translate Emerson or not. I feel that he is a poet, a poetical rhetorician, but he has not one element in common with my nature; he is an American, not a German, nor can you make one of him though you translate him into ever so good German; I promise, however, to do my best to comprehend him, yet I scarcely think I shall progress far in that direction."

What reply could I make to such language? No malevolence is discernible here, not even in the mildest degree. Everyone has the right to discard that which does not suit him. I do not feel called upon to convert the world to Emerson with fire and sword. Truth works out its own way; if you allow a gold coin coppered over and a gilded copper coin to circalate for a while, they will gradually change their characters without the aid of any extra rubbing or scouring. So I now think of Emerson. If one sees a necessity of one's own nature satisfied in the acquaintance of a man, yet that man may not on that account appear so necessary or desirable to others. But I will make one more attempt to explain why it is that I find so much consolation in his writings. Consolation best expresses the feelings. What do we want? What do we long for? We desire freedom. Formerly the word freedom was a dubious word, of which princes-yea and the people themselves-had a holy horror; to-day it is an innocent expression which denotes the ideal of a well-proportioned state government, to the use of which both princes and the parties of the land alike consent. But where lies this mean between law and lawlessness? No one knows. We are sensible of the temporariness of our condition— within our country, as without-the whole world over. Parties may form themselves, but there are no just parties, everything still runs pell mell; we express our thoughts, but we feel that what we say and hear is not the whole truth, and we know that it is impossible openly to state this entire truth, and ourselves as the representatives of it. This atmosphere oppresses the land and the mountains even do not tower above it.

We struggle against another circumstance. Everyone longs for firmer ground beneath his feet. We desire to know how better to oppose ourselves to and how better to know what we must tacitly pre-suppose with each individual. Uniforms and titles, and marks of distinction, have no longer any effectual signification; Catholicism and Protestantism, however sharply we have been pleased of late to oppose them outwardly, have nevertheless, in their entirety no longer any antagonism which should penetrate mankind from top to bot

tom.

The nobility and the common people meet peacefully on a level, as aristocrats where money and birth quietly counterbalance one another; we opine that out of the numerous parties of the day not one will rise up and overthrow the others, but that parties will coalesce, and that finally nothing will remain but one Church and one Government. But what then? The controversy will be this, that this one Government be a German Government, to which Sclavonians, Romanians, Mongolians, and whatever the other races are called, shall be subordinate.

This one Church and one Government of our race is nothing new; it was represented in the Pope and the Emperor. It remains in our blood and is indispensable. We desire no restitution of old conditions, no new Roman traits of character, for the world of to-day as compared with that of olden time has experienced an immense growth and Italy is no longer the centre of the globe; nor is the completion of theoretical structures our work: we are satisfied for the beginning, in making clear what our aim in reality is; the direction is given, the highway will follow. Everyone goes there for himself, and yet all go in one road. What we peculiarly need to-day is this-large masses, but individual men; unceasing accumulation of knowledge and goods, but all knowledge and all possessions inferior to the discerning glance of a man who readily comprehends, as it were by intuition, the things about him, and bestows upon them names, as seems fit to him.

To-day there lies in the field a stone which no one picks up except to cast angrily aside; to-morrow there comes a man, looks at the stone, studies it, pronounces it to contain great riches, and now the whole world calls it a precious stone, and digs diligently in the ground for it. We give not a penny more for knowledge, but we say that man is a scholar; we do not enquire about poetry, but we say that man is a poet, that man a physician, that man a painter, that man a statesman, though they may have studied as they pleased, or gained their knowledge as they pleased,-may formerly have been merchants, peasants, or soldiers, if they only stand at their places and command esteem. We feel that life must now be thus looked upon, whoever is for the most part capable, will undoubtedly find that for which he is specially adapted. This is perfect freedom. We are not yet educated up to it, but we are working towards it. Emerson is the man who stands at its height.

