Happiness in labour, righteousness, and veracity; in all the life of the spirit; happiness and eternal hope; — that was Emerson's gospel. I hear it said that Emerson 100 was too sanguine; that the actual generation in America is not turning out so well as he expected. Very likely, he was too sanguine as to the near future; in this country it is difficult not to be too sanguine. Very possibly the present generation may prove unworthy of his high hopes; even 105 several generations succeeding this may prove unworthy of them. But by his conviction that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood, and to prevail, and to work for happiness, — by this conviction and 110 hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have been right in them. In this country it is difficult, as I said, not to be sanguine. Very many of your writers are over-sanguine, and on the wrong grounds. But you have two men who in what they have written show their 115 sanguineness in a line where courage and hope are just, where they are also infinitely important, but where they are not easy. The two men are Franklin and Emerson.1 These I found with pleasure that this conjunction of Emerson's name with Franklin's had already occurred to an accomplished writer and delightful man, a friend of Emerson, left almost the sole survivor, alas! of the famous literary generation of Boston, - Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Dr. Holmes has kindly allowed me to print here the ingenious and interesting lines, hitherto unpublished, in which he speaks of Emerson thus: 'Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, Does he, the Buddha of the West belong? He seems a wingèd Franklin, sweetly wise, Born to unlock the secret of the skies; To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre?" [Arnold's note.] two are, I think, the most distinctively and honourably American of your writers; they are the most original and the most valuable. 120 Shakespeare Others abide our question. Thou art free. Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Better so! All pains the immortal spirit must endure, Of passion with eternal law; We watched the fount of fiery life Which served for that Titanic strife. When Goethe's death was told, we said: Goethe has done his pilgrimage. He took the suffering human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear; And said: Thou ailest here, and here! He said: The end is everywhere, Art still has truth, take refuge there! Of terror, and insane distress, And headlong fate, be happiness. And Wordsworth! Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! For never has such soothing voice Been to your shadowy world conveyed, Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. On the cool flowery lap of earth, Smiles broke from us and we had ease; Ah! since dark days still bring to light Requiescat Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too! Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. Her life was turning, turning, Her cabined, ample spirit, It fluttered and failed for breath; To-night it doth inherit The vasty hall of death. 5 10 155 The Fall of Sohrab (From Sohrab and Rustum) He spoke, and Rustum answered not, but hurled That long has towered in the airy clouds - By their dark springs, the wind in wintertime And strewn the channels with torn boughs so huge |