EMERSON 179 
Emerson is moulded upon this pattern. It is no 
mush-and-milk that you get at this table. “A 
great man is coming to dine with me; I do not wish 
to please him; I wish that he should wish to please 
me.” Qn the lecture stand he might be of wood, so 
far as he is responsive to the moods and feelings of 
his auditors. They must come to him; he will not 
go to them: but they do not always come. Lat- 
terly the people have felt insulted, the lecturer 
showed them so little respect. Then, before a pro- 
miscuous gathering, and in stirring and eventful 
times like ours, what anachronisms most of his lec- 
tures are, even if we take the high ground that they 
are pearls before swine! ‘The swine may safely 
demand some apology of him who offers them pearls 
instead of corn. 
Emerson’s fibre is too fine for large public uses, 
He is what he is, and is to be accepted as such, 
only let us know what he is. He does not speak 
to universal conditions, or to human nature in its 
broadest, deepest, strongest phases. His thought is 
far above the great sea level of humanity, where 
stand most of the world’s masters. He is like one 
of those marvelously clear mountain lakes whose 
water line runs above all the salt seas of the globe. 
He is very precious, taken at his real worth. Why 
find fault with the isolation and the remoteness in 
view of the sky-like purity and depth ? 
Still I must go on sounding and exploring him, 
reporting where I touch bottom and where I do not. 
He reaps great advantage from his want of sympa- 
