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bodies, firm among fleeting things, the wise man casts off all grief. The soul cannot be gained by knowledge, not by understanding, not by manifold science. It can be obtained by the soul by which it is desired. It reveals its own truths."

NOTES

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which intervened between the publication

years of Society and Solitude and Letters and Social Aims brought events unlooked for along with those of the ordinary routine of Mr. Emerson's life. He once said that there was no time of his life when the offer of a professorship of rhetoric and oratory, even from the smallest country college, would not have been tempting to him. But now, as he neared his threescore years and ten, he received an invitation to give, at Cambridge, a course of University lectures on Philosophy. This was the more gratifying because it would give a fit occasion to fill out his notes variously called the Natural History of Reason or Natural History of the Intellect or Philosophy for the People, and would be a spur to him to this, which Mr. Cabot thinks that he "regarded as the chief task of his life.' In the spring of 1870 he gave sixteen lectures to students of the University and outsiders who came for the course. This required an amount of work for which he was really unequal. The ordering of his thoughts, and the endeavor to fill out the gaps in their statement, and obtain coherence of what he called " infinitely repellent particles" were always the difficult part of the preparation of a lecture, and this was increased when a course on a special subject was undertaken.

In the winter immediately preceding this course he had, as usual, made his lecturing journey through the West. In the summer his constitution began to show the effect of the unusual strain. But that year he contributed the preface to Mr. Goodwin's revised translation of Plutarch's Morals, and in the following winter (1871) repeated his course at the University. He had been dissatisfied with his work of the previous year, and endeavored to amend it and make some changes in

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the course, but two lectures a week given with much anxiety told seriously on his strength. In the spring his old friend Mr. John M. Forbes came to the rescue and succeeded in inducing him to be one of a pleasant party, all his guests, en an excursion to California. This rest came just at the needed moment. Mr. Emerson enjoyed the trip and the excellent company. The groves of giant pines and sequoias perhaps pleased him more than any of the sights. Professor James B. Thayer was one of the party, and has told their story pleasantly, especially recording Mr. Emerson's words and actions." In the summer Mr. Emerson spoke at the Historical Society on the centennial anniversary of the birth of Walter Scott.

He had not planned to go westward to lecture that winter, but could not refuse the request to go and speak at Chicago after the great fire which nearly destroyed that city. In the winter of 1872 he spoke on Books and Reading at Howard University in Washington, and gave a series of readings in Boston of prose and poetry with comments of his own. These, which cost him little effort and gave great pleasure to the company of new and old friends who attended them, were arranged for him by the kindness of Mr. James T. Fields and of Colonel William H. Forbes, Mr. Emerson's son-in-law.

The volume promised in England occupied Mr. Emerson's time in summer until the fire which nearly destroyed his house in July, 1872. Then followed a disabling weakness with some fever, which did not, however, send him to his bed; but meantime the many friends near and far who had insisted upon rebuilding his house, with affectionate urgency determined for him that he should go abroad with his daughter for needed rest and recreation to the shores of the Mediterranean. He passed through England and France, making short stay, but at Paris

A Western Journey with Emerson. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1884

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