After giving these seven illustrations of the truth he wants to teach, Emerson says:

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat.

That is, beauty taken away from its natural environment or setting is not truth. In another poem, The Rhodora (page 159), he says that "beauty is its own excuse for being"-beauty when true to nature.

After this bit of philosophizing, he closes the poem with an illustration of each and all in proper harmony (last bracket), and yields himself to the influence of "the perfect whole."

Throughout the poem, from the first line to the last, may be found the great lesson of the power of influence. Perhaps it is most definitely expressed in the oft-quoted lines:

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

This is a lesson which runs through all nature and all human life, and in no piece of literature has it been more beautifully or more effectively expressed than in Each and All.

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EACH AND ALL

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;

The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;

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The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse and lists with delight

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;

Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even;
He sings the song, but it cheers not now;
For I did not bring home the river and the sky;
He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

The lover watched his graceful maid,
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;
The gay enchantment was undone,—

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;

I leave it behind with the games of youth."

As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Over me soared the eternal sky;

Full of light and of deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;

Beauty through my senses stole;

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

FATE

The mysterious decrees of Fate or of Providence are set forth in these verses. A few facts are given without

comment. There was a storm at sea, and the intended passenger, acting wisely as he thought, did not sail. The woods were dangerous with wild beasts, and the hunter, acting wisely as he thought, did not join in the chase. The ship made the trip safely, and the hunters came home in glee; but meanwhile the town, which seemed to be perfectly safe, being builded upon a rock, was destroyed by an earthquake.

There are thousands of such incidents-a man goes safely through a dozen battles and is finally killed by the scratch of a pin. But there is no such thing as chance or luck or fate in the world. There is a cause for everything. The universe is governed by law, or through law, and law is not freakish.

FATE

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"The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare;
The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play,
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.

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"The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
The panther clings to the arching limb;
And the lion's whelps are abroad at play,
And I shall not join in the chase to-day."

By permission of Houghton Mimin Company.

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But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
And the town that was builded upon a rock
Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.

-Bret Harte.

FORTUNE

Enid's Song.

"Man is man and master of his fate," is the key-note of these lines. The proud may be affected by the turn of Fortune's wheel, but those whose hearts are great are the lords of their own hands and smile whether Fortune favors or whether she frowns. The staring crowd looks with wonder, but we are indifferent to ("we neither love nor hate") what is called Fortune, knowing that it is only a shadow in the clouds. Man is master of his fate.

FORTUNE

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Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and

cloud;

Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.