We have a kind of horror of American life. We see a vast edifice which every passing wind shakes to its foundation, the instability would appear not to allow of a quiet natural development of character; the highest honors of the state are free to the commonest citizen; there is no fundamental change of customs, the laws depend upon the impulses of the moment; usages and manners are without an established society to cherish and control them. There are only three powers, Money, Industry and Character. It is wonderful how these powers lay hold of one another, and how accurately each one places itself. He that has character occupies the first station. Appearances indicate this to be the fact: a circle of energetic people, with the greatest talents of mind, stand everywhere at the head of affairs, which position they could never have attained either by money or mere power. Beneath these is a class of citizens whose activity in greater or less degree indicates the height upon which they stand. The rest, without powers of mind, are estimated from the means which they command. This organization, in its simplicity forms a basis upon which the American mode of life rests indestructible.

Upon this basis Emerson stands. He watches the world as it bustles around

him, whatever takes place before him is but one step toward the height upon which he has placed himself. The living take precedence of the dead. And though the Greeks may have poetized, chiseled, thought, conquered or ruled ever so grandly, they are dead and we live. Though I had never known of them I nevertheless live, and the breath of Spring enraptures me and love and passion move my soul. Shall I grow speechless before that which was said before I was born? What care I whether I am the descendant of a past epoch or the forerunner of one to come-the foundation or the closingstone-the last spark in the dead ashes or the first spark of an awakening fire. Is the seed the last stage of a dying plant, or the earliest stage of a new development? To what purpose shall I cumber my mind with knowledge which I shall never use, or wear myself out over things whose uses I do not comprehend? Many sit there with their learning as the Persian slaves on the sea shore, and whip the sea with their rods; the waves flow as of old, and their labor is in vain. Little by little we allow ourselves from our youth up to impose upon ourselves a burden of knowledge, and when we are to act we are obliged first to rid ourselves of our load before we can advance a single step. Instead of learning at school a few things thoroughly, (for to know a single thing thoroughly is to lay the foundation of all future knowledge), we are taught a countless number of things which are fairly crammed into our minds, and of which we make an unprofitable display, till, in later years we learn to thank God when we have forgotten them.

There is an art of standing above that which we have learned. Knowledge is only the guide to that which neither allows itself to be acquired, nor to be communicated further in a learned manner. With really great men I have always found this freedom. They employ only their own nature as a measure, they talk as though it were possible for them to make every illiterate person a paragon of learning, provided only he have a small stock of common sense. Instead of placing themselves above us, they seem to place us above them, and, unobserved, they cover our own ignorance; we become more shrewd in their presence and know not how; the difficult appears easy, and the obscure and entangled disentangles itself with their assistance, as though it were originally thus clear and perspicuous, and had been made complicate by the artful contrivance of others.

Emerson possesses this exalted mode of communicating his ideas. He fills me with courage and confidence. He has read much, observed much, but conceals the drudgery of it. I met in him many facts already known to me, yet he uses these not for the sake of again construing with them the old worn out illustrations, but each occupies a new position, and serves for new combinations. He sees the direct line go forth from every circumstance that brings it in communication with the centre of life. Those thoughts which I scarcely dare entertain, since to me they seem far too presumptuous, he utters as calmly as though they were everyday thoughts, readily comprehended as a matter of course. He is perfectly at home in the elements of modern life.

He trembles not before the storms of the future, since he anticipates the calm which will follow them; he hates not, contradicts not, strives not, since his knowledge of mankind and their faults is too great, his love of them too strong within him. I cannot but follow his footsteps with inward reverence, and look upon him with wonder as he calmly and dispassionately separates the chaos of our to-day's life into its diverse provinces. Had I but found a single sentence of his which I must except from this judgment which is pronounced on all his writings, I should have been led to doubt all the rest, and should not have ventured to utter a word; but long acquaintance has confirmed me in my judgments, and from my thoughts of this man I can readily understand that in other times there may in reality have been teachers with whom their scholars shared every fortune, since to them everything must have seemed uncertain and unreal without the spirit of the man whom they followed. I will not say that I felt any such blind resignation in myself.

