This I know, too: that the grave is not dark or cold to the dead, but only to the living. The light of the eye, the warmth of the body, still exist undiminished in the universe, but in other relations, under other forms. Shall the flower complain because it fades and falls? It has to fall before the fruit can appear. But what is the fruit of the flower of human life? Surely not the grave, as the loose thinking of some seem to imply. The only fruit I can see is in fairer flowers, or a higher type of mind and life that follows in this world, and to which our lives may contribute. The flower of life has improved through the ages--the geologic ages; from the flower of the brute, it has become the flower of the man. You and I perish, but something goes out, or may go out, from us that will help forward a higher type of mankind. To what end? Who knows? We cannot cross-question the Infinite. Something in the universe has eventuated in man, and something has profited by his ameliorations. We must regard him as a legitimate product, and we must look upon death as a legitimate part of the great cycle--an evil only from our temporary and personal point of view, but a good from the point of view of the whole.
Alcott, Amos Bronson, in Emerson's Journals, 26-29; on Thoreau, 156.
Arnold, Matthew, 213, 250, 260; in Emerson's Journals, 25; on Emerson, 87, 89, 90; his poetry, 209; on poetry, 212.
Bergson, Henri, his "Creative Evolution," revised estimate of, 264-66; and telepathy, 267, 268.
Bryant, William Cullen, his poetry, 203, 204, 222.
Burroughs, John, chronic homesickness, 227, 228.
Carlyle, Thomas, 34, 35, 43, 47, 97; contrasted with Emerson, 30; correspondence with Emerson, 39, 40, 61, 80, 81; on Webster, 61; as a painter, 76, 77; Emerson's love and admiration for, 79-82; his style, 82.
Channing, William Ellery, 2d, 138-40; in Emerson's Journals, 9, 29, 30, 142; in Thoreau's Journal, 149.
Dana, Richard Henry, his "Two Years before the Mast," 256-58.
Darwin, Charles, criticism of his selection theories, 172-89, 193-98; his "Voyage of the Beagle," 189-93; his significance, 198-200.
De Vries, Hugo, his mutation theory, 196, 197.
Emerson, Dr. Edward W., on Thoreau, 155, 156.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 136, 214, 227, 239; Journals of, discussed, 1-85; a new estimate of, 1-4; and social intercourse, 6-8; self-reliance, 8, 31, 32; poet and prophet of the moral ideal, 9-11; his lectures, 11, 12, 64, 65, 162; his supreme test of men, 12, 13, 17; his "Days," 14; his "Humble-Bee," 14; "Each and All," 15; "Two Rivers," 15, 16; on Poe, 16; on Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," 17; as a reader and a writer, 17, 18; his main interests, 18; on Jesus as a Representative Man, 20; on Thoreau, 22, 23, 141, 156, 157; and John Muir, 23, 24; alertness, 24; on Matthew Arnold, 25; on Lowell, 25, 26; on Alcott, 26-29; on Father Taylor, 28, 29; occupied with the future, 30; his "Song of Nature," 30, 31; near and far, past and present, 31, 32; and human sympathy, 32, 33, 38, 39; "Representative Men," 33; attitude towards Whitman, 34, 253; literary estimates, 34, 35; on Wordsworth, 36; correspondence with Carlyle, 39, 40; love of nature, 41-43; his book "Nature," 41, 43, 88, 89, 230; his "May-Day," 43; feeling for profanity and racy speech, 44-48; humor, 45-48; thoughts about God, 48-52; attitude towards science, 52-60; on Webster, 60-63; religion, 63, 64; self-criticism, 65-67; "Terminus," 67; catholicity, 67-70; on the Bible, 70; his selection of words, 70, 71; ideas but no doctrines, 71, 72; his limitations, 73-75; and Hawthorne, 73-75; a painter of ideas, 76, 77; on eating and the artist, 77; love and admiration for Carlyle, 79-82; hungered for the quintessence of things, 84; the last result of Puritanism, 85; an estimate of, 86-92; attitude towards poverty, 89; weak in logic, 91; passion for analogy, 92; false notes in rhetoric, 92-94; speaking with authority, 95; at the Holmes breakfast, 95, 96; his face, 96; criticisms of, 96-101; on beauty, 98, 99; last words on, 102; compared with Thoreau, 126; intercourse with Thoreau, 156-58; incident related by Thoreau, 158; on Walter Scott, 216; on oratory, 232; a New England Thomas à Kempis, 261; old age, 284, 285.