his favourite Plato; while portraits of Shakespeare,
Montaigne, Goethe, Dante, looked down upon him from the walls. Produce a
volume of Plato or of Shakespeare, he says somewhere, or '_only remind
us of their names_,' and instantly we come into a feeling of longevity.
That is the scholar's speech. Opening a single essay at random, we find
in it citations from Montesquieu, Schiller, Milton, Herodotus, Shelley,
Plutarch, Franklin, Bacon, Van Helmont, Goethe. So little does Emerson
lend himself to the idle vanity of seeking all the treasures of wisdom
in his own head, or neglecting the hoarded authority of the ages. It is
true that he held the unholy opinion that a translation is as good as
the original, or better. Nor need we suppose that he knew that pious
sensation of the book-lover, the feel of a library; that he had any of
the collector's amiable foolishness about rare editions; or that he
nourished festive thoughts of 'that company of honest old fellows in
their leathern jackets in his study,' as comrades in a sober old-world
conviviality. His books were for spiritual use, like maps and charts of
the mind of man, and not much for 'excellence of divertisement.' He had
the gift of bringing his reading to bear easily upon the tenor of his
musings, and knew how to use books as an aid to thinking, instead of
letting them take the edge off thought. There was assuredly nothing of
the compiler or the erudite collegian in him. It is a graver defect that
he introduces the great names of literature without regard for true
historical perspective in their place, either in relation to one
another, or to the special phases of social change and shifting time.
Still let his admirers not forget that Emerson was in his own way
Scholar no less than Sage.

A word or two must be said of Emerson's verses. He disclaimed, for his
own part, any belief that they were poems. Enthusiasts, however, have
been found to declare that Emerson 'moves more constantly than any
recent poet in the atmosphere of poesy. Since Milton and Spenser no
man--not even Goethe--has equalled Emerson in this trait.' _The
Problem_, according to another, 'is wholly unique, and transcends all
contemporary verse in grandeur of style.' Such poetry, they say, is like
Westminster Abbey, 'though the Abbey is inferior in boldness.' Yet,
strangely enough, while Emerson's poetic form is symbolised by the
flowing lines of Gothic architecture, it is also 'akin to Doric
severity.'