l signboards to. Emerson's outward-inward qualities make
him hard to classify, but easy for some. There are many who like to say
that he--even all the Concord men--are intellectuals. Perhaps--but
intellectuals who wear their brains nearer the heart than some of their
critics. It is as dangerous to determine a characteristic by manner as
by mood. Emerson is a pure intellectual to those who prefer to take him
as literally as they can. There are reformers, and in "the form" lies
their interest, who prefer to stand on the plain, and then insist they
see from the summit. Indolent legs supply the strength of eye for their
inspiration. The intellect is never a whole. It is where the soul finds
things. It is often the only track to the over-values. It appears a
whole--but never becomes one even in the stock exchange, or the
convent, or the laboratory. In the cleverest criminal, it is but a way
to a low ideal. It can never discard the other part of its duality--the
soul or the void where the soul ought to be. So why classify a quality
always so relative that it is more an agency than substance; a quality
that disappears when classified. "The life of the All must stream
through us to make the man and the moment great." A sailor with a
precious cargo doesn't analyze the water. Because Emerson had
generations of Calvinistic sermons in his blood, some cataloguers,
would localize or provincialize him, with the sternness of the old
Puritan mind. They make him THAT, hold him THERE. They lean heavily on
what they find of the above influence in him. They won't follow the
rivers in his thought and the play of his soul. And their cousin
cataloguers put him in another pigeon-hole. They label him "ascetic."
They translate his outward serenity into an impression of severity. But
truth keeps one from being hysterical. Is a demagogue a friend of the
people because he will lie to them to make them cry and raise false
hopes? A search for perfect truths throws out a beauty more spiritual
than sensuous. A sombre dignity of style is often confused by
under-imagination and by surface-sentiment, with austerity. If
Emerson's manner is not always beautiful in accordance with accepted
standards, why not accept a few other standards? He is an ascetic, in
that he refuses to compromise content with manner. But a real ascetic
is an extremist who has but one height. Thus may come the confusion, of
one who says that Emerson carries him high, but then leaves him