Letters and Social Aims (1876)

Summary

In his latest production, Mr. Emerson is as crabbed, as entertaining, and as “cocksure” as when he first startled the Phi- Beta-Kappa Society with his paradoxes on the relations of man to the universe, or when with Margaret Fuller he laid the foundations of what at one time seemed likely to be a new school of metaphysical speculation. One advantage, however, he still possesses over most of the pseudo-philosophers at whose head he stands. He is slow in utterance, and patient in labour. His method of work is that of great thinkers. Gradually he absorbs and assimilates whatever science or history can furnish, and slowly and reflectively he gives us the result of his thoughts. So patiently does he brood over his eggs, that if they are sometimes addled the fault is scarcely his. Already, however, his influence is on the wane. He wants that last and most useful gift of genius, the power to keep young in society, and to advance with advancing years. Modern work and modern speculation scarcely reach him. Science, with the dazzling visions it has of late suggested, has, of course, some attraction for him, and history illustrates his views on the future of man; but modern art finds him cold, distrustful, and unsympathetic, and ready to apply old canons and shibboleths. He begins to stand, accordingly, among the men of today, a figure of the past, not yet remote enough to be venerable, but unserviceable for present needs, hanging

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery.