" In every essay that follows, there are the
same great odds and the same electric call to the youth to face
them. It is, indeed, as much a world of fable and romance that
Emerson introduces us to as we get in Homer or Herodotus. It is
true, all true,--true as Arthur and his knights, or Pilgrim's
Progress, and I pity the man who has not tasted its intoxication,
or who can see nothing in it.
The intuitions are the bright band, without armor or shield, that
slay the mailed and bucklered giants of the understanding.
Government, institutions, religions, fall before the glance of the
hero's eye. Art and literature, Shakespeare, Angelo, Aeschylus, are
humble suppliants before you, the king. The commonest fact is
idealized, and the whole relation of man to the universe is thrown
into a kind of gigantic perspective. It is not much to say there is
exaggeration; the very start makes Mohammed's attitude toward the
mountain tame. The mountain _shall_ come to Mohammed, and, in the
eyes of all born readers of Emerson, the mountain does come, and
comes with alacrity.
Some shrewd judges apprehend that Emerson is not going to last;
basing their opinion upon the fact, already alluded to, that we
outgrow him, or pass through him as through an experience that we
cannot repeat. He is but a bridge to other things; he gets you
over. He is an exceptional fact in literature, say they, and does
not represent lasting or universal conditions. He is too fine for
the rough wear and tear of ages.
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