The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-03-06

giant and elevating learning can be ap-
propriated and appreciated by any
gooGly representation Of the family of
man. The cultivation of the essay,
putting an estimate upon the essay as
something representative of the loftier
literature of the time, is simply the
conscious and intelligent spreading of
| these humanities, in ever widening
circles by the modern scholar
| 1t would, however, be not only foolish
but futile to claim that interest in the
distribution of these so-called humani-
ties has ceased among the scholarly of
the land, although much doubtless of
scholarly effort has been diverted into
other channels. Nor can we disparage
the claim of our own American scholar
ship to a representative place among
the essay writers of this or any age.
Emerson, although sui generis, and
soorning the trammalS of measured
diction, was perhaps the great inspiring
influence for the generation in which
| he lived. Lowell and Whipple were
great in their respective spheres, as are
Brander Matthews and Woodrow Will
| son III theirs to-day. And SO we are not
| LETT entirely desolate, because Bacon
and Jeffrey, and Wilsonand Allison, and
Talfourd and Stephen and Carlyle are
not the constant faniliarS of our stu
dious hours. But in just that very
| measure in which the eSsayiSt of to-
! Gay fails to cultivate the humanities,
as those older essayistS ever cultivated
them, just to the extent to which the
practical displaces the esthetic in his
| labor, is man robbed of something of
| that Inheritance which should rightfully
constitute him heir of all the ages"
| am conscious that 1 am speaking
only to the select but what an enticing
| flee masonry there is of which we be-
come aware when scholarship brings
us en- rapport as it were, with the great
and good of every time. The thought of
Plato is not too transcendent for our
understanding, nor the virtue of Aris-
| tides too difficult for our emulation, as
| we live for a. moment upon the summit
rlaces of the mind. A word from one
who is gifted to touch the responsive
nature within US, and pageants unroll
| to our Imagination, histories begin and
are completed, great names ascend the
armament of fame and yield their
places to others whose lights become
new harbingers of happiness or woe, but
still humanity's march goes on, moving
to that majestic music which God re-
peats.
AS intellectual and moral beings, as
lovers of our race and proud of its
achievements. as men and women in
separately bound with the great multi
tudes of humanity in their present hap
piness and in their eternal destiny, can
we unprotestingly suffer the loss of
this great human influence which ele-
giant culture has been so potent IN ex-
erting? These 1oftier themes of con-
temptation "hold from the SOUL" and
under the influence of such Emerson
says. "all that Shakespeare writes of
the King. the slip of a boy that reads
feels to be true of himself. We come
to sympathize in the great moments OF
history, in the great discoveries, the
great resistances, the great properties
of men, because there law was enacted.
the sea was searched, the land was
found, the blow was struck for US, as
we ourselves in that place would have
done or applauded.'
Beings then such as we conceive our
selves to be- cannot rest contentedly
upon the lower levels of intellectual and
moral Accomplishment. Beautiful let
tiers, of which the essay has frequently
constituted SO important part, should
continue to be enriched by the work
of men who feel that human sympathy
which binds man to man in one indis-
soluble bond, so that each noble IL
braly, the treasure house of an increas-