Emerson hungered for the quintessence of things, their last concentrated, intensified meanings, for the pith and marrow of men and events, and not for their body and bulk. He wanted the ottar of roses and not a rose garden, the diamond and not a mountain of carbon. This bent gives a peculiar beauty and stimulus to his writings, while at the same time it makes the reader crave a little more body and substance. The succulent leaf and stalk of certain garden vegetables is better to one's liking than the more pungent seed. If Emerson could only have given us the essence of Father Taylor's copious, eloquent, flesh-and-blood discourses, how it would have delighted us! or if he could only have got the silver out of Alcott's bewitching moonshine--that would have been worth while!
But why wish Emerson had been some other than he was? He was at least the quintessence of New England Puritanism, its last and deepest meaning and result, lifted into the regions of ethics and æsthetics.
It has been the fashion among our younger writers to speak slightingly and flippantly of Emerson, referring to him as outworn, and as the apostle of the obvious. This view is more discreditable to the young people than is their criticism damaging to Emerson. It can make little difference to Emerson's fame, but it would be much more becoming in our young writers to garland his name with flowers than to utter these harsh verdicts.
It is undoubtedly true that Emerson entered into and influenced the lives of more choice spirits, both men and women, during the past generation than did any other American author. Whether he still does so would be interesting to know. We who have felt his tonic and inspiring influence can but hope so. Yet how impossible he seems in times like these in which we live, when the stars of the highest heaven of the spirit which illumine his page are so obscured or blotted out by the dust and the fog of our hurrying, materialistic age! Try to think of Emerson spending a winter going about the Western States reading to miscellaneous audiences essays like those that now make up his later volumes. What chance would he stand, even in university towns, as against the "movies" (a word so ugly I hesitate to write it) in the next street?