an tell which is
first, or if there is any first in such matters--the thought or the
word--any more than the biochemist can tell us which is first in the
living body, the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and so on, or the living
force that weaves itself a corporeal garment out of these elements.

XVI

Emerson hungered for the quintessence of things, their last
concentrated, intensified meanings, for the pith and marrow of men and
events, and not for their body and bulk. He wanted the ottar of roses
and not a rose garden, the diamond and not a mountain of carbon. This
bent gives a peculiar beauty and stimulus to his writings, while at
the same time it makes the reader crave a little more body and
substance. The succulent leaf and stalk of certain garden vegetables
is better to one's liking than the more pungent seed. If Emerson
could only have given us the essence of Father Taylor's copious,
eloquent, flesh-and-blood discourses, how it would have delighted us!
or if he could only have got the silver out of Alcott's bewitching
moonshine--that would have been worth while!

But why wish Emerson had been some other than he was? He was at least
the quintessence of New England Puritanism, its last and deepest
meaning and result, lifted into the regions of ethics and aesthetics.

II

FLIES IN AMBER

It has been the fashion among our younger writers to speak slightingly
and flippantly of Emerson, referring to him as outworn, and as the
apostle of the obvious. This view is more discreditable to the young
people than is their criticism damaging to Emerson. It can make little
difference to Emerson's fame, but it would be much more becoming in
our young writers to garland his name with flowers than to utter these
harsh verdicts.

It is undoubtedly true that Emerson entered into and influenced the
lives of more choice spirits, both men and women, during the past
generation than did any other American author. Whether he still does
so would be interesting to know. We who have felt his tonic and
inspiring influence can but hope so. Yet how impossible he seems in
times like these in which we live, when the stars of the highest
heaven of the spirit which illumine his page are so obscured or
blotted out by the dust and the fog of our hurrying, materialistic
age! Try to think of Emerson spending a winter going about the Western
States reading to miscellaneous audiences essays like those that now
make up his later volumes. What ch