their variety, and serene enough not to be annoyed because their
contradictions are not at once reconciled.

The catalogue of ills may be never so long, but it fails to depress one
who sees everything in the making.

"I heard a poet answer
Aloud and cheerfully,
'Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
Are pleasant songs to me.'

* * * * *

"Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud.
She silvered in the moon."

This conception of the merry Sphinx may seem strange to the dyspeptic
philosopher pondering on the inscrutableness of the universe. But the
prospectors in the mining camps of the Far West, and the builders of new
cities understand what Emerson meant. Their experience of the ups and
downs of fortune has taught them how to find pleasure in uncertainty.
You never can tell how anything will turn out till you try. That's the
fun of it. They are quite ready to believe that the same thing holds
good in the higher life.

Or take the lines on "Worship." How can Worship be personified?
Emerson's picture is not that of a patriarch on bended knee; it is that
of a vigorous youth picking himself up after he has been knocked down by