Emerson is an American; the rough nationality of his people will require a long time to reach the level of ours; we stand higher than the Americans, what benefits them cannot be so unrestrictedly made use of for us. Emerson appears to me of more importance in the light of a man of character than when I contemplate him as an author only.

It is certainly no misfortune that in intellectual things, where a false reputation is so cheap, a genuine one should be so difficult to acquire. There, neither money nor fine words avail. Before we acknowledge the power of conviction in an author we defend ourselves with both our hands and our feet, and seek every possibility of escape. We scarcely make up our minds to this acknowledgement with the dead, on no account with the living. We are not willing to consider ourselves of less account than all others. If an author lays claim to no more than a momentary notice this we accord without stint, that is to say, we speak, praise and admire, and they whose judgment is in reality the true one that abides and endures, either allow the words to pass them without notice or join faintly in our praise, taking care meanwhile, however, to reserve an easy means of egress through which to retreat with their consciousness. If however you block up their way of retreat then they become earnest and resist. One will not so easily surrender one's freedom. In the one instance one was a magnanimous master and the praise that one accorded a gracious gift, here however one becomes the recipient of charity; the man requires not our thanks, he is indifferent to our praise-we receive and enjoy and are ashamed not to give anything in return.

Emerson, however, has thus far scarcely brought us to this dissension, not in its remoteness even. He is as good as unknown, and has but just commenced to interest a few. The translation of his works is a task which is not so easily accomplished; nothing has ever cost me so much pains as the attempt I made to reproduce one of his works in real German. He does not write, he seems to speak; at first you see no plan, no order, and look in amazement for the cohesion of the sentences which seem to stand one against

another all so strange and rough hewn, and yet firmly worked together in a comprehensive whole. Soon we discover the perfect symmetry with which he develops his thoughts and the logical sequence in them, where at first they appear to deviate widely from the straight path. It is not the symmetry of a wall tree where the gardener directs the branches where and how to grow, but rather that of a healthy beech tree, where the growth spreads itself and branches out apparently without regularity, but finally forms a most beautiful bower, and not the smallest twig is superflous or misplaced.

A short time since I found Emerson's Essays in the hands of a lady to whom I had hitherto vainly recommended them. She had a thousand excuses for not reading the book. She demonstrated to me that we possessed in Goethe quite as much, or even more, than according to my own showing was afforded us by Emerson; moreover, the work was by no means called for with us, especially if he were indeed what I had described him. Furthermore, she had read in the book and found quite common thoughts, such as she had long since entertained and only had not given expression to them.

Of Goethe she was not in the wrong. This man's spirit which might have driven thousands of mills and water wheels, exists for the most part only in the fountains and waterfalls in which they occasionally delight.

In short, Emerson remained unread. Now she commenced him suddenly of her own accord. "He was, to be sure, very remarkable. He frequently made the most surprisingly simple observations through which the most complicated thoughts found a solution."

I listened quietly to this and rested satisfied. Not long after she took me seriously to task, and, to my astonishment, communicated to me her admiration of the man so fully and convincingly, that I sat there as though I were the subject for conversion. She was impatient that I did not fully consent to her opinion, and gave me to understand that she finally comprehended him better, and appreciated him more fully than I myself. This experience has repeated itself. With pleasure I allow myself, here and there, to be instructed as to Emerson's worth.

With astonishment I observe that he also gains opponents, and watch the character of the reproaches made against him. The old experience is confirmed, that one is but seldom in a position to comprehend a character as a whole, and from it judge the individual. We avail ourselves only of detached traits here and there; at best we but observe a few connected ones: for the most part, however, we view only disconnected sentences which we disengage for the purpose very much as we would liberate individual fishes from a great net in which they seem to be floundering about, and which we must first classify, after our fashion, in order to know what properties they possess. Then are found only contradictions, the false, the glittering, the affected assuming the ingenuous, that, long since put away, are brought forth as of importance, in the most uncalled-for manner; everywhere blame is manifest in full measure. But in spite of all this we have still a feeling of this man's pure