RALPH WALDO EMERSON

VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES

Published and in Preparation

_Edited by_ WILL D. HOWE

ARNOLD _Stuart P. Sherman_ BROWNING _William Lyon Phelps_ BURNS _William Allan Neilson_ CARLYLE _Bliss Perry_ DANTE _Alfred M. Brooks_ DEFOE _William P. Trent_ DICKENS _Richard Burton_ EMERSON _Samuel McChord Crothers_ HAWTHORNE _George Edward Woodberry_ THE BIBLE _George Hodges_ IBSEN _Archibald Henderson_ LAMB _Will D. Howe_ STEVENSON _Richard A. Rice_ TENNYSON _Raymond Macdonald Alden_ WHITMAN _Brand Whitlock_ WORDSWORTH _C. T. Winchester_

Ralph Waldo Emerson

HOW TO KNOW HIM

_By_

Samuel McChord Crothers

_Author of_

THE GENTLE READER, THE PARDONER’S WALLET OLIVER WENDEL HOLMES AND HIS FELLOW BOARDERS ETC., ETC.

_WITH PORTRAIT_

INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1921 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

_Printed in the United States of America_

PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.

INTRODUCTORY

The mind of Emerson was a searchlight revealing not itself but the various objects on which it successively turned. An intense and narrow beam of light would shoot through the darkness and reveal some object. Then it would pick up another object which would have its brief moment of visibility. The landscape was never revealed in any one view.

The only way to know Emerson is to join him in his intellectual exercises. In spite of his personal aloofness I know of no one with whom we can more readily come to a feeling of intellectual intimacy. He had no pretensions and no reserves. In clear sentences he told us what from time to time he thought. He made no attempt to connect these thoughts into a coherent system. For any one else to attempt to do this would be to misrepresent him.

In the short chapters which follow I have treated Emerson as a contemporary rather than as a writer of the last generation. His thought is as pertinent to the twentieth century as to the nineteenth. Indeed I think that in many respects we may be nearer to him than were those who first listened to him. The prejudices which he encountered have largely died away. The problems over which he was meditating remain.

I wish to make grateful acknowledgment to Houghton Mifflin Company for special permission to make extracts from their authorized and copyright editions of Emerson’s works. Also to Doctor Edward Emerson for the use of his edition of his father’s journals.

S. M. M.