a child; he did not know it when he was a boy; but, as his mind expands, all is slowly revealed to him; revealed to him by every effort he makes in this direction or against it. For, when he is laboring against his proper calling, he finds himself met with obstacles that increase as he goes. When he is following his proper mission, the leading of his inward guide, he is assisted by every step which he takes. The purpose for which he is made is always becoming more clear to him. I believe that for every active mind, in its own direction, there is a thought waking every morning, a new thought; that every day brings new instruction and facility; that even in the dreams of the night we are helped forward. There is a great difference in our activity of mind. Sometimes we have heavy periods, when we don't think for days or weeks or months; then, periods of activity. I think these depend very much upon ourselves, upon our good behavior. If we use our opportunities, opportunities are multiplied. If we neglect them, if we give up to idle pleasures and amusements, they are withdrawn. The idle person ceases to have thoughts. The active person is always assisted. There are a great many mysterious facts in our history, which the mind, attentive to itself, will always discover, and the admonitions that come thence."

The interest manifested in his conversational address to this company of colored students was one of many indications that the prophet was at last accepted by his countrymen. Yet his own modesty forbade his assuming any honors to himself; and he said to these students, "I am not in the habit of speaking with classes of young persons very much. And I myself, I ought to say, am a solitary man, living in the country, and seeing few people. Now and then I go to Boston or elsewhere and read a paper to a class, but seldom speak in any other manner." Had he been less modest, less retiring and reticent, he would have made a greater outward impression upon his country; but his real power and influence have been more subtly felt and more deeply exerted, because he has sought no applause and desired no praise. He has persistently refused to believe that his influence has been great upon American thought, modestly shrinking from the praises of his co-workers, and saying that his success was owing to the time in which he has lived.

The experiences of these ten years, including the period of the great Rebellion and the work of recon

struction of the Republic, made Emerson more than ever the prophet of good and the inspirer of hope. Age brought with it an even warmer glow of interest in his fellow-men; and the new life of the Republic brought to him an enlarged perception of the organic life of the race in its relations to morals and religion. He came to see a new value in a united religious life for the people, though abating no jot of his soul-trust. As much as ever he rejected religion as a piece of history, as a repetition of what had been said of old time; but he realized more than before how it is that great deeds can be accomplished by the common faith and intuitions of a people. He came more and more to live in an atmosphere of calm and abiding faith, to believe with an even more pronounced conviction that all things work together for good.

XIII.

THE VOICE AT EVE.

ARLY in the morning of July 24, 1872, Emerson discovered that his house was on fire. The roof and the upper rooms were much burned; but every thing was speedily removed by his neighbors, including his library and manuscripts. The family found refuge in the "Old Manse."

Oct. 15 he attended a complimentary dinner in New York in honor of James Anthony Froude, and made a brief address.. He said that Froude "has shown at least two eminent faculties in his histories, the faculty of seeing wholés, and the faculty of seeing and saying particulars. The one makes history valuable; the other makes it readable, interesting." He also said that "the language, the style of his books, draws very much of its excellence from the habit of giving the very language of the times." During this month he set out for Europe with his daughter. He went to Egypt, and, returning, spent several weeks in Paris. In England he was cordially received by his friends. He spent a month in London, then visited Oxford, and made trips into Wales and Scotland. At Oxford he was invited to deliver a course of lectures, at the suggestion of Max Müller, but did not do so. He spoke at Thomas Hughes's Workingmen's College in London. He made a visit to Lord Amberley, and he found new delight in his friendship for Carlyle. His old friends were not forgotten, and his visit was made by them a festival. "I know no American, indeed there can be no other," wrote one of his admirers at this time, "who has in England a company of such friends and disciples as those who gather about Mr. Emerson; no one for

66

whom so many rare men and women have a reverence so affectionate; no one who holds to the best section of English students, and of her most religious and cultivated minds, a relation so delightful to both. The incomparable charm of his manner and of his conversation remains what it always was, and marked always by the same sweetness, the same delicacy, mingled with the same penetration and force."1 This interest was shown in the organization in England, in 1869, of an association devoted to the publication and diffusion of the works of Carlyle and Emerson. Its kindred objects were the diffusion of education, relief of pauperism, elevation of woman, securing of international peace, the broadening of the national church to include all thinkers, and the diffusion of art and culture.

