Puritanism was now two hundred years ancient, but the temper of it still survived in New England; that is, people were painfully anxious to do right, and looked up to teachers who had studied such problems. They were willing to gather in meeting places, and be advised what they should do, and to pay a modest stipend to the adviser. So this young rebel was able to earn the simple living which sufficed everyone in Concord in those days. He studied the world’s best literature in several languages, he thought earnestly and wrote honestly, and was a model of dignity, kindness, and wisdom.
His most popular lectures are known to us as “Emerson’s Essays.” I read them in youth, and owe to them a tribute of gratitude. First of all, they teach self-reliance, the most fundamental of the pioneer virtues. It was by self-reliant men that New England was made; and in this atmosphere of extreme individualism, it was impossible for a philosopher to value the equally fundamental virtue of solidarity. Emerson has no conception of a co-operative world, and believes that he has done his duty to his fellows by courtesy and the speaking of the truth.
The essays are formless, consisting of scattered paragraphs and random reflections. They are not always easy to interpret, because they soar into regions of the absolute, where every statement is equally as untrue as it is true. The bearings depend upon the application; so that we have to know Emerson’s whole thought, and his life. Applying the highest tests, we find his doctrine a little thin and his example a little tame. He lived through stern times, and while his voice was always on the right side, we feel that he might have been more prompt and more vigorous. His optimism is beautiful, but a trifle lacking in content. We want a man to put more reality into his writings, to show us how to deal with the grim and hateful facts of life. Emerson makes a cryptic statement—
I am owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Caesar’s hand, and Plato’s brain,
Of Lord Christ’s heart, and Shakespeare’s strain.
We say: yes, perhaps; but most of us find it difficult to get the Shakespeare strain to come out of us. Likewise, we do not know quite how to reconcile Lord Christ with Caesar; nor can we always get Lord Christ to agree with Shakespeare—watch the scoffing this book will cause among the critics! You see how these mystic utterances are liable to be misunderstood; and how it was possible for the transcendentalist movement, which produced Emerson, to produce also the horrors of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.”
On the other hand, when Emerson deals with justice and liberty in New England he can deliver as heavy a punch as Byron: for example, his “Boston Hymn,” discussing the question of compensation for the enfranchised slaves—
Pay ransom to the owner,
And fill the bag to the brim.
Who is the owner? The slave is owner,
And ever was. Pay him.
I have discussed these lines in “The Book of Life,” and suggested how much cheaper it would have been to pay the owners than to fight the Civil War. I overlooked the fact that this “Boston Hymn” was written after the Civil War was on. Emerson, combining Yankee economy with wise humanity, had all along been advocating the sensible course of freeing the slaves by purchase.
We think of this Concord sage as a philosopher, and less often as a poet. But he was a great poet; at his best he is among the immortals. Not only is there wisdom and moral beauty in his verse; there is love of nature, and there is passion. People sometimes died young in Concord, just as they did in old England and in Greece, and poets poured their sorrow into song. Emerson’s “Threnody,” written upon the death of his five-year-old son, is lacking in all the classical paraphernalia of Milton’s “Lycidas,” but it is full of such beauty and fervor as are native to our country, and I see no reason why we Americans should devote all our time to the worship of foreign gods. If our colleges must teach the classics, to the exclusion of modern work, let them at least teach our native classics, which are easier for us to understand.
I propose a motto for our youth: See Emerson first!