[Illustration: [Emerson]]
[Illustration: [Emerson]]
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
=Philosopher and Seer=
_AN ESTIMATE OF_
HIS CHARACTER AND GENIUS
=In Prose and Verse=
BY
A. BRONSON ALCOTT
_ILLUSTRATED_
BOSTON
CUPPLES & HURD, PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1882,
BY A BRONSON ALCOTT.
COPYRIGHT, 1888,
BY CUPPLES & HURD.
_All rights reserved._
SECOND EDITION.
Ὤσπερ γὰρ οἱ τὰ πεινῶντα θρέμματα θαλλὸν ἤ τινα καρπὸν προσείοντες
ἄγουσι, οὺ ἐμοὶ λόγους οὔτω προτείνων ἐν βιβλίοις τήν τε Ἀττικὴν
φαίνει περιάξειν ἅπασαν καὶ ὅποι ἂν ἄλλοσε βούλῃ.
PLATO, _Phædr._ p. 230 D.
“For as men lead hungry creatures by holding out a green bough or an
apple, so you, it would seem, might lead me about all Attica and
wherever else you please, by holding toward me discourses out of your
books.”
PLATO.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
TO
MARY E. STEARNS.
CONCORD, July 5, 1865.
MY DEAR MRS. STEARNS.
The gift of the birthday was truly a “surprise.” There lay a more
beautiful book than Aldus or Elzevir ever made, slipped into the house
as carelessly as a roseleaf or a dandelion-down blown in at the window.
Mr. Alcott’s note indicated a “friend,” without naming him or her. And
when I came to read the text, that, too, was such a Persian superlative
on the poor merits of the subject, that I had to shade my eyes as if to
accept only a part of the meaning. I may shake your belief in my good
sense, if I say I don’t know but I suffered more than I enjoyed; but I
soon came to admire the lyrical tone of all this remarkable writing,
inspired by the most generous sentiment, fortified, too, by the wish to
convey the good-will of other friends who made him their spokesman. So I
made a covenant with myself to join these friends in ignoring the infirm
actuality, stoutly holding up the ideal outline of the poor man we were
talking of. And now I have learned to look at the book with courage, and
at least to thank the friends who jointly completed it, very heartily,
for this rare and exquisite work of kindness. I have been twice tempted
to send you some verses on this occasion, as they would be really more
fit carriers of what I have to say; and perhaps I yet shall, though the
rhyming fit seldom comes to me.
Ever gratefully,
Your deeply obliged,
R. W. EMERSON.
MRS. MARY E. STEARNS.
PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE.
The publishers have here presented a book about Emerson, written by the
one man who stood nearest to him of all men; one from whom he drew
inspiration in generous measure, and to whom, in return, he discovered
without reserve his inmost self. Such a book cannot fail to be an
original and vital contribution to EMERSONIANA. Not to read it, is to
miss a clear and searching exegesis of one whose name has been called
the greatest in American literature. It is like a portrait of one of the
old masters, painted by his own brush.
The introductory sonnet to Emerson is pitched in a lofty key, and
condenses into fourteen pithy lines a statement of the author’s
life-long debt of friendship—material and spiritual. The essay itself
was written twenty-odd years ago, while Mr. Alcott was still in the full
vigor of his intellect. It was privately printed, and presented to
Emerson on his birthday. A limited edition was published for the first
time in 1882, and readily sold. The revision and reading of the
proof-sheets of this edition was the last literary work which Mr. Alcott
did, previous to the stroke of paralysis which deprived him of the
perfect control of his faculties, and kept him a prisoner in his room
ever afterward. It was a work occupying several months, as the
octogenarian’s visits to Boston were somewhat infrequent, and often
including other business. Such moments as he could give were, of course,
valuable; and the publishers, at whose suggestion the work was
undertaken, would meet him, now in the topmost story of some lofty
building, and now in some dim-lighted basement, where together they
would go over the unfinished sheets,—time gliding by for the nonce, all
unheeded.
So anxious was Mr. Alcott that his work on Emerson should some day be
given to the world, that after his paralytic shock, when his memory had
lost its grasp of many things, and among others, of his recent labors on
his newly published book,—a copy of which he had not seen,—he still
remembered his former earnest wish that it should be made public. And to
one of his friends, who spent several hours with him each week, he
remarked with much excitement, on two or three occasions, that his essay
must be brought out at once; insisting that it should be published in
the philosophical magazine which his friend edited. Finally a copy of
the book was brought to him, greatly to his astonishment and delight.
This is all the more touching an incident of his friendship for the
great Emerson, when it is remembered that the latter more than once said
that “it would be a pity if Alcott survived him, since he alone
possessed the means of showing to the world what Alcott really
was.”—(Cabot’s Memoir of Emerson, vol. i. p. 281.)
The book also contains Alcott’s “Ion: a Monody,”—read by him at the
Concord School of Philosophy, and to which Mr. John Albee, in “The
New-York Tribune,” paid the following high praise: “It continues for us
that tender strain bequeathed by Moschus’s ‘Lament for Bion,’ Milton’s
‘Lycidas,’ and Shelley’s ‘Adonais;’ but it has a pathos and beauty all
its own, ... faultless in tone and in art.”
Mr. Sanborn’s ode to Emerson, “The Poet’s Countersign,” also read at the
Concord School, completes the volume, and makes a worthy addition to
that lofty form of verse that has enriched the literatures of all ages,
from Pindar to Tennyson.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON _Frontispieces_
PORTRAIT OF A. BRONSON ALCOTT „
EMERSON’S HOUSE AT CONCORD 1
EMERSON’S SUMMER HOUSE 56
THE SUMMER SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY 59
MR. ALCOTT’S STUDY 67
BRIDGE AT CONCORD 81
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
ESSAY 1
MONODY 59
ODE 71
Misfortune to have lived not knowing thee!
’Twere not high living, nor to noblest end,
Who, dwelling near, learned not sincerity,
Rich friendship’s ornament that still doth lend
To life its consequence and propriety.
Thy fellowship was my culture, noble friend!
By the hand thou took’st me, and did’st condescend
To bring me straightway into thy fair guild;
And life-long hath it been high compliment
By that to have been known, and thy friend styled,
Given to rare thought and to good learning bent;
Whilst in my straits an angel on me smiled.
Permit me then, thus honored, still to be
A scholar in thy university.
[Illustration: EMERSON’S HOUSE.]
ESSAY.
The ancients entertained noble notions of the poet. He was an enthusiast
and a rhapsodist. His work was done in surprise and delight. And all
good epic poets were thought to compose, not by choice, but by
inspiration; and so, too, the good lyric poets drew, they tell us, “from
fountains flowing with nectar, and gathered flowers from the gardens and
glades of the Muses; they, like bees, being ever on the wing. For the
poet was a thing light-winged and sacred, unable to compose until he
became inspired, and the imagination was no longer under his control.
For as long as he was in complete possession of it, he was unable to
compose verses or to speak oracularly.” And hence all noble numbers were
credited by them, not to the poet whom they knew, but to the Power
working in and through him, and making him the most delighted of
auditors whenever he chanted his verses, because he did not conceive
them to be his. He was the Voice, the favored of the Nine. Hence the
value they set upon discipline as the means of poetic divination. The
poet, they conceived, must be most virtuous. It was essential to his
accomplishment that he be chaste, that he be gentle, that he be noble in
his generation, that his endowment be older than himself; that he
descend from a race of pure souls,—bring centuries of culture in his
descent among men, ideas of ages in his brain,—enabling him to conceive
by instinct, and speak his experiences unconsciously, as a child opens
his lips, in his most rapturous accents. Therefore, any pretence of
ownership in the gift was esteemed an impiety. For a prayer, a song, a
tender tone, a glance of the eye, all those magnetic attractions known
to friendship, had a like ancestry; were ours personally, primarily, as
we became worthy of being their organs.
Is it an egotism in us to claim for New England and for a contemporary
of ours parts and antecedents like these? or shall such endowments,
admirable always, and awakening enthusiasm, be the less prized when
represented in a countryman of ours, and when we have so frequently
partaken of the pleasure which his books, his lectures especially,
excite? I allude, of course, to Emerson. A rhapsodist by genius, and the
chief of his class, his utterances are ever a surprise as they are a
delight to his audiences; select though these are, and not all unworthy
of him.
