Outlines of English and American Literature Part 52

As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: "Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed."

EMERSON'S POETRY. There is a ruggedness in Emerson's verse which attracts some readers while it repels others by its unmelodious rhythm. It may help us to measure that verse if we recall the author's criticism thereof. In 1839 he wrote:

"I am naturally keenly susceptible to the pleasures of rhythm, and cannot believe but one day I shall attain to that splendid dialect, so ardent is my wish; and these wishes, I suppose, are ever only the buds of power; but up to this hour I have never had a true success in such attempts."

One must be lenient with a poet who confesses that he cannot attain the "splendid dialect," especially so since we are inclined to agree with him.

In the following pa.s.sage from "Each and All" we may discover the reason for his lack of success:

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down; The heifer that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The s.e.xton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home in his nest at even; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky: He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.

The delicate sh.e.l.ls lay on the sh.o.r.e; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the sh.o.r.e With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

Our first criticism is that the poem contains both fine and faulty lines, and that the total impression is an excellent one. Next, we note that the verse is labored; for Emerson was not a natural singer, like Whittier, and was hampered by his tendency to think too much instead of giving free expression to his emotion. [Footnote: Most good poems are characterized by both thought and feeling, and by a perfection of form that indicates artistic workmans.h.i.+p. With Emerson the thought is the main thing; feeling or emotion is subordinate or lacking, and he seldom has the patience to work over his thought until it a.s.sumes beautiful or perfect expression.]

Finally, he is didactic; that is, he is teaching the lesson that you must not judge a thing by itself, as if it had no history or connections, but must consider it in its environment, as a part of its own world.

As in "Each and All" so in most of his verse Emerson is too much of a teacher or moralist to be a poet. In "The Rhodora," one of his most perfect poems, he proclaims that "Beauty is its own excuse for being"; but straightway he forgets the word and devotes his verse not to beauty but to some ethical lesson. Very rarely does he break away from this unpoetic habit, as when he interrupts the moralizing of his "World Soul" to write a lyric that we welcome for its own sake:

Spring still makes spring in the mind When sixty years are told; Love wakes anew this throbbing heart, And we are never old.

Over the winter glaciers I see the summer glow, And through the wide-piled snowdrift The warm rosebuds below.

[Sidenote: TYPICAL POEMS]

The most readable of Emerson's poems are those in which he reflects his impressions of nature, such as "Seash.o.r.e," "The Humble-Bee," "The Snow-Storm," "Days," "Fable," "Forbearance," "The t.i.tmouse" and "Wood-Notes." In another cla.s.s are his philosophical poems devoted to transcendental doctrines. The beginner will do well to skip these, since they are more of a puzzle than a source of pleasure. In a third cla.s.s are poems of more personal interest, such as the n.o.ble "Threnody," a poem of grief written after the death of Emerson's little boy; "Good-Bye," in which the poet bids farewell to fame as he hies him to the country; "To Ellen,"

which half reveals his love story; "Written in Rome," which speaks of the society he found in solitude; and the "Concord Hymn," written at the dedication of Battle Monument, with its striking opening lines:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.

PROSE WORKS. Perhaps the most typical of Emerson's prose works is his first book, to which he gave the name _Nature_ (1836). In this he records not his impressions of bird or beast or flower, as his neighbor Th.o.r.eau was doing in _Walden_, but rather his philosophy of the universe. "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit"; "Every animal function, from the sponge up to Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong, and echo the ten commandments"; "The foundations of man are not in matter but in spirit, and the element of spirit is eternity,"--scores of such expressions indicate that Emerson deals with the soul of things, not with their outward appearance. Does a flower appeal to him? Its scientific name and cla.s.sification are of no consequence; like Wordsworth, he would understand what thought of G.o.d the flower speaks. To him nature is a mirror in which the Almighty reflects his thought; again it is a parable, a little story written in trees or hills or stars; frequently it is a living presence, speaking melodiously in winds or waters; and always it is an inspiration to learn wisdom at first hand:

"Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers.

