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Of all the pages, ay, of all the books, that have been printed concerning Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, there is not one which more vividly and accurately set the men before us and describe their essential characteristics than the casual lines of this old letter: Thoreau, the devotee of nature, "figuring dithyrambic dances and Bacchic leaps on the ice," joyous in the presence of his god; the mystic Hawthorne, wrapped in his sombre cloak, "moved like a self-impelled Greek statue, stately and grave," with magic force these words throw upon the screen of the imagination the figure of the creator of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale; while Emerson is drawn with the inspiration of a poet, "evidently too weary to hold himself erect, pitching headforemost, half lying on the air;" "half lying on the air," the phrase rings in the ear, lingers in the memory, attaches itself to Emerson, and fits like a garment of soft and yielding texture.
And do not fail to remember, that he, who, even though self-impelled, goes out from the shelter of his selfhood into the presence of the great congregation, incurs a Loss which no praise can make good, encounters a Fate against which no appreciation is a shield, invokes a Shadow in which the mens conscia recti is the only resource, and the knowledge of shadows dispelled the only consolation. Mr.
The divine love is not drawn out by anything in us, but pours out on us, even while we are far off and indifferent to it. His bringing near of righteousness, and setting His salvation to run very swiftly side by side with it, originates in Himself. It is the self-impelled and self- fed flow of a fountain, and we need no pump or machinery to draw it forth.
Only thus will the body be offered alive to God. Only thus will the mind be truly transformed. All the outward developments of the life will then bear the stamp of a reasoning service. The way of peace will be chosen from conviction. The will, self-impelled, will set toward God. The conscience will be alive with a divinely inspired sensitiveness.
And now Robert Fairchild was as a person lost. The ordinary pleasures of youth had never been his; he could not turn to them with any sort of grace. The years of servitude to a beloved master had inculcated within him the feeling of self-impelled sacrifice; he had forgotten all thought of personal pleasures for their sake alone.
Worse than that, I saw Iano in her canoe on her wedding-day. She had refused my hand. I entered my canoe and chased her over the water, in pretended sport, but in the middle of the lake I upset her birch and she was drowned. See! she comes!" For, as he spoke, the light danced up again, and the boat came, self-impelled, to the strand. Wequoash entered it, and with head bent down was hurried away.
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