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Page 21
Could any better description be given of the kind of man whom Americans
delight to honor? This "sociable, accessible, republican sort of man"
happened to be endowed with gifts denied in such full measure to his
countrymen. But they were gifts which they understood and appreciated.
He was one of them, and expressed and interpreted their habitual
thought. Luther used to declare that no one who had never had trials and
temptations could understand the Holy Scriptures. And one might say that
no one who had never taken part in a town meeting, or listened to the
talk of neighbors at the country store, or traveled in an "accommodation
train" in the Middle West, can fully understand Emerson.
Critics have often written of the optimism of Emerson as if he were one
of those who did not perceive the darker side of things. Nothing could
be more untrue to his temper of mind. Emerson was cheerful, but he never
pretended that the world was an altogether cheerful place to live in.
Indeed, it distinctly needed cheering up, and that, according to him, is
what we are here for.
It might be possible to make out a list of matters of fact treated by
Emerson and his friend Carlyle. They would be essentially the same. When
it came to hard facts, one was as unflinching in his recognition as the
other. There was nothing smug in Emerson's philosophy. He never took an
apologetic attitude nor attempted to minimize difficulties. There was no
attempt to justify the ways of God to man. But while agreeing in regard
to the facts the friends differed as to their conclusions. In reading
Carlyle one seems to stand at the end of a world struggle that has
proved unavailing. Everything has been tried, and everything has failed.
Alas! Alas!
Emerson sees the same facts, but he seems to be standing at the
beginning. The moral world is still without form and void, but the
creative spirit is brooding upon it. "Sweet is the genesis of things."
Emerson is pleased with the world, not because he thinks its present
condition is very good, but because he sees so much room for it to
become better. It is a most promising experiment. It furnishes an
abundance of the raw materials of righteousness.
Nor does he flatter himself that the task of betterment is an easy one,
or that the end is in sight. It is not a world where wishes, even good
wishes, are fulfilled without effort. There are inexorable laws not of
our making. The whims of good people are not respected.
"For Destiny never swerves
Nor yields to man the helm."
The struggle is stem and unrelenting. It taxes all our energies. And
yet it is exhilarating. There is a moral quick-wittedness which sees
the smile behind the threatening mask of Fate. Destiny is after all a
good comrade for the brave and the self-reliant.
"He forbids to despair,
His cheeks mantle with mirth,
And the unimagined good of man
Is yeaning at the birth."
The riddle of existence is seen not from the Old World point of view,
but from that of the new. It is of the nature of a surprise. The Sphinx
of Emerson is not carved in stone. It is not silent and motionless,
waiting for answers that do not come.
It is the American Sphinx leading in a game of hide-and-seek. The
mystery of existence baffles us, not because there is no answer, but
because there are so many. They are infinite in number, and all of them
are true. They wait for the mind large enough to harbor them in all
their variety, and serene enough not to be annoyed because their
contradictions are not at once reconciled.
The catalogue of ills may be never so long, but it fails to depress one
who sees everything in the making.
"I heard a poet answer
Aloud and cheerfully,
'Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
Are pleasant songs to me.'
* * * * *
"Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud.
She silvered in the moon."
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