RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

IN literature the historian records less of action than of thinking. Literature is a product of thought. The biography of many great writers is a story of "plain living and high thinking." This is pre-eminently true of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His outward life was uneventful. He filled no high civic or political station; he led no great reformatory movement that changed the character of society. His quiet, unostentatious life was devoted to the discovery and the proclamation of truth. As he said of Plato, his biography is interior. From time to time, as he felt called upon, he gave forth, in essays, lectures, and poems, the choice treasures he had carefully stored up in retirement and silence.

He deserves to rank as one of our greatest thinkers. It should not be forgotten, however, that absolute originality is far less frequent than is sometimes supposed. As some writer has wittily said, the ancients have stolen our best thoughts. Other ages, no less than the present age, have had earnest, reflective souls. The same problems that press on us-nature, life, society, freedom, death, destiny-pressed on them for solution. In large measure the profound thinkers of the past have exhausted the field of speculative philosophy. "Out of Plato," says Emerson, "come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought. Great havoc makes he among our originalities." Only small advances can be made now and then, even by the children of genius. Emerson had a deep affinity for the imperial thinkers of our He made them his intimate friends, and assimilated their choicest thoughts. He settled the matter of plagiarism very simply. "All minds quote," he said. "Old and new make the warp

and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote."

Emerson was a philosopher only in the broad, original meaning of the word. He had but little power as a close, logical reasoner. He was incapable of building up a system. "I do not know," he says, "what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men." He belongs to that higher class of men whom we revere as prophets or seers. His method was not logic, but intuition. In the pure light of genius, he saw

the truth that he announced. His was "the oracular soul." He does not argue; he only states or reveals. He gives utterance to what is communicated to him, whether men will receive it or not.

There is an unbroken line of idealists and mystics running through the ages. While idealism and mysticism have often run into absurd extremes, they have fostered what is deepest and noblest in life - belief in God, in truth, and in immortality. The greatest representative of this idealistic tendency in the past was unquestionably Plato. Since his day there have been many others- Plotinus, Augustine, Eckhart, Tauler, Schelling, Coleridge-who have sought to transcend the realm of the senses, and to commune immediately with the Infinite. Emerson is the leading representative of this philosophy in America. It is the source of his inspiration and power; it contains in varied application the great message he had to deliver to our superficial, commercial, money-loving country. His principal essays and poems rest on a mystic sense of the all-originating and all-pervading presence of God — the source. of all life, of all beauty, of all truth.

Yet it must be remembered that he was a New Englander as well as a transcendentalist. In spite of his idealism and mysticism, he never cut entirely loose from common sense. If at times he came perilously near ecstatic and unintelligible utter

ance, he soon recovered his balance. His sturdy Puritan sense saved him. His mysticism never drove him out of his comfortable home into starving asceticism. It did not wholly paralyze his active energies. Notwithstanding his strivings after communion with the Over-soul, he was not so lost to the commonplace obligations of life as to neglect his family. It is true that he often grudged the time spent in attending to ordinary matters of business. "Do what I can," he said, "I cannot keep my eyes off the clock." But, unlike many another mystic, he did not let go of commonplace realities; and in spite of his addiction to ineffable communings, he was an estimable and useful citizen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was of Puritan descent, and counted seven ministers in the immediate line of his ancestry. Born in Boston, May 25, 1803, he may be considered the consummate flower of a healthy and vigorous stock. Nature seems to have seized upon the intellectual and ethical qualities of his Puritan ancestors, and to have wrought them into the solid foundation of his character. He was fitted for college in the public Latin School of Boston, and entered Harvard in 1817. He took high rank in his classes, delighted in general reading, and exhibited a gentle and amiable disposition. In his senior year he took the second prize in English composition, and at the conclusion of his course, in 1821, delivered the class-day poem.

After his graduation, Emerson devoted the next five years to teaching, and met with an encouraging degree of success. He is described by one of his pupils as being "very grave, quiet, and impressive in his appearance. There was something engaging, almost fascinating, about him; he was never harsh or severe, always perfectly self-controlled, never punished except with words, but exercised complete command over the boys." Along with his teaching, he pursued the study of theology under Channing, the great Unitarian leader and preacher. After three years of theological study he was "approbated to preach," though grave doubts had begun to trouble his mind. After spending a winter in South Carolina and