Essas y Before a Sonata

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    Class PS ^^/7BookV?) E7CopightN /^j^

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    ESSAYS BEFORE ASONATABY .^

    CHARLES EMVES

    Ube ikntcftetbocket pressNEW YORK1920

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    Copyright, 1920BY

    C. E. IVES

    MAV -2 1921

    0)C ,A611985

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    r=

    These prefatory essays were written by the composer for thosewho can't stand his musicand the music for those who can't standhis essays ; to those who can't stand either, the whole is respectfullydedicated.

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    CONTENTS

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    The following pages were written primarily as a preface orreason for the [writer's] second Pianoforte SonataConcord,Mass., 1845, a group of four pieces, called a sonata for wantof a more exact name, as the form, perhaps substance, does notjustify it. The music and prefaces were intended to be printedtogether, but as it was found that this would make a cumber-some volume they are separate. The whole is an attempt topresent [one person's] impression of the spirit of transcendentalismthat is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Mass.,of over a half century ago. This is undertaken in impression-istic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau, a sketch of the Alcotts,and a Scherzo supposed to reflect a lighter quality which is oftenfound in the fantastic side of Hawthorne. The first and lastmovements do not aim to give any programs of the life or ofany particular work of either Emerson or Thoreau but rathercomposite pictures or impressions. They are, however, so generalin outline that, from some viewpoints, they may be as far fromaccepted impressions (from true conceptions, for that matter)as the valuation which they purport to be of the influence ofthe life, thought, and character of Emerson and Thoreau isinadequate.

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    Essays Before a SonataI

    PROLOGUEHow far is anyone justified, be he an authorit}^ or

    a layman, in expressing or trying to express in termsof music (in sounds, if you like) the value of anything,material, moral, intellectual, or spiritual, which isusually expressed in terms other than music? Howfar afield can music go and keep honest as well asreasonable or artistic? Is it a matter limited onlyby the composer's power of expressing what lies inhis subjective or objective consciousness? Or is itlimited by any limitations of the composer? Cana tune literally represent a stonewall with vines onit or with nothing on it, though it (the tune) be madeby a genius whose power of objective contemplationis in the highest state of development? Can it bedone by anything short of an act of mesmerism onthe part of the composer or an act of kindness on thepart of the listener? Does the extreme materializingof music appeal strongly to anyone except to thosewithout a sense of humor or rather with a senseof humor?or, except, possibly to those who3

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    4 PROLOGUEmight excuse it, as Herbert Spencer might by thetheory that the sensational element (the sensationswe hear so much about in experimental psychology)is the true pleasurable phenomenon in music andthat the mind should not be allowed to interfere?Does the success of program music depend more uponthe program than upon the music? If it does, whatis the use of the music, if it does not, what is the useof the program? Does not its appeal depend to agreat extent on the listener's willingness to acceptthe theory that music is the language of the emotionsand only that? Or inversely does not this theorytend to limit music to programs?a limitation asbad for music itselffor its wholesome progress,asa diet of program music is bad for the listener's abil-ity to digest an3^thing beyond the sensuous (orphysical-emotional). To a great extent this dependson what is meant by emotion or on the assump-tion that the word as used above refers more to theexpression, of, rather than to a meaning in a deepersensewhich may be a feeling inifluenced by someexperience perhaps of a spiritual nature in the expres-sion of which the intellect has some part. Thenearer we get to the mere expression of emotion,says Professor Sturt in his Philosophy of Art andPersonality as in the antics of boys who have beenpromised a holiday, the further we get away from art.On the other hand is not all music, program-music,is not pure music, so called, representative in itsessence? Is it not program-music raised to thenth power or rather reduced to the minus nthpower? Where is the line to be drawn between the

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    PROLOGUE 5expression of subjective and objective emotion?It is easier to know what each is than when eachbecomes what it is. The Separateness of Arttheorythat art is not life but a reflection of itthat art is not vital to life but that life is vital to it,does not help us. Nor does Thoreau who says notthat life is art, but that life is an art, which ofcourse is a different thing than the foregoing. Tolstoiis even more helpless to himself and to us. For heeliminates further. From his definition of art wemay learn little more than that a kick in the backis a work of art, and Beethoven's 9th Symphony is not.Experiences are passed on from one man to another.Abel knew that. And now we know it. But whereis the bridge placed?at the end of the road or onlyat the end of our vision? Is it all a bridge?or isthere no bridge because there is no gulf? Supposethat a composer writes a piece of music conscious thathe is inspired, say, by witnessing an act of great self-sacrificeanother piece by the contemplation of acertain trait of nobility he perceives in a friend'scharacterand another by the sight of a mountainlake under moonlight. The first two, from an inspira-tional standpoint would naturally seem to come un-der the subjective and the last under the objective,yet the chances are, there is something of the qualityof both in all. There may have been in the firstinstance physical action so intense or so dramaticin character that the remembrance of it aroused agreat deal more objective emotion than the composerwas conscious of while writing the music. In thethird instance, the music may have been influenced

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    6 PROLOGUEstrongly though subconsciously by a vague remem-brance of certain thoughts and feelings, perhaps ofa deep religious or spiritual nature, which suddenlycame to him upon realizing the beauty of the sceneand which overpowered the first sensuous pleasureperhaps some such feeling as of the conviction ofimmortality, that Thoreau experienced and tellsabout in Wolden. I penetrated to those meadows. . . when the wild river and the woods were bathedin so pure and bright a light as would have wakedthe dead if they had been slumbering in their gravesas some suppose. There needs no stronger proof ofimmortality. Enthusiasm must permeate it, butwhat it is that inspires an art-effort is not easilydetermined much less classified. The word inspireis used here in the sense of cause rather than effect.A critic may say that a certain movement is notinspired. But that may be a matter of tasteperhapsthe most inspired music sounds the least soto thecritic. A true inspiration may lack a true expressionunless it is assumed that if an inspiration is not trueenough to produce a true expression (if there beanyone who can definitely determine what a trueexpression is)it is not an inspiration at all.Again suppose the same composer at another time

    writes a piece of equal merit to the other three, asestimates go; but holds that he is not conscious ofwhat inspired itthat he had nothing definite inmindthat he was not aware of any mental image orprocessthat, naturally, the actual work in creatingsomething gave him a satisfying feeling of pleasureperhaps of elation. What will you substitute for

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    PROLOGUE 7the mountain lake, for his friend's character, etc.?Will you substitute anything? If so why? If sowhat? Or is it enough to let the matter rest on thepleasure mainly physical, of the tones, their color,succession, and relations, formal or informal? Canan inspiration come from a blank mind? Wellhetries to explain and says that he was conscious ofsome emotional excitement and of a sense of somethingbeautiful, he doesn't know exactly whata vaguefeeling of exaltation or perhaps of profound sadness.What is the source of these instinctive feelings,

    these vague intuitions and introspective sensations?The more we try to analyze the more vague theybecome. To pull them apart and classify them assubjective or objective or as this or as that,means, that they may be well classified and that isabout all; it leaves us as far from the origin as ever.What does it all mean? What is behind it all ? Thevoice of God, says the artist, the voice of thedevil, says the man in the front row. Are we, be-cause we are, human beings, born with the powerof innate perception of the beautiful in the abstractso that an inspiration can arise through no externalstimuli of sensation or experience,no associationwith the outward? Or was there present in the aboveinstance, some kind of subconscious, instantaneous,composite image, of all the mountain lakes this manhad ever seen blended as kind of overtones with thevarious traits of nobility of many of this friendsembodied in one personality? Do all inspirationalimages, states, conditions, or whatever they may betruly called, have for a dominant part, if not for a

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    8 PROLOGUEsource, some actual experience in life or of the socialrelation ? To think that they do notalways at leastwould be a relief; but as we are trying to considermusic made and heard by htunan beings (and notby birds or angels) it seems difficult to suppose thateven subconscious images can be separated fromsome human experiencethere must be somethingbehind subconsciousness to produce consciousness,and so on. But whatever the elements and originof these so-called images are, that they do stir deepemotional feelings and encourage their expression isa part of the unknowable we know. They do oftenarouse something that has not yet passed the borderline between subconsciousness and consciousnessan artistic intuition (well named, but)object andcause unknown here is a program conscious orsubconscious what does it matter? Why try totrace any stream that flows through the garden ofconsciousness to its source only to be confrontedby another problem of tracing this source to itssource? Perhaps Emerson in the Rhodora answersby not trying to explain

    That if eyes were made for seeingThen beauty is its own excuse for being:Why thou wert there, O, rival of the roseI never thought to ask, I never knew;But, in my simple ignorance, supposeThe self-same Power that brought me there brought you.Perhaps Sturt answers by substitution: We can-

    not explain the origin of an artistic intuition anymore than the origin of any other primary function

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    PROLOGUE 9of our nature. But if as I believe civilization ismainly founded on those kinds of unselfish humaninterests which we call knowledge and morality it iseasily intelligible that we should have a parallelinterest which we call art closely akin and lendingpowerful support to the other two. It is intelligibletoo that moral goodness, intellectual power, highvitality, and strength should be approved by theintuition. This reduces, or rather brings the prob-lem back to a tangible basis namely:the transla-tion of an artistic intuition into musical soundsapproving and reflecting, or endeavoring to approveand reflect, a moral goodness, a high vitality,etc., or any other human attribute mental, moral, orspiritual.Can music do more than this? Can it do this?

    and if so who and what is to determine the degree ofits failure or success? The composer, the performer(if there be any), or those who have to listen? Onehearing or a century of hearings?and if it isn'tsuccessful or if it doesn't fail what matters it?thefear of failure need keep no one from the attempt forif the composer is sensitive he need but launch fortha countercharge of being misunderstood and hidebehind it. A theme that the composer sets up asmoral goodness may sound like high vitality,to his friend and but like an outburst of nervousweakness or only a stagnant pool to those noteven his enemies. Expression to a great extent is amatter of terms and terms are anyone's. The mean-ing of God may have a billion interpretations ifthere be that many souls in the world.

