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repay. We have ourselves bestowed upon it hour after hour of earnest study; and have found each labor of investigation which it either required or suggested, a labor of profit and delight. We shall return to its pages with frequent and deep interest; and while we protest with all earnestness and freedom, against the errors which it unhappily seems almost to embalm, we take our leave of it with nothing less than the expression of our respectful homage to the genius and attainments of its author.

ART. II.-POPULAR LECTURES.

Representative Men; Seven Lectures. By R. W. EMERSON. Bos-
ton: Philips, Sampson & Co. 1850. 12mo, pp. 285.
Lectures and Essays. By HENRY GILES. Boston: Ticknor &
Co. 1850. 2 vols. 12mo, pp. 617.

PERHAPS Mr. Emerson, or if not he, perhaps some one of his devoted admirers, may be still so far short of absorption into the Budhist heaven of indifferentism to all human concerns and opinions, as to have some little curiosity to know what impression is made by his oracular "utterances," upon a mind not gifted with sufficient insight to trace in them the undoubted evidences of their inspiration. Supposing some such curiosity to exist, we will endeavor to satisfy it as fully as possible in the outset, only premising that we judge of Mr. Emerson entirely by what he exhibits of himself in the volume before us, and that as thus exhibited, he must appear to "eyes that have not been opened" in his most favorable aspect, since this book is acknowledged to be the most nearly rational of all that he has yet published.

We will state our impressions of the author in the terms in which his book has engraven them upon our mind as we have read. We have been reminded constantly of a "promising boy," who has been brought up to some sixteen or eighteen years of age, in a quiet country town, according to the most approved maximis prescribed and traditional, of the most strict puritanic orthodoxy. He has thus far profited by his instructions, obeyed his parents, respected the aged, believed what those wiser than himself told him, learned the Assembly's Catechism, repeated a verse from the Bible at the breakfast table, traveled three miles, in all weather, the year round, to attend meeting on the Sabbath, listened to what the preacher said, remembered the text and looked it out for his blind old grandmother when he reached home. The subject of many hopes and prayers, his own as well as others, he has in the process of time, entered college. There he soon be

comes known as a virtuous, industrious, and successful student. Gradually the treasures of literature and science are disclosed before his expanding and enraptured vision, and he sees a new world, the glorious and boundless creation of human thought, of the existence of which, he before knew nothing. He enters with irrepressible ardor upon the study of the great masters in his mother tongue. By the aid of reviews, translations and histories of literature, as well as by that of his own rapidly increasing knowledge of language, he learns something of what has been thought and done by men of other times, other lands and other tongues than his own. He is at first startled and bewildered by the extent and contrariety of their speculations, the seeming facility with which they overthrow opinions which he had thought could never be shaken, the freedom, the self-possession with which they question the reality of what had been to him the most sacred and awful truths, the halo with which they adorn characters and deeds which he had been taught to regard as most fiendish and despicable. By degrees his admiration for genius, and his interest in the study of his ideal creations, predominate over his respect for simple unadorned truth, and his horror of treating even the rudest semblance of truth with irreverence. He sees that he was ignorant of the objections that could be brought against his most fondly cherished opinions, and of the irresistible fascination that might invest, upon a nearer view, characters which he had been taught to regard with irreconcilable aversion. He becomes ashamed of his former self, and in his haste to disown and then to despise his former narrow views of truth, he loses his respect for truth herself. In his eagerness to walk by the new light that has broken upon his unsealed vision, he mistakes an ignis fatuus for the sun, and while he thinks himself preparing for a swift ascent to the mid heaven of emancipated thought, he is only wandering hopelessly, amid bogs, and fens, and pitfalls, in chase of a meteor. The halo of glory with which he fancies himself already girded, and which seems to him above the brightness of the sun, is nothing but the blinding mist, hovering over the marsh, made visible by the kindling of a transient and gaseous light, and liable to be changed as suddenly, by the extinction of the brief meteor, into the blackness of darkness. But in the mean time, the young Illuminatus becomes exalted above measure in his own estimate, by his new initiation into the society of the great "thinkers," the seers, and the prophets; the creators and the regenerators, who rule the development and destiny of mankind by their mighty words. He strives laboriously to perfect himself in the difficult art of compounding their mystic and meaningless utterances, with the obstinately expressive terms of his own language. He treats his own mother tongue with the most relentless barbarity, in order if possible to make it rival the

indefiniteness and obscurity of that of another land, where mist and cloud are native to the earth and the sky, and where the dreams of the night are but imperfectly distinguished from the reflections of the day. His superior talents, and scholarship, even when so perversely employed, enable him to display unusual vigor, and an apparent originality, in all that he writes. His compositions call forth the censure of some, the admiration of many, and the curiosity of all. And by each he feels himself equally flattered. And thus vanity induces him to persevere in the cultivation of a forced and unnatural style of thought and expression, which his own sincere admiration for even the deformed offspring of undoubted genius, led him inconsiderately to begin. The mingled wonder and applause with which the bold expression of some of his newly acquired convictions is received, tempts him to go even beyond himself, and to affect a more entire renunciation of all commonly received opinions, than he has actually attained in his own mind; to make himself appear more of a skeptic and doubter than he really is, only to see the excess of surprise and horror he can call forth from less venturesome inquirers after truth.

