw and heard on his walks in field and wood1 in a single township1 that can be found in any literature4 ,it seems as though a man who keeps a ,journal soon becomes its victim2 at least that seems to have been the case with ,thoreau4 ,he lived for that ,journal1 he read for it1 he walked for it2 it was like a hungry1 omnivorous monster that constantly called for more4 ,he transcribed to its pages from the books he read1 he filled it with interminable accounts of the commonplace things he saw in his walks1 tedious and minute descriptions of everything in wood1 field1 and swamp4 ,there are whole pages of the ,latin names of the common weeds and flowers4 ,often he could not wait till he got home to write out his notes4 ,he walked by day and night1 in cold and heat1 in storm and sunshine1 all for his ,journal4 ,all was fish that came to that net2 nothing was too insignificant to go in4 ,he did not stop to make literature of it1 or did not try1 and it is rarely the raw material of literature4 ,its human interest is slight1 its natural history interest slight also4 ,for upwards of twenty-five years ,thoreau seemed to have lived for this ,journal4 ,it swelled to many volumes4 ,it is a drag-net that nothing escapes4 ,the general reader reads ,thoreau's ,journal as he does the book of ,nature1 just to cull out the significant things here and there4 ,the vast mass of the matter is merely negative1 like the things that we disregard in our walk4 ,here and there we see a flower1 or a tree1 or a prospect1 or a bird1 that arrests attention1 but how much we pass by or over without giving it a thought6 ,and yet1 just as the real nature-lover will scan eagerly the fine print in ,nature's book1 so will the student and enthusiast of ,thoreau welcome all that is recorded in his ,journals4 ,thoreau says that ,channing in their walks together sometimes took out his notebook and tried to write as he did1 but all in vain4 ,he soon puts it up again1 or contents himself with scrawling some sketch of the landscape4 ,observing me still scribbling1 he will say that he confines himself to the ideal1 purely ideal remarks2 he leaves the facts to me4 ,sometimes1 too1 he will say1 a little petulantly1 ',i am universal2 ,i have nothing to do with the particular and definite4' ,the truth was ,channing had no ,journal calling1 ,more1 more6 and was not so inordinately fond of composition4 ,i1 too1 says ,thoreau1 would fain set down something beside facts4 ,facts should only be as the frame to my pictures2 they should be material to the mythology which ,i am writing4 ,but only rarely are his facts significant1 or capable of an ideal interpretation4 ,felicitous strokes like that in which he says1 ,no tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an instep as the birch1 are rare4 ,thoreau evidently had a certain companionship with his ,journal4 ,it was like a home-staying body to whom he told everything on his return from a walk4 ,he loved to write it up4 ,he made notes of his observations as he went along1 night or day4 ,one time he forgot his notebook and so substituted a piece of birch-bark4 ,he must bring back something gathered on the spot4 ,he skimmed the same country over and over2 the cream he was after rose every day and all day1 and in all seasons4 ,he evidently loved to see the pages of his ,journal sprinkled with the ,latin names of the plants and animals that he saw in his walk4 ,a common weed with a long ,latin name acquired new dignity4 ,occasionally he fills whole pages with the scientific names of the common trees and plants4 ,he loved also a sprinkling of ,latin quotations and allusions to old and little known authors4 ,the pride of scholarship was strong in him4 ,suggestions from what we call the heathen world seemed to accord with his ,gospel of the ,wild4 ,thoreau loved to write as well as ,john ,muir loved to talk4 ,it was his ruling passion4 ,he said time never passed so quickly as when he was writing4 ,it seemed as if the clock had been set back4 ,he evidently went to ,walden for subject-matter for his pen2 and the remarkable thing about it all is that he was always keyed up to the writing pitch4 ,the fever of expression was always upon him4 ,day and night1 winter and summer1 it raged in his blood4 ,he paused in his walks and wrote elaborately4 ,the writing of his ,journal must have taken as much time as his walking4 ,only ,thoreau's constant and unquenchable thirst for intellectual activity1 and to supply material for that all-devouring ,journal1 can1 to me1 account for his main occupation during the greater part of the last two years of his life1 which consisted in traversing the woods and measuring the trees and stumps and counting their rings4 ,apparently not a stump escaped him--pine1 oak1 birch1 chestnut1 maple1 old or new1 in the pasture or in the woods2 he must take its measure and know its age4 ,he must get the girth of every tree he passed and some hint of all the local conditions that had influenced its growth4 ,over two hundred pages of his ,journal are taken up with barren details of this kind4 ,he cross-questions the stumps and trees as if searching for the clue to some important problem1 but no such problem is disclosed4 ,he ends where he begins4 ,his vast mass of facts and figures was incapable of being generalized or systematized4 ,his elaborate tables of figures1 so carefully arranged1 absolutely accurate1 no doubt1 are void of interest1 because no valuable inferences can be drawn from them4 ,i have measured in all eight pitch pine stumps at the ,tommy ,wheeler hollow1 sawed off within a foot of the ground4 ,i measured the longest diameter and then at right angles with that1 and took the average1 and then selected the side of the stump on which the radius was of average length1 and counted the number of rings in each inch1 beginning at the center1 thus3 ,and then follows a table of figures filling a page4 ,of those eight1 average growth about one seventh of an inch per year4 ,calling the smallest number of rings in an inch in each tree one1 the comparative slowness of growth of the inches is thus expressed4 ,then follows another carefully prepared table of figures4 ,before one is done with these pages one fairly suspects the writer is mad1 the results are so useless1 and so utterly fail to add to our knowledge of the woods4 ,would counting the leaves and branches in the forest1 and making a pattern of each1 and tabulating the whole mass of figures be any addition to our knowledge8 ,i attribute the whole procedure1 as ,i have said1 to his uncontrollable intellectual activity1 and the imaginary demands of this ,journal1 which continued to the end of his life4 ,the very last pages of his ,journal1 a year previous to his death1 are filled with minute accounts of the ordinary behavior of kittens1 not one item novel or unusual1 or throwing any light on the kitten4 ,but it kept his mind busy1 and added a page or two to the ,journal4 ,in his winter walks he usually carried a four-foot stick1 marked in inches1 and would measure the depth of the snow over large areas1 every tenth step1 and then construct pages of elaborate tables showing the variations according to locality1 and then work out the average--an abnormal craving for exact but useless facts4 ,thirty-four measurements on ,walden disclosed the important fact that the snow averaged five and one sixth inches deep4 ,he analyzes a pensile nest which he found in the woods--doubtless one of the vireo's--and fills ten pages with a minute description of the different materials which it contained4 ,then he analyzes a yellow-bird's nest1 filling two pages4 ,that ,journal shall not go hungry1 even if there is nothing to give it but the dry material of a bird's nest4 ,,vii ,the craving for literary expression in ,thoreau was strong and constant1 but1 as he confesses1 he could not always select a theme4 ,i am prepared not so much for contemplation as for forceful expression4 ,no matter what the occasion1 forceful expression was the aim4 ,no meditation1 or thinking1 but sallies of the mind4 ,all his paradoxes and false analogies and inconsistencies come from this craving for a forceful expression4 ,he apparently brought to bear all the skill he possessed of this kind on all occasions4 ,one must regard him1 not as a great thinker1 nor as a disinterested seeker after the truth1 but as a master in the art of vigorous and picturesque expression4 ,to startle1 to wake up1 to communicate to his reader a little wholesome shock1 is his aim4 ,not the novelty and freshness of his subject-matter concerns him but the novelty and unhackneyed character of his literary style4 ,that throughout the years a man should keep up the habit of walking1 by night as well as by day1 and bring such constant intellectual pressure to bear upon everything he saw1 or heard1 or felt1 is remarkable4 ,no evidence of relaxation1 or of abandonment to the mere pleasure of the light and air and of green things growing1 or of sauntering without thoughts of his ,journal4 ,he is as keyed up and strenuous in his commerce with the ,celestial ,empire as any tradesman in world goods that ever amassed a fortune4 ,he sometimes wrote as he walked1 and expanded and elaborated the same as in his study4 ,on one occasion he dropped his pencil and could not find it1 but he managed to complete the record4 ,one night on his way to ,conantum he speculates for nearly ten printed pages on the secret of being able to state a fact simply and adequately1 or of making one's self the free organ of truth--a subtle and ingenious discussion with the habitual craving for forceful expression4 ,in vain ,i try to put myself in the place of a man who goes forth into wild nature with malice prepense to give free swing to his passion for forcible expression4 ,i suppose all nature-writers go forth on their walks or strolls to the fields and woods with minds open to all of ,nature's genial influences and significant facts and incidents1 but rarely1 ,i think1 with the strenuousness of ,thoreau--grinding the grist as they go along4 ,thoreau compares himself to the bee that goes forth in quest of honey for the hive3 ,how to extract honey from the flower of the world4 ,that is my everyday business4 ,i am as busy as the bee about it4 ,i ramble over all fields on that errand and am never so happy as when ,i feel myself heavy with honey and wax4 ,to get material for his ,journal was as much his business as it was the bee's to get honey for his comb4 ,he apparently did not know that the bee does not get honey nor wax directly from the flowers1 but only nectar1 or sweet water4 ,the bee1 as ,i have often said1 makes the honey and the wax after she gets home to the swarm4 ,she puts the nectar through a process of her own1 adds a drop of her own secretion to it1 namely1 formic acid1 the water evaporates1 and lo6 the tang and pungency of honey6 ,,viii ,there can be little doubt that in his practical daily life we may credit ,thoreau with the friendliness and neighborliness that his friend ,dr4 ,edward ,w4 ,emerson claims for him4 ,in a recent letter to me1 ,dr4 ,emerson writes3 ,he carried the old ,new ,england undemonstrativeness very far4 ,he was also1 ,i believe1 really shy1 prospered only in monologue1 except in a walk in the woods with one companion1 and his difficulties increased to impossibility in a room full of people4 ,dr4 ,emerson admits that ,thoreau is himself to blame for giving his readers the impression that he held his kind in contempt1 but says that in reality he had neighborliness1 was dutiful to parents and sisters1 showed courtesy to women and children and an open1 friendly side to many a simple1 uncultivated townsman4 ,this practical helpfulness and friendliness in ,thoreau's case seems to go along with the secret contempt he felt and expressed in his ,journal toward his fellow townsmen4 ,at one time he was chosen among the selectmen to perambulate the town lines--an old annual custom4 ,one day they perambulated the ,lincoln line1 the next day the ,bedford line1 the next day the ,carlisle line1 and so on1 and kept on their rounds for a week4 ,thoreau felt soiled and humiliated4 ,a fatal coarseness is the result of mixing in the trivial affairs of men4 ,though ,i have been associating even with the select men of this and adjoining towns1 ,i feel inexpressibly begrimed4 ,how fragile his self-respect was6 ,yet he had friends among the surrounding farmers1 whose society and conversation he greatly valued4 ,that ,thoreau gave the impression of being what country folk call a crusty person--curt and forbidding in manner--seems pretty well established4 ,his friend ,alcott says he was deficient in the human sentiments4 ,emerson1 who1 on the whole1 loved and admired him1 says3 ,thoreau sometimes appears only as a gendarme1 good to knock down a cockney with1 but without that power to cheer and establish which makes the value of a friend4 ,again he says3 ,if ,i knew only ,thoreau1 ,i should think coperation of good men impossible4 ,must we always talk for victory1 and never once for truth1 for comfort1 and joy8 ,centrality he has1 and penetration1 strong understanding1 and the higher gifts1--the insight of the real1 or from the real1 and the moral rectitude that belongs to it2 but all this and all his resources of wit and invention are lost to me1 in every experiment1 year after year1 that ,i make1 to hold intercourse with his mind4 ,always some weary captious paradox to fight you with1 and the time and temper wasted4 ,it is curious1 he again says1 that ,thoreau goes to a house to say with little preface what he has just read or observed1 delivers it in a lump1 is quite inattentive to any comment or thought which any of the company offer on the matter1 nay1 is merely interrupted by it1 and when he has finished his report departs with precipitation4 ,it is interesting in this connection to put along-side of these rather caustic criticisms a remark in kind recorded by ,thoreau in his ,journal concerning ,emerson3 ,talked1 or tried to talk1 with ,r4 ,w4 ,e4 ,lost my time--nay1 almost my identity4 ,he1 assuming a false opposition where there was no difference of opinion1 talked to the wind--told me what ,i knew--and ,i lost my time trying to imagine myself somebody else to oppose him4 ,evidently ,concord philosophers were not always in concord4 ,more characteristic of ,emerson is the incident ,thoreau relates of his driving his own calf1 which had just come in with the cows1 out of the yard1 thinking it belonged to a drove that was then going by4 ,from all accounts ,emerson was as slow to recognize his own thoughts when ,alcott and ,channing aired them before him as he was to recognize his own calf4 ,i have got a load of great hardwood stumps1 writes ,thoreau1 and then1 as though following out a thought suggested by them1 he adds3 ,for sympathy with my neighbors ,i might about as well live in ,china4 ,they are to me barbarians with their committee works and gregariousness4 ,probably the stumps were from trees that grew on his neighbors' farms and were a gift to him4 ,let us hope the farmers did not deliver them to him free of charge4 ,he complained that the thousand and one gentlemen that he met were all alike2 he was not cheered by the hope of any rudeness from them3 ,a cross man1 a coarse man1 an eccentric man1 a silent man who does not drill well--of him there is some hope1 he declares4 ,herein we get a glimpse of the ,thoreau ideal which led his friend ,alcott to complain that he lacked the human sentiment4 ,he may or may not have been a cross man1 but he certainly did not drill well1 for which his readers have reason to be thankful4 ,although ,thoreau upholds the cross and the coarse man1 one would really like to know with what grace he would have put up with gratuitous discourtesy or insult4 ,i remember an entry in his ,journal in which he tells of feeling a little cheapened when a neighbor asked him to take some handbills and leave them at a certain place as he passed on his walk4 ,a great deal of the piquancy and novelty in ,thoreau come from the unexpected turn he gives to things1 upsetting all our preconceived notions4 ,his trick of exaggeration he rather brags of3 ,expect no trivial truth from me1 he says1 unless ,i am on the witness stand4 ,he even exaggerates his own tendency to exaggeration4 ,it is all a part of his scheme to startle and wake people up4 ,he exaggerates his likes1 and he exaggerates his dislikes1 and he exaggerates his indifference4 ,it is a way he has of bragging4 ,the moment he puts pen to paper the imp of exaggeration seizes it4 ,he lived to see the beginning of the ,civil ,war1 and in a letter to a friend expressed his indifference in regard to ,fort ,sumter and ,old ,abe1 and all that1 yet ,mr4 ,sanborn says he was as zealous about the war as any soldier4 ,the ,john ,brown tragedy made him sick1 and the war so worked upon his feelings that in his failing state of health he said he could never get well while it lasted4 ,his passion for ,nature and the wild carried him to the extent of looking with suspicion1 if not with positive dislike1 upon all of man's doings and institutions4 ,all civil and political and social organizations received scant justice at his hands4 ,he instantly espoused the cause of ,john ,brown and championed him in the most public manner because he 7,brown7 defied the iniquitous laws and fell a martyr to the cause of justice and right4 ,if he had lived in our times1 one would have expected him1 in his letters to friends1 to pooh-pooh the ,world ,war that has drenched ,europe with blood1 while in his heart he would probably have been as deeply moved about it as any of us were4 ,thoreau must be a stoic1 he must be an egotist1 he must be illogical1 whenever he puts pen to paper4 ,this does not mean that he was a hypocrite1 but it means that on his practical human side he did not differ so much from the rest of us1 but that in his mental and spiritual life he pursued ideal ends with a seriousness that few of us are equal to4 ,he loved to take an air-line4 ,in his trips about the country to visit distant parts1 he usually took the roads and paths or means of conveyance that other persons took1 but now and then he would lay down his ruler on the map1 draw a straight line to the point he proposed to visit1 and follow that1 going through the meadows and gardens and door-yards of the owners of the property in his line of march4 ,there is a tradition that he and ,channing once went through a house where the front and back door stood open4 ,in his mental flights and excursions he follows this plan almost entirely2 the hard facts and experiences of life trouble him very little4 ,he can always ignore them or sail serenely above them4 ,how is one to reconcile such an expression as this with what his friends report of his actual life3 ,my countrymen are to me foreigners4 ,i have but little more sympathy with them than with the mobs of ,india or ,china8 ,or this about his ,concord neighbors1 as he looks down upon them from a near-by hill3 ,on whatever side ,i look off1 ,i am reminded of the mean and narrow-minded men whom ,i have lately met there4 ,what can be uglier than a country occupied by grovelling1 coarse1 and low-minded men8--no scenery can redeem it4 ,hornets1 hyenas1 and baboons are not so great a curse to a country as men of a similar character4 ,tried by his ideal standards1 his neighbors and his countrymen generally were1 of course1 found wanting1 yet he went about among them helpful and sympathetic and enjoyed his life to the last gasp4 ,these things reveal to us what a gulf there may be between a man's actual life and the high altitudes in which he disports himself when he lets go his imagination4 ,,ix ,in his paper called ,life without ,principle1 his radical idealism comes out3 ,to work for money1 or for subsistence alone1 is life without principle4 ,a man must work for the love of the work4 ,get a man to work for you who is actuated by love for you or for the work alone4 ,find some one to beat your rugs and carpets and clean out your well1 or weed your onion-patch1 who is not influenced by any money consideration4 ,this were ideal1 indeed2 this suggests paradise4 ,thoreau probably loved his lecturing1 and his surveying1 and his magazine writing1 and the money these avocations brought him did not seem unworthy1 but could the business and industrial world safely adopt that principle8 ,so far as ,i understand him1 we all live without principle when we do anything that goes against the grain1 or for money1 or for bread alone4 ,to have done anything by which you earned money is to have been truly idle or worse4 ,if you would get money as a writer or lecturer1 you must be popular1 which is to go down perpendicularly4 ,yet his neighbor ,emerson was in much demand as a lecturer1 and earned a good deal of money in that way4 ,truly idealists like ,thoreau are hard to satisfy4 ,agassiz said he could not afford to give his time to making money1 but how many ,agassiz are there in the world at any one time8 ,such a man as our own ,edison is influenced very little by the commercial value of his inventions4 ,this is as it should be1 but only a small fraction of mankind do or can live to ideal ends4 ,those who work for love are certainly the lucky ones1 and are exceptionally endowed4 ,it is love of the sport that usually sends one a-fishing or a-hunting1 and this gives it the sanction of the ,gospel according to ,thoreau4 ,bradford ,torrey saw a man sitting on a log down in ,florida who told him1 when he asked about his occupation1 that he had no time to work6 ,it is to be hoped that ,thoreau enjoyed his surveying1 as he probably did1 especially when it took him through sphagnum swamps or scrub-oak thickets or a tangle of briers and thorns4 ,the more difficult the way1 the more he could summon his philosophy4 ,you must get your living by loving4 ,it is a hard saying1 but it is a part of his gospel4 ,but as he on one occasion worked seventy-six days surveying1 for only one dollar a day1 the money he received should not be laid up against him4 ,as a matter of fact we find ,thoreau frequently engaging in manual labor to earn a little money4 ,he relates in his ,journal of #aheg that while he was living in the woods he did various jobs about town--fence-building1 painting1 gardening1 carpentering3 ,one day a man came from the east edge of the town and said that he wanted to get me to brick up a fireplace1 etc41 etc41 for him4 ,i told him that ,i was not a mason1 but he knew that ,i had built my own house entirely and would not take no for an answer4 ,so ,i went4 ,it was three miles off1 and ,i walked back and forth each day1 arriving early and working as late as if ,i were living there4 ,the man was gone away most of the time1 but had left some sand dug up in his cow-yard for me to make mortar with4 ,i bricked up a fireplace1 papered a chamber1 but my principal work was whitewashing ceilings4 ,some were so dirty that many coats would not conceal the dirt4 ,in the kitchen ,i finally resorted to yellow-wash to cover the dirt4 ,i took my meals there1 sitting down with my employer 7when he got home7 and his hired men4 ,i remember the awful condition of the sink1 at which ,i washed one day1 and when ,i came to look at what was called the towel ,i passed it by and wiped my hands on the air1 and thereafter ,i resorted to the pump4 ,i worked there hard three days1 charging only a dollar a day4 ,about the same time ,i also contracted to build a wood-shed of no mean size1 for1 ,i think1 exactly six dollars1 and cleared about half of it by a close calculation and swift working4 ,the tenant wanted me to throw in a gutter and latch1 but ,i carried off the board that was left and gave him no latch but a button4 ,it stands yet1--behind the ,kettle house4 ,i broke up ,johnny ,kettle's old trow1 in which he kneaded his bread1 for material4 ,going home with what nails were left in a flower sic6 bucket on my arm1 in a rain1 ,i was about getting into a hay-rigging1 when my umbrella frightened the horse1 and he kicked at me over the fills1 smashed the bucket on my arm1 and stretched me on my back2 but while ,i lay on my back1 his leg being caught under the shaft1 ,i got up1 to see him sprawling on the other side4 ,this accident1 the sudden bending of my body backwards1 sprained my stomach so that ,i did not get quite strong there for several years1 but had to give up some fence-building and other work which ,i had undertaken from time to time4 ,i built the common slat fence for #a4ej per rod1 or worked for #a4jj per day4 ,i built six fences4 ,these homely and laborious occupations show the dreamer and transcendentalist of ,walden in a very interesting light4 ,in his practical life he was a ready and resourceful man and could set his neighbors a good example1 and no doubt give them good advice4 ,but what fun he had with his correspondents when they wrote him for practical advice about the conduct of their lives6 ,one of them had evidently been vexing his soul over the problem of ,church and ,state3 ,why not make a very large mud pie and bake it in the sun8 ,only put no ,church nor ,state into it1 nor upset any other pepper box that way4 ,dig out a woodchuck--for that has nothing to do with rotting institutions4 ,go ahead4 ,dear1 old-fashioned ,wilson ,flagg1 who wrote pleasantly1 but rather tamely1 about ,new ,england birds and seasons1 could not profit much from ,thoreau's criticism3 ,he wants stirring up with a pole4 ,he should practice turning a series of summer-sets rapidly1 or jump up and see how many times he can strike his feet together before coming down4 ,let him make the earth turn round now the other way1 and whet his wits on it as on a grindstone2 in short1 see how many ideas he can entertain at once4 ,expect no ,poor ,richard maxims or counsel from ,thoreau4 ,he would tell you to invest your savings in the bonds of the ,celestial ,empire1 or plant your garden with a crop of ,giant ,regrets4 ,he says these are excellent for sauce4 ,he encourages one of his correspondents with the statement that he never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud puddle2 he comes out honor bright from behind every storm4 ,x ,all ,thoreau's apparent inconsistencies and contradictions come from his radical idealism4 ,in all his judgments upon men and things1 and upon himself1 he is an uncompromising idealist4 ,all fall short4 ,add his habit of exaggeration and you have him saying that the pigs in the street in ,new ,york 7in #ahdc7 are the most respectable part of the population4 ,the pigs1 ,i suppose1 lived up to the pig standard1 but the people did not live up to the best human standards4 ,wherever the ideal leads him1 there he follows4 ,after his brother ,john's death he said he did not wish ever to see ,john again1 but only the ideal ,john--that other ,john of whom he was but the imperfect representative4 ,yet the loss of the real ,john was a great blow to him1 probably the severest in his life4 ,but he never allows himself to go on record as showing any human weakness4 ,comparatively1 he says1 we can excuse any offense against the heart1 but not against the imagination4 ,thoreau probably lived in his heart as much as most other persons1 but his peculiar gospel is the work of his imagination4 ,he could turn his idealism to practical account4 ,a man who had been camping with him told me that on such expeditions he carried a small piece of cake carefully wrapped up in his pocket and that after he had eaten his dinner he would take a small pinch of this cake4 ,his imagination seemed to do the rest4 ,the most unpromising subject would often kindle the imagination of ,thoreau4 ,his imagination fairly runs riot over poor ,bill ,wheeler1 a cripple and a sot who stumped along on two clumps for feet1 and who earned his grog by doing chores here and there4 ,one day ,thoreau found him asleep in the woods in a low shelter which consisted of meadow hay cast over a rude frame4 ,it was a rare find to ,thoreau4 ,a man who could turn his back upon the town and civilization like that must be some great philosopher1 greater than ,socrates or ,diogenes1 living perhaps from a deep principle1 simplifying life1 returning to nature1 having put off many things1--luxuries1 comforts1 human society1 even his feet1--wrestling with his thoughts4 ,he outdid himself4 ,he out-,thoreaued ,thoreau3 ,who knows but in his solitary meadow-hay bunk he indulges1 in thought1 only in triumphant satires on men8 ,more severe than those of the ,walden hermit8 ,i was not sure for a moment but here was a philosopher who had left far behind him the philosophers of ,greece and ,india1 and ,i envied him his advantageous point of view-- with much more to the same effect4 ,thoreau's reaction from the ordinary humdrum1 respectable1 and comfortable country life was so intense1 and his ideal of the free and austere life he would live so vivid1 that he could thus see in this besotted vagabond a career and a degree of wisdom that he loved to contemplate4 ,one catches eagerly at any evidence of tender human emotions in ,thoreau1 his stoical indifference is so habitual with him3 ,i laughed at myself the other day to think that ,i cried while reading a pathetic story4 ,and he excuses himself by saying1 ,it is not ,i1 but ,nature in me1 which was stronger than ,i4 ,it was hard for ,thoreau to get interested in young women4 ,he once went to an evening party of thirty or forty of them1 in a small room1 warm and noisy4 ,he was introduced to two of them1 but could not hear what they said1 there was such a cackling4 ,he concludes by saying3 ,the society of young women is the most unprofitable ,i have ever tried4 ,they are so light and flighty that you can never be sure whether they are there or not4 ,,xi ,as a philosopher or expositor and interpreter of a principle1 ,thoreau is often simply grotesque4 ,his passion for strong and striking figures usually gets the best of him4 ,in discussing the relation that exists between the speaker or lecturer and his audience he says1 ,the lecturer will read best those parts of his lecture which are best heard1 as if the reading did not precede the hearing6 ,then comes this grotesque analogy3 ,i saw some men unloading molasses-hogsheads from a truck at a depot the other day1 rolling them up an inclined plane4 ,the truckman stood behind and shoved1 after putting a couple of ropes1 one round each end of the hogshead1 while two men standing in the depot steadily pulled at the ropes4 ,the first man was the lecturer1 the last was the audience4 ,i suppose the hogshead stands for the big thoughts of the speaker which he cannot manage at all without the active coperation of the audience4 ,the truth is1 people assemble in a lecture hall in a passive but expectant frame of mind4 ,they are ready to be pleased or displeased4 ,they are there like an instrument to be played upon by the orator4 ,he may work his will with them4 ,without their sympathy his success will not be great1 but the triumph of his art is to win their sympathy4 ,those who went to scoff when the ,great ,preacher spoke1 remained to pray4 ,no man could speak as eloquently to empty seats1 or to a dummy audience1 as to a hall filled with intelligent people1 yet ,thoreau's ropes and hogsheads and pulling and pushing truckmen absurdly misrepresent the true relation that exists between a speaker and his hearers4 ,of course a speaker finds it uphill work if his audience is not with him1 but that it is not with him is usually his own fault4 ,thoreau's merits as a man and a writer are so many and so great that ,i have not hesitated to make much of his defects4 ,indeed1 ,i have with malice aforethought ransacked his works to find them4 ,but after they are all charged up against him1 the balance that remains on the credit side of the account is so great that they do not disturb us4 ,there has been but one ,thoreau1 and we should devoutly thank the gods of ,new ,england for the precious gift4 ,thoreau's work lives and will continue to live because1 in the first place1 the world loves a writer who can flout it and turn his back upon it and yet make good2 and again because the books which he gave to the world have many and very high literary and ethical values4 ,they are fresh1 original1 and stimulating4 ,he drew a gospel out of the wild2 he brought messages from the wood gods to men2 he made a lonely pond in ,massachusetts a fountain of the purest and most elevating thoughts1 and1 with his great neighbor ,emerson1 added new luster to a town over which the muse of our colonial history had long loved to dwell4 ,,iv ,a ,,critical ,,glance ,,into ,,darwin ,i ,it is never safe to question ,darwin's facts1 but it is always safe to question any man's theories4 ,it is with ,darwin's theories that ,i am mainly concerned here4 ,he has already been shorn of his selection doctrines as completely as ,samson was shorn of his locks1 but there are other phases of his life and teachings that invite discussion4 ,the study of ,darwin's works begets such an affection for the man1 for the elements of character displayed on every page1 that one is slow in convincing one's self that anything is wrong with his theories4 ,there is danger that one's critical judgment will be blinded by one's partiality for the man4 ,for the band of brilliant men who surrounded him and championed his doctrines--,spencer1 ,huxley1 ,lyall1 ,hooker1 and others--one feels nothing more personal than admiration2 unless the eloquent and chivalrous ,huxley--the knight in shining armor of the ,darwinian theory--inspires a warmer feeling4 ,darwin himself almost disarms one by his amazing candor and his utter self-abnegation4 ,the question always paramount in his mind is1 what is the truth about this matter8 ,what fact have you got for me1 he seems to say1 that will upset my conclusion8 ,if you have one1 that is just what ,i am looking for4 ,could we have been permitted to gaze upon the earth in the middle geologic period1 in ,jurassic or ,triassic times1 we should have seen it teeming with huge1 uncouth1 gigantic forms of animal life1 in the sea1 on the land1 and in the air1 and with many lesser forms1 but with no sign of man anywhere2 ransack the earth from pole to pole and there was no sign or suggestion1 so far as we could have seen1 of a human being4 ,come down the stream of time several millions of years--to our own geologic age--and we find the earth swarming with the human species like an ant-hill with ants1 and with a vast number of forms not found in the ,mesozoic era2 and the men are doing to a large part of the earth what the ants do to a square rod of its surface4 ,where did they come from8 ,we cannot1 in our day1 believe that a hand reached down from heaven1 or up from below1 and placed them there4 ,there is no alternative but to believe that in some way they arose out of the antecedent animal life of the globe2 in other words that man is the result of the process of evolution1 and that all other existing forms of life1 vegetable and animal1 are a product of the same movement4 ,to explain how this came about1 what factors and forces entered into the transformation1 is the task that ,darwin set himself4 ,it was a mighty task1 and whether or not his solution of the problem stands the test of time1 we must yet bow in reverence before one of the greatest of natural philosophers2 for even to have conceived this problem thus clearly1 and to have placed it in intelligible form before men's minds1 is a great achievement4 ,darwin was as far from being as sure of the truth of ,darwinism as many of his disciples were1 and still are4 ,he said in #ahfj1 in a letter to one of his ,american correspondents1 ,i have never for a moment doubted that1 though ,i cannot see my errors1 much of my book ,the ,origin of ,species will be proved erroneous4 ,again he said1 in #ahfb1 ,i look at it as absolutely certain that very much in the ',origin' will be proved rubbish2 but ,i expect and hope that the framework will stand4 ,its framework is the theory of ,evolution1 which is very sure to stand4 ,in its inception his theory is half-miracle and half-fact4 ,he assumes that in the beginning 7as if there ever was or could be a beginning1 in that sense7 ,god created a few forms1 animal and vegetable1 and then left it to the gods of ,evolution1 the chief of which is ,natural ,selection1 to do the rest4 ,while ,darwin would not admit any predetermining factors in ,evolution1 or that any innate tendency to progressive development existed1 he said he could not look upon the world of living things as the result of chance4 ,yet in fortuitous1 or chance1 variation he saw one of the chief factors of ,evolution4 ,the world of ,chance into which ,darwinism delivers us--what can the thoughtful mind make of it8 ,that life with all its myriad forms is the result of chance is1 according to ,professor ,osborn1 a biological dogma4 ,he everywhere uses the word chance as opposed to law1 or to the sequence of cause and effect4 ,this1 it seems to me1 is a misuse of the term4 ,is law1 in this sense1 ever suspended or annulled8 ,if one chances to fall off his horse or his house1 is it not gravity that pulls him down8 ,are not the laws of energy everywhere operative in all movements of matter in the material world8 ,chance is not opposed to law1 but to design4 ,anything that befalls us that was not designed is a matter of chance4 ,the fortuitous enters largely into all human life4 ,if ,i carelessly toss a stone across the road1 it is a matter of chance just where it will fall1 but its course is not lawless4 ,does not gravity act upon it8 does not the resistance of the air act upon it8 does not the muscular force of my arm act upon it8 and does not this complex of physical forces determine the precise spot where the stone shall fall8 ,if1 in its fall1 it were to hit a bird or a mouse or a flower1 that would be a matter of chance1 so far as my will was concerned4 ,is not a meteoric stone falling out of space acted upon by similar forces1 which determine where it shall strike the earth8 ,in this case1 we must substitute for the energy of my arm the cosmic energy that gives the primal impetus to all heavenly bodies4 ,if the falling arolite were to hit a person or a house1 we should say it was a matter of chance1 because it was not planned or designed4 ,but when the shells of the long-range guns hit their invisible target or the bombs from the airplanes hit their marks1 chance plays a part1 because all the factors that enter into the problem are not and cannot be on the instant accurately measured4 ,the collision of two heavenly bodies in the depth of space1 which does happen1 is1 from our point of view1 a matter of chance1 although governed by inexorable law4 ,the forms of inanimate objects--rocks1 hills1 rivers1 lakes--are matters of chance1 since they serve no purpose3 any other form would be as fit2 but the forms of living things are always purposeful4 ,is it possible to believe that the human body1 with all its complicated mechanism1 its many wonderful organs of secretion and excretion and assimilation1 is any more matter of chance than a watch or a phonograph is8 ,though what agent to substitute for the word chance1 ,i confess ,i do not know4 ,the short cut to an omnipotent ,creator sitting apart from the thing created will not satisfy the naturalist4 ,and to make energy itself creative1 as ,professor ,osborn does1 is only to substitute one god for another4 ,i can no more think of the course of organic evolution as being accidental in the ,darwinian sense1 than ,i can think of the evolution of the printing-press or the aroplane as being accidental1 although chance has played its part4 ,can we think of the first little horse of which we have any record1 the eohippus of three or four millions of years ago1 as evolving by accidental variations into the horse of our time1 without presupposing an equine impulse to development8 ,as well might we trust our ships to the winds and waves with the expectation that they will reach their several ports4 ,are we to believe that we live in an entirely mechanical and fortuitous world--a world which has no interior1 which is only a maze of acting1 reacting1 and interacting of blind physical forces8 ,according to the chance theory1 the struggle of a living body to exist does not differ from the vicissitudes of1 say1 water seeking an equilibrium1 or heat a uniform temperature4 ,chance has played an important part in human history1 and in all life-history--often1 no doubt1 the main part--since history began4 ,it was by chance that ,columbus discovered ,america2 he simply blundered upon it4 ,he had set out on his voyage with something quite different in view4 ,but his ship1 and the crew1 and the voyage itself1 were not matters of chance but of purpose4 ,according to the selectionists' theory1 chance gave the bird its wings1 the fish its fins1 the porcupine its quills1 the skunk its fetid secretion1 the cuttlefish its ink1 the swordfish its sword1 the electric eel its powerful battery2 it gave the giraffe its long neck1 the camel its hump1 the horse its hoof1 the ruminants their horns and double stomach1 and so on4 ,according to ,weismann1 it gave us our eyes1 our ears1 our hands with the fingers and opposing thumb1 it gave us all the complicated and wonderful organs of our bodies1 and all their circulation1 respiration1 digestion1 assimilation1 secretion1 excretion1 reproduction4 ,all we are1 or can be1 the selectionist credits to ,natural ,selection4 ,try to think of that wonderful organ1 the eye1 with all its marvelous powers and adaptations1 as the result of what we call chance or ,natural ,selection4 ,well may ,darwin have said that the eye made him shudder when he tried to account for it by ,natural ,selection4 ,why1 its adaptations in one respect alone1 minor though they be1 are enough to stagger any number of selectionists4 ,i refer to the rows of peculiar glands that secrete an oily substance1 differing in chemical composition from any other secretion1 a secretion which keeps the eyelids from sticking together in sleep4 ,behavior as lawless as snowflakes1 says ,whitman--a phrase which probably stuck to him from ,rousseau2 but are snowflakes and raindrops lawless8 ,to us creatures of purpose1 they are so because the order of their falling is haphazard4 ,they obey their own laws4 ,again we see chance working inside of law4 ,when the sower scatters the seed-grains from his hand1 he does not and cannot determine the point of soil upon which any of them shall fall1 but there is design in his being there and in sowing the seed4 ,astronomy is an exact science1 biology is not4 ,the celestial events always happen on time4 ,the astronomers can tell us to the fraction of a second when the eclipses of the sun and moon and the transit of the inferior planets across the sun's disk will take place4 ,they know and have measured all the forces that bring them about4 ,now1 if we knew with the same mathematical precision all the elements that enter into the complex of forces which shapes our lives1 could we forecast the future with the same accuracy with which the astronomers forecast the movements of the orbs8 or are there incommensurable factors in life8 ,,ii ,how are we to reconcile the obvious hit-and-miss method of ,nature with the reign of law1 or with a world of design8 ,consider the seeds of a plant or a tree1 as sown by the wind4 ,it is a matter of chance where they alight2 it is hit or miss with them always4 ,yet the seeds1 say1 of the cat-tail flag always find the wet or the marshy places4 ,if they had a topographical map of the country and a hundred eyes they could not succeed better4 ,of course1 there are vastly more failures than successes with them1 but one success in ten thousand trials is enough4 ,they go to all points of the compass with the wind1 and sooner or later hit the mark4 ,chance decides where the seed shall fall1 but it was not chance that gave wings to this and other seeds4 ,the hooks and wings and springs and parachutes that wind-sown seeds possess are not matters of chance3 they all show design4 ,so here is design working in a hit-and-miss world4 ,there are chance details in any general plan4 ,the general forms which a maple or an oak or an elm takes in the forest or in the field are fixed1 but many of the details are quite accidental4 ,all the individual trees of a species have a general resemblance1 but one differs from another in the number and exact distribution of the branches1 and in many other ways4 ,we cannot solve the fundamental problems of biology by addition and subtraction4 ,he who sees nothing transcendent and mysterious in the universe does not see deeply2 he lacks that vision without which the people perish4 ,all organic and structural changes are adaptive from the first2 they do not need natural selection to whip them into shape4 ,all it can do is to serve as a weeding-out process4 ,acquired characters are not inherited1 but those organic changes which are the result of the indwelling impulse of development are inherited4 ,so dominant and fundamental are the results of this impulse that cross-breeding does not wipe them out4 ,,iii ,while ,i cannot believe that we live in a world of chance1 any more than ,darwin could1 yet ,i feel that ,i am as free from any teleological taint as he was4 ,the world-old notion of a creator and director1 sitting apart from the universe and shaping and controlling all its affairs1 a magnified king or emperor1 finds no lodgment in my mind4 ,kings and despots have had their day1 both in heaven and on earth4 ,the universe is a democracy4 ,the ,whole directs the ,whole4 ,every particle plays its own part1 and yet the universe is a unit as much as is the human body1 with all its myriad of individual cells1 and all its many separate organs functioning in harmony4 ,and the mind ,i see in nature is just as obvious as the mind ,i see in myself1 and subject to the same imperfections and limitations4 ,in following ,lamarck ,i am not disturbed by the bogey of teleology1 or the ghost of mysticism4 ,i am persuaded that there is something immanent in the universe1 pervading every atom and molecule in it1 that knows what it wants--a ,cosmic ,mind or ,intelligence that we must take account of if we would make any headway in trying to understand the world in which we find ourselves4 ,when we deny ,god it is always in behalf of some other god4 ,we are compelled to recognize something not ourselves from which we proceed1 and in which we live and move and have our being1 call it energy1 or will1 or ,jehovah1 or ,ancient of ,days4 ,we cannot deny it because we are a part of it4 ,as well might the fountain deny the sea or the cloud4 ,each of us is a fraction of the universal ,eternal ,intelligence4 ,is it unscientific to believe that our own minds have their counterpart or their origin in the nature of which we form a part8 ,is our own intelligence all there is of mind-manifestation in the universe8 ,where did we get this divine gift8 ,did we take all there was of it8 ,certainly we did not ourselves invent it4 ,it would require considerable wit to do that4 ,mind is immanent in nature1 but in man alone it becomes self-conscious4 ,wherever there is adaptation of means to an end1 there is mind4 ,yet we use the terms guidance1 predetermination1 and so on1 at the risk of being misunderstood4 ,all such terms are charged with the meaning that our daily lives impart to them and1 when applied to the processes of the ,cosmos1 are only half-truths4 ,from our experience with objects and forces in this world1 the earth ought to rest upon something1 