Influence of Channing. the shortest biographies." Among the external points of significance in Emerson's story are those derived Ancestry. from his ancestral strain, for he was of pure and even gentle English blood, "through eight generations of cultured, conscientious, and practical ministers." He himself, as we know, assumed the profession of his father and forefathers, and for a time was a Unitarian preacher in Boston; this, after the Training. stated courses at Harvard, where he read and wrote philosophy, nor failed to cultivate the Muse for whose art he had shown a rare aptness even in childhood. The office and honors of the Class Poet fell to him, as to Lowell in after years. In letters he had Everett, Ticknor, and Edward Channing for instructors. In theology he was deeply influenced by Channing, the divine, the true founder, through the work of Emerson and lesser pupils, of our liberal religious structure. Emerson projected the lines of the master so far beyond their first draft that he was unable long to remain within the Unitarian limits of that day. Some one has cleverly said that his verse, 'Good-bye, proud world!" came from one whose future gave no cause for epigrams like that of Madame de Sévigné on Cardinal de Retz-of whom she wrote that he pretended to retire from a world which he saw was retiring from him. The separation from the church, and the retreat to Concord, were the beginning of Emerson's long career as poet, lecturer, essayist, thinker and inspirer. The details of his social, domestic, and civic relations are all upon record. Nothing could be more seemly than his lifelong abode in the New England village of Concord,, the home of his line, the birth-place of our liberties; and it became, largely through his presence, the Retire ment from the pulpit. THE ACADEME. and 139 career. source of our most resultful thought. Here he After-life blended, in his speech and action, the culture of the university, nigh at hand, with the shrewd prudence of the local neighborhood, as became a poet and sage imbued with patriotism, morals, and the wisdom of practical life. Here, though crossing the ocean more than once, and inspecting other lands with the regard that sees for once and all, he otherwise exemplified during half a century his own conception of the clear spirit that needs not to go afar upon its quests, because it vibrates boundlessly, and includes all things within reach and ken. For the rest, the life of Emerson appertained to the household, the library, the walk, the talk with all sorts and conditions of men, communion with rare natures, the proper part in local and national movement. As a associates. lecturer, his range was the country at large, but the group that drew about him made Concord a modern Pupils and Academe. Unconsciously he idealized them all with the halo of his own attributes. To him they all were of the breed so exquisitely characterized in his reference to Margaret Fuller's "Friends." "I remember," he says, "these persons as a fair, commanding troop, every one of them adorned by some splendor of beauty, of grace, of talent, or of character, and comprising in their band persons who have since disclosed sterling worth and elevated aims in the conduct of life." Thus year after year a tide, that ceases not Concord. with the death of him who mainly attracted it, has set toward Concord, a movement of pilgrims craving spiritual exaltation and the interplay of mind with mind. The poet's moral and intellectual experiences Sermon on are revealed in discourses, always beginning with the memorable sermon on the Lord's Supper, which pre- 1832. the Communion, "Nature," 1836. Essay on figured his emancipation from dogma, and the essay on Nature, wherein he applied a new vision to the world about us. These were the Alpha of his conviction and insight; his after-speech followed consistently and surely, "as the night the day." He created his own audience, whose demand for his thought grew by what it fed on, beginning in a section, and spreading not only through a country but over many lands. If it is true that "he was not the The tran- prince of transcendentalists but the prince of idealists," the history of New England transcendentalism is no less a corollary to the problem of Emerson's life. scendental movement. His per sonal traits and bear ing. Our starry memories of the places and people that once knew Emerson radiate always from one centre -the presence of the sage himself. Many pupils, catching something of his own sure and precise art of delineation, have drawn his image for us, dwelling upon the sinewy bending figure, the shining and expectant face, the union of masculinity and sweetness in his bearing. His "full body tone" is recalled, "full and sweet rather than sonorous, yet flexible, and haunted by many modulations." Persuasion sat upon his lips. The epithet “ sun-accustomed" is applied to Emerson's piercing eyes by one, a woman and a poet, who marked the aquiline effect of his noble profile. I, too, remember him in this wise, and as the most serene of men: one whose repose, whose tranquillity, was not the contentment of an idler housed in worldly comforts, but the token of spiritual adjustment to all the correspondences of life; as the bravest and most deferential, the proud 1 Definitely set forth in his Address before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, July 15, 1838. HIS PHILOSOPHY. 141 est in self-respect, yet recognizing in deep humility the supremacy of universal law. No man so receptive, and none with so plain and absolute a reservation of his own ground. Even in the shadow and Died at Concord, silence of his closing years, he bore the mien of one Mass., assured that "the gods reclaim not from the seer Their gift, although he ceases here to sing, And, like the antique sage, a covering Draws round his head, knowing what change is near." April 27, 1882. III. It is not my province to take part in the discus- Emerson's sion of Emerson's philosophy, his system or lack of philosophy. system. Some notion of this, however, must affect our thoughts of him as a poet, since of all moderns he most nearly fulfilled Wordsworth's inspired prediction, uttered sixty years ago, of the approaching union of the poet and the philosopher. He deemed the higher office that of the poet, — of him who quaffs is right. Thus far he knew, and was an optimist with Optimism. that life, and the sense of omnipresence was so clearly the dominant sense of its attributes, that to call him a theist rather than a pantheist is simply a dispute about terms; to pronounce him a Christian theist is to go beyond his own testimony. Such a writer must be judged by the concurrence of his books; they are his record, and the parole evidence of no associate can weigh against his written manifest for an instant. Reverence His writings assure us that he accepted all bibles without and creeds for what good there was in them. One thing for him was "certain": "Religions are obsolete when lives do not proceed from them." He saw that "unlovely, nay frightful, is the solitude of the soul which is without God in the world"; but the creeds and dogmas of anthropomorphic theology were merely germinal. "Man," thus far, has "made all religions, and will yet make new and even higher faiths." dogma. An idealist tic. Morals. Emerson, a man of our time, while a transcendenand eclec-talist, looking inward rather than to books for his wisdom, studied well the past, and earlier sages were the faculty of his school. A latter-day eclectic, he took from all literatures their best and essential. A Platonic idealist, he was not averse to the inductive method of Aristotle; he had the Alexandrian faith and ecstasy, the Epicurean zest and faculty of selec tion; like the Stoics, he observed morals, heroism, self-denial, and frugality. There is much in his teachings that recalls the beautiful ethics of Marcus Aurelius, and the words of Epictetus, as reported by Arrian. His spiritual leanings never stinted his reLife taken gard of men and manners. He kept a sure eye on the world; he was not only a philosopher, but the paragon of gentlemen, with something more than the Oriental, the Grecian, or the Gallic, tact. He relished at its full worth. |