r hand, he is never far from his great fear: "But Truth is
such a fly-away, such a sly-boots, so untransportable and unbarrelable a
commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light." "Let him beware of
proposing to himself any end.... I say to you plainly, there is no end
so sacred or so large that if pursued for itself will not become
carrion and an offence to the nostril."

There can be nothing finer than Emerson's knowledge of the world, his
sympathy with young men and with the practical difficulties of applying
his teachings. We can see in his early lectures before students and
mechanics how much he had learned about the structure of society from
his own short contact with the organized church.

"Each finds a tender and very intelligent conscience a
disqualification for success. Each requires of the practitioner a
certain shutting of the eyes, a certain dapperness and compliance,
an acceptance of customs, a sequestration from the sentiments of
generosity and love, a compromise of private opinion and lofty
integrity.... The fact that a new thought and hope have dawned in
your breast, should apprise you that in the same hour a new light
broke in upon a thousand private hearts.... And further I will not
dissemble my hope that each person whom I address has felt his own
call to cast aside all evil customs, timidity, and limitations, and
to be in his place a free and helpful man, a reformer, a benefactor,
not content to slip along through the world like a footman or a spy,
escaping by his nimbleness and apologies as many knocks as he can,
but a brave and upright man who must find or cut a straight road to
everything excellent in the earth, and not only go honorably
himself, but make it easier for all who follow him to go in honor
and with benefit...."

Beneath all lay a greater matter,--Emerson's grasp of the forms and
conditions of progress, his reach of intellect, which could afford fair
play to every one.

His lecture on The Conservative is not a puzzling _jeu d'esprit_, like
Bishop Blougram's Apology, but an honest attempt to set up the opposing
chessmen of conservatism and reform so as to represent real life. Hardly
can such a brilliant statement of the case be found elsewhere in
literature. It is not necessary to quote here the reformer's side of the
question, for Emerson's whole life was devoted to it. The conservatives'
attitude he gives with such accuracy and such justice that