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    lo PROLOGUEThere is a moral in the Nominalist and Realist

    that will prove all sums. It runs something likethis: No matter how sincere and confidential menare in trying to know or assuming that they do knoweach other's mood and habits of thought, the netresult leaves a feeling that all is left unsaid; for thereason of their incapacity to know each other, thoughthey use the same words. They go on from oneexplanation to another but things seem to stand aboutas they did in the beginning ''because of that viciousassumption. But we would rather believe thatmusic is beyond any analogy to word language andthat the time is coming, but not in our lifetime, whenit will develop possibilities unconceivable now,language, so transcendent, that its heights and depthswill be common to all mankind.

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    II

    EMERSON

    It has seemed to the writer, that Emerson is greaterhis identity more complete perhapsin the realmsor revelationnatural disclosurethan in those ofpoetry, philosophy, or prophecy. Though a greatpoet and prophet, he is greater, possibly, as an invaderof the unknown,America's deepest explorer of thespiritual immensities,a seer painting his discoveriesin masses and with any color that may lie at handcosmic, religious, human, even sensuous; a recorder,freely describing the inevitable struggle in the soul'supriseperceiving from this inward source alone,that every ultimate fact is only the first of a newseries ; a discoverer, whose heart knows, with Vol-taire, that man seriously reflects when left alone,and would then discover, if he can, that wondrouschain which links the heavens with earththe worldof beings subject to one law. In his reflectionsEmerson, unlike Plato, is not afraid to ride Arion'sDolphin, and to go wherever he is carriedto Parnassusor to Musketaquid.We see him standing on a summit, at the door ofthe infinite where many men do not care to climb.

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    12 EMERSONpeering into the mysteries of life, contemplating theeternities, hurling back whatever he discovers there,now, thunderbolts for us to grasp, if we can,and translatenow placing quietly, even tenderly,in our hands, things that we ma}^ see withouteffortif we won't see them, so much the worse forus.We see him,a mountain-guide, so intensely onthe lookout for the trail of his star, that he has notime to stop and retrace his footprints, which mayoften seem indistinct to his followers, who find iteasier and perhaps safer to keep their eyes on theground. And there is a chance that this guide couldnot always retrace his steps if he triedand whyshould he he is on the road, conscious only that,though his star may not lie within walking distance,he must reach it before his wagon can be hitched toita Prometheus illuminating a privilege of theGodslighting a fuse that is laid towards men.Emerson reveals the less not by an analysis of itself,but b}^ bringing men towards the greater. He doesnot try to reveal, personally, but leads, rather, to afield where revelation is a harvest-part, where it isknown by the perceptions of the soul towards theabsolute law. He leads us towards this law, which isa realization of what experience has suggested andphilosophy hoped for. He leads us, conscious that theaspects of truth, as he sees them, may change as oftenas truth remains constant. Revelation perhaps, isbut prophecy intensifiedthe intensifying of itsmason-work as well as its steeple. Simple prophecy,while concerned with the past, reveals but the future,

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    14 EMERSONhe could be both at once. To Cotton Mather, hewould have been a demagogue, to a real demagogue hewould not be understood, as it was with no self inter-est that he laid his hand on reality. The nearer anysubject or an attribute of it, approaches to the perfecttruth at its base, the more does qualification becomenecessary. Radicalism must always qualify itself.Emerson clarifies as he qualifies, by plunging into,rather than emerging from Carlyle's soul-confusinglabyrinths of speculative radicalism. ' ' The radicalismthat we hear much about to-day, is not Emerson'skindbut of thinner fiberit qualifies itself by goingto A root and often cutting other roots in the pro-cess; it is usually impotent as dynamite in its causeand sometimes as harmful to the wholesome progressof all causes; it is qualified by its failure. But theRadicalism of Emerson plunges to all roots, it becomesgreater than itselfgreater than all its formal orinformal doctrinestoo advanced and too conser-vative for any specific resulttoo catholic for allthe churchesfor the nearer it is to truth, the fartherit is from a truth, and the more it is qualified by itsfuture possibilities.Hence comes the difficultythe futility of attempt-ing to fasten on Emerson any particular doctrine,

    philosophic, or religious theory. Emerson wringsthe neck of any law, that would become exclusive andarrogant, whether a definite one of metaphysics oran indefinite one of mechanics. He hacks his wayup and down, as near as he can to the absolute, theoneness of all nature both human and spiritual, andto God's benevolence. To him the ultimate of a

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    EMERSON 15conception is its vastness, and it is probably this,rather than the ** blind-spots in his expression thatmakes us incline to go with him but half-way ; andthen stand and build dogmas. But if we can notfollow all the wayif we do not always clearly perceivethe whole picture, we are at least free to imagine ithe makes us feel that we are free to do so; perhapsthat is the most he asks. For he is but reaching outthrough and beyond mankind, trying to see what hecan of the infinite and its immensitiesthrowingback to us whatever he canbut ever conscious thathe but occasionally catches a glimpse; consciousthat if he would contemplate the greater, he mustwrestle with the lesser, even though it dims an outline;that he must struggle if he would hurl back anythingeven a broken fragment for men to examine andperchance in it find a germ of some part of truth;conscious at times, of the futility of his effort and itsmessage, conscious of its vagueness, but ever hopefulfor it, and confident that its foundation, if not itsmedium is somewhere near the eventual and abso-lute good the divine truth underlying all life. IfEmerson must be dubbed an optimistthen an opti-mist fighting pessimism, but not wallowing in it; anoptimist, who does not study pessimism by learningto enjoy it, whose imagination is greater than hiscuriosity, who seeing the sign-post to Erebus, is strongenough to go the other way. This strength of optim-ism, indeed the strength we find always underlyinghis tolerance, his radicalism, his searches, prophecies,and revelations, is heightened and made efficient byimagination-penetrative, a thing concerned not

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    i6 EMERSONwith the combining but the apprehending of things.A possession, akin to the power, Ruskin says, allgreat pictures have, which depends on the penetra-tion of the imagination into the true nature of thething represented, and on the scorn of the imaginationfor all shackles and fetters of mere external fact thatstand in the way of its suggestiveness a possessionwhich gives the strength of distance to his eyes, andthe strength of muscle to his soul. With this heslashes down through the loamnor would he haveus rest there. If we would dig deep enough only toplant a doctrine, from one part of him, he would showus the quick-silver in that furrow. If we wouldcreed his Compensation, there is hardly a sentencethat could not wreck it, or could not show that theidea is no tenet of a philosophy, but a clear (thoughperhaps not clearly hurled on the canvas) illustrationof universal justiceof God's perfect balances; astory of the analogy or better the identity of polarityand duality in Nature with that in morality. Theessay is no more a doctrine than the law of gravitationis. If we would stop and attribute too much to genius,he shows us that what is best written or done bygenius in the world, was no one man's work, but cameby wide social labor, when a thousand wrought likeone, sharing the same impulse. If we would findin his essay on Montaigne, a biography, we are showna biography of scepticismand in reducing this torelation between sensation and the morals we areshown a true Montaignewe know the man betterperhaps by this less presentation. If we would stopand trust heavily on the harvest of originality, he

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    EMERSON 17shows us that this plantthis part of the gardenisbut a relative thing. It is dependent also on therichness that ages have put into the soil. Everythinker is retrospective.Thus is Emerson always beating down through the

    crust towards the first fire of life, of death and ofeternity. Read where you will, each sentence seemsnot to point to the next but to the undercurrent of all.If you would label his a religion of ethics or of morals,he shames you at the outset, for ethics is but areflection of a divine personality. All the religionsthis world has ever known, have been but the after-math of the ethics of one or another holy person;as soon as character appears be sure love will ;the intuition of the moral sentiment is but theinsight of the perfection of the laws of the soul ;but these laws cannot be catalogued.