It writes biographies, histories, criticisms. The foregoing generations beheld G.o.d and Nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight, and not of tradition?"

The last quotation might well be an introduction to Emerson's second work, _The American Scholar_ (1837), which was a plea for laying aside European models and fronting life as free men in a new world. Holmes called this work "our intellectual Declaration of Independence," and it was followed by a succession of volumes--_Essays_, _Representative Men_, _Conduct of Life_, _Society and Solitude_ and several others--all devoted to the same two doctrines of idealism and individuality.

[Sidenote: REPRESENTATIVE MEN]

Among these prose works the reader must make his own selection. All are worth reading; none is easy to read; even the best of them is better appreciated in brief instalments, since few can follow Emerson long without wearying. _English Traits_ is a keen but kindly criticism of "our cousins" overseas, which an American can read with more pleasure than an Englishman. _Representative Men_ is a series of essays on Plato, Shakespeare, Napoleon and other world figures, which may well be read in connection with Carlyle's _Heroes and Hero Wors.h.i.+p_, since the two books reflect the same subject from widely different angles. Carlyle was in theory an aristocrat and a force-wors.h.i.+per, Emerson a democrat and a believer in ideals. One author would relate us to his heroes in the att.i.tude of slave to master, the other in the relation of brothers and equals.

[Sidenote: THE ESSAYS]

Of the shorter prose works, collected in various volumes of _Essays_, we shall name only a few in two main groups, which we may call the ideal and the practical. In the first group are such typical works as "The Over-Soul," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws" and "History"; in the latter are "Heroism," "Self-Reliance," "Literary Ethics" (an address to young collegians), "Character" and "Manners."

It is difficult to criticize such writings, which have a daring originality of thought and a springlike freshness of expression that set them apart from all other essays ancient or modern. They are the most quotable, the fittest to "point a moral or adorn a tale" that have ever appeared in our literature; but they are also disjointed, oracular, hard to follow; and the explanation is found in the manner of their production. When Emerson projected a new lecture or essay he never thought his subject out or ordered it from beginning to end. That would have been another man's way of doing it. He collected from his notebooks such thoughts as seemed to bear upon his subject, strung them together, and made an end when he had enough.

The connection or relation between his thoughts is always frail and often invisible; some compare it with the thread which holds the pearls of a necklace together; others quote with a smile the epigram of Goldwin Smith, who said that he found an Emersonian essay about as coherent as a bag of marbles. And that suggests a fair criticism of all Emerson's prose; namely, that it is a series of expressions excellent in themselves but having so little logical sequence that a paragraph from one essay may be placed at the beginning, middle or end of any other, where it seems to be equally at home.

THE DOCTRINE OF EMERSON. Since we constantly hear of "idealism" in connection with Emerson, let us understand the word if we can; or rather the fact, for idealism is the most significant quality of humanity. The term will be better understood if we place it beside "materialism," which expresses an opposite view of life. The difference may be summarized in the statement that the idealist is a man of spirit, or idea, in that he trusts the evidence of the soul; while the materialist is a man of flesh, or sense, in that he believes only what is evident to the senses. One judges the world by himself; the other judges himself by the world.

To ill.u.s.trate our meaning: the materialist, looking outward, sees that the world is made up of force-driven matter, of gas, carbon and mineral; and he says, "Even so am I made up." He studies an object, sees that it has its appointed cycle of growth and decay, and concludes, "Even so do I appear and vanish." To him the world is the only reality, and the world perishes, and man is but a part of the world.

[Sidenote: THE IDEALIST]

The idealist, looking first within, perceives that self-consciousness is the great fact of life, and that consciousness expresses itself in words or deeds; then he looks outward, and is aware of another Consciousness that expresses itself in the lowly gra.s.s or in the stars of heaven. Looking inward he finds that he is governed by ideas of truth, beauty, goodness and duty; looking outward he everywhere finds evidence of truth and beauty and moral law in the world. He sees, moreover, that while his body changes constantly his self remains the same yesterday, to-day and forever; and again his discovery is a guide to the outer world, with its seedtime and harvest, which is but the symbol or garment of a Divine Self that abides without shadow of change in a constantly changing universe. To him the only reality is spirit, and spirit cannot be harmed by fire or flood; neither can it die or be buried, for it is immortal and imperishable.

