Thomas à Kempis tells us that “words fly through the air and hurt not a stone.” There is certainly no objection to a writer’s careful elaboration of his style. The study of words is a part of rhetoric. But there is a subtle and elusive application of words, outside of their obvious and generally-used meaning, which is at once a rhetorical and a logical vice. And as ideas fail, so words are sedulously cultivated. The style is the man, as Buffon did _not_ say; but what of an affected style? If there is any truth in the saying, it convicts Emerson of being stilted, unnatural, and affected. No man thinks by jerks and starts, and no man writes so. The fanciful and abrupt indicate either affectation or an unbalanced intellect. All the great philosophers write calmly and equably. The sustained strength of Plato, on whom Emerson professes to model himself, is in direct contrast with the abruptness of Seneca, who was a mass of conceit and hypocrisy. We have no quarrel with Mr. Emerson on account of his studied style; only, with Sydney Smith, we object to a discourse in which are hung out preconcerted signals for tears or excitement. It is quite easy to form a quaint style. The success of Charles Lamb’s imitation of Sir Thomas Browne, or of Bret Harte’s or Thackeray’s burlesques of popular novels, shows how quickly a ready writer can fall into a philosophical diction. Emerson attempts the epigrammatic. Like Pythagoras, he disdains reasons. The _ipse dixit_, he supposes, will suffice for his disciples. He contradicts himself on his very self-satisfactory theory of “not being in any mood long.” He admires opposite characters; but, to the credit of American good sense be it said—good sense even in a _philosophe_—he does not “boil over,” like Carlyle, in all sorts of oddities of hero-worship. The Yankee hard head which he has cannot be softened by all the philosophy and poetry in the world; and, notwithstanding his ethereal views, he drives a hard bargain. Can we review this philosopher to the satisfaction of our readers, or must they peruse him themselves in order to form a vague idea of his system?