The philosophy of Waiting needs sometimes to be unfolded. Thus he who is qualified to act upon the public, if he does not act on many, may yet act intensely on a few; if he does not act much upon any, but, from insulated condition and unfit companions, seems quite withdrawn into himself, still, if he know and feel his obligations, he may be (unknown and unconsciously) hiving knowledge and concentrating powers to act well hereafter, and a very remote hereafter.“A remote hereafter,” --this was ever in Emerson's mind. He feels himself to be an outpost or advance guard of future wisdom. “It is a manifest interest which comes home to my bosom and every man's bosom,” he continues a page or two later, “that there should be on every tower Watchers set to observe and report of every new ray of light, in what ”
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--such was to be his existence.
The organic reticence of Emerson has all but concealed the strong current of purpose that ran beneath the apparent futility of his external life.
IHe was indeed a man of iron; and both he and Garrison might be compared to Ignatius Loyola in respect to their will.
Emerson writes in his journal in 1834:
Boston, the. Atlantic Monthly. Press, 1921.
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