XI.

THE CONDUCT OF LIFE.

EMERSON'S "Conduct of Life," published in 1860, consists of nine essays upon various topics, such as "Fate," "Power," "Wealth," "Culture," "Beauty," "Worship," and "Illusions." They may properly be regarded as a third series of his "Essays." The old topics are treated under somewhat new aspects, with less of apparent inconsistency in form. Years had enlarged the scope of his vision and changed his standpoint, so that he could take in at a glance more than one facet of the prism. The mottoes prefixed to several of these essays are indicative of their scope and tendency.

FATE.

"Delicate omens, traced in air,

To the lone bard true witness bare;
Birds, with auguries on their wings,
Chanted undeceiving things,
Him to beckon, him to warn;
Well might then the poet scorn
To learn of scribe or courier
Hints writ in vaster character;
And on his mind, at dawn of day,
Soft shadows of the evening lay;
For the prevision is allied
Unto the thing so signified;
Or say, the foresight that awaits
Is the same genius that creates."

A single quatrain stands as the motto to the essay on "Power: "

POWER.

"His tongue was framed to music,
And his hand was armed with skill;
His face was the mould of beauty,

And his heart the throne of will."

The motto to the

66 essay on Wealth" is much

longer. We quote only the conclusion:

WEALTH.

"All is waste and worthless, till
Arrives the wise, selecting Will,
And out of time and chaos, wit
Draws the threads of fair and fit.
Then temples rose, and towns and marts,
The shop of toil, the hall of arts;
Then flew the sail across the seas,
To feed the North from tropic trees-
The storm-wind wove, the torrent span,
Where they were bid the rivers ran;
New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream-
Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam.
Then docks were built, and crops were stored,
And ingots added to the hoard.

But, though light-headed man forget,

Remembering matter pays her debt;

Still, through her motes and masses draw

Electric thrills and ties of law,

Which bend the strength of Nature wild

To the conscience of a child."

The motto to the essay on "Behavior" is especially Emersonian in its irregularity of rhythm and rhyme :

BEHAVIOR.

"Grace, Beauty, and Caprice

Built this wonderful portal;

Graceful women, chosen men,
Dazzle every mortal:

Their sweet and lofty countenance

His enchanting food;

He need not go to them, their forms
Beset his solitude.

He seldom looketh in their face,
His eyes explore the ground,
The green grass is a looking-glass
Whereon their traits are found.
Little he says to them-

So dances his heart in his breast;
Their tranquil mien bereaveth him
Of wit, of words, of rest.

Too weak to win, too fond to shun

The tyrants of his doom,

The much-deceived Endymion
Slips behind a tomb."

Of the noble essay on "Worship" something has already been said in connection with the spiritual philosophy of Emerson. Its motto is:

WORSHIP.

"This is he who, felled by foes,

Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows:

He to captivity was sold,

But him no prison-bars would hold :
Though they sealed him on a rock,
Mountain chains he can unlock :
Thrown to lions for their meat,
The crouching lion kissed his feet:
Bound to the stake, no fears appalled,
But arched o'er him an honoring vault.
This is he men miscall Fate,

Threading dark ways, arriving late;
But ever coming in time to crown
The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down.
He is the oldest and best known,

More near than aught thou call'st thy own.
Yet, greeted in another's eyes,
Disconcerts with glad surprise.
This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers,
Floods with blessings unawares.

Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line
Severing rightly his from thine.

Which is human, which Divine?"

The essay on "Illusions" is mystical enough in subject and treatment: quite as mystical as is its motto; and the unrhymed lines have a weird, almost impalpable, rhythm:

ILLUSIONS.

"Flow, flow the waves hated,

Accursed, adored,

The waves of mutation:

No anchorage is.

Sleep is not, Death is not;

Who seem to die, live.

"House you were born in,

Friends of your spring-time,
Old man and young maid,

Day's toil and its guerdon,
Fleeing to fables, cannot be moored.

"See the stars through them,
Through treacherous marbles.
Know, the stars everlasting
Are fugitive also,
And emulate vaulting
The lambent heat-lightning
And fire-fly's flight.

"When thou dost return

On the wave's circulation,
Beholding the shimmer,
The wild dissipation,
And out of endeavor
To change and to flow,

The gas becomes solid,
And Phantoms and Nothings
Return to be Things,

And endless imbroglio

Is Law and the World.

Then first shalt thou know
That in the wild turmoil,

Horsed upon Proteus,

Thou ridest to power

And to endurance."

But even in illusions Emerson finds uses. He says: "The intellect is stimulated by the statement of truth in trope, and the will by clothing