Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 27

"There is nothing to mourn for him. That brave and manly life was rounded out to the full length of days. That dying pillow was softened by the sweetest domestic affection; and as he lay down to the sleep which the Lord giveth his beloved, his face was as the face of an angel, and his smile seemed to give a glimpse of the opening heavens.

"Wherever the English language is spoken throughout the world his fame is established and secure. Throughout this great land and from beyond the sea will come innumerable voices of sorrow for this great public loss. But we, his neighbors and townsmen, feel that he was _ours_. He was descended from the founders of the town. He chose our village as the place where his lifelong work was to be done. It was to our fields and orchards that his presence gave such value; it was our streets in which the children looked up to him with love, and the elders with reverence. He was our ornament and pride.

"'He is gone--is dust,-- He the more fortunate! Yea, he hath finished!

For him there is no longer any future.

His life is bright--bright without spot it was And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap.

Far off is he, above desire and fear; No more submitted to the change and chance Of the uncertain planets.--

"'The bloom is vanished from my life, For, oh! he stood beside me like my youth; Transformed for me the real to a dream, Clothing the palpable and the familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn.

Whatever fortunes wait my future toils, The _beautiful_ is vanished and returns not.'

"That lofty brow, the home of all wise thoughts and high aspirations,--those lips of eloquent music,--that great soul, which trusted in G.o.d and never let go its hope of immortality,--that large heart, to which everything that belonged to man was welcome,--that hospitable nature, loving and tender and generous, having no repulsion or scorn for anything but meanness and baseness,--oh, friend, brother, father, lover, teacher, inspirer, guide! is there no more that we can do now than to give thee this our hail and farewell!"

Judge h.o.a.r's remarks were followed by the congregation singing the hymns, "Thy will be done," "I will not fear the fate provided by Thy love." The Rev. Dr. Furness then read selections from the Scriptures.

The Rev. James Freeman Clarke then delivered an "Address," from which I extract two eloquent and inspiring pa.s.sages, regretting to omit any that fell from lips so used to n.o.ble utterances and warmed by their subject,--for there is hardly a living person more competent to speak or write of Emerson than this high-minded and brave-souled man, who did not wait until he was famous to be his admirer and champion.

"The saying of the Liturgy is true and wise, that 'in the midst of life we are in death.' But it is still more true that in the midst of death we are in life. Do we ever believe so much in immortality as when we look on such a dear and n.o.ble face, now so still, which a few hours ago was radiant with thought and love? 'He is not here: he is risen.' That power which we knew,--that soaring intelligence, that soul of fire, that ever-advancing spirit,--_that_ cannot have been suddenly annihilated with the decay of these earthly organs. It has left its darkened dust behind. It has outsoared the shadow of our night. G.o.d does not trifle with his creatures by bringing to nothing the ripe fruit of the ages by the lesion of a cerebral cell, or some bodily tissue. Life does not die, but matter dies off from it. The highest energy we know, the soul of man, the unit in which meet intelligence, imagination, memory, hope, love, purpose, insight,--this agent of immense resource and boundless power,--this has not been subdued by its instrument. When we think of such an one as he, we can only think of life, never of death.

"Such was his own faith, as expressed in his paper on 'Immortality.'

But he himself was the best argument for immortality. Like the greatest thinkers, he did not rely on logical proof, but on the higher evidence of universal instincts,--the vast streams of belief which flow through human thought like currents in the ocean; those sh.o.r.eless rivers which forever roll along their paths in the Atlantic and Pacific, not restrained by banks, but guided by the revolutions of the globe and the attractions of the sun."

"Let us then ponder his words:--

'Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach and sunsets show?

Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned, Saying, _What is excellent As G.o.d lives, is permanent; Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; Hearts' love will meet thee again._

House and tenant go to ground Lost in G.o.d, in G.o.dhead found.'"

After the above address a feeling prayer was offered by Rev. Howard M.

