The Greek never looked inward, but outward. Criticism and speculation were foreign to him. His head shows a very marked predominance of the motor and perceptive principle over the reflective. The expression of the face is never what we call intellectual or thoughtful, but commanding. His gods are not philosophers, but delight in deeds, justice, rulership

The

Among the differences between the modern and the classical æsthetic mind is the greater precision and definiteness of the latter. modern genius is Gothic, and demands in art a certain vagueness and spirituality like that of music, refusing to be grasped and formulated. Hence, for us (and this is undoubtedly an improvement) there must always be something about a poem, or any work of art, besides the evident intellect or plot of it, or what is on its surface, or what it tells. This something is the Invisible, the Undefined, almost Unexpressed, and is perhaps the best part of any work of art, as it is of a noble Personality. To amuse, to exhibit culture, to formulate the æsthetic, or even to excite the emotions, is by no means all-is not even the deepest part. Beside these, and enclosing all, is the general impalpable effect, like a good air,

or the subtle presence of good spirits, wordless, but more potent far than words. As in the superbest person, it is not merely what he or she says, or knows, or shows, or even how they behave, but in the silent qualities like gravitation that insensibly but resistlessly hold us; so in a good poem, or any other expression of art.

EMERSON.

W

I.

HEREIN the race has so far lost and gained in being transplanted from Europe to the New England soil and climate, is well illustrated by the writings of Emerson. There is greater refinement and sublimation of thought, greater clearness and sharpness of outline, greater audacity of statement, but, on the other hand, there is a loss of bulk, of unction, of adipose tissue, and shall we say of power?

Emerson is undoubtedly a master on the New England scale-such a master as the land and race are capable of producing. He stands out clear and undeniable. The national type, as illustrated by that section of the country, is the purest and strongest in him of any yet. He can never suffer eclipse. Compared with the English or German master, he is undoubtedly deficient in viscera, in moral and intellectual stomach;

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but, on the other hand, he is of a fibre and quality hard to match in any age or land. From first to last he strikes one as something extremely pure and compact, like a nut or an egg. Great matters and tendencies lie folded in him, or rather are summarised in his pages. He writes short but pregnant chapters on great themes, as in his English Traits, a book like rich preserves put up pound for pound, a pound of Emerson to every pound of John Bull. His chapter on Swedenborg in Representative Men is a good sample of his power to abbreviate and restate with added force. His mind acts like a sun-lens in gathering the cold pale beams of that luminary to a focus which warms and stimulates the reader in a surprising manner. The gist of the whole matter is here; and how much weariness and dulness and plodding is left out!

In fact, Emerson is an essence, a condensation; more so, perhaps, than any other man who has appeared in literature. Nowhere else is there such a preponderance of pure statement, of the very attar of thought over the bulkier, circumstantial, qualifying, or secondary elements. He gives us net results. He is like those strong artificial fertilisers. A pinch of him is equivalent to