Emerson’s writings call for thought in the reader. They demand that one should stop and ask questions, should translate what one has read into one’s own ordinary speech, and inquire again if it is true. No one should read Emerson who is not willing to have his own weakness disclosed to him, and who is not prepared also to test what he finds by a standard which is above both writer and reader.—Horace E. Scudder.
There are living organisms so transparent that we can see their hearts beating and their blood flowing through their glassy tissues. So transparent was the life of Emerson; so clearly did the true nature of the man show through it. What he taught others to be he was himself. His deep and sweet humanity won him love and reverence everywhere among those whose natures were capable of responding to the highest manifestations of character.—Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Though Emerson had reached a great age, we were not ready to part with him. He was an important friend, companion, kinsman, fellow-citizen, to the last; a wayfarer everybody was glad to meet; one whose enemy none could continue to be; a charmer whose spell was not to be escaped. With his imagination for an eye, Emerson was a perceiver, and he respected perception in himself and others, being as quick and glad to quote their perceptions as to announce his own. He notes, cites, and lauds every scrap of insight, or ripple of tidings over the ocean that heaves from the unknown shore towards which he sails.—Rev. C. A. Bartol.
Emerson’s faith in America is justified whether we trust in the capacities of the individual soul, or whether our expectation grows from the promises of a new civilization. America brings together the races of the world as no nation or time ever did before, and Emerson’s hope for America may yet be justified by a literature in harmony with the new time.—George Willis Cooke.