    If a versatilist, a modern Goethe, for instance,could put all of Emerson's admonitions into practice,a constant permanence would result,an eternalshort-circuita focus of equal X-rays. Even thevalue or success of but one precept is dependent, likethat of a ball-game as much on the batting-eye as onthe pitching-arm. The inactivity of permanence iswhat Emerson will not permit. He will not acceptrepose against the activity of truth. But this almostconstant resolution of every insight towards theabsolute may get a little on one's nerves, if one is atall partial-wise to the specific; one begins to ask whatis the absolute anyway, and why try to look clearthrough the eternities and the unknowable even outof the other end. Emerson's fondness for flying to

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    ]^ EMERSONdefinite heights on indefinite wings, and the tendencyto over-resolve, becomes unsatisfying to the impatient,who want results to come as they walk. Probablythis is a reason that it is occasionally said that Emer-son has no vital message for the rank and file. He hasno definite message perhaps for the literal, but hismessages are all vital, as much, by reason of hisindefiniteness, as in spite of it.There is a suggestion of irony in the thought that

    the power of his vague but compelling vitality, whichever sweeps us on in spite of ourselves, might nothave been his, if it had not been for those definitereligious doctrines of the old New England theologians.For almost two centuries, Emerson's mental andspiritual muscles had been in training for him in themoral and intellectual contentions, a part of the reli-gious exercise of his forebears. A kind of higher sen-sitiveness seems to culminate in him. It gives hima power of searching for a wider freedom of soul thantheirs. The religion of Puritanism was based to agreat extent, on a search for the unknowable, limitedonly by the dogma of its theologya search for apath, so that the soul could better be conducted tothe next world, while Emerson's transcendentalismwas based on the wider search for the unknowable,unlimited in any way or by anything except the vastbounds of innate goodness, as it might be revealedto him in any phenomena of man, Nature, or God.This distinction, tenuous, in spite of the definite-sounding words, we like to believe has somethingpeculiar to Emerson in it. We like to feel that itsuperimposes the one that makes all transcendental-

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    EMERSON 19ism but an intellectual state, based on the theory ofinnate ideas, the reality of thought and the necessityof its freedom. For the philosophy of the religion, orwhatever you will call it, of the Concord Transcen-dentalists is at least, more than an intellectual stateit has even some of the functions of the Puritanchurchit is a spiritual state in which both soul andmind can better conduct themselves in this world,and also in the nextwhen the time comes. Thesearch of the Puritan was rather along the pathof logic, spiritualized, and the transcendentalistof reason, spiritualizeda difference in a broadsense between objective and subjective contem-plation.The dislike of inactivity, repose and barter, drives

    one to the indefinite subjective. Emerson's lack ofinterest in permanence may cause him to present asubjectivity harsher on the outside than is essential.His very universalism occasionally seems a limitation.Somewhere here may lie a weaknessreal to some,apparent to othersa weakness in so far as his rela-tion becomes less vividto the many; insofar as heover-disregards the personal unit in the universal.If Genius is the most indebted, how much does itowe to those who would, but do not easily ride withit ? If there is a weakness here is it the fault of sub-stance or only of manner? If of the former, there isorganic error somewhere, and Emerson will becomeless and less valuable to man. But this seems im-possible, at least to us. Without considering hismanner or expression here (it forms the general sub-ject of the second section of this paper), let us ask if

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    20 EMERSONEmerson's substance needs an affinity, a supplementor even a complement or a gangplank? And if so, ofwhat will it be composed?Perhaps Emerson could not have risen to his own,

    if it had not been for his Unitarian training and asso-ciation with the churchmen emancipators. Chris-tianity is founded on, and supposes the authorit}^ of,reason, and cannot therefore oppose it, without sub-verting itself. ... Its office is to discern uni-versal truths, great and eternal principles . . . thehighest power of the soul. ' ' Thus preached Channing.Who knows but this pulpit aroused the youngerEmerson to the possibilities of intuitive reasoningin spiritual realms ? The influence of men like Chan-ning in his fight for the dignity of human nature,against the arbitrary revelations that Calvinism hadstrapped on the church, and for the belief in the divinein human reason, doubtless encouraged Emerson inhis unshackled search for the infinite, and gave himpremises which he later took for granted instead ofcarrying them around with him. An overinterest,not an underinterest in Christian ideal aims, mayhave caused him to feel that the definite paths werewell established and doing their share, and that forsome to reach the same infinite ends, more pathsmight be openedpaths which would in themselves,and in a more transcendent way, partake of thespiritual nature of the land in quest,another expres-sion of God's Kingdom in Man. Would you have theindefinite paths always supplemented by the shadowof the definite one of a first influence?A characteristic of rebellion, is that its results are

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    EMERSON 21often deepest, when the rebel breaks not from theworst to the greatest, but from the great to the greater.The youth of the rebel increases this characteristic.The innate rebellious spirit in young men is activeand buoyant. They could rebel against and improvethe millennium. This excess of enthusiasm at theinception of a movement, causes loss of perspective;a natural tendency to undervalue the great in thatwhich is being taken as a base of departure. A''youthful sedition of Emerson was his withdrawalfrom the communion, perhaps, the most socialistic doc-trine (or rather symbol) of the churcha communeabove property or class.

    Picking up an essay on religion of a rather remark-able-minded boyperhaps with a touch of geniuswritten when he was still in college, and so serving asa good illustration in pointwe readEvery think-ing man knows that the church is dead. But everythinking man knows that the church-part of the churchalways has been deadthat part seen by candle-light,not Christ-light. Enthusiasm is restless and hasn'ttime to see that if the church holds itself as nothingbut the symbol of the greater light it is life itselfas a sj^mbol of a symbol it is dead. Many of thesincerest followers of Christ never heard of Him. Itis the better influence of an institution that arousesin the deep and earnest souls a feeling of rebellion tomake its aims more certain. It is their very sinceritythat causes these seekers for a freer vision to strikedown for more fundamental, universal, and perfecttruths, but with such feverish enthusiasm, that theyappear to overthink themselvesa subconscious way

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    22 EMERSONof going Godward perhaps. The rebel of the twen-tieth century says: Let us discard God, immortaHty,miraclebut be not untrue to ourselves. Here he,no doubt, in a sincere and exalted moment, confusesGod with a name. He apparently feels that there is aseparatable difference between natural and revealedreligion. He mistakes the powers behind them, tobe fundamentally separate. In the excessive keennessof his search, he forgets that being true to ourselvesis God, that the faintest thought of immortality isGod, and that God is miracle. Overenthusiasmkeeps one from letting a common experience of aday translate what is stirring the soul. The sameinspiring force that arouses the young rebel, bringslater in life a kind of experience-afterglow, a realiza-tion that the soul cannot discard or limit anything.Would you have the youthful enthusiasm of rebellion,which Emerson carried beyond his youth alwayssupplemented by the shadow of experience?

    Perhaps it is not the narrow minded alone thathave no interest in anything, but in its relation totheir personality. Is the Christian Religion, to whichEmerson owes embryo-ideals, anything but the reve-lation of God in a personalitya revelation so thatthe narrow mind could become opened? But thetendency to over-personalize personality may alsohave suggested to Emerson the necessity for moreuniversal, and impersonal paths, though they beindefinite of outline and vague of ascent. Couldyou journey, with equal benefit, if they were less so?Would you have the universal always supplementedby the shadow of the personal? If this view is ac-

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    EMERSON 23cepted, and we doubt that it can be by the majority,Emerson's substance could well bear a supplement,perhaps an affinity. Something that will supportthat which some conceive he does not offer. Some-thing that will help answer Alton Locke's question:What has Emerson for the working-man? andquestions of others who look for the gangplankbefore the ship comes in sight. Something that willsupply the definite banister to the infinite, which itis said he keeps invisible. Something that will pointa crossroad from his personal to his nature.Something that may be in Thoreau or Wordsworth,or in another poet whose songs breath of a new morn-ing of a higher life though a definite beauty in Nature or something that will show the birth of his idealand hold out a background of revealed religion, as aperspective to his transcendent religiona counter-poise in his rebellionwhich we feel Channing orDr. Bushnell, or other saints known and unknownmight supply.

    If the arc must be completedif there are thosewho would have the great, dim outlines of Emersonfulfilled, it is fortunate that there are Bushnells, andWordsworths, to whom they may appealto saynothing of the Vedas, the Bible, or their own souls.But such possibilities and conceptions, the deeperthey are received, the more they seem to reduce theirneed. Emerson's Circle may be a better whole,without its complement. Perhaps his unsatiabledemand for unity, the need to recognize one naturein all variety of objects, would have been impaired,if something should make it simpler for men to find

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    24 EMERSONthe identity they at first want in his substance.Draw if thou canst the mystic Hne severing rightlyhis from thine, which is human, which divine.Whatever means one would use to personalize Emer-son's natural revelation, whether by a vision or aboard walk, the vastness of his aims and the dignityof his tolerance would doubtless cause him to acceptor at least try to accept, and use magically as a partof his fortune. He would modestly say, perhaps,that the world is enlarged for him, not by findingnew objects, but by more affinities, and potenciesthan those he already has. But, indeed, is notenough manifestation already there? Is not theasking that it be made more manifest forgetting thatwe are not strong by our power to penetrate, butby our relatedness ? Will more signs create a greatersympathy? Is not our weak suggestion needed onlyfor those content with their own hopelessness?

