so many of these and the other lecturers as happen to be in Concord, constitute the Faculty for the time being; but the permanent and active members are Messrs. ALCOTT, HARRIS, EMERY, and SANBORN. In the second year of the School the Hillside Chapel was built, with the aid of a small fund given by Mrs. ELIZABETH THOMPSON, of New York; and all the sessions are now held there. The variety of subjects considered during the six summers that the School has existed show that its scope is not a narrow one; and the wide diversity of opinion among those who have spoken from its platform may serve as a guarantee that no limitation of sect or philosophical shibboleth has been enforced. The aim of the Faculty has been to bring together a few of those persons who, in America, have pursued, or desire to pursue, the paths of speculative philosophy; to encourage these students and professors to communicate with each other what they have learned and meditated; and to illustrate, by a constant reference to poetry and the higher literature, those ideas which philosophy presents. The design was modest, and in no ambitious sense a public one; nor have the Faculty been persuaded, by the attention their experiment has aroused, to diverge from the natural and simple path first chosen. The first purpose of the School is conversation on serious topics, the lectures serving mainly as a text for discus sion, while dispute and polemical debate are avoided. In this we have sought to follow the example of him whom this volume of essays and poems portrays, and whose method in philosophy has proved so attractive to many who may never reach the same intellectual results. What is sought in the discussions at Concord is not an absolute unity of opinion, but a general agreement in the manner of viewing philosophic truth and applying it to the problems of life. CONCORD, Oct. 10, 1884. F. B. S. THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF EMERSON. I. EMERSON AND BOSTON. BY MRS. EDNAH D. CHENEY. ALTHOUGH his ancestors were of the old stock of Concord ministers, our Emerson was born in Boston in 1803.1 Shall we rejoice at this? Ordinarily we are glad that the child should draw his first breath in the fresh air of the country, and "babble of green fields" in his infancy, that they may give a touch of Nature and Religion to his old age, even were it spent, like Shakspeare's immortal profligate's, among the foul vices and base pleasures of a city. But Nature's own darling child, henceforth to be her tenderest lover and wisest interpreter, was born 1 Some of the old friends of Mr. Emerson are under the impression that he was born in Harvard, Mass., where his father lived some time; but the testimony of his family is explicit and decided that he was born in Summer Street, Boston. One of his earliest recollections was of sitting upon the wall and looking longingly at the pears in a neighbor's garden. within the limits of the town; for blessed Mother Nature knew that her child would never forsake her, but that, clinging too closely to her breast, he might not learn the sterner lessons of wisdom which only the life of humanity in association can teach. It was given to him, therefore, to blend the virtues both of the city and of the country in the practical wisdom, the ripe good sense, the broad humanity, the poetic beauty, and the unfailing serenity of his life. Coming from under his pines at Concord, he was no stranger in the streets of our eager and bustling city; it was the same old native town which he ever loved and believed in, and whose influence is clearly traceable in his life and writings. I count it a great felicity for him, and for us, that he thus partook of the life of the city from his very youth, and so became not merely the poet of outward Nature, but the seer of Humanity. How have the greatest men loved their city homes! Jesus was wont to retire to the Mount of Olives for lonely meditation and prayer; but he wept over Jerusalem as a mother weeps for her lost child. Dante might choose his home in all the wide, beautiful world; but to be out of the streets of Florence was exile to him. Socrates never cared to go beyond the bounds of Athens. The great universal heart welcomes the city as a natural growth of the eternal forces, and "Nature gladly gives it place, Emerson has many a severe word for the city, as every sensitive soul shrinks at times from the rude contact of average, struggling humanity, and longs to say, in weary mood, "Good-by, proud world! I'm going home." Indeed, at such times. "The politics are base, The letters do not cheer, And 't is far in the deeps of history We plot and corrupt each other, Writing to Carlyle concerning New York, he says: "I always seem to suffer some loss of faith on entering cities;" and yet he acknowledges that the poor fellows who live there "do get some compensation for the sale of their souls." But Emerson also recognizes that the town is under the care of Nature, who does not desert humanity even in the crisis of its struggle. How often does the weary toiler take comfort from his lines, "The inevitable morning Finds them who in cellars be; "Still, still the secret presses, The nearing clouds draw down ; |