The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-29

ii literary recluSe IS az MS pest Only q
great priest; he is not and cannot be
great poet or athletic soldier of the cross
in crusade with the outward world of
the gross flesh and the irrepressibie devil
of everyday life. No man who wears 3
uniform of brave words can be counted
soldier against the stalwart figure of bat
tle-scarred veteran.
New England is justly proud of Emer-
son; man of serene beauty of life and
soul; a man who rendered great spiritual
service to our day and generation, and yet
Emerson is over-praised by those who for
get sit is not by being kept out of the
world that the forces of life are tested"
Emerson was the genius Of quiet spiritual
culture, rather than the genius of
action; he was decended from
long line of Congregational
ministers, and was an evolution of rare
spiritual shape and power, but he had his
limitations: he was pure thinker, like
DR.. Charming: not thinker and fighter
like Theodore Parker and Wendell Phil
lips; he was pure, refined, yet spirited,
woman of genius in mans clothes, and
like pure, sweet, gentle woman he
shrank instinctively from all practical,
pugnacious experiences that were vexa-
tious or repulsive to him; he felt both
able and willing to sing Goodbye, Proud
World; I'm Going Home" But suppose
he had not felt able, or been permitted by
domestic circumstances, to sing this song
and retire to Concord to find God in the
bush; suppose he had been obliged to go
into rough battle with the world
for living; to do something beside
brood and mediate over man and tree and
flower; to do something besides mingle the
spiritual insight of Socrates with the Yam
kee shrewdness and humor of Sam Slick,
as Whipple wittily described him, what
thenp Emerson sometimes appears to
almost shudder over Shakespeare, be-
cause his occasional robust, spontaneous
Saxon rankness makes the delicate Emer-
sonian flesh fairly creep. Why? Because
Shakespeare was practical, full man of
the world as well as poet; was manager
of theater, actor, poet, social wit and
courtier; man of mental and moral ver-
satility, and because he could do
many things and relish much COM
pany that Emerson shrank from.
Emerson shuddered as he read,
and distrusted Shakespeare; he felt
his immense, oceanic genius, and
yet he evidently was fretted with the sus-
picion, if not absolute conviction, that
Shakespeare led . comparatively vulgar
life; he distrusted Shakespeare because
the great dramatist seemed to him to rest
with ''the symbol, with the festal beauty
of the world" and did not explore the
essence of things and ask "whence, what
and whittier" Shakespeare, Emerson
says was not wise for himself; he did not
lead beautiful, sanity life, but ate, drank
and reveled and affiliated with all manner
of persons and quaffed the cup of life with
gusto and relish.
This incapacity of Emerson to under
derstand Shakspeare's limitations was
due to the fact that Shakespeare was a
poet, man of incarnated imagin-
alton and color; throbbing with
passion; he was not priest
at all; while Emerson was cross between
poet and a priest, like Wordsworth or
Browning or Whittier; and if Shak-
speare had been all that Emerson wished
he would have been less of q poet but
more of mystic or seer. Emerson was
true poet, but not a man of pure poetic
genius in the sense that Byron, Burns,
Shelley or Coleridge were men of genius;
he was a spiritual philosopher; prophet;
genius of rare culture and power in this
direction; sweet and beautiful man, be-
cause he shrank or retired from or re-
fused all experiences or associations that
were not sweet and beautiful. But
while we justly hold such rare
teachers and spiritual philosophers
in deep reverence for what they are we
should not overpraise them for what they
are not and elevate them above the heads
of tried and stalwart soldiers of action as
we'll as leaders of thought; men of deep
spiritual as well rs bodily scars won in bit
ter cotiict and wrestle with the outside
world of the flesh and the devil.
The merit or consequence of two men of
purity and public parts can no more be
fairly measured by one infexible standard
of public service than you can measure
the value OF the variety of nature by one
standard. Nature made both the oak and
the orchis, but because the orchis, or that
brightest morning star of spring, the trail
ing arbutus, is not cordwood, nor
lumber, nor the spars of mighty ships,
we do not despise the flowers nor sheer at
God, who made them as deliberately as he
planted the forest. Men differ as widely
in their functions and quality as tree and
flower. Some men are made like the oak.
full of stately beauty and shade in life;
full of utility too when the axe ends their
life of beauty and shade; some men are
only like the flower, full of spiritual grace
and beauty of thought, act and expression
A man may fight like hero for great
| principle of human rights and vet do
| business like an impulsiye, contiding
| child. Such men harnessed TO the wheel
| of the world OF affairs are as unequal 10
| the situation as butterfly to the busi-
ness of bald eagle or skylark
| to the work and flight of bat catching
| flies IN the twilight. Rev. Dr. Bartol said
! of his ilIustrious teacher and friend, the
| eloquent DR.. Charming: "If he had been
forced into the streets when young to get
his living he would have starved to death +"
| but fortunately the world knew better
than 10 let a great moral genius and
spiritual teacher be lost TO the pulpit for
lack Of capacity or taste for trade or COM