James Russell Lowell on Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What, then, is his secret? Is it not that he out-Yankees us all? that his range includes us all? that he is equally at home with the potato disease and original sin, with pegging shoes and the Over-soul? that, as we try all trades, so has he tried all cultures? and above all, that his mysticism gives us a counterpoise to our super-practicality?”

“There is no man living to whom, as a writer, so many of us feel and thankfully acknowledge so great an indebtedness for ennobling impulses.”

“There was a majesty about him beyond all other men I have known, and he habitually dwelt in that ampler and diviner air to which most of us, if ever, only rise in spurts.”