Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1885-05-20
Adams and Emerson.

IfJohn Adams was the progenitor OF
n line of marked men, all following
with unequal PAGES in his steps. Emer-
son was the eminent close of q serious
of mon from whom he drew character
istics refined by u long process OF selec-
ton. DR.. Holmes has touched with
skill upon tho race and class qualities
which found their consummate flower
in this last of line of preachers, and
any student of New England life is like
" to halt before the interesting PROB
lem of Emerson's environment ana
derivation. John Adams had completed
his public life when Emerson was born.
The profession which he had refused,
because he knew himself made for other
things, was still the leading profession,
and Emerson, growing up in its tradl-
tons, was to let it slip from his shout
ders as a cloak when he should stand
I'D under self-ordination. or, If one
chooses, under a laying-on OF unseen
hands. The descent from ministers
was something more than n matter OF
hereditary influences; for Emerson 8
thought, even when iconoclastlc, may
fairly be taken as the outcome OF that
shirt of intellectualism which minis
tiers more than any others had kept IN
flame in New England. AS John
Adams was the incarnation of the pollt-
zeal New England, so Emerson was the
finest product of the free-thinklng New
England, which had found no subject
outside the range of its speculation.
The two were both critical men. Adams
came to the front in the crisis OF polltl-
! cal Independence; Emerson, inthe crisis
of religious independence. Theodore
Parker was the wind which stormed
against the conventionally religious
man, and only made him draw his
cloak closer about him, while Emerson,
shining and smiling, made him loosen
his robes and bare himself to the outer
air.
The visit Of Emerson to England was
the return of New England to the moth
err country in more emphatic sort than
was Hawthorne Never does England
seem farther away from America than
when one is reading English Traits. Be-
| low the surface of shrewd observation
one may catch sight of the spirit OF
England driven across the Atlantic two
! hundred years before, given new envi-
! ronment set upon the same questions
but hidden ask them in the open air,
and getting its answer in such wise as
| to make everything strange when re-
visiting its old haunts. The individual
ity of Emerson, testing and trying Eng
land, is sharp enough, if one looks only
for that, but it easy also to resolve it
into speakership for a new people.
1t is, however, in the attitude OF
Emerson toward his own countrymen
that his personality is most interesting.
With all his written and spoken words
concerning America, and it is lmpos-
sible to read his May Day without per-
ceiving how great relief to him was
the return of peace after the separating
war.-one fails to find evidence of any
passionate devotion to his country. The
service which John Adams rendered in
his LOYALTY to the nation, which he saw
less by imagination than by an heroic,
sturdy, realization of the facts of human
life about him, was such service as
racked the giver. Emerson, in speak
inc of the volume of Letters and Social
Aims, which Schmidt introduced to the
German public, used the expression
''village thoughts a piece of slightly
conscious humility must not be taken
too gravely, yet the estimate really
does partially set off EmersoGGs defect
on this side. He vs.! ~ Il, It home in Con-
cord. Anywhere else he was stran-
ger. Even Boston was a place to visit,
though he gave that city an affection
which is embodied in some noble verses.
The occasional glimpses which DR..
Holmes gives of the poet on his travels
in his own country serve to deepen the
impression which one forms of the
purely spectacular shape of the country
in Mr.. Emerson's vision. He was not
Indifferent to the struggles going on,
and yet they were rather disturbances
to his spirit than signs of a life which
quickened his own pulse.-March At
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