and that object upon something1 and the moon ought to fall upon the earth1 and the earth fall into the sun1 and1 in fact1 the whole sidereal system ought to collapse4 ,but it does not1 and will not4 ,as nearly as we can put it into words1 the whole visible universe floats in a boundless and fathomless sea of energy2 and that is all we know about it4 ,if chance brought us here and endowed us with our bodies and our minds1 and keeps us here1 and adapts us to the world in which we live1 is not ,chance a good enough god for any of us8 ,or if ,natural ,selection did it1 or orthogenesis or epigenesis1 or any other genesis1 have we not in any of these found a god equal to the occasion8 ,darwin goes wrong1 if ,i may be allowed to say so1 when he describes or characterizes the activities of ,nature in terms of our own activities4 ,man's selection affords no clue to ,nature's selection1 and the best to man is not the best to ,nature4 ,for instance1 she is concerned with color and form only so far as they have survival value4 ,we are concerned more with intrinsic values4 ,man1 says ,darwin1 selects only for his own good2 ,nature only for the good of the being which she tends4 ,but ,nature's good is of another order than man's3 it is the good of all4 ,nature aims at a general good1 man at a particular good to himself4 ,man waters his garden2 ,nature sends the rain broadcast upon the just and the unjust1 upon the sea as upon the land4 ,man directs and controls his planting and his harvesting along specific lines3 he selects his seed and prepares his soil2 ,nature has no system in this respect3 she trusts her seeds to the winds and the waters1 and to beasts and birds1 and her harvest rarely fails4 ,nature's methods1 we say1 are blind1 haphazard2 the wind blows where it listeth1 and the seeds fall where the winds and waters carry them2 the frosts blight this section and spare that2 the rains flood the country in the ,west and the drought burns up the vegetation in the ,east4 ,and yet we survive and prosper4 ,nature averages up well4 ,we see nothing like purpose or will in her total scheme of things1 yet inside her hit-and-miss methods1 her storms and tornadoes and earthquakes and distempers1 we see a fundamental benefaction4 ,if it is not good-will1 it amounts to the same thing4 ,our fathers saw special providences1 but we see only unchangeable laws4 ,to compare ,nature's selection with man's selection is like arguing from man's art to ,nature's art4 ,nature has no art1 no architecture1 no music4 ,her temples1 as the poets tell us1 are the woods1 her harps the branches of the trees1 her minstrels the birds and insects1 her gardens the fields and waysides--all safe comparisons for purposes of literature1 but not for purposes of science4 ,man alone selects1 or works by a definite method4 ,might we not as well say that ,nature ploughs and plants and trims and harvests8 ,we pick out our favorites among plants and animals1 those that best suit our purpose4 ,we go straight to our object1 with as little delay and waste as possible4 ,not so ,nature4 ,her course is always a round-about one4 ,our petty economies are no concern of hers4 ,our choice selection of rich milkers1 prolific poultry1 or heavy-fleeced sheep is with her quickly sacrificed for the qualities of strength and cunning and speed1 as these alone have survival value4 ,man wants specific results at once4 ,nature works slowly to general results4 ,her army is drilled only in battle4 ,her tools grow sharper in the using4 ,the strength of her species is the strength of the obstacles they overcome4 ,what is called ,darwinism is entirely an anthropomorphic view of ,nature--,nature humanized and doing as man does4 ,what is called ,natural ,selection is man's selection read into animate nature4 ,we see in nature what we have to call intelligence--the adaptation of means to ends4 ,we see purpose in all living things1 but not in the same sense in non-living things4 ,the purpose is not in the light1 but in the eye2 in the ear1 but not in the sound2 in the lungs1 and not in the air2 in the stomach1 and not in the food2 in the various organs of the body1 and not in the forces that surround and act upon it4 ,we cannot say that the purpose of the clouds is to bring rain1 or of the sun to give light and warmth1 in the sense that we can say it is the purpose of the eyelid to protect the eye1 of the teeth to masticate the food1 or of the varnish upon the leaves to protect the leaves4 ,the world was not made for us1 but we are here because the world was made as it is4 ,we are the secondary fact and not the primary4 ,nature is non-human1 non-moral1 non-religious1 non-scientific1 though it is from her that we get our ideas of all these things4 ,all parts and organs of living bodies have1 or have had1 a purpose4 ,nature is blind1 but she knows what she wants and she gets it4 ,she is blind1 ,i say1 because she is all eyes1 and sees through the buds of her trees and the rootlets of her plants as well as by the optic nerves in her animals4 ,and1 though ,i believe that the accumulation of variations is the key to new species1 yet this accumulation is not based upon outward utility but upon an innate tendency to development--the push of life1 or creative evolution1 as ,bergson names it2 not primarily because the variations are advantages1 but because the formation of a new species is such a slow process1 stretches over such a period of geologic time1 that the slight variations from generation to generation could have no survival value4 ,the primary factor is the inherent tendency to development4 ,the origin of species is on a scale of time of enormous magnitude4 ,what takes place among our domestic animals of a summer day is by no means a safe guide as to what befell their ancestors in the abysses of geologic time4 ,it is true that ,nature may be read in the little as well as in the big1--,natura in minimis existat1--in the gnat as well as in the elephant2 but she cannot be read in our yearly calendars as she can in the calendars of the geologic strata4 ,species go out and species come in2 the book of natural revelation opens and closes at chance places1 and rarely do we get a continuous record--in no other case more clearly than in that of the horse4 ,the horse was a horse1 from the first five-toed animal in ,eocene times1 millions of years ago1 through all the intermediate forms of four-toed and three-toed1 down to the one-toed superb creature of our own day4 ,amid all the hazards and delays of that vast stretch of time1 one may say1 the horse-impulse never faltered4 ,the survival value of the slight gains in size and strength from millennium to millennium could have played no part4 ,it was the indwelling necessity toward development that determined the issue4 ,this assertion does not deliver us into the hands of teleology1 but is based upon the idea that ontogeny and phylogeny are under the same law of growth4 ,in the little eohippus was potentially the horse we know1 as surely as the oak is potential in the acorn1 or the bird potential in the egg1 whatever element of mystery may enter into the problem4 ,in fields where speed wins1 the fleetest are the fittest4 ,in fields where strength wins1 the strongest are the fittest4 ,in fields where sense-acuteness wins1 the keenest of eye1 ears1 and nose are the fittest4 ,when we come to the race of man1 the fittest to survive1 from our moral and intellectual point of view1 is not always the best4 ,the lower orders of humanity are usually better fitted to survive than the higher orders--they are much more prolific and adaptive4 ,the tares are better fitted to survive than the wheat4 ,every man's hand is against the weeds1 and every man's hand gives a lift to the corn and the wheat1 but the weeds do not fail4 ,there is nothing like original sin to keep a man or a plant going4 ,emerson's gardener was probably better fitted to survive than ,emerson2 ,newton's butler than ,newton himself4 ,most naturalists will side with ,darwin in rejecting the idea of ,asa ,gray1 that the stream of variation has been guided by a higher power1 unless they think of the will of this power as inherent in every molecule of matter2 but guidance in the usual theological sense is not to be thought of2 the principle of guidance cannot be separated from the thing guided4 ,it recalls a parable of ,charles ,kingsley's which he related to ,huxley4 ,a heathen khan in ,tartary was visited by a pair of proselytizing moollahs4 ,the first moollah said1 ,o ,khan1 worship my god4 ,he is so wise that he made all things6 ,moollah ,number ,two said1 ,o ,khan1 worship my god4 ,he is so wise that he makes all things make themselves6 ,number ,two won the day4 ,,iv ,how often it turns out that a man's minor works outlive his major6 ,this is true in both literature and science1 but more often in the former than in the latter4 ,darwin furnishes a case in the field of science4 ,he evidently looked upon his ,origin of ,species as his great contribution to biological science2 but it is highly probable that his ,voyage of the ,beagle will outlast all his other books4 ,the ,voyage is of perennial interest and finds new readers in each generation4 ,i find myself re-reading it every eight or ten years4 ,i have lately read it for the fourth time4 ,it is not an argument or a polemic2 it is a personal narrative of a disinterested yet keen observer1 and is always fresh and satisfying4 ,for the first time we see a comparatively unknown country like ,south ,america through the eyes of a born and trained naturalist4 ,it is the one book of his that makes a wide appeal and touches life and nature the most closely4 ,we may say that ,darwin was a ,darwinian from the first1--a naturalist and a philosopher combined1--and was predisposed to look at animate nature in the way his works have since made us familiar with4 ,in his trip on the ,beagle he saw from the start with the eyes of a born evolutionist4 ,in ,south ,america he saw the fossil remains of the ,toxodon1 and observed1 ,how wonderful are the different orders1 at the present time so well separated1 blended together in the different points of the structure of the ,toxodon6 ,all forms of life attracted him4 ,he looked into the brine-pans of ,lymington and found that water with one quarter of a pound of salt to the pint was inhabited1 and he was led to say3 ,well may we affirm that every part of the world is habitable6 ,whether lakes of brine or those subterranean ones hidden beneath volcanic mountains1--warm mineral springs1--the wide expanse and depth of the ocean1--the upper regions of the atmosphere1 and even the surface of perpetual snow1--all support organic beings4 ,he studies the parasitical habit of the cuckoo and hits on an explanation of it4 ,he speculates why the partridges and deer in ,south ,america are so tame4 ,his ,voyage of the ,beagle alone would insure him lasting fame4 ,it is a classic among scientific books of travel4 ,here is a traveler of a new kind3 a natural-history voyager1 a man bent on seeing and taking note of everything going on in nature about him1 in the non-human1 as well as in the human world4 ,the minuteness of his observation and the significance of its subject-matter are a lesson to all observers4 ,darwin's interests are so varied and genuine4 ,one sees in this volume the seed-bed of much of his subsequent work4 ,he was quite a young man 7twenty-four7 when he made this voyage2 he was ill more than half the time2 he was as yet only an observer and appreciator of ,nature1 quite free from any theories about her ways and methods4 ,he says that this was by far the most important event of his life and determined his whole career4 ,his theory of descent was already latent in his mind1 as is evinced by an observation he made about the relationship in ,south ,america between the extinct and the living forms4 ,this relationship1 he said1 will1 ,i do not doubt1 hereafter throw more light on the appearance of organic beings on our earth1 and their disappearance from it1 than any other class of facts4 ,he looked into the muddy waters of the sea off the coast of ,chile1 and found a curious new form of minute life--microscopic animals that exploded as they swam through the water4 ,in ,south ,america he saw an intimate relationship between the extinct species of ant-eaters1 armadillos1 tapirs1 peccaries1 guanacos1 opossums1 and so on1 and the living species of these animals2 and he adds that the wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living would doubtless hereafter throw more light on the appearance of organic beings on our earth1 and their disappearance from it1 than any other class of facts4 ,his observation of the evidences of the rise and fall of thousands of feet of the earth along the ,cordilleras leads him to make this rather startling statement3 ,daily it is forced home on the mind of the geologist that nothing1 not even the wind that blows1 is so unstable as the level of the crust of the earth4 ,there is now and then a twinkle of humor in ,darwin's eyes1 as when he says that in the high altitude of the ,andes the inhabitants recommend onions for the puna1 or shortness of breath1 but that he found nothing so good as fossil shells4 ,water boils at such a low temperature in the high ,andes that potatoes will not cook if boiled all night4 ,darwin heard his guides discussing the cause4 ,they had come to the simple conclusion that 'the cursed pot' 7which was a new one7 did not choose to boil potatoes4 ,in all ,darwin's record we see that the book of nature1 which ordinary travelers barely glance at1 he opened and carefully perused4 ,v ,natural ,selection turns out to be of only secondary importance4 ,it is not creative1 but only confirmative4 ,it is a weeding-out process2 it is ,nature's way of improving the stock4 ,its tendency is to make species more and more hardy and virile4 ,the weak and insufficiently endowed among all forms tend to drop out4 ,life to all creatures is more or less a struggle1 a struggle with the environment1 with the inorganic forces1--storm1 heat1 cold1 sterile land1 and engulfing floods1--and it is a struggle with competing forms for food and shelter and a place in the sun4 ,the strongest1 the most amply endowed with what we call vitality or power to live1 win4 ,species have come to be what they are through this process4 ,immunity from disease comes through this fight for life2 and adaptability--through trial and struggle species adapt themselves1 as do our own bodies1 to new and severe conditions4 ,the naturally weak fall by the wayside as in an army on a forced march4 ,every creature becomes the stronger by the opposition it overcomes4 ,natural ,selection gives speed1 where speed is the condition of safety1 strength where strength is the condition1 keenness and quickness of sense-perception where these are demanded4 ,natural ,selection works upon these attributes and tends to perfect them4 ,any group of men or beasts or birds brought under any unusual strain from cold1 hunger1 labor1 effort1 will undergo a weeding-out process4 ,populate the land with more animal life than it can support1 or with more vegetable forms than it can sustain1 and a weeding-out process will begin4 ,a fuller measure of vitality1 or a certain hardiness and toughness1 will enable some species to hold on longer than others1 and1 maybe1 keep up the fight till the struggle lessens and victory is won4 ,the flame of life is easily blown out in certain forms1 and is very tenacious in others4 ,how unequally the power to resist cold1 for instance1 seems to be distributed among plants and trees1 and probably among animals6 ,one spring an unseasonable cold snap in ,may 7mercury #bh7 killed or withered about one per cent of the leaves on the lilacs1 and one tenth of one per cent of the leaves of our crab-apple tree4 ,in the woods around ,slabsides ,i observed that nearly half the plants of ,solomon's-seal 7,polygonatum7 and false ,solomon's-seal 7,smilacina7 were withered4 ,the vital power1 the power to live1 seems stronger in some plants than in others of the same kind4 ,i suppose this law holds throughout animate nature4 ,when a strain of any kind comes1 these weaker ones drop out4 ,in reading the stories of ,arctic explorers1 ,i see this process going on among their dog-teams3 some have greater power of endurance than others4 ,a few are constantly dropping out or falling by the wayside4 ,with an army on a forced march the same thing happens4 ,in the struggle for existence the weak go to the wall4 ,of course the struggle among animals is at least a toughening process4 ,it seems as if the old ,indian legend1 that the strength of the foe overcome passes into the victor1 were true4 ,but how a new species could arrive as the result of such struggle is past finding out4 ,variation with all forms of life is more or less constant1 but it is around a given mean4 ,only those acquired characters are transmitted that arise from the needs of the organism4 ,a vast number of changes in plants and animals are superficial and in no way vital4 ,it is hard to find two leaves of the same tree that will exactly coincide in all their details2 but a difference that was in some way a decided advantage would tend to be inherited and passed along4 ,it is said that the rabbits in ,australia have developed a longer and stronger nail on the first toe of each front foot1 which aids them in climbing over the wire fences4 ,the aye-aye has a specially adapted finger for extracting insects from their hiding-places4 ,undoubtedly such things are inherited4 ,the snowshoes of the partridge and rabbit are inherited4 ,the needs of the organism influence structure4 ,the spines in the quills in the tails of woodpeckers1 and in the brown creeper1 are other cases in point4 ,the nuthatch has no spines on its tail1 because it can move in all directions1 as well with head down as with head up4 ,i have read of a serpent somewhere that feeds upon eggs4 ,as the serpent has no lips or distendable cheeks1 and as its mechanism of deglutition acts very slowly1 an egg crushed in the mouth would be mostly spilled4 ,so the eggs are swallowed whole2 but in the throat they come in contact with sharp tooth-like spines1 which are not teeth1 but downward projections from the backbone1 and which serve to break the shells of the eggs4 ,radical or vital variations are rare1 and we do not witness them any more than we witness the birth of a new species4 ,and that is all there is to ,natural ,selection4 ,it is a name for a process of elimination which is constantly going on in animate nature all about us4 ,it is in no sense creative1 it originates nothing1 but clinches and toughens existing forms4 ,the mutation theory of ,de ,vries is a much more convincing theory of the origin of species than is ,darwin's ,natural ,selection4 ,if things would only mutate a little oftener6 ,but they seem very reluctant to do so4 ,there does seem to have been some mutation among plants1--,de ,vries has discovered several such1--but in animal life where are the mutants8 ,when or where has a new species originated in this way8 ,surely not during the historic period4 ,fluctuations are in all directions around a center--the mean is always returned to2 but mutations1 or the progressive steps in evolution1 are divergent lines away from the center4 ,fluctuations are superficial and of little significance2 but mutations1 if they occur1 involve deep-seated1 fundamental factors1 factors more or less responsive to the environment1 but not called into being by it4 ,of the four factors in the ,darwinian formula1--variation1 heredity1 the struggle1 and natural selection1--variation is the most negligible2 it furnishes an insufficient handle for selection to take hold of4 ,something more radical must lead the way to new species4 ,as applied to species1 the fittest to survive is a misleading term4 ,all are fit to survive from the fact that they do survive4 ,in a world where1 as a rule1 the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong1 the slow and the frail also survive because they do not come in competition with the swift and the strong4 ,nature mothers all1 and assigns to each its sphere4 ,the ,darwinians are hostile to ,lamarck with his inner developing and perfecting principle1 and1 by the same token1 to ,aristotle1 who is the father of the theory4 ,they regard organic evolution as a purely mechanical process4 ,variation can work only upon a variable tendency--an inherent impulse to development4 ,a rock1 a hill1 a stream1 may change1 but it is not variable in the biological sense3 it can never become anything but a rock1 a hill1 a stream2 but a flower1 an egg1 a seed1 a plant1 a baby1 can4 ,what ,i mean to say is that there must be the primordial tendency to development which ,natural ,selection is powerless to beget1 and which it can only speed up or augment4 ,it cannot give the wing to the seed1 or the spring1 or the hook2 or the feather to the bird2 or the scale to the fish2 but it can perfect all these things4 ,the fittest of its kind does stand the best chance to survive4 ,,vi ,after we have ,darwin shorn of his selection theories1 what has he left8 ,his significance is not lessened4 ,he is still the most impressive figure in modern biological science4 ,his attitude of mind1 the problems he tackled1 his methods of work1 the nature and scope of his inquiries1 together with his candor1 and his simplicity and devotion to truth1 are a precious heritage to all mankind4 ,darwin's work is monumental because he belongs to the class of monumental men4 ,the doctrine of evolution as applied to animate nature reached its complete evolution in his mind4 ,he stated the theory in broader and fuller terms than had any man before him2 he made it cover the whole stupendous course of evolution4 ,he showed man once for all an integral part of the zologic system4 ,he elevated natural history1 or biology1 to the ranks of the great sciences1 a worthy member of the triumvirate--astronomy1 geology1 biology4 ,he taught us how to cross-question the very gods of life in their council chambers2 he showed us what significance attaches to the simplest facts of natural history4 ,darwin impresses by his personality not less than by his logic and his vast storehouse of observations4 ,he was a great man before he was a great natural-history philosopher4 ,his patient and painstaking observation is a lesson to all nature students4 ,the minutest facts engaged him4 ,he studies the difference between the stamens of the same plant4 ,he counted nine thousand seeds1 one by one1 from artificially fertilized pods4 ,plants from two pollens1 he says1 grow at different rates4 ,any difference in the position of the pistil1 or in the size and color of the stamens1 in individuals of the same species grown together1 was of keen interest to him4 ,the best thing about ,darwinism is ,darwin--his candor1 his patience1 his simplicity1 his devotion to truth1 and his power of observation4 ,this is about what ,professor ,t4 ,h4 ,morgan meant when he said3 ,it is the spirit of ,darwinism1 not its formul1 that we proclaim as our best heritage4 ,he gave us a new point of view of the drama of creation2 he gave us ideas that are applicable to the whole domain of human activities4 ,it is true1 he was not a pioneer in this field3 he did not blaze the first trail through this wilderness of biological facts and records2 rather was he like a master-engineer who surveys and establishes the great highway4 ,all the world now travels along the course he established and perfected4 ,he made the long road of evolution easy1 and he placed upon permanent foundations the doctrine of the animal origin of man4 ,he taught the world to think in terms of evolution1 and he pointed the way to a rational explanation of the diversity of