Hear how Goethe describes him, where in his letters to Schiller, he
calls the rhapsodist—
“A wise man, who, in calm thoughtfulness, shows what has happened; his
discourse aiming less to excite than to calm his auditors, in order that
they shall listen to him with contentment and long. He apportions the
interest equally, because it is not in his power to balance a too lively
impression. He grasps backwards and forwards at pleasure. He is
followed, because he has only to do with the imagination, which of
itself produces images, and up to a certain degree, it is indifferent
what kind he calls up. He does not appear to his auditors, but recites,
as it were behind a curtain; so there is a total abstraction from
himself, and it seems to them as though they heard only the voice of the
Muses.”
See our Ion standing there,—his audience, his manuscript, before
him,—himself an auditor, as he reads, of the Genius sitting behind him,
and to whom he defers, eagerly catching the words,—the words,—as if the
accents were first reaching his ears too, and entrancing alike oracle
and auditor. We admire the stately sense, the splendor of diction, and
are surprised as we listen. Even his hesitancy between the delivery of
his periods, his perilous passages from paragraph to paragraph of
manuscript, we have almost learned to like, as if he were but sorting
his keys meanwhile for opening his cabinets; the spring of locks
following, himself seeming as eager as any of us to get sight of his
specimens, as they come forth from their proper drawers; and we wait
willingly till his gem is out glittering; admire the setting, too,
scarcely less than the jewel itself. The magic minstrel and speaker!
whose rhetoric, voiced as by organ-stops, delivers the sentiment from
his breast in cadences peculiar to himself; now hurling it forth on the
ear, echoing; then, as his mood and matter invite it, dying like
“Music of mild lutes
Or silver coated flutes,
Or the concealing winds that can convey
Never their tone to the rude ear of day.”
He works his miracles with it, as Hermes did, his voice conducting; the
sense alike to eye and ear by its lyrical movement and refraining
melody. So his compositions affect us, not as logic linked in
syllogisms, but as voluntaries rather, or preludes, in which one is not
tied to any design of air, but may vary his key or note at pleasure, as
if improvised without any particular scope of argument; each period,
each paragraph, being a perfect note in itself, however it may chance
chime with its accompaniments in the piece; as a waltz of wandering
stars, a dance of Hesperus with Orion. His rhetoric dazzles by circuits,
contrasts, antitheses; Imagination, as in all sprightly minds, being his
wand of power. He comes along his own paths, too, and always in his own
fashion. What though he build his piers downwards from the firmament to
the tumbling tides, and so throw his radiant span across the fissures of
his argument, and himself pass over the frolic arches,—Ariel-wise,—is
the skill less admirable, the masonry less secure for its singularity?
So his books are best read as irregular writings, in which the sentiment
is, by his enthusiasm, transfused throughout the piece, telling on the
mind in cadences of a current under-song, and giving the impression of a
connected whole—which it seldom is,—such is the rhapsodist’s cunning in
its structure and delivery.
The highest compliment we can pay to the scholar is that of having
edified and instructed us, we know not how, unless by the pleasure his
words have given us. Conceive how much the Lyceum owes to his presence
and teachings; how great the debt of many to him for their hour’s
entertainment. His, if any one’s, let the institution pass into
history,—since his art, more than another’s, has clothed it with beauty,
and made it the place of popular resort, our purest organ of
intellectual entertainment for New England and the Western cities. And,
besides this, its immediate value to his auditors everywhere, it has
been serviceable in ways they least suspect; most of his works, having
had their first readings on its platform, were here fashioned and
polished in good part, like Plutarch’s Morals, to become the more
acceptable to readers of his published books.
And is not the omen auspicious, that just now, during these winter
evenings, at the opening of this victorious year, _his_ Sundays have
come round again; the metropolis, eager, as of old, to hear his words.
Does it matter what topic he touches? He adorns all with a severe
sententious beauty, a freshness and sanction next to that of godliness,
if not that in spirit and effect.
“The princely mind, that can
Teach man to keep a God in man;
And when wise poets would search out to see
Good men, behold them all in thee.”
’Tis near thirty years since his first book, entitled “Nature,” was
printed. Then followed volumes of Essays, Poems, Orations, Addresses and
during all the intervening period down to the present, he has read
briefs of his lectures through a wide range, from Canada to the Capitol;
in most of the Free States; in the large cities, East and West, before
large audiences; in the smallest towns and to the humblest companies.
Such has been his appeal to the mind of his countrymen, such his
acceptance by them. He has read lectures in the principal cities of
England also. A poet, speaking to individuals as few others can speak,
and to persons in their privileged moments, he must be heard as none
others are. The more personal he is, the more prevailing, if not the
more popular.
Because the poet, accosting the heart of man, speaks to him personally,
he is one with all mankind. And if he speak eloquent words, these words
must be cherished by mankind,—belonging as they do to the essence of
man’s personality, and, partaking of the qualities of his Creator, they
are of spiritual significance. While, in so far as he is individual
only,—unlike any other man,—his verses address special aptitudes in
separate persons; and he will belong, not to all times, but to one time
only, and will pass away,—except to those who delight in that special
manifestation of his gifts.
Now were Emerson less individual, according to our distinction, that is,
more personal and national,—as American as America,—then were his
influence so much the more diffusive, and he the Priest of the Faith
earnest hearts are seeking. Not that religion is wanting here in New
England; but that its seekers are, for the most part, too exclusive to
seek it independent of some human leader,—religion being a personal
oneness with the Person of Persons; a partaking of Him by putting off
the individualism which distracts and separates man from man. Hence
differing sects, persuasions, creeds, bibles, for separate peoples,
prevail all over the earth; religions, being still many, not one and
universal, not personal; similar only as yet in their differences. Still
the religious sentiment, in binding all souls to the Personal One, makes
the many partake of him in degrees lesser or greater. Thus far, the
poets in largest measure; mankind receiving through them its purest
revelations, they having been its inspired oracles and teachers from the
beginning till now. The Sacred Books,—are not these Poems in spirit, if
not in form? their authors inspired bards of divinity? Meant for all men
in all ages and states, they appeal forever to the springing faiths of
every age, and so are permanent and perennial, as the heart itself and
its everlasting hopes.
See how the Christian Theism, for instance, has held itself high above
most men’s heads till now; its tender truths above all cavil and debate
by their transcendent purity and ideal beauty! how these truths still
survive in all their freshness, keeping verdant the Founder’s memory!
and shall to distant generations; churches, peoples, persons, a widening
Christendom, flourishing or fading as they spring forth, or fall away
from this living stem.
“The Sun of Man, at last the son of woman,
Brother of all men, and the Prince of Peace,
Grafts, on the solemn valor of the Roman,
_Fresh Saxon service_, and the wit of Greece.”
Now, am I saying that our poet is inspiring this fresher Faith?
Certainly I mean to be so understood; he, the chiefest of its bards and
heralds. Not spoken always, ’tis implied, nevertheless, in his
teachings; defective, it is admitted, as colored by his temperament,
which trenches on Personal Theism not a little by the stress he lays on
Nature, on Fate; yet more nearly complementing the New England
Puritanism than aught we have, and coming nearest to satisfying the
aspirations of our time.
But it were the last thought of his, this conceiving himself the oracle
of any Faith, the leader of any school, any sect of religionists. His
genius is ethical, literary; he speaks to the moral sentiments through
the imagination, insinuating the virtues so, as poets and moralists of
his class are wont. The Sacred Class, the Priests, differ in this,—they
address the moral sentiment directly, thus enforcing the sanctions of
personal righteousness, and celebrating moral excellence in prophetic
strain.
’Tis everything to have a true believer in the world, dealing with men
and matters as if they were divine in idea and real in fact; meeting
persons and events at a glance directly, not at a million removes, and
so passing fair and fresh into life and literature, the delight and
ornament of the race.
Pure literatures are personal inspirations, springing fresh from the
Genius of a people. They are original; their first fruits being verses,
essays, tales, biographies—productions as often of obscure as of
illustrious persons. And such, so far as we have a literature, is ours.
Of the rest, how much is foreign both in substance and style, and might
have been produced elsewhere! His, I consider original and American; the
earliest, purest our country has produced,—best answering the needs of
the American mind. Consider how largely our letters have been enriched
by his contributions. Consider, too, the change his views have wrought
in our methods of thinking; how he has won over the bigot, the
unbeliever, at least to tolerance and moderation, if not to
acknowledgment, by his circumspection and candor of statement.
“His shining armor
A perfect charmer;
Even the hornets of divinity
Allow him a brief space,
And his thought has a place
Upon the well-bound library’s chaste shelves,
Where man of various wisdom rarely delves.”
Am I extravagant in believing that our people are more indebted to his
teachings than to any other person who has spoken or written on his
themes during the last twenty years,—are more indebted than they know,
becoming still more so? and that, as his thoughts pass into the brain of
the coming generation, it will be seen that we have had at least one
mind of home growth, if not independent of the old country? I consider
his genius the measure and present expansion of the American mind. And
it is plain that he is to be read and prized for years to come. Poet and
moralist, he has beauty and truth for all men’s edification and delight.
His works are studies. And any youth of free senses and fresh affections
shall be spared years of tedious toil,—in which wisdom and fair learning
are, for the most part, held at arm’s length, planet’s width, from his
grasp,—by graduating from this college. His books are surcharged with
vigorous thoughts, a sprightly wit. They abound in strong sense, happy
humor, keen criticisms, subtile insights, noble morals, clothed in a
chaste and manly diction, and fresh with the breath of health and
progress.
We characterize and class him with the moralists who surprise us with an
accidental wisdom, strokes of wit, felicities of phrase,—as Plutarch,
Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Antoninus, Saadi, Montaigne, Bacon, Sir Thomas
Browne, Goethe, Coleridge,—with whose delightful essays, notwithstanding
all the pleasure they give us, we still plead our disappointment at not
having been admitted to the closer intimacy which these loyal leaves had
with their owner’s mind before torn from his notebook; jealous, even, at
not having been taken into his confidence in the editing itself.
We read, never as if he were the dogmatist, but a fair-speaking mind,
frankly declaring his convictions, and committing these to our
consideration, hoping we may have thought like things ourselves;
oftenest, indeed, taking this for granted as he wrote. There is nothing
of the spirit of proselyting, but the delightful deference ever to our
free sense and right of opinion. He might take for his motto the
sentiment of Henry More, where, speaking of himself, he says: “Exquisite
disquisition begets diffidence; diffidence in knowledge, humility;
humility, good manners and meek conversation. For my part, I desire no
man to take anything I write or speak upon trust without canvassing, and
would be thought rather to propound than to assert what I have here or
elsewhere written or spoken. But continually to have expressed my
diffidence in the very tractates and colloquies themselves, had been
languid and ridiculous.”
Then he has chosen a proper time and manner for saying his good things;
has spoken to almost every great interest as it rose. Nor has he let the
good opportunities pass unheeded, or failed to make them for himself. He
has taken discretion along as his constant attendant and ally; has shown
how the gentlest temper ever deals the surest blows. His method is that
of the sun against his rival for the cloak, and so he is free from any
madness of those, who, forgetting the strength of the solar ray, go
blustering against men’s prejudices, as if the wearers would run at once
against these winds of opposition into their arms for shelter. What
higher praise can we bestow on any one than to say of him, that he
harbors another’s prejudices with a hospitality so cordial as to give
him, for the time, the sympathy next best to, if, indeed, it be not
edification in, charity itself? For what disturbs and distracts mankind
more than the uncivil manners that cleave man from man? Yet for his
amendment letters, love, Christianity, were all given!
How different is he in temper and manners from Carlyle, with whom he is
popularly associated! but who, for the most part, is the polemic, the
sophist, the scorner: whose books, opened anywhere, show him berating
the wrong he sees, but seeing, shows never the means of removing. Ever
the same melancholy advocacy of work to be done under the dread master;
force of stroke, the right to rule and be ruled, ever the dismal burden.
Doomsday books are all save his earliest—Rhadamanthus sitting and the
arbiter. He rides his Leviathan as fiercely as did his countryman,
Hobbes, and can be as truculent and abusive; the British Taurus, and a
mad one. Were he not thus possessed and fearfully in earnest, we should
take him for the harlequin he seems, nor see the sorrowing sadness
playing off its load in this grotesque mirth, this scornful irony of
his; he painting in spite of himself his portraits in the warmth of
admiration, the fire of wrath, and giving mythology for history; all the
while distorting the facts into grimace in his grim moods. Yet, what
breadth of perspective, strength of outline! the realism how appalling,
the egotism how enormous,—all history showing in the background of the
one figure, Carlyle. Burns, Goethe, Richter, Mirabeau, Luther, Cromwell,
Frederick,—all dashed from his flashing pen, heads of himself, alike in
their unlikeness, prodigiously individual, willful, some of them
monstrous; all Englishmen with their egregious prejudices and pride; no
patience, no repose in any. He still brandishes his truncheon through
his pages with an adroitness that renders it unsafe for any, save the
few that wield weapons of celestial temper, to do battle against this
Abaddon. Silenced he will not be; talking terribly against all talking
but his own; agreeing, disagreeing, all the same; he, the Jove,
permitting none, none to mount Olympus, till the god deigns silence and
invites. Curious to see him, his chin aloft, the pent thunders rolling,
lightnings darting from under the bold brows, words that tell of the
wail within, accents not meant for music, yet made lyrical in the
cadences of his Caledonian refrain; his mirth mad as Lear’s, his humor
as willful as the wind’s. Not himself is approachable by himself even.
And Emerson is the one only American deserving a moment’s consideration
in his eyes. Him he honors and owns the better, giving him the
precedence and the manners:
“Had wolves and lions seen but thee,
They must have paused to learn civility.”
Of Emerson’s books I am not here designing to speak critically, but of
his genius and personal influence rather. Yet, in passing, I may say,
that his book of “Traits” deserves to be honored as one in which
England, Old and New, may take honest pride, as being the liveliest
portraiture of British genius and accomplishments,—a book, like Tacitus,
to be quoted as a masterpiece of historical painting, and perpetuating
the New Englander’s fame with that of his race. ’Tis a victory of eyes
over hands, a triumph of ideas. Nor, in my judgment, has there been for
some time any criticism of a people so characteristic and complete. It
remains for him to do like justice to New England. Not a metaphysician,
and rightly discarding any claims to systematic thinking; a poet in
spirit, if not always in form; the consistent idealist, yet the realist
none the less, he has illustrated the learning and thought of former
times on the noblest themes, and come nearest of any to emancipating the
mind of his own time from the errors and dreams of past ages.
Why nibble longer there,
Where nothing fresh ye find,
Upon those rocks?
Lo! meadows green and fair;
Come pasture here your mind,
Ye bleating flocks.
There is a virtuous curiosity felt by readers of remarkable books to
learn something more of their author’s literary tastes, habits and
dispositions than these ordinarily furnish. Yet, to gratify this is a
task as difficult as delicate, requiring a diffidency akin to that with
which one would accost the author himself, and without which graceful
armor it were impertinent for a friend even to undertake it. We may
venture but a stroke or two here.
All men love the country who love mankind with a wholesome love, and
have poetry and company in them. Our essayist makes good this
preference. If city bred, he has been for the best part of his life a
villager and countryman. Only a traveller at times professionally, he
prefers home-keeping; is a student of the landscape; is no recluse
misanthrope, but a lover of his neighborhood, of mankind, of rugged
strength wherever found; liking plain persons, plain ways, plain
clothes; prefers earnest people, hates egotists, shuns publicity, likes
solitude, and knows its uses. He courts society as a spectacle not less
than a pleasure, and so carries off the spoils. Delighting in the
broadest views of men and things, he seeks all accessible displays of
both for draping his thoughts and works. And how is his page produced?
Is it imaginable that he conceives his piece as a whole, and then sits
down to execute his task at a heat? Is not this imaginable rather, and
the key to the comprehension of his works? Living for composition as few
authors can, and holding company, studies, sleep, exercise, affairs,
subservient to thought, his products are gathered as they ripen, and
stored in his commonplaces; the contents transcribed at intervals, and
classified. The order of ideas, of imagination, is observed in the
arrangement, not that of logical sequence. You may begin at the last
paragraph and read backwards. ’Tis Iris-built. Each period is
self-poised; there may be a chasm of years between the opening passage
and the last written, and there is endless time in the composition.
