JOURNAL XLI (From Journals AZ and BO) [THE old year ended and the new began as usual with Lyceum Lectures through New England. Then followed the delivery before the Mercantile Library Association in New York of two lectures, on "The Times" and " England."] (From AZ) January 13, 1850. In ideal faces I notice unity of expression, in portraits, variety and compromise, as if in each individual were four or five rival natures, one of which was now in the ascendant, and compelled at certain hours to yield the lead to the suppressed rival. Every man finds room in his face for all his ancestors. Every face an Atrium. 1 Mr. Cabot in his Memoir (vol. ii, p. 570) quotes Nathaniel P. Willis's account of his first hearing Emerson at one of these lectures, giving a remarkable description of his wonderful voice and its effect. NEW YORK, January 23. What cunning magnets these boys are,- to draw all the iron out of the hour! [Here follows Mr. Emerson's version of Nisami's Nightingale and Falcon, from the German of Von Hammer-Purgstall, which is printed in "Persian Poetry," Letters and Social Aims, pp. 261-262.] The two Statements, or Bipolarity. My geometry cannot span the extreme points which I see. I affirm melioration, which Nature teaches in pears, in the domesticated animals, and in her secular geology and the development of complex races. I affirm also the self-equality of Nature; or that only that is true which is always true; and that, in California, or in Greece, or in Jewry, or in Arcadia, existed the same amounts of private power, as now, and the same deductions, however differently distributed. But I cannot reconcile these two statements. I affirm the sacredness of the individual, the infinite reliance that may be put on his determination. I see also the benefits of cities, and the plausibility of phalansteries. But I cannot reconcile these oppositions. 1850] BIPOLARITY. MARRIAGE 87 I affirm the divinity of man; but as I know well how much is my debt to bread and coffee and flannel and heated room, I shun to be Tartuffe, and do affirm also with emphasis the value of these fomentations. But I cannot reconcile that absolute with this conditional. My ancient companion in Charleston, South Carolina, Mr. Martin Luther Hurlbut, used to reply to each statement of mine, "Yes, to a certain extent." I am struck now and then with a passage of poetry or prose, which, especially if written some hundred years ago, amazes me by the fortitude or self-reliance it discovers in the man who dared thus firmly to trust his rare perception as to write it elaborately out. Such a piece is Donne's Ecstasy. Another is Ferideddin Attar, the Persian poet's mysticism in the BirdTalk, which I find in Von Hammer, when the three birds appear before the throne of the Simorg.' Love is temporary and ends with marriage. Marriage is the perfection which love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought. Marriage is a good I Mr. Emerson's translation is given in full in "Persian Poetry" (Letters and Social Aims, pp. 263-265). per known only to the parties, a relation of The English journals snub my new book; as, indeed, they have all its foregoers. Only now they say that this has less vigor and originality than the others. Where, then, was the degree of merit that entitled my books to their notice? They have never admitted the claims of either of them. The fate of my books is like the impression of my face. My acquaintances, as long back as I can remember, have always said, "Seems to me you look a little thinner than when I saw you last." The Times. That is to say, there is Fate; Laws of the world; what then? We are thrown back on Rectitude, forever and ever. Only rectitude: to mend one; that is all we can do. But that the world stigmatizes as a sterile, chimney-corner philosophy. At Alcott's conversation on "The Times" each person who opened his lips seemed in snuffing the air to snuff nitrous oxide, and away he |