(

you to say then to such things?' said E., pausing in conclusion. Only that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify it,' was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American House. And thenceforward I never wavered or was touched with qualms (as I confess I had been two or three times before).

Dr.

Dr. Ellis, of Boston, reports that in a visit to the poet Whittier, Emerson's last words as he left his friend's house in the morning were, "I cannot conceive of a greater soul than Jesus Christ." Bartol, an old friend of Emerson's, instituted a comparison between the Concord philosopher and Darwin, declaring that the one was the complement of the other-Darwin the explorer of structure, Emerson of the organising power. He also contrasted Emerson and Carlyle, much to the advantage of the former, who felt no less strongly than the Chelsea sage the defects of humanity, and who longed more earnestly for the millennial days, but who was yet "content with God's world, on good terms with its inhabitants, in love with his home, with peace in his heart, full of respect, and with due deference to his inferiors, never pouring out

Carlyle's torrent of volcanic flame, stones, and mud." Emerson and Darwin, according to Dr. Bartol, were very similar " in their candour, absence of grudge, freedom from vindictiveness and from disposition to reply or quarrel, manners of splendid culture and simplicity." Dr. Bartol relates how, on a visit to Emerson's house, the philosopher requested him in the morning to conduct family devotions. As they rose from their knees their eyes met. “There was in his a singular and surprising lustre which I never forgot; not a surface glitter, but a soft unfathomable transparency, which made his looks to me like an embodied supplication." Dr. Bartol once prevailed on Emerson to meet at his house with Father Taylor, the eccentric Methodist evangelist of Boston, who has been sketched by Charles Dickens. Taylor was delighted with the philosopher. "Should Emerson go to hell," he declared, "it would change the climate, and the emigration would be that way." The evangelist added, "I have laid my ear close to his heart and never detected any jar in the machinery. He has more of the spirit of Jesus than anybody else I have known."

With regard to the humour in some passages of his lectures, Mr. M. D. Conway says, in an article

U

on Emerson in "The Fortnightly Review" (June,

1882):

Emerson's humour as read has lost some of the flavour it possessed when spoken. Indeed, now and then I have noted the omission from a printed essay of some sally which when it was spoken elicited much mirth. He was inclined to suspect any passage which excited much laughter. There was omitted from his lecture on "Superlatives," when recently printed in "The Century," a remark about oaths. The oath, he said, could only be used by a thinking man in some great moral emergency: in such rare case it might be the solemn verdict of the universe; but he presently added in a low tone, as if thinking to himself as he turned his page-" but sham damns disgust." I remember, too, how quietly a little drama was mounted on his face when he described a pedant pedagogue questioning a little maid about Fabius,—whether he was victorious or defeated in a certain battle. Susan, in distress, says he was defeated, and is reproved for her mistake before the school and the visitors. "Fabius was victorious. But Fabius is of no importance: Susan's feelings are of a great deal of importance. Fabius, if he had a particle of the gentleman about him, would rather be defeated a hundred times than that Susan's feelings should be hurt." These humorous passages came from Emerson gently, little wayside surprises, and without any air of an intention to cause laughter. On one occasion he was lecturing on the French,—a lecture, by the way, full of racy anecdotes derived from his sojourn in Paris,--and he instituted a comparison of the theatrical habit of that people with English love of reality. "A Frenchman and an Englishman fought a duel in the dark; they were to be let out of the room after two pistol-reports had been heard. The Englishman, to avoid wounding his antagonist, crept round to the fire-place; he fired up the chimney, and brought down the Frenchman." After the mirth that followed this was over, and Emerson had passed on to grave discourse, some individual tardily caught the joke about the duel, and his solitary explosion set the house in a roar that made the lecturer pause.

"His manner toward strangers, while extremely simple, was marked by an exquisite suavity and dignity which peremptorily, albeit tacitly, prohibited undue familiarity or conventional compliment. Sought after as he was, particularly during recent years, by literary novices who saluted him as master, and pestered, like all prominent persons, by visits and letters from the ordinary notoriety-mongers, he found no occasion to resort to inveterate exclusiveness or repelling harshness. On one occasion, only a few years ago, a friend consulted him for advice in regard to the poems of a then unknown writer, who has since won high recognition. The manuscript was read to him in the presence of two or three persons of culture and intelligence; the poems were crude, rugged, and strongly individual. So strange and uncouth did they seem that, when the reader ceased, no one else present had been able to form the vaguest opinion as to their artistic value; but Mr. Emerson himself, without pause or hesitancy, gave utterance to a criticism so incisive and comprehensive as to supply in the briefest compass all the advice and encouragement which the young poet needed at the time. 'No discouragement must damp his ardour,' concluded Mr. Emerson, 'no rebuff be sufficient to quell this impulse which urges him to

write. A single voice in his favour should be enough to support him till he attain the mastery of style and taste which shall complete and perfect his gift. Indeed, a single voice is more than I had myself as a beginner,' he added with his wise, subtle smile. 'My friends used to laugh at my poetry, and tell me I was no poet.' Emerson's Personality," by Emma Lazarus, "The Century," July, 1882.

THE BROOK FARM COMMUNITY EXPERIMENT.

As has been already stated (Memoir, p. 42), the Brook Farm Community was one of the products of that quickening and fermentation of thought respecting social, religious, and educational reform which made its appearance, in New England especially, in the years preceding 1840. Many earnest men and women-some of them of the highest culture-dissatisfied with the tyranny and benumbing influence of usage and conventionalism, aspired to make life richer and truer to first principles, “by lifting men to a higher platform, restoring to them the religious sentiment, bringing them worthy aims and pure pleasures, purging the inward eye, making life less desultory, and,