Literature is the most satisfactory of all professions, but it is also the most difficult to succeed in. The high-minded writer easily finds themes congenial to his own lofty thoughts, and in the contemplation of these and the companionship of fine books he escapes the weariness and loneliness which often pursue those who are engaged in the busiest avocations. His life is like working in a rose-garden: beautiful images are always before him. His time is his own: he can arrange his own hours for study, rest, and recreation. Especially he can avoid the friction and annoyance of dealing with rude and uncongenial people.
But how is he to persuade others to take an interest in these subjects? The currents of men's thoughts run in certain habitual channels, and to change their course, as every writer who becomes popular is sure to do, is sometimes as great an undertaking as changing the bed of a river. It requires many years for some to be appreciated, and others never are. "We know those who have reached the goal, but who can tell how many have fallen by the way?" Emerson's term of probation, however, was a short one. More fortunate than many, there was a demand for him before he came. Besides the so-called transcendental movement carried him forward in a swift current. He said of it: "At first everybody laughed at me. Then I had ten readers; then a hundred; and then a thousand." And those who laughed at him at first were his most devoted admirers after he had become famous.
If Emerson had not inherited a good property early in life, his career would hardly have been possible. He never was able to publish more than a third of what he wrote, and his books were not a source of large profit to him. He was obliged to make up the deficiency by lecturing. With what fortitude he did this, considering his slender physique, travelling long distances in the coldest weather over such railroads as then were, with a dismal hotel and bad food at the end of every journey, will always be remembered of him. No wonder that he consoled himself with such maxims as, "No man has ever estimated his own troubles too lightly," and such verses as, "Cast the bantling on the rock." Truly it was severe discipline. At Niagara Falls in 1863 the hotel caught fire and Emerson rushed forth at midnight, manuscripts in hand, as Caesar formerly swam with his "Commentaries" from a sinking vessel. The compensation for it was that in this way he made the acquaintance of many interesting and distinguished persons. It also added to his celebrity.
He was the same under all circumstances. It has been said that in his poems we feel the essayist; but perhaps even more we recognize the poet in his essays. So too in his conversation at table and in the parlor, there was something that reminded one of the lecturer: when he appeared on the platform before his audience he was always the plain country gentleman. He affected no graces of oratory, and shunned everything like rhetorical flourish. He was the first of our public speakers to introduce this improvement which has since found its way into the court-room and the theatre. His manner was direct, terse and earnest, with an habitual pause or hesitation to select just the right verb or adjective that would convey the idea he wished to express. His delivery was suited to his thought. His hearers were not commonly pleased with it at first, but if they continued to listen most of them came to have a great liking for it. He had a habit of pausing now and then and turning over the pages before him, as if he had lost his place or was looking for a passage which he could not find; but he never made any explanation for it, and his own family did not know the reason. It may have been done to rest himself; or perhaps to give time for his ideas to settle in the minds of his audience. Some people were foolishly annoyed by it; but not those who understood him. He used to say that either a speaker commands his audience, or his audience commands him.
He was the best lecturer of his time: the one who wore the best. Between 1860 and 1870 he gave four courses of lectures in Boston which were well and profitably attended. No one else could have done this, except perhaps Agassiz. There were others who drew larger houses, but the quality was not so good. Very rarely have such cultivated and intellectual audiences been brought together. A few of his most ardent admirers used to carry opera-glasses with them in order to watch the expression of his face.
William Robinson, the ablest political critic of that time, wrote in 1868, "In spite of an increased hesitation in his delivery Emerson is of all men the one most worth hearing, even better than Phillips and his matchless oratory." He had the most telling way of saying a thing, and knew how to give their full force to his wonderfully brilliant sentences. These would sometimes electrify his hearers, as people are roused on the announcement of some great and fortunate event.
He liked the society of statesmen, scientists, business men, railroad managers, of all who could tell him about what was going on in the world—something, he complained, that the newspapers would not do for him. He preferred their society to that of other poets and scholars. Though an unlimited reader of books he was not properly a scholar himself, and perhaps he felt his own limitation too much in their company.
He studied little at college and it is doubtful if he afterwards made a thorough and systematic investigation of any subject. He was called a philosopher, but he knew little more than the outlines of metaphysics. He could read French fairly, but Latin was the only language with which he was well acquainted. Carlyle tried to persuade him to study German. He did not believe in study, but in the inspiration of nature. This did well enough for him, but he made a mistake in applying the same principle to others.
He was wont to excuse Alcott's rambling rhapsodical conversations on the ground that it was the only talent the man had, that he must do that or nothing; but many people considered that Emerson was more to blame in the matter than Alcott himself. A person who makes a profession of philosophy, as Alcott certainly did, ought to be well acquainted with the writings of other philosophers of his own time; and it surely would have done no harm for Emerson to have suggested this to him. When the Boston Radical Club was formed Emerson thought it would be a good opportunity for Alcott to place his ideas before the public, but Alcott found himself at a disadvantage among the scholarly minds he encountered there.
At the close of his essay on Plato Emerson says, "I am sorry to see him after so many fine thoughts throwing a little mathematical dust in our eyes." Does he partially expose here a peculiarity in his literary procedure? Other people do not read Plato for his fine thoughts, though there are many such, but for the charm of his discourse and his beautiful exposition of Greek Philosophy. From this and from hints let fall in conversation we may suspect that he read books not so much for what was in them as for ideas which they suggested to him, and which he might make use of in his essays and lectures. Alcott said that he carried slips of paper with him on which to jot down these considerations by the way. Thus he came to value books too much from a single point of view, and his friends were sometimes surprised at what he recommended them to read. He would estimate a second-rate novel like "Christie Johnstone" above Thackeray's "Newcomes."