Jewels all! separate stars. You may have them in a galaxy, if you like,
or view them separate and apart. But every one knows that, if he take an
essay or verses, however the writer may have pleased himself with the
cunning workmanship, ’tis all cloud-fashioned, and there is no pathway
for any one else. Cross as you can, or not cross, it matters not; you
may climb or leap, move in circles, turn somersaults;
“In sympathetic sorrow sweep the ground,”
like his swallow in Merlin. Dissolving views, projects, vistas open wide
and far,—yet earth, sky, realities all, not illusions. Here is
substance, sod, sun; much fair weather in the seer as in his leaves. The
whole quarternion of the seasons, the sidereal year, has been poured
into these periods. Afternoon walks furnished the perspectives, rounded
and melodized them. These good things have all been talked and slept
over, meditated standing and sitting, read and polished in the
utterance, submitted to all various tests, and, so accepted, they pass
into print. Light fancies, dreams, moods, refrains, were set on foot,
and sent jaunting about the fields, along woodpaths, by Walden shores,
by hill and brook-sides,—to come home and claim their rank and honors
too in his pages. Composed of surrounding matters, populous with
thoughts, brisk with images, these books are wholesome, homelike, and
could have been written only in New England, in Concord, and by our
poet.
“Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state;
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And through my rock-like, solitary wont
Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.
For me, in showers, in sweeping showers, the spring,
Visits the valley;—break away the clouds,—
I bathe in the morn’s soft and silvered air,
And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.
Sparrows far off, and nearer, April’s bird,
Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree,
Courageous, sing a delicate overture
To lead the tardy concert of the year.
Onward and nearer rides the sun of May;
And wide around, the marriage of the plants
Is sweetly solemnized. Then flows amain
The surge of summer’s beauty; dell and crag,
Hollow and lake, hillside, and pine arcade,
Are touched with Genius. Yonder ragged cliff
Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.
... The gentle deities
Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds,
The innumerable tenements of beauty,
The miracle of generative force,
Far-reaching concords of astronomy
Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;
Better, the linked purpose of the whole,
And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty
In the glad home plain-dealing nature gave.
The polite found me impolite; the great
Would mortify me, but in vain; for still
I am a willow of the wilderness,
Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts
My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk,
A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush,
A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds.
For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear:
‘Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie?
Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass
Into the winter night’s extinguished mood?
Canst thou shine now, then darkle,
And being latent feel thyself no less?
As, when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye,
The river, hill, stems, foliage, are obscure;
Yet envies none, none are unenviable.’”
I know of but one subtraction from the pleasure the reading of his
books—shall I say his conversation?—gives me, his pains to be impersonal
or discrete, as if he feared any the least intrusion of himself were an
offence offered to self-respect the courtesy due to intercourse and
authorship; thus depriving his page, his company, of attractions the
great masters of both knew how to insinuate into their text and talk,
without overstepping the bounds of social or literary decorum. What is
more delightful than personal magnetism? ’Tis the charm of good
fellowship as of good writing. To get and to give the largest measures
of satisfaction, to fill ourselves with the nectar of select
experiences, not without some intertinctures of egotism so charming in a
companion, is what we seek in books of the class of his, as in their
authors. We associate diffidence properly with learning, frankness with
fellowship, and owe a certain blushing reverence to both. For though our
companion be a bashful man,—and he is the worse if wanting this
grace,—we yet wish him to be an enthusiast behind all reserves, and
capable of abandonment sometimes in his books. I know how rare this
genial humor is, this frankness of the blood, and how surpassing is the
gift of good spirits, especially here in cold New England, where, for
the most part,
“Our virtues grow
Beneath our humors, and at seasons show.”
And yet, under our east winds of reserve, there hides an obscure
courtesy in the best natures, which neither temperament nor breeding can
spoil. Sometimes manners the most distant are friendly foils for holding
eager dispositions subject to the measure of right behavior. ’Tis not
every New Englander that dares venture upon the frankness, the plain
speaking, commended by the Greek poet.
“Caress me not with words, while far away
Thy heart is absent, and thy feelings stray;
But if thou love me with a faithful breast,
Be that pure love with zeal sincere exprest;
And if thou hate, the bold aversion show
With open face avowed, and known my foe.”
Fortunate the visitor who is admitted of a morning for the high
discourse, or permitted to join the poet in his afternoon walks to
Walden, the Cliffs, or elsewhere,—hours likely to be remembered, as
unlike any others in his calendar of experiences. I may say, for me they
have made ideas possible, by hospitalities given to a fellowship so
enjoyable. Shall I describe them as sallies oftenest into the
cloud-lands, into scenes and intimacies ever new? none the less novel
nor remote than when first experienced; colloquies, in favored moments,
on themes, perchance
“Of fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;”
nor yet
“In wand’ring mazes lost,”
as in Milton’s page;
But pathways plain through starry alcoves high,
Or thence descending to the level plains.
Interviews, however, bringing their trail of perplexing thoughts,
costing some days’ duties, several nights’ sleep oftentimes, to restore
one to his place and poise for customary employment; half a dozen
annually being full as many as the stoutest heads may well undertake
without detriment.
Certainly safer not to venture without the sure credentials, unless one
will have his pretensions pricked, his conceits reduced in their vague
dimensions.
“Fools have no means to meet
But by their feet.”
But to the modest, the ingenuous, the gifted, welcome! Nor can any
bearing be more poetic and polite than his to all such, to youth and
accomplished women especially. I may not intrude farther than to say,
that, beyond any I have known, his is a faith approaching to
superstition concerning admirable persons; the divinity of friendship
come down from childhood, and surviving yet in memory if not in
expectation; the rumor of excellence of any sort, being like the arrival
of a new gift to mankind, and he the first to proffer his recognition
and hope. His affection for conversation, for clubs, is a lively
intimation of the religion of fellowship. He, shall we say? if any, must
have taken the census of the admirable people of his time, numbering as
many among his friends, perhaps, as most living Americans; while he is
already recognized as the representative mind of his country, to whom
distinguished foreigners are especially commended on visiting us.
Extraordinary persons may be forgiven some querulousness about their
company, when we remember that ordinary people often complain of theirs.
Impossible for such to comprehend the scholar’s code of
civilities,—disposed as men are to hold all persons to their special
standard. Yet dedicated to high labors, so much the more strict is the
scholar with himself, as his hindrances are the less appreciable, and he
has, besides, his own moods to humor.
“Askest how long thou shalt stay,
Devastator of the day?”
“Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The Gods arrive.”
Companionableness comes by nature. We meet magically, and pass with
sounding manners; else we encounter repulses, strokes of fate;
temperament telling against temperament, precipitating us into vortices
from which the nimblest finds no escape. We pity the person who shows
himself unequal to such occasions; the scholar, for example, whose
intellect is so exacting, so precise, that he cannot meet his company
otherwise than critically; cannot descend through the senses or the
sentiments to that common level where intercourse is possible with men;
but we pity him the more, who, from caprice or confusion, can meet
through these only. Still worse the case of him who can meet men neither
as sentimentalist nor idealist, or, rather not at all in a human way.
Intellect interblends with sentiment in the companionable mind, and wit
with humor. We detain the flowing tide at the cost of lapsing out of
perception into memory, into the limbo of fools. Excellent people wonder
why they cannot meet and converse. They cannot,—no—their wits have ebbed
away, and left them helpless. Why, but because of hostile temperaments,
different states of animation? The personal magnetism finds no
conductor, when one is individual, and the other individual no less.
Individuals repel; persons meet; and only as one’s personality is
sufficiently overpowering to dissolve the other’s individualism, can the
parties flow together and become one. But individuals have no power of
this sort. They are two, not one, perhaps many. Prisoned within
themselves by reason of their egotism, like animals, they stand aloof;
are separate even when they touch; are solitary in any company, having
no company in themselves. But the free personal mind meets all, is
apprehended by all; by the least cultivated, the most gifted; magnetizes
all; is the spell-binder, the liberator of every one. We speak of
sympathies, antipathies, fascinations, fates, for this reason.
