Emerson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, F

Convers Francis, [Remarks on Emerson in 1838, 1855, and 1858]

[] The Unitarian minister and historian, and Parkman Professor of Pulpit Eloquence at Harvard, Convers Francis first met Emerson in the 1830s. Francis was an original member of the Transcendental Club and a close friend of most of its members, but because he stopped short of Emerson’s intellectual radicalism and Bronson Alcott’s and Theodore Parker’s social radicalism, he stands out as one of the more moderate voices of Transcendentalism. Of the selections that follow, Francis’s letters to Frederic Henry Hedge describing Emerson’s address at the Harvard Divinity School in 1838 are important as eyewitness accounts of Emerson’s calm amid the firestorm his address had created at Harvard, while his journal entries on his relationship with Emerson between 1838 and 1858 suggest that, although Francis never wavered in his admiration of Emerson’s character and conversation, he was increasingly critical of his friend who, he says, “never gets or has got beyond the old thought, however good that may be.” Reflecting on “Self-possession,” the last lecture in Emerson’s lecture series on the Natural Method of Mental Philosophy in 1858, Francis found only the “old topics, subjectiveness and individuality.” Convers Francis [Remarks on Emerson in
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] Convers Francis to Frederic Henry Hedge,
 August
 My good friend, . . . Have you heard that Waldo Emerson delivered the sermon this summer to the class at the Divinity School, on their leaving the seminary? I went to hear it, & found it crowded with stirring, honest, lofty thoughts. I don’t know that anything of his has excited me more. He dwelt much on the downfallen state of the church, i.e., the want of a living, real interest in the present Christianity (where I think he rather exaggerated, but not much), on the tendency to make only a historical Christ, separated from actual humanity ,—& on the want of reference to the great laws of man’s moral nature in preaching. These were his principal points, & were put forth with great power, & sometimes (under the first head especially) with unique humor. The discourse was full of divine life,—and was a true word from a true soul. I did not agree with him in some of his positions,& think perhaps he did not emerson in his own time make the peculiar significance of Jesus so prominent as he ought,—though I am inclined to believe not that he thinks less of Jesus than others do, but more of man, every man as a divine being.—The discourse gave dire offence to the rulers at Cambridge. The dean & Mr. Norton have pronounced sentences of fearful condemnation, & their whole clique in Boston & Cambridge are in commotion. The harshest words are not spared, & “infidel” & “atheist” are the best terms poor E. gets. I have sometimes thought that to Mr. E. & his numerous detractors might be applied what Plato says of the winged soul, that has risen to the sight of the absolute, essential, & true, & therefore is said by the many to be stark mad . . . Convers Francis to Frederic Henry Hedge,
 November
 My good friend, . . . You know of course what a hubbub there has been here about Emerson ’s Discourse,—an excitement which,whether right or wrong,has been,it seems to me, wholly disproportionate to the occasion. But the truth was, the fluid of malignity had been collecting a good while,—& needed but a slight point of attraction to draw it down on E’s head. His popularity, especially among the brightest young people,had become very annoying to the dii majores of the pulpits & the Divinity School;—& no sooner was the overt act of printing something, that would not lie peaceably in the topic-holes of their minds, committed, then as if by general consent among them there was an outbreak of wrath, the hotter for having been smothered. The Discourse itself did not seem to me adapted to excite any such turmoil, except from certain expressions rather than thoughts, which seem almost as if chosen for offense . On the whole I liked it very well; but there are quite debateable things in it,—& as usual with him,a want of an adequate appreciation on the Christian element in the world’s culture.—E., you know, is not a man, who can very well justify his own processes of thought to another person, i.e. is not at all a man of logic: he is a seer, who looks into the infinite, & reports what he sees;—if you like the report & agree with him, all the better;—if not, ’tis a pity...