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

thrones-they alone with him alone" 1t
is this view of final reality underlying
all the confusion, of final adjustment to
conditions which, if we could but know,
have always been intelligent and har-
monious, which keeps his philosophy
sweet and commends it to that sanguine
disposition which pertains to human nature
as very law of being.
And it was through this hopeful and
robust provision that he attracted and
helped the young men of his own and the
succeeding generation. He lifted them
out of the Maelstrom of impractical reforms
round the giddy circles of which they were
whirling. He steadied their minds and
gave them balance and discipline. He
fixed their attention upon duty and truth
and the beauty of Nature. He showed
how this beauty of Nature extended into
and through all the relations of human
life. He taught righteousness of action
and thought. He stood for prObity and
genuineness, and the earnest living OF
ones own life to the best possible purpose.
And his influence upon his age has been
very great. He certainly introduced into
American literature a respect for native
work. a thoroughness and manliness and
originality, which were conspicuously
wanting to it when he appeared He has
certainly upheld for half century stand
ard of conduct which, it is to be feared, is
becoming less attractive to his successors,
yet which is assuredly the only standard
which can serve truly high civiliza-
ton. There has arisen of late school
which is not content to halt where
Emerson halted, however, and which
therefore is disposed to regard him as too
conservative. 1t is true that he suffered
himself to be restrained by the considera-
tion that when absolute certainty was un-
attainable it was not worth while to acquire
beliefs which might detract from the en-.
joyment and even the utilization of life.
At present this view is scarcely understood.
His own reverence for Truth has created
set of truth seekers who, standing on his
ground, deduce from his arguments conclu.
sions which he always abstained from
drawing. This is inevitable, though he
did not foresee it, but it in no way dimin.
ishes the services which he has rendered
his age. 1t was not to be supposed that he
should have the last word. There have
been great men since Agamemnon. In his
own appointed time Ralph Waldo Emer.
son was Justly accounted prophet and
seer and revelator, but the very truths he
revealed have helped to produce men and
women to whom his philosophy can no
longer suffice.
OF his poetry we do not intend to say
much, for we have always thought that in
attempting that form of expression he had
mistaken the bent of his genius. Much
of his prose contains more genu.
inely poetical turns and phrases than
the most labored of his verses. 1t is very
rarely that philosophy is adequately taught
in verse, and Emerson's poetry lacks all the
grace and elegance and harmony of sound
which are to be expected from the Mnse.
1t is in short a somewhat grim New
England. Puritan kind of verse, suggestive
of none of those beauties Of Nature which
the poet SO greatly regarded, but abound
ing with abrupt and harsh and angular
lines, the very antithesis of grace. If any
less distinguished man had written the
poems which bear his name, 10 fact, the
world would have probably received them
with something like derision, and would not
have wanted more than one instanment of
them. As it is they are buoyed up by the
fame which their author won in lar more
legitimate ways, but they will be laid aside
and forgotten long before his prose works
have ceased to be household studiea
But his influence, apart from al such
considerations, was throughout whole
some and e}evating. Always he was say
ing to everybody, "Be yourselves Do
mot copy others. Work cut youz own
" destiny by your own capacities. Such,
simply speaking, was the essence of his
mission to teach men to be natural.
Read, for instance, his lecture on
Character" as illustrating this main
tendency of his teaching. "Charaeter,"
he there observes, is nature in
"the highest form. This masterpiece
"is best when no hands but Nasures
"have been laid upon it" He
was perpetually expressing the same
general idea in different ways, and
thus he not only fought against conven.
tions, (yet not as mere image breaker),
but carried his disciples on into a new
world, where the spirit of resistance to
conventions became creative spirit, and
established the foundations of an
intellectual aristocracy, against which the
leveling waves of democracy should beat
in vain. And thus he has perhaps exerted
a much wider influence than most invent
ors of systems, since the very indefinite.
ness of his creed has attracted the most
diverse votaries to his feet, and has enabled
thousands to absorb his intelle ctual sugges.
tions without, or so for the time it seemed
to them, abandoning their former notions.
OF his private life it is not necessary to say
more than that it was conformable in all
things to the nobility of his teachings. He
lived a simple, cleanly, quiet, conscientious
life. He performed scrupulously all the
duties imposed upon him. He accepted
philosophically all the disappointments in
cident to existence. He continued to
learn while life remained to him.
And now his works speak for him
as he never would have spoken for himself.
For to Emerson, as to all really great men
and deep thinkers, the opinion of the