Such, in simple words, was the idealism of Emerson, an idealism that was born in him and that governed him long before he became involved in transcendentalism, with its sc.r.a.ps of borrowed Hindu philosophy. It gave message or meaning to his first work, _Nature_, and to all the subsequent essays or poems in which he pictured the world as a symbol or visible expression of a spiritual reality. In other words, nature was to Emerson the Book of the Lord, and the chief thing of interest was not the book but the idea that was written therein.

[Sidenote: THE INDIVIDUALIST]

Having read the universe and determined its spiritual quality, Emerson turned his eyes on humanity. Presently he announced that a man's chief glory is his individuality; that he is a free being, different from every other; that his business is to obey his individual genius; that he should, therefore, ignore the Past with its traditions, and learn directly "from the Divine Soul which inspires all men." Having announced that doctrine, he spent the rest of his life in ill.u.s.trating or enlarging it; and the sum of his teaching was, "Do not follow me or any other master; follow your own spirit. Never mind what history says, or philosophy or tradition or the saints and sages. The same inspiration which led the prophets is yours for the taking, and you have your work to do as they had theirs. Revere your own soul; trust your intuition; and whatever you find in your heart to do, do it without doubt or fear, though all the world thunder in your ears that you must do otherwise. As for the voice of authority, 'Let not a man quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the anointed and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: EMERSON'S HOME, CONCORD]

Such was Emerson's pet doctrine of individualism. It appeared with startling vigor in _The American Scholar_ at a time when our writers were p.r.o.ne to imitate English poetry, German sentimentality or some other imported product. It came also with good grace from one whose life was n.o.ble, but it had a weak or dangerous or grotesque side that Emerson overlooked. Thus, every crank or fanatic or rainbow-chaser is also an individualist, and most of them believe as strongly as Emerson in the Over-Soul. The only difference is that they do not have his sense or integrity or humor to balance their individualism. While Emerson exalted individual liberty he seemed to forget that America is a country devoted to "liberty under law," and that at every period of her history she has had need to emphasize the law rather than the liberty. Moreover, individualism is a quality that takes care of itself, being finest in one who is least conscious of his own importance; and to study any strongly individual character, a Was.h.i.+ngton or a Lincoln for example, is to discover that he strove to be true to his race and traditions as well as to himself. Hence Emerson's doctrine, to live in the Present and have entire confidence in yourself, needs to be supplemented by another: to revere the Past with its immortal heroes, who by their labor and triumph have established some truths that no sane man will ever question.

[Sidenote: A NEW WORLD WRITER]

There are other interesting qualities of Emerson, his splendid optimism, for instance, which came partly from his spiritual view of the universe and partly from his a.s.sociation with nature; for the writer who is in daily contact with suns.h.i.+ne or rain and who trusts his soul's ideals of truth and beauty has no place for pessimism or despair; even in moments of darkness he looks upward and reads his lesson:

Teach me your mood, O patient stars, Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving on s.p.a.ce no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die!

Though he was and still is called a visionary, there is a practical quality in his writing which is better than anything you will find in _Poor Richard's Almanac_. Thus the burden of Franklin's teaching was the value of time, a lesson which the sage of Concord illuminates as with celestial light in his poem "Days," and to which he brings earth's candle in his prose essay "Work and Days." [Footnote: The two works should be read in connection as an interesting example of Emerson's use of prose and verse to reflect the same idea. Holmes selects the same two works to ill.u.s.trate the essential difference between prose and poetry. See Holmes, _Ralph Waldo Emerson_, p. 310.] Indeed, the more one reads Emerson the more is one convinced that he is our typical New World writer, a rare genius who combines the best qualities of Franklin and Edwards, having the practical sense of the one and the spiritual insight of the other. [Footnote: In 1830 Channing published an essay, "National Literature," in which he said that Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards were the only writers up to that time who had worthily presented the American mind, with its practical and ideal sides, to foreign readers.] With his idealism and individuality, his imagination that soars to heaven but is equally at home on solid earth, his sound judgment to balance his mysticism, his forceful style that runs from epigram to sustained eloquence, his straight-fibered manhood in which criticism finds nothing to pardon or regret,--with all these sterling qualities he is one of the most representative writers that America has ever produced.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)

Some great writers belong to humanity, others to their own land or people.

