In Dr. Holmes's estimate of Emerson's books everyone must wish to concur. {218} These are not the days, nor is this dry and thirsty land of ours the place, when or where we can afford to pass by any well of spiritual influence. It is matter, therefore, for rejoicing that, in the opinion of so many good judges, Emerson's well can never be choked up. His essays, so at least we are told by no less a critic than Mr. Arnold, are the most valuable prose contributions to English literature of the century; his letters to Mr. Carlyle carried into all our homes the charm of a most delightful personality; the quaint melody of his poems abides in many ears. He would, indeed, be a churl who grudged Emerson his fame. But when we are considering a writer so full of intelligence as Emerson--one so remote and detached from the world's bluster and brag--it is especially incumbent upon us to charge our own language with intelligence, and to make sure that what we say is at least truth for us. Were we at liberty to agree with Dr. Holmes in his unmeasured praise--did we, in short, find Emerson full of inspiration--our task would be as easy as it would be pleasant; but not entirely agreeing with Dr. Holmes, and somehow missing the inspiration, the difficulty we began by mentioning presses heavily upon us. Pleasant reading as the introductory thirty-five pages of Dr. Holmes's book make, we doubt the wisdom of so very sketchy an account of Emerson's lineage and intellectual environment. Attracted towards Emerson everybody must be; but there are many who have never been able to get quit of an uneasy fear as to his 'staying power.' He has seemed to some of us a little thin and vague. A really great author dissipates all such fears. Read a page and they are gone. To inquire after the intellectual health of such a one would be an impertinence. Emerson hardly succeeds in inspiring this confidence, but is more like a clever invalid who says, and is encouraged by his friends to say, brilliant things, but of whom it would be cruel to expect prolonged mental exertion. A man, he himself has said, 'should give us a sense of mass.' He perhaps does not do so. This gloomy and possibly distorted view is fostered rather than discouraged by Dr. Holmes's introductory pages about Boston life and intellect. It does not seem to have been a very strong place. We lack performance. It is of small avail to write, as Dr. Holmes does, about 'brilliant circles,' and 'literary luminaries,' and then to pass on, and leave the circles circulating and the luminaries shining _in vacuo_. We want to know how they were brilliant, and what they illuminated. If you wish me to believe that you are witty I must really trouble you to make a joke. Dr. Holmes's own wit, for example, is as certain as the law of gravitation, but over all these pages of his hangs vagueness, and we scan them in vain for reassuring details.