AN EGOTISTICAL CHAPTER 5 



period, stimulating. Higginson had just begun to 

 publish his polished essays in the "Atlantic," and 

 I found much help in them also. They were a 

 little cold, but they had the quality which belongs 

 to the work of a man who looks upon literature 

 as a fine art. My mind had already begun to turn 

 to outdoor themes, and Higginson gave me a good 

 send-off in this direction. But the master-enchanter 

 of this period of my life and of many following 

 years was Emerson. While at school, in my nine 

 teenth year, in my search for essays I had carried 

 to my room one volume of his, but I could do 

 nothing with it. What, indeed, could a Johnso 

 nian youth make of Emerson ? A year or so later 

 I again opened one of his books in a Chicago book 

 store, and was so taken with the first taste of it that 

 I then and there purchased the three volumes, the 

 " Essays " and the " Miscellanies." All that sum 

 mer I fed upon them and steeped myself in them: 

 so that when, a year or two afterwards, I wrote an 

 essay on "Expression" and sent it to the "Atlan 

 tic," it was so Emersonian that the editor thought 

 some one was trying to palm off on him an early 

 essay of Emerson's which he had not seen. Satis 

 fying himself that Emerson had published no such 

 paper, he printed it in the November number of 

 1860. It had not much merit. I remember this 

 sentence, which may contain some truth aptly put: 

 *' Dr. Johnson's periods act like a lever of the third 



