he passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned."

Hope is at the bottom of every Essay of Emerson's as it was at the
bottom of Pandora's box:--

"I never doubt the riches of nature, the gifts of the future, the
immense wealth of the mind. O yes, poets we shall have, mythology,
symbols, religion of our own.

--"Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every
fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song."

Under the title "Social Aims" he gives some wise counsel concerning
manners and conversation. One of these precepts will serve as a
specimen--if we have met with it before it is none the worse for wear:--

"Shun the negative side. Never worry people with; your contritions,
nor with dismal views of politics or society. Never name sickness;
even if you could trust yourself on that perilous topic, beware of
unmuzzling a valetudinarian, who will give you enough of it."

We have had one Essay on "Eloquence" already. One extract from this new
discourse on the same subject must serve our turn:--

"These are ascending stairs,--a good voice, winning manners, plain
speech, chastened, however, by the schools into correctness; but
we must come to the main matter, of power of statement,--know your
fact; hug your fact. For the essential thing is heat, and heat comes
of sincerity. Speak what you know and believe; and are personally in
it; and are answerable for every word. Eloquence is _the power to_
_translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the
person to whom you speak_."

The italics are Emerson's.

If our learned and excellent John Cotton used to sweeten his mouth
before going to bed with a bit of Calvin, we may as wisely sweeten and
strengthen our sense of existence with a morsel or two from Emerson's
Essay on "Resources":--

"A Schopenhauer, with logic and learning and wit, teaching
pessimism,--teaching that this is the worst of all possible worlds,
and inferring that sleep is better than waking, and death than
sleep,--all the talent in the world cannot save him from being
odious. But if instead of these negatives you give me affirmatives;
if you tell me that there is always life for the living; that what
man has done man can do; that this world belongs to the energetic;
that there is always a way to everything desirable; that every man
is pr