Here we have the key to literary composition, to eloquence, to
fellowship. Let us apply it, for the moment, to Emerson’s genius. We
forbear entering into the precincts of genesis, and complexions, wherein
sleep the secrets of character and manners. Eloquent in trope and
utterance when his vaulting intelligence frees itself for the instant,
yet see his loaded eye, his volleyed period; jets of wit, sallies of
sense, breaks, inconsequences, all betraying the pent personality from
which his rare accomplishments have not yet liberated his gifts, nor
given him unreservedly to the Muse and mankind.
Take his own account of the matter.
“When I was born,
From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,
Saying: ‘This be thy portion, child: this chalice,
Less than a lily’s, thou shalt daily draw
From my great arteries,—not less nor more.’
All substances the cunning chemist, Time,
Melts down into the liquor of my life,—
Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty and disgust;
And whether I am angry or content,
Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,
All he distils into sidereal wine,
And brims my little cup, heedless, alas!
Of all he sheds, how little it will hold,
How much runs over on the desert sands.
If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray,
And I uplift myself into its heaven,
The needs of the first sight absorb my blood;
And all the following hours of the day
Drag a ridiculous age.
To-day, when friends approach, and every hour
Brings book, or star-bright scroll of Genius,
The little cup will hold not a bead more,
And all the costly liquor runs to waste;
Nor gives the jealous lord one diamond drop
So to be husbanded for poorer days.
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
Why need I galleries, when a pupil’s draught,
After the master’s sketch, fills and o’erfills
My apprehension? Why seek Italy,
Who cannot circumnavigate the sea
Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn
The nearest matter for a thousand days?”
Plutarch tells us that of old they were wont to call men Φῶτα, which
imports light, not only for the vehement desire man has to know, but to
communicate also. And the Platonists fancied that the gods, being above
men, had something whereof man did not partake, pure intellect and
knowledge, and thus kept on their way quietly. The beasts, being below
men, had something whereof man had less, sense and growth, so they lived
quietly in their way. While man had something in him whereof neither
gods nor beasts had any trace, which gave him all the trouble, and made
all the confusion in the world,—and that was egotism and opinion.
A finer discrimination of gifts might show that Genius ranges through
this threefold dominion, partaking in turn of each essence and degree.
Was our poet planted so fast in intellect, so firmly rooted in the mind,
so dazzled with light, yet so cleft withal by duplicity of gifts, that,
thus forced to traverse the mid-world of contrast and contrariety, he
was ever glancing forth from his coverts at life as reflected through
his dividing prism,—resident never long in the tracts he surveyed, yet
their persistent Muse nevertheless? And so, housed in the Mind, and
thence sallying forth in quest of his game, whether of persons or
things, he was the Mercury, the merchantman of ideas to his century. Nor
was he left alone in life and thinking. Beside him stood his
townsman,[1] whose sylvan intelligence, fast rooted in sense and Nature,
was yet armed with a sagacity, a subtlety and strength, that penetrated
while divining the essences of the creatures and things he studied, and
of which he seemed both Atlas and Head.
Footnote 1:
Thoreau.
Forcible protestants against the materialism of their own, as of
preceding times, these masterly Idealists substantiated beyond all
question their right to the empires they swayed,—the rich estates of an
original genius.
[Illustration: EMERSON’S SUMMER HOUSE.]
[Illustration: THE SUMMER SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, CONCORD, MASS.]
ION: A MONODY.
By A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
READ BEFORE THE CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, JULY 22, 1882.
I.
Why, oh, ye willows, and ye pastures bare,
Why will ye thus your bloom so late delay,
Wrap in chill weeds the sere and sullen day,
And cheerless greet me wandering in despair?
Tell me, ah, tell me!—ye of old could tell,—
Whither my vanished Ion now doth fare.
Say, have ye seen him lately pass this way,
Ye who his wonted haunts did know full well?
Heard ye his voice forth from the thicket swell,
Where midst the drooping ferns he loved to stray?
Caught ye no glimpses of my truant there?
Tell me, oh, tell me, whither he hath flown—
Beloved Ion flown, and left ye sad and lone,
Whilst I through wood and field his loss bemoan.
II.
Early through field and wood each Spring we sped,
Young Ion leading o’er the reedy pass;
How fleet his footsteps and how sure his tread!
His converse deep and weighty;—where, alas!
Like force of thought with subtlest beauty wed?
The bee and bird and flower, the pile of grass,
The lore of stars, the azure sky o’erhead,
The eye’s warm glance, the Fates of love and dread,—
All mirrored were in his prismatic glass;
For endless Being’s myriad-minded race
Had in his thought their registry and place,—
Bright with intelligence, or drugged with sleep,
Hid in dark cave, aloft on mountain steep,
In seas immersed, ensouled in starry keep.
III.
Now Echo answers lone from cliff and brake,
Where we in springtime sauntering loved to go,—
Or at the mossy bank beyond the lake,
On its green plushes oft ourselves did throw:
There from the sparkling wave our thirst to slake,
Dipped in the spring that bubbled up below,
Our hands for cups, and did with glee partake.
Next to the Hermit’s cell our way we make,
Where sprightly talk doth hold the morning late;
Deserted now: ah, Hylas, too, is gone!
Hylas, dear Ion’s friend and mine,—I all alone,
Alone am left by unrelenting fate,—
Vanished my loved ones all,—the good, the great,—
Why am I spared? why left disconsolate?
IV.
Slow winds our Indian stream through meadows green,
By bending willows, tangled fen and brake,
Smooth field and farmstead doth its flow forsake;
’Twas in far woodpaths Ion, too, was seen,
But oftenest found at Walden’s emerald lake,
(The murmuring pines inverted in its sheen;)
There in his skiff he rippling rhymes did make,
Its answering shores echoing the verse between:
Full-voiced the meaning of the wizard song,
Far wood and wave and shore, with kindred will,
Strophe, antistrophe, in turn prolong:—
Now wave and shore and wood are mute and chill,
Ion, melodious bard, hath dropt his quill,
His harp is silent, and his voice is still.
V.
Blameless was Ion, beautiful to see,
With native genius, with rich gifts endowed;
He might of his descent be nobly proud,
Yet meekly tempered was, spake modestly,
Nor sought the plaudits of the noisy crowd,
When Duty called him in the thick to be.
His life flowed calmly clear, not hoarse nor loud;
He wearied not of immortality,
Nor like Tithonus begged a time-spun shroud;
But life-long drank at fountains of pure truth,
The seer unsated of eternal youth.
’Tis not for Ion’s sake these tears I shed,
’Tis for the Age he nursed, his genius fed,—
Ion immortal is,—he is not dead.
VI.
Did e’en the Ionian bard, Mæonides,
Blind minstrel wandering out of Asia’s night,
The Iliad of Troy’s loves and rivalries,
In strains forever tuneful to recite,
His raptured listeners the more delight?
Or dropt learned Plato ’neath his olive trees,
More star-bright wisdom in the world’s full sight,
Well garnered in familiar colloquies,
Than did our harvester in fields of light?
Nor spoke more charmingly young Charmides,
Than our glad rhapsodist in his far flight
Across the continents, both new and old;
His tale to studious thousands thus he told
In summer’s solstice and midwinter’s cold.
VII.
Shall from the shades another Orpheus rise
Sweeping with venturous hand the vocal string,
Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise,
And wake to ecstacy each slumberous thing;
Flash life and thought anew in wondering eyes,
As when our seer transcendent, sweet, and wise,
World-wide his native melodies did sing,
Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories?
Ah, no! his matchless lyre must silent lie,
None hath the vanished minstrel’s wondrous skill
To touch that instrument with art and will;
With him winged Poesy doth droop and die,
While our dull age, left voiceless, with sad eye
Follows his flight to groves of song on high.
VIII.
Come, then, Mnemosyne! and on me wait,
As if for Ion’s harp thou gav’st thine own;
Recall the memories of man’s ancient state,
Ere to this low orb had his form dropt down,
Clothed in the cerements of his chosen fate;
Oblivious here of heavenly glories flown,
Lapsed from the high, the fair, the blest estate,
Unknowing these, and by himself unknown:
Lo! Ion, unfallen from his lordly prime,
Paused in his passing flight, and, giving ear
To heedless sojourners in weary time,
Sang his full song of hope and lofty cheer;
Aroused them from dull sleep, from grisly fear,
And toward the stars their faces did uprear.
