EMERSON 163 



how attentive; what an inquisitor; always ready 

 with some test question, with some fact or idea to 

 match or verify, ever on the lookout for some choice 

 bit of adventure or information, or some anecdote 

 that has pith and point ! No tyro basks and takes 

 his ease in his presence, but is instantly put on trial 

 and must answer or be disgraced. He strikes at an 

 idea like a falcon at a bird. His great fear seems 

 to be lest there be some fact or point worth knowing 

 that will escape him. He is a close-browed miser 

 of the scholar's gains. He turns all values into in- 

 tellectual coin. Every book or person or experience 

 is an investment that will or will not warrant a good 

 return in ideas. He goes to the Radical Club, or 

 to the literary gathering, and Kstens with the closest 

 attention to every word that is said, in hope that 

 something will be said, some word dropped, that has 

 the ring of the true metal. Apparently he does not 

 permit himself a moment's indifference or inatten- 

 tion. His own pride is always to have the ready 

 change, to speak the exact and proper word, to give 

 to every -occasion the dignity of wise speech. You 

 are bartered with for your best. There is no profit 

 in life but in the interchange of ideas, and the chief 

 success is to have a head well filled with them. 

 Hard cash at that ; no paper promises satisfy him ; 

 he loves the clink and glint of the real coin. 



His earlier writings were more flowing and sug- 

 gestive, and had reference to larger problems; but 

 now everything has got weighed and stamped and 

 converted into the medium of wise and scholarly 



