se."

The association of scholars and thinkers to which the name of
"Transcendentalists" was applied, and which made itself an organ in the
periodical known as "The Dial," has been written about by many who were
in the movement, and others who looked on or got their knowledge of
it at second hand. Emerson was closely associated with these "same
Transcendentalists," and a leading contributor to "The Dial," which was
their organ. The movement borrowed its inspiration more from him than
from any other source, and the periodical owed more to him than to any
other writer. So far as his own relation to the circle of illuminati and
the dial which they shone upon was concerned, he himself is the best
witness.

In his "Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England," he sketches
in a rapid way the series of intellectual movements which led to the
development of the "new views" above mentioned. "There are always two
parties," he says, "the party of the Past and the party of the Future;
the Establishment and the Movement."

About 1820, and in the twenty years which followed, an era of activity
manifested itself in the churches, in politics, in philanthropy, in
literature. In our own community the influence of Swedenborg and of the
genius and character of Dr. Channing were among the more immediate early
causes of the mental agitation. Emerson attributes a great importance
to the scholarship, the rhetoric, the eloquence, of Edward Everett, who
returned to Boston in 1820, after five years of study in Europe. Edward
Everett is already to a great extent a tradition, somewhat as Rufus
Choate is, a voice, a fading echo, as must be the memory of every great
orator. These wondrous personalities have their truest and warmest life
in a few old men's memories. It is therefore with delight that one who
remembers Everett in his robes of rhetorical splendor, who recalls his
full-blown, high-colored, double-flowered periods, the rich, resonant,
grave, far-reaching music of his speech, with just enough of nasal
vibration to give the vocal sounding-board its proper value in the
harmonies of utterance,--it is with delight that such a one reads the
glowing words of Emerson whenever he refers to Edward Everett. It is
enough if he himself caught inspiration from those eloquent lips; but
many a listener has had his youthful enthusiasm fired by that great
master of academic oratory.

Emerson follows out the train of influences which added themselv