There are paragraphs and chapters on the Aristocracy, the Universities, Religion, Literature, and the Press, that is, the ‘Times.’ Every page glitters with wit. Every apothegm contains the full proportion of truth and untruth which sayings of that sort are wont to contain. Says Emerson: ‘The gospel the Anglican church preaches is, ‘“By taste are ye saved.”’ Yet the more one reflects on this monstrous statement, the more is he astonished at the amount of truth in it. The volume entitled _Conduct of Life_ has a fine rough vigor. Here are displayed to advantage Emerson’s robust habit of mind, searching analysis, vivacity and picturesqueness of expression, epigrammatic skill, homely plain sense, and lofty idealism. The first essay, ‘Fate,’ is an energetic and striking performance. One needs the optimism of its last paragraphs to counteract the grim terror of the earlier ones. Seldom has the relentless ferocity of Circumstance, Fate, Environment, been set forth in terms equally emphatic. The companion essay, ‘Power,’ is a study of the influence of brute force (and its compensations) in life and history. Emerson shows the value of the ‘bruiser’ in politics, trade, and in society. This leads to the third subject, ‘Wealth.’ Money must be had if only to buy bread. Nature insults the man who will not work. ‘She starves, taunts, and torments him, takes away warmth, laughter, sleep, friends and daylight, until he has fought his way to his own loaf.’ But what men of sense want is power, mastery, not candy; they esteem wealth to be ‘the assimilation of nature to themselves.’ To all this there must be a corrective; it is discussed in the essay on ‘Culture.’ Nature ruins a man to gain her ends, makes him strong in things she wants done, weak otherwise, and then robs him of his sense of proportion so that he becomes an egotist. Culture restores the balance. Culture rescues a man from himself, ‘kills his exaggeration.’ The simpler means to it are books, travel, society, solitude; and there are nobler ones, not the least of which is adversity. The discussion is continued in the practical essay on ‘Behavior’ and lifted to the highest plane in the essay on ‘Worship.’ The whole state of man is a state of culture, ‘and its flowering and completion may be described as Religion or Worship.’ For all its beauty this chapter will not please many people. They may take refuge in ‘Considerations by the Way,’ which shows the ‘good of evil,’ or in the fine essay on ‘Beauty’ or the ironical little closing piece called ‘Illusions.’ VI THE POEMS Many paragraphs in _Nature_ and the _Essays_ struggle in their prose environment as if seeking a higher medium of expression. Emerson’s command of poetic materials was extraordinary, though it fails to justify the claims sometimes made for him. He could be wilfully careless in respect to technique. There are moments when no cacophonous combination terrifies him. Then will he say his say though the language creak.