At New York Tabernacle, on the 7th March, I saw the great audience with dismay, and told the bragging secretary that I was most thankful to those that staid at home; every auditor was a new affliction, and if all had staid away, by rain or preoccupation, I had been best pleased." Page 217, note In Lectures and Biographical Sketches, in the essay on Aristocracy, and also in that on The Man of Letters, the duty of loyalty to his thought and his order is urged as a trait of the gentleman and the scholar, and in the latter essay, the scholar's duty to stand for what is generous Page 219, note 1. Mr. Emerson in his early youth did come near slavery for a short time. His diary at St. Augustine, quoted by Mr. Cabot in his Memoir, mentions that, while he was attending a meeting of the Bible Society, a slaveauction was going on outside, but it does not appear that he actually saw it. а Page 221, note 1. Carlyle described Webster as magnificent specimen. ... As a Logic-fencer, Advocate, or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous, crag-like face, the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown, the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed: I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man."'r Page 225, note 1. Mr. James S. Gibbons (of the New York Tribune) in 'a letter written to his son two days after this speech was delivered, says, referring evidently to this passage: Emerson gave us a fine lecture on Webster. He made • Correspondence of Carlyle and Emersón, vol. i., pp. 260, 261. him stand before us in the proportions of a giant; and then with one word crushed him to powder." Page 226, note 1. Professor John H. Wright of Harvard University has kindly furnished me with the passage from Dio Cassius, xlvii. 49, where it is said of Brutus: Καὶ ἀναβοήσας τοῦτο δὴ Ηράκλειον ὦ τλῆμον ἀρετή, λόγος ἄρ ̓ ἦσθ', ἐγὼ δέ σε ὡς ἔργον ἤσκουν· σὺ δ ̓ ἄρ ̓ ἐδούλευες τύχῃ, παρακάλεσέ τινα τῶν συνόντων, ἵν ̓ αὐτὸν ἀποκτείνῃ, which he renders, He cried out this sentiment of Heracles, O wretched Virtue, after all, thou art a name, but I cherished thee as a fact. Fortune's slave wast thou; and called upon one of those with him to slay him." Professor Wright adds that Theodorus Prodromus, a Byzantine poet of the twelfth century, said, "What Brutus says (O Virtue, etc.) I pronounce to be ignoble and unworthy. of Brutus's soul." It seems very doubtful whence the Greek verses came. Page 233, note I. Just ten years earlier, Hon. Samuel Hoar, the Commissioner of Massachusetts, sent to Charleston, South Carolina, in the interests of our colored citizens there constantly imprisoned and ill used, had been expelled from that state with a show of force. See Lectures and Biograph ical Sketches. ·Page 234, note 1. The sending back of Onesimus by Paul was a precedent precious in the eyes of pro-slavery preachers, North and South, in those days, ignoring, however, Paul's message, "Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.” I Epistle of Paul to Philemon, i. 16, 17. Page 235, note 1. The hydrostatic paradox has been before alluded to as one of Mr. Emerson's favorite symbols, the balancing of the ocean by a few drops of water. In many places he dwells on the power of minorities a minority of one. In Character" (Lectures and Biographical Sketches) he says, "There was a time when Christianity existed in one child." For the value and duty of minorities, see Conduct of Life, pp. 249 ff., Letters and Social Aims, pp. 219, 220. Page 236, note 1. This was a saying of Mahomet. What follows, with regard to the divine sentiments always soliciting us, is thus rendered in " My Garden: " Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear Are unsealed, that he may hear. Page 236, note 2. This is the important key to the essay on Self-Reliance. Page 238, note 1. In the " Sovereignty of Ethics " Mr. Emerson quotes an Oriental poet describing the Golden Age as saying that God had made justice so dear to the heart of Nature that, if any injustice lurked anywhere under the sky, the blue vault would shrivel to a snake-skin, and cast it out by spasms. Page 240, note 1. There seems to be some break in the construction here probably due to the imperfect adjustment of lecture-sheets. It would seem that the passage should read: Liberty is never cheap. It is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man- the finished man; earning and bestowing good; " etc. " Page 241, note 1. See Lectures and Biographical Sketches, pp. 246 and 251. Page 242, note. I. The occasion alluded to was Hon. Robert C. Winthrop's speech to the alumni of Harvard Col lege on Commencement Day in 1852. What follows is not an abstract, but Mr. Emerson's rendering of the spirit of his address...\. One evening in May, Judge Hoar came to Mr. Emerson's house, evidently deeply stirred, and told in a few words the startling news that the great Senator from Massachusetts had been struck down at his desk by a Representative from South Carolina, and was dangerously hurt. The news was heard with indignant grief in Concord, and a public meeting was held four days later r in which Mr. Emerson and others gave vent to this feeling. Among Mr. Emerson's papers are the fragmentary notes on Sumner, given below, without indication were used. as to when they ...Clean, self-poised, great-hearted man, noble in person, incorruptible in life, the friend of the poor, the champion of the oppressed. Of course Congress must draw from every part of the country swarms of individuals eager only for private interests, who could not love his stern, justice. But if they gave him no high employment, he made low work high by the dignity of honesty and truth. But men cannot long do without faculty and perseverance, and he rose, step by step, to the mastery of all affairs intrusted to him, and by those lights and upliftings with which the spirit that makes the Universe rewards labor and brave truth. He became learned, and adequate to the highest questions, and the counsellor of every correction of old errors, and of every noble reform. How nobly he bore himself in disastrous times. Every reform he led or assisted. In the shock of the war his patriotism never failed. A man of varied learning and accomplishments. He held that every man is to be judged by the horizon of his mind, and Fame he defined as the shadow of excellence, but that which follows him, not which he follows after. Tragic character, like Algernon Sydney, man of conscience and courage, but without humor. Fear did not exist for him. In his mind the American idea is no crab, but a man incessantly advancing, as the shadow of the dial or the heavenly body that casts it. The American idea is emancipation, to abolish kingcraft, feudalism, black-letter monopoly, it pulls down the gallows, explodes priestcraft, opens the doors of the sea to all emigrants, extemporizes government in new! い Sumner has been collecting his works. They will be the history of the Republic for the last twenty-five years; as told by a brave, perfectly honest and well instructed man, with social culture and relation to all eminent persons. Diligent and able workman, with rare ability, without genius, without humor, but with persevering study, wide reading, excellent memory, high stand of honor (and pure devotion to his country), disdaining any bribe, any compliances, and incapable of falsehood. His singular advantages of person, of manners, and a statesman's conversation impress every one favorably. He has the foible of most public men, the egotism which seems ΚΙ |