EMERSON THE LECTURER. 



ris a singular fact, that Mr. Emerson is the most 

 steadily attractive lecturer in America. Into that 

 somewhat cold-waterish region adventurers of the sensa- 

 tional kind come down now and then with a splash, to 

 become disregarded King Logs before the next season. 

 But Mr. Emerson always draws. A lecturer now for 

 something like a third of a century, one of the pioneers 

 of the lecturing system, the charm of his voice, his man- 

 ner, and his matter has never lost its power over his 

 earlier hearers, and continually winds new ones in its 

 enchanting meshes. What they do not fully understand 

 they take on trust, and listen, saying to themselves, as 

 the old poet of Sir Philip Sidney, 



" A sweet, attractive, kind of grace, 

 A full assurance given by looks, 

 Continual comfort in a face, 

 The lineaments of gospel books.'* 



We call it a singular fact, because we Yankees are 

 thought to be fond of the spread-eagle style, and noth- 

 ing can be more remote from that than his. We are 

 reckoned a practical folk, who would rather hear about 

 a new air-tight stove than about Plato ; yet our favorite 

 teacher's practicality is not in the least of the Poor 

 Richard variety. If he have any Buncombe constit- 

 uency, it is that unrealized commonwealth of philoso- 

 phers which Plotinus proposed to establish ; and if he 

 were to make an almanac, his directions to farmers would 