Now we know nothing of Mr. Emerson's history "subjective” or "objective." We know nothing of the process by which his mind has been made physically and morally capable of producing such a book as the one before us. Of course we shall not hint a suspicion that our supposed case is anything more than supposed, so far as he is concerned, however true it may be as a narrative of the process by which many a brilliant and inquisitive mind, has been led, first by the sincere spirit of inquiry, and subsequently by its own vanity, into a state of the most hopeless aberration. We do not charge Mr. Emerson with deliberately affecting, now in his advanced state of "cultivation," extravagances of sentiment or of expression, merely to make simple minded people stare. All we say is, this book of his constantly makes the impression upon our mind, that its author is one, who has been made what he is, by just such a process as we have sketched in the form of a supposition, and who now in the maturity of mental and moral habits thus formed, is led to deal in extravagant paradoxes and contradictions, by the gaping wonder and the inconsiderate admiration which they elicit so profusely. We do not charge him with insincerity. We are told that his personal appearance is that of a man altogether innocent of any such thing. But we judge him now only as he appears in his printed book, and that is very far from satisfying us, that the charge, if made, would be unjust. At any rate, if he does not express, so far as his own distorted forms of language can be made to express any thing intelligibly, sentiments which have little or no practical influence upon his own mind, which are not sustain

ed by his own convictions, then surely what is sincerity in him, must be affectation in other men. But however unwilling he might be to be judged by the same rules of right and reason that are employed in condemning or acquitting his fellow mortals before the bar of criticism, we are all the more inclined not to make him an exception, by the fact, that underneath his monstrous accumulation of barbarism in diction and absurdity in sentiment, there seems to be a firm substratum of good old Saxon English and of genuine New England common sense. So that to whatever depth of absurdity, mysticism or contradiction he may descend, in his oracular utterances, we must still read with the conviction that he knows better, and is himself conscious that he does. Thus, to speak in a style more strictly in sympathy with our subject, if Mr. Emerson dramatizes himself upon the great "world stage," he would be philosopher enough to do it for his own amusement as well as that of his audience. And hence this book presents its author to our mind, as one who has traveled out of the beaten track of human experience and inquiry, has peeped over those precipices along the pathway of life, which most travelers think it prudent to avoid, and has groped his way into the dark caverns that open upon the earthly pilgrim's course, generally keeping himself either out of sight, or else in exposed situations, and yet seldom so far off as not to hear the repeated expression from the great body of his fellow pilgrims, "What a venturesome fellow he is!" He would purchase the applause of mankind, by braving what they fear, and despising what they most esteem, even themselves. Thus his whole manner and bearing seem to say to them-"What miserable little souls you all are! What an everlasting whining, and whimpering, you do make about your own petty ideas of happiness and misery, benevolence and selfishness, duty and desert, right and wrong, life and death. How terribly you are frightened at bugbears, and Scarecrows. Do as I have done. Emancipate yourselves from your childish superstitions. Do not vex and torment yourselves about the antiquated Hebraisms of heaven and hell, Jehovah aud Jesus. Such things may have been well enough in their time. When they come as the fresh utterances of great, sincere souls, there are no higher truths. But you, the miserable commonalty of the race, what have you to do with poetry or philosophy or religion. Such high things are altogether above the reach of your understanding; and if you could attain to them, it would be of no possible consequence to yourselves; for, do what you will, you are ever on your way to all that is good and true.' The truest faith is the belief that all things are good, the veriest atheism is the belief that malignity is possible, or that any thing but love and truth can last. And the more you stare and shudder, with your pietistic horror, at the utterance of such essential

facts in the system of things, the greater fools you are. And yet, do not think I shall grieve over your folly; for it is all one with the highest wisdom. You may be afraid of devils, and punishment; you may torture yourselves with repentance and sorrow; still I shall be infinitely delighted with your weakness; for if I were not, I should show myself a fool or a fanatic as you are, and not a philosopher as I am. My pleasure at the spectacle of your folly is all the more exquisite, from the fact that you are all as good and happy as gods, and yet do not know it. The very undesignedness and unconsciousness of your innocence and bliss, give them that genuineness which alone can make them fit subjects for philosophic contemplation."

If Mr. Emerson does not, in his own reflections, apply to mankind terms as contemptuous as we suppose him to use, then he is chargeable with affectation, or his own books most essentially misrepresent him. We suppose that each is true in part or by turns. His own language at times, taken for what it means, if it means any thing, must make him appear in the character of a much more false philosopher, and pernicious moralist, than he really is in his own convictions, and his own practice. For when at other times, the heart and intellect of the man, get the better of his besetting mania for abstractions and paradoxes, he shows that he estimates the realities of life like other men, and can speak of them sensibly and intelligibly. And so also a part of what he has written, must be little else than a caricature of himself as well as of every thing which it pretends to represent, for another portion shows conclusively, that when the mood of his own inspiration is not upon him, he thinks and feels like the rest of men. We must conclude then that his labored misrepresentations of truth and duty are equal misrepresentations of the sounder philosophy by which he regulates his daily life, and that his ostentatious indifferentism to all human concerns and opinions is little else than affected non-affectation.

Our estimate of Mr. Emerson, will of course appear to some, exceedingly "shallow." But if we have succeeded in our endeavor to write intelligibly, that alone will be sufficient to incur the charge of "halfness" and "superficiality" from those to whose minds profundity and obscurity are identical. The moment the thought vaguely shadowed forth, even in their own most admired oracular sentences, is stated in plain language, it appears shallow and contemptible in their estimate. In proportion as any thing comes within the range of ordinary experience, or makes its appeal to the cominon convictions of mankind, it must be to them altogether "flat, stale and unprofitable." And whatever may be Mr. Emerson's private judgment of such a taste, he is himself responsible for encouraging, to the full extent of his influence, its cultivation by others. With all his pretensions to

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