When I recollect the ardor with which I sought the acquaintance of
those whom I imagined had ideas to communicate, and my delight in such
when found, I am led to think how very desirable were an institution to
which young students might resort during such portion of the year as
might be most convenient, to enjoy the fellowship of some of our most
cultivated persons,--scholarships being provided for such as had not
the means of defraying the necessary expenses,--thus enabling bright
young men and women, whether college graduates or not, to complete what
colleges do not give. Not every student comes into that intellectual
sympathy with his professor, which renders instruction most enjoyable,
yet without which the highest ends of culture are not attained. With
a faculty composed of persons whose names a moment's thought will
suggest, opportunities would be given for that sympathetic communion of
mind with mind in which all living instruction and influence consist.
EMERSON.
TUESDAY, 13.
Emerson has lately completed a course of readings on English Poetry
to an appreciative company in Boston. It is a variation of his method
of communicating with his companies, and not less becoming than even
his usual form of lecture. It matters not in his case; for such is the
charm of his manner, that wherever he appears, the cultured class will
delight in his utterances; and one may quote Socrates in Phædrus, where
Plato makes him say, "For as men lead hungry creatures by holding out a
green bough, or an apple, so you, Phædrus, it would seem, might lead me
about all Attica, and, indeed, wherever else you please, by extending
to me discourses out of your books." Not less aptly Goethe describes
him, in his letters to Schiller, where he calls the rhapsodist, "A
wise man, who, in calm thoughtfulness, shows what has happened; his
discourse aiming less to excite than to calm his auditors, in order
that they shall listen to him with contentment and long. He apportions
the interest equally, because it is not in his power to balance a too
lively impression. He grasps backwards and forwards at pleasure. He
is followed, because he has only to do with the imagination, which
of itself produces images, and which, up to a certain degree, is
indifferent what kind he calls up. He does not appear to his auditors,
but recites, as it were, behind a curtain; so there is a total
abstraction from himself, and it seems to them as though they heard
only the voice of the Muses."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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