The Last Harvest | Page 7

And his contribution to the literature of man's
higher moral and æsthetic nature is one of the most valuable of the age
in which he lived.
IV
Apart from the account of his travels and other personal experiences,
the Journals are mainly made up of discussions of upwards of fifty
subjects of general and fundamental interest, ranging from art to war,
and looked at from many and diverse points of view. Of these subjects
three are dominant, recurring again and again in each volume. These
are nature, literature, and religion. Emerson's main interests centered in
these themes. Using these terms in their broadest sense, this is true, I
think, of all his published books. Emerson was an idealist, first, last,
and all the time, and he was a literary artist, or aimed to be, first, last,
and all the time, and in the same measure and to the same extent was he
a devout religious soul, using the term religion as he sometimes uses it,
as a feeling of the Infinite.
There are one hundred and seventy-six paragraphs, long and short,
given to literature and art, and one hundred and sixty given to religious
subjects, and over thirty given to nature. It is interesting to note that he
devotes more paragraphs to woman than to man; and more to society
than to solitude, though only to express his dislike of the former and his
love for the latter. There are more thoughts about science than about
metaphysics, more about war than about love, more about poetry than
about philosophy, more on beauty than on knowledge, more on walking
than on books. There are three times as many paragraphs on nature
(thirty-three) as on the Bible, all of which is significant of his attitude
of mind.
Emerson was a preacher without a creed, a scholar devoted to

super-literary ends, an essayist occupied with thoughts of God, the soul,
nature, the moral law--always the literary artist looking for the right
word, the right image, but always bending his art to the service of
religious thought. He was one of the most religious souls of his country
and time, or of any country and time, yet was disowned by all the sects
and churches of his time. He made religion too pervasive, and too
inclusive to suit them; the stream at once got out of its banks and
inundated all their old landmarks. In the last analysis of his thought, his
ultimate theme was God, and yet he never allowed himself to attempt
any definite statement about God--refusing always to discuss God in
terms of human personality. When Emerson wrote "Representative
Men" he felt that Jesus was the Representative Man whom he ought to
sketch, "but the task required great gifts--steadiest insight and perfect
temper; else the consciousness of want of sympathy in the audience
would make one petulant and sore in spite of himself."
There are few great men in history or philosophy or literature or poetry
or divinity whose names do not appear more or less frequently in the
Journals. For instance, in the Journal of 1864 the names or works of
one hundred and seventeen men appear, ranging from Zeno to Jones
Very. And this is a fair average. Of course the names of his friends and
contemporaries appear the most frequently. The name that recurs the
most often is that of his friend and neighbor Thoreau. There are
ninety-seven paragraphs in which the Hermit of Walden is the main or
the secondary figure. He discusses him and criticizes him, and quotes
from him, always showing an abiding interest in, and affection for, him.
Thoreau was in so many ways so characteristically Emersonian that one
wonders what influence it was in the place or time that gave them both,
with their disparity of ages, so nearly the same stamp. Emerson is by
far the more imposing figure, the broader, the wiser, the more tolerant,
the more representative; he stood four-square to the world in a sense
that Thoreau did not. Thoreau presented a pretty thin edge to the world.
If he stood broadside to anything, it was to nature. He was undoubtedly
deeply and permanently influenced by Emerson both in his mental
habits and in his manner of life, yet the main part of him was original
and unadulterated Thoreau. His literary style is in many respects better
than that of Emerson; its logical texture is better; it has more continuity,

more evolution, it is more flexible and adaptive; it is the medium of a
lesser mind, but of a mind more thoroughly imbued with the influence
of the classical standards of modern literature. I believe "Walden" will
last as long as anything Emerson has written, if not longer. It is the fruit
of a sweeter solitude and detachment from the world