Transcendentalism Defined.
TRANSCENDENTALISM is a long word, and those who use it most can't give any very precise definition of it. Twenty-five years ago it came into great vogue under the lead of Mr. Emerson, and got into the language of young women and students, and the clergymen talked about it; but still the question was, what transcendentalism meant. Well, on one of the Mississippi River steam-boats when a party of eminent divines were returning from a general convention of the Presbyterian Church, they were in high discussion about orthodoxy, and the old faith, and transcendentalism; and a layman who enjoyed their conversation, one of the lay delegates returning with them, still felt a little puzzled about what transcendental and transcendentalism meant, so he ventured to ask the divine in whom he had the greatest confidence:— "I hear you use this word transcendentalism; now, what does it mean?" "Well," said the doctor of divinity, "that is more easily asked than answered." They were passing by a bluff on the river; said he: "Do you see that bluff on this side of the river?" "Do you see how pierced it is with swallows' holes?" "Well, now," said he, "you take away all that bluff and leave nothing but the swallows' holes, and that is transcendentalism."—Ex.