If one reads too much of a style like this, the effect becomes fatiguing. You miss the long, full, steady flow of sentences with varied cadence and changing music. Emerson's river is almost all rapids. The flash and sparkle of phrase after phrase tire me after a while. But for a short voyage nothing could be more animated and stimulating. I read one essay at a time and rise refreshed. But the secret of Emerson's power, (to change the figure,) is in the wine which he offers, not the cup into which he pours it. His great word,—“selfreliance," runs through all his writing and pervades all that he says. At times it is put in an extreme form, and might lead, if rashly followed, to intellectual conceit and folly. But it is balanced by other words, no less potent,-self-criticism, modesty, consideration, prudence, and reverence. is an aspiring, hopeful teacher of youth; correcting follies with a sharp wit; encouraging noble ambitions; making the face of nature luminous with the glow of poetic imagination; and elevating life with an ideal patriotism and a broad humanity. In all He his writing one feels the serene, lofty influence of a sane and chastened optimism, the faith which holds, amid many appearances which are dark, mysterious and terrifying, that Good is stronger than Evil and will triumph at last everywhere. Read what he says in the essay called Compensation: "There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action I properly am; in a virtuous act I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism." This is the note that brings a brave joy to the ear of youth. Old age gladly listens to the same note in the deeper, quieter music of Emerson's poem, Terminus. "As the bird trims her to the gale, |