Excerpt from Compensation: Being an Essay
Emerson's was a varied life. His name is associated with many movements. Of some of them he was the vital force. Consequently to those who knew him well nothing about the man impressed them more deeply than the dimensions of his interests and influences. It is this, perhaps, that marks the widest gulf between him and all others of his generation. He was the first to make the outside world aware that there was such a thing as American letters. And at home he became in his own life time a cult in the broad sense, like Carlyle, like Browning. Compared with his influence as a social factor there is somewhat ephemeral in the brilliant careers of his platform contemporaries. Compared with his influence as an idol for the rising generation there is somewhat narrowly literary about Hawthorne and Poe for example: as there is about Stevenson and Pater and Arnold compared with Browning and Carlyle.
The variety of Emerson's accomplishments is no longer remembered for its own sake but only in the light of historical association. That many-sided genius which made him a leader in several departments of the world's work, has now passed, except in so far as it is perpetuated in his written word.
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