To such a mind as that of the author of “Phases of Thought,” with its thorough knowledge of the art of criticism and its perfect equipment, the separating of the chaff from the meal of an author becomes not only a pleasure but a duty. This is best seen by a perusal of Chapter III, dealing with Emerson and Newman as types. With a few masterly strokes the real Emerson, not the phantom or brain figment of Burroughs and Woodberry and the long line of fad disciples, passes before us. Not an inch is taken from his stature. His intellectual beauties and defects, so strongly drawn, but confirm the reader in the truth of the portraiture. One catches not only a glimpse of the man, but the springs of his soul-struggles. Emerson in his hungry quest for intellectual food, ranged through the philosophies of the east and west, purposely ignoring that of the Catholic Church. This sin cost him whole worlds of thought hidden from his vision. Newman had the same hunger to appease, but where Emerson turned away Newman, ever in search for truth, kept on, and found it in the Catholic Church. The analysis of these two minds is done in a masterly way. Azarias has no prejudices. If he puts his fingers on defects and descants on their nature and treatment, he will, no less, point out beauties and lovingly linger among them. He is a knight in the cause of truth, and would not herd with the carping critics. He will tell you that Emerson’s mind was like an Æolian harp. “It was awake to the most delicate impressions, and at every breath of thought it gave out a music all its own,” and that the reading of him with understanding “is a mental tonic bracing for the cultured intellect as is Alpine air for the mountaineer.” The pages of this book teem with thought clothed in language whose sparkling beauty is all the author’s own. From such a book it is difficult to select. Emerson has well said, “No one can select the beautiful passages of another for you. Do your own quarrying.” I abide by this quotation, and should ask every lover of the beautiful and true to buy this fecund book.