Brown, of Brookline, and the benediction closed the exercises in the church. Immediately before the benediction, Mr. Alcott recited the following sonnet, which he had written for the occasion:---

"His harp is silent: shall successors rise, Touching with venturous hand the trembling string, Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise, And wake to ecstasy each slumbering thing?

Shall life and thought flash new in wondering eyes, As when the seer transcendent, sweet, and wise, World-wide his native melodies did sing, Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories?

Ah, no! That matchless lyre shall silent lie: None hath the vanished minstrel's wondrous skill To touch that instrument with art and will.

With him, winged poesy doth droop and die; While our dull age, left voiceless, must lament The bard high heaven had for its service sent."

"Over an hour was occupied by the pa.s.sing files of neighbors, friends, and visitors looking for the last time upon the face of the dead poet. The body was robed completely in white, and the face bore a natural and peaceful expression. From the church the procession took its way to the cemetery. The grave was made beneath a tall pine-tree upon the hill-top of Sleepy Hollow, where lie the bodies of his friends Th.o.r.eau and Hawthorne, the upturned sod being concealed by strewings of pine boughs. A border of hemlock spray surrounded the grave and completely lined its sides. The services here were very brief, and the casket was soon lowered to its final resting-place.

"The Rev. Dr. Haskins, a cousin of the family, an Episcopal clergyman, read the Episcopal Burial Service, and closed with the Lord's Prayer, ending at the words, 'and deliver us from evil.'

In this all the people joined. Dr. Haskins then p.r.o.nounced the benediction. After it was over the grandchildren pa.s.sed the open grave and threw flowers into it."

So vanished from human eyes the bodily presence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his finished record belongs henceforth to memory.

CHAPTER XVI.

EMERSON.--A RETROSPECT.

Personality and Habits of Life.--His Commission and Errand.--As a Lecturer.--His Use of Authorities.--Resemblance to Other Writers.--As influenced by Others.--His Place as a Thinker.--Idealism and Intuition.--Mysticism.--His Att.i.tude respecting Science.--As an American.--His Fondness for Solitary Study.--His Patience and Amiability.--Feeling with which he was regarded.--Emerson and Burns.--His Religious Belief.--His Relations with Clergymen.--Future of his Reputation.--His Life judged by the Ideal Standard.

Emerson's earthly existence was in the estimate of his own philosophy so slight an occurrence in his career of being that his relations to the accidents of time and s.p.a.ce seem quite secondary matters to one who has been long living in the companionship of his thought. Still, he had to be born, to take in his share of the atmosphere in which we are all immersed, to have dealings with the world of phenomena, and at length to let them all "soar and sing" as he left his earthly half-way house. It is natural and pardonable that we should like to know the details of the daily life which the men whom we admire have shared with common mortals, ourselves among the rest. But Emerson has said truly "Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and so their home and street life was trivial and commonplace."

The reader has had many extracts from Emerson's writings laid before him. It was no easy task to choose them, for his paragraphs are so condensed, so much in the nature of abstracts, that it is like distilling absolute alcohol to attempt separating the spirit of what he says from his undiluted thought. His books are all so full of his life to their last syllable that we might letter every volume _Emersoniana_, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

From the numerous extracts I have given from Emerson's writings it may be hoped that the reader will have formed an idea for himself of the man and of the life which have been the subjects of these pages. But he may probably expect something like a portrait of the poet and moralist from the hand of his biographer, if the author of this Memoir may borrow the name which will belong to a future and better equipped laborer in the same field. He may not unreasonably look for some general estimate of the life work of the scholar and thinker of whom he has been reading.

He will not be disposed to find fault with the writer of the Memoir if he mentions many things which would seem very trivial but for the interest they borrow from the individual to whom they relate.

