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; A single quatrain stands as the motto to the essay on "Power: " POWER. "His tongue was framed to music, 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 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, Their sweet and lofty countenance His enchanting food; He need not go to them, their forms He seldom looketh in their face, So dances his heart in his breast; Too weak to win, too fond to shun The tyrants of his doom, The much-deceived Endymion 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 : Threading dark ways, arriving late; More near than aught thou call'st thy own. Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line 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, Day's toil and its guerdon, "See the stars through them, "When thou dost return On the wave's circulation, The gas becomes solid, And endless imbroglio Is Law and the World. Then first shalt thou know 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 |