which the book made upon Boston in 1836. As we read it to-day, we are
struck by its extraordinary beauty of language. It is a supersensuous,
lyrical, and sincere rhapsody, written evidently by a man of genius. It
reveals a nature compelling respect,--a Shelley, and yet a sort of
Yankee Shelley, who is mad only when the wind is nor'-nor'west; a mature
nature which must have been nourished for years upon its own thoughts,
to speak this new language so eloquently, to stand so calmly on its
feet. The deliverance of his thought is so perfect that this work adapts
itself to our mood and has the quality of poetry. This fluency Emerson
soon lost; it is the quality missing in his poetry. It is the
efflorescence of youth.

"In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing
a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky,
without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good
fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the
brink of fear. In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the
snake his slough, and at what period soever of life is always a
child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of
God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed,
and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand
years.... It is the uniform effect of culture on the human mind, not
to shake our faith in the stability of particular phenomena, as
heat, water, azote; but to lead us to regard nature as phenomenon,
not a substance; to attribute necessary existence to spirit; to
esteem nature as an accident and an effect."

Perhaps these quotations from the pamphlet called Nature are enough to
show the clouds of speculation in which Emerson had been walking. With
what lightning they were charged was soon seen.