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earth becomes green before it, so shall the advancing spirit create ornaments along its path, and carry with it the beauty it visits, and the song which enchants it. It shall draw beautiful faces, warm hearts, wise discourses, and heroic acts around its way, until evil is no more seen. The kingdom of man over Nature, which cometh not with observation-a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God-he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight."

VIII.

THE ESSAYS.

THE two series, published in 1841 and 1847, contain twenty essays, upon a great variety of subjects. In most minds this is the work most distinctively associated with Emerson. It was this which slowly won the profound admiration of Hermann Grimm. The first thing which strikes the reader is the austere condensation of the style in contrast with the florid exuberance of that in "Nature." It bristles with sentences which are epigrams. If one wanted a text for a discourse upon almost any theme, he could scarcely fail to find it in one or another of these essays. We shall pass in rapid succession over some of the varied topics treated, dwelling mainly upon

those which follow a different train of thought from that pursued in "Nature." The essay on "History" is to a great extent a more orderly setting forth the idea of the unity in variety existing throughout the entire realm of Nature. But there are passages which, leaving the domain of the ideal, come down to the generalization of isolated facts in human history. As this:

NOMADISM.

"In the early history of Asia and Europe, nomadism and agriculture are the two antagonist facts. The geography of Asia and Africa necessitated a nomadic life. But the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the advantages of a market had induced to build towns. Agriculture was therefore a religious function because of the perils of the state from nomadism. And in these late and civil countries of England and America, the contest of these propensities still fights out the old battle in each individual. We are all rovers by turns-and pretty rapid turns. The nomads of Africa are constrained to wander by the attacks of the gadfly which drives the cattle mad, and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the rainy season, and drive off the cattle to the higher sandy regions. The nomads of Asia follow the pasturage from month to month. In America and Europe the nomadism is of trade and curiosity—a progress certainly from the gadfly of Astaboras to the Anglomania and Italo-mania of Boston Bay. The Persian court, in its magnificent era, never gave up the nomadism of its barbarous tribes, but traveled from Ecbatana, where the spring was spent, to Susa in summer, and to

Babylon for the winter. Sacred cities to which a periodical religious pilgrimage was enjoined, or stringent laws and customs tending to invigorate the national bond, were the check on the old rovers; and the cumulative values of long residence are the restraints on the itinerancy of the present day."

INTELLECTUAL NOMADISM.

"The antagonism of these two forms is not less active in individuals, as the love of adventure or the love of repose happens to predominate. A man of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty of rapid domestication, lives in his wagon, and roams through all latitudes as easily as a Calmuc. At sea, or in the forest, or in the snow, he sleeps as warm, dines with as good an appetite, and associates as happily as beside his own chimneys. Or perhaps his facility is deeper seated in the increased range of his faculties of observation, which yield him points of interest wherever fresh objects meet his eyes. The pastoral nations were needy and hungry to desperation; and this intellectual nomadism, in its success, bankrupts the mind through the dissipation of power on a miscellany of objects. The home-keeping wit, on the other hand, is that continence or content which finds all the elements of success on its own soil; and which has its own perils of monotony and deterioration, if not stimulated by foreign infusion."

There are some pregnant passages unfolding the reason why men of our day feel such a deep interest in the history of the Greeks. The following might have been written by Charles EmerIt reads like the extract from his "Notes"

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which have been quoted in an early part of this volume :

THE CHARM OF GREEK HISTORY.

"What is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history in all its periods, from the Heroic or Homeric Age down to the domestic life of the Athenians or Spartans, four or five centuries later? What but this, that every man passes personally through a Grecian period? The Grecian state is the state of bodily naturethe perfection of the senses-of the spiritual nature unfolded in strict unity with the body. It existed in those human forms which supplied the sculptor with the models of Hercules, Phoebus, and Jove; not like the forms abounding in the streets of modern cities, wherein the face is a confused blur of features; but composed of incorrupt, sharply defined, and symmetrical features, whose eye-sockets are so formed that it would be impossible for such eyes to squint, and take furtive glances on this side and on that, but they must turn the whole head.

"The manners of that period are plain and fierce. The reverence exhibited is for personal qualities: courage, address, self-command, justice, strength, swiftness, a loud voice, a strong chest. Luxury and elegance are not known. A sparse population and want make every man his own valet, cook, butcher, and soldier; and the habit of supplying his own needs educates the body to wonderful performances. Such are the Agamemnon and Diomed of Homer; and not far different is the picture Xenophon gives of himself and his compatriots in the 'Retreat of the Ten Thousand': 'After the army had crossed the river Teleboas, in Armenia, there fell much snow, and the troops lay miserably on the ground cov

ered with it. But Xenophon arose naked, and taking an axe began to split wood; whereupon the others rose and did the like.' Throughout his army exists a boundless liberty of speech. They quarrel for plunder; they wrangle with the generals on each order; and Xenophon is as sharp-tongued as any, and sharper-tongued than most, and so gives as good as he gets. Who does not see that this is a gang of great boys, with such a code of honor and such lack of discipline as great boys have?"

To the same general principle of sympathy is ascribed the charm of Greek literature and art :

THE CHARM OF GREEK LITERATURE AND ART.

"The costly charm of the ancient tragedy is that the persons speak simply; speak as persons who have great good sense without knowing it, before yet the reflective habit has become the predominant habit of the mind, Our admiration is not admiration of the old, but of the natural. The Greeks are not reflective, but perfect in their senses, with the finest physical organization in the world. Adults acted with the simplicity and grace of children. They made vases, tragedies, and statues, such as healthy senses should-that is, in good taste. Such things have continued to be made in all ages, and are now, wherever a healthy physique exists; but as a class, from their superior organization, the Greeks have surpassed all. They combine the energy of manhood with the engaging unconsciousness of the child. The attraction of their manners is that they belong to man, and are know to every man, in virtue of his being once a child; besides that, there are always individuals who retain these characteristics.

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