ing that his relations to the
accidents of time and space seem quite secondary matters to one who has
been long living in the companionship of his thought. Still, he had to
be born, to take in his share of the atmosphere in which we are all
immersed, to have dealings with the world of phenomena, and at length to
let them all "soar and sing" as he left his earthly half-way house. It
is natural and pardonable that we should like to know the details of the
daily life which the men whom we admire have shared with common mortals,
ourselves among the rest. But Emerson has said truly "Great geniuses
have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about
them. They lived in their writings, and so their home and street life
was trivial and commonplace."

The reader has had many extracts from Emerson's writings laid before
him. It was no easy task to choose them, for his paragraphs are
so condensed, so much in the nature of abstracts, that it is like
distilling absolute alcohol to attempt separating the spirit of what he
says from his undiluted thought. His books are all so full of his life
to their last syllable that we might letter every volume _Emersoniana_,
by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

From the numerous extracts I have given from Emerson's writings it may
be hoped that the reader will have formed an idea for himself of the man
and of the life which have been the subjects of these pages. But he may
probably expect something like a portrait of the poet and moralist from
the hand of his biographer, if the author of this Memoir may borrow the
name which will belong to a future and better equipped laborer in the
same field. He may not unreasonably look for some general estimate of
the life work of the scholar and thinker of whom he has been reading.
He will not be disposed to find fault with the writer of the Memoir
if he mentions many things which would seem very trivial but for the
interest they borrow from the individual to whom they relate.

Emerson's personal appearance was that of a scholar, the descendant of
scholars. He was tall and slender, with the complexion which is bred in
the alcove and not in the open air. He used to tell his son Edward that
he measured six feet in his shoes, but his son thinks he could hardly
have straightened himself to that height in his later years. He was very
light for a man of his stature. He got on the scales at Cheyenne, on
his trip to California, comparing his weight with th