Emerson’s sentences are so pointed that frequently the point is so fine as to be lost. His eloquence is anything but Asiatic, and, indeed, its terseness very much resembles affectation. He is called the American Carlyle, but his proper title is the American Montaigne. There is not an idea in Emerson that cannot be traced to the garrulous old Frenchman. The first reading of Emerson is an era in a young man’s life. The short, apothegmic sentences strike him with the force of proverbs. The happy quotation and illustration seem inspirations of genius. The misty transcendentalism has a roseate hue, in delightful contrast with the bald practicality of Watts’ hymns and orthodox sermons. The stimulating style, resultant from exquisite taste and the manly resolve to carry out Pope’s advice about the “art to blot,” is high perfection when compared with the weak and weary prosing of moral essayists. Yet there is nothing original in Emerson. He has contributed little or nothing to the body of ideas. Not even his poetry, which is supposed to be productive of ideas, presents anything new or striking. The passion for nature-worship, which Wordsworth carried to its highest expression, becomes tiresome and unnatural in Emerson’s short metre and careless versification. What is the source of his power? Why do New England critics rave over him? Even J. Russell Lowell, who, with all the limitations of a narrowed culture, ranks respectably as a literary critic, cannot find words in which to laud the New England philosopher. _He_ finds the secret of his influence to consist in his “wide-reaching sympathy” and his being able to understand the use of a linchpin equally with the stellar influences. Lowell himself is under the witchery of mere words. His cultivated mind is drawn to the beautiful by acquired æsthetic taste. His estimate of Dante, as published in the _New American Cyclopædia_ and afterward in _Among my Books_, fills the thoughtful Italian student with amazement. He is a critic of words, and is childishly led by a bright figure or exquisite metaphor. Emerson, whilst seeming to disregard words, pays profound attention to their collocation and effectiveness. This school is not a school of thoughts but of words; and it is under this aspect that we intend examining it. It is the thorough embodiment of poor Hamlet’s objection to the book which he is reading: “Words, words, words.” We read and read, and are charmed with Thucydidean terseness and Solomonic wisdom; but when we begin to reflect “all the riches have escaped out of our hands.” It is about time to expose this wily old philosopher, who has been throwing rhetorical dust into the eyes of several generations. He may have a noble manhood; he may be sincere; but there can be no question that it is the _ignotum pro magnifico_ which has been the cheap cause of his popularity.