Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to that portion of the audience who have remained permanently attached to him. They value his words as the signets of reality; receive his influence as a help and incentive to a nobler discipline than the age, in its general aspect, appears to require; and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of posterity in claiming for him the honors of greatness, and, in some respects, of a master.
In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a class of readers who rejoice to study in his books what they already know by heart. For, though the thought has become familiar, its beautiful garb is always fresh and bright in hue.
A similar circle of "like-minded" persons the books must and do form for themselves, though with a movement less directly powerful, as more distant from its source.
The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges; to that of obscurity, or want of perfect articulation; of "euphuism," as an excess of fancy in proportion to imagination; and an inclination, at times, to subtlety at the expense of strength, have been styled. The human heart complains of inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the writer, to represent its full vocation and its deeper needs. Sometimes it speaks of this want as "under development," or a want of expansion which may yet be remedied; sometimes doubts whether "in this mansion there be either hall or portal to receive the loftier of the passions." Sometimes the soul is deified at the expense of nature, then again nature at that of man; and we are not quite sure that we can make a true harmony by balance of the statements. This writer has never written one good work, if such a work be one where the whole commands more attention than the parts, or if such a one be produced only where, after an accumulation of materials, fire enough be applied to fuse the whole into one new substance. This second series is superior in this respect to the former; yet in no one essay is the main stress so obvious as to produce on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble river or a tree in full leaf. Single passages and sentences engage our attention too much in proportion. These Essays, it has been justly said, tire like a string of mosaics or a house built of medals. We miss what we expect in the work of the great poet, or the great philosopher—the liberal air of all the zones; the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given to a body by free circulation of the heart's blood from the hour of birth. Here is, undoubtedly, the man of ideas; but we want the ideal man also—want the heart and genius of human life to interpret it; and here our satisfaction is not so perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too early to the perpendicular, and did not lie along the ground long enough to hear the secret whispers of our parent life. We could wish he might be thrown by conflicts on the lap of mother earth, to see if he would not rise again with added powers.
All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefiting by the great gifts that have been given, and assigning them their due place.
Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may be supposed to represent the groundwork most immediately congenial to most men, as it is the color of blood, and represents human vitality. The figures traced upon it are instinct with life in its fulness and depth.
But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very different, but no less natural, because also a celestial beauty, is given to their works who choose for their foundation the color of the sunbeam, which Nature has preferred for her most precious product, and that which will best bear the test of purification—gold.
If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at hand. Wine is the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It is her potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, but then it is liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless partaker.
Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls of the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below.
Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead, without their defects or dangers.