School of Philosophy in Concord on Emerson as seen from India. What he said is printed in the volume just referred to. I quote the following passage: "Where the blue Narbudda, so still, so deep, so pure, flows through the high milk-white walls of the marble hills near Jubbulpoor, in the natural alcoves of the virgin rocks there are devotional inscriptions in Sanscrit. I wish Emerson had composed his essays on Nature there.… Amidst this ceaseless, sleepless din and clash of Western Materialism, this heat of restless energy, the character of Emerson shines upon India serene as the evening star. He seems to some of us to have been a geographical mistake.… All our ancient religion is the utterance of the Infinite through Nature's symbolism."
The date of Mr. Emerson's first acquaintance with the poetry of the East cannot be exactly given. Some notes in his journals at about the time of his parting with his church show that he already was interested in the idealism of the Mahabharata, but probably only from extracts which he read in De Gerando's Histoire comparée des systèmes de Philosophie.
In his readings of Thomas Taylor's translations of Proclus he found the "Chaldean Oracles," attributed to Zoroaster, and he owned a very rare book, The Desatìr or Sacred Writings of the Ancient Persian Prophets, printed in Bombay in 1818. Quotations from this appear in the Dial.
In his journal for 1841 occurs his first mention of Hafiz. "You defy anybody to have things as good as yours—Hafiz defies you to show him, or put him in a condition inopportune and ignoble. Take all you will and leave him but a corner of Nature, a lane, a den, a cow-shed, out of cities, far from letters and taste and culture, he promises to win to that scorned spot, the light of moon and stars, the love of men, the smile of beauty, the homage of art. It shall be painted and carved and
