-luck to be served by you. It is a very
onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally
wishes to give you a slap."

Emerson hates the superlative, but he does unquestionably love the
tingling effect of a witty over-statement.

We have recognized most of the thoughts in the Essay entitled "Nature,"
in the previous Essay by the same name, and others which we have passed
in review. But there are poetical passages which will give new pleasure.

Here is a variation of the formula with which we are familiar:--
"Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought
again, as ice becomes water and gas. The world is mind precipitated,
and the volatile essence is forever escaping again into the state of
free thought."

And here is a quaint sentence with which we may take leave of this
Essay:--

"They say that by electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from
the seed, whilst your fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of
our modern aims and endeavors,--of our condensation and acceleration
of objects; but nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's
life is but seventy salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow."

This is pretty and pleasant, but as to the literal value of the
prediction, M. Jules Verne would be the best authority to consult. Poets
are fond of that branch of science which, if the imaginative Frenchman
gave it a name, he would probably call _Onditologie_.

It is not to be supposed that the most sanguine optimist could be
satisfied with the condition of the American political world at the
present time, or when the Essay on "Politics" was written, some years
before the great war which changed the aspects of the country in so many
respects, still leaving the same party names, and many of the characters
of the old parties unchanged. This is Emerson's view of them as they
then were:--

"Of the two great parties, which, at this hour, almost share
the nation between them, I should say that one has the best
cause, and the other contains the best men. The philosopher, the
poet, or the religious man, will, of course, wish to cast his vote
with the democrat, for free trade, for wide suffrage, for the
abolition of legal cruelties in the penal code, and for facilitating
in every manner the access of the young and the poor to the sources
of wealth and power. But he can rarely accept the persons wh