certainly very unusual in the case of
an extinct periodical.

From time to time Emerson collected and published his lectures under
various titles. A first series of _Essays_ came out in 1841, and a
second in 1844; the _Conduct of Life_ in 1860, _Society and Solitude_
in 1870, _Letters and Social Aims_, in 1876, and the _Fortune of the
Republic_ in 1878. In 1847 he issued a volume of _Poems_, and 1865
_Mayday and Other Poems_. These writings, as a whole, were variations
on a single theme, expansions and illustrations of the philosophy set
forth in _Nature_, and his early addresses. They were strikingly
original, rich in thought, filled with wisdom, with lofty morality and
spiritual religion. Emerson, said Lowell, first "cut the cable that
bound us to English thought and gave us a chance at the dangers and
glories of blue water." Nevertheless, as it used to be the fashion to
find an English analogue for every American writer, so that Cooper was
called the American Scott, and Mrs. Sigourney was described as the
Hemans of America, a well-worn critical tradition has coupled Emerson
with Carlyle. That his mind received a nudge from Carlyle's early
essays and from _Sartor Resartus_ is beyond a doubt. They were
life-long friends and correspondents, and Emerson's _Representative
Men_ is, in some sort, a counterpart of Carlyle's _Hero Worship_. But
in temper and style the two writers were widely different. Carlyle's
pessimism and {454} dissatisfaction with the general drift of things
gained upon him more and more, while Emerson was a consistent optimist
to the end. The last of his writings published during his life-time,
the _Fortune of the Republic_, contrasts strangely in its hopefulness
with the desperation of Carlyle's later utterances. Even in presence
of the doubt as to man's personal immortality he takes refuge in a high
and stoical faith. "I think all sound minds rest on a certain
preliminary conviction, namely: that if it be best that conscious
personal life shall continue it will continue, and if not best, then it
will not; and we, if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was
better so." It is this conviction that gives to Emerson's writings
their serenity and their tonic quality at the same time that it narrows
the range of his dealings with life. As the idealist declines to
cross-examine those facts which he regards as merely phenomenal, and
looks upon this outward face of things as upon a mas