During his absence his house was rcbuilt in exactly the old form. On his return, in May, 1873, he was received with music and a procession by his neighbors, who most cordially welcomed him home. This reception was as surprising to him as it was gratifying. The fine new Free-Library building in Concord, built by William Munroe, a citizen of the town, was dedicated Oct. 1; and Emerson delivered the address. He gave an interesting account of the value and uses of books and libraries.

"I think it not easy, he said, to exaggerate the utility of the beneficence which takes this form. If you consider what has befallen you when reading a poem, or a history, or a tragedy, or a novel even, that deeply interested you, how you forgot the time of day, the persons sitting in the room, and the engagements for the evening, you will easily admit the wonderful property of books to make all towns equal; that Concord Library makes Concord as good as Rome, Paris, or London, for the hour, has the best of each of those cities in itself. Robinson Crusoe, could he have had a shelf of our books, could almost have done without his man Friday, or even the arriving ship.

"The chairman of Mr. Munroe's trustees has told you how old is the foundation of our village library; and we think we can trace in our modest records a correspondent effect of culture amidst our citizens. A deep religious sentiment is in all times an inspirer of the intellect, and that was not wanting here. The town was set

1 George W. Smally, in The New York Tribune.

tled by a pious company of nonconformists from England; and the printed books of their pastor and leader, Rev. Peter Bulkeley, testify the ardent sentiment which they shared. The religious bias of our founders had its usual effect, - to secure an education to read their Bible and hymn-book; and thence the step was easy for active minds to an acquaintance with history and with poetry. Peter Bulkeley sent his son John to the first class that graduated in Harvard College, in 1642, and two sons to later classes. Major Simon Willard's son Samuel graduated at Harvard in 1659, and was for six years, from 1701 to 1707, vice-president of the college; and his son Joseph was president of the college from 1781 to 1804; and Concord counted fourteen graduates of Harvard in its first century, and its representation there increased with its gross population.”

After speaking of Thoreau and Hawthorne, and their interest in books, he passes on to say,

"Literature is the record of the best thoughts. Every attainment and discipline which increases a man's acquaintance with the invisible world, lifts his being. Every thing that gives him a new perception of beauty, multiplies his pure enjoyments. A river of thought is always running out of the invisible world into the mind of man. Shall not they who received the largest streams spread abroad the healing waters?

"Homer and Plato and Pindar and Shakspere serve many more than have heard their names. Thought is the most volatile of all things. It can not be contained in any cup, though you shut the lid never so tight. Once brought into the world, it runs over the vessel which received it into all minds that love it. The very language we speak thinks for us by the subtle distinctions which already are marked for us by its words, and every one of them is the contribution of the wit of one and another sagacious man in all the centuries of time. Consider that it is our own state of mind at any time that makes our estimate of life and the world. If you sprain your foot, you will presently come to think that Nature has sprained hers. Every thing begins to look so slow and inaccessible. And when you sprain your mind, by gloomy reflections on your failures and vexations, you come to have a bad opinion of life. Think how indigent Nature must appear to the blind, the deaf, and the idiot. Now, if you can kindle the imagination by a new thought, by heroic histories, by uplifting poetry, instantly you expand, -are cheered, inspired, and become wise, and even prophetic. Music works this miracle for those who have a good ear; what omniscience has music! so absolutely impersonal, and yet every sufferer feels his secret sorrow reached. Yet to a scholar the book is as good or better. There is no hour of vexation which, on a little reflection, will not find diversion and relief in the library. His companions are few; at the moment he