IX.
Why didst thou haste away, ere yet the green
Enameled meadow, the sequestered dell,
The blossoming orchard, leafy grove were seen
In the sweet season thou hadst sung so well?
Why cast this shadow o’er the vernal scene?
No more its rustic charms of thee may tell
And so content us with their simple mien.
Was it that memory’s unrelinquished spell
(Ere man had stumbled here amid the tombs,)
Revived for thee that Spring’s perennial blooms,
Those cloud-capped alcoves where we once did dwell?
Translated wast thou in some rapturous dream?
Our once familiar faces strange must seem,
Whilst from thine own celestial smiles did stream!
X.
I tread the marble leading to his door,
(Allowed the freedom of a chosen friend;)
He greets me not as was his wont before,
The Fates within frown on me as of yore,—
Could ye not once your offices suspend?
Had Atropos her severing shears forbore!
Or Clotho stooped the sundered thread to mend!
Yet why dear Ion’s destiny deplore?
What more had envious Time himself to give?
His fame had reached the ocean’s farthest shore,—
Why prisoned here should Ion longer live?
The questioning Sphinx declared him void of blame;
For wiser answer none could ever frame;
Beyond all time survives his mighty name.
XI.
Now pillowed near loved Hylas’ lowly bed,
Beneath our aged oaks and sighing pines,
Pale Ion rests awhile his laureled head;
(How sweet his slumber as he there reclines!)
Why weep for Ion here? He is not dead,
Nought of him Personal that mound confines;
The hues ethereal of the morning red
This clod embraces never, nor enshrines.
Away the mourning multitude hath sped,
And round us closes fast the gathering night,
As from the drowsy dell the sun declines,
Ion hath vanished from our clouded sight,—
But on the morrow, with the budding May,
A field goes Ion, at first flush of day,
Across the pastures on his dewy way.
[Illustration: MR. ALCOTT’S STUDY.]
THE POET’S COUNTERSIGN.
AN ODE READ BY F. B. SANBORN, AT THE OPENING OF THE CONCORD SCHOOL, JULY
17, 1882.
“I grant, sweet soul, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again;
He lends thee virtue,—and he stole that word
From thy behavior; beauty doth he give,
And found it on thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.”
I.
Across these meadows, o’er the hills,
Beside our sleeping waters, hurrying rills,
Through many a woodland dark, and many a bright arcade,
Where out and in the shifting sunbeams braid
An Indian mat of checquered light and shade,—
The sister seasons in their maze,
Since last we wakened here
From hot siesta the still drowsy year,
Have led the fourfold dance along our quiet ways,—
Autumn apparelled sadly gay,
Winter’s white furs and shortened day,
Spring’s loitering footstep, quickened at the last,
And half the affluent summer went and came,
As for uncounted years the same—
Ah me! another unreturning spring hath passed.
II.
“When the young die,” the Grecian mourner said,
“The springtime from the year hath vanished;”
The gray-haired poet, in unfailing youth,
Sits by the shrine of Truth,
Her oracles to spell,
And their deep meaning tell;
Or else he chants a bird-like note
From that thick-bearded throat
Which warbled forth the songs of smooth-cheeked May
Beside Youth’s sunny fountain all the day;
Sweetly the echoes ring
As in the flush of spring;
At last the poet dies,
The sunny fountain dries,—
The oracles are dumb, no more the wood-birds sing.
III.
Homer forsakes the billowy round
Of sailors circling o’er the island-sea;
Pindar, from Theban fountains and the mound
Builded in love and woe by doomed Antigone,
Must pass beneath the ground;
Stout Æschylus that slew the deep-haired Mede
At Marathon, at Salamis, and freed
Athens from Persian thrall,
Then sung the battle call,—
Must yield to that one foe he could not quell;
In Gela’s flowery plain he slumbers well.[2]
Sicilian roses bloom
Above his nameless tomb;
And there the nightingale doth mourn in vain
For Bion, too, who sung the Dorian strain;
By Arethusa’s tide,
His brother swains might flute in Dorian mood,—
The bird of love in thickets of the wood
Sing for a thousand years his grave beside—
Yet Bion still was mute—the Dorian lay had died.
Footnote 2:
Athenian Æschylus Euphorion’s son,
Buried in Gela’s field these _words_ declare:
His _deeds_ are registered at Marathon,
Known to the deep-haired Mede who meet him there.
—_Greek Anthology._
IV.
The Attic poet at approach of age
Laid by his garland, took the staff and scrip,
For singing robes the mantle of the sage,—
And taught gray wisdom with the same grave lip
That once had carolled gay
Where silver flutes breathed soft and festal harps did play;
Young Plato sang of love and beauty’s charm,
While he that from Stagira came to hear
In lyric measures bade his princely pupil arm,
And strike the Persian tyrant mute with fear.
High thought doth well accord with melody,
Brave deed with Poesy,
And song is prelude fair to sweet Philosophy.
But wiser English Shakspeare’s noble choice,
Poet and sage at once, whose varied voice
Taught beyond Plato’s ken, yet charming every ear;—
A kindred choice was his, whose spirit hovers here.
V.
Now Avon glides through Severn to the sea,
And murmurs that her Shakspeare sings no more;
Thames bears the freight of many a tribute shore,
But on those banks her poet bold and free,
That stooped in blindness at his humble door,
Yet never bowed to priest or prince the knee,
Wanders no more by those sad sisters led;
Herbert and Spenser dead
Have left their names alone to him whose scheme
Stiffly endeavors to supplant the dream
Of seer and poet, with mechanic rule
Learned from the chemist’s closet, from the surgeon’s tool.
With us Philosophy still spreads her wing,
And soars to seek Heaven’s King—
Nor creeps through charnels, prying with the glass
That makes the little big,—while gods unseen may pass.
VI.
Along the marge of these slow-gliding streams,
Our winding Concord and the wider flow
Of Charles by Cambridge, walks and dreams
A throng of poets,—tearfully they go;
For each bright river misses from its band
The keenest eye, the truest heart, the surest minstrel hand,—
They sleep each on his wooded hill above the sorrowing land.
Duly each mound with garlands we adorn
Of violet, lily, laurel, and the flowering thorn,—
Sadly above them wave
The wailing pine-trees of their native strand;
Sadly the distant billows smite the shore,
Plash in the sunlight, or at midnight roar;
All sounds of melody, all things sweet and fair,
On earth, in sea or air,
Droop and grow silent by the poet’s grave.
VII.
Yet wherefore weep? Old age is but a tomb,
A living hearse, slow creeping to the gloom
And utter silence. He from age is freed
Who meets the stroke of Death and rises thence
Victor o’er every woe; his sure defence
Is swift defeat; by that he doth succeed.
Death is the poet’s friend—I speak it sooth;
Death shall restore him to his golden youth,
Unlock for him the portal of renown,
And on Fame’s tablet write his verses down,
For every age in endless time to read.
With us Death’s quarrel is: he takes away
Joy from our eyes—from this dark world the day—
When other skies he opens to the poet’s ray.
VIII.
Lonely these meadows green,
Silent these warbling woodlands must appear
To us, by whom our poet-sage was seen
Wandering among their beauties, year by year,—
Listening with delicate ear
To each fine note that fell from tree or sky,
Or rose from earth on high:
Glancing that falcon eye,
In kindly radiance as of some young star,
At all the shows of Nature near and far,
Or on the tame procession plodding by,
Of daily toil and care,—and all life’s pageantry;
Then darting forth warm beams of wit and love,
Wide as the sun’s great orbit, and as high above
These paths wherein our lowly tasks we ply.
IX.
His was the task and his the lordly gift
Our eyes, our hearts, bent earthward, to uplift;
He found us chained in Plato’s fabled cave,
Our faces long averted from the blaze
Of Heaven’s broad light, and idly turned to gaze
On shadows, flitting ceaseless as the wave
That dashes ever idly on some isle enchanted;
By shadows haunted
We sat,—amused in youth, in manhood daunted,
In vacant age forlorn,—then slipped within the grave,
The same dull chain still clasped around our shroud;
These captives, bound and bowed,
He from their dungeon like that angel led
Who softly to imprisoned Peter said,
“Arise up quickly! gird thyself and flee!”
