170 BIRDS AND POETS 
In rare souls like Emerson, the fruit of extreme 
culture, it is inevitable that at least some of the 
heat rays should be lost, and we miss them espe- 
cially when we contrast him with the elder masters. 
The elder masters did not seem to get rid of the 
coarse or vulgar in human life, but royally accepted 
it, and struck their roots into it, and drew from it 
sustenance and power: but there is an ever-present 
suspicion that Emerson prefers the saints to the 
sinners; prefers the prophets and seers to Homer, 
Shakespeare, and Dante. Indeed, it is to be dis- 
tinctly stated and emphasized, that Emerson is essen- 
tially a priest, and that the key to all he has said 
and written is to be found in the fact that his point 
of view is not that of the acceptor, the creator, — 
Shakespeare’s point of view, — but that of the re- 
finer and selector, the priest’s point of view. He 
described his own state rather than that of mankind 
when he said, “The human mind stands ever in per- 
plexity, demanding intellect, demanding sanctity, 
impatient equally of each without the other.” 
Much surprise has been expressed in literary cir- 
cles in this country that Emerson has not followed 
up his first off-hand indorsement of Walt Whitman 
with fuller and more deliberate approval of that 
poet, but has rather taken the opposite tack. But 
the wonder is that he should have been carried off 
his feet at all in the manner he was; and it must 
have been no ordinary breeze that did it. Emerson 
shares with his contemporaries the vast preponder- 
ance of the critical and discerning intellect over the 
