t letter, dated in April, found me a mourner, as did your
first. I have lost out of this world my brother Charles, of whom I
have spoken to you,--the friend and companion of many years, the
inmate of my house, a man of a beautiful genius, born to speak well,
and whose conversation for these last years has treated every grave
question of humanity, and has been my daily bread. I have put so
much dependence on his gifts, that we made but one man together; for
I needed never to do what he could do by noble nature, much better
than I. He was to have been married in this month, and at the time
of his sickness and sudden death, I was adding apartments to my
house for his permanent accommodation. I wish that you could have
known him. At twenty-seven years the best life is only preparation.
He built his foundation so large that it needed the full age of
man to make evident the plan and proportions of his character. He
postponed always a particular to a final and absolute success, so
that his life was a silent appeal to the great and generous. But
some time I shall see you and speak of him."

Section 3. In the year 1836 there was published in Boston a little book
of less than a hundred very small pages, entitled "Nature." It bore no
name on its title-page, but was at once attributed to its real author,
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The Emersonian adept will pardon me for burdening this beautiful Essay
with a commentary which is worse than superfluous for him. For it has
proved for many,--I will not say a _pons asinorum_,--but a very narrow
bridge, which it made their heads swim to attempt crossing, and yet they
must cross it, or one domain of Emerson's intellect will not be reached.

It differed in some respects from anything he had hitherto written. It
talked a strange sort of philosophy in the language of poetry. Beginning
simply enough, it took more and more the character of a rhapsody, until,
as if lifted off his feet by the deepened and stronger undercurrent of
his thought, the writer dropped his personality and repeated the words
which "a certain poet sang" to him.

This little book met with a very unemotional reception. Its style was
peculiar,--almost as unlike that of his Essays as that of Carlyle's
"Sartor Resartus" was unlike the style of his "Life of Schiller." It was
vague, mystic, incomprehensible, to most of those who call themselves
common-sense people. S