We wist not whose the thrilling voice, we knew our souls were free.
X.
Ah! blest those years of youthful hope,
When every breeze was Zephyr, every morning May!
Then as we bravely climbed the slope
Of life’s steep mount, we gained a wider scope
At every stair, and could with joy survey
The track beneath us, and the upward way;
Both lay in light—round both the breath of love
Fragrant and warm from Heaven’s own tropic blew;
Beside us what glad comrades smiled and strove!
Beyond us what dim visions rose to view!
With thee, dear Master! through that morning land
We journeyed happy: thine the guiding hand,
Thine the far-looking eye, the dauntless smile;
Thy lofty song of hope did the long march beguile.
XI.
Now scattered wide and lost to loving sight
The gallant train
That heard thy strain;
’Tis May no longer,—shadows of the night
Beset the downward pathway; thou art gone,
And with thee vanished that perpetual dawn
Of which thou wert the harbinger and seer.
Yet courage! comrades,—though no more we hear
Each other’s voices, lost within this cloud
That time and chance about our way have cast,
Still his brave music haunts the hearkening ear,
As ’mid bold cliffs and dewy passes of the Past.
Be that our countersign! for chanting loud
His magic song, though far apart we go,
Best shall we thus discern both friend and foe.
[Illustration: BRIDGE AT CONCORD.]
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⁂ NOTE.—_In order to insure the correct delivery of the actual works,
or particular Editions specified in this List, the name of the
Publishers should be distinctly given. These books can be had from any
local bookseller; but should any difficulty be experienced in
procuring them, Messrs._ CUPPLES & HURD _will be happy to forward them
direct, postage paid, on receipt of cheque, stamps, or Postal order
for the amount, with a copy of their complete catalogue_.
* * * * *
THE AMERICAN TAUCHNITZ SERIES.
Square 16mo. Paper covers, 50 cents. Cloth, $1.00.
I.
=MISS FRANCES MERLEY=:
A Novel. By JOHN ELLIOT CURRAN. 420 pages.
The first important work of an author familiar to American readers by
his remarkable sketches to _Scribner’s_ and other magazines.
II.
=AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NEW ENGLAND FARM HOUSE=:
A Romance of the Cape Cod Lands. By N. H. CHAMBERLAIN. 380 pages.
_A novel of singular power and beauty, great originality and rugged
force._ Born and bred on Cape Cod, the author, at the winter firesides
of country people, very conservative of ancient English customs now
gone, heard curious talk of kings, Puritan ministers, the war and
precedent struggle of our Revolution, and touched a race of men and
women now passed away. He also heard, chiefly from ancient women, the
traditions of ghosts, witches and Indians, as they are preserved, and
to a degree believed, by honest Christian folk, in the very teeth of
modern progress. These things are embodied in this book.
_OTHER VOLUMES OF THIS SERIES IN PREPARATION._
* * * * *
=A SUMMER CRUISE ON THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND.= By ROBERT CARTER. _With
an Introduction by_ ROSSITER JOHNSON. 12mo. Cloth, _with Map_. $1.50.
A new edition of one of the most fascinating of salt-water yarns, full
of genial humor, vivid word-painting, accurate information, and
practical “wrinkles.” A classic by reason of the esteem in which it is
held by yachtsmen, and as a literary production equal to anything of
the kind in the Anglo-Saxon tongue.
* * * * *
A NEW BOOK BY W. H. H. MURRAY.
=DAYLIGHT LAND.= The experiences, incidents, and adventures, humorous
and otherwise, which befell Judge John Doe, Tourist, of San Francisco;
Mr. Cephas Pepperell, Capitalist, of Boston; Colonel Goffe, the Man
from New Hampshire, and divers others, in their Parlor-Car Excursion
over Prairie and Mountain; as recorded and set forth by W. H. H.
MURRAY. Superbly illustrated with 150 cuts in various colors by the
best artists.
CONTENTS:—Introduction—The Meeting—A Breakfast—A Very Hopeful Man—The
Big Nepigon Trout—The Man in the Velveteen Jacket—The Capitalist—Camp
at Rush Lake—Big Game—A Strange Midnight Ride—Banff—Sunday among the
Mountains—Nameless Mountains—The Great Glacier—The Hermit of Frazer
Cañon—Fish and Fishing in British Columbia—Vancouver City—Parting at
Victoria.
8vo. 350 pages. Unique paper covers, $2.50; half leather binding,
$3.50.
Mr. Murray has chosen the north-western side of the continent for
the scene of this book; a region of country which is little known by
the average reader, but which in its scenery, its game, and its vast
material and undeveloped resources, supplies the author with a
subject which has not been trenched upon even by the magazines, and
which he has treated in that lively and spirited manner for which he
is especially gifted. The result is a volume full of novel
information of the country, humorous and pathetic incidents, vivid
descriptions of its magnificent scenery, shrewd forecasts of its
future wealth and greatness when developed, illustrated and
embellished with such lavishness and artistic elegance as has never
before been attempted in any similar work in this country.
* * * * *
=ADIRONDACK TALES.= By W. H. H. MURRAY. Illustrated. 12mo. 300 pages.
$1.25.
Containing John Norton’s Christmas—Henry Herbert’s Thanksgiving—A
Strange Visitor—Lost in the Woods—A Jolly Camp—Was it Suicide?—The
Gambler’s Death—The Old Beggar’s Dog—The Ball—Who was he?
Short stories in Mr. Murray’s best vein—humorous; pathetic; full of
the spirit of the woods.
* * * * *
=HOW DEACON TUBMAN AND PARSON WHITNEY KEPT NEW YEARS=, and other
Stories. By W. H. H. MURRAY. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.25.
* * * * *
=A HEART REGAINED.= By CARMEN SYLVA (Queen of Roumania). Translated by
MARY A. MITCHELL. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth. $1.00.
A charming story by this talented authoress, told in her vivid,
picturesque manner, and showing how patient waiting attains to
ultimate reward.
* * * * *
=JOHN BROWN.= By HERMANN VON HOLST, author of “Constitutional History of
the United States,” &c., together with an introduction and appendix by
FRANK P. STEARNS, a poem by Mr. WASON, and a letter describing John
Brown’s grave. Illustrated. 16mo, gilt top. $1.50.
This book, the author of which is so well known by his “Constitutional
History,” and by his biography of John C. Calhoun, cannot fail to be
of interest to all students of American history, who appreciate a
calm, impartial criticism of a man and an episode which have been
universally and powerfully discussed.
* * * * *
=MARGARET=; and =THE SINGER’S STORY=. By EFFIE DOUGLASS PUTNAM. Daintily
bound in white, stamped in gold and color, gilt edges. 16mo. $1.25.
A collection of charming poems, many of which are familiar through the
medium of the magazines and newspaper press, with some more ambitious
flights, amply fulfilling the promise of the shorter efforts. Tender
and pastoral, breathing the simple atmosphere of the fields and woods.
* * * * *
=AROUND THE GOLDEN DEEP.= A Romance of the Sierras. By A. P. REEDER. 500
pages. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50.
A novel of incident and adventure, depicting with a strong hand the
virile life of the mine that gives its name to the story, and
contrasting it with the more refined touches of society in the larger
cities; well written and interesting.
* * * * *
=SIGNOR I.= By SALVATORE FARINA. Translated by the Baroness LANGENAU.
12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
A dainty story by an Italian author, recalling in the unique handling
of its incidents, and in the development of its plot, the delicate
charm of “Marjorie Daw.”
* * * * *
=MIDNIGHT SUNBEAMS, OR BITS OF TRAVEL THROUGH THE LAND OF THE NORSEMAN.=
By EDWIN COOLIDGE KIMBALL. On fine paper, foolscap 8vo, tastefully and
strongly bound, with vignette. Cloth. $1.25.
Pronounced by Scandinavians to be accurate in its facts and
descriptions, and of great interest to all who intend to travel in or
have come from Norway or Sweden.
