25 May: Boreham on Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shadow and Substance
Today marks the birthday of Emerson. In some mysterious and occult way, men seem to perpetuate after death the spirit of their lives. The sociable men seem sociable still, and we find it difficult to persuade ourselves that we have not actually hobnobbed with them. The men who stood apart from their fellows still evade us, and we never come to feel at home with them.

Emerson is easily the most stand-offish figure in the republic of letters. Tall and spare, with unusually small head, strangely beaked nose and piercing grey blue eyes, he always seems to be hiding away in a quiet corner by himself. Although dignified and courteous, with rugged features and a kindly smile, he makes it plain that he wishes to be left severely alone. Beyond suspecting his personality of many charms, we never get to know him.

When he was travelling with his daughter in Egypt, they met an Englishman who, without even knowing their names, was most persistent in his attempts to show them kindness. But every approach met with a chilling rebuff. Without being actually rude, Emerson showed clearly that he wished to have nothing to do with the man.

When at length the Englishman left the hotel to continue his journey, he walked across to the couch on which Emerson was lounging and half apologised for his earlier overtures. "You may wonder," he said "that my having overstepped my usual reserve so far as to court your friendship; but I may explain that it is for the sake of an illustrious countryman of yours, one Ralph Waldo Emerson." I am deeply indebted to his writings and I would gladly cross the ocean for the honour of meeting him!" And, even then, Emerson never revealed his identity!

Seeking Without That Which Exists Within
Goldwin Smith describes Emerson as a cataract of pebbles; but while the phrase hits us with perfect precision the infinite succession of Emerson's exquisitely-rounded periods, it does less than justice to the galvanic energy with which each sentence is charged, and it fails to account for his immense vogue and wide authority.

Emerson, more than most writers, had his own way of looking at things. The question is: How did he acquire that strikingly-original outlook upon life? Was it from within or from without? For years two schools fought each other fiercely on this issue. The one contended that Emerson was a mere echo of German philosophy; the other argued that he derived all his sparkle and brilliance from Pascal and Montaigne. It goes without saying that this Franco-Prussian war on the fields of literary criticism, culminated in victory for neither side.

As against this, there are those who attribute much of the penetrating genius of Emerson to the fascination that the Orient always possessed for him. Mr. Percival Chubb likens him to a bowed worshipper of the dawn; he stands allied, Mr. Chubb maintains, with the brooding East; he is almost a Brahmin; his birth into the grossly materialistic atmosphere of the feverish and restless West is a geographical freak; and so on.

It is easy to weave such webs of fantasy. If somebody were to discover that a remote ancestor of John Milton was a negro, a score of discerning critics would instantly trace a distinctly African strain running through the immortal stanzas of "Paradise Lost"! Save for an odd quotation here and there, what critic would care to put his finger on the Indian element in Emerson?

There is, however, this about it. Whether or not he was affected by the brooding temper of the Orient, he at least imbibed the contemplative habit peculiar to the East. His actual thought was neither the thought of Germany nor of France nor of India; it was essentially and exclusively the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson; and he welcomed any circumstances or conditions that would help him to develop his own ideas in his own way.

Inspection Eclipsed by Introspection
He lived at Concord and loved it. Arthur Clough described Concord as a hole of a place, utterly destitute of attractions. To Emerson its unattractiveness was its supreme attraction. Possessing nothing to elicit his admiration or compel his attention, it left him free to turn his gaze inward. He reaped his reward and passed it on to a grateful world—

Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and
sluggish streams
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The
partial Wood-gods overpaid my love
And granted men the freedom of their
State.

With nothing about him for inspection, he abandoned himself to introspection. He explored the intricate recesses of his own mind, and, as a result of that mysterious quest, found the treasure that has enriched mankind.

There is, of course, a sense in which no writer is really original. Every man is a conglomerate compound of all that he has seen, heard, read or experienced. As Emerson himself teaches, "every ship that comes to America got its chart from Colombus; life is girt all round with a zodiac of sciences, the contributions of men who have perished to add their point of light to our sky."

Yet, when a liberal margin has been allowed for universal mimicry, one vital factor still confronts us. That vital factor is a man's own inherent individuality, his distinctive ego, his essential self. After all possible has been said about the German philosophers, the French essayists and the Oriental mystics, we have still to reckon with the flesh and blood personality of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The pity of it is that all the records leave that tantalising personality enshrouded in impenetrable mist. Because of Emerson's shyness and aloofness, the man eludes us. We catch glimpses of him as we catch glimpses of a shadow flitting here and there. But those who make the attempt will find even the shadow attractive, and they will return from their quest convinced that the substance that cast that shadow must have been a singularly magnetic one.

F W Boreham

Image: Ralph Waldo Emerson