    Others may lead others to him, but he finds hisproblem in making gladness hope and fortitudeflow from his page, rather than in arranging thatour hearts be there to receive it. The first is hisdutythe last ours

    II

    A devotion to an end tends to undervalue themeans. A power of revelation may make one moreconcerned about his perceptions of the soul's naturethan the way of their disclosure. Emerson is moreinterested in what he perceives than in his expressionof it. He is a creator whose intensity is consumed

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    EMERSON 25more with the substance of his creation than withthe manner by which he shows it to others. LikePetrarch he seems more a discoverer of Beauty thanan imparter of it. But these discoveries, these devo-tions to aims, these struggles tow^ard the absolute,do not these in themselves, impart something, ifnot all, of their own unity and coherencewhich isnot received, as such, at first, nor is foremost in theirexpression. It must be remembered that truthwas what Emerson was afternot strength of out-line, or even beauty except in so far as they mightreveal themselves, naturally, in his explorations to-wards the infinite. To think hard and deeply andto say what is thought, regardless of consequences, mayproduce a first impression, either of great translu-cence, or of great muddiness, but in the latter theremay be hidden possibilities. Some accuse Brahms'orchestration of being muddy. This may be a goodname for a first impression of it. But if it shouldseem less so, he might not be saying what he thought.The mud may be a form of sincerity which demandsthat the heart be translated, rather than handedaround through the pit. A clearer scoring mighthave lowered the thought. Carlyle told Emersonthat some of his paragraphs didn't cohere. Emersonwrote by sentences or phrases, rather than by logicalsequence. His underlying plan of work seems basedon the large unity of a series of particular aspects of asubject, rather than on the continuity of its expres-sion. As thoughts surge to his mind, he fills theheavens with them, crowds them in, if necessary, butseldom arranges them, along the ground first. Among

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    26 EMERSONclass-room excuses for Emerson's imperfect coherenceand lack of unity, is one that remembers that hisessays were made from lecture notes. His habit,often in lecturing, was to compile his ideas as theycame to him on a general subject, in scattered notes,and when on the platform, to trust to the moodof the occasion, to assemble them. This seems aspecious explanation, though true to fact. Vague-ness, is at times, an indication of nearness to a per-fect truth. The definite glory of Bernard of Cluny'sCelestial City, is more beautiful that trueprobably.Orderly reason does not always have to be a visiblepart of all great things. Logic may possibly requirethat unity means something ascending in self-evidentrelation to the parts and to the whole, with no ellipsisin the ascent. But reason may permit, even demandan ellipsis, and genius may not need the self-evidentpart. In fact, these parts may be the blind-spotsin the progress of unity. They may be filled withlittle but repetition, Nature loves analogy andhates repetition. Botany reveals evolution notpermanence. An apparent confusion if lived withlong enough may become orderly. Emerson was notwriting for lazy minds, though one of the keenest ofhis academic friends said that, he (Emerson) couldnot explain many of his own pages. But why shouldhe he explained them when he discovered themthe moment before he spoke or wrote them. A rareexperience of a moment at daybreak, when somethingin nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannotbe explained at noon. Yet it is a part of the day'sunity. At evening, nature is absorbed by another

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    EMERSON 27experience. She dislikes to explain as much as torepeat. It is conceivable, that what is unified formto the author, or composer, may of necessity be form-less to his audience. A home-run will cause moreunity in the grand stand than in the season's battingaverage. If a composer once starts to compromise, hiswork will begin to drag on him. Before the end isreached, his inspiration has all gone up in soundspleasing to his audience, ugly to himsacrificed forthe first acoustican opaque clarity, a picture paintedfor its hanging. Easy unity, like easy virtue, iseasier to describe, when judged from its lapses thanfrom its constancy. When the infidel admits God isgreat, he means only: I am lazyit is easier to talkthan live. Ruskin also says: Suppose I like thefinite curves best, who shall say I'm right or wrong?No one. It is simply a question of experience.You may not be able to experience a symphony, evenafter twenty performances. Initial coherence to-daymay be dullness to-morrow probably because formalor outward unity depends so much on repetition,sequences, antitheses, paragraphs with inductionsand summaries. Macaulay had that kind of unity.Can you read him to-day? Emerson rather goesout and shouts : I'm thinking of the sun's glory to-dayand I'll let his light shine through me. I'll say anydamn thing that this inspires me with. Perhaps thereare flashes of light, still in cipher, kept there by unity,the code of which the world has not yet discovered.The unity of one sentence inspires the unity of thewholethough its physique is as ragged as theDolomites.

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    28 EMERSONIntense lightsvague shadowsgreat pillars in

    a horizon are difficult things to nail signboards to.Emerson's outward-inward qualities make him hardto classify, but easy for some. There are many wholike to say that heeven all the Concord menareintellectuals. Perhapsbut intellectuals who weartheir brains nearer the heart than some of theircritics. It is as dangerous to determine a character-istic by manner as by mood. Emerson is a pure intel-lectual to those who prefer to take him as literallyas they can. There are reformers, and in the formlies their interest, who prefer to stand on the plain,and then insist they see from the summit. Indolentlegs supply the strength of eye for their inspiration.The intellect is never a whole. It is where the soulfinds things. It is often the only track to the over-values. It appears a wholebut never becomes oneeven in the stock exchange, or the convent, or thelaboratory. In the cleverest criminal, it is but a wayto a low ideal. It can never discard the other partof its dualitythe soul or the void where the soulought to be. So why classify a quality always sorelative that it is more an agency than substance;a quality that disappears when classified. The lifeof the All must stream through us to make the manand the moment great. A sailor with a preciouscargo doesn't analyze the water.

    Because Emerson had generations of Calvinisticsermons in his blood, some cataloguers, would localizeor provincialize him, with the sternness of the oldPuritan mind. They make him that, hold him there.They lean heavily on what they find of the above

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    EMERSON 29influence in him. They won't follow the rivers in histhought and the play of his soul. And their cousincataloguers put him in another pigeon-hole. Theylabel him ascetic. They translate his outwardserenity into an impression of severity. But truthkeeps one from being hysterical. Is a demagogue afriend of the people because he will lie to them tomake them cry and raise false hopes? A search forperfect truths throws out a beauty more spiritualthan sensuous. A sombre dignity of style is oftenconfused by under-imagination and by surface-senti-ment, with austerity. If Emerson's manner is notalways beautiful in accordance with accepted stand-ards, why not accept a few other standards? He isan ascetic, in that he refuses to compromise contentwith manner. But a real ascetic is an extremist whohas but one height. Thus may come the confusion,of one who says that Emerson carries him high, butthen leaves him always at that heightno highera confusion, mistaking a latent exultation for anascetic reserve. The rules of Thorough Bass can beapplied to his scale of flight no more than they can tothe planetary system. Jadassohn, if Emerson wereliterally a composer, could no more analyze hisharmony than a guide-to-Boston could. A micro-scope might show that he uses chords of the 9th, i ith,or the 99th, but a lens far different tells us they areused with different aims from those of Debussy.Emerson is definite in that his art is based on some-thing stronger than the amusing or at its best thebeguiling of a few mortals. If he uses a sensuouschord, it is not for sensual ears. His harmonies may

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    30 EMERSONfloat, if the wind blows in that direction, through avoluptuous atmosphere, but he has not Debussy'sfondness for trying to blow a sensuous atmospherefrom his own voluptuous cheeks. And so he is anascetic There is a distance between jowl and souland it is not measured by the fraction of an inchbetween Concord and Paris. On the other hand, ifone thinks that his harmony contains no dramaticchords, because no theatrical sound is heard, let himlisten to the finale of Success, or of SpiritualLaws, or to some of the poems, Brahma orSursum Corda, for example. Of a truth his Codasoften seem to crystallize in a dramatic, though sereneand sustained way, the truths of his subjecttheybecome more active and intense, but quieter anddeeper.Then there comes along another set of cataloguers.