* * * * *
=WOODNOTES IN THE GLOAMING.= Poems and Translations by MARY MORGAN.
Square 16mo. Cloth, full gilt. $1.25.
A collection of poems and sonnets showing great talent, and valuable
translations from Gautier, Heine, Uhland, Sully-Prudhomme, Gottschalk,
Michael Angelo, and others. Also prose translations from the German,
edited and prefaced by Max Müller.
* * * * *
=RALPH WALDO EMERSON=, PHILOSOPHER AND SEER. An Estimate of his
Character and Genius. By A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
_With portraits and other illustrations._ Foolscap octavo. Gilt top.
$1.50.
_One hundred copies will be printed on larger and finer paper, 8vo,
suitable for the insertion of extra illustrations. Bound in Roxburgh,
gilt top. Price to Subscribers_, $3.00.
A book about Emerson, written by the one man who stood nearest to him
of all men. It is an original and vital contribution to _Emersonia_;
like a portrait of one of the old masters painted by his own brush.
[_In Press._
* * * * *
_HERMAN GRIMM’S WORKS._
=THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL= as shown in his principal works. From the German
of HERMAN GRIMM, author of “The Life of Michael Angelo,” etc. _With
frontispiece, after Braun, of the recently discovered portrait,
outlined by Raphael in chalk._ Cr. 8vo. Cloth. $2.00.
[_Nearly ready._
=ESSAYS ON LITERATURE.= From the German of HERMAN GRIMM, uniform with
“The Life of Raphael.” _New and enlarged edition carefully corrected._
Cr. 8vo. Cloth. $2.00.
* * * * *
_BY JAMES H. STARK._
=ANTIQUE VIEWS OF YE TOWNE OF BOSTON.= By JAMES H. STARK, Assisted by
Dr. SAMUEL A. GREEN, Ex-Mayor of Boston, Librarian of the
Massachusetts Historical Society; JOHN WARD DEAN, Librarian of the New
England Historic Genealogical Society; and Judge MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN,
of the Public Library. _An extensive and exhaustive work in 378 pages.
Large quarto. Illustrated with nearly 200 full size reproductions of
all known rare maps, old prints, etc. 1 vol. 4to. Cloth. $6.00._
=BERMUDA GUIDE.= A description of everything on or about the Bermuda
Islands, concerning which the visitor or resident may desire
information, including its history, inhabitants, climate, agriculture,
geology, government, military and naval establishments. By JAMES H.
STARK. With Maps, Engravings and 16 photo-prints. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth,
157 pp. $2.00.
* * * * *
=PAUL REVERE=: Historical and Legendary. By ELBRIDGE H. GOSS. With
reproductions of many of Revere’s engravings, etc.
[_In press._
* * * * *
=A DIRECTORY OF THE CHARITABLE AND BENEFICENT ORGANIZATIONS OF BOSTON,
ETC.= Prepared for the Associated Charities. 1 vol., 196 pp. 16mo.
Cloth, $1.00.
* * * * *
_PROF. CLARK MURRAY’S WORKS._
=SOLOMON MAIMON=: An Autobiography. Translated from the German, with
Additions and Notes, by Prof. J. CLARK MURRAY. 1 vol. Cr. 8vo. Cloth.
307 pp. $2.00.
_A life which forms one of the most extraordinary biographies in the
history of literature._
The London _Spectator_ says: “Dr. Clark Murray has had the rare good
fortune of first presenting this singularly vivid book in an English
translation as pure and lively as if it were an original, and an
original by a classic English writer.”
George Eliot, in “Daniel Deronda,” mentions it as “that wonderful bit
of autobiography—the life of the Polish Jew, Solomon Maimon”; and
Milman, in his “History of the Jews,” refers to it as a curious and
rare book.
=HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY.= By Prof. J. CLARK MURRAY, LL.D., Professor of
Mental and Moral Philosophy, M’Gill College, Montreal. Cr. 8vo. _2d
edition, enlarged and improved._ $1.75.
Clearly and simply written, with illustrations so well chosen that the
dullest student can scarcely fail to take an interest in the subject.
ADOPTED FOR USE IN COLLEGES IN SCOTLAND, ENGLAND, CANADA, AND THE
UNITED STATES.
_Prof. Murray’s good fortune in bringing to light the “Maimon
Memoirs,” together with the increasing popularity of his “Handbook of
Psychology,” has attracted the attention of the intellectual world,
giving him a position with the leaders of thought of the present age.
His writings are at once original and suggestive._
* * * * *
=AALESUND TO TETUAN.= By CHAS. R. CORNING. A Volume of Travel. 12mo, 400
pp. Cloth. $2.00.
[_Ready in September._
TABLE OF CONTENTS.—Portsmouth—Isle of Wight—Channel
Islands—Normandy—Nice—Monte Carlo—Genoa—Naples and its
Environments—Rome—Verona—Venice—Norway—Sweden—St.
Petersburg—Moscow—Warsaw—Berlin—Up the
Rhine—Barcelona—Valencia—Seville—Cadiz—Morocco—Gibraltar—Granada—Madrid
and the Royal Wedding—Bull Fights—Escurial—Biarritz—Bordeaux—Paris.
* * * * *
=TAPPY’S CHICKS=: or, Links Between Nature and Human Nature. By MRS.
GEORGE CUPPLES. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth. $1.25.
The tenderness and humor of this volume are simply exquisite.—_E. P.
Whipple._
The title is altogether too insignificant for so delightful and
valuable a work.—_Spectator_ (London).
It is not merely a work of talent, but has repeated strokes of
undeniable genius.—_George Macdonald._
[_In preparation._
* * * * *
=THOMAS CARLYLE’S COUNSELS TO A LITERARY ASPIRANT= (a Hitherto
Unpublished Letter of 1842), and What Came of Them. With a brief
estimate of the man. By JAMES HUTCHINSON STIRLING, LL. D. 12mo,
boards, 50 cents.
Gives a side of the rugged old Scotchman which will be new to most
readers. It shows that he was not always gruff and bearish, and that
he could at times think of somebody besides himself. _The letter is
one which every young man who has a leaning towards literary work will
read and ponder over._
* * * * *
=SOCIAL LIFE AND LITERATURE FIFTY YEARS AGO.= 16mo, cloth, white paper
labels, gilt top. $1.00.
By a well-known _litterateur_. It will take a high place among the
literature treating of the period. A quaint and delightful book,
exquisitely printed in the Pickering style.
* * * * *
=CIVILIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES.= By MATTHEW ARNOLD. And Other Essays
concerning America. 16mo, unique paper boards. 75 cents. Cloth, uncut,
$1.25. _The cloth binding matches the uniform edition of his collected
works._
Comprises the critical essays, which created so much discussion,
namely, “General Grant, an Estimate.” “A Word about America,” “A Word
more about America,” and “Civilization in the United States.”
⁂ This collection gathers in the great critic’s _last_ contributions
to literature.
* * * * *
=LEGENDS OF THE RHINE.= From the German of Prof. BERNARD. Translated by
FR. ARNOLD. Finely Illustrated. Small 4to. Cloth.
An admirable collection of the popular historical traditions of the
Rhine, told with taste and picturesque simplicity.
[_In press._
* * * * *
=A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF PUSHKIN.= Translated, with Critical Notes
and a Bibliography. By IVAN PANIN, author of “Thoughts.” Foolscap 8vo.
Unique binding. $2.00.
The first published translation by the brilliant young Russian, Ivan
Panin, whose lectures in Boston on the literature of Russia, during
the autumn of last year, attracted crowded houses.
* * * * *
=WIT, WISDOM, AND PATHOS=, from the prose of HEINRICH HEINE, with a few
pieces from the “Book of Songs.” Selected and translated by J.
SNODGRASS. _Second edition, thoroughly revised._ Cr. 8vo, 338 pp.
Cloth, $2.00.
“A treasure of almost priceless thought and criticism.”—_Contemporary
Review._
_Cupples and Hurd,_ _Publishers, Booksellers, Library Agents,_
_BOSTON._
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.Project Gutenberg
Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher and seer : $b an estimate of his character and genius in prose and verse
Alcott, Amos Bronson
Chimera57
Graduate