Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1882-08-18
An Estimate of Ralph Waldo Emerson
as D Poet and Philosopher.

"
The great thinkers of the world are
rapidly passing away. The remains Of
Darwin have hardly been deposited in
Westminster Abbey, and Ems gland has
not ceased to mourn her ablest repre-
sentative in science, before the death of
our own profoundest thinker is an
nOunced.
In an address in 1888 Emerson first
gave expression to those ideas of trans
cendentalism that made him 80 famous
and formed school of enthusiastic fol-
lowers. The system soon found an
organ in the Dial, a quarterly, in which
he expressed his views, assisted by Mar
garet Fuller, Alcott, Charming, Ripley.
Thcudoro Parker, and othors. II wxS
published four years, and during the
last two years of the time Mr.. Emerson
was its editor. In 1841 and in 1874 two
volumes of his Essays" were published.
In 1916 his first volume of poems was
issued. In 1847 he visited England and
delivered a series of lectures, which
were very successful, and part of this
success was unquestionably due to the
fact that he was the first one who clearly
recognized the great genius of Carlyle,
either in England or in this country.
Commencing with 1860, Emerson
made frequent contributions to the At-
lantic Moahlu, especially of poems, one
of which, sBrahma" ('sIf the red slay-
err" etc., was an enigma to all readers
until the key to it was given. As q
prose writer Emerson was especially
characterized by his acute sense Of
beauty, joined to an equally acute sense
of truth. His broad, sweeping intellect
embraced the realm of the ideal as we'll
as that of the real, even to the plainest
and homeliest details of everyday life.
He not only scared beyond most of his
contemporaries in the range of his
thought-so far beyond, indeed, that he
was many times mystical-but he stated
facts more practically than any of them
He was not a logician in any sense,
nor did he use the processes of reason
in philosophical manner. His bent Of
mind was intuitive. He saw what 9TH
ers reasoned up to, and he stated what
he saw, leaving others to climb up in .
slower manner, and, as he never gave
any steps or connections in his enuncia-
tions of truths, his style is singularly
terse and epigrammatic. His books
may be called collections of aphorisms.
sometimes stated with bare emphasis,
but more frequently clothed with the
rich vesture of his imagination. At such
times, however, his sense of beauty does
not allow him to multiply words or
dwell upon the ideal. His sense Of
beauty dominated everything he wrote,
nounced, not elaborated. Its principal
~. nvs, &.
everything that was unhealthy or mon
strous. In this respect he was in cer-
tain sense an aesthetic, not in the man
ner of the modern maudlin school, but
In healthy, strong, and masterful way.
Naturally, his active perceptions and
epigrammatic style of enunciation, oom--
bined with the absence of fluent smooth
ness of style, made his poems rough
and strong, rather than musical and
flowing, Notwithstanding his ideal ten
denotes, and sometimes mystical and
obscure. The "Brahma," for instance,
when it appeared, was as obscure to the
average reader as the riddle of tho
sphinx. 1t weighs also against his
poetry that he rarely indulged in senti.l
ment or followed any guide but the die
tate of the intellect. He Is to poetry
what Wagner is to music. Both seek
to express the actual life of the world,
dominated by the Intellectual. Tho
melody of verse to the one like the
melody of music to the other is not .
succession of pleasant sounds, but tho
essence of life itself controlled by the
head instead of gushing exuberantly,
from the heart.
Religiously he had no system. He has
been called atheist, pantheist, or deist,
according as people understood his
writings, but he had no creed or system.
in religion, for it was not in his nature.
to classify anything In details. Religion
came to him like everything else in great
truths, which he tersely enunciated,,
leaving others to group them together
and try to find out what manner Of man
he was in religion. And yet his ideal
nature kept him true to a first great
cause, which in one of his essays he
beautifully states: "Unlovely, nay
frightful, is the solitude of the SOUL
which is without God in the world.r
And again: s'This chill, houseless,
fatherless, aimless Cain, the man whoa
hears only the sound of his own footsteps
in Gods resplendent creation"
The great thinkers of our time are
rapidly passing away. Its no common
loss that our own country has suffered
within few weeks in the death of Long.
fellow, who has 50 beautifully sung the
songs of the heart, and now in the death
of Emerson, the great apostle of truth
clothed with beauty. Who are to wear
their manifest
Mr.. Whipple says the style of Emer-,
son sis in the incest harmony with the
character of his thought. It is condensed
almost to abruptness. Occasionally he
purchases comprehension at the expense
of clearness, and his merits as q writer
consist rather in o choice of words than,
in the connection of sentences, though
his diction is vitalized by the presence Of
a powerful creative element. The sim
gular beauty and intense significance Of
his language demonstrate that he not
only has something to say, but knows
exactly how to say it. Fluency, how
ever. is out of the question in . style
which combines such austere economy
of words with the determination to load
every word with vital meaning" Mr..
Frothingham says: "IIis thoughts are
few and pregnant; capable of infinite
expansion, Illustration and application.
They crop out on almost every page of
his characteristic writings; are iterated
and reiterated in every form of speech,
and put into gems of expression that
may be worn on any part Of the person.
His prose and poetry are aglow with
them; they make his essays oracular
and his verse prophetic. By virtue of
them his best books belong to the sacred
literature of the race; by virtue of them,
but for the lack of artistic finish Of
rythm and rhyme, he would be the chief
of American poets. Chicago Tribune.
The City Council of Los Angeles,
Cal, has unanimously passed q resolu-
ton that the Chinese in the city shall ba
removed from the territory known aA
the general fire limits, and that hence
forth Chinese shall be excluded from
said territory.