An ideal wraith9 like this, of Emerson’s personality, hovers10 over all Concord11 today, taking, in the minds of those of you who were his neighbors and intimates a somewhat fuller shape, remaining more abstract in the younger generation, but bringing home to all of us the notion of a spirit indescribably precious. The form that so lately moved upon these streets and country roads, or awaited in these fields and woods the beloved Muse’s visits, is now dust; but the soul’s note, the spiritual voice, rises strong and clear above the uproar12 of the times, and seems securely destined13 to exert an ennobling influence over future generations.
What gave a flavor so matchless to Emerson’s individuality was, even more than his rich mental gifts, their singularly harmonious14 combination. Rarely has a man so accurately15 known the limits of his genius or so unfailingly kept within them. “Stand by your order,” he used to say to youthful students; and perhaps the paramount16 impression one gets of his life is of his loyalty17 to his own personal type and mission. The type was that of what he liked to call the scholar, the perceiver of pure truth; and the mission was that of the reporter in worthy18 form of each perception. The day is good, he said, in which we have the most perceptions. There are times when the cawing of a crow, a weed, a snowflake, or a farmer planting in his field become symbols to the intellect of truths equal to those which the most majestic19 phenomena20 can open. Let me mind my own charge, then, walk alone, consult the sky, the field and forest, sedulously21 waiting every morning for the news concerning the structure of the universe which the good Spirit will give me.
This was the first half of Emerson, but only half; for genius, as he said, is insatiate for expression, and truth has to be clad in the right verbal garment. The form of the garment was so vital with Emerson that it is impossible to separate it from the matter. They form a chemical combination — thoughts which would be trivial expressed otherwise, are important through the nouns and verbs to which he married them. The style is the man, it has been said; the man Emerson’s mission culminated22 in his style, and if we must define him in one word, we have to call him Artist. He was an artist whose medium was verbal and who wrought23 in spiritual material.
This duty of spiritual seeing and reporting determined24 the whole tenor25 of his life. It was to shield this duty from invasion and distraction26 that he dwelt in the country, that he consistently declined to entangle27 himself with associations or to encumber28 himself with functions which, however he might believe in them, he felt were duties for other men and not for him. Even the care of his garden, “with its stoopings and fingerings in a few yards of space,” he found “narrowing and poisoning,” and took to long free walks and saunterings instead, without apology. “Causes” innumerable sought to enlist29 him as their “worker”— all got his smile and word of sympathy, but none entrapped30 him into service. The struggle against slavery itself, deeply as it appealed to him, found him firm: “God must govern his own world, and knows his way out of this pit without my desertion of my post, which has none to guard it but me. I have quite other slaves to face than those Negroes, to wit, imprisoned32 thoughts far back in the brain of man, and which have no watchman or lover or defender33 but me.” This in reply to the possible questions of his own conscience. To hot-blooded moralists with more objective ideas of duty, such a fidelity34 to the limits of his genius must often have made him seem provokingly remote and unavailable; but we, who can see things in more liberal perspective, must unqualifiably approve the results. The faultless tact35 with which he kept his safe limits while he so dauntlessly asserted himself within them, is an example fitted to give heart to other theorists and artists the world over.
The insight and creed36 from which Emerson’s life followed can be best summed up in his own verses:
“So nigh is grandeur37 to our dust,
So near is God to man!”
Through the individual fact there ever shone for him the effulgence38 of the Universal Reason. The great Cosmic Intellect terminates and houses itself in mortal men and passing hours. Each of us is an angle of its eternal vision, and the only way to be true to our Maker39 is to be loyal to ourselves. “O rich and various Man!” he cries, “thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night and the unfathomable galaxy40; in thy brain the geometry of the city of God; in thy heart the bower41 of love and the realms of right and wrong.”
If the individual open thus directly into the Absolute, it follows that there is something in each and all of us, even the lowliest, that ought not to consent to borrowing traditions and living at second hand. “If John was perfect, why are you and I alive?” Emerson writes; “As long as any man exists there is some need of him; let him fight for his own.” This faith that in a life at first hand there is something sacred is perhaps the most characteristic note in Emerson’s writings. The hottest side of him is this non-conformist persuasion42, and if his temper could ever verge43 on common irascibility, it would be by reason of the passionate44 character of his feelings on this point. The world is still new and untried. In seeing freshly, and not in hearing of what others saw, shall a man find what truth is. “Each one of us can bask45 in the great morning which rises out of the Eastern Sea, and be himself one of the children of the light.” “Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string. There is a time in each man’s education when he must arrive at the conviction that imitation is suicide; when he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; and know that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel46 of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil47 bestowed48 on that plot of ground which it was given him to till.”
