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 more upon the metaphysical filaments among them than the value of a string of alternating beads of gold and pearl depends upon the string. The figure has a momentary illustrative force but is very inadequate. Emerson lives, still speaks pertinently of our current affairs, and to-morrow we shall still find him commenting with equal pertinency on to-morrow's affairs. To know him is not mere knowledge. It is an experience; for he is a dynamic personality, addressing the will, the emotions, the imagination, no less than the intellect. His value escapes the merely intellectual appraiser. Analysis cannot deal properly with his pungent wit—it must be savored; nor with the impetus that he gives to the will—it must be felt; nor with the purgation and serene rapture of the mind towards which his noble discipline tends—this rapture must be attained as a state of grace by imitation of those who have attained it, by lifelong intercourse with men whose tone and habit of life is noble.

Since we are to consider him primarily as an unspent force in our own times, what it most concerns us to enquire about him is what he can do for us. If we approach him with that question, we need not tarry long over biographical details, interesting and rewarding as they may be to the student of literary history. We pretty well sum up his ex-