EMEESON 175 



tion," "Morals," and " Transcendency ;" but it is all 

 a plea for transcendency. I am reminded of the story 

 of an old Indian chief who was invited to some great 

 dinner where the first course was "succotash." 

 When the second course was ready the old Indian 

 said he would have a little more succotash, and when 

 the third was ready he called for more succotash, 

 and so with the fourth and fifth, and on to the end. 

 In like manner Emerson will have nothing but the 

 " spiritual law " in poetry, and he has an enormous 

 appetite for that. Let him have it, but why should 

 he be so sure that mankind all want succotash? 

 Mankind finally comes to care little for what any 

 poet has to say, but only for what he has to sing. 

 We want the pearl of thought dissolved in the wine 

 of life. How much better are sound bones and a 

 good digestion in poetry than all the philosophy and 

 transcendentalism in the world ! 



What one comes at last to want is power, mas- 

 tery ; and, whether it be mastery over the subtleties 

 of the intellect as in Emerson himself, or over the 

 passions and the springs of action, as in Shakespeare, 

 or over our terrors and the awful hobgoblins of hell 

 and Satan, as in Dante, or over vast masses and 

 spaces of nature and the abysms of aboriginal man, 

 as in Walt Whitman, what matters it? Are we 

 not refreshed by all? There is one mastery in 

 Burns, another in Byron, another in Eahelais, and 

 in Victor Hugo, and in Tennyson; and though the 

 critic has his preferences, though he affect one more 

 than another, yet who shall say this one is a poet 



