He was in effect one of the most respected, sagacious, prosperous and virtuous villagers of Concord. Some slight departures from common custom he tranquilly tested and as tranquilly abandoned. He tried vegetarianism for a while, but gave it up when he found that it did him no good. He attempted to introduce domestic democracy by having the servants sit at table with the rest of the household, but was readily induced to abandon the experiment by the protest of his two sensible hired girls against such an inconvenient arrangement. He began to practise a theory that manual labour should form part of the scholar’s life, but was checked by the personal discovery that hard work in the garden meant poor work in the study. “The writer shall not dig,” was his conclusion. Intellectual freedom was what he chiefly desired; and this he found could best be attained in an inconspicuous manner of living and dressing, not noticeably different from that of the average college professor or country minister. [Illustration: RALPH WALDO EMERSON. _From a photograph by Black, Boston._] Here you see the man “in his habit as he lived,” (and as thousands of lecture-audiences saw him,) pictured in the old photograph which illustrates this chapter. Here is the familiar _décor_ of the photographer’s studio: the curtain draped with a cord and tassel, the muslin screen background, and probably that hidden instrument of torture, the “head-rest,” behind the tall, posed figure. Here are the solemn “swallow-tail coat,” the conventional cravat, and the black satin waistcoat. Yet even this antique “carte de visite,” it seems to me, suggests something more and greater,—the imperturbable, kindly presence, the noble face, the angelic look, the serene manner, the penetrating and revealing quality of the man who set out to be “a friend to all who wished to live in the spirit.” Whatever the titles of his lectures,—_Man the Reformer_, _The Method of Nature_, _The Conduct of Life_, _Fate_, _Compensation_, _Prudence_, _The Present Age_, _Society and Solitude_,—his main theme is always the same, “namely the infinitude of the private man.” But this private man of Emerson’s, mark you, is linked by invisible ties to all Nature and carries in his breast a spark of the undying fire which is of God. Hence he is at his best when he feels not only his personal _unity_ but also his universal _community_, when he relies on himself and at the same time cries “I yield myself to the perfect whole.” This kind of independence is the truest form of obedience. The charm of Emerson’s way of presenting his thought comes from the spirit of poetry in the man. He does not argue, nor threaten, nor often exhort; he reveals what he has seen or heard, for you to make what you will of it. He relies less on syllogisms than on imagery, symbols, metaphors. His utterance is as inspirational as the ancient oracle of Delphi, but he shuns the contortions of the priestess at that shrine.