FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29  
30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   >>   >|  
up." He traveled extensively on his lecturing tours, even going as far as England. In _English Traits_ he has recorded his impressions of what he saw of English life and manners. Oliver Wendell Holmes has described him in this wise: "His personal appearance was that of the typical New Englander of college-bred ancestry. Tall, spare, slender, with sloping shoulders, slightly stooping in his later years, with light hair and eyes, the scholar's complexion, the prominent, somewhat arched nose which belongs to many of the New England sub-species, thin lips, suggestive of delicacy, but having nothing like primness, still less of the rigidity which is often noticeable in the generation succeeding next to that of the men in their shirt-sleeves, he would have been noticed anywhere as one evidently a scholarly thinker astray from the alcove or the study, which were his natural habitats. His voice was very sweet, and penetrating without any loudness or mark of effort. His enunciation was beautifully clear, but he often hesitated as if waiting for the right word to present itself. His manner was very quiet, his smile was pleasant, but he did not like explosive laughter any better than Hawthorne did. None who met him can fail to recall that serene and kindly presence, in which there was mingled a certain spiritual remoteness with the most benignant human welcome to all who were privileged to enjoy his companionship." Emerson died April 27, 1882, after a few days' illness from pneumonia. Dr. Garnett in his excellent biography says: "Seldom had 'the reaper whose name is Death' gathered such illustrious harvest as between December 1880 and April 1882. In the first month of this period George Eliot passed away, in the ensuing February Carlyle followed; in April Lord Beaconsfield died, deplored by his party, nor unregretted by his country; in February of the following year Longfellow was carried to the tomb; in April Rossetti was laid to rest by the sea, and the pavement of Westminster Abbey was disturbed to receive the dust of Darwin. And now Emerson lay down in death beside the painter of man and the searcher of nature, the English-Oriental statesman, the poet of the plain man and the poet of the artist, and the prophet whose name is indissolubly linked with his own. All these men passed into eternity laden with the spoils of Time, but of none of them could it be said, as of Emerson, that the most shining intellectual glory and th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29  
30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Emerson

 

English

 

passed

 

February

 
England
 

period

 

George

 
harvest
 

December

 
gathered

illustrious

 

benignant

 
remoteness
 

privileged

 

spiritual

 
kindly
 

serene

 
presence
 

mingled

 

companionship


excellent

 

Garnett

 

biography

 
Seldom
 

pneumonia

 

illness

 

reaper

 

country

 

indissolubly

 

prophet


linked

 

artist

 

painter

 

searcher

 

nature

 

statesman

 
Oriental
 
eternity
 
shining
 

intellectual


spoils
 

recall

 

unregretted

 

carried

 

Longfellow

 

Carlyle

 

Beaconsfield

 

deplored

 

Rossetti

 

receive