of life was lost for me, in
youthful anguish I knew well the desire for that vow; but if
I had taken it, my heart would have burned out my physical
existence long ago.'

* * * * *

'Save me from plunging into the depths to learn the worst, or
from being led astray by the winged joys of childish feeling.
I pray for truth in proportion as there is strength to
receive.'

* * * * *

'My law is incapable of a charter. I pass all bounds, and
cannot do otherwise. Those whom it seems to me I am to meet
again in the Ages, I meet, soul to soul, now. I have no
knowledge of any circumstances except the degree of affinity.'

* * * * *

'I feel that my impatient nature needs the dark days. I would
learn the art of limitation, without compromise, and act out
my faith with a delicate fidelity. When loneliness becomes too
oppressive, I feel Him drawing me nearer, to be soothed by
the smile of an All-Intelligent Love. He will not permit
the freedom essential to growth to be checked. If I can give
myself up to Him, I shall not be too proud, too impetuous,
neither too timid, and fearful of a wound or cloud.'

III.

TRANSCENDENTALISM.

* * * * *

The summer of 1839 saw the full dawn of the Transcendental movement in
New England. The rise of this enthusiasm was as mysterious as that
of any form of revival; and only they who were of the faith
could comprehend how bright was this morning-time of a new hope.
Transcendentalism was an assertion of the inalienable integrity of
man, of the immanence of Divinity in instinct. In part, it was a
reaction against Puritan Orthodoxy; in part, an effect of renewed
study of the ancients, of Oriental Pantheists, of Plato and the
Alexandrians, of Plutarch's Morals, Seneca and Epictetus; in part, the
natural product of the culture of the place and time. On the somewhat
stunted stock of Unitarianism,--whose characteristic dogma was trust
in individual reason as correlative to Supreme Wisdom,--had been
grafted German Idealism, as taught by masters of most various
schools,--by Kant and Jacobi, Fichte and Novalis, Schelling and Hegel,
Schleiermacher and De Wette, by Madame de Stael, Cousin, Coleridge,
and Carlyle; and the result was a vague yet exalting conception of the
godlike nature of the h