ualities, like gravitation, that insensibly but resistlessly
hold us; so in a good poem, or in any other expression of art.

IX EMERSON

Wherein the race has so far lost and gained, in being transplanted from
Europe to the New England soil and climate, is well illustrated by the
writings of Emerson. There is greater refinement and sublimation of
thought, greater clearness and sharpness of outline, greater audacity of
statement, but, on the other hand, there is a loss of bulk, of unction,
of adipose tissue, and shall we say of power?

Emerson is undoubtedly a master on the New England scale,--such a master
as the land and race are capable of producing. He stands out clear and
undeniable. The national type, as illustrated by that section of the
country, is the purest and strongest in him of any yet. He can never
suffer eclipse. Compared with the English or German master, he is
undoubtedly deficient in viscera, in moral and intellectual stomach;
but, on the other hand, he is of a fibre and quality hard to match
in any age or land. From first to last he strikes one as something
extremely pure and compact, like a nut or an egg. Great matters and
tendencies lie folded in him, or rather are summarized in his pages. He
writes short but pregnant chapters on great themes, as in his "English
Traits," a book like rich preserves put up pound for pound, a pound
of Emerson to every pound of John Bull. His chapter on Swedenborg in
"Representative Men" is a good sample of his power to abbreviate and
restate with added force. His mind acts like a sun-lens in gathering the
cold pale beams of that luminary to a focus which warms and stimulates
the reader in a surprising manner. The gist of the whole matter is here;
and how much weariness and dullness and plodding is left out!

In fact, Emerson is an essence, a condensation; more so, perhaps, than
any other man who has appeared in literature. Nowhere else is there such
a preponderance of pure statement, of the very attar of thought, over
the bulkier, circumstantial, qualifying, or secondary elements. He gives
us net results. He is like those strong artificial fertilizers. A pinch
of him is equivalent to a page or two of Johnson, and he is pitched many
degrees higher as an essayist than even Bacon. He has had an immediate
stimulating effect upon all the best minds of the country; how deep or
lasting this influence will be remains to be seen.

This point and brevity has its convenie