iminary of better things. The
measure of a nation's true success is the amount it has contributed to
the thought, the moral energy, the intellectual happiness, the
spiritual hope and consolation of mankind." Before we can have a rebirth
of poetry, we must have a fresh infusion of the Puritan devotion to
ideal ends. We must be baptized again into the spirit of non-conformity,
of intellectual and moral honesty, the spirit which does not suffer men
to go with the crowd, when reason and conscience and a living God bid
them go alone. There never was a time when we needed more the background
of Puritanism. We need in our business and our politics a sterner sense
of the fear of God, and in our home life a renewed simplicity. If we are
to build up to the level of our best opportunities, we must build down
to solid foundation on the sense of obligation. We have new times, new
land and new men. Shall we not have new thought, new work and new
worship? [Applause.]

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

ENGLAND, MOTHER OF NATIONS

[Speech of Ralph Waldo Emerson at the annual banquet of the Manchester
Athenaeum, Manchester, England, November, 1847. Sir Archibald Alison,
the historian, presided]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--It is pleasant to me to meet this
great and brilliant company, and doubly pleasant to see the faces of so
many distinguished persons on this platform. But I have known all these
persons already. When I was at home, they were as near to me as they are
to you. The arguments of the League and its leader are known to all the
friends of free trade. The gaieties and genius, the political, the
social, the parietal wit of "Punch" go duly every fortnight to every boy
and girl in Boston and New York. Sir, when I came to sea, I found the
"History of Europe"[2] on the ship's cabin table, the property of the
captain;--a sort of programme or play-bill to tell the seafaring New
Englander what he shall find on landing here. And as for Dombey, sir,
there is no land where paper exists to print on, where it is not found;
no man who can read, that does not read it, and, if he cannot, he finds
some charitable pair of eyes that can, and hears it.

But these things are not for me to say; these compliments, though true,
would better come from one who felt and understood these merits more. I
am not here to exchange civilities with you, but rather to speak of that
which I am sure interests these gentlemen more than their own praises;
of