that nothing is impossible, and that the whole world lies at his feet.
But as the band turns the corner, at the soldiers' monument, and the
march steps of the Grand Army become fainter and fainter, the boy's
vision slowly vanishes--his "world" becomes less and less probable--but
the experience ever lies within him in its reality. Later in life, the
same boy hears the Sabbath morning bell ringing out from the white
steeple at the "Center," and as it draws him to it, through the autumn
fields of sumac and asters, a Gospel hymn of simple devotion comes out
to him--"There's a wideness in God's mercy"--an instant suggestion of
that Memorial Day morning comes--but the moment is of deeper
import--there is no personal exultation--no intimate world vision--no
magnified personal hope--and in their place a profound sense of a
spiritual truth,--a sin within reach of forgiveness--and as the hymn
voices die away, there lies at his feet--not the world, but the figure
of the Saviour--he sees an unfathomable courage, an immortality for the
lowest, the vastness in humility, the kindness of the human heart,
man's noblest strength, and he knows that God is nothing--nothing but
love! Whence cometh the wonder of a moment? From sources we know not.
But we do know that from obscurity, and from this higher Orpheus come
measures of sphere melodies [note: Paraphrased from a passage in Sartor
Resartus.] flowing in wild, native tones, ravaging the souls of men,
flowing now with thousand-fold accompaniments and rich symphonies
through all our hearts; modulating and divinely leading them.

3

What is character? In how far does it sustain the soul or the soul it?
Is it a part of the soul? And then--what is the soul? Plato knows but
cannot tell us. Every new-born man knows, but no one tells us. "Nature
will not be disposed of easily. No power of genius has ever yet had the
smallest success in explaining existence. The perfect enigma remains."
As every blind man sees the sun, so character may be the part of the
soul we, the blind, can see, and then have the right to imagine that
the soul is each man's share of God, and character the muscle which
tries to reveal its mysteries--a kind of its first visible
radiance--the right to know that it is the voice which is always
calling the pragmatist a fool.

At any rate, it can be said that Emerson's character has much to do
with his power upon us. Men who have known nothing of his life, have
borne witnes