EMERSON 179 



Emerson is moulded upon this pattern. It is no 

 mush-and-milk that you get at this table. "A 

 great man is coming to dine with me ; I do not wish 

 to please him; I wish that he should wish to please 

 me. " On the lecture stand he might be of wood, so 

 far as he is responsive to the moods and feelings of 

 his auditors. They must come to him; he will not 

 go to them: but they do not always come. Lat- 

 terly the people have felt insulted, the lecturer 

 showed them so little respect. Then, before a pro- 

 miscuous gathering, and in stirring and eventful 

 times like ours, what anachronisms most of his lec- 

 tures are, even if we take the high ground that they 

 are pearls before swine! The swine may safely 

 demand some apology of him who offers them pearls 

 instead of corn. 



Emerson's fibre is too fine for large public uses. 

 He is what he is, and is to be accepted as such, 

 only let us know what he is. He does not speak 

 to universal conditions, or to human nature in its 

 broadest, deepest, strongest phases. His thought is 

 far above the great sea level of humanity, where 

 stand most of the world's masters. He is like one 

 of those marvelously clear mountain lakes whose 

 water line runs above all the salt seas of the globe. 

 He is very precious, taken at his real worth. Why 

 find fault with the isolation and the remoteness in 

 view of the sky-like purity and depth ? 



Still I must go on sounding and exploring him, 

 reporting where I touch bottom and where I do not. 

 He reaps great advantage from his want of sympa- 



