EMERSON.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 764, 12 March 1910, Page 9

EMERSON.

Many of Emerson's obiter dicta in his "Journals," just published by ' Messrs. Constable, refer to men and matters liteiy ary. The "Journals" cover the period from IS'2O to 1832. When : quite a youth wo. find liiin drawing up recipes for "unhappiness" as follow:— ■ "!•-Tnke-.Scott's hovels and read carefully the mottoes,of the chapters; or if

S?- 1 . P rG * er . fading a novel itself, take the /li kammermoor/ 2; Sometimes (seldom) the first parts of Cowper's 'Task' will answer the purpose. I refer to the I 1 scen cs. ( . 3. For the same reason that I would take Scott's mottoes.l would also Jake an old tragedy, such as J3en J oiison s, Otway's, Congrevo's. » • . M ■ n T ll e °f t)>e "Journals" tell us that although * Emerson seldom read a atter his youth, and cared little lor them, he retained' through life liis early a flection, for the "Bride of Lammermoor, which, it will be remembered, was-,ALr. .(Gladstone's favourite among ail. • ott s . works. .. Bacon Emerson described as a wonderful writer;, he'condenses an unrivalled degree of matter in- one'para- ? l ii ' a •' referring to Hume and Gibbon lie' says:—"l shall.bp on the'high load to 'ruin_presently with such companions, but I .cannot help. admiring the genius and novelty of the 'one; and the greatness and profound learning of the other, maugre the scepticism and abominable sneers of both. If you read Gibbon and Hume you have to think, and Gibbon wakes you up from slumber to wish scholar, and" resolve to be. one. _The .rough and tumble old fellows, Bacons,' Hiltons, and Burkes," he exclaims; .eteivlicro. "don't wire-draw, ihats why 1 like Montaigne. No effeminate parlour workman is he." There;are several references to Wordsworth, .who, Emerson said, "failed of y bein? to ° muc - n Poet": "He (\i ordsworth) has been'foolishly inquisitive about the essence and body of what pleased him, and what all sensible men to be, in its nature, evanescent.; He can t be satisfied with feeling the general beauty of a moonlight evening or of a rose. He would picK them.to pieces and pounce on the pleasurable element he is sure is in them, like the little boy who cut open his drum to see what made the i lu aBo(:!ler place he complains of Wordsworth's . ; "direct pragmatical analysis of objects, in their nature poetic, but which all other poets touch incidentally. He mauls the moon, ' and ' the waters, and the bulrushes, as his main business. ■ Milton and Shakespeare touch them gently, as illustration 01*. ornament." 1 . In 1820 we find Emerson reading Colerldgo s "Friend" with great interest. I • °. u r 0 s P Ga k of it with respect" (he I 1 Emerson). "He has a. tone [ a little lower than greatness-but what a. living soul, what /a . universal. knowledge! I like to encounter'these citizens ot the universe, . that believe the mind was. made- to be spectator, of all, and whose philosophy compares, 'with the other sciences, taking post at the centre, and, as from a specular mount sending .sovereign glances: to the circumference of things. Of.Thomas Campbell he .lias noi ;a. very _great opinion. His verses aboul •the,. Poles lie describes as "alive," but he adds,,"most of the 'Pleasures of Hope l .lias no. life; dead, verses"