Emerson's personal appearance was that of a scholar, the descendant of scholars. He was tall and slender, with the complexion which is bred in the alcove and not in the open air. He used to tell his son Edward that he measured six feet in his shoes, but his son thinks he could hardly have straightened himself to that height in his later years. He was very light for a man of his stature. He got on the scales at Cheyenne, on his trip to California, comparing his weight with that of a lady of the party. A little while afterwards he asked of his fellow-traveller, Professor Thayer, "How much did I weigh? A hundred and forty?" "A hundred and forty and a half," was the answer. "Yes, yes, a hundred and forty and a half! That _half_ I prize; it is an index of better things!"

Emerson's head was not such as Schopenhauer insists upon for a philosopher. He wore a hat measuring six and seven eighths on the _cephalometer_ used by hatters, which is equivalent to twenty-one inches and a quarter of circ.u.mference. The average size is from seven to seven and an eighth, so that his head was quite small in that dimension. It was long and narrow, but lofty, almost symmetrical, and of more nearly equal breadth in its anterior and posterior regions than many or most heads.

His shoulders sloped so much as to be commented upon for this peculiarity by Mr. Gilfillan, and like "Ammon's great son," he carried one shoulder a little higher than the other. His face was thin, his nose somewhat accipitrine, casting a broad shadow; his mouth rather wide, well formed and well closed, carrying a question and an a.s.sertion in its finely finished curves; the lower lip a little prominent, the chin shapely and firm, as becomes the corner-stone of the countenance. His expression was calm, sedate, kindly, with that look of refinement, centring about the lips, which is rarely found in the male New Englander, unless the family features have been for two or three cultivated generations the battlefield and the playground of varied thoughts and complex emotions as well as the sensuous and nutritive port of entry. His whole look was irradiated by an ever active inquiring intelligence. His manner was n.o.ble and gracious. Few of our fellow-countrymen have had larger opportunities of seeing distinguished personages than our present minister at the Court of St. James. In a recent letter to myself, which I trust Mr. Lowell will pardon my quoting, he says of Emerson:--

"There was a majesty about him beyond all other men I have known, and he habitually dwelt in that ampler and diviner air to which most of us, if ever, only rise in spurts."

From members of his own immediate family I have derived some particulars relating to his personality and habits which are deserving of record.

His hair was brown, quite fine, and, till he was fifty, very thick.

His eyes were of the "strongest and brightest blue." The member of the family who tells me this says:--

"My sister and I have looked for many years to see whether any one else had such absolutely blue eyes, and have never found them except in sea-captains. I have seen three sea-captains who had them."

He was not insensible to music, but his gift in that direction was very limited, if we may judge from this family story. When he was in College, and the singing-master was gathering his pupils, Emerson presented himself, intending to learn to sing. The master received him, and when his turn came, said to him, "Chord!" "What?" said Emerson. "Chord!

Chord! I tell you," repeated the master. "I don't know what you mean,"

said Emerson. "Why, sing! Sing a note." "So I made some kind of a noise, and the singing-master said, 'That will do, sir. You need not come again.'"

Emerson's mode of living was very simple: coffee in the morning, tea in the evening, animal food by choice only once a day, wine only when with others using it, but always _pie_ at breakfast. "It stood before him and was the first thing eaten." Ten o'clock was his bed-time, six his hour of rising until the last ten years of his life, when he rose at seven.

Work or company sometimes led him to sit up late, and this he could do night after night. He never was hungry,--could go any time from breakfast to tea without food and not know it, but was always ready for food when it was set before him.

He always walked from about four in the afternoon till tea-time, and often longer when the day was fine, or he felt that he should work the better.

It is plain from his writings that Emerson was possessed all his life long with the idea of his const.i.tutional infirmity and insufficiency.

He hated invalidism, and had little patience with complaints about ill-health, but in his poems, and once or twice in his letters to Carlyle, he expresses himself with freedom about his own bodily inheritance. In 1827, being then but twenty-four years old, he writes:--

"I bear in youth the sad infirmities That use to undo the limb and sense of age."

Four years later:--

"Has G.o.d on thee conferred A bodily presence mean as Paul's, Yet made thee bearer of a word Which sleepy nations as with trumpet calls?"