istry. These were
interrupted for a while by a trip South in search of health, but he
was finally able to accept a position as assistant minister at the
Second Church. A year or two later he was again obliged to leave his
work and go abroad for his health. After he returned home he decided
to leave the ministry, and he began that series of lectures which
speedily made him famous and which have determined his place in
American literature.

From this time Emerson began to be recognized as one of the
thought-leaders of his age. To him literature appealed as a means
of teaching those spiritual lessons that brace the soul to brave
endurance. While Hawthorne was living in the world of romance, Poe
and Lowell creating American poetry, and Bancroft and Motley placing
American historical prose on the highest level, Emerson was throwing
his genius into the form of moral essays for the guidance of conduct.
To him had been revealed in all its purity that vision of the perfect
life which had been the inspiration of his Puritan ancestors. And
with the vision had come that gift of expression which enabled him to
preserve it in the noblest literary form. These essays embrace every
variety of subject, for, to a philosopher like Emerson every form of
life and every object of nature represented some picture of the soul.
When he devoted himself to this task he followed a true light, for he
became and remains to many the inspiration of his age, the American
writer above all others whose thought has moulded the souls of men.

Much of Emerson's work found form in verse of noble vein, for he was
a poet as well as philosopher. He also was connected with one or two
magazines, and became one of the most popular of American lecturers;
with the exception of several visits to Europe and the time given
to his lecturing and other short trips, Emerson spent his life at
Concord, Mass. To this place came annually, in his later years, the
most gifted of his followers, to conduct what was known as the Concord
School of Philosophy. Throughout his whole life Emerson preserved
that serenity of soul which is the treasure of such spiritually gifted
natures.

He died at Concord in 1882, and was buried in the village cemetery,
which he had consecrated thirty years before.

CHAPTER XII

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

1807-1882

Almost any summer day in the early part of the century a blue-eyed,
brown-haired boy might have been seen lying under a gre