Thoreau was a disciple and follower of Emerson and yet vas too individual to be a copy. In what respect did he differ in his attitude toward the life of the community? In what respect did he surpass Emerson in his feeling for and knowledge of nature?

What were some of the organized ways in which the Transcendental group gave evidence of their earnestness? Mention the relation of Amos Bronson Alcott to one of them, of George Ripley to another, and of Margaret Fuller to a third.

Mention the experiences of Hawthorne's boyhood, college days, and subsequent years after his return to Salem. What negative fact in his life did he first record and then struggle against? Mention his three successive attempts to overcome what he felt to be a defect in himself as a citizen. What fundamental fact in his previous experience appears in his great romances? Mention the first three of these in turn with brief analyses. What in general was the effect throughout his life of certain of the friendships which he made in college? What was the effect of these upon his life abroad from 1853 to 1860? What is there notable in the fact that his last great romance was not markedly different in fact and experience from those written before his years in Liverpool and Rome? In what respect is Hawthorne comparable with Emerson and Thoreau in their attitude toward individual freedom, and in their attitude toward organized reform?

READING GUIDE.-Readings from Emerson should include first of all "Nature,” “The American Scholar,” “The Divinity School Address," and "Society and Solitude." These may be supplemented by "Compensation," "Self-Reliance," "Friendship," and "Character," and by the following poems: "The River," "Written at Naples," "Written at Rome," "The Problem," "Fable," "Hamatreya," "Brahma." The best short biographies are E. W. Emerson's "Emerson in Concord" and George E. Woodberry's (English Men of Letters series). Among the good critical passages are C. F. Richardson's "American Literature," I, IX and II, V; E. C. Stedman's "Poets of America"; Whitman's "Specimen Days," April 16, 1881.

Readings from Thoreau should include the first fourth of "Walden," together with a few of the essays which make up the rest of the book. Readings from Hawthorne should include from "Twice Told Tales," "The Great Carbuncle," "The Snow Image," "The Great Stone

Face"; from the four long romances, "The House of the Seven Gables." The best short biography is by George E. Woodberry (American Men of Letters series). Other good studies from his life are Rose Hawthorne Lathrop's "Memories of Hawthorne" and Bridge's "Recollections of Hawthorne."

For a study of the Concord group in general, the best books are O. B. Frothingham's "Transcendentalism in New England," H. C. Goddard's "Studies in New England Transcendentalism," and Lindsey Swift's "Brook Farm." Lowell's essays on "Thoreau" and on "Emer. son the Lecturer" are sympathetic and interesting.

CHAPTER IV

THE POPULAR SPOKESMEN OF THE MID-CENTURY

I. INTRODUCTION

The Prophet versus The Spokesman.-As between the poet philosophers, often called the Concord group, and the popular spokesmen who centred more about Boston and Cambridge, there are certain points of clear contrast. The former concerned themselves almost exclusively with the nature and improvement of the individual; the latter were laboring with the nation as a whole, and attempting to uplift or reform its institutions. The New England prophets cried down existing evils and pointed to their certain consequences; the spokesmen looked for causes and did their best to remove them. A further distinction can be made with reference to the contrasted form of their messages. It is not the function of the prophet to please: his message is disturbing and almost certain to be unpopular. His cause is desperate, and his audience, if they listen at all, will listen only under protest. The prophet, therefore, speaks with high seriousness, and embellishes his discourse with parable and suggestive allusion. He challenges attention; he stimulates thought, and leaves his readers or his hearers to their own best devices, not applying the moral of what he has said or written. But the spokesman has a different task. He is attempting to move men to immediate action. He must be heard, he must be understood, and that at once. His work, therefore, has certain characteristics that appeal to the popular mind. In form it is symmetrical and familiar; in content easy to understand at a glance; the narrative scheme is frequently used, and in most cases the moral is definitely applied.

II. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892)

Whittier a Practical Man.-The life of Whittier, like that of several others of the New England group, practically spanned the century. He was as near to the war of the Revolution in childhood as are the present generation of college students to the war of the Rebellion. He died while this same group of college students were in their kindergarten days. The briefest study of Whittier's life to one hitherto unacquainted with him is usually attended with a distinct experience of surprise. His picture, as it is commonly published, is that of a genial, gray-haired, elderly man, with a far-away expression and an almost deprecating poise of the head and turn of the lip. If he had been the poet simply of "Snow-Bound" and "The Barefoot Boy," we should feel that his look expounded his life, and satisfy ourselves by summing him up as a complacently contemplative Quaker, whose whole career was passed in placid rumination. But this was a part and only a lesser part of Whittier's activity. For he was a most eminently practical man.

Whittier's Education.-He was born of parents who lived respectably but perforce with such economy that they were not able to give their son a liberal schooling. Hence, in addition to his farm work, he learned to make shoes, and with his extra earnings gathered together a sum sufficient to carry him through six months at Haverhill Academy. The money for further education he earned by dispensing in districtschool teaching the scanty knowledge that he had already gathered. From this he drifted into a kind of journalism, writing for The Boston Philanthropist and The Haverhili Gazette, and actually doing editorial work on The New England Review of Hartford. Thus early, by knocking about among people in town and country, and acquainting himself with men of all sorts of professions and prejudices, he prepared himself for a life of intellectual activity.

Whittier and the Abolition Movement.-In the course of his youthful experience he had become acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, and largely through his influence

he became more and more closely connected with the antislavery movement. He believed that the way to achieve reform was through legislation, and that political pressure could best be exerted through swaying public opinion. His convictions were strong; they were not unusual; but he was better able to express them than the majority, and through all the long years which preceded the war, and until its conclusion in 1865, he wrote from time to time spirited popular verses which carried thousands of readers with them. Five of these bits of verse may be cited to show the history of his relation to the abolition movement. First, "Expostulation," written in 1834; then "Massachusetts to Virginia," a clear protest against the enforcement of the fugitive slave law with reference to the case of Anthony Burns. Next, in "Ichabod," Whittier was the voice of the North speaking with hasty indignation at Webster's famous Seventh of March speech (1851), in which he seemed to have sold his loyalty to the North for the sake of strengthening his political future. Next, "Barbara Frietchie," a typical war-ballad, no better and no worse than many others. Last, that fine outburst of reverent praise, "Laus Deo," at the close of the war.

Whittier's Poems of New England.-At the same time that Whittier was writing in this vein, he was using his poetical powers even more ably in terms of many poems about New England life. They may roughly be classified as verses on the early history of New England, and poems on his own times. He loved to look back to the lives and achievements of his ancestors, and when he found incidents in history which combined picturesqueness of quality with that sturdiness of moral character with which the old settlers were blessed, he delighted, in such poems as "Abraham Davenport," "Cassandra Southwick," "The Wreck of Rivermouth," "The Garrison of Cape Ann," and "Skipper Ireson's Ride," to pay his tribute to them. In all these appear the sources of poetic popularity always to be found in favorite poems. These are short, clear stories couched in simple language and in more or less conventional verse, and capped with a moral which would be evident enough even if it were not printed in black on white.