"This is tonic indeed! And let no one object that it is too general;
that more practical, positive direction is what we want.... Yes,
truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is precious. Yet the secret
of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the
hopeful, serene, beautiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are
indissolubly united; in which they work and have their being.... One
can scarcely overrate the importance of holding fast to happiness and
hope. It gives to Emerson's work an invaluable virtue. As Wordsworth's
poetry is, in my judgment, the most important done in verse, in our
language, during the present century, so Emerson's Essays are, I
think, the most important work done in prose.... But by his conviction
that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this
life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood,
and to prevail, and to work for happiness,--by this conviction and
hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have
been right in them.... You cannot prize him too much, nor heed him too
diligently."

Herman Grimm, a German critic of great influence in his own country,
did much to obtain a hearing for Emerson's works in Germany. At first
the Germans could not understand the unusual English, the unaccustomed
turns of phrase which are so characteristic of Emerson's style.

"Macaulay gives them no difficulty; even Carlyle is comprehended. But
in Emerson's writings the broad turnpike is suddenly changed into a
hazardous sandy foot-path. His thoughts and his style are American. He
is not writing for Berlin, but for the people of Massachusetts.... It
is an art to rise above what we have been taught.... All great men are
seen to possess this freedom. They derive their standard from their
own natures, and their observations on life are so natural and