170 BIRDS AND POETS 



In rare souls like Emerson, the fruit of extreme 

 culture, it is inevitable that at least some of the 

 heat rays should be lost, and we miss them espe- 

 cially when we contrast him with the elder masters. 

 The elder masters did not seem to get rid of the 

 coarse or vulgar in human life, but royally accepted 

 it, and struck their roots into it, and drew from it 

 sustenance and power r but there is an ever-present 

 suspicion that Emerson prefers the saints to the 

 sinners; prefers the prophets and seers to Homer, 

 Shakespeare, and Dante. Indeed, it is to be dis- 

 tinctly stated and emphasized, that Emerson is essen- 

 tially a priest, and that the key to aU he has said 

 and written is to be found in the fact that his point 

 of view is not that of the acceptor, the creator, — 

 Shakespeare's point of view, — but that of the re- 

 finer and selector, the priest's point of view. He 

 described his own state rather than that of mankind 

 when he said, " The human mind stands ever in per- 

 plexity, demanding intellect, demanding sanctity, 

 impatient equally of each without the other." 



Much surprise has been expressed in literary cir- 

 cles in this country that Emerson has not followed 

 up his first off-hand indorsement of Walt Whitman 

 with fu.ller and more deliberate approval of that 

 poet, but has rather taken the opposite tack. But 

 the wonder is that he should have been carried off 

 his feet at all in the manner he was; and it must 

 have been no ordinary breeze that did it.^ Emerson 

 shares with his contemporaries the vast preponder- 

 ance of the critical and discerning intellect over the 



