Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/230

 222 INTRODUCTION

"eternal verities" — as "a friend of those who would live in the spirit."

For, say what the critics may, Randall belonged to the high society of Emerson and Carlyle, little as they or he became aware of it in their lives. The nineteenth century stands pre-eminently for a widely prevalent emphasis on the Mechanical ; these three seers, living and dying in the very heart of it, stand pre-eminently for an almost passion- ate individual emphasis on the Moral. This is not the place to enlarge on that topic, but the sagacious reader of the three will not fail to perceive, in the midst of their deep differences, their deeper identities, too. Others may more effectively interpret the spirit of the age, but these three, for such as have ears to hear, utter the profounder spirit of the ages. To quote almost at random, take short extracts for examples.

From Emerson, on July 15, 1838 : —

" A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is above him. He learns that his being is without bound ; that to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness. That which he venerates is still his own, though he has not realized it yet. He ought. He knows the sense of that grand word, though his analysis fails to render account of it. When in innocency or when by intellectual perception he attains to say : ' I love the Right ; Truth is beautiful within and without forevermore. Virtue, I am thine ; save me ; use me ; thee will I serve, day and night, in great, in small, that I be not virtuous, but virtue,' — then is the end of the creation answered, and God is well pleased. ... If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God ; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God do enter into that man with justice."

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