142 THOREAU. 



than expressed it. In its motives, its preaching, and its 

 results, it differed radically from the doctrine of Carlyle. 

 The Scotchman, with all his genius, and his humour gigan- 

 tesque as that of Rabelais, has grown shriller and shriller 

 with years, degenerating sometimes into a common scold, and 

 emptying very unsavoury vials of wrath on the heads of the 

 sturdy British Socrates of worldly common-sense. The 

 teaching of Emerson tended much more exclusively to self- 

 culture and the independent development of the individual 

 man. It seemed to many almost Pythagorean in its 

 voluntary seclusion from commonwealth affairs. Both 

 Cariyle and Emerson were disciples of Goethe, but Emer 

 son in a far truer sense ; and while the one, from his bias 

 toward the eccentric, has degenerated more and more into 

 mannerism, the other has clarified steadily toward perfec 

 tion of style exquisite fineness of material, unobtrusive 

 lowness of tone and simplicity of fashion, the most high 

 bred garb of expression. Whatever may be said of his 

 thought, nothing can be finer than the delicious limpidness 

 of his phrase. If it was ever questionable whether demo 

 cracy could develop a gentleman, the problem has been 

 affirmatively solved at last. Carlyle, in his cynicism and 

 his admiration of force in and for itself, has become at last 

 positively inhuman ; Emerson, reverencing strength, seek 

 ing the highest outcome of the individual, has found that 

 society and politics are also main elements in the attain 

 ment of the desired end, and has drawn steadily manward 

 and worldward. The two men represent respectively those 

 grand personifications in the drama of .ZEschylus, Bta and 



Among the pistillate plants kindled to fruitage by the 

 Emersonian pollen, Thoreau is thus far the most remarkable ; 

 and it is something eminently fitting that his posthumous 

 works should be offered us by Emerson, for they are straw 

 berries from his own garden. A singular mixture of 

 varieties, indeed, there is ; alpine, some of them, with the 

 flavour of real mountain air ; others wood, tasting of sunny 

 roadside banks or shy openings in the forest ; and not a few 



