278 EMERSON THE LECTURER. 



remainder-biscuit into ambrosia ? At any rate, he brought us 

 life, which, on the whole, is no bad thing. Was it all transcen 

 dentalism? magic-lantern pictures on mist? As you will. Those, 

 then, were just what we wanted. But it was not so. The delight 

 and the benefit were that he put us in communication with a 

 larger style of thought, sharpened our wits with a more pungent 

 phrase, gave us ravishing glimpses of an ideal under the dry 

 husk of our New England; made us conscious of the supreme 

 and everlasting originality of whatever bit of soul might be in 

 any of us ; freed us, in short, from the stocks of prose in which 

 we had sat so long that we had grown well-nigh contented in 

 our cramps. And who that saw the audience will ever forget 

 it, where everyone still capable of fire, or longing to renew in 

 them the half-forgotten sense of it, was gathered ? Those faces, 

 young and old, agleam with pale intellectual light, eager with 

 pleased attention, flash upon me once more from the deep re 

 cesses of the years with an exquisite pathos. Ah, beautiful 

 young eyes, brimming with love and hope, wholly vanished now 

 in that other world we call the Past, or peering doubtfully 

 through the pensive gloaming of memory, your light impoverishes 

 these cheaper days ! I hear again that rustle of sensation, as 

 they turned to exchange glances over some pithier thought, 

 some keener flash of that humour which always played about 

 the horizon of his mind like heat-lightning, and it seems now 

 like the sad whisper of the autumn leaves that are whirling 

 around me. But would my picture be complete if I forgot that 

 ample and vegete countenance of Mr. R - of W 

 how, from its regular post at the corner of the front bench, it 

 turned in ruddy triumph to the profaner audience as if he were 

 the inexplicably appointed fugleman of appreciation? I was 

 reminded of him by those hearty cherubs in Titian s Assump 

 tion that look at you as who should say, Did you ever see a 

 Madonna like that? Did you ever behold one hundred and 

 fifty pounds of womanhood mount heavenward before like a 

 rocket ? 



To some of us that long-past experience remains as the most 

 marvellous and fruitful we have ever had. Emerson awakened 

 us, saved us from the body of this death. It is the sound of the 

 trumpet that the young soul longs for, careless what breath may 

 fill it. Sidney heard it in the ballad of Chevy Chase/ and we 

 in Emerson. Nor did it blow retreat, but called to us with 

 assurance of victory. Did they say he was disconnected ? So 

 were the stars, that seemed larger to our eyes, still keen with 