living forms4 ,v ,,what ,,makes ,a ,,poem8 ,pope said that a middling poet was no poet at all4 ,middling things in art or in any field of human endeavor do not arouse our enthusiasm1 and it is enthusiasm that fans the fires of life4 ,there are all degrees of excellence1 but in poetry one is always looking for the best4 ,pope himself holds a place in ,english literature which he could not hold had he been only a middling poet4 ,he is not a poet of the highest order certainly1 but a poet of the third or fourth order--the poet of the reason1 the understanding1 but not of the creative imagination4 ,it is wit and not soul that keeps ,pope alive4 ,nearly every age and land has plenty of middling poets4 ,probably there were never more of them in the land than there are to-day4 ,scores of volumes of middling verse are issued from the press every week4 ,the magazines all have middling verse2 only at rare intervals do they have something more4 ,the ,may ,atlantic1 for instance1 had a poem by a 7to me7 comparatively new writer1 ,olive ,tilford ,dargan1 that one would hardly stigmatize as middling poetry4 ,let the reader judge for himself4 ,it is called ,spring in the ,study4 ,i quote only the second part3 ,what is this sudden gayety that shakes the grayest boughs8 ,a voice is calling fieldward--',t is time to start the ploughs6 ,to set the furrows rolling1 while all the old crows nod2 ,and deep as life1 the kernel1 to cut the golden sod4 ,the pen--let nations have it2--we'll plough a while for ,god4 ,when half the things that must be done are greater than our art1 ,and half the things that must be done are smaller than our heart1 ,and poorest gifts are dear to burn on altars unrevealed1 ,like music comes the summons1 the challenge from the weald6 ',they tread immortal measures who make a mellow field6' ,the planet's rather pleasant1 alluring in its way2 ,but let the ploughs be idle and none of us can stay4 ,here's where there is no doubting1 no ghosts uncertain stalk1 ,a-traveling with the plough beam1 beneath the sailing hawk1 ,cutting the furrow deep and true where ,destiny will walk4 ,lafcadio ,hearn spoke with deep truth when he said that the measure of a poet is the largeness of thought which he can bring to any subject1 however trifling4 ,certainly ,mrs4 ,dargan brings this largeness of thought to her subject4 ,has the significance of the plough ever before been so brought out8 ,she makes one feel that there should be a plough among the constellations4 ,what are the chairs and harps and dippers in comparison8 ,the poetry of mere talent is always middling poetry--poems distilled from other poems1 as ,whitman says4 ,the work of a genius is of a different order4 ,most current verse is merely sweetened prose put up in verse form4 ,it serves its purpose2 the mass of readers like it4 ,nearly all educated persons can turn it off with little effort4 ,i have done my share of it myself--rhymed natural history1 but not poetry4 ,waiting is my nearest approach to a true poem4 ,wordsworth quotes ,aristotle as saying that poetry is the most philosophical of all writing1 and ,wordsworth agrees with him4 ,there certainly can be no great poetry without a great philosopher behind it--a man who has thought and felt profoundly upon nature and upon life1 as ,wordsworth himself surely had4 ,the true poet1 like the philosopher1 is a searcher after truth1 and a searcher at the very heart of things--not cold1 objective truth1 but truth which is its own testimony1 and which is carried alive into the heart by passion4 ,he seeks more than beauty1 he seeks the perennial source of beauty4 ,the poet leads man to nature as a mother leads her child there--to instill a love of it into his heart4 ,if a poet adds neither to my knowledge nor to my love1 of what use is he8 ,for instance1 ,poe does not make me know more or love more1 but he delights me by his consummate art4 ,bryant's long poem ,the ,ages has little value1 mainly because it is charged with no philosophy1 and no imaginative emotion4 ,his ,lines to a ,waterfowl will last because of the simple1 profound human emotion they awaken4 ,the poem is marred1 however1 by the stanza that he tacks on the end1 which strikes a note entirely foreign to the true spirit of the poem4 ,you cannot by tacking a moral to a poem give it the philosophical breadth to which ,i have referred4 ,thanatopsis has a solemn and majestic music1 but not the unique excellence of the waterfowl poem4 ,yet it may be generally said of ,bryant that he has a broad human outlook on life and is free from the subtleties and ingenious refinements of many of our younger poets4 ,i know of only three poets in this century who bring a large measure of thought and emotion to their task4 ,i refer to ,william ,vaughn ,moody1 to ,john ,russell ,mc,carthy 7author of ,out-of-,doors and ,gods and ,devils71 and to ,robert ,loveman1 best known for his felicitous ,rain ,song1 a poem too well known to be quoted here4 ,any poet who has ever lived might have been proud to have written that poem4 ,it goes as lightly as thistle-down1 yet is freighted with thought4 ,its philosophy is so sublimated and so natural and easy that we are likely to forget that it has any philosophy at all4 ,the fifty or more stanzas of his ,gates of ,silence are probably far less well known4 ,let me quote a few of them3 ,the races rise and fall1 ,the nations come and go1 ,time tenderly doth cover all ,with violets and snow4 ,the mortal tide moves on ,to some immortal shore1 ,past purple peaks of dusk and dawn1 ,into the evermore4 99 99 99 99 99 ,all the tomes of all the tribes1 ,all the songs of all the scribes1 ,all that priest and prophet say1 ,what is it8 and what are they8 ,fancies futile1 feeble1 vain1 ,idle dream-drift of the brain1-- ,as of old the mystery ,doth encompass you and me4 99 99 99 99 99 ,old and yet young1 the jocund ,earth ,doth speed among the spheres1 ,her children of imperial birth ,are all the golden years4 ,the happy orb sweeps on1 ,led by some vague unrest1 ,some mystic hint of joys unborn ,springing within her breast4 ,what takes one in ,the ,gates of ,silence1 which1 of course1 means the gates of death1 are the large1 sweeping views4 ,the poet strides through time and space like a ,colossus and flings ,out of his spendthrift hands ,the whirling worlds like pebbles1 ,the meshd stars like sands4 ,loveman's stanzas have not the flexibility and freedom of those of ,moody and ,mc,carthy1 but they bring in full measure the largeness of thought which a true poem requires4 ,some of ,moody's poems rank with the best in the literature of his time4 ,he was deeply moved by the part we played in the ,spanish-,american ,war4 ,it was a war of shame and plunder from the point of view of many of the noblest and most patriotic men of the country4 ,we freed ,cuba from the ,spanish yoke and left her free2 but we seized the ,philippines and subdued the native population by killing a vast number of them--more than half of them1 some say4 ,commercial exploitation inspired our policy4 ,how eloquently ,senator ,hoar of ,massachusetts inveighed against our course6 ,we promised the ,filipinos their freedom--a promise we have not yet fulfilled4 ,moody's most notable poems are ,gloucester ,moors1 ,an ,ode in ,time of ,hesitation 7inspired by the ,shaw ,monument in ,boston1 the work of ,saint-,gaudens71 ,the ,brute1 ,the ,daguerreotype1 and ,on a ,soldier ,fallen in the ,philippines4 ,in this last poem throb and surge the mingled emotions of pride and shame which the best minds in the country felt at the time--shame at our mercenary course1 and pride in the fine behavior of our soldiers4 ,it is true we made some pretense of indemnifying ,spain by paying her twenty million dollars1 which was much like the course of a boy who throws another boy down and forcibly takes his jack-knife from him1 then gives him a few coppers to salve his wounds4 ,i remember giving ,moody's poem to ,charles ,eliot ,norton 7one of those who opposed the war71 shortly after it appeared4 ,he read it aloud with marked emotion4 ,let me quote two of its stanzas3 ,toll6 ,let the great bells toll ,till the clashing air is dim4 ,did we wrong this parted soul8 ,we will make it up to him4 ,toll6 ,let him never guess ,what work we set him to4 ,laurel1 laurel1 yes2 ,he did what we bade him do4 ,praise1 and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought was good2 ,never a word that the blood on his sword was his country's own heart's-blood4 ,a flag for the soldier's bier ,who dies that his land may live2 ,o1 banners1 banners here1 ,that he doubt not nor misgive6 ,that he heed not from the tomb ,the evil days draw near ,when the nation1 robed in gloom1 ,with its faithless past shall strive4 ,let him never dream that his bullet's scream went wide of its island mark1 ,home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled and sinned in the dark4 ,when ,i say that every true poet must have a philosophy1 ,i do not mean that he must be what is commonly called a philosophical poet2 from such we steer clear4 ,the philosophy in a poem must be like the iron in the blood4 ,it is the iron that gives color and vigor to the blood4 ,reduce it and we become an anmic and feeble race4 ,much of the popular poetry is anmic in this respect4 ,there is no virile thought in it4 ,all of which amounts to saying that there is always a great nature back of a great poem4 ,the various forms of verse are skillfully used by an increasing number of educated persons1 but the number of true poets is not increasing4 ,quite the contrary1 ,i fear4 ,the spirit of the times in which we live does not favor meditation and absorption in the basic things out of which great poetry arises4 ,the world is too much with us4 ,yet we need not be too much discouraged4 ,england has produced ,masefield1 and we have produced ,john ,russell ,mc,carthy1 who has written the best nature poetry since ,emerson4 ,the genius of a race does not repeat4 ,we shall never again produce poets of the type of those that are gone1 and we should not want to4 ,all we may hope for is to produce poets as original and characteristic and genuine as those of the past--poets who as truly express the spirit of their time1 as the greater poets did of theirs--not ,emerson and ,whitman over again1 but a wide departure from their types4 ,speaking of ,whitman1 may we not affirm that it is his tremendous and impassioned philosophy suffusing his work1 as the blood suffuses the body1 that keeps ,leaves of ,grass forever fresh8 ,we do not go to ,whitman for pretty flowers of poesy1 although they are there1 but we go to him for his attitude toward life and the universe1 we go to stimulate and fortify our souls--in short1 for his cosmic philosophy incarnated in a man4 ,what largeness of thought ,tennyson brings to all his themes6 ,there is plenty of iron in his blood1 though it be the blood of generations of culture1 and of an overripe civilization4 ,we cannot say as much of ,swinburne's poetry or prose4 ,i do not think either will live4 ,bigness of words1 and fluency1 and copiousness of verse cannot make up for the want of a sane and rational philosophy4 ,arnold's poems always have real and tangible subject matter4 ,his ,dover ,beach is a great stroke of poetic genius4 ,let me return to ,poe3 what largeness of thought did he bring to his subjects8 ,emerson spoke of him as the jingle man1 and ,poe1 in turn1 spoke of ,emerson with undisguised contempt4 ,poe's picture indicates a neurotic person4 ,there is power in his eyes1 but the shape of his head is abnormal1 and a profound melancholy seems to rest on his very soul4 ,what a conjurer he was with words and meters and measures6 ,no substance at all in his ,raven1 only shadows--a wonderful dance of shadows1 all tricks of a verbal wizard4 ,the ,bells1 a really powerful poem1 is his masterpiece1 unique in ,english literature2 but it has no intellectual content4 ,its appeal is to the eye and ear alone4 ,it has a verbal splendor and a mastery over measure and rhythm far beyond anything in ,shelley1 or in any other poet of his time4 ,it is art glorified2 it is full of poetic energy4 ,no wonder foreign critics see in ,poe something far beyond that found in any other ,american1 or in any ,british poet6 ,poe set to work to write ,the ,raven as deliberately as a mechanic goes to work to make a machine1 or an architect to build a house4 ,it was all a matter of calculation with him4 ,he did not believe in long poems1 hence decided at the outset that his poem should not be more than one hundred lines in length4 ,then he asked himself1 what is the legitimate end and aim of a poem8 and answered emphatically1 ,beauty4 ,the next point to settle was1 what impression must be made to produce that effect8 ,he decided that melancholy is the most legitimate of all poetic tones4 ,why joy or gladness1 like that of the birds1 is not equally legitimate1 he does not explain4 ,then1 to give artistic piquancy to the whole1 he decided that there must be some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn4 ,he found that no one had been so universally employed as the refrain4 ,the burden of the poem should be given by the refrain1 and it should be a monotone1 and should have brevity4 ,then his task was to select a single word that would be in keeping with the melancholy at which he was aiming1 and this he found in the word nevermore4 ,he next invented a pretext for the frequent but varying use of nevermore4 ,this word could not be spoken in the right tone by a human being2 it must come from an unreasoning creature1 hence the introduction of the raven1 an ill-omened bird1 in harmony with the main tone of the poem4 ,he then considered what was the most melancholy subject of mankind1 and found it was death1 and that that melancholy theme was most poetical when allied to beauty4 ,hence the death of a beautiful woman was unquestionably the most poetic topic in the world4 ,it was equally beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic were those of a bereaved lover4 ,thus he worked himself up1 or rather back1 to the climax of the poem1 for he wrote the last stanza1 in which the climax occurs1 first4 ,his own analysis of the poem is like a chemist's analysis of some new compound he has produced2 it is full of technical terms and subtle distinctions4 ,probably no other famous poem was turned out in just that studied and deliberate architectural way--no pretense of inspiration1 or of eyes in fine frenzy rolling3 just skilled craftsmanship--only this and nothing more4 ,arnold's dictum that poetry is a criticism of life is1 in a large and flexible sense1 true4 ,the poet does not criticize life as the conscious critic does1 but as we unconsciously do in our most exalted moments4 ,arnold1 ,i believe1 did not appreciate ,whitman1 but one function of the poet upon which ,whitman lays emphasis1 is criticism of his country and times4 ,what is this you bring1 my ,america8 ,is it uniform with my country8 ,is it not something that has been better done or told before8 ,have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship8 ,is it not a mere tale8 a rhyme8 a pettiness8--is the good old cause in it8 ,has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets1 politicians1 literates of enemies1 lands8 ,does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here8 ,does it answer universal needs8 will it improve manners8 ,can your performance face the open fields and the seaside8 ,will it absorb into me as ,i absorb food1 air1 to appear again in my strength1 gait1 face8 ,have real employments contributed to it8 ,original makers1 not mere amanuenses8 ,speaking of criticism1 it occurs to me how important it is that a poet1 or any other writer1 should be a critic of himself4 ,wordsworth1 who was a really great poet1 was great only at rare intervals4 ,his habitual mood was dull and prosy4 ,his sin was that he kept on writing during those moods1 grinding out sonnets by the hundred--one hundred and thirty-two ecclesiastical sonnets1 and over half as many on liberty1 all very dull and wooden4 ,his mill kept on grinding whether it had any grist of the gods to grind or not4 ,he told ,emerson he was never in haste to publish1 but he seems to have been in haste to write1 and wrote on all occasions1 producing much dull and trivial work4 ,we speak of a man's work as being heavy4 ,let us apply the test literally to ,wordsworth and weigh his verse4 ,the complete edition of his poems1 edited by ,henry ,reed and published in ,philadelphia in #ahea1 weighs fifty-five ounces2 the selection which ,matthew ,arnold made from his complete works1 and which is supposed to contain all that is worth preserving1 weighs ten ounces4 ,the difference represents the dead wood4 ,that ,wordsworth was a poor judge of his own work is seen in the remark he made to ,emerson that he did not regard his ,tintern ,abbey as highly as some of the sonnets and parts of ,the ,excursion4 ,i believe the ,abbey poem is the one by which he will longest be remembered4 ,the ,excursion is a long1 dull sermon4 ,its didacticism lies so heavily upon it that it has nearly crushed its poetry--like a stone on a flower4 ,all poetry is true1 but all truth is not poetry4 ,when ,burns treats a natural-history theme1 as in his verses on the mouse and the daisy1 and even on the louse1 how much more there is in them than mere natural history6 ,with what a broad and tender philosophy he clothes them6 how he identifies himself with the mouse and regards himself as its fellow mortal6 ,so have ,emerson's ,titmouse and ,humble-,bee a better excuse for being than their natural history4 ,so have ,mc,carthy's ,for a ,bunny and ,the ,snake1 and ,to a ,worm4 ,,the ,,snake ,poor unpardonable length1 ,all belly to the mouth1 ,writhe then and wriggle1 ,if there's joy in it6 ,my heel1 at least1 shall spare you4 ,a little sun on a stone1 ,a mouse or two1 ,and all that unreasonable belly ,is happy4 ,no wonder ,god wasn't satisfied-- ,and went on creating4 ,,to ,a ,,worm ,do you know you are green1 little worm1 ,like the leaf you feed on8 ,perhaps it is on account of the birds1 who would like to eat you4 ,but is there any reason why they shouldn't eat you1 little worm8 ,do you know you are comical1 little worm8 ,how you double yourself up and wave your head1 ,and then stretch out and double up again1 ,all after a little food4 ,do you know you have a long1 strange name1 little worm8 ,i will not tell you what it is4 ,that is for men of learning4 ,you--and ,god--do not care about such things4 ,,what ,,makes ,a ,,poem8 ,you would wave about and double up just as much1 and be just as futile1 with it as without it4 ,why do you crawl about on the top of that post1 little worm8 ,it should have been a tree1 eh8 with green leaves for eating4 ,but it isn't1 and you have crawled about it all day1 looking for a new brown branch1 or a green leaf4 ,do you know anything about tears1 little worm8 ,or take ,mc,carthy's lines to the honey bee3 ,poor desolate betrayer of ,pan's trust1 ,who turned from mating and the sweets thereof1 ,to make of labor an eternal lust1 ,and with pale thrift destroy the red of love1 ,the curse of ,pan has sworn your destiny4 ,unloving1 unbeloved1 you go your way ,toiling forever1 and unwittingly ,you bear love's precious burden every day ,from flower to flower 7for your blasphemy71 ,poor eunuch1 making flower lovers gay4 ,or this3 ,,godliness ,i know a man who says ,that he gets godliness out of a book4 ,he told me this as we sought arbutus ,on the ,april hills-- ,little color-poems of ,god ,lilted to us from the ground1 ,lyric blues and whites and pinks4 ,we climbed great rocks1 ,eternally chanting their gray elegies1 ,and all about1 the cadenced hills ,were proud ,with the stately green epic of the ,almighty4 ,and then we walked home under the stars1 ,while he kept telling me about his book ,and the godliness in it4 ,there are many great lyrics in our literature which have no palpable or deducible philosophy2 but they are the utterance of deep1 serious1 imaginative natures1 and they reach our minds and hearts4 ,wordsworth's ,daffodils1 his ,cuckoo1 his ,skylark1 and scores of others1 live because they have the freshness and spontaneity of birds and flowers themselves4 ,such a poem as ,gray's ,elegy holds its own1 and will continue to hold it1 because it puts in pleasing verse form the universal human emotion which all persons feel more or less when gazing upon graves4 ,the intellectual content of ,scott's poems is not great but the human and emotional content in them is great4 ,a great minstrel of the border speaks in them4 ,the best that ,emerson could say of ,scott was that he is the delight of generous boys1 but the spirit of romance offers as legitimate a field for the poet as does the spirit of transcendentalism1 though yielding1 of course1 different human values4 ,every poet of a high order has a deep moral nature1 and yet the poet is far from being a mere moralist-- ,a reasoning1 self-sufficing thing1 ,an intellectual all-in-all4 ,every true poem is an offering upon the altar of art2 it exists to no other end2 it teaches as nature teaches2 it is good as nature is good2 its art is the art of nature2 it brings our spirits in closer and more loving contact with the universe2 it is for the edification of the soul4 ,,vi ,,short ,,studies ,,in ,,contrasts ,,the ,,transient ,,and ,,the ,,permanent ,the clouds are transient1 but the sky is permanent4 ,the petals of a flowering plant are transient1 the leaves and fruit are less so1 and the roots the least transient of all4 ,the dew on the grass is transient1 as is the frost of an autumn morning4 ,the snows and the rains abide longer4 ,the splendors of summer and sunrise and sunset soon pass1 but the glory of the day lasts4 ,the rainbow vanishes in a few moments1 but the prismatic effect of the drops of rain is a law of optics4 ,colors fade while texture is unimpaired4 ,of course change marks everything1 living or dead4 ,even the pole star in astronomic time will vanish4 ,but consider things mundane only4 ,how the rocks on the seacoast seem to defy and withstand the waves that beat against them6 ,weak as is a breaking wave is a line of ,wordsworth's4 ,yet the waves remain after the rocks are gone4 ,the sea knows no change as the land does4 ,it and the sky are the two unchanging earth features4 ,in our own lives how transient are our moments of inspiration1 our morning joy1 our ecstasies of the spirit6 ,upon how much in the world of art1 literature1 invention1 modes1 may be written the word perishable6 ,all flesh is grass1 says the old ,book4 ,individuals1 species1 races1 pass4 ,life alone remains and is immortal4 ,,positive ,,and ,,negative ,positive and negative go hand in hand through the world4 ,victory and defeat1 hope and despair1 pleasure and pain4 ,man is positive1 woman is negative in comparison4 ,the day is positive1 the night is negative4 ,but it is a pleasure to remember that it is always day in the universe4 ,the shadow of the earth does not extend very far1 nor the shadow of any other planet4 ,day is the great cosmic fact4 ,the masses of men are negative to the few master and compelling minds4 ,cold is negative1 heat is positive1 though the difference is only one of degree4 ,the negative side of life1 the side of meditation1 reflection1 and reverie1 is no less important than the side of action and performance4 ,youth is positive1 age is negative4 ,age says ,no where it used to say ,yes4 ,it takes in sail4 ,life's hurry and heat are over1 the judgment is calm1 the passions subdued1 the stress of effort relaxed4 ,our temper is less aggressive1 events seem less imminent4 ,the morning is positive2 in the evening we muse and dream and take our ease1 we see our friends1 we unstring the bow1 we indulge our social instincts4 ,optimism