re so many bags of genuine coin, which
it has taken a lifetime to hoard; not all gold, but all good, and the
fruit of wise industry and economy.

I know of no other writing that yields the reader so many strongly
stamped medallion-like sayings and distinctions. There is a perpetual
refining and recoining of the current wisdom of life and conversation.
It is the old gold or silver or copper, but how bright and new it looks
in his pages! Emerson loves facts, things, objects, as the workman his
tools. He makes everything serve. The stress of expression is so great
that he bends the most obdurate element to his purpose; as the bird,
under her keen necessity, weaves the most contrary and diverse
materials into her nest. He seems to like best material that is a little
refractory; it makes his page more piquant and stimulating. Within
certain limits he loves roughness, but not at the expense of harmony.
He has wonderful hardiness and push. Where else in literature is there
a mind, moving in so rare a medium, that gives one such a sense of
tangible resistance and force? It is a principle in mechanics that
velocity is twice as great as mass: double your speed and you double
your heat, though you halve your weight. In like manner this body we
are considering is not the largest, but its speed is great, and the
intensity of its impact with objects and experience is almost without
parallel. Everything about a man like Emerson is important. I find his
phrenology and physiognomy more than ordinarily typical and suggestive.
Look at his picture there,--large, strong features on a small face and
head,--no blank spaces; all given up to expression; a high predaceous
nose, a sinewy brow, a massive, benevolent chin. In most men there is
more face than feature, but here is a vast deal more feature than face,
and a corresponding alertness and emphasis of character. Indeed, the
man is made after this fashion. He is all type; his expression is
transcendent. His mind has the hand's pronounced anatomy,--its cords
and sinews and multiform articulations and processes, its opposing and
coordinating power. If his brain is small, its texture is fine and
its convolutions are deep. There have been broader and more catholic
natures, but few so towering and audacious in expression and so rich
in characteristic traits. Every scrap and shred of him is important
and related. Like the strongly aromatic herbs and simples,--sage, mint,
wintergreen, sassafras,--t