F there be power in good intention, in fidelity
and in toil, the North wind shall be purer, the
stars in heaven shall glow with a kindlier beam,
that I have lived. I am primarily engaged to my-
self to be a public servant of all the gods, to de-
monstrate to all men that there is intelligence and
good will at the heart of things, and ever higher
and yet higher leadings. These are my engage-
ments; how can your law further or hinder me in
what I shall do to men? ... Wherever there are
men, are the objects of my study and love. Sooner
or later all men will be my friends and will testify
in all methods the energy of their regards.

Such is the hero's attitude in facing life, Em-
erson said, in one of his early lectures. After
his death, forty years later, his friend Dr.
Holmes in writing of him said, "Consciously or
unconsciously men describe themselves in the
characters they draw. One must have the mor-
dant in his own personality or he will not take
the color of his subject," and the Doctor goes
on to show how well the test applies to his prose,
and especially to his verse. And as for the
North wind and the stars, Emerson held their

bracing and uplifting influence dependent on
the preparation of the soul:

Light-loving, asking, life in me
Feeds those eternal lamps I see.

His spiritual autobiography might be given
almost in its completeness in impersonal extracts,
duly ordered, from his prose and verse. There,
as he said of Shakspeare, "in place of meagre
fact we have really the information which is

material: that which describes character and for-
tune, that which, if we were about to meet the
man and deal with him, would most import us
to know. We have his recorded convictions on
those questions which knock for answer at every
heart - on life and death, on love, on wealth and
Poverty, on the prizes of life and the ways
whereby we come at them; on the characters of
men and the influences, occult and open, which
affect their fortunes; and on those mysterious
and demoniacal powers which defy our science
and which yet interweave their malice and their
gift in our brightest hours." In his journal for
I 841 Mr. Emerson wrote, "Seemed to me that
I had the keeping of a secret too great to be
Confided to one ran: that a divine man dwelt
near me in a hollow tree." And again, "All

hat is said of the wise man by Stoic or Oriental

or Modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his unattained but attainable self; ... he hears the commendation, not of himself, but, more sweet, of that character he seeks, in every word that is said concerning character, yea further, in every fact and circumstance - in the running river and the rustling corn." This purified man, he named him Osman,- an organ of the Universal Spirit, yet with his own temperament and subject to his experiences, often appears in the Journals: —

1841. "When I wish, it is permitted me to say, These hands, this body, this history of Waldo Emerson are profane and wearisome, but I, I descend not to mix myself with that or with any man. Above his life, above all creatures, I flow down forever a sea of benefit into races of individuals. Nor can the stream ever roll backward or the sin or death of a man taint the immutable energy which distributes itself into men,as the sun into rays, or the sea into drops."

In the notes to this edition of Emerson's Works, the correspondence between the passages and his own traits and experiences will be often shown. But a sketch of his personal history must here be briefly given.

He was born in Boston, May 25, 1803, the

son of William Emerson, pastor of the Second Church, and Ruth Haskins, his wife. His father, son of the patriotic young minister of Concord at the outbreak of the Revolution, was a preacher, liberal for his day, social and a man of letters; his mother, a lady of serene sweetness and courage.

She was left a widow in 1811 with her family of five little boys, and helped by kind friends, brought them up in straitened circumstances, wisely and well. The Emerson ancestry, almost all ministers, after Thomas, who came to Ipswich in 1638, were men who, living frugally and prayerfully in the clearings of wild New England, had striven to keep before the minds of their people

«The invisible things of God, before things seen and known."

They were humble and earnest scholars. Mr. Emerson told that, in his childhood, "Dr. Frothingham one day found me in his parlor, and coming close and looking at the form of my head, said, 'If you are good, it is no thanks to you.'" These Emerson boys, "born to be educated," as their Aunt Mary Emerson,' the

'An account of her is given by her nephew in Lectures and Biographical Sketches.

strange sibyl and inspirer of their youth, said of them, helped the matter on by their eager reading, especially of poetry, their ventures in writing, and declamation to one another of fine passages in which they delighted. There were almost no children's books then, and they soon were versed in the best authors. Mr. Emerson, in the essay "Domestic Life" in the volume Society and Solitude, gives a touching and true picture of the life of these brothers in their childhood, and speaking of their air castles says, "Woe to them if their wishes were crowned. The angels that dwell with them and are weaving laurels of life for their youthful brows are Toil and Want, Truth and Mutual Faith."

Rev. Ezra Ripley, the successor of their grandfather in the church of Concord, and married to his widow, welcomed the boys to the Old Manse in the holidays. So, long before he settled there, Mr. Emerson had loving memoriesof Concord woods and meadows.

Emerson entered Harvard College at the age of fourteen; he graduated with his class in 1821. Like a great part of the students of his day, he helped himself through his course by various services, either to the college or by teaching. Though his instincts drove him much to