cause the three things that win with us always. The first essay is a forlorn hope. See what the chances are: "The world exists for the education of each man.. He should see that he can live all history in his own person. He must sit solidly at home, and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires, but know that he is greater than all the geography and all the government of the world; he must transfer the point of view from which history is commonly read from Rome and Athens and London to himself, and not deny his conviction that he is the court, and if England or Egypt have anything to say to him, he will try the case; if not, let them forever be silent." 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, Eschylus, 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 exagger

ation; 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. IIe 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. True we do not outgrow Dante, or Cervantes, or Bacon; and I doubt if the AngloSaxon stock at least ever outgrows that king of romancers, Walter Scott. These men and their like appeal to a larger audience, and in some respects a more adult one; at least one more likely to be found in every age and people. Their achievement was more from the common level of human nature than are Emerson's astonishing paradoxes. Yet I believe his work has the seal of immortality upon it as much as that of any of them. No doubt he has a meaning to us now and in this country that will be lost to succeeding time. His religious significance will not be so important to the next generation. He is being or has been so completely absorbed by his times, that readers and hearers hereafter will get him from a thousand sources, or his contribution will become the

common property of the race. All the masters probably had some peculiar import or tie to their contemporaries that we at a distance miss. It is thought by scholars that we have lost the key, or one key, to Dante, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare- the key or the insight that people living under the same roof get of each other.

But aside from and over and above everything else, Emerson appeals to youth and to genius. If you have these, you will understand him and delight in him; if not, or neither of them, you will make little of him. And I do not see why this should not be just as true any time hence as at present.

THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE.

TO WALT WHITMAN.

"I, thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin, Hoping to cease not till death."

CHANTS DEMOCRATIC

They say that thou art sick, art growing old,

Thou Poet of unconquerable health,

With youth far-stretching, through the golden wealth Of autumn, to Death's frostful, friendly cold,

The never-blenching eyes, that did behold

Life's fair and foul, with measureless content, And gaze ne'er sated, saddened as they bent Over the dying soldier in the fold

then broke the tear!

Of thy large comrade love;
War-dream, field-vigil, the bequeathed kiss,

Have brought old age to thee; yet, Master, now,
Cease not thy song to us; lest we should miss

A death-chant of indomitable cheer,

Blown as a gale from God; -oh sing it thou!

ARRAN LEIGH (England).