164 BIRDS AND POETS 



conversation. It is of great value ; these later essays 

 are so many bags of genuine coin, wliioli it has taken 

 a lifetime to hoard; not all gold, but all good, and 

 the fruit of wise industry and economy. 



I know of no other writing that yields the reader 

 so many strongly stamped medallion-like sayings and 

 distinctions. There is a perpetual refining and re- 

 coining of the current wisdom of life and conversa- 

 tion. It is the old gold or silver or copper, but how 

 bright and new it looks in his pages ! Emerson loves 

 facts, things, objects, as the workman his tools. He 

 makes everything serve. The stress of expression 

 is so great that he bends the most obdurate element 

 to his purpose; as the bird, under her keen neces- 

 sity, weaves the most contrary and diverse materials 

 into her nest. He seems to like best material that 

 is a little refractory ; it makes his page more piquant 

 and stimulating. Within certain limits he loves 

 roughness, but not to the expense of harmony. He 

 has a wonderful hardiness and push. Where else in 

 literature is there a mind, moving in so rare a me- 

 dium, that gives one such a sense of tangible resist- 

 ance and force ? It is a principle in mechanics that 

 velocity is twice as great as mass : double your speed 

 and you double your heat, though you halve your 

 weight. In like manner this body we are consider- 

 ing is not the largest, but its speed is great, and the 

 intensity of its impact with objects and experience 

 is almost withoiit parallel. Everything about a man 

 like Emerson is important. I find his phrenology 

 and physiognomy more than ordinarily typical and 



