Clarke's reference to Emerson as a public speaker suggests one major factor that contributed to the favorable reception of Emerson's work during his lifetime. Emerson's contemporaries were able to experience firsthand the man's persuasiveness as a lecturer and his detached benevolence. He enjoyed a positive popular following, even among those who had little sustained interest in serious philosophical and religious issues, in large part because his personal presence exuded a kind of disinterested goodness and a humility that appealed to others on a basic level. Although these qualities may have had negligible effect on commentators who had no opportunity to see him in person, they influenced the opinion of those who knew him as a speaker. In his Partial Portraits (1888), novelist Henry James remarked on Emerson the lecturer:
He was in an admirable position for showing, what he constantly endeavored to show, that the prize was within. Anyone who in New England at that time could do that was sure of success, of listeners and sympathy: most of all, of course, when it was a question of doing it with such a divine persuasiveness. Moreover, the way in which Emerson did it added to the charm — by word of mouth, face to face, with a rare, irresistible voice and a beautiful mild, modest authority. If Mr. Arnold [Matthew Arnold] is struck with the limited degree in which he was a man of letters, I suppose it is because he is more struck with his having been, as it were, a man of lectures.
In New England, where Emerson became established as a kind of regional saint (particularly later in his career, when the substance of his earlier expressions no longer generated controversy), he inspired not only respect but also a feeling akin to pride of ownership.
Emerson's death in 1882 generated a flurry of printed paeans attesting to his greatness. Then, beginning with Matthew Arnold's 1883 lecture, critics began to consider the man's major contributions more objectively. As during his life, posthumous opinions varied about what kind of thinker he was and about his effectiveness as a writer.
