EMERSON THE LECTURER. 153 



and if he were to make an almanack, his directions to 

 farmers would be something like this : &quot; OCTOBER : Indian 

 /Summer; now is the time to get in your early Vedas.&quot; 

 What, then, is his secret 1 Is it not that he out- Yankees 

 us all ? that his range includes us all ? that he is equally at 

 home with the potato-disease and original sin, with pegging 

 shoes and the Over-soul 1 that, as we try all trades, so has 

 he tried all cultures ? and above all, that his mysticism 

 gives us a counterpoise to our super-practicality ? 



There is no man living to whom, as a writer, so many of 

 us feel and thankfully acknowledge so great an indebted 

 ness for ennobling impulses none whom so many cannot 

 abide. What does he mean ? ask these last. Where is his 

 system? What is the use of it all 1 What the deuce have we 

 to do with Brahma 1 I do not propose to write an essay on 

 Emerson at this time. I will only say that one may find 

 grandeur and consolation in a starlit night without caring 

 to ask what it means, save grandeur and consolation ; one 

 may like Montaigne, as some ten generations before us have 

 clone, without thinking him so systematic as some more 

 eminently tedious (or shall we say tediously eminent 1) 

 authors } one may think roses as good in their way as 

 cabbages, though the latter would make a better show in the 

 witness-box, if cross-examined as to their usefulness ; and as 

 for Brahma, why, he can take care of himself, and won t 

 bite us at any rate. 



The bother with Mr. Emerson is that, though he writes 

 in prose, he is essentially a poet. If you undertake to para 

 phrase what he says, and to reduce it to words of one 

 syllable for infant minds, you will make as sad work of it 

 as the good monk with his analysis of Homer in the 

 &quot; Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum.&quot; We look upon him as 

 one of the few men of genius whom our age has produced, 

 and there needs no better proof of it than his masculine 

 faculty of fecundating other minds. Search for his 

 eloquence in his books and you will perchance miss it, but 

 meanwhile you will find that it has kindled all your 

 thoughts. For choice and pith of language he belongs to a 