The matchless eloquence49 with which Emerson proclaimed the sovereignty of the living individual electrified50 and emancipated51 his generation, and this bugle-blast will doubtless be regarded by future critics as the soul of his message. The present man is the aboriginal52 reality, the Institution is derivative53, and the past man is irrelevant54 and obliterate55 for present issues. “If anyone would lay an axe56 to your tree with a text from 1 John, v, 7, or a sentence from Saint Paul, say to him,” Emerson wrote, “‘My tree is Yggdrasil, the tree of life.’ Let him know by your security that your conviction is clear and sufficient, and, if he were Paul himself, that you also are here and with your Creator.” “Cleave ever to God,” he insisted, “against the name of God;"— and so, in spite of the intensely religious character of his total thought, when he began his career it seemed to many of his brethren in the clerical profession that he was little more than an iconoclast57 and desecrator58.
Emerson’s belief that the individual must in reason be adequate to the vocation59 for which the Spirit of the world has called him into being, is the source of those sublime60 pages, hearteners and sustainers of our youth, in which he urges his hearers to be incorruptibly true to their own private conscience. Nothing can harm the man who rests in his appointed place and character. Such a man is invulnerable; he balances the universe, balances it as much by keeping small when he is small, as by being great and spreading when he is great. “I love and honor Epaminondas,” said Emerson, “but I do not wish to be Epaminondas. I hold it more just to love the world of this hour than the world of his hour. Nor can you, if I am true, excite me to the least uneasiness by saying, ‘He acted and thou sittest still.’ I see action to be good when the need is, and sitting still to be also good. Epaminondas, if he was the man I take him for, would have sat still with joy and peace, if his lot had been mine. Heaven is large, and affords space for all modes of love and fortitude61.” “The fact that I am here certainly shows me that the Soul has need of an organ here, and shall I not assume the post?”
The vanity of all superserviceableness and pretence62 was never more happily set forth63 than by Emerson in the many passages in which he develops this aspect of his philosophy. Character infallibly proclaims itself. “Hide your thoughts! — hide the sun and moon. They publish themselves to the universe. They will speak through you though you were dumb. They will flow out of your actions, your manners and your face. . . . Don’t say things: What you are stands over you the while and thunders so that I cannot say what you say to the contrary. . . . What a man is engraves64 itself upon him in letters of light. Concealment65 avails him nothing, boasting nothing. There is confession66 in the glances of our eyes; in our smiles; in salutations; and the grasp of hands. His sin bedaubs him, mars all his good impression. Men know not why they do not trust him, but they do not trust him. His vice31 glasses the eye, casts lines of mean expression in the cheek, pinches the nose, sets the mark of the beast upon the back of the head, and writes, O fool! fool! on the forehead of a king. If you would not be known to do a thing, never do it; a man may play the fool in the drifts of a desert, but every grain of sand shall seem to see. — How can a man be concealed67? How can he be concealed?”
On the other hand, never was a sincere word or a sincere thought utterly68 lost. “Never a magnanimity fell to the ground but there is some heart to greet and accept it unexpectedly. . . . The hero fears not that if he withstood the avowal69 of a just and brave act, it will go unwitnessed and unloved. One knows it — himself — and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace and to nobleness of aim, which will prove in the end a better proclamation than the relating of the incident.”
The same indefeasible right to be exactly what one is, provided one only be authentic70, spreads itself, in Emerson’s way of thinking, from persons to things and to times and places. No date, no position is insignificant71, if the life that fills it out be only genuine:—
“In solitude72, in a remote village, the ardent73 youth loiters and mourns. With inflamed74 eye, in this sleeping wilderness75, he has read the story of the Emperor, Charles the Fifth, until his fancy has brought home to the surrounding woods the faint roar of cannonades in the Milanese, and marches in Germany. He is curious concerning that man’s day. What filled it? The crowded orders, the stern decisions, the foreign despatches, the Castilian etiquette76? The soul answers — Behold77 his day here! In the sighing of these woods, in the quiet of these gray fields, in the cool breeze that sings out of these northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens78 you meet — in the hopes of the morning, the ennui79 of noon, and sauntering of the afternoon; in the disquieting80 comparisons; in the regrets at want of vigor81; in the great idea and the puny82 execution — behold Charles the Fifth’s day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham’s, Hampden’s, Bayard’s, Alfred’s, Scipio’s, Pericles’s day — day of all that are born of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting the self-same life — its sweetness, its greatness, its pain, which I so admire in other men. Do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable, obliterated83 past what it cannot tell — the details of that nature, of that day, called Byron or Burke; — but ask it of the enveloping84 Now. . . . Be lord of a day, and you can put up your history books.”
