Emerson has a good deal to say about conversation in his Essay on “Clubs,” but nothing very notable on the special subject of the Essay.  Perhaps his diary would have something of interest with reference to the “Saturday Club,” of which he was a member, which, in fact, formed itself around him as a nucleus, and which he attended very regularly.  But he was not given to personalities, and among the men of genius and of talent whom he met there no one was quieter, but none saw and heard and remembered more.  He was hardly what Dr. Johnson would have called a “clubable” man, yet he enjoyed the meetings in his still way, or he would never have come from Concord so regularly to attend them.  He gives two good reasons for the existence of a club like that of which I have been speaking:—­

“I need only hint the value of the club for bringing masters in their several arts to compare and expand their views, to come to an understanding on these points, and so that their united opinion shall have its just influence on public questions of education and politics.”

    “A principal purpose also is the hospitality of the club, as a means
    of receiving a worthy foreigner with mutual advantage.”

I do not think “public questions of education and politics” were very prominent at the social meetings of the “Saturday Club,” but “worthy foreigners,” and now and then one not so worthy, added variety to the meetings of the company, which included a wide range of talents and callings.

All that Emerson has to say about “Courage” is worth listening to, for he was a truly brave man in that sphere of action where there are more cowards than are found in the battle-field.  He spoke his convictions fearlessly; he carried the spear of Ithuriel, but he wore no breastplate save that which protects him

  “Whose armor is his honest thought,
    And simple truth his utmost skill.”

He mentions three qualities as attracting the wonder and reverence of mankind:  1.  Disinterestedness; 2.  Practical Power; 3.  Courage.  “I need not show how much it is esteemed, for the people give it the first rank.  They forgive everything to it.  And any man who puts his life in peril in a cause which is esteemed becomes the darling of all men.”—­There are good and inspiriting lessons for young and old in this Essay or Lecture, which closes with the spirited ballad of “George Nidiver,” written “by a lady to whom all the particulars of the fact are exactly known.”

Men will read any essay or listen to any lecture which has for its subject, like the one now before me, “Success.”  Emerson complains of the same things in America which Carlyle groaned over in England:—­

    “We countenance each other in this life of show, puffing
    advertisement, and manufacture of public opinion; and excellence is
    lost sight of in the hunger for sudden performance and praise.—­