'The visible becomes the Bestial,' said Carlyle, 'when it rests not on
the invisible.' To Emerson all rested on the invisible, and was summed
up in terms of the invisible, and hence the Bestial was almost unknown
in his philosophic scheme. Nay, we may say that some mighty phenomena in
our universe were kept studiously absent from his mind. Here is one of
the profoundest differences between Emerson and most of those who, on as
high an altitude, have pondered the same great themes. A small trait
will serve for illustration. It was well known in his household that he
could not bear to hear of ailments. 'There is one topic,' he writes,
'peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals,
namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept,
or if you have headache, sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I
beseech you by all angels to hold your peace, and not pollute the
morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts,
by corruption and groans. Come out of the azure. Love the
day'--(_Conduct of Life_, 159).
If he could not endure these minor perturbations of the fair and smiling
face of daily life, far less did he willingly think of Death. Of nothing
in all the wide range of universal topics does Emerson say so little as
of that which has lain in sombre mystery at the very core of most
meditations on life, from Job and Solon down to Bacon and Montaigne.
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