Sacramento daily record-union., 1882-04-29


most lofty, noble and pure views of prac-
teal life, and his constant inculcation of
ethical doctrines of the most exalted char.
acter.
No man possessed more profound rev.
erence for Truth than Emerson. We find
him recurring again and again to this
subject. Truth and Beauty, indeed, were
his favorite topics, and neither have been
more forcefully and eloquently treated by
any thinker. One may take up his works
almost anywhere, and be sure to light
upon something on these heads. Thus he
insists, "Veracity first of all, and forever.
" Rim de beau que le vrGi." And again
he says, az look upon the simple and
"childish virtues of veracity and honesty
"as the root of all that is sublime in char
"acter. Speak as you think, be what you
"are, pay your debts of all kinds. l
"prefer to be owned as sound and solvent,
"and my word as good as my bond, and
"to be what cannot be stripped. or dissi-
"pated, or undermined, to all the
"eclat in the universe. This reality is
"the foundation of friendship, religion,
"poetry, and art. At the top or at the
"bottom of all illusions, l set the spirit
(which still leads us to work and live for
appearance, in spite of our conviction, in
] ell tt,ot ~ 10 hat 1yar ll1,
"are that avails with friends, with stran.
"gers, and with fate or fortune" These
are noble words. and they breathe the true
spirit of Emerson's philosophy. He was
above all hater and contemner of shams,
and his shrewd New England eyes pierced
through all subterfuges, while his solid
practical judgment estimated the value of
his surroundings dispassionately. The real
influence of Emerson is due to his dis
courses on human characteristics and
affairs. AS for his transcendentalism,
it only serves to round out the
character of singularly complete and
self.contained thinker. 1t has been OBJ.
jected to Emerson that he has no system /;
that he has no definite conclusions that
his speculation seems to lead no-whither !;
that he is apparently by turns Theist,
Pantheist and Agnostic. And yet Emer-
son is at least as consistent and ineligible
and definite as that Nature of which he
was faithful and observant follower. His
aim is to be natural. He recognizes the
limits of useful speculation at all times.
He has no system because if Nature has a
system she has hidden it from Man be-
cause to every inquirer the Universal
Mother answers austerely:
" Yourselves and your fellows We know not; and me
The mateless the enc, will ye know?
Will ye scan me, and read me, and tell
OF the thoughts that ferment in my heart
Ny longings, my sadness, my joy?
"Race after race, man after man,
Have thought that my secret was theirs.
Have dreamed that lived but for them,
That they were my glory and joy.
They are dead, they are changed, they are gone
l remain"
Emerson refused to be trammeled by dog.
mas, or confined by the uniform of any
creed. His deep and pervading love of
Truth made such freedom necessary as the
air of heaven to him. The same loyalty to
the veracities hindered him from being an
iconoclast. For his nature was well poised,
and however far his vision pierced into the
realities of things, his Judgment remained
unaffected by the extent of the field under
survey, and unconfused by the clashing of
ideas and interests and forces which seem,
even to the deepest student, to image forth
only hopeless Chaos when order and the
solution of mystery are sought. 1t has been
said of him that he so loved Beauty as to
shut his eyes to everything painful, grim
and paltry in life. This is shallow and
almost ibelous criticism. No man saw
the hollowness, the dreariness, the painful
ness, of life, more clearly, and no man
recognized this dark side of it more reso-
lutely or dutifully. How profoundly he
perceived the frivolousness of much OF what
concerns men, and especially the unreal.
ity of the subjective views which consti.
tute all we know of our surroundings, is
shown in his lecture on illusions. " Thomas
Carlyle never more thoroughly grasped
this phase of life, but Emerson was more
humorous and less bitter than Carlyle.
His terse and pungent style has offended
many, who would seemingly have willingly
exchanged half the sense for as much sound
again. His style is not Grabbed, certainly,
but it is not flowing. 1t is compressed
with serious consciousness of the value
OF language. 1t is philosophy in short
hand. The sentences are not often pol.
ished, but the meaning is always full.
bodied, and the words are apt, forcible,
suggestive. If the style is the man, as
assuredly it must be when the man is
anything more than an imitation, then
Emerson's style may be accounted part and
parcel of his philosophy. BIT as style
even it has been very much over. GEN.
sured, for it contains a great many real
beauties, and power of conveying
meaning which is one of the most con.
elusive evidences of successful achieve
ment in expression.
Emerson's cosmical theories are un.
formed, for the best OF all reasons, but his
usefulness increases as he descends to com.
mon things, and when he treads the earth
he speaks sometimes with an authority and
an insight so great that his transcendental
speCulations might have been communings
with the Eternal upon Mount Sinai, and
he another Moses, bringing with him into
the haunts of men the reflection of Gods
own glory upon his countenance. How
clearly, and as in a bird's-eye view, for in
stance, has he sketched the mystery of life
in the following sentences, lightly touch.
ing upon the darker shades of the
picture gently indicating the half.sad