is positive1 pessimism is negative4 ,fear1 suspicion1 distrust--are all negative4 ,on the seashore where ,i write#d ,i see the ebbing tide1 the exposed sand and rocks1 the receding waves2 and ,i know the sea is showing us its negative side2 there is a lull in the battle4 ,but wait a little and the mad assault of the waves upon the land will be renewed4 ,footnote #d3 ,la ,jolla1 ,california4 ,,palm ,,and ,,fist ,the palm is for friendship1 hospitality1 and good will2 the fist is to smite the enemies of truth and justice4 ,how many men are like the clenched fist--pugnacious1 disputatious1 quarrelsome1 always spoiling for a fight2 a verbal fisticuff1 if not a physical one1 is their delight4 ,others are more conciliatory and peace-loving1 not forgetting that a soft answer turneth away wrath4 ,roosevelt was the man of the clenched fist2 not one to stir up strife1 but a merciless hitter in what he believed a just cause4 ,he always had the fighting edge1 yet could be as tender and sympathetic as any one4 ,this latter side of him is clearly shown in his recently published ,letters to ,his ,children4 ,lincoln was1 in contrast1 the man with the open palm1 tempering justice with kindness1 and punishment with leniency4 ,his ,war ,secretary1 ,stanton1 wielded the hard fist4 ,,praise ,,and ,,flattery ,more men know how to flatter1 said ,wendell ,phillips1 than how to praise4 ,to flatter is easy1 to condemn is easy1 but to praise judiciously and discriminatingly is not easy4 ,extravagant praise defeats itself1 as does extravagant blame4 ,a man is rarely overpraised during his own time by his own people4 ,if he is an original1 forceful character1 he is much more likely to be overblamed than overpraised4 ,he disturbs old ways and institutions4 ,we require an exalted point of view to take in a great character1 as we do to take in a great mountain4 ,we are likely to overpraise and overblame our presidents4 ,lincoln was greatly overblamed in his day1 but we have made it up to his memory4 ,president ,wilson won the applause of both political parties during his first term1 but how overwhelmingly did the tide turn against him before the end of his second term6 ,all his high and heroic service 7almost his martyrdom7 in the cause of peace1 and for the league to prevent war1 were forgotten in a mad rush of the populace to the other extreme4 ,but ,wilson will assuredly come to his own in time1 and take his place among the great presidents4 ,a little of the ,scottish moderation is not so bad2 it is always safe4 ,a wise man will always prefer unjust blame to fulsome praise4 ,extremes in the estimation of a sound character are bound sooner or later to correct themselves4 ,wendell ,phillips himself got more than his share of blame during the antislavery days1 but the praise came in due time4 ,,genius ,,and ,,talent ,the difference between the two is seen in nothing more clearly than in the fact that so many educated persons can and do write fairly good verse1 in fact1 write most of the popular newspaper and magazine poetry1 while only those who have a genius for poetry write real poems4 ,could mere talent have written ,bryant's lines ,to a ,waterfowl8 or his ,thanatopsis8 or ,june8 ,or the small volume of selections of great poetry which ,arnold made from the massive works of ,wordsworth8 ,talent could have produced a vast deal of ,wordsworth's work--all the ,ecclesiastical ,sonnets and much of ,the ,excursion4 ,could talent have written ,walt ,whitman's ,leaves of ,grass8 ,it could have produced all that ,whitman wrote before that time--all his stories and poems4 ,give talent inspiration and it becomes genius4 ,the grub is metamorphosed into the butterfly4 ,to do what is impossible to ,talent is the mark of ,genius1 says ,amiel4 ,talent may judge1 ,genius creates4 ,talent keeps the rules1 ,genius knows when to break them4 ,you may know ,genius1 says the ironical ,swift1 by this sign3 ,all the dunces are against him4 ,there is fine talent in ,everett's oration at ,gettysburg1 but what a different quality spoke in ,lincoln's brief but immortal utterance on the same occasion6 ,is anything more than bright1 alert talent shown in the mass of ,lowell's work1 save perhaps in his ,biglow ,papers8 ,if he had a genius for poetry1 though he wrote much1 ,i cannot see it4 ,his tone1 as ,emerson said1 is always that of prose4 ,the ,cathedral is a tour de force4 ,the line of his so often quoted--,what is so rare as a day in ,june8--is a line of prose4 ,the lines ,to a ,honey ,bee by ,john ,russell ,mc,carthy are the true gold of poetry4 ,to make of labor an eternal lust could never have been struck off by mere talent4 ,,invention ,,and ,,discovery ,columbus discovered ,america2 ,edison invented the phonograph1 the incandescent light1 and many other things4 ,if ,columbus had not discovered ,america1 some other voyager would have4 ,if ,harvey had not discovered the circulation of the blood1 some one else would have4 ,the wonder is that it was not discovered ages before4 ,so far as ,i know1 no one has yet discovered the function of the spleen1 but doubtless in time some one will4 ,it is only comparatively recently that the functions of other ductless glands have been discovered4 ,what did we know about the thyroid gland a half-century ago8 ,all the new discoveries in the heavens waited upon the new astronomic methods1 and the end is not yet4 ,many things in nature are still like an unexplored land4 ,new remedies for the ills of the human body doubtless remain to be found4 ,in the mechanical world probably no new principle remains to be discovered4 ,keely frauds have had their day4 ,in the chemical world1 the list of primary elements will probably not be added to1 though new combinations of these elements may be almost endless4 ,in the biological world1 new species of insects1 birds1 and mammals doubtless remain to be discovered4 ,our knowledge of the natural history of the globe is far from being complete4 ,but in regard to inventions the case is different4 ,i find myself speculating on such a question as this3 ,if ,edison had never been born1 should we ever have had the phonograph1 or the incandescent light8 ,if ,graham ,bell had died in infancy1 should we ever have had the telephone8 ,or without ,marconi should we have had the wireless1 or without ,morse1 the telegraph8 ,or1 to go back still farther1 without ,franklin should we ever have known the identity of lightning and electricity8 ,who taught us how to control electricity and make it do our work8 ,one of the questions of ,job was1 ,canst thou send lightnings1 that they may go1 and say unto thee1 ,here we are8 ,yes1 we can4 ,we are ready to do your bidding1 they seem to say1 to run your errands1 to carry your burdens1 to grind your grist1 to light your houses1 to destroy your enemies4 ,the new inventions that the future holds for us wait upon the new man4 ,the discovery of radium--what a secret that was6 ,but in all probability had not ,curie and his wife discovered it1 some other investigator would4 ,shall we ever learn how to use the atomic energy that is locked up in matter8 ,or how to use the uniform temperature of the globe8 ,or the secret of the glow-worm and firefly--light without heat8 ,the laws of the conservation of energy and of the correlation of forces were discoveries4 ,the art of aviation was both an invention and a discovery4 ,the soaring hawks and eagles we have always been familiar with2 the ,wright brothers invented the machine that could do the trick4 ,necessity is the mother of invention4 ,as our wants increase1 new devices to meet them appear4 ,how the diving-bell answered a real need6 ,the motor-car also1 and the flying-machine4 ,the sewing-machine is a great time-saver2 the little hooks in our shoes in place of eyelets are great time-savers2 pins1 and friction matches1 and rubber overshoes1 and scores on scores of other inventions answer to real needs4 ,necessity did not call the phonograph into being1 nor the incandescent light1 but the high explosives1 dynamite and ,t4 ,n4 ,t4 7trinitrotoluol7 met real wants4 ,the ,great ,war with its submarines stimulated inventors to devise weapons to cope with them4 ,always as man's hand and eyes and ears have needed renforcing or extending1 his wit has come to his rescue4 ,in fact1 his progress has been contingent upon this very fact4 ,his necessities and his power of invention react upon one another2 the more he invents1 the more he wants1 and the more he wants1 the more he invents4 ,,town ,,and ,,country ,i was saying to myself1 why do not all literary men go to the country to do their work1 where they can have health1 peace1 and solitude8 ,then it occurred to me that there are many men of many minds1 and that many need to be in the thick of life2 they get more stimulus out of people than out of nature4 ,the novelist especially needs to be in touch with multitudes of men and women4 ,but the poet and the philosopher will usually prosper better in the country4 ,a man like myself1 who is an observer and of a meditative cast1 does better in the country4 ,emerson1 though city born and bred1 finally settled in the country4 ,whitman1 on the other hand1 loved populous pavements4 ,but he was at home anywhere under the stars4 ,he had no study1 no library1 no club1 other than the street1 the beach1 the hilltop1 and the marts of men4 ,mr4 ,howells was country-born1 but came to the city for employment and remained there4 ,does not one wish that he had gone back to his ,ohio boyhood home8 ,it was easy for me to go back because ,i came of generations of farmer folk4 ,the love of the red soil was in my blood4 ,my native hills looked like the faces of my father and mother4 ,i could never permanently separate myself from them4 ,i have always had a kind of chronic homesickness4 ,two or three times a year ,i must revisit the old scenes4 ,i have had a land-surveyor make a map of the home farm1 and ,i have sketched in and colored all the different fields as ,i knew them in my youth4 ,i keep the map hung up in my room here in ,california1 and when ,i want to go home1 ,i look at this map4 ,i do not see the paper4 ,i see fields and woods and stone walls and paths and roads and grazing cattle4 ,in this field ,i used to help make hay2 in this one ,i wore my fingers sore picking up stones for these stone walls2 in this ,i planted corn and potatoes with my brothers4 ,in these maple woods ,i helped make sugar in the spring2 in these ,i killed my first ruffed grouse4 ,in this field ,i did my first ploughing1 with thoughts of an academy in a neighboring town at the end of every furrow4 ,in this one ,i burned the dry and decayed stumps in the ,april days1 with my younger brother1 and a spark set his cap on fire4 ,in this orchard ,i helped gather the apples in ,october4 ,in this barn we husked the corn in the ,november nights4 ,in this one ,father sheared the sheep1 and ,mother picked the geese4 ,my paternal grandfather cleared these fields and planted this orchard4 ,i recall the hired man who worked for us during my time1 and every dog my father had1 and my adventures with them1 hunting wood-chucks and coons4 ,all these things and memories have been valuable assets in my life4 ,but it is well that not all men have my strong local attachments4 ,the new countries would never get settled4 ,my forefathers would never have left ,connecticut for the wilderness of the ,catskills4 ,as a rule1 however1 we are a drifting1 cosmopolitan people4 ,we are easily transplanted2 we do not strike our roots down into the geology of long-gone time4 ,i often wonder how so many people of the ,old ,world can pull themselves up and migrate to ,america and never return4 ,the ,scots1 certainly a home-loving race1 do it1 and do not seem to suffer from homesickness4 ,,vii ,,day ,,by ,,day ,we often hear it said of a man that he was born too early1 or too late1 but is it ever true8 ,if he is behind his times1 would he not have been behind at whatever period he had been born8 ,if he is ahead of his times1 is not the same thing true8 ,in the vegetable world the early flowers and fruit blossoms are often cut off by the frost1 but not so in the world of man4 ,babies are in order at any time4 ,is a poet1 or a philosopher1 ever born too late8 or too early8 ,if ,emerson had been born a century earlier1 his heterodoxy would have stood in his way2 but in that case he would not have been a heretic4 ,whitman would have had to wait for a hearing at whatever period he was born4 ,he said he was willing to wait for the growth of the taste for himself1 and it finally came4 ,emerson's first thin volume called ,nature did not sell the first edition of five hundred copies in ten years1 but would it have been different at any other time8 ,a piece of true literature is not superseded4 ,the fame of man may rise and fall1 but it lasts4 ,was ,watt too early with his steam-engine1 or ,morse too early with his telegraph8 ,or ,bell too early with his telephone8 ,or ,edison with his phonograph or his incandescent light8 ,or the ,wright brothers with their flying-machine8 ,or ,henry ,ford with his motor-car8 ,before gasolene was discovered they would have been too early1 but then their inventions would not have materialized4 ,the world moves1 and great men are the springs of progress4 ,but no man is born too soon or too late4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a fadeless flower is no flower at all4 ,how ,nature ever came to produce one is a wonder4 ,would not paper flowers do as well8 99 99 99 99 99 ,the most memorable days in our lives are the days when we meet a great man4 99 99 99 99 99 ,how stealthy and silent a thing is that terrible power which we have under control in our homes1 yet which shakes the heavens in thunder6 ,it comes and goes as silently as a spirit4 ,in fact1 it is nearer a spirit than anything else known to us4 ,we touch a button and here it is1 like an errand-boy who appears with his cap in his hand and meekly asks1 ,what will you have8 99 99 99 99 99 ,a few days ago ,i was writing of meteoric men4 ,but are we not all like meteors that cut across the sky and are quickly swallowed up by the darkness--some of us leaving a trail that lasts a little longer than others1 but all gone in a breath8 ,our great pulpit orator ,beecher1 how little he left that cold print does not kill6 ,as a young man ,i used nearly to run my legs off to get to ,plymouth ,church before the doors were closed4 ,under his trumpet-like voice ,i was like a reed bent by the wind1 but now when in a book made up of quotations ,i see passages from his sermons1 they seem thin and flimsy4 ,beecher's oratory was all for the ear and not for the eye and mind4 ,in truth1 is the world indebted to the pulpit for much good literature8 ,robertson's sermons can be read in the library1 and there are others of the great ,english divines4 ,but oratory is action and passion4 ,great volumes of animal heat1 ,emerson names as one of the qualities of the orator4 ,the speeches of ,wendell ,phillips will bear print because his oratory was of the quiet1 conversational kind4 ,webster's1 of course1 stand the test of print1 but do ,clay's or ,calhoun's8 ,in our time oratory1 as such1 has about gone out4 ,rarely now do we hear the eagle scream in ,congress or on the platform4 ,men aim to speak earnestly and convincingly1 but not oratorically4 ,president ,wilson is a very convincing speaker1 but he indulges in no oratory4 ,the one who makes a great effort to be eloquent always fails4 ,noise and fury and over-emphasis are not eloquent4 ,true eloquence1 says ,pascal1 scorns eloquence4 ,there is no moral law in nature1 but there is that out of which the moral law arose4 ,there is no answer to prayer in the heavens above1 or in the earth beneath1 except in so far as the attitude of sincere prayer is a prophecy of the good it pleads for4 ,prayer for peace of mind1 for charity1 for gratitude1 for light1 for courage1 is answered in the sincere asking4 ,prayer for material good is often prayer against wind and tide1 but wind and tide obey those who can rule them4 ,our ethical standards injected into world-history lead to confusion and contradiction4 ,introduced into the jungle1 they would put an end to life there2 introduced into the sea1 they would put an end to life there2 the rule that it is more blessed to give than to receive would put an end to all competitive business4 ,our ethical standards are narrow1 artificial1 and apply only to civilized communities4 ,nations have rarely observed them till the present day4 99 99 99 99 99 ,if the world is any better for my having lived in it1 it is because ,i have pointed the way to a sane and happy life on terms within reach of all1 in my love and joyous acceptance of the works of ,nature about me4 ,i have not tried1 as the phrase is1 to lead my readers from ,nature up to ,nature's ,god1 because ,i cannot separate the one from the other4 ,if your heart warms toward the visible creation1 and toward your fellow men1 you have the root of the matter in you4 ,the power we call ,god does not sustain a mechanical or secondary relation to the universe1 but is vital in it1 or one with it4 ,to give this power human lineaments and attributes1 as our fathers did1 only limits and belittles it4 ,and to talk of leading from ,nature up to ,nature's ,god is to miss the ,god that throbs in every spear of grass and vibrates in the wing of every insect that hums4 ,the ,infinite is immanent in this universe4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the faith that truth exists is the way that ,william ,james begins one of his sentences4 ,of course truth exists where the mind of man exists4 ,a new man and there is new truth4 ,truth1 in this sense1 is a way of looking at things that is agreeable1 or that gives satisfaction to the human mind4 ,truth is not a definite fixed quantity1 like the gold or silver of a country4 ,it is no more a fixed quantity than is beauty4 ,it is an experience of the human mind4 ,beauty and truth are what we make them4 ,we say the world is full of beauty4 ,what we mean is that the world is full of things that give us the pleasure1 or awaken in us the sentiment which we call by that name4 ,the broadest truths are born of the broadest minds4 ,narrow minds are so named from their narrow views of things4 ,pilate's question1 ,what is ,truth8 sets the whole world by the ears4 ,the question of right and wrong is another thing4 ,such questions refer to action and the conduct of our lives4 ,in religion1 in politics1 in economics1 in sociology1 what is truth to one man may be error to another4 ,we may adopt a course of action because it seems the more expedient4 ,debatable questions have two sides to them4 ,in the moral realm that is true which is agreeable to the largest number of competent judges4 ,a mind that could see further and deeper might reverse all our verdicts4 ,to be right on any question in the moral realm is to be in accord with that which makes for the greatest good to the greatest number4 ,in our ,civil ,war the ,south believed itself right in seceding from the ,union2 the ,north1 in fighting to preserve the ,union4 ,both sections now see that the ,north had the larger right4 ,the ,south was sectional1 the ,north national4 ,each of the great political parties thinks it has a monopoly of the truth1 but the truth usually lies midway between them4 ,questions of right and wrong do not necessarily mean questions of true and false4 ,there is nothing either good or bad1 says ,hamlet1 but thinking makes it so4 ,this may be good ,christian ,science doctrine1 but it is doubtful philosophy4 99 99 99 99 99 ,yesterday1 as ,i stood on the hill above ,slabsides and looked over the landscape dotted with farms just greening in the ,april sun1 the thought struck me afresh that all this soil1 all the fertile fields1 all these leagues on leagues of sloping valleys and rolling hills came from the decay of the rocks1 and that the chief agent in bringing about this decay and degradation was the gentle rain from heaven--that without the rain through the past geologic ages1 the scene ,i looked upon would have been only one wild welter of broken or crumpled rocky strata1 not a green thing1 not a living thing1 should ,i have seen4 ,in the ,hawaiian ,islands one may have proof of this before his eyes4 ,on one end of the island of ,maui1 the rainfall is very great1 and its deep valleys and high sharp ridges are clothed with tropical verdure1 while on the other end1 barely ten miles away1 rain never falls1 and the barren1 rocky desolation which the scene presents ,i can never forget4 ,no rain1 no soil2 no soil1 no life4 ,we are1 therefore1 children of the rocks2 the rocks are our mother1 and the rains our father4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the stream of life1 through some favoring condition1 breaks through its natural checks and bounds1 and inundates and destroys whole provinces of other forms1 as when the locusts1 the forest-worms1 the boll-weevil1 the currant-worm1 the potato beetle1 unduly multiply and devastate fields and forests and the farmer's crops1 what do we witness but ,nature's sheer excess and intemperance8 ,life as we usually see it is the result of a complex system of checks and counter-checks4 ,the carnivorous animals are a check on the herbivorous2 the hawks and owls are a check on the birds and fowls2 the cats and weasels are a check on the small rodents1 which are very prolific4 ,the different species of plants and trees are a check upon one another4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i think the main reason of the abundance of wealth in the country is that every man1 equipped as he is with so many modern scientific appliances and tools1 is multiplied four or five times4 ,he is equal to that number of men in his capacity to do things as compared with the men of fifty or seventy years ago4 ,the farmer1 with his mowing-machine1 his horse-rake1 his automobile1 his tractor engine and gang ploughs or his sulky ploughs1 his hay-loader1 his corn-planter1 and so on1 does the work of many men4 ,machinery takes the place of men4 ,gasolene and kerosene oil give man a great advantage4 ,dynamite1 too1--what a giant that is in his service6 ,the higher cost of living does not offset this advantage4 ,the condition in ,europe at this time is quite different3 there the energies of men have been directed not to the accumulation of wealth1 but to the destruction of wealth4 ,hence1 while the war has enriched us1 it has impoverished ,europe4 99 99 99 99 99 ,why are women given so much more to ornaments and superfluities in dress and finery than men8 ,in the animal kingdom below man1 save in a few instances1 it is the male that wears the showy decorations4 ,the male birds have the bright plumes2 the male sheep have the big horns2 the stag has the antlers2 the male lion has the heavy mane2 the male firefly has wings and carries the lamp4 ,with the barnyard fowl the male has the long spurs and the showy comb and wattles4 ,in the crow tribe1 the male cannot be distinguished from the female1 nor among the fly-catchers1 nor among the snipes and plovers4 ,but when we come to the human species1 and especially among the white races1 the female fairly runs riot in ornamentation4 ,if it is not to attract the male1 what is it for8 ,it has been pretty clearly shown that what ,darwin calls sexual selection plays no part4 ,woman wishes to excite the passion of love4 ,she has an instinct for motherhood2 the perpetuity of the species is at the bottom of it all4 ,woman knows how to make her dress alluring1 how to make it provocative1 how much to reveal1 how much to conceal4 ,a certain voluptuousness is the ambition of all women2 anything but to be skinny and raw-boned4 ,she does not want to be muscular and flat-chested1 nor1 on the other hand1 to be