nd practicality; infinitely well affected to the man Emerson
too,'--and full moreover of that intellectual enthusiasm which in his
Scotch countrymen goes so often with their practicalities.

_Emerson, at Home and Abroad_; by Moncure D. Conway (Truebner & Co.,
1883): the work of a faithful disciple, who knew Emerson well, and has
here recorded many interesting anecdotes and traits.]

II.

It cannot be truly said that Emerson is one of the writers who make
their way more easily into our minds by virtue of style. That his
writing has quality and flavour none but a pure pedant would deny. His
more fervent votaries, however, provoke us with a challenge that goes
far beyond this. They declare that the finish, charm, and beauty of the
writing are as worthy of remark as the truth and depth of the thought.
It is even 'unmatchable and radiant,' says one. Such exaggerations can
have no reference to any accepted standard. It would in truth, have been
a marvel if Emerson had excelled in the virtues of the written page, for
most of his published work was originally composed and used for the
platform. Everybody knows how different are the speaker's devices for
gaining possession of his audience, from the writer's means of winning,
persuading, and impressing the attention of his reader. The key to the
difference may be that in the speech the personality of the orator
before our eyes gives of itself that oneness and continuity of
communication, which the writer has to seek in the orderly sequence and
array of marshalled sentence and well-sustained period. One of the
traits that every critic notes in Emerson's writing, is that it is so
abrupt, so sudden in its transitions, so discontinuous, so
inconsecutive. Dislike of a sentence that drags made him unconscious of
the quality, that French critics name _coulant_. Everything is thrown in
just as it comes, and sometimes the pell-mell is enough to persuade us
that Pope did not exaggerate when he said that no one qualification is
so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own
thoughts.

His manner as a lecturer, says Dr. Holmes, was an illustration of his
way of thinking. 'He would lose his place just as his mind would drop
its thought and pick up another, twentieth cousin or no relation at all
to it.' The same manner, whether we liken it to mosaic or to
kaleidoscope, marks his writing. It makes him hard to follow, oracular,
and enigmatical. 'Can you tell me,'