Very rarely have such cultivated and
intellectual audiences been brought together. A few of his most ardent
admirers used to carry opera-glasses with them in order to watch the
expression of his face.
William Robinson, the ablest political critic of that time, wrote in
1868, "In spite of an increased hesitation in his delivery Emerson is of
all men the one most worth hearing, even better than Phillips and his
matchless oratory." He had the most telling way of saying a thing, and
knew how to give their full force to his wonderfully brilliant
sentences. These would sometimes electrify his hearers, as people are
roused on the announcement of some great and fortunate event.
He liked the society of statesmen, scientists, business men, railroad
managers, of all who could tell him about what was going on in the
world--something, he complained, that the newspapers would not do for
him. He preferred their society to that of other poets and scholars.
Though an unlimited reader of books he was not properly a scholar
himself, and perhaps he felt his own limitation too much in their
company.
He studied little at college and it is doubtful if he afterwards made a
thorough and systematic investigation of any subject. He was called a
philosopher, but he knew little more than the outlines of metaphysics.
He could read French fairly, but Latin was the only language with which
he was well acquainted.
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