over-stout1 but she prays for the flowing lines and the plumpness that belong to youth4 ,a lean man does not repel her1 nor a rugged1 bony frame4 ,woman's garments are of a different texture and on a different scale than those of man1 and much more hampering4 ,her ruffles and ribbons and laces all play their part4 ,her stockings even are a vital problem1 more important than her religion4 ,we do not care where she worships if her dress is attractive4 ,emerson reports that a lady said to him that a sense of being well-dressed at church gave a satisfaction which religion could not give4 ,with man the male defends and safeguards the female4 ,true that among savage tribes he makes a slave of her1 but in the white races he will defend her with his life4 ,she does not take up arms1 she does not go to sea4 ,she does not work in mines1 or as a rule engage in the rough work of the world4 ,in ,europe she works in the field1 and we have had farmerettes in this country1 but ,i know of no feminine engineers or carpenters or stone masons4 ,there have been a few women explorers and ,alpine climbers1 and investigators in science1 but only a few4 ,the discovery of radium is chiefly accredited to a woman1 and women have a few valuable inventions to their credit4 ,i saw a valuable and ingenious machine1 in a great automobile factory1 that was invented by a woman4 ,now that woman has won the franchise in this country1 we are waiting to see if politics will be purified4 ,the weaker sex1 surely4 ,how much easier do women cry than men6 how much more easily are they scared6 ,and yet1 how much more pain they can endure6 ,and how much more devoted are they to their children6 99 99 99 99 99 ,why does any extended view from a mountain-top over a broad landscape1 no matter what the features of that landscape1 awaken in us the emotion of the beautiful8 ,is it because the eye loves a long range1 a broad sweep8 ,or do we have a sense of victory8 ,the book of the landscape is now open before us1 and we can read it page after page4 ,all these weary miles where we tramped1 and where the distance1 as it were1 was in ambush1 we now command at a glance4 ,big views expand the mind as deep inhalations of air expand the lungs4 ,yesterday ,i stood on the top of ,grossmont1#e probably a thousand feet above the landscape1 and looked out over a wide expanse of what seemed to be parched1 barren country2 a few artificial lakes or ponds of impounded rains1 but not a green thing in sight1 and yet ,i was filled with pleasurable emotion4 ,i lingered and lingered and gazed and gazed4 ,the eye is freed at such times1 like a caged bird1 and darts far and near without hindrance4 ,footnote #e3 ,in ,san ,diego ,county1 ,california4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the wings of time are black and white1 ,pied with morning and with night4 ,thus do we objectify that which has no objective existence1 but is purely a subjective experience4 ,do we objectify light and sound in the same way8 ,no4 ,one can conceive of the vibrations in the ether that give us the sensation of light1 and in the air that give us sound4 ,these vibrations do not depend upon our organs4 ,time and tide1 we say1 wait for no man4 ,certainly the tide does not1 as it has a real objective existence4 ,but time does not wait or hurry4 ,it neither lags nor hastens4 ,yesterday does not exist1 nor to-morrow1 nor the ,now1 for that matter4 ,before we can say the moment has come1 it is gone4 ,the only change there is is in our states of consciousness4 ,how the hours lag when we are waiting for a train1 and how they hurry when we are happily employed6 ,can we draw a line between the past and the present8 ,can you find a point in the current of the stream that is stationary8 ,we speak of being lavish of time and of husbanding time1 of improving time1 and so on4 ,we divide it into seconds and minutes1 hours and days1 weeks1 and months1 and years4 ,civilized man is compelled to do this2 he lives and works by schedule1 but it is his states of consciousness that he divides and measures4 ,time is but a stream ,i go fishing in1 says ,thoreau4 ,the stream goes by1 but the fish stay4 ,the river of ,time1 the tooth of ,time--happy comparisons4 ,i wasted time and now time wastes me1 says ,shakespeare4 ,i have no time4 ,you have all there is1 replied the old ,indian4 ,if time1 like money1 could be hoarded up1 we could get all our work done4 ,is there any time outside of man8 ,the animals take no note of time4 99 99 99 99 99 ,that is a good saying of ,juvenal's1 ,he who owns the soil1 owns up to the sky4 ,so is this of ,virgil's1 ,command large fields1 but cultivate small ones4 99 99 99 99 99 ,can there be any theory or doctrine not connected with our practical lives so absurd that it will not be accepted as true by many people8 ,how firmly was a belief in witchcraft held by whole populations for a generation6 ,my grandfather believed in it1 and in spooks and hobgoblins4 ,the belief in alchemy still prevails--that the baser metals1 by the aid of the philosopher's stone1 can be transmuted into gold and silver4 ,quite recently there was a school in a large town in ,california for teaching alchemy4 ,as it was a failure1 its professor was involved in litigation with his pupils4 ,i believe the pupils were chiefly women4 ,there is a sect in ,florida that believe that we live on the inside of a hollow sphere1 instead of on the outside of a revolving globe4 ,i visited the community with ,edison1 near ,fort ,myers1 several years ago4 ,some of the women were fine-looking4 ,one old lady looked like ,martha ,washington1 but the men all looked as if they had a screw loose somewhere4 ,they believe that the sun and moon and all the starry hosts of heaven revolve on the inside of this hollow sphere4 ,all our astronomy goes by the board4 ,they look upon it as puerile and contemptible4 ,the founder of the sect had said he would rise from the dead to confirm its truth4 ,his disciples kept his body till the ,board of ,health obliged them to bury it4 ,if any one were seriously to urge that we really walk on our heads instead of our heels1 and cite our baldness as proof1 there are persons who would believe him4 ,it has been urged that flight to the moon in an aroplane is possible--the want of air is no hindrance6 ,the belief in perpetual motion is not yet dead4 ,many believe that snakes charm birds4 ,but it has been found that a stuffed snake-skin will charm birds also--the bird is hypnotized by its own fear4 99 99 99 99 99 ,what has become of the hermits8--men and women who preferred to live alone1 holding little or no intercourse with their fellows8 ,in my youth ,i knew of several such4 ,there was old ,ike ,keator1 who lived in a little unpainted house beside the road near the top of the mountain where we passed over into ,batavia ,kill4 ,he lived there many years4 ,he had a rich brother1 a farmer in the valley below4 ,then there was ,eri ,gray1 who lived to be over one hundred years4 ,he occupied a little house on the side of a mountain1 and lived1 it was said1 like the pigs in the pen4 ,then there was ,aunt ,deborah ,bouton1 who lived in a little house by a lonely road and took care of her little farm and her four or five cows1 winter and summer4 ,since ,i have lived here on the ,hudson there was a man who lived alone in an old stone house amid great filth on the top of the hill above ,esopus village4 ,in my own line of descent there was a ,kelley who lived alone in a hut in the woods1 not far from ,albany4 ,i myself must have a certain amount of solitude1 but ,i love to hear the hum of life all about me4 ,i like to be secluded in a building warmed by the presence of other persons4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when ,i was a boy on the old farm1 the bright1 warm1 midsummer days were canopied with the mellow hum of insects4 ,you did not see them or distinguish any one species1 but the whole upper air resounded like a great harp4 ,it was a very marked feature of midday4 ,but not for fifty years have ,i heard that sound4 ,i have pressed younger and sharper ears into my service1 but to no purpose3 there are certainly fewer bumblebees than of old1 but not fewer flies or wasps or hornets or honey bees4 ,what has wrought the change ,i do not know4 99 99 99 99 99 ,if the movements going on around us in inert matter could be magnified so as to come within range of our unaided vision1 how agitated the world would seem6 ,the so-called motionless bodies are all vibrating and shifting their places day and night at all seasons4 ,the rocks are sliding down the hills or creeping out of their beds1 the stone walls are reeling and toppling1 the houses are settling or leaning4 ,all inert material raised by the hand of man above the earth's surface is slowly being pulled down to a uniform level4 ,the crust of the earth is rising or subsiding4 ,the very stars in the constellations are shifting their places4 ,if we could see the molecular and chemical changes and transformations that are going on around us1 another world of instability would be revealed to us4 ,here we should see real miracles4 ,we should see the odorless gases unite to form water4 ,we should see the building of crystals1 catalysis1 and the movements of unstable compounds4 99 99 99 99 99 ,think of what ,nature does with varying degrees of temperature--solids1 fluids1 gases4 ,from the bottom to the top of the universe means simply more or less heat4 ,it seems like a misuse of words to say that iron freezes at a high temperature1 that a bar of red-hot or white-hot iron is frozen4 ,water freezes at a high temperature1 the air freezes at a vastly lower4 ,carbon dioxide becomes a solid at a very low temperature4 ,hydrogen becomes a liquid at #beb below zero centigrade1 and a solid at #bfd4 ,the gas fluorine becomes a liquid at #baj below zero centigrade4 ,in a world of absolute zero everything would be as solid as the rocks1 all life1 all chemical reactions would cease4 ,all forms of water are the result of more or less heat4 ,the circuit of the waters from the earth to the clouds and back again1 which keeps all the machinery of life a-going1 is the work of varying degrees of temperature4 ,the ,gulf ,stream1 which plays such a part in the climate of ,europe1 is the result of the heat in the ,gulf of ,mexico4 ,the glacial periods which have so modified the surface of the earth in the past were the result of temperature changes4 99 99 99 99 99 ,how habitually we speak of beauty as a positive thing1 just as we do of truth6 whereas what we call beauty is only an emotional experience of our own minds1 just as light and heat are sensations of our bodies4 ,there is no light where there is no eye1 and no sound where there is no ear4 ,one is a vibration in the ether1 and the other a vibration in the air4 ,the vibrations are positive4 ,we do not all see beauty in the same things4 ,one man is unmoved where another is thrilled4 ,we say the world is full of beauty1 when we mean that it is full of objects that excite this emotion in our minds4 ,we speak of truth as if it1 too1 were a positive thing1 and as if there were a fixed quantity of it in the world1 as there is of gold or silver1 or diamonds4 ,truth1 again1 is an intellectual emotion of the human mind4 ,one man's truth is another man's falsehood--moral and sthetic truth1 ,i mean4 ,objective truth 7mathematics and science7 must be the same to all men4 ,a certain mode of motion in the molecules of matter gives us the sensation of heat1 but heat is not a thing1 an entity in itself1 any more than cold is4 ,yet to our senses one seems just as positive as the other4 ,new truth means a new man4 ,there are as many kinds of truth as there are human experiences and temperaments4 99 99 99 99 99 ,how adaptive is animal life6 ,it adds a new touch of interest to the forbidding cactus to know that the cactus wren builds her nest between its leaves4 ,the spines probably serve to protect the bird from her enemies4 ,but are they not also a menace to her and to her young8 ,but this procreant cradle of a bird in the arms of the fanged desert growth softens its aspect a little4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the tree of forbidden fruit--the ,tree of ,knowledge--how copiously has mankind eaten of it during these latter generations6--and the chaotic state of the world to-day is the result4 ,we have been forcing ,nature's hand on a tremendous scale4 ,we have gained more knowledge and power than we can legitimately use4 ,we are drunk with the sense of power4 ,we challenge the very gods4 ,the rapid increase of inventions and the harnessing of the powers of ,nature have set all nations to manufacturing vastly more goods than they can use and they all become competitors for world markets1 and rivalries and jealousies spring up1 and the seeds of war are planted4 ,the rapid growth of towns and cities is one of the results4 ,the sobering and humanizing influence of the country and the farm are less and less in evidence2 the excitement1 the excesses1 the intoxication of the cities are more and more4 ,the follies and extravagances of wealth lead to the insolence and rebellion of the poor4 ,material power6 ,drunk with this power1 the world is running amuck to-day4 ,we have got rid of kings and despots and autocratic governments2 now if we could only keep sober and make democracy safe and enjoyable6 ,too much science has brought us to grief4 ,behold what ,chemistry has done to put imperial power in our hands during the last decade6 99 99 99 99 99 ,the grand movements of history and of mankind are like the movements of nature1 under the same law1 elemental1 regardless of waste and ruin and delays--not the result of human will or design1 but of forces we wot not of4 ,they are of the same order as floods1 tornadoes1 earthquakes1 a release of human forces that have slumbered4 ,the chaos of ,europe to-day shows the play of such elemental forces1 unorganized1 at cross-purposes1 antagonistic1 fighting it out in the attempt to find an equilibrium4 ,the pain1 the suffering1 the waste1 the delays1 do not trouble the gods at all4 ,since man is a part of nature1 why should not masses of men be ruled by natural law8 ,the human will reaches but a little way4 ,,viii ,,gleanings ,i do not believe that one poet can or does efface another1 as ,arnold suggests4 ,as every gas is a vacuum to every other gas1 so every new poet is a vacuum to every other poet4 ,wordsworth told ,arnold that for many years his poems did not bring him enough to buy his shoestrings4 ,the reading public had to acquire a taste for him4 ,whitman said1 ,i am willing to wait for the growth of the taste of myself4 ,a man who likes a poet of real worth is going to continue to like him1 no matter what new man appears4 ,he may not read him over and over1 but he goes back to him when the mood is upon him4 ,we listen to the same music over and over4 ,we take the same walk over and over4 ,we read ,shakespeare over and over1 and we go back to the best in ,wordsworth over and over4 ,we get in ,tennyson what we do not get in ,wordsworth1 and we as truly get in ,wordsworth what we do not get in ,tennyson4 ,tennyson was sumptuous and aristocratic4 ,byron found his audience1 but he did not rob ,wordsworth4 ,it seems to me that the preminence of ,wordsworth lies in the fact that he deals so entirely with concrete things--men and objects in nature--and floods or saturates them with moral meanings4 ,there is no straining1 no hair-splitting1 no contortions of the oracle1 but it all comes as naturally as the sunrise or the sunset4 99 99 99 99 99 ,things not beautiful in themselves1 or when seen near at hand1 may and do give us the sense of beauty when seen at a distance1 or in mass4 ,who has not stood on a mountain-top1 and seen before him a wild1 disorderly landscape that has nevertheless awakened in him the emotion of the beautiful8 or that has given him the emotion of the sublime8 ,wordsworth's ,daffodils1 ,three ,years ,she ,grew1 ,the ,solitary ,reaper1 ,the ,rainbow1 ,the ,butterfly1 and many others are merely beautiful4 ,these lines from ,whitman give one the emotion of the sublime3 ,i open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems1 ,and all ,i see multiplied as high as ,i can cipher edge but the rim of the farther systems4 ,wider and wider they spread1 expanding1 always expanding1 ,outward and outward and forever outward4 ,my sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels1 ,he joins with his partners a group of superior circuit1 ,and greater sets follow1 making specks of the greatest inside them4 ,all men may slake their thirst at the same spring of water1 but all men cannot be thrilled or soothed by beholding the same objects of nature4 ,a beautiful child captivates every one1 a beautiful woman ravishes all eyes4 ,on my way to the ,imperial ,valley1 ,i recently drove across a range of ,california mountains that had many striking features4 ,a lady asked me if ,i did not think them beautiful4 ,i said1 ,no1 they are hideous1 but the hideous may be interesting4 ,the snow is beautiful to many persons1 but it is not so to me4 ,it is the color of death4 ,i could stand our northern winters very well if ,i could always see the face of the brown or ruddy earth4 ,the snow1 ,i know1 blankets the fields2 and ,emerson's poem on the snowstorm is fine2 at the same time1 ,i would rather not be obliged to look at the white fields4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we are the first great people without a past in the ,european sense4 ,we are of yesterday4 ,we do not strike our roots down deep into the geology of long-gone ages4 ,we are easily transplanted4 ,we are a mixture of all peoples as the other nations of the world are not4 ,only yesterday we were foreigners ourselves4 ,then we made the first experiment on a large scale of a democratic or self-governing people4 ,the masses1 and not a privileged few1 give the tone and complexion to things in this country4 ,we have not yet had time to develop a truly national literature or art4 ,we have produced but one poet of the highest order4 ,whitman is autochthonous4 ,he had no precursor4 ,he is a new type of man appearing in this field4 99 99 99 99 99 ,what think ye of ,whitman8 ,this is the question ,i feel like putting1 and sometimes do put1 to each young poet ,i meet4 ,if he thinks poorly of ,whitman1 ,i think poorly of him4 ,i do not expect great things of him1 and so far my test holds good4 ,william ,winter thought poorly of ,whitman1 ,aldrich thought poorly of him1 and what lasting thing has either of them done in poetry8 ,the memorable things of ,aldrich are in prose4 ,stedman showed more appreciation of him1 and ,stedman wrote two or three things that will keep4 ,his ,osawatomie ,brown 444 he shoved his ramrod down is sure of immortality4 ,higginson could not stand ,whitman1 and had his little fling at him whenever he got the chance4 ,who reads ,higginson now8 ,emerson1 who far outranks any other ,new ,england poet1 was fairly swept off his feet by the first appearance of ,leaves of ,grass4 ,whittier1 ,i am told1 threw the book in the fire4 ,whittier's fame has not gone far beyond ,new ,england4 ,the scholarly and academic ,lowell could not tolerate ,whitman1 and if ,lowell has ever written any true poetry1 ,i have not seen it4 ,what ,longfellow thought of him1 ,i do not know4 ,thoreau saw his greatness at a glance and went to see him4 ,in ,england1 ,i am told1 ,tennyson used to read him aloud in select company4 ,i know that the two poets corresponded4 ,we catch a glimpse of ,swinburne's spasmodic insight in his first burst of enthusiasm over him1 and then of his weakness in recanting4 ,swinburne's friend and house-mate1 ,watts ,dunton1 never could endure him1 but what has he done8 ,so it has gone and still is going1 though now the acceptance of ,whitman has become the fashion4 ,i have always patted myself on the back for seeing the greatness of ,whitman from the first day that ,i read a line of his4 ,i was bewildered and disturbed by some things1 but ,i saw enough to satisfy me of his greatness4 ,whitman had the same faith in himself that ,kepler had in his work4 ,whitman said3 ,whether ,i come to my own to-day1 or in ten thousand1 or ten million years1 ,i can cheerfully take it now1 or with equal cheerfulness ,i can wait4 ,kepler said3 ,the die is cast2 the book is written1 to be read either now or by posterity4 ,i care not which4 ,it may well wait a century for a reader1 since ,god has waited six thousand years for an observer like myself4 99 99 99 99 99 ,judging from fragments of his letters that ,i have seen1 ,henry ,james was unquestionably hypersensitive4 ,in his dislike of publicity he was extreme to the point of abnormality2 it made him ill to see his name in print1 except under just the right conditions4 ,he wanted all things veiled and softened4 ,he fled his country1 abjured it completely4 ,the publicity of it1 of everything in ,america--its climate1 its day1 its night1 the garish sun1 its fierce1 blazing light1 the manner of its people1 its politics1 its customs--fairly made him cringe4 ,during his last visit here he tried lecturing1 but soon gave it up4 ,he fled to veiled and ripened and cushioned ,england--not to the country1 but to smoky ,london2 and there his hypersensitive soul found peace and ease4 ,he became a ,british subject1 washed himself completely of every vestige of ,americanism4 ,this predilection of his probably accounts for the obscurity or tantalizing indirectness of his writings4 ,the last story ,i read of his was called ,one ,more ,turn of the ,screw1 but what the screw was1 or what the turn was1 or whether anybody got pinched or squeezed1 or what it was all about1 ,i have not the slightest idea4 ,he wrote about his visit here1 his trip to ,boston1 to ,albany1 to ,new ,york1 but which town he was writing about you could not infer from the context4 ,he had the gift of a rich1 choice vocabulary1 but he wove it into impenetrable1 though silken1 veils that concealed more than they revealed4 ,when replying to his correspondents on the typewriter1 he would even apologize for the fierce legibility of the type4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the contrast between the singing-robes and the overalls of ,journalism is true and striking4 ,good and true writing no magazine or newspaper editor will blue-pencil4 ,but fine writing is a different thing--a style that is conscious of itself1 a style in which the thought is commonplace and the language studied and ornate1 every judicious editor will blue-pencil4 ,downrightness and sententiousness are prime qualities2 brevity1 concreteness1 spontaneity--in fact1 all forms of genuine expression--help make literature4 ,you know the genuine from the spurious1 gold from pinchbeck1 that's the rub4 ,the secret of sound writing is not in the language1 but in the mind or personality behind the language4 ,the dull writer and the inspired writer use1 or may use1 the same words1 and the product will be gold in the one and lead in the other4 99 99 99 99 99 ,dana's book ,two ,years ,before the ,mast is a classic because it took no thought of being a classic4 ,it is a plain1 unvarnished tale1 not loaded up with tedious descriptions4 ,it is all action1 a perpetual drama in which the sea1 the winds1 the seamen1 the sails--mainsail1 main royal1 foresail--play the principal parts4 ,there is no book depicting life on the sea to compare with it4 ,lately ,i have again tried to find the secret of its charm4 ,in the first place1 it is a plain1 unvarnished tale1 no attempt at fine writing in it4 ,all is action from cover to cover4 ,it is full of thrilling1 dramatic scenes4 ,in fact1 it is almost a perpetual drama in which the sea1 the winds1 the storms1 the sails1 and the sailors play their parts4 ,each