Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-02-05

Emerson The Poetic and Peculiar Char
ncter of His Philosophy.
The last number of the Atlantic Monthly
has the following;
It is a singular fact that Mr.. Emerson is
the most steadily attractive lecturer In
America. Into that somewhat cold-waterish
region adventures of the sensation kind
come down now and then with splash, 10
become disregarded King Logs before the
next season, But MIR. Emerson always
draws. A lecturer now for something like
a quarter of century, one of the pioneers oil
the lecturing system, the charm OF his voice,
his manner and his matter has never lost It's
mower over his earlier hearers, aud contln-
ually winds new ones in its enchanting
meshes. What they do not fully understand
they take on trust, and listen, saying 10
themselves as the old poet OF Sir Philip
Sidney,
"a sweet, attractive, kind of grace,
Continual comforts in face,
1853 The Iineaments Of gospel books"
We call il a singular fact because we Yam
KEGS are thought to be fond of the spread
eagle STYLE and nothing can be more remote
from that than his. We are reckoned a
practical folk, who would rather hear about
a new air=tight stove than about Plato; yet
our favorite teachers practicability is not IN
The least of the Poor Richard variety. If he
nave any. buuCOI0D6 COHSLlbu0uOgG ~ 10 ehAoe
unrealized commonwealth of philosophers
which Plotinus proposed to establish; and II
he were to make an almanac, his directions
to farmers would be something like this
HOoToBER: Indian Summer; now is the time
to get in your early Vedas." What then, Is
his secret2 Is it not that he out-Yankees us
all2 that his range includes us all? that he
is equally at home with the potato disease
and original sin, with pegging shoes and the
OveIsonl? that, as we try all trades, so ha;
he tried all cultures and above all that his
mysticism gives us q counterpoise to oul
super. practicability
There is no man living to whom, as {
writer, SO many Of US feel and thankfully ac
knowledge so great an Indebtedness for en-
nobliDg impulses--none whom so many car
not abide. What does he mean ask these
last. Where is his system2 What is the
use of it all2 What the deuce have we to dC
with Brahma2 Well, we do not propose t.
write an essay on Emerson at the fag end o
a February Ahantic, with Secession longing
for somebody to hold it, and chaos com
again in the South Carolina teapot.
We will only say that we have foun'
grandeur and consolation in starllt mgr
without caring to ask what it meant, saV
grandeur and consolation; we have like
Montaigne, as some ten generations betor
us have done, without thinking him so syi
tematic as some more eminently tedious 10
shall we say tediously eminentP) authors
we have thought roses as good in their wa
as cabbages, though the latter woult haV
made a better show in the witness-box,
cross. examined as to their usefulness; and
for Brahma, why, he can take care OF hin
self, and won't bite us at any rate.
The bother with Mr.. Emerson is, tha
though,he writes in prose, he is essentially
poet. If you undertake to paraphrase VIII
he saws, and to reduce it to words OF OF
syllable for infant minds, you will make
sad a work of, it as the good monk wi
his analysis of Homer in the EplstoLe u
scuFOTum ViroTUm.
We look upon him as one of the few me
of genius whom our age has produced, an
there needs no better proof of it than b
masculine faculty of formulating 9th
minds. Search for his eloquenee in /
books, and you will perchance miss it, b
meanwhile you will find that it has kindl
all your thoughts. For choice and pith
Language he Belongs to better age tn
ours, and might rub shoulders with Full
and Browne, though he does use that aboL
nable word, relidbLe. His eye, for i
telling phrase, that will carry true, is Il
that Of backwoodsman for a rifle; and
will dredge you up choice word from
ooze of Cotton Mather himself. A dcti
at once so rich and so homely as his
know not where to match in these days
writing by the page; it is like homesI
cloth-of. gold. The many can not miss
meaning, and only the few can hnd ~.
is the open secret of all true genius. W
does he mean, quotha2 he means inspir
hints, adiviniDg-rod to your deeper natl
Splain living and high thinking"