Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/55

Rh of chastisement. The writings of this scorner of imperfection, of the mean and the paltry, this bold exacter of perfection in man, have for me a fascination which amounts almost to magic! I often object to him; I quarrel with him; I see that his stoicism is one-sidedness, his pantheism an imperfection, and I know that which is greater and more perfect, but I am under the influence of his magical power. I believe myself to have become greater through his greatness, stronger through his strength, and I breathe the air of a higher sphere in his world, which is indescribably refreshing to me. Emerson has more ideality than is common among thinkers of the English race, and one might say that in him the idealism of Germany is wedded to the realism of Britain.

I have, as yet, never gone a step to see a literary lion: but Waldo Emerson, this pioneer in the moral woods of the New World, who sets his axe to the roots of the old trees to hew them down, and to open the path for new planting; I would go a considerable way to see this man. And see him I will, him, who, in a society as strictly evangelical as that of Massachusetts and Boston (Emerson was the minister of a Unitarian congregation in Boston), had the courage openly to resign his ministration, his church, and the Christian faith, when he had come to doubt of its principal doctrines; who was noble enough, nevertheless, to retain universal esteem, and old friends; and strong enough, while avoiding all polemical controversy and bitterness of speech, to withdraw into silence, to labour alone for that truth which he fully acknowledged, for those doctrines which the heathen and the Christian alike acknowledge. Emerson has a right to talk about strength and truth, because he lives for these virtues. And it will benefit the world which is slumbering in the Church from the lack of vital Christianity, to be roused up by such fresh winds from the Himalaya of heathenism. But how can Emerson overlook ——— ? Yet