網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

your known opinions. I am not a stock or a stone, as one said in the old time, and could not feel but pain in saying some things in that place and presence which I supposed would meet with dissent, and the dissent I may say of dear friends and benefactors of mine. Yet, as my conviction is perfect in the substantial truth of the doctrines of this discourse, and is not very new, you will see at once that it must appear very important that it be spoken; and I thought I could not pay the nobleness of my friends so mean a compliment as to suppress my opposition to their supposed views out of fear of offence. I would rather say to them-These things look thus to me, to you otherwise. Let us say our uttermost word, and be the all-pervading truth, as it surely will, judge between us. Either of us would, I doubt not, be equally apprised of his error. Meantime I shall be admonished by this expression of your thought to revise with great care the Address' before it is printed (for the use of the class), and I heartily thank you for this expression of your tried toleration and love."

[ocr errors]

This was followed by a sermon against Emerson's views, a copy of which was sent to him with a letter, to which he replied as follows:

"I ought sooner to have replied to your kind letter of last week, and the Sermon it accompanied. The letter was right manly and noble. The sermon, too, I have read with attention. If it assails any doctrine of mine-perhaps I am not so quick to see it as writers generally-certainly I did not feel any disposition to depart from my habitual contentment that you should say your thought, whilst I say mine. I believe I must tell you what I think of my new position. It strikes me very oddly that good and wise men, and Cambridge and Boston, should think of raising me into an object of criticism. I have always been, from my very incapa

city of methodical writing, 'a chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to rail, lucky when I could make myself understood, but never esteemed near enough to the institutions and mind of society to deserve the notice of the masters of literature and religion. I have appreciated fully the advantages of my position, for I well know that there is no scholar less willing or less able to be a polemic. I could not give account of myself, if challenged. I could not possibly give you one of the arguments you cruelly hint at, on which any doctrine of mine stands. For I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me why I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer, so that in the present posture of affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised to the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage, who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall do no such thing. I shall read what you and other good men write, as I have always done, glad when you speak my thoughts, and skipping the page that has nothing for me. I shall go on just as before, seeing whatever I can, and telling what I see; and, I suppose, with the same fortune that has hitherto attended me; the joy of finding that my abler and better brothers, who work with the sympathy of society, loving and beloved, do now and then unexpectedly confirm my perception, and find my nonsense is only their own thought in motley. And so I am your affectionate servant, R. W. E."

We have now spoken of about one half of Mr. Emerson's labors. He has published a second series of Essays, and a volume of Poems. The Second Series of Essays are nine in number, and consist of the Poet, Experience, Character, Man

ners, Gifts, Nature, Politics, Nominalist and Realist, and New England Reformers. It would occupy too much space to speak of these in detail, or to quote largely from them, laden as they are with original thought, apt expression, and felicitous illustration. We believe no one has ever gone to the heart of the matter like Mr. Emerson has in his Essay on the Poet. It is a fine statement of the intellectuality of Poetry-not Hazlitt, nor Wilson, nor Macaulay, nor Talfourd, nor Lamb,

-and we believe these are the most eminent among modern critics who have ever got anear the subject; they have discoursed about it, and essayed on it, and lectured of it, but not one of these ever got to the head of the matter like our author. Arriving there, he tells us of it, and we are for ever satisfied, for at last he has expounded the secret, and with him we know, but feel not. It is a difficult matter to refrain from quoting, but necessity compels us. And though we may not quote further, we have still something to say about them; we have to record our regret that these earnest, sincere, and truthful words should be so little known-so little known in his own country even-we have to record our regret that no able brother of universal truth has stepped forth to rescue his name from the aspersions cast upon his character as a teacher. Carlyle, it is true, introduced him to the English public; but it is one thing to introduce a man to a new world, and another thing to help and aid him therein. It may be that Carlyle thought an introduction was sufficient; it may even be that Emerson thought so also, and trusted to the intrinsic worth of his thought to work its way in the minds of men; but still we cannot help expressing our regret that the greatest man in the 19th century should be

so little known, so barefacedly robbed, and so carped at by the Pharisees of the day, without any one stepping forth to take up his cause, and show that he is not the person they represent him.

We were going to say, to any unprejudiced mind Emerson's writings must commend themselves; we were going to say this, when the difficulty struck us of finding any unprejudiced mind. We are all prejudiced, either by birth, or habit, or education, and therefore we can only hope for two classes who will appreciate Emerson--the highly cultured and the ignorant; these last, however, must be those that think for themselves. It is the middle class, the men who have a smattering of all things and know nothing entirely, to whom Emerson appears as an Atheist, a Pantheist, and an Infidel. To the first he approves himself a man—a great and worthy teacher; and to the last he is new life, new light—a spiritual sun which shines as freely, as warmly on their hearts as the sun of nature does upon their bodies. We have felt the truth of what we say, and therefore do not feel any diffidence in telling our experience. We belong to the lowest class; we have believed with our fathers and elders, we have doubted and thought, thought earnestly and long, and found comfort, and joy, and pleasure in the instruction Emerson has afforded us. His views have been to us a new existence, or rather have shown us the true value of the existence God has already given to us. His views have set us on our feet again, and gave us hope, and heart, and courage, when all else has proved vain, authoritative, and arbitrary. Our study of Emerson has not been exclusive; we have had time to taste of most of the poetry and philosophy writ

ten in the English language from Chaucer downwards; and we again declare that we know of no author that is so full of suggestion, speaks so directly to the heart, and is so free from the prejudices of the time, and the fashions in which we live. Bacon, the great Lord Bacon, sinks to a mere politician alongside Emerson. But we do not, nevertheless, undervalue Bacon; he was a great man in his time, and exercised a wide influence upon his age and ages after. But he was neither so deep-seeing nor so true-spoken as Emerson; for proof take any Essay these two have written on the same subject—' Love,' for instance

-and compare them, and see how much one excels the other. Bacon's spirit, great as it was (and it was marvellous for his age), never mounted so high, never extended so wide, never descended so low as Emerson's. There is one reason, however, that is obvious why our author should greatly eclipse these luminaries, and that is, he has had all their light, all their genius to assist his own. We can trace in his writings many thoughts he has got from Chaucer, Sidney, Herbert, Shakspeare, Bacon, the Elder Dramatists, from the Greeks, from the Romans, from the Hindoos, from the Scandinavians, from the Germans, and lastly from his own experience, on which last he himself sets most value, and justly, seeing that all his teachers' worth was thus obtained. Truth being universal, and not anything exclusive, to those who will receive it is as common as the air we breathe, and, like the best of all things, should be most acceptable. Emerson and his philosophy are as remarkable things in this age as are the locomotive, the electric telegraph, and the daguerreotype. They are, too, exercising as deep an influence, slowly but surely winning men to look

« 上一頁繼續 »