“The deep today which all men scorn,” receives thus from Emerson superb revindication. “Other world! there is no other world.” All God’s life opens into the individual particular, and here and now, or nowhere, is reality. “The present hour is the decisive hour, and every day is doomsday.”
Such a conviction that Divinity is everywhere may easily make of one an optimist85 of the sentimental86 type that refuses to speak ill of anything. Emerson’s drastic perception of differences kept him at the opposite pole from this weakness. After you have seen men a few times, he could say, you find most of them as alike as their barns and pantries, and soon as musty and as dreary87. Never was such a fastidious lover of significance and distinction, and never an eye so keen for their discovery. His optimism had nothing in common with that indiscriminate hurrahing88 for the Universe with which Walt Whitman has made us familiar. For Emerson, the individual fact and moment were indeed suffused89 with absolute radiance, but it was upon a condition that saved the situation — they must be worthy specimens90 — sincere, authentic, archetypal; they must have made connection with what he calls the Moral Sentiment, they must in some way act as symbolic91 mouthpieces of the Universe’s meaning. To know just which thing does act in this way, and which thing fails to make the true connection, is the secret (somewhat incommunicable, it must be confessed) of seership, and doubtless we must not expect of the seer too rigorous a consistency92. Emerson himself was a real seer. He could perceive the full squalor of the individual fact, but he could also see the transfiguration. He might easily have found himself saying of some present-day agitator93 against our Philippine conquest what he said of this or that reformer of his own time. He might have called him, as a private person, a tedious bore and canter. But he would infallibly have added what he then added: “It is strange and horrible to say this, for I feel that under him and his partiality and exclusiveness is the earth and the sea, and all that in them is, and the axis94 round which the Universe revolves95 passes through his body where he stands.”
Be it how it may, then, this is Emerson’s revelation:— The point of any pen can be an epitome96 of reality; the commonest person’s act, if genuinely actuated, can lay hold on eternity97. This vision is the head-spring of all his outpourings; and it is for this truth, given to no previous literary artist to express in such penetratingly persuasive98 tones, that posterity99 will reckon him a prophet, and, perhaps neglecting other pages, piously100 turn to those that convey this message. His life was one long conversation with the invisible divine, expressing itself through individuals and particulars:—“So nigh is grandeur to our dust, so near is God to man!”
I spoke101 of how shrunken the wraith, how thin the echo, of men is after they are departed? Emerson’s wraith comes to me now as if it were but the very voice of this victorious argument. His words to this effect are certain to be quoted and extracted more and more as time goes on, and to take their place among the Scriptures102 of humanity. “‘Gainst death and all oblivious103 enmity, shall you pace forth,” beloved Master. As long as our English language lasts men’s hearts will be cheered and their souls strengthened and liberated104 by the noble and musical pages with which you have enriched it.
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1
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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abridgment
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| n.删节，节本 | |
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wraith
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| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
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hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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entangle
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| vt.缠住，套住；卷入，连累 | |
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encumber
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| v.阻碍行动，妨碍，堆满 | |
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enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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entrapped
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| v.使陷入圈套，使入陷阱( entrap的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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effulgence
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| n.光辉 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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galaxy
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| n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物) | |
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bower
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| n.凉亭，树荫下凉快之处；闺房；v.荫蔽 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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bask
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| vt.取暖，晒太阳，沐浴于 | |
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kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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electrified
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| v.使电气化( electrify的过去式和过去分词 )；使兴奋 | |
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51
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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aboriginal
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| adj.（指动植物）土生的，原产地的，土著的 | |
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derivative
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| n.派(衍)生物；adj.非独创性的，模仿他人的 | |
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irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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iconoclast
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| n.反对崇拜偶像者 | |
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desecrator
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| 亵渎，玷污； 把（神物）供俗用 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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engraves
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的第三人称单数 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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disquieting
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| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
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81
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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82
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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83
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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84
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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85
optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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86
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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87
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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hurrahing
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| v.好哇( hurrah的现在分词 ) | |
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89
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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agitator
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| n.鼓动者；搅拌器 | |
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94
axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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revolves
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| v.（使）旋转( revolve的第三人称单数 )；细想 | |
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epitome
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| n.典型，梗概 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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99
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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100
piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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101
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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102
scriptures
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| 经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典 | |
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103
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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