    The}^ put him down as a classist, or a romanticist,or an eclectic. Because a prophet is a child of roman-ticismbecause revelation is classic, because eclecti-cism quotes from eclectic Hindu Philosophy, a moresympathetic cataloguer may say, that Emerson in-spires courage of the quieter kind and delight of thehigher kind.The same well-bound school teacher who told theboys that Thoreau was a naturalist because he didn't

    like to work, puts down Emerson as a classic, andHawthorne as a romantic. A loud voice made thisdoubly true and sure to be on the examination paper.But this teacher of truth and dogma apparentlyforgot that there is no such thing as classicism orromanticism. One has but to go to the various

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    EMERSON 31definitions of these to know that. If you go to aclassic definition you know what a true classic is,and similarly a ''true romantic. But if you go toboth, you have an algebraic formula, x = x, a cancella-tion, an apercu, and hence satisfying ; if you go to alldefinitions you have another formula x > x, a destruc-tion, another apercu, and hence satisfying. ProfessorBeers goes to the dictionary (you wouldn't think acollege professor would be as reckless as that). Andso he can say that romantic is pertaining to thestyle of the Christian and popular literature of theMiddle Ages, a Roman Catholic mode of salva-tion (not this definition but having a definition).And so Prof. B. can say that Walter Scott is aromanticist (and Billy Phelps a classicsometimes).But for our part Dick Croker is a classic and Job aromanticist. Another professor. Babbitt by name,links up Romanticism with Rousseau, and chargesagainst it many of man's troubles. He somehowlikes to mix it up with sin. He throws saucersat it, but in a scholarly, interesting, sincere, andaccurate way. He uncovers a deformed foot,gives it a name, from which we are allowed to inferthat the covered foot is healthy and named classi-cism. But no Christian Scientist can prove thatChrist never had a stomach ache. The Architectureof Humanism ^ tells us that ' ' romanticism consists of... a poetic sensibility towards the remote, as such.But is Plato a classic or towards the remote? IsClassicism a poor relation of timenot of man? Isa thing classic or romantic because it is or is not

    ^ Geoffrey Scott (Constable & Co.)

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    32 EMERSONpassed by that biologicthat indescribable stream-of-change going on in all life? Let us settle thepoint for ''good, and say that a thing is classic if itis thought of in terms of the past and romantic ifthought of in terms of the futureand a thing thoughtof in terms of the present iswell, that is impossibleHence, we allow ourselves to say, that Emerson isneither a classic or romantic but bothand both notonly at different times in one essay, but at the sametime in one sentencein one word. And must weadmit it, so is everyone. If you don't believe it,there must be some true definition you haven't seen.Chopin shows a few things that Bach forgotbuthe is not eclectic, they say. Brahms shows manythings that Bach did remember, so he is an eclectic,they say. Leoncavallo writes pretty verses andPalestrina is a priest, and Confucius inspires Scriabin.A choice is freedom. Natural selection is but one ofNature's tunes. All melodious poets shall be hoarseas street ballads, when once the penetrating keynoteof nature and spirit is soundedthe earth-beat,sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the tune to whichthe sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap ofthe trees.An intuitive sense of values, tends to make Emerson

    use social, political, and even economic phenomena,as means of expression, as the accidental notes in hisscalerather than as ends, even lesser ends. Inthe realization that they are essential parts of thegreater values, he does not confuse them with eachother. He remains undisturbed except in rareinstances, when the lower parts invade and seek to

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    EMERSON 33displace the higher. He was not afraid to say thatthere are laws which should not be too well obeyed.To him, slavery was not a social or a political or aneconomic question, nor even one of morals or ofethics, but one of universal spiritual freedom only.It mattered little what party, or what platform, orwhat law of commerce governed men. Was mangoverning himself? Social error and virtue werebut relative.

    This habit of not being hindered by using, but stillgoing beyond the great truths of living, to the greatertruths of life gave force to his influence over thematerialists. Thus he seems to us more a regeneratorthan a reformermore an interpreter of life's reflexesthan of life's facts, perhaps. Here he appears greaterthan Voltaire or Rousseau and helped, perhaps, bythe centrality of his conceptions, he could arouse thedeeper spiritual and moral emotions, without causinghis listeners to distort their physical ones. To provethat mind is over matter, he doesn't place matterover mind. He is not like the man who, because hecouldn't afford both, gave up metaphysics for anautomobile, and when he ran over a man blamedmetaphysics. He would not have us get over-excitedabout physical disturbance but have it accepted asa part of any progress in culture, moral, spiritual oraesthetic. If a poet retires to the mountain-side, toavoid the vulgar unculture of men, and their physicaldisturbance, so that he may better catch a noblertheme for his symphony, Emerson tells him thatman's culture can spare nothing, wants all material,converts all impediments into instruments, all enemies

    3

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    34 EMERSONinto power. The latest product of man's culturethe aeroplane, then sails o'er the mountain andinstead of an inspirationa spray of tobacco-juicefalls on the poet. Calm yourself, Poet saysEmei*son, culture will convert furies into musesand hells into benefit. This wouldn't have befallenyou if it hadn't been for the latest transcendent pro-duct of the genius of culture (we won't say whatkind), a consummation of the dreams of poets, fromDavid to Tennyson. Material progress is but ameans of expression. Realize that man's coarsenesshas its future and will also be refined in the gradualuprise. Turning the world upside down may be oneof its lesser incidents. It is the cause, seldom theeffect that interests Emerson. He can help the causethe effect must help itself. He might have saidto those who talk knowingly about the cause of waror of the last war, and who would trace it downthrough long vistas of cosmic, political, moral evolu-tion and what nothe might say that the cause ofit was as simple as that of any dog-fightthe hog-mind of the minority against the universal mind,the majority. The un-courage of the former fearsto believe in the innate goodness of mankind. Thecause is always the same, the effect different bychance; it is as easy for a hog, even a stupid one,to step on a box of matches under a tenement witha thousand souls, as under an empty bird-house.The many kindly burn up for the few ; for the minor-ity is selfish and the majority generous. The minorityhas ruled the world for physical reasons. Thephysical reasons are being removed by this convert-

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    EMERSON 35ing culture. Webster will not much longer have togrope for the mind of his constituency. The majoritythe peoplewill need no intermediary. Govern-ments will pass from the representative to the direct.The hog-mind is the principal thing that is makingthis transition slow. The biggest prop to the hog-mind is pridepride in property and the power prop-erty gives. Ruskin backs this upit is at thebottom of all great mistakes; other passions dooccasional good, but whenever pride puts in its word. . . it is all over with the artist. The hog-mindand its handmaidens in disorder, superficial bright-ness, fundamental dullness, then cowardice and sus-picionall a part of the minority (the non-people)the antithesis of everything called soul, spirit, Chris-tianity, truth, freedomwill give way more and moreto the great primal truthsthat there is more goodthan evil, that God is on the side of the majority(the people)that he is not enthusiastic about theminority (the non-people)that he has made mengreater than man, that he has made the universalmind and the over-soul greater and a part of theindividual mind and soulthat he has made theDivine a part of all.

    Again, if a picture in economics is before him,Emerson plunges down to the things that are becausethey are better than they are. If there is a row, whichthere usually is, between the ebb and flood tide, inthe material oceanfor example, between the theoryof the present order of competition, and of attractiveand associated labor, he would sympathize withRicardo, perhaps, that labor is the measure of value,

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    36 EMERSONbut embrace, as do generous minds, the propositionof labor shared by all. He would go deeper thanpolitical economics, strain out the self-factor fromboth theories, and make the measure of each prettymuch the same, so that the natural (the majority)would win, but not to the disadvantage of the minor-ity (the artificial) because this has disappeareditis of the majority. John Stuart Mill's politicaleconomy is losing value because it was written by amind more a banker's than a poet's. The poetknows that there is no such thing as the perpetual lawof supply and demand, perhaps not of demand andsupplyor of the wage-fund, or price-level, or incre-ments earned or unearned; and that the existence ofpersonal or public property may not prove the exist-ence of God.Emerson seems to use the great definite inter-

    ests of humanity to express the greater, indefinite,spiritual valuesto fulfill what he can in his realmsof revelation. Thus, it seems that so close a relationexists between his content and expression, his sub-stance and manner, that if he were more definite inthe latter he would lose power in the former,perhapssome of those occasional flashes would have been un-expressedflashes that have gone down through theworld and will flame on through the agesflashes thatapproach as near the Divine as Beethoven in his mostinspired momentsflashes of transcendent beauty,of such universal import, that they may bring, of a'sudden, some intimate personal experience, and pro-duce the same indescribable effect that comes in rareinstances, to men, from some common sensation. In

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    EMERSON 37the early morning of a Memorial Day, a boy is awak-ened by martial musica village band is marchingdown the street, and as the strains of Reeves' majesticSeventh Regiment March come nearer and nearer,he seems of a sudden translateda moment of vividpower comes, a consciousness of material nobility,an exultant something gleaming with the possibilitiesof this life, an assurance that nothing is impossible,and that the whole world lies at his feet. But as theband turns the corner, at the soldiers' monument,and the march steps of the Grand Army become fainterand fainter, the boy's vision slowly vanishes hisworld becomes less and less probablebut theexperience ever lies within him in its reality. Laterin life, the same boy hears the Sabbath morning bellringing out from the white steeple at the Center,and as it draws him to it, through the autumn fieldsof sumach and asters, a Gospel hymn of simpledevotion comes out to himThere's a wideness inGod's mercy an instant suggestion of that Memo-rial Day morning comesbut the moment is of deeperimportthere is no personal exultationno intimateworld visionno magnified personal hopeand intheir place a profound sense of a spiritual truth,a sinwithin reach of forgivenessand as the hymn voices dieaway, there lies at his feetnot the world, but thefigure of the Saviourhe sees an unfathomable cour-age, an immortality for the lowest, the vastness inhumility, the kindness of the human heart, man'snoblest strength, and he knows that God is nothingnothing but love Whence cometh the wonder ofa moment? From sources we know not. But we

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    38 EMERSONdo know that from obscurity, and from this higherOrpheus come measures of sphere melodies^ flowingin wild, native tones, ravaging the souls of men, flow-ing now with thousand-fold accompaniments andrich symphonies through all our hearts; modulatingand divinely leading them.

