without fresh resolution." Emerson, helps us most in provoking us to help
ourselves. The pleasantest revenge is that which we can sometimes take
upon our great men in quoting of themselves what they have said of others.

It is easy to be so revenged upon Emerson, because he, more than most
persons of such eminence, has been generous and cordial in his
appreciation of all human worth. "If there should appear in the company,"
he observes, "some gentle soul who knows little of persons and parties, of
Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a law that disposes these particulars,
and so certifies me of the equity which checkmates every false player,
bankrupts every self-seeker, and apprises me of my independence on any
conditions of country, or time, or human body, that man liberates me....
I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible goods."
Who can state the mission and effect of Emerson more tersely and aptly
than those words do it?

But, once more, he does not desire eulogiums, and it seems half ungenerous
to force them upon him now that he can no longer defend himself. I prefer
to conclude by repeating a passage characteristic of him both as a man and
as an American, and which, perhaps, conveys a sounder and healthier
criticism, both for us and for him, than any mere abject and nerveless
admiration; for great men are great only in so far as they liberate us,
and we undo their work in courting their tyranny. The passage runs thus:--

"Let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the
least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I
pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No
facts to me are sacred; none are profane. I simply experiment--an endless
seeker, with no Past at my back!"