The first step—and some phenomena of the season suggest that we have not yet progressed beyond the first step—the first step in the search for an American style was a rather excited research for the rudiments—for words and images; logical concatenation, melody and harmony could wait. Emerson is not always Emersonian; sometimes he weaves, sometimes he flows. But he made himself a style, called Emersonian, of which the effect is like that of a man in moccasins dashing into a dense wood with sharp little ax, leaping from log to log, and calling out his discoveries to his followers, with sharp little cries. It is definitely American. Here are some specimens recognizable as not-English:
Whilst we use this grand cipher (Nature) to expedite the affairs of our pot and kettle, we feel that we have not yet put it to its use, neither are able. We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs.
The bird is not in its ounces and inches, but in its relation to Nature; and the skin or skeleton you show me is no more a heron, than a heap of ashes or a bottle of gases into which his body has been reduced is Dante or Washington.
The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign—is it not? of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and feet. I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or Arabia; what is Greek art, or