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world as similar to moral loveliness and calm, and as age grew on, his calmness deepened."-Stopford Brooke.

"In The Excursion' we forget the poverty of the getting up to admire the purity and elevation of the thought.

This book is like a Protestant temple, august, though bare and They [his stanzas] resemble the grand

monotonous.

monotonous music of the organ."-Taine.

"A dream which reaches the ne plus ultra of sublimity expressly framed to illustrate the eternity.

No describer so powerful or idealizing so magnificently what he deals with, has been a spectator of parallel scenes.”—De Quincey.

"He clothes the naked with beauty and grandeur.

His mind seemed embued with the majesty and solemnity of the objects around him."- William Hazlitt.

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"His diction never in his best works is deficient in splendor and compass. . . In this faculty of awakening sentiments of grandeur, sublimity, beauty, affection, devotion, it would be difficult to find a parallel to WordsHe is above the tempests and turbulence of life, and moves in regions where serenity is strength."-E. P. Whipple.

worth.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

"Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold

Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed;

Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need."

-Ode to Duty.

"Child of the clouds! remote from every taint

Of sordid industry thy lot is cast;
Thine are the honors of the lofty waste;

Not seldom, when with heat the valleys faint,

Thy handmaid Frost with spangled tissues quaint
Thy cradle decks ;-to chant thy birth, thou hast
No meaner poet than the whistling Blast,

And Desolation is thy Patron-saint!"

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"Child of loud-throated War! the mountain stream Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest

Is come, and thou art silent in thy age;

Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are caught
Ambiguous, neither wholly thine nor theirs.

Oh! there is life that breathes not; powers there are
That touch each other to the quick in modes
Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive,
No soul to dream of."-Address to Kilchurn Castle.

EMERSON, 1803-1882

Biographical Outline.-Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Mass., May 25, 1803, the second of five sons; father pastor of the "First Church" (Congregational) of Boston; Emerson enters the public grammar school in 1811 and the Boston Latin School soon afterward; at the age of eleven (1814) he is translating Virgil into English verse; he is fond, also, of Greek, history, and poetry; he composes verses, and thinks highly of "the idle books under the bench at the Latin School;" he enters Harvard College in 1818, and is graduated in 1821; he receives second prize for English composition in his Senior year, but gives little evidence of remarkable ability while in college; he joins his brother William in conducting a private school at Boston, and later serves as principal of an "Academy" at Chelmsford, now a part of Lowell; later he has a private school at Cambridge.

In 1823 he begins studying for the ministry under Dr. Channing, afterward taking a course of lectures at the Harvard Divinity School; owing to trouble with his eyes, he takes no notes at the Divinity School, and is excused from the examinations; Emerson wrote later, "If they had examined me, they probably would not have let me preach at all;" in 1826 he is "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Association of Ministers; he visits South Carolina and Florida during the winter of 1827-28, and preaches several times at Charleston and other places; returning, he preaches temporarily in several New England towns; in March, 1829, he is ordained colleague of Dr. Ware in the "Second Church" of Boston; in September, 1829, he marries Ellen Louisa Tucker, who dies of consumption in February, 1832; in

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September, 1832, he preaches his famous sermon on the Lord's Supper, expressing his scruples against administering the same and announcing his intention, therefore, to resign his office.

He visits Europe in 1833, making a tour of Sicily, Italy, France, and England, and meeting Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, De Quincey, and Carlyle; he becomes a resident of Concord in the summer of 1834, first occupying the "Old Manse" of Hawthorne's novel; he begins lecturing in the winter of 1833-34, giving three lectures treating of his European experiences and two, respectively, on "Water" and "The Relation of Man to the Globe;" during 1834 he lectures on Michael Angelo, Milton, Luther, George Fox, and Burke; the first two of these lectures were published in the North American Review for 1837-38; Emerson begins, in May, 1834, his correspondence with Carlyle, which lasts till 1872; in September, 1835, he marries Lydia Jackson, of Plymouth, Mass.; during 1835 he gives ten lectures in Boston on English Literature;" in 1836, twelve lectures on "The Philosophy of History;" in 1837, ten lectures on "Human Culture;" in April, 1836, he writes his great "Commemoration Ode;" till 1838 he preaches frequently as a "supply" at East Lexington, Mass.; he lectures on "War" in 1837, and publishes anonymously in 1836 his small book entitled "Nature," which Holmes calls "a reflective prose poem;" in August, 1837, he delivers his Phi Beta Kappa oration at Cambridge, entitled "The American Scholar;" on July 15, 1838, he delivers at Cambridge his Divinity School Address, which excites severe criticism by theologians and raises Emerson "to the importance of a heretic; " in 1838-39 he gives ten lectures on "Human Life,” of which these titles-"Love," "Demonology," and "The Comic "-remain in his published works; he contributes, during 1838 and 1839, the poems entitled "The Humble Bee" and "To the Rhodora" to the Western Messenger (both

poems written about 1823); in July, 1838, he lectures on "Literary Ethics" at Dartmouth College; in December, 1838, Emerson writes to Carlyle that he has $22,000 drawing six per cent. interest, besides his house, his two-acre lot, and an income of $800 from his lectures; in August, 1841, he lectures at Waterville, Me., on "The Method of Nature; writing to Carlyle about this time, Emerson calls himself "an incorrigible spouting Yankee."

From 1840 to 1844 he contributes more than thirty articles, including some of his best poems, to the Dial, first edited by Margaret Fuller, and later (1842-44) by Emerson himself; during 1841 he delivers, also, his lectures on "Man the Reformer," "The Times," "The Transcendentalist," and The Conservative;" he publishes, during 1841, his first volume of collected essays, including those on History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, the Over-Soul, Circles, and Art; in February, 1842, he loses his only son, then five years old, whom he mourns to Carlyle as "a piece of love and sunshine well worth my watching from morning to night," and writes "A Threnody" in memory of his lost child; he delivers his address on "The Young American" in February, 1844, and publishes, during the same year, the second volume of his essays; he lectures also on "New England Reformers" during 1844, and publishes the first volume of his poems in 1846; he sails a second time for Europe October 5, 1847; after spending a week with Carlyle, Emerson begins a lecture tour, arranged for him by the Rev. Alexander Ireland; while lecturing in Edinburgh he meets Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, and many other notabilities; he visits Paris before returning to America; in 1850 he publishes selections from his English lectures under the title "Representative Men;" during 1855 he delivers anti-slavery addresses in New York and Boston, favoring the purchase of the slaves by the Government, and also supports female suffrage in an address before the Woman's

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