n who does not yield to his own private eccentricities of
dialect, but see if they do not appreciate elegant English from Phillips
or Everett! Men talk of writing down to the public taste who have never
yet written up to that standard. "There never yet was a good tongue,"
said old Fuller, "that wanted ears to hear it." If one were expecting to
be judged by a few scholars only, one might hope somehow to cajole them;
but it is this vast, unimpassioned, unconscious tribunal, this average
judgment of intelligent minds, which is truly formidable,--something
more undying than senates and more omnipotent than courts, something
which rapidly cancels all transitory reputations, and at last becomes
the organ of eternal justice and infallibly awards posthumous fame.

The first demand made by the public upon every composition is, of
course, that it should be attractive. In addressing a miscellaneous
audience, whether through eye or ear, it is certain that no man living
has a right to be tedious. Every editor is therefore compelled to insist
that his contributors should make themselves agreeable, whatever else
they may do. To be agreeable, it is not necessary to be amusing; an
essay may be thoroughly delightful without a single witticism, while a
monotone of jokes soon grows tedious. Charge your style with life,
and the public will not ask for conundrums. But the profounder your
discourse, the greater must necessarily be the effort to refresh and
diversify. I have observed, in addressing audiences of children in
schools and elsewhere, that there is no fact so grave, no thought so
abstract, but you can make it very interesting to the small people, if
you will only put in plenty of detail and illustration; and I have not
observed that in this respect grown men are so very different. If,
therefore, in writing, you find it your mission to be abstruse, fight to
render your statement clear and attractive, as if your life depended on
it: your literary life does depend on it, and, if you fail, relapses
into a dead language, and becomes, like that of Coleridge, only a
_Biographia Literaria_. Labor, therefore, not in thought alone, but in
utterance; clothe and reclothe your grand conception twenty times, until
you find some phrase that with its grandeur shall be lucid also. It is
this unwearied literary patience that has enabled Emerson not merely to
introduce, but even to popularize, thoughts of such a quality as never
reached the popular min