eacher, in the thrall of his priestly inheritance, and to that
extent we leave him behind as we do not leave behind works of pure
literature.

As to continuity, some of his essays have much more of it than others.
In his "Nature" the theme is unfolded, there is growth and evolution;
and his first and second series of Essays likewise show it. The essays
on "Character," on "Self-Reliance," on the "Over-Soul," meet the
requirements of sound prose. And if there is any sounder prose than
can be found in his "Nature," or in his "English Traits," or in his
historical and biographical addresses, I do not know where to find it.
How flat and commonplace seem the works of some of the masters of
prose to whom Arnold alludes--Cicero, Voltaire, Addison,
Swift--compared with those of Emerson! A difference like that between
the prismatic hues of raindrops suspended from a twig or a trellis in
the sunlight and the water in the spring or the brook.

But in Emerson's later work there is, as geologists say, nonconformity
between the strata which make up his paragraphs. There is only
juxtaposition. Among his later papers the one on "Wealth" flows along
much more than the one on "Fate." Emerson believed in wealth. Poverty
did not attract him. It was not suited to his cast of mind. Poverty
was humiliating. Emerson accumulated a fortune, and it added to his
self-respect. Thoreau's pride in his poverty must have made Emerson
shiver.

Although Arnold refused to see in Emerson a great writer, he did admit
that he was eminent as the "friend and aider of those who would live in
the spirit"; but Arnold apparently overlooked the fact that, devoid of
the merit of good literature, no man's writings could have high
spiritual value. Strip the Bible of its excellence as literature, and
you have let out its life-blood. Literature is not a varnish or a
polish. It is not a wardrobe. It is the result of a vital, imaginative
relation of the man to his subject. And Emerson's subject-matter at its
best always partakes of the texture of his own mind. It is admitted that
there are times when his writing lacks organization,--the vital
ties,--when his rhetoric is more like a rocking-horse or a
merry-go-round than like the real thing. But there are few writers who
do not mark time now and then, and Emerson is no exception; and I
contend that at his best his work has the sequence and evolution of all
great prose. And yet, let me say that if Emerson's power and infl