166 BIRDS AND POETS 



great characters, perhaps the greatest, have more or 

 less neutral or waste ground. You must penetrate 

 a distance before you reach the real quick. Or 

 there is a good wide margin of the commonplace 

 which is sure to put them on good terms with the 

 mass of their fellow-citizens. And one would think 

 Emerson could afford to relax a little ; that he had 

 earned the right to a dull page or two now and then. 

 The second best or third best word sometimes would 

 make us appreciate his first best all the more. Even 

 his god-father Plato nods occasionally, but Emerson's 

 good breeding will not for a moment permit such a 

 slight to the reader. 



Emerson's peculiar quality is very subtle, but 

 very sharp and firm and unmistakable. It is not 

 analogous to the commoner, slower-going elements, 

 as heat, air, fire, water, etc., but is nearer akin to 

 that elusive but potent something we call electricity. 

 It is abrupt, freaky, unexpected, and always com- 

 municates a little wholesome shock. It darts this 

 way and that, and connects the far and the near in 

 every line. There is always a leaping thread of 

 light, and there is always a kind of answering peal 

 or percussion. With what quickness and suddenness 

 extremes are brought together ! The reader is never 

 prepared for what is to come next; the spark wiU 

 most likely leap from some source or fact least 

 thought of. His page seldom glows and burns, but 

 there is a never-ceasing crackling and discharge of 

 moral and intellectual force into the mind. 



His chief weapon, and one that he never lays 



