“Now, though I am by no means sure that the reader will assent to all my propositions, yet I think we shall agree in my first rule for success,—­that we shall drop the brag and the advertisement and take Michael Angelo’s course, ’to confide in one’s self and be something of worth and value.’”

Reading about “Success” is after all very much like reading in old books of alchemy.  “How not to do it,” is the lesson of all the books and treatises.  Geber and Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon and Raymond Lully, and the whole crew of “pauperes alcumistae,” all give the most elaborate directions showing their student how to fail in transmuting Saturn into Luna and Sol and making a billionaire of himself.  “Success” in its vulgar sense,—­the gaining of money and position,—­is not to be reached by following the rules of an instructor.  Our “self-made men,” who govern the country by their wealth and influence, have found their place by adapting themselves to the particular circumstances in which they were placed, and not by studying the broad maxims of “Poor Richard,” or any other moralist or economist.—­For such as these is meant the cheap cynical saying quoted by Emerson, “Rien ne reussit mieux que le succes.”

But this is not the aim and end of Emerson’s teaching:—­

“I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success.  One adores public opinion, the other private opinion; one fame, the other desert; one feats, the other humility; one lucre, the other love; one monopoly, and the other hospitality of mind.”

And so, though there is no alchemy in this Lecture, it is profitable reading, assigning its true value to the sterling gold of character, the gaining of which is true success, as against the brazen idol of the market-place.

The Essay on “Old Age” has a special value from its containing two personal reminiscences:  one of the venerable Josiah Quincy, a brief mention; the other the detailed record of a visit in the year 1825, Emerson being then twenty-two years old, to ex-President John Adams, soon after the election of his son to the Presidency.  It is enough to allude to these, which every reader will naturally turn to first of all.

But many thoughts worth gathering are dropped along these pages.  He recounts the benefits of age; the perilous capes and shoals it has weathered; the fact that a success more or less signifies little, so that the old man may go below his own mark with impunity; the feeling that he has found expression,—­that his condition, in particular and in general, allows the utterance of his mind; the pleasure of completing his secular affairs, leaving all in the best posture for the future:—­