Ralph Waldo Emerson | Page 6

a
comely little old gentleman, but he was not so communicative in a
strange household as his clerical brethren, smiling John Foster of
Brighton and chatty Jonathan Homer of Newton. Mr. Emerson says,
"He was a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, manly,
and public-spirited; his nature social, his house open to all men.--His
brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, and he had
no studies, no occupations, which company could interrupt. His friends
were his study, and to see them loosened his talents and his tongue. In
his house dwelt order and prudence and plenty. There was no waste and
no stint. He was open-handed and just and generous. Ingratitude and
meanness in his beneficiaries did not wear out his compassion; he bore
the insult, and the next day his basket for the beggar, his horse and
chaise for the cripple, were at their door." How like Goldsmith's good
Dr. Primrose! I do not know any writing of Mr. Emerson which brings
out more fully his sense of humor,--of the picturesque in
character,--and as a piece of composition, continuous, fluid, transparent,
with a playful ripple here and there, it is admirable and delightful.
Another of his early companionships must have exercised a still more
powerful influence on his character,--that of his aunt, Mary Moody
Emerson. He gave an account of her in a paper read before the
Woman's Club several years ago, and published in the "Atlantic
Monthly" for December, 1883. Far more of Mr. Emerson is to be found
in this aunt of his than in any other of his relations in the ascending

series, with whose history we are acquainted. Her story is an interesting
one, but for that I must refer the reader to the article mentioned. Her
character and intellectual traits are what we are most concerned with.
"Her early reading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke,
Jonathan Edwards, and always the Bible. Later, Plato, Plotinus, Marcus
Antoninus, Stewart, Coleridge, Herder, Locke, Madam De Staël,
Channing, Mackintosh, Byron. Nobody can read in her manuscript, or
recall the conversation of old-school people, without seeing that Milton
and Young had a religious authority in their minds, and nowise the
slight merely entertaining quality of modern bards. And Plato, Aristotle,
Plotinus,--how venerable and organic as Nature they are in her mind!"
There are many sentences cited by Mr. Emerson which remind us very
strongly of his own writings. Such a passage as the following might
have come from his Essay, "Nature," but it was written when her
nephew was only four years old.
"Malden, 1807, September.--The rapture of feeling I would part from
for days devoted to higher discipline. But when Nature beams with
such excess of beauty, when the heart thrills with hope in its
Author,--feels it is related to Him more than by any ties of creation,--it
exults, too fondly, perhaps, for a state of trial. But in dead of night,
nearer morning, when the eastern stars glow, or appear to glow, with
more indescribable lustre, a lustre which penetrates the spirits with
wonder and curiosity,--then, however awed, who can fear?"--"A few
pulsations of created beings, a few successions of acts, a few lamps
held out in the firmament, enable us to talk of Time, make epochs,
write histories,--to do more,--to date the revelations of God to man. But
these lamps are held to measure out some of the moments of eternity, to
divide the history of God's operations in the birth and death of nations,
of worlds. It is a goodly name for our notions of breathing, suffering,
enjoying, acting. We personify it. We call it by every name of fleeting,
dreaming, vaporing imagery. Yet it is nothing. We exist in eternity.
Dissolve the body and the night is gone; the stars are extinguished, and
we measure duration by the number of our thoughts, by the activity of
reason, the discovery of truths, the acquirement of virtue, the approval
of God."
Miss Mary Emerson showed something of the same feeling towards
natural science which may be noted in her nephews Waldo and Charles.

After speaking of "the poor old earth's chaotic state, brought so near in
its long and gloomy transmutings by the geologist," she says:--
"Yet its youthful charms, as decked by the hand of Moses' Cosmogony,
will linger about the heart, while Poetry succumbs to science."--"And
the bare bones of this poor embryo earth may give the idea of the
Infinite, far, far better than when dignified with arts and industry; its
oceans, when beating the symbols of countless ages, than when covered
with cargoes of war and oppression. How grand its preparation for
souls, souls who were to feel the Divinity, before Science had dissected
the emotions and applied its steely analysis to that state of being which