Humanly Speaking

ders is seldom that of meek discipleship. It is rather that of frank, outspoken comradeship. No myster

t of the world, and believes that what Plato thought, another man may think. What Shakespeare sang, another man may know as well. As for emperors, kings, queens, princes, or presidents, he looks upon them as children in masquerade. He has no patience with the chicken-hearted who refe

y were gifts which they understood and appreciated. He was one of them, and expressed and interpreted their habitual thought. Luther used to declare that no one who had never had trials and temptations could understand the Holy Sc

s. Nothing could be more untrue to his temper of mind. Emerson was cheerful, but he never pretended that the world was an alto

her. There was nothing smug in Emerson's philosophy. He never took an apologetic attitude nor attempted to minimize difficulties. There was no attempt to justify the ways of God to man. But while agreeing in regard to

brooding upon it. "Sweet is the genesis of things." Emerson is pleased with the world, not because he thinks its present condition is very good, but b

s in sight. It is not a world where wishes, even good wishes, are fulfilled without effor

tiny nev

s to man

rating. There is a moral quick-wittedness which sees the smile behind the threatening

bids to

s mantle

imagined g

ng at th

t of the new. It is of the nature of a surprise. The Sphinx of Emerson is not carv

er, but because there are so many. They are infinite in number, and all of them are true. They wait for the mind large enough t

so long, but it fails to depress on

d a poe

nd chee

eet Sphinx!

sant son

the merr

ed no more

d into pu

ered in

of the Far West, and the builders of new cities understand what Emerson meant. Their experience of the ups and downs of fortune has taught them how to find pleasure in unce

picture is not that of a patriarch on bended knee; it is that of a vigorou

, who, fell

ss up, refres

h makes a man come back with new vigor to his work after hi

something of spiritual significance. A new command

Time behove

earest thou t

he rushing m

all that

hat be to thin

peeded up if they are to do any

ture was that of a man of books. It was the knowledge of the best that had been said and known in the past. Emerson's lines

s or tuto

od whom w

s that the man of

ative cen

Future fu

owing fates in his

hings of the past, but with the power to fuse such knowledge as he had and to recast

He would take religion from the custody of the priests, and culture from the hands of schoolmasters, and restore them to their proper place, among the inalienable rights of

he happiness of the forward look. There was a cheerful confidence that the great

are ope

s will sa

dull idi

rtunes of a th

trine of "Manifest Desti