    Ill

    What is character? In how far does it sustain thesoul or the soul it ? Is it a part of the soul ? And thenwhat is the soul? Plato knows but cannot tellus. Every new-born man knows, but no one tellsus. Nature will not be disposed of easily. Nopower of genius has ever yet had the smallest successin explaining existence. The perfect enigma remains. 'As every blind man sees the sun, so character may bethe part of the soul we, the blind, can see, and thenhave the right to imagine that the soul is each man'sshare of God, and character the muscle which triesto reveal its mysteriesa kind of its first visibleradiancethe right to know that it is the voice whichis always calling the pragmatist a fool.At any rate, it can be said that Emerson's character

    has much to do with his power upon us. Men whohave known nothing of his life, have borne witnessto this. It is directly at the root of his substance,and affects his manner only indirectly. It gives thesincerity to the constant spiritual hopefulness weare always conscious of, and which carries with itoften, even when the expression is somber, a note

    * Paraphrased from a passage in Sartor Resartus.

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    EMERSON 39of exultation in the victories of the innate virtuesof man. And it is this, perhaps, that makes us feelhis couragenot a self-courage, but a sympatheticonecourageous even to tenderness. It is the opencourage of a kind heart, of not forcing opinionsthing much needed when the cowardly, underhandedcourage of the fanatic would force opinion. It is thecourage of believing in freedom, per se, rather thanof trying to force everyone to see that you believe in itthe courage of the willingness to be reformed,rather than of reformingthe courage teaching thatsacrifice is bravery, and force, fear. The courage ofrighteous indignation, of stammering eloquence, ofspiritual insight, a courage ever contracting or unfold-ing a philosophy as it growsa courage that wouldmake the impossible possible. Oliver Wendell Holmessays that Emerson attempted the impossible in theOver-Soulan overflow of spiritual imagination.But he (Emerson) accomplished the impossible inattempting it, and still leaving it impossible. Acourageous struggle to satisfy, as Thoreau saj^s,Hunger rather than the palate the hunger of alifetime sometimes by one meal. His essay on thePre-Soul (which he did not write) treats of that partof the over-soul's influence on unborn ages, andattempts the impossible only when it stops attempt-ing it.

    Like all courageous souls, the higher Emerson soars,the more lowly he becomes. Do you think theporter and the cook have no experiences, no wondersfor you? Everyone knows as much as the Savant.To some, the way to be humble is to admonish the

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    40 EMERSONhumble, not learn from them. Carlyle would haveEmerson teach by more definite signs, rather thaninterpret his revelations, or shall we say preach?Admitting all the inspiration and help that SartorResartus has given in spite of its vaudeville andtragic stages, to many young men getting under wayin the life of tailor or king, we believe it can be said(but very broadly said) that Emerson, either in thefirst or second series of essays, taken as a whole, gives,it seems to us, greater inspiration, partly becausehis manner is less didactic, less personally suggestive,perhaps less clearly or obviously human than Carlyle's.How direct this inspiration is a matter of personalviewpoint, temperament, perhaps inheritance. Au-gustine Birrell says he does not feel itand he seemsnot to even indirectly. Apparently a non-sequa-cious author can't inspire him, for Emerson, seemsto him a little thin and vague. Is Emerson or theEnglish climate to blame for this^ He, Birrell, saysa really great author dissipates all fears as to hisstaying-power. (Though fears for our staying-power,not Emerson's, is what we would like dissipated.)Besides, around a really great author, there are nofears to dissipate. A wise author never allows hisreader's mind to be at large, but Emerson is not awise author. His essay on Prudence has nothing todo with prudence, for to be wise and prudent he mustput explanation first, and let his substance dissolvebecause of it. How carefully, says Birrell again,a really great author like Dr. Newman, or M.Renan, explains to you what he is going to do, andhow he is going to do it. Personally we like the

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    EMERSON 41chance of having a hand in the explaining. Weprefer to look at flowers, but not through a botany,for it seems that if we look at them alone, we see abeauty of Nature's poetry, a direct gift from theDivine, and if we look at botany alone, we see thebeauty of Nature's intellect, a direct gift of the Divineif we look at both together, we see nothing.Thus it seems that Carlyle and Birrell would have

    it that courage and humility have something to dowith explanation and that it is not a respectfor all a faith in the power of innate virtue toperceive by relativeness rather than penetrationthat causes Emerson to withhold explanation to agreater degree than many writers. Carlyle asksfor more utility, and Birrell for more inspiration.But we like to believe that it is the height ofEmerson's character, evidenced especially in hiscourage and humility that shades its quality, ratherthan that its virtue is lessthat it is his height thatwill make him more and more valuable and moreand more within the reach of allwhether it be byutilit}^ inspiration, or other needs of the human soul.Cannot some of the most valuable kinds of utility

    and inspiration come from humility in its highest andpurest forms ? For is not the truest kind of humilitya kind of glorified or transcendent democracythepracticing it rather than the talking itthe not-wanting to level all finite things, but the being willingto be leveled towards the infinite? Until humilityproduces that frame of mind and spirit in the artistcan his audience gain the greatest kind of utility andinspiration, which might be quite invisible at first?

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    42 EMERSONEmerson realizes the value of ''the many,''that thelaw of averages has a divine source. He recognizesthe various life-values i7i realitynot by reason oftheir closeness or remoteness, but because he sym-pathizes with men who live them, and the majoritydo. The private store of reason is not greatwouldthat there were a pubHc store for man, cries Pascal,but there is, says Emerson, it is the universal mind,an institution congenital with the common or over-soul. Pascal is discouraged, for he lets himself be in-fluenced by surface political and religious history whichshows the struggle of the group, led by an individual,rather than that of the individual led by himselfstruggle as much privately caused as privately led.The main-path of all social progress has been spiritualrather than intellectual in character, but the manyby-paths of individual-materialism, though never oblit-erating the highway, have dimmed its outlines andcaused travelers to confuse the colors along the road.A more natural way of freeing the congestion in thebenefits of material progress will make it less difficultfor the majority to recognize the true relation be-tween the important spiritual and religious valuesand the less important intellectual and economicvalues. As the action of the intellect and univer-sal mind becomes more and more identical, theclearer will the relation of all values become. But forphysical reasons, the group has had to depend uponthe individual as leaders, and the leaders with fewexceptions restrained the universal mindtheytrusted to the private store, but now, thanks tothe lessons of evolution, which Nature has been teach-

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    EMERSON 43ing men since and before the days of Socrates, thepublic store of reason is gradually taking the placeof the once-needed leader. From the Chaldeantablet to the wireless message this public store hasbeen wonderfully opened. The results of these les-sons, the possibilities they are offering for ever co-ordinating the mind of humanity, the culmination ofthis age-instruction, are seen to-day in many ways.Labor Federation, Suffrage Extension, are two in-stances that come to mind among the many. In thesemanifestations, by reason of tradition, or the bad-habit part of tradition, the hog-mind of the few (theminority), comes in play. The possessors of thisare called leaders, but even these thick-skins arebeginning to see that the movement is the leader, andthat they are only clerks. Broadly speaking, theeffects evidenced in the political side of history haveso much of the physical because the causes have beenso much of the physical. As a result the leaders forthe most part have been under-average men, withskins thick, wits slick, and hands quick with under-values, otherwise they would not have become leaders.But the day of leaders, as such, is gradually closingthe people are beginning to lead themselvesthepublic store of reason is slowly being openedthecommon universal mind and the common over-soulis slowly but inevitabh^ coming into its own. Leta man believe in God, not in names and places andpersons. Let the great soul incarnated in some poor. . . sad and simple Joan, go out to service and sweepchimneys and scrub floors ... its effulgent daybeams cannot be muffled ... and then to sweep

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    44 EMERSONand scrub will instantly appear supreme and beauti-ful actions . . . and all people will get brooms andmops. Perhaps, if all of Emersonhis works andhis lifewere to be swept away, and nothing of himbut the record of the following incident remained tomenthe influence of his soul would still be great.A working woman after coming from one of his lec-tures said: I love to go to hear Emerson, not be-cause I understand him, but because he looks as thoughhe thought everybody was as good as he was. Isit not the couragethe spiritual hopefulness in hishumility that makes this story possible and true?Is it not this trait in his character that sets him aboveall creedsthat gives him inspired belief in the commonmind and soul? Is it not this courageous universal-ism that gives conviction to his prophecy and thatmakes his S3^mphonies of revelation begin and endwith nothing but the strength and beauty of innategoodness in man, in Nature and in God, the greatestand most inspiring theme of Concord TranscendentalPhilosophy, as we hear it.And it is from such a world-compelling theme

    and from such vantage ground, that Emerson rises toalmost perfect freedom of action, of thought and ofsoul, in any direction and to any height. A vantageground, somewhat vaster than Schelling's conceptionof transcendental philosophya philosophy ofNature become subjective. In Concord it includesthe objective and becomes subjective to nothing butfreedom and the absolute law. It is this underlyingcourage of the purest humility that gives Emersonthat outward aspect of serenity which is felt to so

