RALPH WALDO EMERSON PART SECOND.
316
I looked for greater things of him, hopes he has not realized. They called each other names, not venomous indeed, but pointed you
of the other:
my
:
are a fatalist, says one you are a gymnosophist says the other. Still they remained friends and wound ;
up by taking a
trip together
to
of
Stonehenge,
which pre-historic monument both knew nothing, and so could agree. Such was the event of main biographic interest in this visit of Emerson. The other things were not without import, but seem relatively external. He literary people of distinction, ate numer ous English dinners, was gratified to find himself
saw many
famous in old ancestral England, glimpses of
its society,
some
caught
especially of its ancient aris
tocracy in general he drank with relish of the timehonored traditions of the most traditional people in Europe he the anti-traditionalist. Such was his new experience which he will tell in a book. But how different from what he had been and done hith erto Surely a dip into the past was just what he must have needed most. In the foregoing account we have given what was the inner propulsion of Emerson back to England, ;
!
as
we regard
the event.
He, however, states the matter somewhat differently: "The occasion of my second visit to England was an invitation to read a series of lectures" in certain of its cities. .
.
.
Thus the Emersonian Lyceum had been called back ward to Europe. His success was good in some The last course places, less good in other places.