her poet whose songs "breathe of a new morning
of a higher life though a definite beauty in Nature"--or something that
will show the birth of his ideal and hold out a background of revealed
religion, as a perspective to his transcendent religion--a counterpoise
in his rebellion--which we feel Channing or Dr. Bushnell, or other
saints known and unknown might supply.

If the arc must be completed--if there are those who would have the
great, dim outlines of Emerson fulfilled, it is fortunate that there
are Bushnells, and Wordsworths, to whom they may appeal--to say nothing
of the Vedas, the Bible, or their own souls. But such possibilities and
conceptions, the deeper they are received, the more they seem to reduce
their need. Emerson's Circle may be a better whole, without its
complement. Perhaps his "unsatiable demand for unity, the need to
recognize one nature in all variety of objects," would have been
impaired, if something should make it simpler for men to find the
identity they at first want in his substance. "Draw if thou canst the
mystic line severing rightly his from thine, which is human, which
divine." Whatever means one would use to personalize Emerson's natural
revelation, whether by a vision or a board walk, the vastness of his
aims and the dignity of his tolerance would doubtless cause him to
accept or at least try to accept, and use "magically as a part of his
fortune." He would modestly say, perhaps, "that the world is enlarged
for him, not by finding new objects, but by more affinities, and
potencies than those he already has." But, indeed, is not enough
manifestation already there? Is not the asking that it be made more
manifest forgetting that "we are not strong by our power to penetrate,
but by our relatedness?" Will more signs create a greater sympathy? Is
not our weak suggestion needed only for those content with their own
hopelessness?

Others may lead others to him, but he finds his problem in making
"gladness hope and fortitude flow from his page," rather than in
arranging that our hearts be there to receive it. The first is his
duty--the last ours!

2

A devotion to an end tends to undervalue the means. A power of
revelation may make one more concerned about his perceptions of the
soul's nature than the way of their disclosure. Emerson is more
interested in what he perceives than in his expression of it. He is a
creator whose intensity is consumed more with the substance of his
creatio