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    EMERSON 45great an extent in much of his work, especially in hiscodas and perorations. And within this poisedstrength, we are conscious of that original authenticfire which Emerson missed in Shelleywe are con-scious of something that is not dispassionate, somethingthat is at times almost turbulenta kind of furiouscalm lying deeply in the conviction of the eventualtriumph of the soul and its union with God

    Let us place the transcendent Emerson where he,himself, places Milton, in Wordsworth's apostrophe:Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, so didstthou travel on life's common way in cheerfulGodliness.The Godliness of spiritual courage and hopefulnessthese fathers of faith rise to a glorified peace in the

    depth of his greater perorations. There is an oracle 'at the beginning of the Fifth Symphonyin thosefour notes lies one of Beethoven's greatest messages.We would place its translation above the relentless-ness of fate knocking at the door, above the greaterhuman-message of destiny, and strive to bring ittowards the spiritual message of Emerson's revela-tionseven to the common heart of Concordthe Soul of humanity knocking at the door of theDivine mysteries, radiant in the faith that it will beopenedand the human become the Divine

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    Ill

    HAWTHORNEThe substance of Hawthorne is so dripping wetwith the supernatural, the phantasmal, the mysticalso surcharged with adventures, from the deeper

    picturesque to the illusive fantastic, one unconsciouslyfinds oneself thinking of him as a poet of greaterimaginative impulse than Emerson or Thoreau. Hewas not a greater poet possibly than theybuta greater artist. Not only the character of hissubstance, but the care in his manner throws hisworkmanship, in contrast to theirs, into a kind ofbas-relief. Like Poe he quite naturally and uncon-sciously reaches out over his subject to his reader. Hismesmerism seeks to mesmerize usbeyond Zenobia'ssister. But he is too great an artist to show hishand in getting his audience, as Poe and Tschai-kowsky occasionally do. His intellectual musclesare too strong to let him become over-influenced,as Ravel and Stravinsky seem to be by the morbidlyfascinatinga kind of false beauty obtained byartistic monotony. However, we cannot but feelthat he would weave his spell over usas would theGrimms and ^sop. We feel as much under magicas the Enchanted Frog. This is part of the artist's

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    HAWTHORNE 47business. The effect is a part of his art-effort in itsinception. Emerson's substance and even his mannerhas little to do with a designed effecthis thunder-bolts or delicate fragments are flashed out regardlessthey may knock us down or just spatter usitmatters little to himbut Hawthorne is more con-siderate; that is, he is more artistic, as men say.Hawthorne may be more noticeably indigenous

    or may have more local color, perhaps more nationalcolor than his Concord contemporaries. But thework of anyone who is somewhat more interested inpsychology than in transcendental philosophy, willweave itself around individuals and their personalities.If the same anyone happens to live in Salem, hiswork is likely to be colored by the Salem wharvesand Salem witches. If the same anyone happens tolive in the ''Old Manse near the Concord BattleBridge, he is likely of a rainy day to betake himselfto the huge garret, the secrets of which he wondersat, but is too reverent of their dust and cobwebs todisturb. He is likely to bow below the shriveledcanvas of an old (Puritan) clergyman in wig and gownthe parish priest of a century agoa friend ofWhitefield. He is likely to come under the spellof this reverend Ghost who haunts the Manseand as it rains and darkens and the sky glooms throughthe dusty attic windows, he is likely to muse deeplyand wonderingly upon the humiliating fact that theworks of man's intellect decay like those of his hands. . . that thought grows moldy, and as the garretis in Massachusetts, the thought and the moldare likely to be quite native. When the same anyone

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    48 HAWTHORNEputs his poetry into novels rather than essays, he islikely to have more to say about the life around himabout the inherited mystery of the townthan apoet of philosophy is.

    In Hawthorne's usual vicinity, the atmosphere wascharged with the somber errors and romance of eight-eenth century New England,ascetic or noble NewEngland as you like. A novel, of necessity, nails anart-effort down to some definite part or parts of theearth's surfacethe novelist's wagon can't alwaysbe hitched to a star. To say that Hawthorne wasmore deeply interested than some of the other Con-cord writersEmerson, for examplein the idealismpeculiar to his native land (in so far as such idealismof a country can be conceived of as separate from thepolitical) would be as unreasoning as to hold that hewas more interested in social progress than Thoreau,because he was in the consular service and Thoreauwas in no one's serviceor that the War Governor ofMassachusetts was a greater patriot than WendellPhillips, who was ashamed of all political parties.Hawthorne's art was true and typically Americanas is the art of all men living in America who believein freedom of thought and who live wholesome livesto prove it, whatever their means of expression.Any comprehensive conception of Hawthorne,

    either in words or music, must have for its basic themesomething that has to do with the influence of sinupon the consciencesomething more than the Puri-tan conscience, but something which is permeatedby it. In this relation he is wont to use what Hazlittcalls the moral power of imagination. Hawthorne

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    HAWTHORNE 49would try to spiritualize a guilty conscience. Hewould sing of the relentlessness of guilt, the inherit-ance of guilt, the shadow of guilt darkening innocentposterity. All of its sins and morbid horrors, itsspecters, its phantasmas, and even its hellish hope-lessness play around his pages, and vanishing betweenthe lines are the less guilty Elves of the ConcordElms, which Thoreau and Old Man Alcott may havefelt, but knew not as intimately as Hawthorne. Thereis often a pervading melancholy about Hawthorne, asFaguet says of de Musset ''without posture, withoutnoise but penetrating. There is at times the mysti-cism and serenity of the ocean, which Jules Micheletsees in its horizon rather than in its waters. Thereis a sensitiveness to supernatural sound waves.Hawthorne feels the mysteries and tries to paintthem rather than explain themand here, some maysay that he is wiser in a more practical way and somore artistic than Emerson. Perhaps so, but nogreater in the deeper ranges and profound mysteriesof the interrelated worlds of human and spiritual life.

    This fundamental part of Hawthorne is not at-tempted in our music (the 26. movement of the series)which is but an extended fragment trying to sug-gest some of his wilder, fantastical adventures intothe half-childlike, half-fairylike phantasmal realms.It may have something to do with the children'sexcitement on that frosty Berkshire morning, andthe frost imagery on the enchanted hall window orsomething to do with Feathertop, the Scarecrow,and his Looking Glass and the little demons danc-ing around his pipe bowl; or something to do with the

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    50 HAWTHORNEold hymn tune that haunts the church and singsonly to those in the churchyard, to protect themfrom secular noises, as when the circus parade comesdown Main Street; or something to do with the concertat the Stamford camp meeting, or the Slave'sShuffle ; or something to do with the Concord he-nymph, or the Seven Vagabonds, or Circe'sPalace, or something else in the wonderbooknotsomething that happens, but the way somethinghappens; or something to do with the CelestialRailroad, or Phoebe's Garden, or something per-sonal, which tries to be national suddenly attwilight, and universal suddenly at midnight; orsomething about the ghost of a man who never lived,or about something that never will happen, orsomething else that is not.

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    IVTHE ALCOTTS

    If the dictagraph had been perfected in BronsonAlcott's time, he might now be a great writer. As itis, he goes down as Concord's greatest talker. Greatexpecter, says Thoreau; great feller, says SamStaples, for talkin' big . . . but his daughters isthe gals thoughalways doin' somethin'. Old ManAlcott, however, was usually doin' somethin'within. An internal grandiloquence made him melo-dious without; an exuberant, irrepressible, visionaryabsorbed with philosophy as such; to him it was akind of transcendental business, the profits of whichsupported his inner man rather than his family. Ap-parently his deep interest in spiritual physics, ratherthan metaphysics, gave a kind of hypnotic mellifluouseffect to his voice when he sang his oracles ; a mannersomething of a cross between an inside pompousself-assertion and an outside serious benevolence.But he was sincere and kindly intentioned in hiseagerness to extend what he could of the better influ-ence of the philosophic world as he saw it. In fact,there is a strong didactic streak in both father anddaughter. Louisa May seldom misses a chance tobring out the moral of a homely virtue. The power

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    52 THE ALCOTTSof repetition was to them a natural means of illustra-tion. It is said that the elder Alcott, while teachingschool, would frequently whip himself when thescholars misbehaved, to show that the Divine TeacherGodwas pained when his children of the earthwere bad. Quite often the boy next to the bad boywas punished, to show how sin involved the guiltless.And Miss Alcott is fond of working her story around,so that she can better rub in a moral preceptandthe moral sometimes browbeats the story. But withall the elder Alcott's vehement, impracticable, vision-ary qualities, there was a sturdiness and a courageat least, we like to think so. A Yankee boy whowould cheerfully travel in those days, when distanceswere long and unmotored, as far from Connecticutas the Carolinas, earning his way by peddling, lay-ing down his pack to teach school when opportunityoffered, must possess a basic sturdiness. This wasapparently not very evident when he got to preachinghis idealism. An incident in Alcott's life helps con-firm a theorynot a popular onethat men accus-tomed to wander around in the visionary unknownare the quickest and strongest when occasion requiresready action of the lower virtues. It often appearsthat a contemplative mind is more capable of actionthan an actively objective one. Dr. Emerson says:It is good to know that it has been recordedof Alcott, the benign idealist, that when the Rev.Thomas Wentworth Higginson, heading the rush onthe U. S. Court House in Boston, to rescue a fugitiveslave, looked back for his following at the court-roomdoor, only the apostolic philosopher was there cane

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    THE ALCOTTS 53in hand. So it seems that his idealism had somesubstantial virtues, even if he couldn't make a living.The daughter does not accept the father as a proto-

    typeshe seems to have but few of her father's quali-ties in female. She supported the family and atthe same time enriched the lives of a large part ofyoung America, starting off many little minds withwholesome thoughts and many little hearts withwholesome emotions. She leaves memory-word-pictures of healthy, New England childhood days,pictures which are turned to with affection by middle-aged children,pictures, that bear a sentiment, aleaven, that middle-aged America needs nowadaysmore than we care to admit.Concord village, itself, reminds one of that common

    virtue lying at the height and root of all the Concorddivinities. As one walks down the broad-archedstreet, passing the white house of Emersonasceticguard of a former prophetic beautyhe comes pres-ently beneath the old elms overspreading the Alcotthouse. It seems to stand as a kind of homely butbeautiful witness of Concord's common virtueitseems to bear a consciousness that its past is living,that the mosses of the Old Manse and the hickoriesof Walden are not far away. Here is the home of theMarches all pervaded with the trials and happi-ness of the family and telling, in a simple way, thestory of the richness of not having. Within thehouse, on every side, lie remembrances of what ima-gination can do for the better amusement of fortunatechildren who have to do for themselvesmuch-neededlessons in these days of automatic, ready-made, easy

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    54 THE ALCOTTSentertainment which deaden rather than stimulatethe creative faculty. And there sits the little oldspinet-piano Sophia Thoreau gave to the Alcottchildren, on which Beth played the old Scotch airs,and played at the Fifth Symphony.There is a commonplace beauty about Orchard

    House a kind of spiritual sturdiness underlyingits quaint picturesquenessa kind of common triadof the New England homestead, whose overtones tellus that there must have been something aestheticfibered in the Puritan severitythe self-sacrificingpart of the ideala value that seems to stir a deeperfeeling, a stronger sense of being nearer some perfecttruth than a Gothic cathedral or an Etruscan villa.All around you, under the Concord sky, there stillfloats the influence of that human faith melody,transcendent and sentimental enough for the enthu-siast or the cynic respectively, reflecting an innatehopea common interest in common things andcommon mena tune the Concord bards are everplaying, while they pound away at the immensitieswith a Beethovenlike sublimity, and with, may wesay, a vehemence and perseverancefor that part ofgreatness is not so difficult to emulate.We dare not attempt to follow the philosophicraptures of Bronson Alcottunless you will assumethat his apotheosis will show how practical hisvision in this world would be in the next. And sowe won't try to reconcile the music sketch of theAlcotts with much besides the memory of that homeunder the elmsthe Scotch songs and the familyhymns that were sung at the end of each daythough

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    THE ALCOTTS 55there may be an attempt to catch something of thatcommon sentiment (which we have tried to suggestabove)a strength of hope that never

    gives way todespaira conviction in the power of the commonsoul which, when all is said and done, may be astypical as any theme of Concord and its transcen-dentalists.

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    THOREAUThoreau was a great musician, not because heplayed the flute but because he did not have to go

    to Boston to hear the Symphony. The rhythmof his prose, were there nothing else, would determinehis value as a composer. He was divinely consciousof the enthusiasm of Nature, the emotion of herrhythms and the harmony of her solitude. In thisconsciousness he sang of the submission to Nature,the religion of contemplation, and the freedom ofsimplicitya philosophy distinguishing between thecomplexity of Nature which teaches freedom, andthe complexity of materialism which teaches slavery.In music, in poetry, in all art, the truth as one seesit must be given in terms which bear some proportionto the inspiration. In their greatest moments theinspiration of both Beethoven and Thoreau expressprofound truths and deep sentiment, but the intimatepassion of it, the storm and stress of it, affectedBeethoven in such a way that he could not but beever showing it and Thoreau that he could not easilyexpose it. They were equally* imbued with it, butwith different results. A difference in temperamenthad something to do with this, together with a

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    THOREAU 57difference in the quality of expression between thetwo arts. Who that has heard a strain of musicfeared lest he would speak extravagantly forever,says Thoreau. Perhaps music is the art of speakingextravagantly. Herbert Spencer says that some men,as for instance Mozart, are so peculiarly sensitiveto emotion . . . that music is to them but a continua-tion not only of the expression but of the actualemotion, though the theory of some more modernthinkers in the philosophy of art doesn't always bearthis out. However, there is no doubt that in itsnature music is predominantly subjective and tendsto subjective expression, and poetry more objectivetending to objective expression. Hence the poet whenhis muse calls for a deeper feeling must invert thisorder, and he may be reluctant to do so as these depthsoften call for an intimate expression which the physi-cal looks of the words may repel. They tend to revealthe nakedness of his soul rather than its warmth.It is not a matter of the relative value of the aspira-tion, or a difference between subconsciousness andconsciousness but a difference in the arts themselves;for example, a composer may not shrink from hav-ing the public hear his love letter in tones, while apoet may feel sensitive about having everyone readhis letter in words. When the object of the love ismankind the sensitiveness is changed only in degree.But the message of Thoreau, though his fervencymay be inconstant and his human appeal not always

    direct, is, both in thought and spirit, as universal asthat of any man who ever wrote or sangas univer-sal as it is nontemporaneousas universal as it is

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    58 THOREAUfree from the measure of history, as solitude is freefrom the measure of the miles of space that intervenebetween man and his fellows. In spite of the factthat Henry James (who knows almost everything)says that Thoreau is more than provincialthat heis parochial, let us repeat that Henry Thoreau, inrespect to thought, sentiment, imagination, andsoul, in respect to every element except that of placeof physical beinga thing that means so much tosomeis as universal as any personality in literature.That he said upon being shown a specimen grass fromIceland that the same species could be found in Con-cord is evidence of his universality, not of his paro-chialism. He was so universal that he did not needto travel around the world to prove it. I havemore of God, they more of the road. It is notworth while to go around the world to count the catsin Zanzibar. With Marcus Aurelius, if he had seenthe present he had seen all, from eternity and alltime forever.

    Thoreau's susceptibility to natural sounds wasprobably greater than that of many practical musi-cians. True, this appeal is mainly through thesensational element which Herbert Spencer thinksthe predominant beauty of music. Thoreau seemsable to weave from this source some perfect tran-scendental symphonies. Strains from the Orientget the best of some of the modern French musicbut not of Thoreau. He seems more interestedin than influenced hy Oriental philosophy. He ad-mires its ways of resignation and self-contemplationbut he doesn't contemplate himself in the same way.

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    THOREAU 59He often quotes from the Eastern scriptures passageswhich were they his own he would probably omit,i.e., the Vedas say all intelligences awake withthe morning. This seems unworthy of accom-panying the undulations of celestial music foundon this same page, in which an ode to morning issungthe awakening to newly acquired forces andaspirations from within to a higher life than we fellasleep from . . . for all memorable events transpirein the morning time and in the morning atmosphere.Thus it is not the whole tone scale of the Orient butthe scale of a Walden morningmusic in singlestrains, as Emerson says, which inspired many ofthe polyphonies and harmonies that come to us throughhis poetry. Who can be forever melancholy with^olian music like this ?

    This is but one of many ways in which Thoreaulooked to Nature for his greatest inspirations. In herhe found an analogy to the Fundamental of Tran-scendentalism. The innate goodness of Nature isor can be a moral influence; Mother Nature, if manwill but let her, will keep him straightstraightspiritually and so morally and even mentally. If hewill take her as a companion, and teacher, and notas a duty or a creed, she will give him greater thrillsand teach him greater truths than man can give orteachshe will reveal mysteries that mankind haslong concealed. It was the soul of Nature not naturalhistory that Thoreau was after. A naturalist's mindis one predominantly scientific, more interested inthe relation of a flower to other flowers than its rela-tion to any philosophy or anyone's philosophy