EMERSON'S ESSAYS.
I have not yet been able to decide whether it is better to read certain of Emerson's essays as poetry or philosophy. Perhaps, though, it would be no more than just to consider them as an almost complete and perfect union of the two. Certainly, no modern writer has more of vivid individuality, both of thought and expression,—and few writers, of any age, will better bear reperusal, or surpass him in the grand merit of suggestiveness. There is much in his books that I cannot clearly understand, and passages sometimes occur that once seemed to me destitute of meaning; but I have since learned, from a greater familiarity with what he has written, to respect even his obscurities, and to have faith that there is at all times behind his words both a man and a meaning.