sail1 from the smallest to the greatest1 has its own character and its own part to play2 sometimes many of them1 sometimes few are upon the stage at once4 ,occasionally all the canvas was piled on at once1 and then what a sight the ship was to behold6 ,scudding under bare poles was dramatic also4 ,the life on board ship in those times--its humor1 its tedium1 its dangers1 its hardships--was never before so vividly portrayed4 ,the tyranny and cruelty of sea-captains1 the absolute despotism of that little world of the ship's deck1 stand out in strong relief4 ,dana had a memory like a phonographic record4 ,unless he took copious notes on this journey1 it is incredible how he could have made it so complete1 so specific is the life of each day4 ,the reader craves more light on one point--the size of the ship1 her length and tonnage4 ,in setting out on the homeward journey they took aboard a dozen sheep1 four bullocks1 a dozen or more pigs1 three or four dozen of poultry1 thousands of dressed and cured hides1 as well as fodder and feed for the cattle and poultry and pigs4 ,the vessel seemed elastic2 they could always find room for a few thousand more hides1 if the need arose4 ,the hides were folded up like the leaves of a book1 and they invented curious machinery to press in a hundred hides where one could not be forced by hand4 ,by this means the forty thousand hides were easily disposed of as part of the home cargo4 ,the ship becomes a living being to the sailors4 ,the ,alert was so loaded1 her cargo so steved in1 that she was stiff as a man in a strait-jacket4 ,but the old sailors said3 ,stand by4 ,you'll see her work herself loose in a week or two1 and then she'll walk up to ,cape ,horn like a race-horse4 ,it is curious how the sailors can't work together without a song4 ,a song is as necessary to a sailor as the drum and fife are to the soldier4 ,they can't pull in time1 or pull with a will1 without it4 ,some songs were much more effective than others4 ,two or three songs would be tried1 one after the other1 with no effect--not an inch could be got upon the tackles1 when a new song struck up seemed to hit the humor of the moment and drove the tackles two blocks at once4 ',heave round1 hearty6' ',captain gone ashore6' and the like1 might do for common pulls1 but in an emergency1 when we wanted a heavy1 raise-the-dead pull1 which would start the beams of the ship1 there was nothing like ',time for us to go6' ',round the corner1' or ',hurrah6 ,hurrah6 my hearty bullies6' 99 99 99 99 99 ,the mind of the professional critic1 like the professional logical mind1 becomes possessed of certain rules which it adheres to on all occasions4 ,there is a well-known legal mind in this country which is typical4 ,a recent political opponent of the man says3 ,his is the type of mind which would have sided with ,king ,john against granting the ,magna ,charta2 the type of mind which would have opposed the ratification of the ,constitution of the ,united ,states because he would have found so many holes in it4 ,his is the type of mind which would have opposed the ,monroe ,doctrine on the ground that it was dangerous4 ,his is the type of mind which would have opposed the ,emancipation ,proclamation on the ground of taking away property without due process of law4 ,his is the type of mind which would have opposed ,cleveland's ,venezuela message to ,england on the ground that it was unprecedented4 ,his is the type of mind which did its best in #aiab to oppose ,theodore ,roosevelt's effort to make the ,republican ,party progressive4 ,such a mind would have no use for ,roosevelt1 for instance1 because ,roosevelt was not bound by precedents1 but made precedents of his own4 ,the typical critical mind1 such as ,arnold's1 would deny the title of philosopher to a man who has no constructive talent1 who could not build up his own philosophy into a system4 ,he would deny another the title of poet because his verse has not the ,miltonic qualities of simplicity1 of sensuousness1 of passion4 ,emerson was not a great man of letters1 ,arnold said1 because he had not the genius and instinct for style2 his prose had not the requisite wholeness of good tissue4 ,emerson's prose is certainly not ,arnold's prose1 but at its best it is just as effective4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is a good idea of ,santayana that the function of poetry is to emotionalize philosophy4 ,how absurd1 even repulsive1 is the argument of ,paradise ,lost6 yet here is great poetry1 not in the matter1 but in the manner4 ,though fallen on evil days1 on evil days though fallen4 ,to shun delights and live laborious days4 ,common ideas1 but what dignity in the expression6 99 99 99 99 99 ,criticism is easy4 ,when a writer has nothing else to do1 he can criticize some other writer4 ,but to create and originate is not so easy4 ,one may say that appreciation is easy also4 ,how many persons appreciate good literature who cannot produce it6 99 99 99 99 99 ,the rash and the audacious are not the same4 ,audacity means boldness1 but to be rash often means to be imprudent or foolhardy4 ,when a little dog attacks a big dog1 as so often happens1 his boldness becomes rashness4 ,when ,charles ,kingsley attacked ,newman1 his boldness turned out to be rashness4 99 99 99 99 99 ,little wonder that in his essay on ,books ,emerson recommends ,thomas ,kempis's ,imitation of ,christ4 ,substitute the word ,nature for ,god and ,christ and much of it will sound very ,emersonian4 ,emerson was a kind of ,new ,england ,thomas ,kempis4 ,his spirit and attitude of mind were essentially the same1 only directed to ,nature and the modern world4 ,humble yourself1 keep yourself in the background1 and let the over-soul speak4 ,i desire no consolation which taketh from me compunction4 ,i love no contemplation which leads to pride4 ,for all that which is high is not holy1 nor everything that is sweet1 good4 ,i had rather feel contrition1 than be skilled in the definition of it4 ,all ,scripture ought to be read in the spirit in which it was written4 ,how ,emersonian all this sounds6 99 99 99 99 99 ,in a fat volume of forty thousand quotations from the literature of all times and countries1 compiled by some patient and industrious person1 at least half of it is not worth the paper on which it is printed4 ,there seem to be more quotations in it from ,shakespeare than from any other poet1 which is as it should be4 ,there seem to be more from ,emerson than from any other ,american poet1 which again is as it should be4 ,those from the great names of antiquity--the ,bible1 ,sadi1 ,cicero1 schylus1 ,euripides1 ,aristotle1 and others--are all worth while1 and the quotations from ,bacon1 ,newton1 ,addison1 ,locke1 ,chaucer1 ,johnson1 ,carlyle1 ,huxley1 ,tennyson1 ,goethe are welcome4 ,but the quotations from women writers and poets1--,mrs4 ,hemans1 ,mrs4 ,sigourney1 ,jean ,ingelow1 and others1--what are they worth8 ,who would expect anything profound from ,j4 ,g4 ,holland or ,chapin1 ,o4 ,w4 ,holmes1 or ,alger1 or ,alcott1 or ,helps1 or ,dickens1 or ,lewes1 or ,froude1 or ,lowell8 ,i certainly should not4 ,such a selection is good to leaf over4 ,your thought may be kindled or fanned here and there4 ,the subjects are arranged alphabetically1 and embrace nearly all themes of human interest from ability to zephyrs4 ,there is very little from ,whitman1 and1 ,i think1 only one quotation from ,thoreau4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the death of ,howells gave me a shock4 ,i had known him long1 though not intimately4 ,he was my senior by only one month4 ,it had been two years or more since ,i had seen him4 ,last ,december ,i read his charming paper on ,eighty ,years and ,after and enjoyed it greatly4 ,it is a masterpiece4 ,no other ,american man of letters1 past or present1 could have done that4 ,in fact1 there has been no other ,american who achieved the all-round literary craftsmanship that ,mr4 ,howells achieved4 ,his equal in his own line we have never seen4 ,his felicity on all occasions was a wonder4 ,his works do not belong to the literature of power1 but to the literature of charm1 grace1 felicity4 ,his style is as flexible and as limpid as a mountain rill4 ,only among the ,french do we find such qualities in such perfection4 ,some of his writings--,their ,wedding ,journey1 for instance--are too photographic4 ,we miss the lure of the imagination1 such as ,hawthorne gave to all his pictures of real things4 ,only one of ,howells's volumes have ,i found too thin for me to finish--his ,london ,films was too filmy for me4 ,i had read ,taine's ,london ,notes and felt the force of a different type of mind4 ,but ,howells's ,eighty ,years and ,after will live as a classic4 ,oh1 the felicity of his style6 ,one of his later poems on growing old 7,on a ,bright ,winter's ,day it is called7 is a gem4 ,,ix ,,sundown ,,papers ,,re-,,reading ,,bergson ,i am trying again to read ,bergson's ,creative ,evolution1 with poor success4 ,when ,i recall how ,i was taken with the work ten or more years ago1 and carried it with me whenever ,i went from home1 ,i am wondering if my mind has become too old and feeble to take it in4 ,but ,i do not have such difficulty with any other of my favorite authors4 ,bergson's work now seems to me a mixture of two things that won't mix--metaphysics and natural science4 ,it is full of word-splitting and conjuring with terms1 and abounds in natural history facts4 ,the style is wonderful1 but the logic is not strong4 ,he enlarges upon the inability of the intellect to understand or grasp ,life4 ,the reason is baffled1 but sympathy and the emotional nature and the intuitions grasp the mystery4 ,this may be true1 the heart often knows what the head does not2 but is it not the intellect that tells us so8 ,the intellect understands the grounds of our inability4 ,we can and do reason about the limitations of reason4 ,we do not know how matter and spirit blend1 but we know they do blend4 ,the animals live by instinct1 and we live largely in our emotions1 but it is reason that has placed man at the head of the animal kingdom4 ,bergson himself by no means dispenses with the logical faculty4 ,note his close and convincing reasoning on the development of the vertebrate eye1 and how inadequate the ,darwinian idea of the accumulation of insensible variations is to account for it4 ,a closer and more convincing piece of reasoning would be hard to find4 ,bergson's conception of two currents--an upward current of spirit and a downward current of matter--meeting and uniting at a definite time and place and producing life1 is extremely fanciful4 ,where had they both been during all the geologic ages8 ,i do not suppose they had been any where4 ,how life arose is1 of course1 one of the great mysteries4 ,but do we not know enough to see that it did not originate in this sudden spectacular way8--that it began very slowly1 in unicellular germs8 ,at first ,i was so captivated by the wonderful style of ,m4 ,bergson1 and the richness of his page in natural history1 that ,i could see no flaws in his subject-matter1 but now that my enthusiasm has cooled off a little ,i return to him and am looking closer into the text4 ,is not ,bergson guilty of false or careless reasoning when he says that the relation of the soul to the brain is like that of a coat to the nail upon which it hangs8 ,i call this spurious or pinchbeck analogy4 ,if we know anything about it1 do we not know that the relation of the two is not a mechanical or fortuitous one8 and that it cannot be defined in this loose way8 ,to a large extent1 ,bergson says1 thought is independent of the brain4 ,the brain is1 strictly speaking1 neither an organ of thought1 nor of feeling1 nor of consciousness4 ,he speaks of consciousness as if it were a disembodied something floating around in the air overhead1 like wireless messages4 ,if ,i do not think with my brain1 with what do ,i think8 ,certainly not with my legs1 or my abdomen1 or my chest4 ,i think with my head1 or the gray matter of my brain4 ,i look down at the rest of my body and ,i say1 this is part of me1 but it is not the real me4 ,with both legs and both arms gone1 ,i should still be ,i4 ,but cut off my head and where am ,i8 ,has not the intelligence of the animal kingdom increased during the geologic ages with the increase in the size of the brain8 ,,revisions ,i have little need to revise my opinion of any of the great names of ,english literature4 ,i probably make more strenuous demands upon him who aspires to be a poet than ever before4 ,i see more clearly than ever before that sweetened prose put up in verse form does not make poetry any more than sweetened water put in the comb in the hive makes honey4 ,many of our would-be young poets bring us the crude nectar from the fields--fine descriptions of flowers1 birds1 sunsets1 and so on--and expect us to accept them as honey4 ,the quality of the man makes all the difference in the world4 ,a great nature can describe birds and flowers and clouds and sunsets and spring and autumn greatly4 ,dean ,swift quotes ,sir ,philip ,sidney as saying that the chief life of modern versifying consists in rhyme4 ,swift agrees with him4 ,verse without rhyme1 he says1 is a body without a soul1 or a bell without a clapper4 ,he thinks ,milton's ,paradise ,lost would be greatly improved if it had rhyme4 ,this1 he says1 would make it more heroic and sonorous than it is4 ,unobtrusive rhyme may be a help in certain cases1 but what modern reader would say that a poem without rhyme is a body without a soul8 ,this would exclude many of the noblest productions of ,english literature4 ,,bergson ,,and ,,telepathy ,bergson seems always to have been more than half-convinced of the truth of spiritualism4 ,when we are already half-convinced of a thing1 it takes but little to convince us4 ,bergson argues himself into a belief in telepathy in this wise3 ,we produce electricity at every moment2 the atmosphere is continually electrified2 we move among magnetic currents4 ,yet for thousands of years millions of human beings have lived who never suspected the existence of electricity4 ,millions of persons have also lived without suspecting the pull of the sun and moon upon us2 or that the pressure of the atmosphere upon our bodies is fifteen pounds to the square inch2 or that the coast of this part of the continent is slowly subsiding 7the oscillations of the earth's crust72 or without suspecting the incredible speed of the stars in the midnight sky2 or that the earth is turning under our feet2 or that electrons are shooting off from the candle or lamp by the light of which we are reading4 ,there are assuredly more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy1 many of which we shall doubtless yet find out1 and many more of which we shall never find out4 ,wireless messages may be continually going through our houses and our bodies1 and through the air we breathe1 and we never suspect them4 ,shall we1 then1 infer that the air around us is full of spirits of our departed friends8 ,i hope it is1 but ,i fail to see any warrant for the belief in this kind of reasoning4 ,it does not lend color even to the probability1 any more than it does to the probability that we shall yet be able to read one another's thoughts and become expert mind-readers4 ,mind-reading seems to be a reality with a few persons1 with one in many millions4 ,but ,i cannot therefore believe in spiritualism as ,i believe in the defeat of the ,invincible ,armada4 ,fleets have been defeated in all ages4 ,facts are amenable to observation and experiment1 but merely alleged facts do not stand the laboratory tests4 ,if memory is not a function of the brain1 of what is it a function8 ,if judgment1 reasoning1 or any other act of thought are not functions of the brain1 of what are they the functions8 ,the scientific method is adequate to deal with all questions capable of proof or disproof4 ,if we apply the scientific or experimental method to miracles1 where does it leave them8 ,ask ,huxley4 ,thought-transference is possible1 but does this prove spiritualism to be true8 ,i know of a man who can answer your questions if you know the answers yourself1 even without reading them or hearing you ask them4 ,he once read a chemical formula for ,edison which nobody but ,edison had ever seen4 ,i am glad that such things are possible4 ,they confirm our faith in the reality of the unseen4 ,they show us in what a world of occult laws and influences we live1 but they tell us nothing of any other world4 ,,meteoric ,,men ,,and ,,planetary ,,men ,there are meteoric men and there are planetary men4 ,the men who now and then flash across our intellectual heavens1 drawing all eyes for the moment1 these ,i call meteoric men4 ,what a contrast they present to the planetary men1 who are slow to attract our attention1 but who abide1 and do not grow dim6 ,poets like ,emerson1 ,whitman1 and ,wordsworth were slow to gain recognition1 but the radiance of their names grows4 ,i call such a poet as ,swinburne meteoric1 a poet of a certain kind of brilliant power1 but who reads him now8 ,stephen ,phillips with his ,marpessa had a brief vogue1 and then disappeared in the darkness4 ,when ,i was a young man1 ,i remember1 a ,scottish poet1 ,alexander ,smith1 published a ,life ,drama1 which dazzled the literary world for a brief period1 but it is forgotten now4 ,what attention ,kidd's ,social ,evolution attracted a generation or more ago6 ,but it is now quite neglected4 ,it was not sound4 ,when he died a few years ago there was barely an allusion to it in the public press4 ,the same fate befell that talented man1 ,buckle1 with his ,civilization in ,england4 ,delia ,bacon held the ear of the public for a time with the ,bacon-,shakespeare theory4 ,pulpit men like ,joseph ,cook and ,adirondack ,murray blazed out1 and then were gone4 ,half a century ago or more an ,englishman by the name of ,m4 ,f4 ,tupper published a book called ,proverbial ,philosophy which had a brief season of popularity1 and then went out like a rush-light1 or a blaze of tissue paper4 ,novels like ,miss ,sprague's ,earnest ,trifler1 ,du ,maurier's ,trilby1 and ,wallace's ,ben ,hur have had their little day1 and been forgotten4 ,in the art world the ,cubists' crazy work drew the attention of the public long enough for it to be seen how spurious and absurd it was4 ,brownell's war poems turned out to be little more than brief fireworks4 ,joaquin ,miller1 where is he8 ,fifty years ago ,gail ,hamilton was much in the public eye1 and ,grace ,greenwood1 and ,fanny ,fern2 and in ,bohemian circles1 there were ,agnes ,franz and ,ada ,clare1 but they are all quite forgotten now4 ,the meteoric men would not appreciate ,president ,wilson's wise saying that he would rather fail in a cause that in time is bound to succeed than to succeed in a cause that in time is bound to fail4 ,such men cannot wait for success4 ,meteoric men in politics1 like ,elaine and ,conkling1 were brilliant men1 but were politicians merely4 ,what fruitful or constructive ideas did they leave us8 ,could they forget party in the good of the whole country8 ,are not the opponents of the ,league of ,nations of our own day in the same case--without1 however1 shining with the same degree of brilliancy8 ,to some of our ,presidents--,polk1 ,pierce1 ,buchanan--we owe little or nothing4 ,roosevelt's career1 though meteoric in its sudden brilliancy1 will shine with a steady light down the ages4 ,he left lasting results4 ,he raised permanently the standard of morality in politics and business in this country by the gospel of the square deal4 ,woodrow ,wilson1 after the mists and clouds are all dispelled1 will shine serenely on4 ,he is one of the few men of the ages4 ,,the ,,daily ,,papers ,probably the worst feature of our civilization is the daily paper4 ,it scatters crime1 bad manners1 and a pernicious levity as a wind scatters fire4 ,crime feeds upon crime1 and the newspapers make sure that every criminally inclined reader shall have enough to feed upon1 shall have his vicious nature aroused and stimulated4 ,is it probable that a second and a third ,president of the ,united ,states would ever have been assassinated by shooting1 had not such notoriety been given to the first crime8 ,murder1 arson1 theft1 peculation1 are as contagious as smallpox4 ,who can help a pitying or a scornful smile when he hears of a school of journalism1 a school for promoting crime and debauching the manners and the conscience of the people8--for teaching the gentle art of lying1 for manufacturing news when there is no news8 ,the pupils are taught1 ,i suppose1 how to serve up the sweepings from the streets and the gutters and the bar-rooms in the most engaging manner4 ,they are taught how to give the great ,public what it wants1 and the one thing the great ,public wants1 and can never get enough of is any form of sensationalism4 ,it clearly loves scandals about the rich1 or anything about the rich1 because we all want and expect to be rich1 to out-shine our neighbors1 to cut a wide swath in society4 ,give us anything about the rich1 the ,public says2 we will take the mud from their shoes2 if we can't get that1 give us the parings of their finger-nails4 ,the inelastic character of the newspaper is a hampering factor--so many columns must be filled1 news or no news4 ,and when there is a great amount of important news1 see how much is suppressed that but for this inelasticity would have been printed6 ,the professor at the school of journalism says3 ,i try to hammer it into them day after day that they have got to learn to get the news--that1 whatever else a reporter can or cannot do1 he isn't a reporter till he has learned to get the news4 ,hence the invasion of private houses1 the bribery1 the stealing of letters1 the listening at key-holes1 the craze for photographing the most sacred episodes1 the betrayals of confidence1 that the newspapers are responsible for4 ,they must get what the dear ,public most likes to hear1 if they have to scale a man's housetop1 and come down his chimney4 ,and if they cannot get the true story1 they must invent one4 ,the idle curiosity of the ,public must be satisfied4 ,now the real news1 the news the ,public is entitled to1 is always easy to get4 ,it grows by the wayside4 ,the ,public is entitled to public news1 not to family secrets2 to the life of the street and the mart1 not to life behind closed doors4 ,in the dearth of real news1 the paper is filled with the dust and sweepings from the public highways and byways1 from saloons1 police courts1 political halls--sordid1 ephemeral1 and worthless1 because it would never get into print if there were real news to serve up4 ,then the advertising4 ,the items of news now peep out at us from between flaming advertisements of the shopmen's goods1 like men on the street hawking their wares1 each trying to out-scream the other and making such a ,bedlam that our ears are stunned4#f ,footnote #f3 ,this fragment is hardly representative of the attitude of ,mr4 ,burroughs toward our worthy dailies1 and1 could he have expanded the article1 it would have had in its entirety a different tone4 ,he lived on the breath of the newspapers2 was always eager for legitimate news2 and was especially outspoken in admiration of the superb work done by many newspaper correspondents during the ,world ,war4 ,furthermore1 he was himself always most approachable and friendly to the reporters1 complaining1 however1 that they often failed to quote him when he took real pains to help them get things straight2 while they often insisted on emphasizing sensational aspects1 and even put words in his mouth which he never uttered4 ,but the truth is1 he valued the high-class newspapers1 though regarding even them as a two-edged sword1 since their praiseworthy efforts are so