Hawthorne is in the latter cla.s.s apparently, for ever since Lowell rashly characterized him as "the greatest imaginative genius since Shakespeare"

our critics commonly speak of him in superlatives. Meanwhile most European critics (who acclaim such unequal writers as Cooper and Poe, Whitman and Mark Twain) either leave Hawthorne unread or else wonder what Americans find in him to stir their enthusiasm.

The explanation is that Hawthorne's field was so intensely local that only those who are familiar with it can appreciate him. Almost any reader can enjoy Cooper, since he deals with adventurous men whom everybody understands; but Hawthorne deals with the New England Puritan of the seventeenth century, a very peculiar hero, and to enjoy the novelist one must have some personal or historic interest in his subject. Moreover, he alienates many readers by presenting only the darker side of Puritanism. He is a man who never laughs and seldom smiles in his work; he pa.s.ses over a hundred normal and therefore cheerful homes to pitch upon some gloomy habitation of sin or remorse, and makes that the burden of his tale. In no other romancer do we find genius of such high order at work in so barren a field.

LIFE. There is an air of reserve about Hawthorne which no biography has ever penetrated. A schoolmate who met him daily once said, "I love Hawthorne; I admire him; but I do not know him. He lives in a mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never permits me to enter." That characterization applies as well to-day as when it was first spoken, almost a century ago. To his family and to a very few friends Hawthorne was evidently a genial man, [Footnote: Intimate but hardly trustworthy pictures of Hawthorne and his family are presented by his son, Julian Hawthorne, in _Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife_. A dozen other memoirs have appeared; but Hawthorne did not want his biography written, and there are many unanswered questions in the story of his life.] but from the world and its affairs he always held aloof, wrapped in his mantle of mystery.

A study of his childhood may help us to understand the somber quality of all his work. He was descended from the Puritans who came to Boston with John Winthrop, and was born in the seaport of Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1804. He was only four years old when his father, a sea captain, died in a foreign port; whereupon the mother draped herself in weeds, retired from the sight of neighbors, and for the next forty years made life as funereal as possible. Besides the little boy there were two sisters in the family, and the elder took her meals in her own room, as did the mother. The others went about the darkened house on tiptoe, or peeped out at the world through closed shutters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE]

The shadow of that unnatural home was upon Hawthorne to the end of his life; it accounts in part for his shyness, his fear of society, his lack of interest in his own age or nation.

[Sidenote: SECLUSION AT SALEM]

At seventeen Hawthorne went to Bowdoin College, where Longfellow was his cla.s.smate and Franklin Pierce (later President of the United States) one of his friends. His college life seems to have been happy, even gay at times; but when he graduated (1825) and his cla.s.smates scattered to find work in the world he returned to his Salem home and secluded himself as if he had no interest in humanity. It was doubtful, he said afterwards, whether a dozen people knew of his existence in as many years.

All the while he was writing, gathering material for his romances or patiently cultivating his fine style. For days he would brood over a subject; then he would compose a story or parable for the magazines. The stamp of originality was on all these works, but they were seldom accepted. When they returned to him, having found no appreciative editor, he was apt to burn them and complain that he was neglected. Studying the man as he reveals himself at this time in his _Note-Books_ (published in a garbled edition by the Hawthorne family), one has the impression that he was a shy, sensitive genius, almost morbidly afraid of the world. From a distance he sent out his stories as "feelers", when these were ignored he shrank into himself more deeply than before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD CUSTOMHOUSE, BOSTON, Where Hawthorne worked.]