off the husk to arrive at the kernel,
and judge of the goodness of the crop by the latter, not the former.

'Just so,' said he; 'that's my meaning precisely. I always strive to
follow that rule in every thing. 'Appearances,' you know, 'are
deceitful.''

That is to say, you go beyond or transcend appearances and circumstances,
and divine the true meaning, the substance, the spirit of that on which
you are about to decide. That is practical transcendentalism, and you are
a transcendentalist.

'I wish you would suggest another name for it,' said my friend, as he went
out of the door; 'I detest the sound of that word.'

I wish we could, said I, but he was out of hearing; I wish we could, for
it is an abominably long word to write.

'I wish we could,' mutters the printer, 'for it is an awfully long word to
print.'

'I wish we could,' is the sober second thought of all; for people will
always condemn transcendentalism until it is called by another name. Such
is the force of prejudice.

'I have been thinking over our conversation of yesterday,' said my friend
next morning, on entering my room.

'Oh, you have been writing it down, have you? Let me see it.' After
looking over the sketch, he remarked:

'You _seem_ to have me fast enough, but after all I believe you conquered
merely by playing upon a word, and in proving me to be a transcendentalist
you only proved me to be a reasonable being; one capable of perceiving,
remembering, combining, comparing and deducing; one who, amid the apparent
contradictions with which we are surrounded, strives to reconcile
appearances and discover principles; and from the outward and visible
learn the inward and spiritual; in fine, arrive at truth. Now every
reasonable man claims to be all that I have avowed myself to be. If this
is to be a transcendentalist, then I am one. When I read that I must hate
my father and mother before I can be a disciple of JESUS, I do not
understand that passage literally; I call to mind other precepts of
CHRIST; I remember the peculiarities of eastern style; I compare these
facts together, and deduce therefrom a very different principle from that
apparently embodied in the passage quoted. When I see the Isle of Shoals
doubled, and the duplicates reversed in the air above the old familiar
rocks, I do not, as I stand on Rye-beach, observing the interesting
phenomenon, believe there are two sets of islands there; but recalling
facts which I have learned, a