Lectures and biographical sketchesEmerson, Ralph Waldo
Philosophy
Lectures and biographical sketches
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
American essays -- 19th century; Speeches, addresses, etc., American -- 19th century
Then was exhibited all the richness of a rhetoric which we have never
seen rivalled in this country. Wonderful how memorable were words
made which were only pleasing pictures, and covered no new or valid
thoughts. He abounded in sentences, in wit, in satire, in splendid
allusion, in quotation impossible to forget, in daring imagery, in
parable and even in a sort of defying experiment of his own wit
and skill in giving an oracular weight to Hebrew or Rabbinical
words;--feats which no man could better accomplish, such was his
self-command and the security of his manner. All his speech was
music, and with such variety and invention that the ear was never
tired. Especially beautiful were his poetic quotations. He delighted
in quoting Milton, and with such sweet modulation that he seemed to
give as much beauty as he borrowed; and whatever he has quoted will
be remembered by any who heard him, with inseparable association
with his voice and genius. He had nothing in common with vulgarity
and infirmity, but, speaking, walking, sitting, was as much aloof
and uncommon as a star. The smallest anecdote of his behavior or
conversation was eagerly caught and repeated, and every young scholar
could recite brilliant sentences from his sermons, with mimicry, good
or bad, of his voice. This influence went much farther, for he who was
heard with such throbbing hearts and sparkling eyes in the lighted
and crowded churches, did not let go his hearers when the church was
dismissed, but the bright image of that eloquent form followed the boy
home to his bed-chamber; and not a sentence was written in academic
exercises, not a declamation attempted in the college chapel, but
showed the omnipresence of his genius to youthful heads. This made
every youth his defender, and boys filled their mouths with arguments
to prove that the orator had a heart. This was a triumph of Rhetoric.
It was not the intellectual or the moral principles which he had to
teach. It was not thoughts. When Massachusetts was full of his fame it
was not contended that he had thrown any truths into circulation. But
his power lay in the magic of form; it was in the graces of manner; in
a new perception of Grecian beauty, to which he had opened our eyes.
There was that finish about this person which is about women, and which
distinguishes every piece of genius from the works of talent,--that
these last are more or less matured in every degree of completeness
according to the time bestowed on them, but works of genius in their
first and slightest form are still wholes. In every public discourse
there was nothing left for the indulgence of his hearer, no marks of
late hours and anxious, unfinished study, but the goddess of grace had
breathed on the work a last fragrancy and glitter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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