vitiated by craze for the sensational4--,c4 ,b4 ,,the ,,alphabet ,until we have stopped to think about it1 few of us realize what it means to have an alphabet--the combination of a few straight lines and curves which form our letters4 ,when you have learned these1 and how to arrange them into words1 you have the key that unlocks all the libraries in the world4 ,an assortment and arrangement of black lines on a white surface6 ,these lines mean nothing in themselves2 they are not symbols1 nor pictures1 nor hieroglyphics1 yet the mastery of them is one of the touchstones of civilization4 ,the progress of the race since the dawn of history1 or since the art of writing has been invented1 has gone forward with leaps and bounds4 ,the prehistoric races1 and the barbarous races of our own times1 had and have only picture language4 ,the ,chinese have no alphabet4 ,it is said that they are now accepting a phonetic alphabet4 ,the ,chinese system of writing comprises more than forty thousand separate symbols1 each a different word4 ,it requires the memorizing of at least three thousand word-signs to read and write their language4 ,the national phonetic script is made up of sixty distinct characters that answer to our twenty-four4 ,these characters embrace every verbal sound of the language1 and in combination make up every word4 ,the progress of ,china has been greatly hampered by this want of an alphabet4 ,coleridge says about the primary art of writing3 ,first1 there is mere gesticulation1 then rosaries1 or wampum1 then picture language1 then hieroglyphics1 and finally alphabetic letters1--the last an evolution from all that went before4 ,but there is no more suggestion of an alphabet in the sign language of the ,north ,american ,indian than there is of man in a crinoid4 ,,the ,,reds ,,of ,,literature ,a class of young men who seem to look upon themselves as revolutionary poets has arisen1 chiefly in ,chicago2 and they are putting forth the most astonishing stuff in the name of free verse that has probably ever appeared anywhere4 ,in a late number of ,current ,opinion1 ,carl ,sandburg1 who1 ,i am told1 is their chosen leader1 waves his dirty shirt in the face of the public in this fashion3 ,my shirt is a token and a symbol more than a cover from sun and rain1 ,my shirt is a signal and a teller of souls1 ,i can take off my shirt and tear it1 and so make a ripping razzly noise1 and the people will say1 ',look at him tear his shirt6' ,i can keep my shirt on1 ,i can stick around and sing like a little bird1 and look 'em all in the eye and never be fazed1 ,i can keep my shirt on4 ,does not this resemble poetry about as much as a pile of dirty rags resembles silk or broadcloth8 ,the trick of it seems to be to take flat1 unimaginative prose and cut it up in lines of varying length1 and often omit the capitals at the beginning of the lines--shredded prose1 with no kick in it at all4 ,these men are the ,reds of literature4 ,they would reverse or destroy all the recognized rules and standards upon which literature is founded4 ,they show what ,bolshevism carried out in the field of poetry1 would lead to4 ,one of them who signs himself ,h4 ,d4 writes thus in the ,dial on ,helios3 ,helios makes all things right-- night brands and chokes1 as if destruction broke over furze and stone and crop of myrtle-shoot and field-wort1 destroyed with flakes of iron1 the bracken-stone1 where tender roots were sown blight1 chaff1 and wash of darkness to choke and drown4 ,a curious god to find1 yet in the end faithful2 bitter1 the ,kyprian's feet-- ah1 flecks of withered clay1 great hero1 vaunted lord-- ah1 petals1 dust and windfall on the ground--queen awaiting queen4 ,what it all means--who can tell8 ,it is as empty of intelligent meaning as a rubbish-heap4 ,yet these men claim to get their charter from ,whitman4 ,i do not think ,whitman would be enough interested in them to feel contempt toward them4 ,whitman was a man of tremendous personality1 and every line he wrote had a meaning1 and his whole work was suffused with a philosophy as was his body with blood4 ,these ,reds belong to the same class of inane sensationalists that the ,cubists do2 they would defy in verse what the ,cubists defy in form4 ,i have just been skimming through an illustrated book called ,noa ,noa1 by a ,frenchman1 which describes1 or pretends to describe1 a visit to ,tahiti4 ,there is not much fault to be found with it as a narrative1 but the pictures of the natives are atrocious4 ,many of the figures are distorted1 and all of them have a smutty look1 as if they had been rubbed with lampblack or coal-dust4 ,there is not one simple1 honest presentation of the natural human form in the book4 ,when the ,parisian becomes a degenerate1 he is the most degenerate of all--a refined1 perfumed degenerate4 ,a degenerate ,englishman may be brutal and coarse1 but he could never be guilty of the inane or the outrageous things which the ,cubists1 the ,imagists1 the ,futurists1 and the other ,ists among the ,french have turned out4 ,the degenerate ,frenchman is like our species of smilax which looks fresh1 shining1 and attractive1 but when it blooms gives out an odor of dead rats4 ,i recently chanced upon the picture of a kneeling girl1 by one of the ,reds in art1 a charcoal sketch apparently4 ,it suggests the crude attempts of a child4 ,the mouth is a black1 smutty hole in the face1 the eyes are not mates1 and one of them is merely a black dot4 ,in fact1 the whole head seems thrust up into a cloud of charcoal dust4 ,the partly nude body has not a mark of femininity4 ,the body is very long and the legs very short1 and the knees1 as they protrude from under the drapery1 look like two irregular blocks of wood4 ,to falsify or belie nature seems to be the sole aim of these creatures4 ,the best thing that could happen to the whole gang of them would be to be compelled to go out and dig and spade the earth4 ,they would then see what things are really like4 ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,evolution ,it is interesting to note that the doctrine of evolution itself has undergone as complete an evolution as has any animal species with which it deals4 ,we find the germ of it1 so to speak1 in the early ,greek philosophers and not much more4 ,crude1 half-developed forms of it begin to appear in the eighteenth century of our era and become more and more developed in the nineteenth1 till they approximate completion in ,darwin4 ,in ,geoffroy ,saint-,hilaire in #agie there are glimpses of the theory1 but in ,lamarck1 near the beginning of the nineteenth century1 the theory is so fully developed that it anticipates ,darwin on many points2 often full of crudities and absurdities1 yet ,lamarck hits the mark surprisingly often4 ,in #ahac ,dr4 ,w4 ,c4 ,wells1 an ,englishman1 read a paper before the ,royal ,society in ,london that contains a passage that might have come from the pages of ,darwin4 ,in the anonymous and famous volume called ,vestiges of ,creation1 published in #ahdd1 the doctrine of the mutability of species is forcibly put4 ,then in ,herbert ,spencer in #aheb the evolution theory of development receives a fresh impetus1 till it matures in the minds of ,darwin and ,wallace in the late fifties4 ,the inherent impulse toward development is also in ,aristotle4 ,it crops out again in ,lamarck1 but was repudiated by ,darwin4 ,,following ,,one',s ,,bent ,i have done what ,i most wanted to do in the world1 what ,i was probably best fitted to do1 not as the result of deliberate planning or calculation1 but by simply going with the current1 that is1 following my natural bent1 and refusing to run after false gods4 ,riches and fame and power1 when directly pursued1 are false gods4 ,if a man deliberately says to himself1 ,i will win these things1 he has likely reckoned without his host4 ,his host is the nature within and without him1 and that may have something to say on the subject4 ,but if he says1 ,i will do the worthy work that comes to my hand1 the work that my character and my talent bring me1 and ,i will do it the best ,i can1 he will not reap a barren harvest4 ,so many persons are disappointed in life6 ,they have had false aims4 ,they have wanted something for nothing4 ,they have listened to the call of ambition and have not heeded the inner light4 ,they have tried short cuts to fame and fortune1 and have not been willing to pay the price in self-denial that all worthy success demands4 ,we find our position in life according to the specific gravity of our moral and intellectual natures4 ,,notes ,,on ,,the ,,psychology ,,of ,,old ,,age#g ,the physiology of old age is well understood--general sluggishness of all the functions1 stiffness of the joints1 more or less so-called rheumatism1 loss of strength1 wasting tissues1 broken sleep1 failing hearing and eyesight1 capricious appetite1 and so on4 ,but the psychology of old age is not so easily described4 ,the old man reasons well1 the judgment is clear1 the mind active1 the conscience alert1 the interest in life unabated4 ,it is the memory that plays the old man tricks4 ,his mind is a storehouse of facts and incidents and experiences1 but they do not hold together as they used to2 their relations are broken and very uncertain4 ,he remembers the name of a person1 but perhaps cannot recall the face or presence2 or he remembers the voice and presence1 but without the name or face4 ,he may go back to his school-days and try to restore the faded canvas of those distant days4 ,it is like resurrecting the dead2 he exhumes them from their graves3 ,there was ,g----2 how distinctly he recalls the name and some incident in his school life1 and that is all4 ,there was ,b----1 a name only4 ,there was ,r----1 and the memory of the career he had marked out for himself and his untimely death through a steamboat accident2 but of his looks1 his voice--not a vestige6 ,it is a memory full of holes1 like a net with many of the meshes broken4 ,he recalls his early teachers1 some of them stand out vividly--voice1 look1 manner--all complete4 ,others are only names associated with certain incidents in school4 ,footnote #g3 ,these fragments1 which ,mr4 ,burroughs intended to expand into an article1 were among the very last things he wrote4--,c4 ,b4 ,names and places with which one has been perfectly familiar all his life suddenly1 for a few moments1 mean nothing4 ,it is as if the belt slipped1 and the wheel did not go round4 ,then the next moment1 away it goes again6 ,or1 shall we call it a kind of mental ansthesia1 or mental paralysis8 ,thus1 the other day ,i was reading something about ,georgetown1 ,south ,america4 ,i repeated the name over to myself a few times4 ,have ,i not known such a place some time in my life8 ,where is it8 ,georgetown8 ,georgetown8 ,the name seemed like a dream4 ,then ,i thought of ,washington1 the ,capital1 and the city above it1 but had to ask a friend if the name was ,georgetown4 ,then suddenly1 as if some chemical had been rubbed on a bit of invisible writing1 out it came6 ,of course it was ,georgetown4 ,how could ,i have been in doubt about it8 7,i had lived in ,washington for ten years47 ,so we say1 old age may reason well1 but old age does not remember well4 ,this is a commonplace4 ,it seems as if memory were the most uncertain of all our faculties4 ,power of attention fails1 which we so often mistake for deafness in the old4 ,it is the mind that is blunted and not the ear4 ,hence we octogenarians so often ask for your question over again4 ,we do not grasp it the first time4 ,we do not want you to speak louder1 we only need to focus upon you a little more completely4 ,of course both sight and hearing are a little blunted in old age4 ,but for myself ,i see as well as ever ,i did1 except that ,i have to use spectacles in reading2 but nowadays the younger observers hear the finer sounds in nature that sometimes escape me4 ,some men mellow with age1 others harden1 but the man who does not in some way ripen is in a bad way4 ,youth makes up in sap and push what it lacks in repose4 ,to grow old gracefully is the trick4 ,to me one of the worst things about old age is that one has outlived all his old friends4 ,the ,past becomes a cemetery4 ,as men grow old1 said ,rochefoucauld1 they grow more foolish and more wise--wise in counsel1 but foolish in conduct4 ,there is no fool like an old fool1 said ,tennyson1 but it is equally true that there is no fool like the young fool4 ,if you want calm and ripe wisdom1 go to middle age4 ,as an octogenarian1 ,i have found it interesting to collate many wise sayings of many wise men on youth and age4#h ,footnote #h3 ,here followed several pages of quotations from the ancients and moderns4--,c4 ,b4 ,cicero found that age increased the pleasure of conversation4 ,it is certainly true that in age we do find our tongues1 if we have any4 ,they are unloosed1 and when the young or the middle-aged sit silent1 the octogenarian is a fountain of conversation4 ,in age one set of pleasures is gone and another takes its place4 ,emerson published his essay on ,old ,age while he was yet in the middle sixties1 and ,i recall that in the ,emerson-,carlyle ,correspondence both men began to complain of being old before they were sixty4 ,scott was old before his time1 and ,macaulay too4 ,scott died at sixty-one1 ,macaulay at fifty-nine1 ,tennyson at eighty-three1 ,carlyle at eighty-six1 ,emerson at seventy-nine1 ,amiel at sixty4 ,i have heard it said that it is characteristic of old age to reverse its opinions and its likes and dislikes4 ,but it does not reverse them2 it revises them4 ,if its years have been well spent1 it has reached a higher position from which to overlook life4 ,it commands a wider view1 and the relation of the parts to the whole is more clearly seen4444 ,old age superbly rising--,whitman4 ,age without decrepitude1 or remorse1 or fear1 or hardness of heart6 ,,facing ,,the ,,mystery ,i wish there were something to light up the grave for me1 but there is not4 ,it is the primal1 unending darkness4 ,the faith of all the saints and martyrs does not help me4 ,i must see the light beyond with my own eyes4 ,whitman's indomitable faith ,i admire1 but cannot share4 ,my torch will not kindle at his great flame4 ,from our youth up our associations with the dead and with the grave are oppressive4 ,our natural animal instincts get the better of us4 ,death seems the great catastrophe4 ,the silver cord is loosened1 and the golden bowl is broken4 ,the physical aspects of death are unlovely and repellent4 ,and the spiritual aspects--only the elect can see them4 ,our physical senses are so dominant1 the visible world is so overpowering1 that all else becomes as dreams and shadows4 ,i know that ,i am a part of the great cosmic system of things1 and that all the material and all the forces that make up my being are as indestructible as the great ,cosmos itself--all that is physical must remain in some form4 ,but consciousness1 the real ,me1 is not physical1 but an effect of the physical4 ,it is really no more a thing than a child's curlicue cut by a burnt stick in the night1 and as the one is evanescent1 why not the other8 ,nature is so opulent1 so indifferent to that we hold most precious1 such a spendthrift1 evokes such wonders from such simple materials6 ,why should she conserve souls1 when she has the original stuff of myriads of souls8 ,she takes up1 and she lays down4 ,her cycles of change1 of life and death1 go on forever4 ,she does not lay up stores2 she is1 and has1 all stores1 whether she keep or whether she waste4 ,it is all the same to her4 ,there is no outside1 no beyond1 to her processes and possessions4 ,there is no future for her1 only an ever-lasting present4 ,what is the very bloom and fragrance of humanity to the ,infinite8 ,in the yesterday of geologic time1 humanity was not4 ,in the to-morrow of geologic time1 it will not be4 ,the very mountains might be made of souls1 and all the stars of heaven kindled with souls1 such is the wealth of ,nature in what we deem so precious1 and so indifferent is she to our standards of valuation4 ,this ,i know1 too3 that the grave is not dark or cold to the dead1 but only to the living4 ,the light of the eye1 the warmth of the body1 still exist undiminished in the universe1 but in other relations1 under other forms4 ,shall the flower complain because it fades and falls8 ,it has to fall before the fruit can appear4 ,but what is the fruit of the flower of human life8 ,surely not the grave1 as the loose thinking of some seem to imply4 ,the only fruit ,i can see is in fairer flowers1 or a higher type of mind and life that follows in this world1 and to which our lives may contribute4 ,the flower of life has improved through the ages--the geologic ages2 from the flower of the brute1 it has become the flower of the man4 ,you and ,i perish1 but something goes out1 or may go out1 from us that will help forward a higher type of mankind4 ,to what end8 ,who knows8 ,we cannot cross-question the ,infinite4 ,something in the universe has eventuated in man1 and something has profited by his ameliorations4 ,we must regard him as a legitimate product1 and we must look upon death as a legitimate part of the great cycle--an evil only from our temporary and personal point of view1 but a good from the point of view of the whole4 ,,the ,,end ,,index ,adaptation1 #bdg1 #bdh4 ,agassiz1 ,louis1 #afc4 ,alchemy1 #bdb1 #bdc4 ,alcott1 ,amos ,bronson1 in ,emerson's ,journals1 #bf-bi2 on ,thoreau1 #aef4 ,aldrich1 ,thomas ,bailey1 #bec4 ,alphabet1 the1 #bge1 #bgf4 ,american people1 the1 #beb1 #bec4 ,amiel1 ,henri ,frederic1 #d-f2 quoted1 #bbc4 ,arnim1 ,elisabeth von1 #cd1 #ce4 ,arnold1 ,matthew1 #bac1 #bej1 #bfj2 in ,emerson's ,journals1 #be2 on ,emerson1 #hg1 #hi1 #ij2 his poetry1 #bji2 on poetry1 #bab4 ,art1 recent isms in1 #bgh1 #bgi4 ,audacity1 #bfa4 ,aurora borealis1 #adj1 #ada4 ,batavia ,kill1 #bdd4 ,beauty1 #ih-aja1 #bdf1 #bdg1 #bea1 #beb4 ,beecher1 ,henry ,ward1 #bcb4 ,bent1 following one's1 #bhj1 #bha4 ,benton1 ,myron1 #bf4 ,bergson1 ,henri1 his ,creative ,evolution1 revised estimate of1 #bfd-ff2 and telepathy1 #bfg1 #bfh4 ,bettina1 ,goethe's1 #cd1 #ce4 ,bittern1 pumping1 #ace4 ,boldness1 #bfa4 ,bouton1 ,deborah1 #bdd4 ,bryant1 ,william ,cullen1 his poetry1 #bjc1 #bjd1 #bbb4 ,burns1 ,robert1 #bac4 ,burroughs1 ,john1 chronic homesickness1 #bbg1 #bbh4 ,cactus1 #bdh4 ,carlyle1 ,thomas1 #cd1 #ce1 #dc1 #dg1 #ig2 contrasted with ,emerson1 #cj2 correspondence with ,emerson1 #ci1 #dj1 #fa1 #hj1 #ha2 on ,webster1 #fa2 as a painter1 #gf1 #gg2 ,emerson's love and admiration for1 #gi-hb2 his style1 #hb4 ,channing1 ,william ,ellery1 #b;d1 #ach-dj2 in ,emerson's ,journals1 #i1 #bi1 #cj1 #adb2 in ,thoreau's ,journal1 #adi4 ,city1 the1 #bbf1 #bbg4 ,coleridge1 ,samuel ,taylor1 quoted1 #bgf4 ,contrasts1 #bah-bi4 ,country1 life in the1 #bbf-bh4 ,critic1 the professional1 #bei1 #bfj4 ,criticism1 #bfj4 ,d41 ,h41 quoted1 #bgg4 ,dana1 ,richard ,henry1 his ,two ,years before the ,mast1 #bef-eh4 ,dargan1 ,olive ,tilford1 quoted1 #bja1 #bjb4 ,darwin1 ,charles1 criticism of his selection theories1 #agb-hi1 #aic-ih2 his ,voyage of the ,beagle1 #ahi-ic2 his significance1 #aih-bjj4 ,days1 memorable1 #bca4 ,death1 thoughts on1 #bhe-hh4 ,de ,vries1 ,hugo1 his mutation theory1 #aif1 #aig4 ,discovery1 #bbc-be4 ,early and late1 #bcj1 #bca4 ,eating1 #gg-gi4 ,edison1 ,thomas ,a41 #bdc1 #bfi4 ,electricity1 #bca4 ,emerson1 ,charles1 #e4 ,emerson1 ,dr4 ,edward ,w41 on ,thoreau1 #aee1 #aef4 ,emerson1 ,ralph ,waldo1 #acf1 #bad1 #bbg1 #bci2 ,journals of1 discussed1 #a-he2 a new estimate of1 #a-d2 and social intercourse1 #f-h2 self-reliance1 #h1 #ca1 #cb2 poet and prophet of the moral ideal1 #i-aa2 his lectures1 #aa1 #ab1 #fd1 #fe1 #afb2 his supreme test of men1 #ab1 #ac1 #ag2 his ,days1 #ad2 his ,humble-,bee1 #ad2 ,each and ,all1 #ae2 ,two ,rivers1 #ae1 #af2 on ,poe1 #af2 on ,whitman's ,leaves of ,grass1 #ag2 as a reader and a writer1 #ag1 #ah2 his main interests1 #ah2 on ,jesus as a ,representative ,man1 #bj2 on ,thoreau1 #bb1 #bc1 #ada1 #aef1 #aeg2 and ,john ,muir1 #bc1 #bd2 alertness1 #bd2 on ,matthew ,arnold1 #be2 on ,lowell1 #be1 #bf2 on ,alcott1 #bf-bi2 on ,father ,taylor1 #bh1 #bi2 occupied with the future1 #cj2 his ,song of ,nature1 #cj1 #ca2 near and far1 past and present1 #ca1 #cb2 and human sympathy1 #cb1 #cc1 #ch1 #ci2 ,representative ,men1 #cc2 attitude towards ,whitman1 #cd1 #bec2 literary estimates1 #cd1 #ce2 on ,wordsworth1 #cf2 correspondence with ,carlyle1 #ci1 #dj2 love of nature1 #da-dc2 his book ,nature1 #da1 #dc1 #hh1 #hi1 #bcj2 his ,may-,day1 #dc2 feeling for profanity and racy speech1 #dd-dh2 humor1 #de-dh2 thoughts about ,god1 #dh-eb2 attitude towards science1 #eb-fj2 on ,webster1 #fj-fc2 religion1 #fc1 #fd2 self-criticism1 #fe-fg2 ,terminus1 #fg2 catholicity1 #fg-gj2 on the ,bible1 #gj2 his selection of words1 #gj1 #ga2 ideas but no doctrines1 #ga1 #gb2 his limitations1 #gc-ge2 and ,hawthorne1 #gc-ge2 a painter of ideas1 #gf1 #gg2 on eating and the artist1 #gg2 love and admiration for ,carlyle1 #gi-hb2 hungered for the quintessence of things1 #hd2 the last result of ,puritanism1 #he2 an estimate of1 #hf-ib2 attitude towards poverty1 #hi2 weak in logic1 #ia2 passion for analogy1 #ib2 false notes in rhetoric1 #ib-id2 speaking with authority1 #ie2 at the ,holmes breakfast1 #ie1 #if2 his face1 #if2 criticisms of1 #if-aja2 on beauty1 #ih1 #ii2 last words on1 #ajb2 compared with ,thoreau1 #abf2 intercourse with ,thoreau1 #aef-eh2 incident related by ,thoreau1 #aeh2 on ,walter ,scott1 #baf2 on oratory1 #bcb2 a ,new ,england ,thomas ,kempis1 #bfa2 old age1 #bhd1 #bhe4 ,esopus1 ,n4 ,y41 #bdd4 ,ethical standards1 #bcc4 ,everett1 ,edward1 #bbc4 ,evolution1 and the ,darwinian theory1 #agd-hi1 #aic-ih2 chance in1 #age-ha2 the mutation theory1 #aif1 #aig2 ,bergson reread1 #bfd-ff2 evolution of the doctrine1 #bgi1 #bhj4 ,farm1 the home1 #bbg1 #bbh4 ,fist1 the1 #bbj1 #bba4 ,flagg1 ,wilson1 ,thoreau on1 #afe1 #aff4 ,flattery1 #bba1 #bbb4 ,flowers1 fadeless1 #bca4 ,fort ,myers1 #bdc4 ,fox1 #ace1 #acf4 ,fuller1 ,margaret1 #g4 ,genius1 and talent1 #bbb1 #bbc4 ,geoffroy ,saint-,hilaire1 #bhj4 ,germans1 the1 #c1 #d4 ,gilchrist1 ,anne1 on ,emerson1 #hh4 ,god1 ,emerson's idea of1 #dh-eb2 ,nature's1 #bcc1 #bcd4 ,goethe1 #ih4 ,gray1 ,eri1 #bdd4 ,gray1 ,thomas1 his ,elegy written in a ,country ,church-yard1 #baf4 ,grossmont1 ,cal41 #bdj4 ,h4 ,d41 quoted1 #bgg4 ,hawaiian ,islands1 #bcf4 ,hawthorne1 ,nathaniel1 and ,emerson1 #gc-ge4 ,hearn1 ,lafcadio1 quoted1 #bjb4 ,heat1 #bdf4 ,hermits1 #bdd4 ,higginson1 ,thomas ,wentworth1 #bec4 ,history1 the grand movements of1 #bdi4 ,homesickness1 #bbg-bi4 ,howells1 ,william ,dean1 #bbg2 an estimate1 #bfb1 #bfc4 ,insects1 hum of1 #bdd1 #bde4 ,invention1 #bbc-bf4 ,james1 ,henry1 his hypersensitiveness1 #bee1 #bef4 ,james1 ,william1 quoted1 #bcd4 ,journals1 #d1 #e4 ,juvenal1 quoted1 #bdb4 ,keator1 ,ike1 #bdd4 ,kepler1 ,johann1 quoted1 #bed4 ,kidd1 ,benjamin1 his ,social ,evolution1 #bgj4 ,kingsley1 ,charles1 a parable of1 #ahi2 and ,newman1 #bfa4 ,knowledge1 the ,tree of1 #bdh4 ,lamarck1 #bhj4 ,landor1 ,walter ,savage1 ,emerson and1 #cd1 #ce1 #dc4 ,life1 the result of a system of checks and counter-checks1 #bcf1 #bcg4 ,lincoln1 ,abraham1 #bbj1 #bba1 #bbc4 ,longfellow1 ,henry ,wadsworth1 in ,emerson's ,journals1 #be4 ,loveman1 ,robert1 his poetry1 #bjd1 #bje2 quoted1 #bjd1 #bje4 ,lowell1 ,james ,russell1 in ,emerson's ,journals1 #be2 criticism of ,thoreau1 #ajd-aa2 love of books and of nature1 #aaj1 #aaa2 possessed talent but not genius1 #bbc2 and ,whitman1 #bec4 ,mc,carthy1 ,john ,russell1 his poems1 #bjd1 #bjh1 #bbc2 quoted1 #bad1 #bae1 #bbc4 ,masefield1 ,john1 #bjh4 ,maui1 #bcf4 ,meteoric men1 #bca1 #bcb1 #bgj-gb4 ,milton1 ,john1 ,paradise ,lost1 #bfj2 quoted1 #bfj4 ,montaigne1 #h4 ,moody1 ,william 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