n
it, like a fly-catcher at a fly.

A fair sample of Channing's philosophy is the following: "He persists
in his bad opinion of orchards and farming, declares that the only
success he ever had with a farmer was that he once paid a cent for a
russet apple; and farming, he thinks, is an attempt to outwit God with
a hoe; that they plant a great many potatoes with much ado, but it is
doubtful if they ever get the seed back." Channing seems to have
dropped such pearls of wisdom as that all along the road in their
walks! Another sample of Channing's philosophy which Emerson thinks
worthy of quoting. They were walking over the fields in November.
Channing complained of the poverty of invention on the part of Nature:
"'Why, they had frozen water last year; why should they do it again?
Therefore it was so easy to be an artist, because _they_ do the same
thing always,' and therefore he only wants time to make him perfect in
the imitation."

VI

Emerson was occupied entirely with the future, as Carlyle was occupied
entirely with the past. Emerson shared the open expectation of the new
world, Carlyle struggled under the gloom and pessimism of the old--a
greater character, but a far less lambent and helpful spirit. Emerson
seems to have been obsessed with the idea that a new and greater man
was to appear. He looked into the face of every newcomer with an
earnest, expectant air, as if he might prove to be the new man: this
thought inspires the last stanzas of his "Song of Nature":

"Let war and trade and creeds and song
Blend, ripen race on race,
The sunburnt world a man shall breed
Of all the zones and countless days.

"No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
My oldest force is good as new,
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
Gives back the bending heavens in dew."

Emerson was under no illusion as to the effect of distance. He knew
the past was once the present, and that if it seemed to be transformed
and to rise into cloud-land behind us, it was only the enchantment of
distance--an enchantment which men have been under in all ages. The
everyday, the near-at-hand, become prosaic; there is no room for the
alchemy of time and space to work in. It has been said that all
martyrdoms looked mean in the suffering. Holy ground is not holy when
we walk upon it. The now and the here seem cheap and commonplace.
Emerson knew that "a score of airy miles will smooth rough Monadnoc to
a gem," but he knew also tha