A Gentle Soul

Overhead and among "Good night, sweet

blossoms from the slope below. the trees the twilight was gathering. Prince!" I said, under my breath, remembering your quotation. Then I thought of the years and years that had been made rich with his presence, and of the years that were to come, — for us not many, surely, — and if there had not been a crowd of people, I would have buried my face in the greensward and wept, as men may not do, and women may. And thus we left him.

Some day, when I come to New York, we must get together in a corner at The Players, and talk about him— his sorrows and his genius, and his gentle soul.

Lest we grieve the dead

Ever affectionately,

TOM

(From Charles Godfrey Leland)

HOMBURG-LES-BAINS, July 23d, 1890

EAR MISS OWEN, — It is truly with grief I learn

DEAR

Ethat a great loss bas befallen you. As regards terri

ble bereavements there is but one thing to do wisely-to draw nearer to those who remain or whatever is near and dear to us in life, and love them the more, and become gentler and better ourselves, making more of what is left. There are people who wail and grieve incessantly and neglect the living to extravagance. It seems always as if they attracted further losses and deeper miseries. Weak and simple minds grieve most, - melancholy becomes a kind of painful indulgence, and finally a deadly habit. Work is the great remedy. I think a great deal of the old Northern belief that if we lament too much for the dead, they cannot rest in their graves and are tormented by our

tears. It is a pity that the number of our ye written on our foreheads when we are born. . .

Keep up your heart, work hard, live in hope, w make a name, study there is a great deal in yo China - we ennoble the dead by ennobling ourse

Ralph Waldo Emerson exhorts Thomas Carly strong and endure

MY

CONCORD, 16 Ma

Y DEAR CARLYLE, -I have just been private letter from Moncure Conway to or friends here, giving some tidings of your sad retu empty home. We had the first news last week. it is. The stroke long threatened has fallen at the mildest form to its victim, and relieved to long and repeated reprieves. I must think her f also in this gentle departure, as she had been in he and honored career. We would not for ourselve covetously the descending steps after we have pas top of the mount, or grudge to spare some of the decay. And you will have the peace of knowing h and no longer a victim. I have found myself re an old verse which one utters to the parting soul,

"For thou hast passed all change of human life,

And not again to thee shall beauty die."

It is thirty-three years in July, I believe, since I fir her, and her conversation and faultless manners ga surance of a good and happy future. As I have n nessed any decline, I can hardly believe in any, an recall vividly the youthful wife, and her blithe accou her letters and homages from Goethe, and the detail

The Awful Oracles

ment. Her goodness to me and to my friends was ever perfect, and all Americans have agreed in her praise. Elizabeth Hoar remembers her with entire sympathy and regard.

I could heartily wish to see you for an hour in these lonely days. Your friends, I know, will approach you as tenderly as friends can; and I can believe that labor - all whose precious secrets you know ·will prove a consoler,— though it cannot quite avail, for she was the rest that rewarded labor. It is good that you are strong, and built for endurance. Nor will you shun to consult the awful oracles which in these hours of tenderness are sometimes vouchsafed. If to any, to you.

I rejoice that she stayed to enjoy the knowledge of your good day at Edinburgh, which is a leaf we would not spare from your book of life. It was a right manly speech to be so made, and is a voucher of unbroken strength, — and the surroundings, as I learn, were all the happiest, — with no hint of change.

I pray you bear in mind your own counsels. Long years you must still achieve, and, I hope, neither grief nor weariness will let you "join the dim choir of the bards that have been," until you have written the book I wish and wait for, the sincerest confessions of your best hours. My wife prays to be remembered to you with sympathy and affection.

Ever yours faithfully,

R. W. EMERSON

XVI

THE UNCONQUERABLE HOPE

Judging from the past, Benjamin Franklin anticipates the future with rational assurance

I

(To the Rev. George Whitefield; June 19, 1764)

OUR frequently repeated wishes for my eternal,

YOUR

as well as my temporal happiness, are very obliging, and I can only thank you for them and offer you mine in return. I have myself no doubt, that I shall enjoy as much of both as is proper for me. That Being, who gave me existence, and through almost threescore years has been continually showering his favors upon me, whose very chastisements have been blessings to me; can I doubt that he loves me? And, if he loves me, can I doubt that he will go on to take care of me, not only here but hereafter ? This to some may seem presumption; to me it appears the best grounded hope; hope of the future built on experience of the past.

II

(To Dr. Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, Feb. 24, 1786)

THE

HE course of nature must soon put a period to my present mode of existence. This I shall submit to with the less regret, as, having seen during a long life a good deal of this world, I feel a growing curiosity to be acquainted with some other; and can cheerfully, with filial confidence, resign my spirit to the conduct of that great and good Parent of mankind, who created it, and who has so graciously protected and prospered me from my birth to the present hour. . ..

The Only Reality

Ralph Waldo Emerson expounds his creed ∞

.

I

CONCORD, July 3, 1841

AM very much moved by the earnestness of your appeal, but very much humbled by it; for in attributing to me that attainment and that rest which I well know are not mine it accuses my shortcomings. I am, like you, a seeker of the perfect and admirable Good. My creed is very simple that Goodness is the only Reality, that to Goodness alone can we trust, to that we may trust all and always; beautiful and blessed and blessing is it, even though it should seem to slay me.

Beyond this I have no knowledge, no intelligence of methods; I know no steps, no degrees, no favorite means, no detached rules. Itself is gate and road and leader and march. Only trust it, be of it, be it, and it shall be well Iwith us forever. It will be and govern in its own transcendent way, and not in ways that arithmetic and mortal experience can measure. I can surely give no account of the origin and growth of my trust, but this only, that the trust accompanies the incoming of that which is trusted. Blessed be that! Happy am I when I am a trust; unhappy and so far dead if it should ebb from me. If I, if all should deny it, there not the less would it be and prevail and create.

We are poor, but it is rich: as every wave crests itself with foam, so this can incarnate itself everywhere with armies of ministers, inorganic, organic plant, brute, man, angel, to execute its will. What have we to do but to cry unto it All-Hail, Good Spirit; it is enough for us that we take form for thy needs: Thou art in us; Thou art us. Shall we not learn to look at our bodies with a religious joy, and empty every object of its meanness by seeing how it came to be?